Negotiations with the German Navy continued until late November, during which time Tan Renhao was able to see the shrewdness and, more precisely, the principled nature of the Germans. This can be regarded as a national characteristic of the Germanic people. Before, Tan Renhao had heard Gu Xunlei mention that the Germans were very rigid and would not let go easily if they bit a problem, but now he has finally seen it with his own eyes and experienced it himself.

Many problems that were not a problem at all in the eyes of Tan Renhao and other Tang imperial admirals were real problems with the Germans, and they were very serious problems. A very small thing illustrates this. At that time, the length of the standard bed on the battleships of the Tang Imperial Navy was 2 meters and the width was 08 meters, which was mainly determined on the basis of the stature of the officers and men of the Tang Imperial Navy, but the Germans insisted on increasing the length to 22 meters and the width to 019 meters, and stated that this was the German standard. Maybe this is indeed the German standard, after all, the German body is generally a little taller, but the problem is that it is not difficult to change the bed, but this necessitates the expansion of the soldier's cabin, which directly affects the design of the entire battleship structure. In addition, Tan Renhao also had a statistic at that time, the average height of German naval soldiers was about 185 meters, and the 018-meter-wide bed was completely sufficient, there was no need to adopt German standards at all, but the Germans refused to give in to this detail, and as a result, they had to readjust the design of the battleship's soldier cabin!

The Germans seldom make concessions on big issues, especially when it comes to customary issues. For example, at that time, in the design of the battleship bridge. The tradition of the Tang Imperial Navy was to place the power gauges on the left side of the slipway, while the German naval custom was to the right side of the battleship. As a result, the Germans insisted on designing the location of this meter according to their habits. The problem is that the wiring of the battleship's bridge is completely modified!

In these more than 20 days of negotiations. Tan Renhao finally realized what it was like for Gu Xunlei to fight with the German army on the European battlefield. The harshness shown by the Germans at the negotiating table only proves that on the battlefield, the German soldiers must be the most disciplined soldiers, but at the same time, the German generals are certainly the most demanding generals. Maybe. This is a good thing for an army, after all, the core of the army's combat effectiveness is discipline. But for friendly forces, this is not a good thing, and it is no wonder that Gu Xunlei would have taken the risk of "robbing" the German oil convoy in the first place.

Of course, the effort will definitely pay off, and for more than 20 days, most of the problems, especially those related to the performance of the battleship, and the construction work, have been solved, while some minor problems have been left after the construction work has begun. Engineers from both sides will work out the problem on site.

At the same time that the negotiations on the side of Tan Renhao have been fruitful, the negotiations on the side of Tehran have also been fruitful. In the end, Germany and the Tang Empire each conceded half a step.

In terms of the price of battleships. Germany agreed to include the cost of renovating the infrastructure into the purchase price of the warships when purchasing the first batch of warships, and the Tang Empire also lowered the price of the warships themselves. In addition, Germany also signed a contract of intent with the Tang Empire for the purchase of the second batch of warships. The unit price of the first three battleships purchased was 2.75 times that of the "New Provincial Capital" class. This is obviously far more than the cost of the battleship itself, and even more than the cost of renovating the basic equipment.

The performance of the battleships, which could be built in accordance with the requirements of the German Navy, would be much superior to that of the "Bismarck" class. This was the most powerful battleship that the German Navy could expect to acquire in the short term. Its performance was not much worse than that of the "New Provincial Capital" class (the initial model), surpassing the main opponent of the German Navy at that time, the battleships of the "George V" class of the British Navy.

In terms of payment methods, Germany will pay half of the construction cost in hard currency such as gold, or in kind, while the other half will be paid in ten years in the form of credit, and the interest will be calculated at the inflation rate of the Tang Empire. This is a very strange method of payment, especially in the calculation of credit interest, there has never been a similar way of foreign trade and military procurement before, and this can be regarded as a special solution in a special period.

By the end of November, the parties formally signed the relevant procurement contract, and this is not just for three battleships, but for an entire fleet.

In parallel with the purchase of three battleships, the German Navy also directly purchased six heavy cruisers and twelve destroyers, which were to be used to escort the three battleships, and together they formed the "Far East Fleet" of the German Navy. This is the largest military purchase contract in the entire history of the Tang Empire.

For the purchase of the "Far Eastern Fleet", Germany was to pay the Don Empire at least 450 tons of gold, 1200 tons of silver (Germany's gold reserves were not very large in the first place, and later they could only be exchanged for silver to pay part of the purchase costs), in addition, it would pay the Don Empire at least 15 million gold dollars per year for purchases (most of these costs were later paid in kind, and in ten years, this figure will reach 25 million). And that's just the contract for the fleet itself, and if you include the cost of personnel training, Germany will have to pay tens of millions of dollars more. It was precisely because of such a high purchase price that Germany later canceled the plan to purchase the second batch of warships, and to put it bluntly, Germany did not have so much money to buy the fleet. The navy is not an army, and the Germans have also deeply realized in this procurement that in order to build a strong navy, in addition to unremitting efforts, the most important thing is a solid economic foundation.

With the exception of the three battleships, the rest of the battleships were built using the ready-made standards of the Tang Empire, and Germany made great concessions on the issue of auxiliary warships, the only requirement was to use the same artillery as the German Navy, so as to reduce the trouble of the German Navy in terms of logistics. The Reich did not embarrass the Germans too much, after all, after such a lucrative deal, the Reich had gained enough benefits.

It was also this purchase by the Germans that accelerated the progress of the construction of new aircraft carriers for the Imperial Navy.

At that time, eighty percent of the profits made by the Imperial Navy through this arms sales trade were directly used in the Imperial Navy's shipbuilding program, and the most important of these was the purchase of new "Island" class aircraft carriers. Although the empire has never been relevantly documented. But it is conceivable that without the large sums of money provided by the Germans, it would have been quite normal for the "Island" class aircraft carriers of the Reich Navy to serve for several months at night. And it was impossible to complete the construction of so many ships during the war.

At that time, in addition to the German Navy, which procured the "Far Eastern Fleet" from the Don Empire. The Persian Empire also signed a large military purchase contract with the Tang Empire, and the Persian Empire mainly purchased three "New Provincial Capital" class battleships and related supporting warships.

Unlike the Germans, the Persian Empire did not have too strict requirements in the purchase of warships, which is why the Persian Empire has always had a tradition of purchasing naval warships from the Tang Empire. Second, the standards of the Persian Empire's navy were not much different from those of the Tang Empire's navy, and third, there were no big problems in personnel training. Therefore, the Persian Empire almost directly purchased the ready-made products of the Imperial Navy, instead of spending money on new designs and upgrading the infrastructure of the slipway, and because of this, the price of the warships purchased by the Persian Empire was much lower.

At that time, the Persian Empire purchased three "New Provincial Capital" class battleships and four "Jianghe" class heavy cruisers from the Tang Empire (the second phase of the improved model, the main change was the replacement of the twin 240 mm main gun turret with a triple 200 mm main gun turret. Other than that. The command system on the export model, as well as the radar system, are a little less performant, which also reduces the purchase price in disguise). The total cost of twelve destroyers of the "City" class was only about sixty percent of that of the German "Far Eastern Fleet".

If the quality of the officers and men of the fleet is not taken into account, its combat effectiveness is not in the German "Far Eastern Fleet"

Under. Moreover, the battleships of the "New Provincial Capital" class purchased by the Persian Empire were improved models. Its performance was certainly somewhat better than the three battleships purchased by the Germans.

It was also for this reason that the Persian Empire later added a number of warships, and in mid-27 ordered four battleships of the "New Provincial Capital" class, eight heavy cruisers of the "River" class, and twenty destroyers of the "City" class. These ships were delivered to the Persian Navy before the end of the war. The Persian Empire also became the second largest and only user of the "New Provincial Capital"-class battleships outside of the Tang Empire.

In terms of payments, the Persian Empire was much happier than the Germans. At that time, the Tang Empire had been importing oil from the Persian Empire, and it had been a trade deficit, that is, the Persian Empire was the beneficiary, and the Tang Empire had been spending money on the purchase of oil from the Persian Empire. Therefore, when purchasing two batches of warships, the Persian Empire directly offset the arrears of the Tang Empire, and compensated for the excess costs by exporting more oil. This also had a lot of benefits for the Tang Empire, at least, the Tang Empire didn't need to worry about the oil problem at that time.

Several other small countries also purchased a lot of warships from the Tang Empire, but they were mainly destroyers. At that time, several countries wanted to get from the Don Empire warships with better performance than destroyers, but cheaper than heavy cruisers. It was also for this that two medium-sized shipyards of the Tang Empire specially designed a light cruiser for export, and deliveries began at the end of 26. From 27 years, the Tang Imperial Navy also purchased this kind of light cruisers for export, which was mainly to reduce the cost of procurement, and in many tasks, heavy cruisers appeared too large, and destroyers were incompetent, and light cruisers were a more reasonable choice. It's just that these light cruisers were sold to other countries in the form of second-hand goods after the war, and the Tang Imperial Navy did not keep the light cruisers after the war, and even canceled the division between light cruisers and heavy cruisers, of course, this is already a later story.

If the Persian Empire and other allies are also included in the arms sales, then this is the largest arms sale in the thousand-year history of the Tang Empire. It can even be said to be the largest arms sale in the entire world. In the end, this actually evolved into a half-give-away-half-sale deal, after all, many countries have exhausted their national strength in the war, and they simply cannot afford to pay the high arrears, and in the end they have to stop it.

It was also the most extensive cooperation within the Allied bloc. On the surface, it seems that the Tang Empire is assisting other allies, reducing the pressure on the Tang Empire's navy, increasing the status of other allies in the war, and allowing more countries to do their best on the maritime battlefield. Fundamentally, this was the fundamental symbol of the Tang Empire's dominance within the Allied bloc. Under the circumstances, only the Tang Empire had enough strength to provide one or even several complete fleets for the other allies, and to undertake the training of the officers and men of the fleet.

As we all know, the navy is a money-burning army, and without an economic base, you can't think of having a strong navy. This has been widely proven since the birth of the navy, especially in the last few hundred years, that only the most powerful countries have the strongest navy. The brutality of naval warfare also proves that in the face of a first-class navy, no matter how powerful a second-rate navy, there is never any hope of victory. Therefore, this is also destined to be a high-investment, high-risk "investment" activity.

A strong army may be the basic force to defend the country, but at the same time, a strong navy is definitely the fundamental symbol of a country's basic strength. For hundreds of years, any powerful country has had a strong navy, and it can even abandon the development of an army in favor of building a strong navy, such as the United Kingdom.

Through this extensive arms sales operation, the strength of the Tang Empire was fully proven. Especially after the empire has moved into a state of all-out war, the war potential of the empire is no longer a mystery, but can be seen by all. In addition to damaging the enemy's morale, this can also effectively boost the morale of the Allied bloc and boost the morale of other countries. It can be said that this is not only military cooperation, but also a propaganda campaign with far-reaching political significance.

This arms sale also directly affected the post-war world pattern and established the global hegemony of the Tang Empire. Perhaps Germany once wanted to compete with the Tang Empire and gain the status of an equal to the Tang Empire, but through this arms sale alone, the Germans clearly realized that the gap between Germany and the Tang Empire was almost immeasurable, and Germany did not even want to replace the Tang Empire, and there was no possibility of even being on a par with the Tang Empire. This had a direct impact on Germany's basic national policy in the later stages of the war and even in the post-war period. From this point of view, this arms sale is a beautiful diplomatic show.