Chapter 299 Crazy Shipbuilding Plan (please vote for me!)
On September 11, 1911, under the appointment of Arthur, Hendrick, the first governor of the Royal Territory, officially went to Flores to take office.
The royal territory can be divided into three parts, namely the Nusa Tenggara Islands consisting of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and the Alor Islands, and the eastern part of Timor Island. The South-West Islands, the Leti Islands and the South-East Islands in the east consist of the Tanimbar Islands, the Kai Islands and the Aru Islands.
The Cocos Islands and Christmas Island in southern Java are also under Australasian control.
This also led to the formal formation of Australasia's northern island defense chain, which can effectively keep foreign enemies away from these islands and prevent the mainland from being covered by war.
The small city of Inde on the island of Flores was officially renamed Flores and served as the capital and administrative center of the royal domain.
Arthur planned to build a port city here, which would also become one of Australasia's naval stations.
Almost all large islands in the royal territory have tens of thousands of indigenous people. Because these indigenous people are too scattered, management is very troublesome.
Arthur gave Hendrick the first order, which was to concentrate the natives of the royal territory in cities on each island as much as possible to facilitate the subsequent transfer.
Yes, except for part of the indigenous workforce, the remaining indigenous Arthur has no intention of letting them continue to stay in these islands.
In the future, only Australasians will be able to inhabit these archipelagos and islands. In addition to being consumed as labor and cannon fodder, these indigenous people will be expelled sooner or later.
The current indigenous people are still of some use to Australasia, but as the population of Australasia grows, some jobs will definitely be replaced by machinery.
Then these free laborers will not be very useful. Apart from being used as cannon fodder, they can only be expelled and let them go to the Dutch territory.
It took almost a week for the first and second divisions to make good progress in their attacks.
After leaving Flores, the First Division went to Sumba Island, Sumbawa Island and Lombok Island, and easily occupied these three large islands.
In addition to these three large islands, there are countless smaller islands surrounding it.
Attacking these islands is very troublesome and takes even more time than the three large islands.
The mission of the 1st and 2nd Divisions is only to capture and control those large islands. As for the surrounding small islands, the Ministry of Defense's plan is to hand them over to the 1st and 2nd Aboriginal Divisions.
The indigenous division has been training for a long time since its establishment, and now it is time for them to see blood.
Anyway, the soldiers of the indigenous division are basically composed of indigenous people. As long as the losses of middle- and high-level officers are not large, the Ministry of National Defense and Arthur will not feel sorry for how many indigenous people die.
On September 15, 1911, after the First and Second Divisions completed their missions, they changed defenses with the First and Second Native Divisions respectively.
The 1st and 2nd Divisions returned to mainland Australasia, while the two Aboriginal divisions were to garrison the Crown lands.
The two indigenous divisions will be bounded by Flores Island, including Flores Island. The first indigenous division will be stationed in the west, and the many islands in the east will be garrisoned by the second indigenous division.
With the expansion of territory, the problem of insufficient troops in Australasia has emerged again.
Although Australasia currently has one Guards Division, four standing divisions and two Aboriginal divisions, they are still too few scattered across the millions of square kilometers of Australasia.
Australia and New Zealand, the core regions of Australasia, have a combined land area of nearly 8 million square kilometers, but the troops responsible for garrisoning it theoretically only have four standing divisions.
This resulted in the fact that if Australasia fought externally, it would only be able to remove its two most elite standing divisions, the First and Second Divisions.
The combined strength of the two divisions is only 32,000, which is enough for a small fight. But if it is to participate in a large-scale war, this small number of troops may only be able to barely defend the country.
With the good news from the Ministry of Civil Welfare in early September, after the total population of Australasia officially exceeded 10 million, Arthur also officially decided to launch military expansion operations in Australasia again and expand the number of troops to at least two A Guards division, six regular divisions, four indigenous divisions, and two colonial garrison regiments totaling just over 220,000 troops.
This also means that the total number of troops in Australasia will officially exceed 200,000, which is about twice the number before the expansion.
Because there are four indigenous divisions with nearly 80,000 troops composed of indigenous people. In fact, Australasia's population of 10 million can only support an army of 120,000, and the burden is not that big.
Of course, the scale of military expansion was not directly decided by Arthur. The extent of military expansion was a decision made after several days of thinking and discussion between Arthur, Kent, and current Defense Minister Raul.
Mainly because the Military Academy is currently able to train hundreds of army talents for Australasia every year. In addition, the army's previous reserve of talents is relatively sufficient, so it is not that difficult to directly expand the army by nearly 100,000 people.
After all, the war is approaching, so it is beneficial to expand the country's army in advance. Of course, Arthur will not deny that the alliance currently being planned in the Balkans makes Arthur a little envious. The armies of these small countries often number more than 100,000 or 200,000, but their population is less than half of Australasia.
On September 26, 1911, the Australasian military expansion announcement was officially announced.
This can be said to have caused thousands of waves. The recruitment points in various cities in Australasia were almost full. Some people even queued up the night in advance in order to sign up as early as possible.
Employees of the royal family, soldiers, and officials should be the three most popular professions in Australasia.
As for the reason, it is actually very simple. Arthur's royal consortium is one of the few companies in Australasia that thoroughly implements the eight-hour work system.
Moreover, no employees in the companies and factories affiliated to the royal family have to worry about having their wages deducted or their benefits halved.
Because as long as they discover this kind of problem and report it, they will not only get a lot of rewards, but they don't have to worry about losing their jobs.
Because as long as the report is true, the person who is reported will basically go to jail. The penalties for this kind of behavior in Australasia are still very serious, at least more than ten years in prison.
Not to mention the military, of course. The military's welfare package can even be said to be one of the best in Australasia, and there are some small rewards and gifts every holiday.
Coupled with the military pension system, reward system and military merit system, this has also made the military a coveted position for Australasians.
Unfortunately, Australasia's review of soldiers is relatively strict, and immigrants who have been in the army for at least three years cannot enter the army. As for the final official, there is no need to say much. No matter which country they are in, the treatment of officials is relatively good.
In addition to officials' salaries, officials' welfare packages and various policies are also the most favorable, which also results in officials' actual income being much higher than the per capita annual income.
Even according to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, the average salary of all officials in Australasia is as high as 190 Australian dollars, which is fully four times the per capita income in Australasia.
Of course, this is actually because the vast number of ordinary officials have lowered the income of senior officials. Like all cabinet government ministers, their minimum income is more than 6,000 Australian dollars. With various bonuses and welfare policies, the annual income is at least 10,000 Australian dollars.
However, although Australasian officials have high incomes, Australasia's anti-corruption policies are also very strict.
Although Arthur has not organized a large-scale anti-corruption campaign so far, according to Australasian law, corruption of more than 3,000 Australian dollars is a capital crime, and more than 1,500 Australian dollars is punishable by life imprisonment.
The lightest penalty for corruption, that is, if the actual amount of corruption does not exceed 200 Australian dollars, they will also face dismissal and punishment, and they and their immediate family members will be prohibited from serving as officials for three generations.
For officials, there is really no need to take such a big risk for corruption. After all, the income of Australasian officials is not that low, and is even considered high compared to some European countries.
What Arthur and the Ministry of National Defense did not expect was that this military expansion caused such a sensation in the country that in just one week, recruitment offices in various places received a total of 500,000 registration requests.
Arthur originally thought that the 100,000 expanded army quota would take at least a month to select and complete.
Now it seems that even if the recruitment offices stop recruiting, these 500,000 registration requests will be enough to screen out more than 100,000 qualified soldiers.
The Ministry of National Defense's recruitment plan was also decisively terminated. The next main task is to select 100,000 of the best soldiers from the more than 500,000 registration requests to join the army.
While Australasia began to significantly expand its army, the situation in the European Balkans finally ushered in changes.
First, residents of the Italian-occupied Tripoli region staged an armed uprising.
This resulted in Italy having to expand the number of the expeditionary force to 90,000 people and brutally suppress the Turks in the occupied areas.
The Italian-Turkish War has been going on until now, and the development of the war has been somewhat unexpected by the Italians.
Although Italy relied on advanced equipment, a larger number of troops and sufficient preparations, it achieved a good victory in the early stages of the war.
But the war still entered a stalemate. The Italian army's combat capabilities were not that strong, and the lack of coordination among the Italian armies resulted in even worse combat effectiveness.
But this news is something that the Balkan countries and the Russian Empire are more willing to see.
As early as a month ago, Australasia had already placed 20,000 rifles and millions of bullets out of the order of 50,000 rifles agreed with Nicholas II. According to Nicholas II's request, Shipping to the Far East.
This also allowed Arthur to finally understand Nicholas II's intention, which was to sell Russian-made weapons to the Balkan Alliance and use the profits in exchange to purchase German-made weapons from Australasia.
This is why Nicholas II requested that weapons and equipment be transported to the Far East.
Although such measures by the Tsarist Empire are somewhat unreasonable, there are indeed only interests between countries.
Anyway, for Arthur, it doesn't matter who these weapons are given to in the end. The important thing is that Australasia can open up the arms trade market and clear out the stocks that have been produced before.
Yes, Arthur had already prepared for the next battle a few years ago. This has also led to the fact that although Australasia has not expanded its military in recent years, the production of military factories has no intention of stopping.
So far, the arsenal's inventory includes hundreds of thousands of rifles and hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as thousands of cannons and millions of rounds of artillery shells.
In order to produce these weapons and equipment, Arthur has already invested a lot of money, and is waiting for the outbreak of World War I to use these weapons and equipment to make more profits.
The Balkan Alliance in the Balkans has been formed for more than two months, and these small countries are already making intense preparations.
If Arthur expected, the first Balkan War should break out soon. After all, Italy and Turkey are fighting fiercely at this time, and it is indeed the best opportunity for the Balkan Alliance to take action.
Before the war in the Balkans broke out, there was another important news in Europe, which was the new shipbuilding plan announced by the Germans.
Speaking of the shipbuilding plan, we have to mention the psychological blow that the second Moroccan crisis had on the Germans.
Although the result of the crisis was that the Germans successfully obtained part of the French Congo colony, the close alliance between Britain and France in this crisis made it clear to the Germans that his biggest enemy had become Britain and France, not just the French.
If the British are enemies, the importance of the navy will become unparalleled. This is the real reason why the Germans announced a new shipbuilding plan.
So far, the Germans have a total of four Monarch-class battleships: Nassau, Westfalen, Rheinland and Posen.
It also has four battleships under construction: Helgeland (expected to be completed in October this year), Ostfriesland (expected to be completed in October this year), Rhineland (expected to be completed in November this year) and Posen ( It is expected to be completed in March next year).
This also means that after this year's shipbuilding plan ends, the Germans will have almost eight dreadnoughts.
But this obviously cannot satisfy the appetite of the Germans. After all, the number of dreadnoughts currently disclosed by the British far exceeds the Germans.
The British's dreadnoughts include the world's first dreadnought, the battleship Dreadnought, three Bellerophon-class battleships, three St. Vincent-class battleships, two Mammoth-class battleships, a total of nine battleships, and one more is under construction Neptune-class battleship (expected to be completed in November this year).
If you include the so-called battlecruisers built by the British, the current number of British main battleships has even reached 11.
Such a huge naval gap made the Germans worry about their navy, and also made William II determined to expand the naval construction plan.
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(End of chapter)