Germany also basically accepted the proposal of establishing overseas ports in East China as a base for the maintenance and replenishment of the fleet of the broken diplomatic relations, after all, this is also part of the breaking war, and Germany also hopes to fully develop the existing colonial areas, and strive to make the colonial areas profitable as soon as possible and increase the income for Germany.

Moreover, after serious discussions between the German Cabinet and the Admiralty, it was finally decided to establish an overseas base in the Sabah area of northern Borneo, in which two dry docks with a length of 160 meters and a width of 35 meters and a large ship repair yard will be built, which can repair all kinds of damage to warships, including complex and major repairs such as replacing gun barrels and repairing engines, so that all warships of the German Navy, including those planned under construction, can be docked here for repairs. arsenals and other facilities, and it is planned to garrison 1 regiment of coastal defense troops and 2 regiments of garrisons. In the Lantao region of southern Borneo, a large port was built in Susevus, German New Guinea and German Java, and smaller ports were built in the rest of the country.

The planned construction period of the base is four years, but it can be opened after two years, the construction period of the large port is three years, and it can be opened in two years, the construction period of the small port is two years, and the opening period is one year, and the construction of the Sabah base, Susiwi port, Guinea port, and two small ports in East and West Africa will be started first. All five ports will start construction this year.

The base was chosen in the Sabah area, not only because this area is larger, with an area of 66,000 square kilometers, which is close to the size of two Taiwan islands, larger than the territory of the Netherlands and Belgium, and it is also a large overseas colonial territory of Germany. The geographical location is very good, with the South China Sea in the west, the Philippines in the north, and the Pacific Ocean in the east, which is not easy to be blocked, and more importantly, it is backed by the huge area of Borneo, which is actually backed by East China, so it can be fully supported by East China.

In fact, Germany knows very well that with the number and area of its own overseas colonies, it is not suitable for building base-type ports at all, because Germany's overseas colonies are too small, scattered, and not highly developed, so they can produce not many economic benefits, lack the ability to supply themselves, and rely entirely on domestic support. The overseas colonies of countries such as Britain and France are covering an area of hundreds of thousands or even millions of square kilometers, with a large population and rich resources, and both countries have been operating in the colonies for decades, hundreds of years, the colonies have been fully developed, can produce a lot of economic benefits, enough to support the daily operation of ports and bases, so Germany to establish overseas bases, it must be supported by East China.

Setting up the base on Borneo can not only make full use of the manpower and material resources of East China to build ports, bases, cities, etc., but also save a lot of money than mobilizing manpower and material resources from Germany, and at the same time take advantage of the development of Borneo in East China to develop the colonial economy, and strive to make the colony profitable as soon as possible to supply the expenses of the base port. In times of war, the base is backed by East China, so there is no need to worry about the enemy landing from behind to attack, and at the same time, East China can also supply various materials to the base to maintain the battle, and at the same time, it can also use the territory of East China to interact and contact between the ports of Sabah and Lantao, and support each other. Moreover, this will also enable Germany to maintain closer relations with East China, and perhaps bring the relations between the two countries closer to the alliance.

Although Germany has accepted the proposal of East China to conclude a partnership, but has not given up the idea of forming an alliance with East China, but East China has clearly replied to Germany that it has no interest in forming an alliance, so it can only retreat to the next best thing and choose to conclude a partnership, after all, although the partnership relationship is not as good as the alliance, but it is much closer than the friendly relations of ordinary countries, and Germany still has to partner first, and then further develop with East China, and finally achieve the goal of the alliance. As long as there is a strengthening of relations with East China, Germany will certainly not miss it, and this itself is also beneficial to Germany.

In this way, the development plan of the German navy was determined, and the first thing to be completed was to determine the design of the warship. Of course, all these warship designs are not required to be completed immediately, after all, the design of a type of warship is a rather complex event, that is, the general cruiser drawings, not to mention hundreds, and battleships, battlecruiser drawings, are more than a thousand, and it will take at least 2 or 3 months to complete, if there are technical difficulties in construction, or the demand side has modified technical requirements during the design period, it will even be as long as 1. Two years, and Germany's shipbuilding capacity is limited, even if the design drawings come out, it is impossible to start construction together.

First of all, the design of the two types of battleships can be pushed to the beginning of next year, because now only 3 of the 4 Nassau-class ships have been built, and one can only be built in March, while the first 2 ships of the Helgoland class will not be able to start construction until June, and the 3rd and 4th ships are estimated to wait until the end of the year, and the first 2 Nassau-class ships will be launched and outfitted and the dock will be vacated before construction, so the start of construction of these two types of battleships will not start until the middle of next year at the earliest, and the 3rd and 4th Nassau-class outfits will be launched and outfitted, of course, there is no need to rush to complete the design drawings.

And now the priority is the design of the battlecruiser, because this is a completely new type of ship, which Germany naturally has never built before, although according to the East China ** This is a kind of large-scale armored cruiser equipped with battleship guns, but it is by no means a simple enlargement of the armored cruiser in proportion, because it is equipped with battleship artillery, which means that the upper deck must be reinforced, and at the same time, in order to pursue high speed, it must be equipped with a larger number of boilers, and the number of chimneys must be more than that of ordinary battleships, and although the protection of battlecruisers is not as good as that of battleships, such an expensive warship can never be vulnerable, and the necessary protection is still needed, so how should the armor be distributed, distribution, all these details require fine calculations and trade-offs to achieve optimal results.

In addition, the battle cruiser is planned to be used as the core of the battle breaking fleet, and the battle is also a new combat mode for the German navy, although the military chess deduction has been carried out, but everyone knows that the military chess deduction is not a substitute for the actual operation, so Germany is also in urgent need of a service battle cruiser to really practice the tactics of breaking the diplomatic relationship.

Of course, there is another hidden reason for this, that is, the British-built battle cruisers have been launched and outfitted and are expected to enter service this year, and Germany naturally cannot lag too far behind. Therefore, the German Navy decided to put the design of the battle cruiser in the first place, and asked the visiting delegation to return to China after completing the design of the battle cruiser, and other projects such as armored cruisers, large cruisers, light cruisers, and submarines could be designed back to China, as long as it was completed within the year.

After consultations, the delegation consulted with foreign countries, and finally agreed to Germany's request, and after the completion of the visit, the other members could return to China first, leaving only the naval team to complete the design of the battle cruiser in Germany.

At this time, the military exchanges between the two sides have all ended, and this visit to Germany has basically come to an end, except for the tour visit of the cultural group in Germany, as well as the visits of Xu Jichao and Li Sanjie to other European countries. Therefore, taking advantage of this free time, the naval group also began to work on the draft of the battle cruiser.

In fact, before visiting Germany, it was also expected that Germany would find East China ** to design warships, so Huang Zhe was included in the visit list, and now Huang Zhe is the chief shipbuilding expert in East China, and also made several draft designs of warships, which are battle cruisers, and prepared two plans, one focuses on the main decisive battle, and the other focuses on breaking the engagement, because Britain has already started building, and in the old time and space, Germany will also start building its first battle cruiser in March this year.

However, since Germany had accepted the proposal to break the engagement in East China, a week later, Huang Zhe selected the plan focusing on breaking the engagement from the two battlecruiser plans prepared and handed it to Germany.

With a length of 178 meters, a width of 24 meters, a draft of 9 meters, and a length-to-width ratio of 7.4:1, this is a fairly large aspect ratio in this era, and is clearly designed for high speed.

The ship's armament is: 4 twin 305 mm main guns, knapsack along the central axis, 6 twin 150 mm secondary guns, 8 twin 105 mm rapid-fire guns, arranged on both sides of the hull, 4 500 mm ** launch tubes, underwater installation, one in the bow and stern, one in the middle of each side.

In terms of hull design, it still continues East China** The design characteristics of the ship are V-shaped hulls floating outboard, the bow adopts a large inclined flying scissor bow, a bulbous bow is set under the waterline, and two lines of 56-meter-long stabilizer fins are set under the waterline in the middle of the hull, which reduces the lack of poor seaworthiness caused by the large aspect ratio; and the long bow hull design adopted by the whole hull is also one layer lower on the deck at the stern, so that the weight of the hull can be reduced; second, the height difference of the deck at the stern can be used to arrange the backpack turret at the rear, so as to avoid the shortcomings of the high center of gravity generated by the knapsack turret。

The power plant adopts 24 boilers, 2 Kiel steam turbines newly manufactured in Germany, with a maximum power of 56,000 horsepower, 4 shafts and 4 rotors propulsion, twin rudders, and is expected to have a high-speed speed of 27-28 knots. The cruising range is 12 knots/6500 nautical miles, 18 knots/4000 nautical miles.

The armor is 120 meters long and 2.5 meters high, 1.3 meters below the waterline and 150 mm thick, the secondary armor belt is 96 meters long, 0.8 meters above the waterline, 0.6 meters below the waterline and 50 mm thick, the horizontal armor of the middle deck is 100 meters long and 80 mm thick, the horizontal armor of the bow and stern deck is 25 meters long and 50 mm thick, the watertight compartment partition armor is 150 mm thick, the turret armor is 250 mm thick on the front, 150 mm on the sides and 120 mm on the top, and the conning tower armor is 250 mm thick. Also at the ammunition depot, the local armor of the power compartment was thickened to 250 mm.

The displacement is 19000-20000 tons.