Time flew by, and it entered 1902 without any waves. It was a very important year for both Ferdinand and Bulgaria!

In March, Ferdinand's second son was born, with an Orthodox name - Boris, the name of the eldest son of the original owner in history, full name: Boris Clement Robert Maria Pius Stanislav Saxe-Coburg-Godaschi.

The reason for this name is mainly that his eldest son, Ferdinand Jr., chose Roman Catholicism in terms of religious beliefs, and in order to appease people's hearts, Ferdinand gave this Orthodox name to his second son!

The way chosen was very child's play, and in the presence of the major religious figures in Bulgaria, the major factions were on their own, and the little guy crawled to the side of the Roman Catholic Church, and it was natural that it was God's will to end the battle for faith.

It is estimated that the little guy is still very depressed, if it weren't for Ferdinand's quick snatching away, it is estimated that he would not mind going around in a circle and going to every religion to mix it up!

In fact, religion in Bulgaria is now a hundred schools of thought, and although everyone believes in Christianity, the factions within Christianity are also a mess.

In addition to the three main Christian factions of Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, there are also a bunch of small factions, and of course Bulgaria is also dominated by the three major factions!

Now there are about 9.86 million Bulgarian Orthodox Christians, accounting for about 73.6%, Catholics about 2.35 million, accounting for about 17.6%, Protestants about 1.1 million, accounting for about 8.2%, and the rest are other small factions.

However, the Orthodox Church was divided into several waves, of which the Bulgarian Orthodox Church held 31.5%, the Greek Orthodox Church 19.6%, the Serbian Orthodox Church 2.5%, the Albanian Orthodox Church 2.3%, the Russian Orthodox Church 22.7%, the Constantinople Orthodox Church 6.8%, and the Romanian Orthodox Church 4.2%......

Anyway, it's a mess of factions, a situation where a hundred schools of thought are contending, and these situations are also inseparable from Ferdinand's indulgence!

Under the deliberate guidance of the government, many young people who have embraced the new ideas believe in this faction today and convert to that faction tomorrow, and in them there is no longer any devotion to religion, and religion in Bulgaria has lost its coercive binding force on people!

Therefore, the number of believers counted by the major religious factions may be much larger than the actual number, and there is quite a situation in which a hundred schools of thought have returned to the stream.

According to Ferdinand's idea, it is best to study Buddhism and Taoism, so that the gods and goddesses of different religions can live under the same roof.

Oh, there's no need to go through the hassle, the big guys all believe in God! Just make it possible for the church to accept believers from different factions, worship together, and have weddings together!

At present, there are already individual churches, and this situation has appeared, often making the priests half angry!

In addition to a small plus, Bulgaria's first warship that could see people, the Constantinople, was successfully completed in May!

Ferdinand also personally participated in the launching ceremony, the Constantinople was a cruiser with a displacement: 9,450 tons, 13,500 hp, 121.84× 19.81×7.32 m, 20 knots, short speed 21.4-23.8 knots, 10,000 nautical miles / 10 knots, 234MM guns× 10×152MM guns, 16×3-pounder guns, 570 men.

This is an imitation of the British Blake class, and the designers have made some improvements, and there is not much difference in performance, but the tonnage has increased a little bit compared to the British!

Oh, don't be surprised, even if the shipyard is acquired and the technicians are recruited, the gap in the shipbuilding industry cannot be immediately bridged.

Even this warship is not advanced, it is a product of the British Empire more than ten years ago. But for the Bulgarian naval industry, this is also a cross-epochal development!

From 1898, when Bulgaria drew up its first naval development plan, Ferdinand insisted on self-reliance and followed the path of independent development of warships.

There was no way, Ferdinand was also frightened by the news on the Internet in later generations. It is said that the warships sold by the British are all cut versions, and all their performance will be greatly reduced!

And so on, the other powers are not good either! If you buy a fleet, and after the outbreak of war, you suddenly find that your ships are parallel goods, it will be miserable!

Rather than this, it is better to be self-reliant and take your time. If it doesn't work, it won't work, but your own goods have a bottom in your heart, and you know how many catties and taels you have, so you can formulate a suitable strategy according to your own strength!

So the only large shipyard in Bulgaria, the Diksv Shipyard, took on this great mission!

Independent research and development This is definitely Ferdinand putting gold on his face, in fact, the shipyard's task is to imitate warships.

From the very beginning of small surface warships such as torpedo boats, minelayers, and minesweepers, to larger destroyers and cruisers, the intelligence department also made a lot of drawings for this purpose.

However, it's basically all futures! The advanced shipbuilding technology is kept secret, and the warship drawings are not one or two, they are all made of tons, so you can't steal them if you want to!

In order to experiment, the navy also reluctantly gave up a few training ships, and directly asked engineers to disassemble and study, which took five years to see the results.

Oh, these are foolish nonsense, in fact, the technology was purchased from the British, and then the engineers who were poached from various countries successfully copied it after some hard work!

This series of battleships was in service with the British Royal Navy as early as 1888, and now the same performance of warships, it is said that the British can now compress the tonnage to less than 7,500 tons.

However, although the tonnage is a little larger, in this era, the performance has not lagged behind, and it can still meet the requirements of the Bulgarian Navy!

As for the cost, just look at the tonnage, it must be much higher than the British! How much the British spend, Ferdinand doesn't know, anyway, it starts at least 250,000 pounds to buy now!

And the cost of the Dixf shipyard is clear to him, totaling 5,868,400 leva. (about £234,000) This is a pure construction cost and does not include any profit. Ferdinand still cared about his own industry.

Moreover, the shipyard's offer to the Navy is only 6 million leva, which is equivalent to voluntary help, and of course the money for the purchase of technology has to be paid by the Navy itself!

But for Ferdinand, it was all worth it, he didn't expect to make money by selling warships, otherwise spending more than a year to build such a warship would be far less profitable than building merchant ships!

Of course, there is much more to the Dickif shipyard than meets in the past few years. More than a dozen warships have been built for the Bulgarian Navy, including two destroyers, and now the total tonnage of the Bulgarian Navy has finally exceeded 30,000 tons!

As for combat effectiveness, how's that? Ferdinand personally thinks that it is probably stronger than the two big men of the Ottomans and the Manchus, as for other countries, it is better not to compare!

Bulgaria's naval combat experience, too, fought smuggling ships, that's all. The only advantage is probably that the morale of the officers and soldiers is high, and they dare to fight hard!

……

On this day, Ferdinand is playing with little Ferdinand, this is the last childhood life of the little one, and he will start hellish aristocratic training from next year, and Ferdinand can't do anything about it!

At this time, the Minister of the Navy, Petrov, handed him a report: "Your Majesty, this is the future shipbuilding plan of our Navy, please take a look!" ”

Ferdinand took the report, looked at it carefully, and the more he looked at him, the tighter his brow became, and after reading it he glared at Petrov, and then said, "My Admiral, are you sure that today is not April Fool's Day?" ”

Petrov smiled awkwardly, then replied: "Your Majesty, there is nothing wrong! This is the plan for the development of the Navy of our Admiralty for the next five years, didn't you say before that the Bulgarian Navy will be expanded twentyfold in ten years!

Now our navy is just over 30,000 tons, and we will replenish it with another 90,000 tons in the next five years, which is just the goal you set. We are all planning according to your requirements!

If you think it's too small, we can continue to expand and we guarantee your satisfaction! ”

Ferdinand sneered and said, "Very good! As long as the Bulgarian shipyards can build battleships, I will approve it, and I will personally go to the government to get this amount of money for you! ”

What about the shipbuilding industry in Bulgaria, can Ferdinand still be unclear? You must know that there are only two in Bulgaria that are capable of building warships, in addition to his own Diksv shipyard, there is also a state-built shipyard that has just been established by the Bulgarian government.

As for the technical strength, it is obvious that the Dixf shipyard has to have an advantage, the newly established state-built shipyard has just been established, and qualified workers have not been trained, and it is difficult to succeed without two or three years of running-in!

Listening to Ferdinand's words, Petrov said excitedly: "So, Your Majesty, do you agree?" ”

Ferdinand smiled slightly and said, "Don't forget the prerequisites, these battleships must be built in Bulgaria!" ”

Ferdinand thought to himself, even if the Admiralty recruited another group of designers and engineers, it would not be possible to start building battleships immediately! After all, there are a lot of technologies involved in this that Bulgaria does not have!

Petrov smiled awkwardly and said: "It's not impossible for us to build it ourselves, but there is a small trouble that needs your approval, you see?" ”

Ferdinand sneered and said, "Okay, you say, as long as it's not too much, I'll agree!" ”

Suddenly, Petrov took out another stack of papers and handed them to Ferdinand. Then he said: "Your Majesty, we have been in contact with the Dutch Navy, and they also want to build a new generation of battleships, but the Kingdom of the Netherlands now lacks sufficient funds to build ships!"

We made a tentative proposal, the two countries jointly built, we provided R&D funds, they contributed technology, and the two sides worked together.

They still have colonies to protect, and they have a greater need to build ships than we do, and if we can provide funds, I believe the Dutch government will not oppose it! ”

Ferdinand was stunned for a moment, then reacted casually, yes, Bulgaria does not have technical strength, it does not mean that other small countries do not have it?

There is no conflict of interest between the two sides, you contribute technology and I will pay for it, and you can cooperate in research and development and share results!

In this way, Bulgaria can also participate in the upcoming big changes.

Not only the navy, but also other fields can also adopt multilateral peace? Although Bulgaria is now surrounded by enemies in the Balkans, there is really no knot with anyone on the European continent that cannot be untied!

Ferdinand said happily: "Well, this time your Admiralty has made a great contribution!" However, this shipbuilding plan has been put on hold for the time being, so let's wait for the first new battleship to come out and start again!

In this respect I will ask the Foreign Office to cooperate with you and try to reach an early agreement with the Dutch to build our own battleships!" ”

Rejoicing to rejoicing, Ferdinand still did not forget that the era of dreadnoughts was coming, and the current battleships were about to be eliminated.

In order to accumulate ship-building technology, it is still acceptable to build one or two ships, but if a bunch of them are built at one time, and the dreadnoughts will be eliminated as soon as they come out, then it will be too late for him to cry!