In the office of the dean of the Kiel Naval Academy, the gray-haired Ludwig. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Rear Admiral Birkenhagen lowered his reading glasses, looked at the Academy's number one man with a provocative gaze, and said in a tactful tone: "His Royal Highness Prince Joachim, you have taken more than twice as long as ordinary students this academic year, and strictly speaking, you have violated the regulations of the Academy. I very much agree with your original intention of winning glory for the country, but in the spirit of treating all students equally, and respecting the college system, I sincerely ask you to withdraw this application for leave of absence. ”

"I've really caused you a lot of trouble since you entered the Naval Academy." Natsuki lowered her posture on the surface, but it was actually just a sign of politeness. He can be strict with himself in terms of life and rest, hard work, and dealing with others, but following the rules and following the rules is never his style. As the Executive Officer of the Royal Shipyard and the Special Supervisor of the Royal Navy's Technical Development Board, how could he stay at the College all the time?

Birkenham thought that the prince would retreat from the difficulty, and withdrew his application for leave of absence and left the office, but he slowly took out an envelope from his pocket, pulled out a folded paper from it, and brought it to him in a hurry.

Mr. Dean unfolded the document, and the domineering Black Eagle logo and the bright red Navy seal made him speechless. The man sitting in front of him was not a mortal thing in the pool after all, and it was easy for him to get the official order from the Admiralty--to change the person who was interested in it, he had already signed the prince's application for leave. If you get a favor and sell your beyond, why bother to get both sides to do business!

"It turned out to be an official dispatch from the Admiralty, ha, it seems that I'm really confused, confused!"

Mr. Dean shook his head and smiled bitterly as he carefully folded the Admiralty documents and returned them to Natsuki along with the application for leave just now.

Natsuki didn't like to play with the question, he put away his things without saying a word, and got up with a gentle face to leave. When he walked to the office door, the rear admiral coughed twice: "Uh...... Your Highness, the arrogant attitude of the British is certainly disgusting, but I personally feel that we should be cautious when it comes to the diplomatic interests of the two countries. ”

Natsuki turned sideways, smiled slightly, opened the door and walked out.

Walking out of the academy office building, Natsuki took a light breath. The cold and damp winter is fading away, and the outdoor flowers and leaves are blooming, the earth is fragrant, and the smell of spring is everywhere. At the Blom-Firth shipyard in Hamburg and the Weser shipyard in Bremen, the hulls of two large armoured cruisers, codenamed D and C, are still classified as armoured cruisers according to current standards. The design displacement of the two ships is 1. 270,000 tons, using 16 naval coal-fired boilers, 4 oil-fired boilers and 3 four-cylinder three-expansion reciprocating steam engines, three-shaft propulsion, maximum output power 3. 30,000 horsepower, with a maximum design speed of 25 knots. In order to adapt to the adjusted power system, the hull was lengthened by 9% compared with the original design scheme, reaching 157. 7 meters, and the bow and stern torpedo tubes were eliminated - for fear that this design could be exploited by the adversary in naval warfare, the German Admiralty still retained their underwater torpedo tubes in the documentation, and the ship was equipped with torpedo compartments as usual. Although the new fleet failed to use steam turbines that represented the latest power technology, Natsuki's suggestion prompted the Admiralty to order an accelerated pace of testing and equipping steam turbines, and it would not be long before German mechanical engineers could catch up in this field.

In terms of firepower, the final design of the two ships was as Natsuki had hoped, with eight 210mm guns housed in four twin turrets, two on each of the fore and aft decks. Since this is the first time that the German Navy has tried to place two twin main guns on the front deck of the battleship in a way that is one in front of the other, on the premise of not reducing the height of the main deck, in order to avoid the two main turrets being too close to each other, and at the same time to ensure that the firing range of the No. 2 turret is not interfered with by the No. 1 turret, the engineers designed a very special shape of the stepped conning tower for this class of warships, placing the No. 2 turret in the low-level position of the conning tower, and the main command room in the high-level position. The commander's line of sight was just right from the top of the No. 2 turret to observe the sea ahead, and the turret and the conning tower were tightly protected by 200 mm thick Krupp armor, and the frontal armor of the turret was also 170 mm. Considering the good quality of Krupp's carburized armor, such armor protection is already the best among the active armored cruisers in various countries, and it is not inferior to the Japanese Tsukuba-class that has already started construction and the British Duke of Edinburgh class, which is about to start construction.

Not only is the configuration of the main gun full of innovation, but the design of the secondary gun of the new German patrol is also unusual among ships of the same type in the same period. Four 150 mm primary secondary guns were placed in the amidships, and 12 88 mm secondary secondary guns were placed in a semi-enclosed turret on the broadside deck in a twin way, which not only improved the integrity of the broadside armor, but also reduced the drag during navigation, and avoided the trouble that the lower gun compartments could not be used normally in the wind and waves. A staggering 16 37 mm guns were deployed in the open air, and they were relatively evenly distributed throughout the ship, ensuring all-round short-range firepower.

In this season of recovery, not everyone is as ambitious as Natsuki, at least in the distant Indian Ocean, where the sad Russian expeditionary fleet is gripped by the mood of defeat. After the shelling of fishing boats in the North Sea, the British government, which had an alliance with Japan, used this to put pressure on the neutral countries not to allow them to open their ports to the Russian fleet, and the Russians could only fill coal at sea, and install as much coal as they could, so that all open spaces such as decks, engine rooms, baths, and officers' bedrooms were piled up with coal, which not only reduced the speed, but also affected work and hygiene, especially through the equatorial seas, the soldiers suffered greatly, and the non-combat attrition was serious. During their 10,000-mile voyage, the fall of Arthur, the destruction of the 1st Russian Pacific Fleet, the defeat of the Battle of Mukden, and the heavy losses of the Russian army, the war situation had become very unfavorable for the Russians. In the face of the recuperated Japanese Navy, the Russian expeditionary fleet was cowardly before a fight, and was dragged down by the bureaucratic atmosphere, and its defeat was almost a foregone conclusion.

With the Admiralty's official mission documents in hand, Natsuki booked a train ticket to Bremen early in the morning, and after explaining the situation to the dean and instructors, he immediately set out on the journey. When he arrived in Bremen, he met up with Princess Louise and sailed with him to London, England. The 9th King's Cup Water Race will kick off two days later, with the organisers taking home a £100,000 winner's prize. At the beginning of the 20th century, that is, Mark. At the time when Twain wrote Million Pounds, 1 pound had a gold content of 7. 32 grams, 100,000 pounds is worth 732 kilograms of pure gold. In London, an average worker earns between £2 and £3 a month, while in most parts of England, less than £30 buys an acre of land. So don't say it's a million pounds, as long as anyone can come up with 10,000 pounds, the people around him will look at him differently.

Of course, £100,000 may be the price of a piece of fine art or a mansion for the very wealthy British aristocrats, but in any case, this huge prize is like a thunderbolt from the sky, and the entire rowing world and many people who dream of getting rich overnight are eager to try it.

Natsuki didn't come to London just to witness the event, and although the British Navy did not launch a preventive naval war against Germany in late 1904, there were many indications that they had at least come close to executing their battle plans, which ultimately did not materialize due to certain trade-offs. After this crisis, Natsuki realized that instead of retreating, he moved forward more strategically. Control of the seas was fundamental to the survival and development of the British, and an aggressive German navy was absolutely unacceptable to them, and the fast but short-range offshore torpedo boats were often regarded as a defensive weapon, and winning the King's Cup water race would show Germany's technological superiority in the field of high-speed torpedo boats, and make the British Navy "think twice" before trying to send the main fleet close to the German coast.

According to Natsuki's understanding, the German Navy has been equipped with high-speed and superior "Lightning" torpedo boats in batches, and recently made the decision to purchase 100 "Thunder" two-man torpedo boats, and it will only take a few years to be able to establish a large and elite force of high-speed torpedo boats, which are not only sharp weapons for coastal defense, but also can be used for long-distance operations with the help of vehicles, while the British Navy is still building and using those outdated steam torpedo boats, and the iron gap is there. The shrewd British must have had a good idea: while letting their shipbuilders develop high-speed torpedo boats, they threw out heavy prizes to attract the best speedboats from all over the world to participate in the competition, and chose the best ones for their own use.

According to the way of thinking of ordinary people, since they have seen through the conspiracy of the British, not only should they not send their best speedboats to the competition, but they should also do a good job of keeping the technical secrets of their own shipyards and strive to maintain the current leading edge. Natsuki's idea was a reverse thinking, and he wanted to take this opportunity to deepen the scruples of the British navy's top brass about the German high-speed torpedo boat group, and induce them to switch some of their financial and material resources from capital ships to torpedo boats. As long as the British built one less dreadnought, the chances of victory for Germany would increase by one point in the future when the British and German navies engaged in a decisive battle at sea. Judging from the historical trend in the following decades, speedboats have always been a supporting role in naval warfare, and battleships and aircraft carriers are the key forces that determine the maritime landscape. The French had "gone astray" in this regard, and because they had invested too much energy and money in the development of lightning strike ships, they had been reduced to a second-rate role in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was not until the thirties of the 20th century that they were able to return to the forefront of the world with a new batch of warships with the Dunkirk and Richelieu classes as the core.

(End of chapter)