While the British agents and spies deployed in Egypt were mobilizing personnel and preparing weapons to support the Libyan tribal forces according to London's instructions, Contini was inspecting the "floating airfield at sea" on the USS Union, first, to learn about the training of carrier-based aircraft pilots, and second, to continue in-depth exchanges with the designers on the concrete ideas for the construction of aircraft carriers.

During this time, in order to complete the design drawings of the Ida special cruise ship as soon as possible, the designers of the large and small joint shipyards, including the ship designers recruited by Contini from Germany, were busy on the warship, and they had to explore Italy's own aircraft carrier design based on the use of the verification warship, existing problems and improvement directions, which obviously required communication.

Although Contini had already determined the main technical specifications and rough sketches of the Ida after the last debate, it was easy to determine these, but it was much more difficult and complicated to actually design an aircraft carrier, and it was not easy to consider the detailed drawings, and it was also necessary to answer some seemingly meaningless "questions" from the designers: for example, why was the island placed on the right? Isn't it okay to put it on the left?

This question is actually difficult to answer, purely from the logic and theory of shipbuilding, it is okay to put the right and left, but the pilot has a characteristic, when encountering a problem, he instinctively chooses to the left bias, as for why there is such a tendency, it can only be explained subconsciously, so Contini humorously replied: "Do you drive to the left or the right when you are in danger?" ”

However, he couldn't answer the second question: Italy and Germany drive on the right, the driver's seat is on the left, and it seems natural to dodge to the left, and the question is that British cars drive on the left, and the driver's seat is on the right, why do they still dodge to the left?

These problems can only be explained by forcibly using the preferences of the president. This also meant that it was necessary to select a few young engineers with a nimble mind and quick reaction to follow Contini and listen to His Excellency the President's ideas on the design at any time, which they then translated into technical terms and passed on to the designers – a task that the young Italian lads usually did well, better than their German counterparts.

In fact, this is a rather stupid approach, and the best way is for the Italian Navy to send out a tender to invite British and American shipyards to provide Italy with the construction of aircraft carriers, and by the way, draw inspiration from the blueprints submitted by them, and if it is possible, see the current aircraft carriers and construction of Britain and the United States.

However, Contini knew that this was impossible, firstly, if the Italian Navy entered the aircraft carrier field in a high-profile manner, it would trigger a confrontation in the Mediterranean - the French would definitely follow suit, and secondly, with the British and American personalities of not seeing rabbits and not scattering eagles, they would inevitably conduct various tests on the aircraft carriers ordered by Italy - the experience was taken by Britain and the United States, and Italy could only pay for it; Thirdly, if this is the case, the thinking of Italian designers will be guided by Britain and the United States, which is very unfavorable for Italy.

The same aircraft carrier, Italy's aircraft carrier requirements are obviously different from those of Britain and the United States:

Taking the range as an example, the sea area that Italy needs to cover is not large, which is the bathtub of the Mediterranean, although Contini also emphasizes the ability of aircraft carriers to be used in the Atlantic, but in the final analysis, it is not necessary to engage in 9000-12000 km endurance aircraft carriers like Britain and the United States at every turn, and the indicators he gave the Ida only need to meet 6500 nautical miles / 18 knots of endurance.

Taking cost as an example, Italy can accept the design of a single ship, because Italy's shipbuilding capacity is limited, it is impossible to pile dumplings out during the war, and can only rely on pre-war accumulation, and a higher unit price does not hinder construction - it can't build much anyway, and the small number of construction will in turn push up the construction cost;

Taking survivability as an example, Italy is not able to replenish a large number of war losses in wartime, so every warship is very precious, Contini is very emphasized on the survival, self-defense and protection capabilities of warships, not only the initial design is 30,000 tons and armed strengthened large, heavy armored aircraft carriers, but also cut off part of the range, the excess weight requirements are all added to the protection, the kind of thin-skinned, fragile and easy to build aircraft carriers is not the development direction of Italy.

Although Italy does not build much, Contini believes that it is still necessary to build a few more before the war, and the only advantage that Italy has over Britain and the United States is that it can not be limited by defense spending, and it is a big deal that he pays for a few of them, so he must strengthen the shipbuilding capacity of domestic shipyards - after all, shipbuilding is a gradual and impossible thing to achieve overnight.

Out of the idea of strengthening the strength of the small joint shipyard, Contini on the one hand tried every possible way to establish a good relationship with the large joint shipyard and prepared to take the other party at an appropriate time, and on the other hand, he waved the cheque book and turned the old German shipyard that had fallen into trouble in recent years, Volkeng Shipyard, into the German branch of the United Shipyard, which was regarded as the first step for the United Group to go abroad for expansion and mergers.

Volkeng Shipyard has built many famous warships in history, and is also the main ship builder of China's Beiyang Naval Division, especially the construction of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, two giant ships at that time, but it is undeniable that the infrastructure of the plant is indeed a little outdated, and it has become powerless in the face of the trend of increasing ship tonnage, coupled with the relatively remote location of Szczecin in the direction of the Baltic Sea, it is difficult to attract outstanding talents in the past, and after entering the 1910s, the current situation of rapid development of dreadnought technology can only be dry. Although a new branch was also set up in Hamburg, it was obvious that it would not be able to do so, and in the end only small and medium-sized ships such as destroyers, light cruisers, and submarines could be built, and the large capital ships of the German Navy were built in Germania and other shipyards.

Although there is no shortage of successful products, but with the end of the First World War, the German maritime power into a vacuum, Volken shipyard is getting worse and worse, hard to survive, after the Ruhr crisis, this old shipyard fell into a struggling situation, was originally going to be sold to other companies in Germany, Germania shipyard, Hamburg shipyard have expressed interest, but how can they have Contini to pay generously? What's more, Contini said that not only did the shipyard take all of them, but also said that none of the experienced and skilled employees would have to be dismissed, and all of them would be retained and a group of companies would be selected to go to Italian companies - and the wages would be relatively high.

The other two shipyards themselves are overstaffed, how could they dare to promise such a thing? So two months ago, Volkeng Shipyard officially became a part of the United Group, which is a subsidiary of United Shipbuilding.

Continy is not only interested in the shipyard's personnel and technical accumulation, but more importantly, he is interested in the submarine design and construction capabilities of the Volkeng shipyard, which he is replicating in the joint shipyard, and he may promise to invest in expanding the slipway and dock of the Volkeng shipyard, and he will still prepare to build large ships in the future.

In order to maintain friendly relations with the German business community, out of apologies for his behavior of snatching love, His Excellency the President did not bother to mediate through political and diplomatic means, but very singlely used the golden dollar stick, and threw out two oil tanker orders in one go: suitable for use in the Mediterranean region, it can achieve a carrying capacity of 20,000 tons, the maximum speed is not less than 16 knots, and the cruising range is not less than 8,000 nautical miles at an economic speed of 10 knots. Whose ship has a better comprehensive cost performance, the follow-up will be built in batches using whose design (design scheme is free), and this order will be two families first.

The 20,000-ton oil tanker is still a new thing for Germany, and the originally noisy Germanic shipyard and Hamburg shipyard immediately frantically threw themselves into the discussion and design, they are not stupid, and will calculate how big the next batch construction business will be: Italy's oil in North Africa will be calculated in the order of 10 million tons, assuming 10 million tons / year of transportation, a tanker to complete the 1,500 nautical miles from Benghazi to Genoa, including loading, sailing, unloading, and returning, it takes 16 days at the earliest, and it is extremely efficient to carry out 20 transportation tasks a year. After a simple calculation, in order to meet the task of transporting 10 million tons of oil, at least 25 such ships are needed - a large number. That's enough to fill the existing slipways of two companies, and who says that North Africa can only produce 10 million tons a year, in case it rises to 20 million tons over time?

Several shipyards in Italy have also received similar orders: several key shipyards have each received a 20,000-ton design and construction order. There are also British, American and even French shipyards to take the initiative to do business, but Contini politely declined: what are you kidding, everyone only sees the oil tankers of the United Group - this is of course also very important, but the president wants to escort the aircraft carrier in the future and transform the aircraft carrier, and the oil tanker said that there is only a layer of window paper between the oil tanker and the simple aircraft carrier, how can it stimulate Britain, France and the United States? He sends orders to the country in the hope of improving their design and construction capabilities, and whether they make money or not is not considered at all - this is the true face of the national policy group.

These jubilant shipyard owners have no idea how big the appetite of His Excellency the President really is: what 25, 30! Contini thinks 120!

To be precise, he wanted to hoard 120 20,000-ton oil tankers before the war, on the one hand, a coalition group with this scale and volume could effectively monopolize the shipping industry in the Mediterranean, and second, in his mind, the total supply of crude oil needed by the whole of Western Europe in the future should be more than 30 million tons. With the shipbuilding capabilities of Italy and Germany, it was more difficult to replenish them during the war, and a batch had to be stockpiled before the war.

Hoarding warships is impossible, hoarding large tankers that can be easily converted into aircraft carriers will not be noticeable, and there is no policy or political risk at the moment: everyone knows that the United Group will produce a lot of oil in the future, and this is not a ready-made transportation demand? A 20,000-ton tanker is more economical than a 5,000 or 7,000-ton small tanker, right?