While the Germans were under pressure to prepare for the construction of a naval base in Scotland, the British were not having a good time.

"The Navy wants to buy those two Freedom-class second-class battleships?" Early in the morning, Sir Beech, the chancellor of the exchequer of the United Kingdom, was taken aback by the news brought by Prime Minister Balfour.

"Your Excellency, are you kidding me? The council had previously agreed to a special naval grant of £1.2 million a year for the navy, and now it is going to buy two second-class battleships? The Russians are now offering Armstrong £3.74 million to buy two ships, even if Armstrong sells it to the Navy at cost price, it means that the imperial treasury will have to spend at least £2.2 million more! Sir Beach said with some madness.

At the beginning, he resolutely disagreed with the Royal Navy's special funding of 3 million, and after careful analysis and explanation, it was easy to let the parliamentarians know that the empire's finances were facing great difficulties, and then cut the special funding to 1.2 million pounds.

Now that at least £2.2 million has to be spent, so that the money actually spent on the Navy has increased rather than decreased? Is the Navy trying to force the empire to bankrupt?

When Balfour saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer angry, he immediately said with a smiling face: "Don't be angry, listen to me, we have no choice but to do this." Now that we have an alliance with the Japanese, and relations between Japan and Russia in the Far East are becoming more and more tense, what will the Japanese think when we sell battleships to the Russians at this time? This would undermine the alliance between the two countries. ”

"Then it's better to sell it to the Japanese, and the Japanese also offered to buy two ships for 3.2 million pounds? In this way, the strength of the Japanese was increased, and it was also conducive to strengthening the relationship between the two countries. Sir Beechcraft looked "This because of this?" He said.

Can this kind of thing be tangled? We don't have only one buyer now, the Japanese bid a little lower, the first point is good, and Armstrong will not lose money, just make a little less. But anyway. The money cannot come out of the Imperial treasury.

As the Reich Prime Minister, Balfour considered more about the British and the Japanese in an alliance. That was to use the Japanese as gunmen, so that they could avoid the situation of their own death. But if two battleships were sold to Japan. That would lead to a further deterioration in relations between Britain and Russia. At that time, if the Russians start to go crazy, it is difficult to say whether Britain will be able to stay out of the matter.

"The Russians have also accelerated their development after achieving the gold standard, and Russia, with a population almost three times that of ours, is now on the fast track to rising in power, and the Russians are rapidly becoming stronger. We don't want to see this kind of power, but we don't want to go head-to-head with it, so we can't clash head-on with the Russians, so we have to have a bottom line for our support for the Japanese. It is difficult to predict what the consequences would be of selling two cutting-edge battleships to the Japanese. Belfour explained.

The British really overestimated the Russians, who had a literacy rate of only 30% among their huge population. It's not as good as England in the 18th century. Even in 1914, 100% of the Russians' oil extraction, 90% of the mining industry, 50% of the chemical industry, 40% of the metallurgical industry, and 28% of the textile industry belonged to foreign capital.

From 1900 to 1914, the average agricultural output increased by 2 percent, the population grew by 1.5 percent, and the economic growth was only a pitiful 1 percent, compared with 8 percent in Germany during the same period. Agricultural products accounted for 63% of Russia's exports, and timber accounted for 11%, and the entire Tsarist government was administratively inefficient, rotten and brutal.

To regard Germany as a better opponent than Russia can only be said to be blind to the eyes of the British.

However, Balfour's remarks had some effect, and Beach agreed that the British could not further deteriorate relations with the Russians.

But that's the case. The problem of these two ships will be difficult to deal with, Russia and Japan cannot sell them, so the British really have no choice but not to take these two warships. After all, no matter which country applies to the UK to buy it, it is likely that it is only a contemporary purchase.

In fact, it is true that even the Qing Dynasty in history has proposed to the British to buy two ships, which obviously cannot be the Qing Dynasty itself wants to buy, so the British refused without even thinking about it.

In this way, the Royal Navy can really only take over these two warships, which is another big expense.

It's okay to agree with the view that your boat can't be sold, but don't want me to take out a penny, Sir Beechcraft said, "It's a matter of politics whether the boat can't be sold." I don't care, but I'm not going to agree to an additional grant. To buy ships, let the Royal Navy find a way out of its own funds! Or let the Navy go to the parliament itself. If the council agrees, I will allocate the funds. ”

Beach was still haunted by the Earl of Selborn's tactics in Parliament to coerce Parliament into approving appropriations by exaggerating the threat of the German Navy, which had been given funds to build warships, while his chancellor of the exchequer had to deal with a bright red deficit.

If you have the ability, you can go to the council again to come like this, and see if the council still eats this set.

With such a non-negotiable attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Balfour knew that it was completely useless, and he would go to Parliament again? When you think about it, you know that it can't be successful.

Balfour was pushed back, and then Sir Beech's meaning was conveyed to the Earl of Sellborne, and this time the ball was kicked back to the Royal Navy, and the ship had to be bought, but the money would not be given, and you had to figure it out for yourselves.

As a result, the Royal Navy can only embezzle other funds to fill the hole, but it must first get the ship in hand, and how to fill the hole will be discussed later.

With this in mind, the Royal Navy and Armstrong began negotiations, and finally acquired the two ships for a total price of 2.43 million pounds, and renamed them the Agile class.

By the standards of this time, these two battleships are still well-deserved and can be called cutting-edge and powerful, although the caliber of the main gun is slightly smaller, but the secondary gun firepower is powerful, even against the main force of the Japanese Navy, the Shikishima-class first-class battleship, it is not lagging behind. The Royal Navy did not lose too much in this transaction.

Of course, with the misappropriation of funds elsewhere, the future of the Royal Navy is not very good. ，

In this way, the Russians and the Japanese are dead-hearted. The Russians had planned to die down like this, after all, for the Russian Empire, two more battleships were just icing on the cake, and it was not difficult to crush the yellow-skinned dwarf in the Far East with their current strength, so if they couldn't buy it, they couldn't buy it.

But for the Japanese, the situation is very different, and any new warship is a send-off. The Japanese, eager to expand their strength, naturally did not miss any opportunity to strengthen themselves, and two armored cruisers built for the Argentines in the German shipyard, just across the strait, were immediately targeted.

What's more, the two armored cruisers also use 240 mm naval guns, and although the tonnage is slightly smaller than that of their own Asama and Yakumo-class, the basic design is based on a unified prototype, so it is also very convenient to quickly master and integrate into the fleet.

The funds that were originally going to come over to buy battleships were now going to be used to buy armored cruisers, and the Japanese naturally had plenty of money in their hands.

However, if the Japanese want to buy German man-made armored cruisers, the Russians naturally cannot sit idly by, even if the strength of the three German-made armored cruisers in their hands far exceeds these two, they are not rare, but they cannot just let the two ships fall into the hands of their enemies.

Therefore, the Russians also fought-for-tat with the Japanese, and the Russians' pockets were more bulging than the Japanese, so they naturally did not worry about the Japanese raising prices.

The pressed goods suddenly turned into fragrant buns, and Japan and Russia refused to give in to each other, and the two sides were deadlocked.

Tirpitz's side finally didn't have to worry about what to do with these two warships, and the German Navy didn't have to spend this unjust money to buy them. However, like the British, Jochen, as the owner of the shipyard, began to have to think about political factors and had a headache about who to sell to.

"If it's all from a commercial point of view, whoever bids the highest will sell to whomever you want, and that's not something you need to think too much about. Moreover, no matter who purchased these two warships, they were also deployed in the Far East after that, and they have no direct connection with our country. But it is clear that we cannot make such a simple decision. Jochen said.

"Yes, Your Highness, this does require careful consideration." Marshal replied.

"So what do you think? Tell me what you think, Adolf. Jochen asked the Imperial Prime Minister to see if he could come up with an idea.

"Your Highness, Japan is located in the Far East, and there is a long way to go from China, although China has the interests of the Qing Kingdom and the Philippines in the Far East, but with the capabilities of the Japanese Navy, I am afraid that it will not be able to threaten the Philippines, and if Japan wants to get involved in Jiaozhou Bay, it will have to consider the three reactions of China, the Qing Kingdom and Russia, so it is also unlikely.

In addition, Japan and Britain have formed an alliance, and the relationship between Japan and the United Kingdom has deteriorated, and it is difficult to continue the current relationship between Japan and Japan.

Russia is a neighbor of our country, and the sale of warships to Japan in Japan will damage the relations between Japan and Russia, and will bring uncertainties to our country's western front. And I think that if a war breaks out between Russia and Japan, the result will inevitably be a victory for the Russians.

So there is no need to worry about Japan's reaction. Machar analyzed.

Machar's analysis is basically the view of the whole of Europe, although the Japanese are an emerging Asian power, but they are still a little inadequate in front of the old European empire, Tsarist Russia.

Both the navy and the army and Tsarist Russia had absolute superiority, so it was obviously not wise to offend the Russians in order to maintain relations with Japan, especially when the relations between Japan and Germany did not seem to last long because of the British. (To be continued) R655