Seeing off Emanuele III, Ferdinand did not return home immediately. At Jochen's insistence, Ferdinand had to send a telegram calling his wife Sophia and two children from Croatia-Slovenia to bring their family of four together for the first time on the soil of the Kingdom of Austria.

However, Jochen also knew the virtues of the Austrian nobles in Vienna, so he didn't let Sophia endure the criticism of those nobles in Vienna, so he asked his wife to accompany Ferdinand's family to Austria.

Anyway, although Mary is the queen of Austria, she usually leaves things to her husband and the prime minister of the Kingdom of Austria to deal with, and only when there is a conflict of interests between the policy formulated by Jochen from the perspective of the empire and the policy formulated by the Austrian prime minister from the perspective of the kingdom, Mary, the queen of Austria, will show her ability to govern the country (peacemaker).

So Mary, who didn't have to worry about state affairs, had a lot of time, and it was natural for her to take the Ferdinand family around Austria in a mouthful of promises.

Accompanied by Mary, Ferdinand's family went to Joseph I and his wife, who were recuperating in the Primorsky Province, and Sophia and their three children met the former Austro-Hungarian emperor for the first time. Although Joseph I was still dissatisfied with Ferdinand's marriage, the two children were very much loved by Queen Elizabeth.

After all, after so many years, he is no longer the emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as an ordinary old man, why bother to worry about the things of the year, so in front of his wife and daughter, Joseph I handed over his two belongings to Sophia as a gift, as a meeting gift for this 2-year-old and 1-year-old junior.

Although the two children would not be recognized as descendants of the Habsburgs, Joseph I's gift represented his personal attitude, which made Ferdinand grateful, and the fact that Joseph I did not appear at Ferdinand's wedding is now dissipated.

Ferdinand's trip to Austria was very smooth. He returned to his hometown with his wife and children, and was well received by Joseph I. With a sense of relief and gratitude, Ferdinand returned to the Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom with his wife and children.

In Germany, a debate was taking place in a conference room of the Navy's General Staff, to which Jochen was invited. The meeting room was convened by the Naval Technical Committee of the Royal German Navy, but it was not Rear Admiral Pooper, the Ordnance Chief, who supported the meeting. It was not about the ships designed by Poper but about the new ship scheme designed by another German naval designer.

In this small conference room, an oval-shaped conference table was filled with the top brass of the German Navy and the best ship designers, technical engineers and weapons experts in Germany.

And this time they are going to discuss the scheme of a new armored cruiser designed by the ship designers of the Technical Committee of the German Navy at the request of the head of the Naval Technical Committee, Vice Admiral Tirpitz.

As the proposer of the design requirements, Tirpitz coughed slightly, and after everyone in the conference room focused on him, Tirpitz said loudly: "Everyone, the main content of today's discussion is the design plan for the successor ship of the Ron-class heavy cruiser submitted by the Naval Technical Committee, you can study and discuss it again." Give opinions and opinions so that we can build the most perfect work. ”

In the center of the conference table, a full-scale wooden model of the warship was placed, and in front of each participant was a sketch of the design and structure of the battleship, of course, a complete set of design drawings could not fit in a small conference room, and these designers from the Naval Technical Committee had already known this design, so they sat down one by one.

These texts provide an intuitive impression to the top brass of the Navy, so the officers of the Navy are whispering. There was an exchange of ideas, but in the end no new ideas were proposed.

But Jochen sits here. Naturally, Tirpitz was the person who cared most about his reaction, so Tirpitz saw that the people below did not speak, so he asked: "Your Highness, do you have any thoughts on this design?" ”

"Alfred, I remember that there was no plan to start construction of a new heavy cruiser next year, did it? The first ship of the Ron class has just been launched, and the other three have been under construction for less than half a year. And in the case of the start of construction of 4 battleships next year. The launch of a new heavy cruiser in such a hurry was somewhat overly rushed. Jochen said in a slightly questioning tone.

"Your Highness, you are right, but the new battleship design proposed earlier has given us a whole new path, so I think this design can also be applied to cruisers. In the current situation of the general large-scale armored cruisers of various countries, China's original advantages in this field are no longer obvious, so the new cruisers using new concepts will regain the technical advantages for our country. Tirpitz immediately replied respectfully.

At first glance, the wooden model in the middle of the table looks like a new type of battleship that Germany is preparing to build, with the same long bow tower and the same main gun layout, but with a larger aspect ratio.

As an improved version of the Bismarck-class heavy cruisers, the Ron class completely continued the design of the Bismarck-class in terms of basic design and layout, but due to the need for increased firepower, starting with the Ron class, the German Navy's heavy cruisers began to choose Skoda's 240 mm 45 times diameter (British standard 42 times diameter) naval guns as the main gun.

This kind of request was naturally made by Jochen at the beginning, not to mention the Bismarck class, the Ron class is in the year of World War I, and if you let her carry a 210mm naval gun, it will be difficult to play a big role at that time. Even if the Germans' technical superiority in shells allowed her to face the super armored cruisers that appeared later and still have the strength to fight, it would only be the result of injuring the other side and not dying.

Historically, the Ron fought the Russians' most powerful armored cruiser, the Rurik (II), in the Baltic Sea. Although the Russians were slightly inferior in technique and tactics, the Ron was able to repel the Rurik (II), but it was a bit overwhelming for the Rohn to deal with such an enemy.

The foreseeable absolute disadvantage in the number of cruisers required that German heavy cruisers could have the ability to make a final decision, so the 8-inch level of 210 mm naval guns was a bit insufficient, so Jochen set his sights on larger caliber things.

Of course, if you want to overwhelm an armored cruiser, the best thing is naturally a battlecruiser, but not to mention the sharp increase in the displacement of the battleship's main guns on the ship's body, even the power system can't speed up this big thing to the cruiser level, and the current German Navy is not the object that the cruiser in history can meet with a speed of 21 knots.

It was a mandatory rule that the speed of the new ship should not be less than 23 knots, and in this case, the German Navy put the target on the firepower of more than 9 inches.

In fact, at the beginning, the navy preferred to be equipped with 260 mm naval guns, firstly, this caliber was used by the battleships of the German Navy, and secondly, this caliber was also larger than the 10-inch main guns commonly used by second-class battleships and armored cruisers of other countries.

However, since all the energy of Krupp was on preparing 283-mm naval guns for the German Navy, there were no new products in the field of 260-mm, so the German Navy had no choice but to focus on the 240-mm naval guns of Skoda.

Since the 240 mm 40 times diameter naval gun is a popular product for German export artillery, the Skoda company, which has rich experience in design and manufacturing, is developing a more powerful 45 times diameter model.

Jochen was almost pleasantly surprised when he learned that Skoda was working on it, because the number of the thing was almost identical to the number of the two main guns used on the historical Austro-Hungarian quasi-dreadnought Radetzky-class. This 9-inch naval gun combined with the Austro-Hungarian hard cap armor-piercing shell, the power can be called madness in the 9-10 inch class naval guns.

Although the idea of high-speed heavy bombing is used, and the kinetic energy of the shell drops faster at long distances, it can completely crush the British, French, and Russian armored cruisers at the common engagement distance of armored cruisers.

However, considering that all the next priority would revolve around battleships, when the German Navy returned to building heavy cruisers, Jochen thought that the conditions for building battlecruisers should be basically met, so he did not pay attention to the new heavy cruiser design.

It's just that he didn't expect that after seeing the design of the new battleship, Tirpitz drew inferences and asked the Naval Technical Committee to imitate such a new design.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this design itself, with a speed of 23 knots, 8 240 mm 45 times the diameter naval guns, not to mention that it will have an absolute advantage over the armored cruisers of various countries, even against the British early battle cruisers.

You must know that in order to meet the speed requirements, the invincible class and the tireless class have made too many sacrifices in protection, the main armor belt is only 6 inches, and more importantly, there is no upper armor belt at all, and the 240 mm shells are enough to cause enough damage to the invincible, tireless and crispy battle cruisers.

Such performance is enough for a battleship of the armored cruiser class, and if it is ready to start construction next year, according to Tirpitz's intentions, this class of heavy cruisers is the corresponding to the historical Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, and in the face of this unrecognizable and far stronger design than the historical battleship of the same name, Jochen is not in favor of building her. (To be continued......) R1292