Compared with Tirpitz's dilemma, Jochen doesn't care at all, not to mention that these two ships can definitely be sold, even if they can't be sold, Jochen, who has a big business, is not inferior to the little mark of the navy, and Jochen cares more about the movements of the British Royal Navy.

"Are the British ready to build a naval base on the east coast of Scotland and form a new North Sea Fleet?" Jochen said playfully with the message from the German naval attaché in Britain.

"Yes, Your Highness." Koster replied cautiously, the smile on His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's face made him unable to guess Jochen's thoughts, whether it was a smile that he really didn't care about or an angry smile, Koster couldn't be sure.

"Don't be so reserved, Hans, the actions of the British are expected by me, and I have expected this day since the British made a fuss about our ship-building plans. The North Sea Fleet? The intentions are so obvious, and the British are not worried about our reaction? Jochen smiled and said.

Although Jochen didn't ask Koster directly, Koster still answered honestly: "Your Highness, it is obvious that the purpose of the British to form a new fleet is to target our ocean fleet, and the establishment of a large naval base in Rosys, facing the North Sea, is to facilitate operations in the North Sea. I think that by announcing this plan so publicly, the British clearly did not take our attitude into account. ”

"Hans, it's true that our country's current naval strength can't be taken into account by the British, but if you think about it from another angle, it's not that bad, is it? At the very least, it shows that we did make the British feel threatened, and that they had to adjust their deployment in order to deal with this threat, which shows that our naval construction has been effective. Jochen said.

If the British can feel like they are on their backs, and they have to face up to the strength of the Germans, then it means that the risk fleet has played a role. "The strong will be envied" as long as Germany wants to become stronger. This is inevitable.

"What you are saying, Your Highness, is that as long as we can become stronger, then the actions of the British will have little effect on us. On the contrary, they will have to face up to our existence and listen to our opinions. Kester responded, and he was naturally very clear about Jochen's theory of the "fleet of risks".

"So what do you think the British will do next?" Jochen asked, "Assemble a fleet." Building a base is just the beginning, and with the nature of those guys, it's not going to be that simple. ”

"Your Highness, if the British want to continue to maintain their absolute superiority in the sea power in Europe, then the current strength is not enough, the French and the Russians are actively promoting their shipbuilding programs, and the steady progress of our shipbuilding programs will also make the British feel pressure, and the British must strengthen their fleet strength in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to ensure their maritime strategy.

However, the British could not afford to continue to strengthen their power in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, so they should concentrate their other naval forces scattered around the world in Europe. The British superiority in the Western Atlantic had already passed into the hands of the Americans, so the naval forces of North America should have been the first to be cut.

And in the Far East. As a result of the alliance with the Japanese, the military pressure of the British in the region would be liberated, so the Far Eastern Fleet should also be among the drawers.

It is not easy to judge the movement of other regions, but the concentration of fleet forces from other regions will greatly strengthen the combat strength of the British Navy at home, and the pressure on us will become heavier. Kerst replied.

Koester's judgment was basically correct, and in 1904, after Fisher became the First Sea Lord, he immediately carried out a large-scale reorganization of the fleet, reorganizing the scattered fleets around the world, and concentrating the main forces on the mainland to form an absolute superiority over Germany.

Fisher did much more drastic than Kerst had thought. The Royal Navy reorganized its fleet in the Far East and reduced its military power in the Pacific Ocean. The military presence in North America and West Africa was reduced, and the main forces of the Mediterranean Fleet were also transferred on a large scale.

These ships were repatriated to the mainland, which greatly strengthened the Strait Fleet, and not only did it merge the three scattered reserve fleets into the Continental Fleet, but also formed a new fleet based in Gibraltar to support the Mediterranean Fleet or the Strait Fleet at any time.

Moreover, the signing of the Anglo-French Entente allowed the British to concentrate their forces on the situation in the North Sea, and the French Navy joining the British side broke the 3:2 balance of power between the British and German naval capital ships that the Germans had always hoped. As a result, the pressure on the German navy increased dramatically, and the size of the German navy's fleet to deal with the threat of the British also increased.

And now, although the existence of the German Mediterranean Fleet will make it impossible for the British to unscrupulously transfer the ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, it also leads to the fact that the strength of the German Navy is also divided into two, and it is necessary to take into account the defense of the Mediterranean direction. There are pros and cons. It is difficult to draw conclusions lightly.

"I don't think the only thing the British do, because with a fleet but no battle plan, no matter how many fleets there are, there is no use. There must have been enough plans in the archives of the Royal Navy against the French and Russians, and now I think I would have one more. "So the naval threat of the British to the empire will be more obvious, and the navy will need to confront the threat directly," Jochen said. ”

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, that the Navy will resolutely fulfill its mission of ensuring the security of the Empire's seas, and the battle plan we have formulated is precisely aimed at achieving this goal." Khor assures.

Jochen nodded: "Alfred will continue to strive to expand the scale of the navy to increase our strength, but before that, the navy must be prepared for all kinds of contingencies." ”

At present, the strength of the German navy is still very weak, so what the navy is now working out is not so much a battle plan against the British, but in fact a plan for how the German navy will conduct defensive operations in the face of the British attack. Although the General Staff of the Navy was formulating a defense plan at the same time as it was also formulating a plan for the active engagement of the British in accordance with the size of the fleet stipulated in the Navy Act, this defense plan was undoubtedly of higher priority.

Although World War II broke out in 1914, Jochen is not sure whether the British will go crazy in this time and space, after all, the British formulated the crazy "Copenhagen Plan" in 1904, trying to strangle the growing German Navy in infancy.

Royal Navy strategist Arnold? The "Copenhagen Plan" proposed by White was to carry out a "preemptive" strike on Germany from the Jutland direction to completely annihilate the German fleet. The so-called Copenhagen refers to the surprise attack on the Danish naval fleet anchored in Copenhagen in 1801 by Nelson under the command of the British fleet, which completely destroyed the most powerful fleet in Northern Europe at that time.

This plan was enthusiastically supported by the newly appointed First Sea Lord, Fisher, who also peddled the plan to Edward VII, and the madness of the Admiralty shocked Edward VII and resolutely stopped their rampage.

So Jochen knew that the hooligans on the other side of the Channel were capable of doing some crazy things, and it wasn't a bad thing to be prepared and prepared.

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, we are not just formulating a defensive battle plan, blindly defending is too passive, and now the strength of the Imperial Navy is insufficient, so we can only base ourselves on defense. However, with the implementation of the "Navy Law", our fleet strength will gradually increase, and we will have a choice in strategy. ”

The "Naval Law", new battleships, and a new gunnery concept, the strength of the German Navy will continue to increase in the future, which is also the basis for the development of the combat plan that Koster can take the initiative to engage the British Royal Navy.

"The Navy Command is taking the completion of the full implementation of the fleet size stipulated in the Navy Law as the standard, and at the same time formulating another set of battle plans, as long as we can complete the Navy shipbuilding plan smoothly, then we will at least have the ability to fight with the British on a relatively equal footing." Kester said with a solemn face.

After all, the thought of going head-to-head with the British Royal Navy, even if it was just a hypothesis, was a huge pressure on Koster, the chief of the naval staff. Therefore, it was a great challenge for Khster to come up with a plan that would allow him to engage the British on an equal footing.

But the pressure is a good thing, at least Jochen thinks. Historically, the British would kick the Russians out of the "two-power standard" in February 1904, and Germany became the new target. In the summer of the same year, the British began to make war plans against Germany, followed by the crazy "Copenhagen Plan".

Although this plan was not implemented, the British actually prepared for a war with the Germans for 10 years.

On the other hand, in Germany, even after the outbreak of World War I, the German Navy did not have a clear battle plan, and all the work of the Navy was to "build ships" and "expand the army", but there was no clear plan for how to use these warships.

Although the Schlieffen plan was problematic, all the preparations of the German Army revolved around it, so the results achieved in the early stages of the war were really good. However, the navy missed a good opportunity to act without action at the outbreak of war, and in addition to the emperor himself and the ship-protecting mentality within the navy, the lack of a perfect battle plan that could be carried out with all its might was also a huge reason.

Now the German Naval General Staff began to formulate battle plans earlier than the British under Jochen's intervention, but whether they could be as detailed and precise as Schlieffen's plan was also worried about Jochen, so he was happy to see the pressure on the Navy now. (To be continued......) R1292