Expedition to Europe

Lanfang's military exercise is still going on, and the impact of Nikola Tesla's "defection" has begun to appear.

Yes, the US government defined Nikola Tesla's behavior as "defection". For this reason, US President Harding urgently summoned Benjamin Russell, Lanfang's special representative to the United States, to protest against the Lanfang government's behavior and demand that the Lanfang government immediately repatriate Nikola Tesla.

It is really a "special representative". Because of the existence of the "Chinese Exclusion Act", Lanfang and the United States have not established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level so far. The US Ambassador to Lanfang, Glynton Augustine, is strictly speaking only a special representative of the US government in Lanfang.

Benjamin Russell used to be French. During the Foreign Legion period, Benjamin Russell joined the Foreign Legion as a translator. Later, he came to Lanfang with the Foreign Legion and naturally joined the Lanfang nationality.

There are many such cases in Lanfang, such as Ford Gold, Lanfang's ambassador to France, Randall Becky, ambassador to Britain, and Bert Elsey, ambassador to Germany. Basically, they are all in this situation.

Benjamin Russell's duty was to speak on behalf of Lan Fang. Facing President Harding's questioning, Benjamin Russell did not back down. He said that Nikola Tesla's "escape" had nothing to do with Lan Fang. At the same time, he told Harding that the unpleasant incident in New York was very regrettable and hoped that Harding would order a thorough investigation.

Benjamin Russell was just speaking up for the Lan Fang agents who died. Of course, this "unfairness" could not be said publicly because the agents who died were all American citizens, and Benjamin Russell had no position to seek justice for the Americans.

Such a meeting naturally ended in displeasure, and then Lan Fang and the United States began a series of retaliatory actions.

Arresting agents serving each other was only one aspect of the retaliation. The day after Qin Zhiyuan threatened the United States with war, the US government immediately announced that it would impose a 50% tariff on Lan Fang's exports to the United States, the most important of which was automobiles.

The sales volume of Lanfang Motors in the US market is a bit overwhelming for Ford. Although Lanfang Motors cannot catch up with Ford in terms of total volume, the profit of a single car has far exceeded that of Ford, which has forced Ford to invest heavily in developing new products and adding more colors to meet the challenge of Lanfang Motors.

R\u0026D has both advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s not talk about whether the new products developed will be popular. In the short term, this has affected the cost of Ford Motors, forcing Ford to increase the price of its products, which in turn has further affected Ford’s market share.

The capitalist market is also regulated. The US government will definitely not sit idly by and watch Lanfang Motors squeeze out Ford’s market. The tax increase is also a punishment for Lanfang’s “dumping” behavior by the US government.

In the face of the Americans’ “anti-dumping behavior”, Lanfang is not without countermeasures.

As the Americans announced the tax increase, Lanfang also announced a 50% tariff increase on wheat and soybeans exported from the United States to Lanfang.

You read that right. The most exported things from the United States to Lanfang are wheat and soybeans.

Due to geographical limitations, Lan Fang's wheat production is not high, not even enough for the Chinese in Lan Fang to eat, so Lan Fang can only import wheat from the United States to supplement the shortage of the Lan Fang market. As for soybeans, well, only the Chinese in the world are used to eating soybean products, so Lan Fang ordered a large amount of soybeans from the United States through the American Agricultural Association to supply Lan Fang to produce various soybean products.

By the way, there is also a dispute about the sweet and salty tofu pudding in Lan Fang, but the "salty party" obviously has the advantage.

In this round of secret war, the Americans did not get any advantage.

Lan Fang Automobile Group is a state-owned enterprise, and it can even be said to be Qin Zhiyuan's private property. The United States' increase in tariffs on Lan Fang Automobile does not affect the sales of Lan Fang Automobile, because the extra taxes will still be paid by the willful American people. Lan Fang Automobile has now become synonymous with "fashionable excellence and perfect performance" in the hearts of the American people. Even if the price is increased, Lan Fang Automobile can still be sold, and it is in short supply as before.

Lan Fang's countermeasures are more powerful.

American farmers are a very special group. In a democratic country, the rights of farmers must be fully protected. Lan Fang's tax rate on wheat and soybeans directly affects the amount of agricultural products Lan Fang imports from the United States, which directly affects the income of American farmers.

Farmers don't know who Nikola Tesla is. Most of the things that Nikola Tesla studied are not used by farmers, so American farmers don't have much awareness of common hatred of the enemy. After Lan Fang announced the tax increase, Lan Fang's orders to the US Department of Agriculture immediately shrank by half, which caused American farmers to immediately become angry. American farmers don't care why Lan Fang reduced orders. They only know that their income has decreased, so they want to settle accounts with the US government.

Just kidding, because of the hard work of Lan Fang's Department of Agriculture, many American farmers grow soybeans in their fields. If Lan Fang doesn't want these soybeans, who do you want American farmers to sell soybeans to?

Americans don't have the habit of drinking tofu brain.

Democratic government is really good. As soon as American farmers made trouble, the US government immediately stopped, so that the bill to continue to tax Lan Fang's canned food was also aborted.

As mentioned above, Lan Fang has a rich variety of aquatic and agricultural products. With the Chinese cooking skills, these aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, etc. can be canned and sold all over the world, and the sales are very good. Some canned foods have made Americans unable to stop eating.

Even if the US government imposes taxes on canned food, Lan Fang has countermeasures. Lan Fang can impose taxes on American beef, which will make the US government even more unbearable.

It is still the same reason as importing wheat and soybeans. Because of traditional agricultural projects, Lan Fang's animal husbandry is not very developed. Lan Fang imports a large amount of beef, mutton, and even pork from the United States every year. If Lan Fang also imposes taxes on these meat products, then it will not be American farmers driving tractors who protest in front of the White House, but cowboys riding horses with revolvers hanging on their waists.

In addition to the economic level, the US government is also taking frequent actions on the military level.

The United States has two relatively important military bases in the Pacific region, one is Hawaii and the other is Guam.

Among them, Guam is only geographically important, but it has not attracted enough attention from the US government. The US Navy has built a naval base and airport in Guam, but there are only a few destroyers and few aircraft docked there. Therefore, during the last "war threat", Guam had no ability to fight back against the Lan Fang Vladivostok fleet that was at the gates of the city, which led to the US government's overall passivity and had to compromise temporarily.

The original text is in Liu # 9 @Shu/Bar!

While the Lan Fang military exercise was in progress, the United States greatly strengthened Guam's military strength and transferred the battleships "Maryland" and "Tennessee" to Guam. These two battleships were just built at the end of the World War. The "Maryland" battleship is the second Colorado-class battleship, with a displacement of 33,000 tons, eight 406mm main guns, a maximum speed of 21 knots, and 1,500 crew members. It is one of the most powerful battleships in the US Navy.

As for the battleship "Tennessee", it is the first of the Tennessee-class battleships. It also has a displacement of 33,000 tons and a main gun caliber of 356 mm, but there are as many as 12 guns. It is also the current main battleship of the US Navy.

In terms of data, both the battleships "Maryland" and "Tennessee" are inferior to Lan Fang's "Vladivostok" and "Lan Fang", and even the "Legion Class" that will be put into service soon cannot compare. However, the combat effectiveness of the navy is not proved by paper data. Having a powerful battleship does not necessarily mean having a strong combat effectiveness. The actual combat effectiveness of the Lan Fang Navy still needs to be tested in combat.

In addition to the navy, the strength of the air force has also been greatly strengthened. At the same time as the "Maryland" and "Tennessee" entered Guam, the US Air Force's 5th and 6th Wings entered Guam together, bringing the number of fighter planes on Guam to 150.

Relatively speaking, these planes did not pose much of a threat to Lan Fang. The U.S. military was still equipped with old-fashioned triplanes, which were far inferior to the monoplanes equipped by Lan Fang in terms of performance, not to mention the quality of the pilots. Lan Fang's pilots grew up in the World War, and in the World War, Lan Fang pilots had already proved their worth, and the fledgling U.S. Air Force could not compare at all.

Relatively speaking, Hawaii has always been the main base of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. Hawaii is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The strength of the Pacific Fleet was already very strong, and now it has been strengthened again. With the addition of the "Maryland" and "Tennessee" in Guam, the battleships in the Pacific Fleet have reached an unprecedented nine, which is already half of the strength of the U.S. Navy, and most of them are cutting-edge battleships. Generally speaking, the essence of the U.S. Navy is in the Pacific Fleet.

The frequent actions of the U.S. Navy immediately made Lan Fang feel the pressure.

Before the military exercise ended, the Lan Fang Navy Department had held several meetings to discuss how to deal with the threat from the Americans. The Navy Department proposed to break through the restrictions of the Coconut City Navy Conference and build more battleships to deal with the threat from the Americans.

Building battleships is fine, but continuing to build battleships is definitely not in line with Qin Zhiyuan's strategic concept. What Qin Zhiyuan wants is an aircraft carrier, and only aircraft carriers are in line with the future development trend of the navy.

The Coconut City Navy Conference also has restrictions on aircraft carriers. Qin Zhiyuan cannot tear up the treaty blatantly now, which will immediately cause a new round of arms race and drag down the Lan Fang's ongoing second five-year plan. Therefore, aircraft carriers cannot be built randomly. The current four "Surabhai Class" can form a great advantage over the Americans as long as they are in service. At the same time, it has also reached the limit of Lan Fang's ability to build aircraft carriers, so aircraft carriers cannot be built randomly.

Then the only thing that can be built is submarines.