World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

These words made the surrounding workers straighten their backs.

It was already 1 p.m. when he left the shipyard. The heat was even more intense, but Chen Feng was in a good mood. He saw the progress, he saw the problems, and he also saw hope for solving them.

In the car, Wang Wenwu handed over lunch—a simple sandwich and tea.

"President, the afternoon's schedule..."

"Cancel all non-essential meetings." Chen Feng took a bite of his sandwich. "I'm going to the steel mill. The armor steel issue must be resolved."

"But you've been working continuously..."

"Uncle Wang," Chen Feng interrupted him, "all four Bismarck-class ships must be in service by 1914. This is a strict order. Because we don't have time."

Uncle Wang opened his mouth, but in the end he only sighed. "Yes, young master."

The car turned inland, heading towards a specialized steel plant on the outskirts of Dubai. Outside the window, the desert steamed in the heat, and in the distance, oil rigs slowly turned.

Chen Feng leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, but his brain was still racing.

£110 million... four Bismarck-class ships... 1914... Kongo-class ships... Wuchang...

These words spun in his mind like puzzle pieces, gradually piecing together a complete picture. A picture full of risks, but also full of opportunities.

He knew the general direction of history, but not how the details would change. His arrival had already altered too much—the rise of Lanfang, the loans from Britain, France, and Germany, Japan's accelerated shipbuilding... The butterfly's wings had already flapped; would the storm arrive as expected?

But in any case, he must be prepared.

Because this time, he wasn't a bystander, he was a participant.

The car stopped in front of the steel mill gate. Chen Feng opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed open the car door.

The heat wave hit us again, mixed with the smell of steel and coke.

October 18, 1911, 10 p.m.

On the third basement level of the Dubai administration building, behind a heavy steel door, the air smelled of fresh paint mixed with damp concrete. This secret room had been built three months earlier, with lead plates embedded in the walls, rubber seals covering the door seams, and the only ventilation opening connected to a noisy exhaust fan—not for comfort, but for preventing eavesdropping.

Five people were sitting around the long table.

Chen Feng sat in the main seat, with rolls of blueprints wrapped in oilcloth spread out in front of him instead of documents. To his left was Uncle Wang, who had specially changed into a dark cotton robe tonight, his right hand slowly turning a string of sandalwood prayer beads; to his right was Wang Wenwu, the Minister of Commerce, whose fingers tapped unconsciously on the table, a habitual gesture when he was nervous.

Sitting opposite were Liu Yongfu and Li Te. Liu Yongfu's work clothes cuffs were still stained with machine oil, obviously he had come directly from the shipyard; Li Te was wearing the service uniform of a naval rear admiral, the epaulets reflecting a faint metallic luster in the dim light.

"Everyone's here." Chen Feng said, his voice exceptionally clear in the enclosed space. "Before we begin, I ask you all to swear on your personal honor and the future of Lanfang: whatever you hear or see here tonight, you must not divulge until your death."

Uncle Wang was the first to speak: "I swear in the name of my late father."

"I do it in the name of my deceased mother," Wang Wenwu said.

Liu Yongfu and Li Te took turns swearing oaths. Li Te added, "President, should this be recorded?"

"No record." Chen Feng shook his head. "Everything that happened tonight will only exist in the minds of the five of us."

He stood up, walked to the wall, and pulled down a white screen. Then he moved a bulky projector from under the table—it was imported from Siemens in Germany last year, and there were only three of them in the entire Lanfang.

"Uncle Wang, turn off the lights."

Darkness enveloped the enclosed room, with only the hum of the projector fan. A beam of light shone on the screen, and the first image that appeared made everyone hold their breath.

It was a streamlined monoplane fighter plane, its three-view drawings, cross-sectional views, and detailed diagrams densely packed together. A short, stubby propeller was mounted on the nose, and two machine guns were prominently depicted on the wings.

"This is the Bf 109," Chen Feng's voice came from the darkness. "Or, following my naming convention, we can call it 'Swift.' It has an all-metal fuselage, an enclosed cockpit, a maximum speed of 570 kilometers per hour, a service ceiling of 10,000 meters, and is equipped with two 13mm machine guns and one 20mm cannon."

The images on the screen are changing.

A strangely shaped airplane with wings resembling an inverted seagull appeared, its landing gear disproportionately thick.

"The Ju 87 'Stuka' dive bomber. Its distinctive feature was the shrieking sound it emitted during dives—not a malfunction, but a deliberately installed sound device used to create psychological deterrence. It could carry a 500-kilogram bomb and attack at a near-vertical angle with extremely high accuracy."

The third picture shows a biplane fighter jet, whose structure appears much simpler than the previous two.

"The F4F 'Wildcat' is a carrier-based fighter jet. Although it is not as advanced as the 'Swift', it has a robust structure and is easy to produce, making it the model we are most likely to realize in the near future."

The images continue to switch: four-engine heavy bombers, single-engine dive bombers, torpedo attack aircraft... Each drawing is incredibly detailed, marked with densely packed dimensions, materials, and performance parameters.

The last picture wasn't of an airplane, but a world map. Chen Feng drew several circles on it with a red laser pointer (they should have had one by now).

"The Strait of Gibraltar, at its narrowest point, is 14 kilometers wide. The Suez Canal, on average, is 200 meters wide. The Strait of Malacca, at its narrowest point, is 2.8 kilometers wide." The beam of light moved across the map. "These places are the world's choke points. Warships need days or even weeks to pass through them. And airplanes—"

He switched back to a cross-sectional view of the B-17.

"Taking off from here, they can reach any corner of the Arabian Peninsula within eight hours. Within twelve hours, they can fly across the Persian Gulf. If deployed in the right locations, these 'iron birds' can appear over any strait within a day, drop bombs, and then return."

The projector was turned off. Uncle Wang fumbled to turn on a small table lamp, and the dim yellow light once again illuminated the secret room.

A long silence.

Wang Wenwu was the first to break the silence, his voice somewhat hoarse: "Commander-in-Chief, is this... even possible?"

"Nothing is impossible!"

"Of course not yet," Chen Feng said honestly. "With our current technology, the first generation of aircraft we could build might not even be able to sink a destroyer. But—"

He opened a thick printed booklet, the cover of which read "Basic Tutorial for Pilots (Volume 1)".

"What about five years from now? What about ten years from now? What about when our planes can carry torpedoes and drop 500-kilogram or even 1000-kilogram bombs? When they appear in swarms and swoop down from the clouds, all existing warships will become sitting ducks."