The sea is vast, and as far as the eye can see, it is a rippling deep blue, even in the relatively narrow Baltic Sea, it is definitely a wide enough stage for a warship. The cruiser Emden, which sailed out of the port of Kiel, was undoubtedly like a fish freed from its shackles, and the entire warship had completely galloped into the depths of the Baltic Sea while the power system was running cheerfully.

Fang Yan stood in the navigation room, now engrossed in calculating and annotating a small-scale fine chart with a ruler pencil. A thin blue line was outlined by him, representing the trajectory of the battleship; The small red circles at the turn of the blue line and the text annotations next to them clearly indicate the time and place when the ship's navigation status changed. In the era of no GPS satellite positioning, relying on the real-time data generated during navigation to accurately locate one's own ship on the nautical chart is the most basic and critical work of all ships sailing in the sea; Otherwise, once it loses its position in the vast sea, it will be an absolutely unacceptable situation for any warship.

At this time, it had been more than half a month since the battleship left the port, and Fang Yan had gradually adapted to the warship life with more difficult conditions than on land, and began to show his unique grandeur in this position. Considering that he was a novice who had just joined the ship, and that he had passed the exam to become a cadet after graduating from high school, the first mate planned to let him experience a period of training in the most basic chartman position; However, Fang Yan, who had already prepared a good amount of advance for his career as an officer, was shocked by the performance of the first officer, this kind of task that combined speed, direction, time, and complex trigonometric calculations was unusually easy to complete in Fang Yan's hands. After this period of hard work, Fang Yan, who already has good mathematical skills, no longer feels any difficulty in this kind of positioning calculation; You must know that he is a person who has the ability to build a warship, how can he be stumped by this kind of work?

The first mate, who felt Fang Yan's rapid growth, was shocked and began to teach him the other two core elements of navigation in addition to the determination of ship position: route design and navigation methods. The officers who give orders in the navigation room need to comprehensively design the ideal route plan according to the meteorological and hydrological conditions of the navigation mission and the navigation area, as well as the state of the ship itself and the experience level of the crew; In the specific navigation process, if the weather such as fog and storm cannot be avoided, the officer also needs to be able to adapt to the situation, so as to minimize the adverse effects. In order to achieve these two things, in addition to reading a large number of books written by predecessors, a complete understanding of the weather in a particular sea area and a specific route, it is also necessary to rely on many years of sailing experience to accumulate experience, and a little talent and intelligence. In a sense, nautical science is also a key factor in judging the ability of a ship captain or even a fleet commander; If you want to command a warship to win a decisive victory in the ocean, superb sailing skills are undoubtedly an indispensable prerequisite for success!

Listening to the introduction of the first mate, Fang Yan's heart couldn't help but ignite a surging fighting spirit; He didn't say too much, but directly devoted himself to the study of the essence of navigation with practical actions. And the first mate, who experienced the initial sailing incident, was already full of appreciation for the young big boy in front of him; He unreservedly taught Fang Yan his sailing experience, and when he was on duty in place of the captain, he created a lot of objective conditions for Fang Yan to put his ideas into practice. All this made Fang Yan feel grateful and at the same time couldn't help but sigh: although the strength of the German Navy today is no longer comparable to that of the past, this group has a rare quality that has been inherited.

After another half a month, the Emden slowly returned to the port of Kiel in northern Germany. The Emden, which has been cruising in the Baltic Sea, is just the beginning of its warm-up, and she will then advance to the North Sea and the North Atlantic, where she will complete the rapid deep-sea tests and the run-in between various equipment, which is expected to last for half a year. For Fang Yan, this is undoubtedly a long-awaited voyage: in addition to being able to practice navigation more effectively than in the closed and mild Baltic Sea, the North Atlantic, which has always been famous for its high wind and rough weather, is also the main battlefield between him and the British Navy in the future!

After a day's resupply, the ship left the harbor again, this time not to the east, but to the west through the 53-nautical-mile Kiel Canal. The east-west waterway through Jutland was built in 1888 at the beginning of Kaiser Wilhelm II's reign and expanded for the second time in July 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of World War. Through this canal, the warships of the German Navy can be safely and quickly deployed from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea at will, thus greatly improving the efficiency of the fleet. In the summer of 1914, one of the important reasons why the German High Command made up its mind to go to war was the completion of the expansion of the Kiel Canal, which could achieve control of the Baltic Sea through the dispatch of fleets.

For a light cruiser, which is only 14 meters wide and has a draft of only 6.6 meters when fully loaded, there is no difficulty in passing through the canal, which is 44 meters wide and 11 meters deep in the main channel. Four hours later, the Emden had sailed past the jasper locks on the western section of the Kiel Canal, speeding toward the depths of the ocean, far wider than the Baltic Sea. Fang Yan, who was standing in the sailing room, was full of excitement and anticipation for the upcoming experience. At the beginning of July, the North Sea was filled with a thick sea fog that Fang Yan had never seen in the Baltic Sea before, and his first sailing challenge came unexpectedly; Fang Yan, who had calmed down, began to calculate the trajectory extremely carefully, and based on the knowledge imparted to him by the first mate, he made a preliminary judgment on the scope of this sea fog and the trend of growth and dissipation.

Time flies, and 1925 soon ushered in its own cold winter. Fang Yan put on a thick winter coat, and a thick white mist formed between his words and breathing. After two months in the foggy North Sea, the Emden sailed into the vast Atlantic; It was also here that Fang Yan experienced for the first time what storms and stormy waves are, and at the same time deeply felt the power of nature. And in the face of a sudden super typhoon, Fang Yan, who was tossed up and down in the cabin, even had a trace of fear that he was going to die here; Four sealed compartments burst into the water, and the forward generator compartment also stopped running. Fortunately, the old captain was not afraid of danger and decisively determined the direction and speed of the typhoon's movement; With his correct response, the typhoon only raged for less than half an hour before gradually moving away, so the whole ship was able to turn the corner. After this incident, Fang Yan realized the importance of seafaring ability even more, and his efforts became more assiduously.

Fang Yan's efforts have undoubtedly paid off handsomely for him. During these four months of ocean travel, his seafaring skills have been rapidly improved and consolidated; Whether it is designing a route or avoiding wind and waves, its remarkable performance in various situations has made the appreciation in the eyes of the first mate more and more intense. In the end, the first mate, who felt that Fang Yan had already made a small success in navigation, actually allowed the boy to open up another subsidiary major during the navigation training, so that he could systematically begin to study the relevant knowledge of naval firepower. Under normal circumstances, cadets will not expand their knowledge to other areas until they have become alternate officers and actually served in the fleet, so that they can continue to climb to the overall high position of captain and even commander of the detachment.

Just as Fang Yan was honing his abilities in the depths of the ocean, Germany also ushered in an important diplomatic victory that was even better than the Rapallo Treaty three years ago. On December 1, 1925, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, and Belgium, a total of seven countries, signed the "Locarno Convention" aimed at maintaining the European order: Germany, France, and Belgium guaranteed each other that the German-French border would be inviolable, and that the demilitarization of the Rhine in the Treaty of Versailles would be observed, and Britain and Italy would act as guarantors and undertake the obligation to assist the invaded countries. In addition, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, France's allies in the East, pledged to settle their disputes peacefully. The Convention adopted the decision to admit Germany as a member of the League of Nations.

The Locarno Convention was undoubtedly a major diplomatic victory for Germany. Berlin dismantled the former Entente bloc at no substantial cost, and at the same time greatly loosened the encirclement of Germany that France had painstakingly managed in post-war Eastern Europe. The peace pledge reached between Germany and Belgium made it impossible for the small country to rely on an alliance with France to preserve itself; The Franco-German border, guaranteed by Britain and Italy, not only allowed Germany to remove the threat of attack from the West, but also broke up its former alliance with France through the possible obligation of aid to Germany by Britain and Italy. In fact, with the current strength of the German army, it is impossible to change all this in the western territory, and all that Germany has to pay is to give up what they cannot afford to get!

Although the two Eastern European countries also reached a guarantee with Germany for the peaceful settlement of their disputes, the border with Germany was not as thoroughly finalized as France and Belgium; Faced with this result, Poland and the Czechs had to suspect that France was killing their two allies after the permanent recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, as they wished. Considering that Poland and the Czechs at this level of trust in France have also plummeted, they have also begun to re-examine their relations with Germany.

(I won't recommend it next week.,Please give the author a little more collection in the last two days.,Thank you)