After the preliminary design was handed over to the German Navy, it caused great controversy in the German Navy, and there was no big objection to other designs and parameters, but the armor was too weak, which made it really difficult for the German Navy to accept, and the waterline armor belt was only 150mm thick, which was basically the level of armored cruisers. Although during the exchange, the naval team also said that the battlecruiser is a kind of large-scale armored cruiser equipped with battleship guns, but a 20,000-ton warship, which is equivalent to a battleship, is only more than 10,000 tons of armored cruisers. Therefore, a revision was proposed to increase the thickness of the waterline armor belt to 200mm.

The explanation given by the naval team for this is: first of all, the characteristics of the battlecruiser are high speed, Light armor, the opponent of the battlecruiser is not a battleship, but an enemy battlecruiser or armored cruiser, the British-built battlecruiser Invincible's waterline armor belt is only 150mm thick, and the protection of both sides is basically at the same level, then the German-built battlecruiser naturally has no need to install thicker armor, after all, the main gun of the Invincible is also 305 mm of the battleship level, unless the armor thickness is increased to at least 280 mm or more at the level of the battleship, otherwise the waterline armor belt is increased to 200mm thick, and the guns of the enemy battlecruisers cannot be protected either, although it cannot be said that it is completely useless, but to be honest, it really doesn't have much effect, and it will drag down the speed of the warship, so it's better to save armor and increase the speed.

The second is that the quality of the German Knoob armor is originally better than the British Vickers armor, and at the same time, the floating side side structure designed by East China can reduce the angle of the projectile, because it is in the long-distance firefight, the arc of the ballistic flight is larger, and the floating side side structure can effectively reduce the impact force of the shell, so on the whole, the 150mm thick armor is equivalent to the British 180-190mm armor thickness, which can be said to have a certain advantage compared with the British warships of the same kind.

Finally, the armor was thickened to 250 mm in important local areas such as turrets, conning towers, ammunition depots, and power compartments, which was already very close to the armor level of a battleship. Here, East China actually introduced the concept of key protection pioneered during the naval treaty period of the old time and space. During the period of the Naval Treaty, the tonnage and firepower of warships were limited, so the warship designers of various countries racked their brains to create the strongest warships within the limited tonnage, so they invented the concept of key protection, that is, to strengthen the protection of key parts and areas of warships, and simply abandon the secondary points, saving tonnage to enhance speed and endurance.

Gun turrets, conning towers, ammunition depots, and power compartments are all fatal points for warships; if the turret is destroyed, it will weaken the warship's combat effectiveness; if the conning tower is hit, it is possible that the warship's command system will be destroyed; and if the ammunition depot is shot, it will be the most dangerous, and once the stored ammunition is detonated, it will deal a devastating blow to the warship; and hitting the power compartment, destroying the warship's power system, and reducing its speed and mobility, will basically end up in a situation of death and life in naval warfare. In addition to these positions, even if it is a few guns in other places, the warship can withstand it, even if it is a medium gun in the waterline, for a 20,000-ton warship, it will not hurt the muscles and bones, as long as the damage is managed effectively, there will not be much damage at all.

Based on these factors, although the waterline armor belt of this type of warship is only 150mm thick, it still has considerable survivability, of course, it cannot be compared with battleships, and it is by no means vulnerable.

After all, German warships have always focused on defense in the past, but now the right suddenly made a sharp turn, and definitely accepted it, so finally after discussion, it was decided to increase the waterline armor belt to 180mm thick.

However, this change had two consequences: first, the weight of about 800-1,000 tons was added, so that the total tonnage would definitely exceed the original 20,000 tons, and second, it would reduce the speed of the warship by 0.5-1 knots, and the final speed may not reach 27 knots. Unless it is in other positions to cut weight,

In the end, the two sides negotiated and decided to cancel all the first firing tubes, replace the six twin 150-mm secondary guns with four, and replace the eight twin 105-mm rapid-fire guns with four twin 105-mm rapid-fire guns and four twin 88-mm rapid-fire guns. In this way, the weight can be reduced by about 5-600 tons, and the technical requirements put forward by Germany can be met without strength.

In fact, the role of the capital ship equipment is not great, because at this time, the distance of the artillery battle has far exceeded the range of the first one, and the capital ship cannot risk getting close to the enemy ship to launch, so the role of the first is mainly used to replenish the gun of the enemy ship that has lost its combat effectiveness, but the capital ship is dispatched, there will definitely be accompanying escort warships, and the equipment on these warships can also do this kind of work, and it is better than the capital ship. Of course, this involves the question of how to count the heads and the battle record, but this has nothing to do with the construction of warships.

Of course, after this adjustment, the firepower of the secondary gun must have been weakened, but the combat effectiveness of the warship mainly depends on the main gun, which is the capital ship, and it is a competition for the main gun, and the role of the secondary gun is only a supplement to the main gun, and it is used in some low-intensity battles, or to deal with small warships that are close to the **, so the impact on the overall combat effectiveness of the warship is not great.

The preliminary design is thus determined, and the next thing to carry out is to deepen the design drawings, as well as various loads, loads, moments, The calculation of bearing force and other data, this is a very complex and meticulous work, because it is in this era when there is no machine mechanism diagram, it is completely dependent on human manual drawing, and sometimes as long as there is a line drawn wrong, the whole drawing is basically invalid, so only a few people in the naval team can not be completed, fortunately, such draftsmen in Germany are available, the naval team only needs to provide them with guidance, just move and say, and the drawing is all handed over to the German draftsmen to complete.

At the same time as the two sides carried out military exchanges, the visit of East China ** to other European countries was also going smoothly, the first visit was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Xu Jichao and Li Sanjie were received very warmly here, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, the crown prince Franz Ferdinand all met with the two on the same day, showing a very high standard of courtesy.

However, Xu Jichao and Li Sanjie's main impression of the Austro-Hungarian emperor is the husband of Princess Sissi, not the emperor himself, but this princess has died for many years, so the two did not have the opportunity to meet each other, in contrast, the crown prince Franz Ferdinand is much more famous in history than his emperor uncle, it was the assassination of the crown prince that became the first world war ***, it is estimated that the crown prince will not want to leave his name in history in this way.

Of course, the emperor and the crown prince showed a very enthusiastic attitude towards the visit of the two, on the one hand, because for the sake of the face of the big brother Germany, even the big brother was courteous to the guests from the ancient countries of the East, and the younger brother naturally could not be lazy; on the other hand, Austria-Hungary also hoped to make friends with East China and contain Russia. The contradiction between Austria-Hungary and Russia is mainly in the struggle for the Balkan Peninsula, but Russia's strength is far stronger than that of Austria-Hungary, and it is entirely dependent on the support of Germany that Austria-Hungary has the confidence to compete with Russia for the dominance of the Balkan Peninsula.

And East China** defeated Russia in the Far East War, not only Germany hoped to form an alliance with East China ** in order to contain Russia, Austria-Hungary also had this kind of thought, and it was always good for Bi Jing to have a useful friend.

During their one-week visit to Austria-Hungary, Xu Jichao and Li Sanjie held several talks with Austro-Hungarian officials, signed a series of economic and trade cooperation agreements, and also attended many events and visited many famous attractions, such as the Vienna Theatre, Prague Square, etc., because Austria and Hungary are both famous travel and cultural regions in Europe. However, after returning to China, after being reminded by Qin Zheng, the two knew that they had missed a major event, and they did not look for an aspiring painter on the streets of Vienna.

After the end of the visit to Austria-Hungary, the two went their separate ways, Li Sanjie went to sea from Austria-Hungary, crossed the Mediterranean, visited the Ottoman Empire, and was accompanied by Ottoman diplomats in Austria-Hungary, while Xu Jichao visited Italy.

After Li Sanjie and his entourage arrived in the Ottoman Empire, they were received more ceremoniously than the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Sultan Abdul Hamid II sent his own guards to meet them at the port, and sent Li Sanjie and his entourage to the hotel where they stayed.

On the second day, the Sultan held a grand ceremony in the palace to receive Li Sanjie, and during the talks, the Sultan formally proposed to Li Sanjie that the Ottoman Empire wanted to establish formal diplomatic relations with East China.

The Ottoman Empire was so eager to establish diplomatic relations with East China, and there was also an unspeakable bitterness, because Russia lost the Far East War and lost a large number of strongholds in the Far East, and its eastward expansion had been completely stopped, and it turned to hold its existing interests and territories in the Far East. However, expansion and the desire for territory are the nature of the Slavic peoples, and since they are hindered in the East, they might as well try it in the West, hoping to gain some advantage in the Balkans in order to compensate for the losses in the Far East, and at the same time to divert internal contradictions.

However, Russia was contested by Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, and the relationship between the two countries was tense for a while, and the eyes of the whole world were focused on these two countries, forgetting that at this time, although most of the Balkans were autonomous or entrusted by other powers, in terms of name, the Balkans belonged to the Ottoman Empire, but no country would care about the attitude of the Ottoman Empire.

But the Ottoman Empire itself could not ignore it, but both sides were lords that the Ottoman Empire could not provoke, and Austria-Hungary was relatively better and was only interested in the Balkans, while Russia was more ambitious, wanting to annex not only the Balkans, but the entire Ottoman Empire.

In the past, the Ottoman Empire could still rely on Britain, France, Germany, and other countries to confront Russia, but now that Britain and France have formed an alliance with Russia, can it still be relied on? Germany is also the big brother of Austria-Hungary, and I am afraid that it will not go all out to help the Ottoman Empire, so the Ottoman Empire still needs to find other help.