"To be honest, this purchase condition is a bit harsh! This is a bit demanding, which not only occupies a lot of our funds, but also exposes us to some risks! I can't make a decision. Give me some time. I need advice! Baron Leo said after hearing Parikin's suggestion.

Two days later, an encrypted telegram from Germany reached Ruprecht, who was lost in thought in the face of the Germans' conditions. He could sense that there was something wrong with that!

The Russians finally decided on the payment method, and if the normal transaction process was followed, the buyer would have made a total of 4 payments, each time paying 25% of the payment. When the first payment is made after the construction of the battleship, the second payment is made before the outfitting of the battleship, the third payment is made during the outfitting process, and finally when the battleship is completed, the buyer will pay the balance in one lump sum! It is impossible for the manufacturer to pay the Russians in advance!

But this time the Russians proposed that the first payment would be made when the ship was started, and 30% of the total price would be paid. When the ship is launched and outfitted, pay the other 30%. In the end, 40% is paid when the ship is delivered.

The baron calculated an account for His Royal Highness in the telegram, the hull part of a battleship accounted for about a quarter to a third of the total price, and the Russians did have enough money to pay for the construction of the hull, but when the Russians paid for the second time, they only said that after launching and outfitting, there was no fixed specific time, even if the baron asked the Russians to set a time, it was estimated that the progress of the battleship was half completed when the second batch of prices was in place! This means that before that, Ruprecht needed to pay about 20% of the shipbuilding money in advance!

That's not a decimal number! The total price of the two warships is more than 2 million pounds, and 20% of the shipbuilding cost is 400,000 pounds! Although the time is only a few months, the interest on the funds occupied in these months is a large number! After doing the math, this is not much different from the price of 950,000 for the Russians. From this aspect alone, it is economically unacceptable!

"Tell them about our concerns." His Royal Highness the Prince immediately ordered. But in addition to the economic aspect, the prince also considered another possibility, that is, what if the Russians did not pay in the end? 50% of the battleships have already been built, and the Russians gave only 30% of the money! Will you dismantle the half-built battleship or not? If you don't want the battleship to be half-pulled and half-built in the past, then in the case of no next home, you can just dismantle it, and the shipyard will pay at most one shipbreaking fee, but this is different! If this happens, Bavaria will lose 400,000 pounds!

It's not like this kind of thing in history! At that time, the agile and the two Japanese Garibaldi were the original customers who didn't want it, and then found the next house and finally didn't smash it in their own hands, but this time, the Russians put forward a bit of a high demand, if it was smashed in their own hands, Ruprecht tinkered with so many things, and half a year's profit would be gone! What do the Russians want to do? What else do they have in mind?

The Russians want to threaten themselves with unsubscribing when the project is halfway through? This is indeed possible. The two battleships were half-pulled and half-built, and the shipyard took hundreds of thousands of pounds, do you say stop or don't stop? If you stop, then it is equivalent to an ironclad loss of 400,000 pounds, if you don't stop, don't say how much money you have to advance, who will you sell it to after you make it? That's a nerve-wracking question.

This is a 12,000 to 13,000-ton warship, not a Munich-type armored cruiser, ordinary countries simply can't afford it, whether it is Argentina or Chile in South America, or the Qing State that plans to rebuild its navy, it is unlikely to buy two such large warships, not that the Russian-class armored cruiser is bad, but because it is too strong and expensive, for these countries, the symbolic meaning is greater than the actual combat significance.

Who will buy it in the future? It is possible to buy it only for countries that are planning to go to war. For example, the United States and Spain in the Spanish-American War, but the Americans absolutely support domestic products, and people have money, but they may not spend a lot of money to buy these two warships when they have absolute superiority. And Spain? A purchase is also unlikely, £2 million is too much of a burden for this sunset empire. The war lasted for a total of 100 days, and even if Spain planned to buy it, it is estimated that the two sides had not yet reached an agreement when the war ended.

Then the last possible potential customers are Japan and Russia, but if the ship had been built in 1895, it would definitely have been in service in 1898, at least six years before the Russo-Japanese War. You can't smash this ship in your own hands for 6 years, right? Isn't that a loss? As for whether Japan is likely to buy it? Historically, this is possible.

At that time, in order to show that it was not hostile to Germany, Japan specially ordered a 10,000-ton cruiser in Germany, so since Japan learned that the best German cruiser was the Russian class instead of the Munich class, it was possible to dispose of one of the warships to Japan. But to give both ships to Japan, this probability is a little lower, after all, people are just showing goodwill, the father is still the UK, and the son depends on the attitude of the father.

Although there are many potential customers, and although the future world is not peaceful, it is not easy to sell something as tall as this. If the Russians don't buy it, then Japan will have at most one of them, and the timing is still to be determined. After all, in Ruprecht's memory, after the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan was the first to storm BB.

"Then since it is difficult to export large warships, let's wait until I return to China." Ruprecht thought about it and wrote back to Vittorio, anyway, now there is no shortage of orders from the shipyard, and the second wave of orders from Chile and Argentina has come, one for one country! And according to internal information, there are two more ships, and the shipyard is constantly alive, so there is no hurry, let's see what the attitude of the Russians is!

"In 1898." Ruprecht kept calculating the time, the time for the Qing to rebuild the fleet in history should be at this time, and the Qing country, which felt the powerful Mainz-class armored cruiser, was very likely to order these two warships, the key was the price, but if the Qing country could pay a little less, then the money should be abundant. And if the German Navy sells two more obsolete Munich-class armored cruisers at a reduced price, then it is highly likely that two more advanced armored cruisers will be built!

And the Russian class obviously meets the requirements of the German Navy, with greater tonnage, stronger firepower and protection, and greater endurance! If two Munich-class armored cruisers can be taken out, and the Russians don't want it, then the German Navy also has a great chance of eating this order!

Publicly, these two warships were indeed more in line with the needs of the German Navy. Privately, his relationship with the German crown prince is not bad, and Wilhelm II is very likely to help with the things that are convenient. And judging by the current schedule, the German Navy should be replenishing battleships in the next 2 years, and will not start construction of new armored cruisers. Therefore, Ruprecht thinks that as long as he is not particularly unlucky, then these two ships will not fall into his hands!

Of course, Ruprecht could have refused, but the result of the refusal was that the Russians might continue to buy warships from France, as they had historically done, which was difficult for Ruprecht, who was short of money, to accept. So he was going to take a risk, and Ruprecht thought about it, first go back and talk to Crown Prince Wilhelm, prepare a little back, and then think about how to answer the Russians.

Thanks to the book friends of the First Tank Guards Brigade, ZR Zhao Rui, hi112, ZSUZM and other book friends for their tips~~~.

This chapter is published on a regular basis, and if I looked at the subscription increase sideways, it was not even half of the previous day. And there is still a time when it falls, it should be, maybe, probably, almost not surpass Tuesday's record. So let's just add two chapters first. Everyone in the author group said that the growth of wireless terminal recommendations was really fast, but it was unstable, and I hope this thing doesn't happen to the author——!