Machar was right, compared to distant Japan, Russia was the object of good relations with Germany, but Machar could never have imagined how badly the Russians had fallen in the Far East.

Jochen, on the other hand, had some doubts about continuing to strengthen Russia, not because Japan would be the victor, and Germany would have to make good relations with the victors. As Marchar argued, the establishment of the Anglo-Japanese alliance made it impossible to maintain relations between Germany and Japan.

Jochen resisted that if he continued to strengthen the strength of the Russians, would it lead the Russians to turn the tables around? Although the Russians of the Russo-Japanese War were the same as, the Japanese were a little better than in the early stage, and the 6 battleships of the main force of the 66th Fleet were able to lose a third of them in 3 minutes on May 15, 1904, and the director Togo Heihachiro only had 4 battleships available in the Battle of Tsushima.

And the three armored cruisers that Germany is now selling to the Russians all have the ability to fight with battleships, plus the commander Essen who commands these armored cruisers is not a waste, will it be the last straw that will crush the camel if he strengthens the two armored cruisers in his hands?

If Essen had eaten the Japanese armored cruiser fleet with the strength of his hands, no one dared to predict what would happen after that.

Jochen wanted to see a crushing defeat for the Russians, a great defeat, and then a drain on the country, internal turmoil, thereby weakening its national power and reducing the threat of the Russians on the Eastern Front. Instead of seeing a crushing victory, then taking advantage of the victory to gain benefits in the Far East, and then slowly recovering its vitality.

"Your Highness? What do you mean? Seeing that the crown prince had not spoken, a strange voice from Machar interrupted Jochen's thoughts.

"Ah, Adolf, you are right, it is true that our relations with Japan cannot be further because of the wall of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, but Japan is undoubtedly a great power in the Far East at present. Therefore, we cannot completely ignore the attitude of the Japanese, at least until a war really breaks out between Japan and Russia. Jochen said vaguely, after all, he couldn't just say that I wanted to balance the balance of power between Japan and Russia, and he couldn't say that the Russo-Japanese war was imminent.

"Your Highness, there is some truth to your concerns. But it seems to me that after the sale of the battleship to Japan, the reaction of the Russians may be difficult to predict. In contrast, the attitude of the Japanese is insignificant, so I will continue to stick to my original opinion and ask Your Highness to consider it carefully. Martial said.

Machar also knew that the navy resolutely did not want these two rags, so he did not give the two ships to keep for his own use, and the two sides should not be offended.

You make so much sense that I can't argue with it. Jochen thought. That would only delay the Russians in getting the two battleships, so that they would not have time to join the armored cruisers in Essen, which was the only way. These two armored cruisers were not much of a threat if they followed the Russians' Second Pacific Fleet on a naval expedition.

After all, the ship's condition is declining, the capital ship is dragged down, and the commander is incompetent, and the two armored cruisers can't make any waves, after all, in history, the Russians have a 2:1 advantage in the number of capital ships, and they were successfully counter-killed, what can it mean besides that they can't play?

Seeing that Yochen was still a little hesitant, Mashal said, "If Your Highness still has concerns, how about letting the two countries bid openly?" The highest bidder wins. Presumably, the Japanese, who do not have sufficient funds as the Russians, have nothing to say. ”

"Okay, then do as you say." Jochen nodded. Agreed.

Marchar was pleased that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had accepted his proposal, but unaware that as soon as he had left, Jochen made a phone call to Hansen, the director of the Royal Ship Technical Shipyard, asking him to contact both Japan and Russia, and if the Russians bid higher, then let the shipyard slow down the construction. "Striving" was completed and delivered in mid-to-early 1904.

When the Russians and the Japanese were invited to the Royal Shipyard Technical Shipyard, both sides knew that the Germans were going to bleed themselves, but they could not sit idly by and watch each other continue to build up their strength, so they had to listen to the Germans' arrangement. In the end, the Russians bid 1.66 million pounds to get the two ships, and the Japanese had no choice but to return with hatred.

However, this time the purchase failed. The Japanese Navy's determination to decide to strike first was strengthened.

Although Yamamoto Gonbei seriously opposed the start of a war with Russia at the Imperial Council in June, Yamamoto's opposition changed the decision of the upper echelons, and Yamamoto Gonbei, as Minister of the Navy, could only seriously prepare the battle plan.

The analysis of Japan's favor given by the General Staff Headquarters Gonbei Yamamoto does not accept this set, the strength in his hands now has no obvious advantage over the Russians, the Russian Navy is indeed scattered into multiple fleets, but even if it is a Pacific Fleet, it is not absolutely sure that it will eat it, so how can it talk about anything else?

But now it must be fought, so when and how to fight it has become a big problem for the Japanese Navy. Being the first to take the lead has become the magic weapon of the Japanese.

"Yamamoto-kun, if you want to fight, you have to fight quickly for so long, and if you wait, we won't have any chance of winning!" Shimamura Suo immediately spoke to Gonbei Yamamoto after learning that the upper echelons had decided to go to war.

Shimamura was a staff officer of the Combined Fleet during the First Sino-Japanese War, and his qualifications are very deep, but his own ability is also first-class, and it can be said that the strategy and tactics of the entire Japanese Navy have his imprint.

In 1888, he put forward his strategic ideas in his "A Glimpse of Naval Tactics", and expressed it with a consensus: F = MV2, where F is the naval combat effectiveness, M is the tonnage of the battleship, artillery caliber and other hardware indicators, and V is the team speed, training, command and other software indicators, Shimamura believes that software is more important than hardware.

This idea was very valued in the Japanese navy, which was not as strong as the Qing at that time, and Shimamura later got the opportunity to go to England to investigate, and after more than two years of study and investigation in Britain, Shimamura returned to China and compiled the "Regulations of the Town Guard", "Fleet Regulations", "Fleet Staff Regulations", "Warship Staff Regulations", "Navy Salute Regulations", and even the regulations on wartime establishment and preparation for expeditions were all written by Shimamura.

Therefore, his influence on the Japanese Navy was extremely far-reaching, and since he said that he must fight immediately, Yamamoto Gonbei naturally attached great importance to it.

"Shimamura-kun, do you also think that the rhetoric of the General Staff Headquarters that now is the best time to go to war?" Gonbei Yamamoto asked. Shimamura Suo is usually quite a stable person, how can he believe the nonsense of the staff headquarters?

"I don't know if it's the best time, but I know that if we miss now, we don't want to win." Shimamura said categorically.

"Shimamura-kun, it is impossible for the Empire to fight a protracted war with the Lu people, and their army knows this. We can't afford to drag it out, but if we don't want to drag it out, we can only do our best to defeat the Lu people, but how easy is it to defeat the Lu people as much as possible? It would be difficult to send 200,000 troops to land before the Lu people could react. Yamamoto said with a frown.

In his opinion, it was almost impossible for the army to win a quick victory, the capacity of the Honshu railway was only 14 trains a day, and the merchant ships that could transport troops and logistics could be requisitioned to 600,000 tons, and it was impossible to land and attack before the Russians reacted.

"It's the Army's business that they want to win quickly, but they want to be able to send the Army ashore and ensure the delivery of supplies later. We can't get around the Pacific Fleet. Shimamura said: "We must defeat the fleet of the Lu people and ensure sea supremacy in order to keep the war going, otherwise we will simply not fight this battle, and if we want to do this, we must do it now!" ”

Knowing that such a sentence could not convince Gonbei Yamamoto, Shimamura Suo explained: "At present, the Pacific Fleet of the country only has 5 first-class battleships and 2 second-class battleships. and 6 cruisers of the 1st class, and they were scattered in the ports of Arthur and Puyan.

And the Lu people are now building 5 battleships of the first rank. At least 3 of them will be assigned to the Pacific Fleet, and the two first-class cruisers purchased from the independent country are said to be completed and delivered by the middle of next year, and they will also be assigned to the Far East by then, so we will be faced with the absolute disadvantage of 8 first-class battleships, 2 second-class battleships, and 8 first-class cruisers!

Pu salt freezes in winter. At that time, we only need to deal with the main force of Lushun first, as long as our 66th Fleet is dispatched together, we will be able to annihilate the Luguo Fleet in Port Arthur by concentrating superior forces. After defeating the main force of the Lu country, turn around and deal with the cruiser fleet of the Lu country, so that they can be defeated individually.

To do that, we'll have to go to war in the winter, but if we wait until the winter of the year after that, we'll have to wait until the warships of the Lu are deployed. Then it will be even more difficult to defeat them.

Therefore, if we want to start a war with Lu Guo, we must do it at the end of this year, at the beginning of next year, when Puyan is still in the freezing period! ”

The two second-class battleships in Shimamura's mouth are the two Peresvet-class battleships that have just been assigned to the Pacific Fleet this year.

This thing was designed and built by the Russians to deal with the armored cruisers of the German Navy, only equipped with 4 10-inch naval guns, and the design speed was 19 knots, but the actual speed was only 18 knots, although the thickness of the main armor belt of the waterline was 229 mm, but it covered a very tragic area like other battleships of the Russians.

The performance was far inferior to the 2 Bayan-class armored cruisers built by Germany for Russia and the 2 second-class battleships bought by the British and renamed the Agile class.

Although it is not clear about the performance of these two second-class warships, in this era when the combat effectiveness is intuitively measured by who has the most guns and whose guns are more, in the eyes of Shimamura Suo, the United Fleet has as many as 6 first-class cruisers equipped with 4 240-mm naval guns can still cope with these two second-class battleships. (To be continued......)

PS: I'm really going crazy today.,First of all, the computer gave me a strike.,It took 2 hours in the morning to be fine.,And then the afternoon started to go black.、Go to sleep.、Re-work.、Continue the cycle of black screen.,So I can't code words at all.。 Then I had to borrow my mother's book code at night.,The code wasn't completed until 2 o'clock in the morning.。 Then in the afternoon, the mobile phone gave me a problem again, and after entering the program, all kinds of flashbacks gave me. Bad luck, tomorrow I will repair the computer first, I hope nothing goes wrong, but I have to waste an estimated half a day, headache