On June 5, 1926, it was a cloudy and sunny day in Berlin. In the renovated Wilhelmstrasse www.biquge.info hundreds of cavalrymen wearing pointed helmets and cuirasses marched in a neat and imposing procession towards Brandenburgplatz, along the way people happily waving top hats and handkerchiefs, and curious foreigners stretched their necks one by one. Behind this traditional Prussian cavalry was a splendid carriage, and Kaiser Wilhelm II waved to the people on the street in his favorite white military dress and glittering medals. The dignified Empress Augusta sat gracefully and calmly beside the emperor, and frequently smiled at the people of Germany......

Compared to the hustle and bustle of Berlin, Danzig Bay is much quieter at this time. As the regular liners from Stockholm to the port of Danzig passed, passengers dressed in all suits stopped on decks or stood in front of portholes, almost silent except for the roar of the engines, and all eyes were drawn to the ships that dotted Danzig Bay—the German capital ships with a full load displacement of nearly 50,000 tons or more, armed with 16-inch guns, and with a thick and towering bridge, seemed to be a masterpiece of its time. Against the backdrop of these monstrous steel behemoths, ordinary ships are as small as toys in the hands of children.

The elite forces of the German High Seas Fleet were assembled here in anticipation of Wilhelm II's review. On this day, it is the anniversary of the enthronement of the German emperor. From 1888 to the present day, this irascible and uninhibited monarch has spent thirty-eight years on the throne of Germany, from a high-spirited young man to an old man, who has put away the restlessness of the cannon, and has a temperament that is not angry and arrogant, and throughout the years of his course and achievements, he is undoubtedly the great winner in life - the royal power is secure, the family is prosperous, and the dreams of the past have become a reality. Under his rule, the empire, which had been the result of countless efforts by its predecessors, broke through geopolitical constraints and expanded its sphere of influence eastward to the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, southward to place most of Africa under the empire's territory, westward to the Atlantic coast, and northward to establish military bases in the Faroe Islands and even the Arctic Circle. In 1925, for the first time, the GDP of Germany and its occupied territories, colonies, and protectorates surpassed that of the United States, and together with the undoubted absolute military strength, the glorious era of the Second German Reich had arrived!

Time passes, time flies. In the blink of an eye, Natsuki has also grown from a handsome boy with a dashing demeanor to a charismatic king. When Germany's comprehensive national strength leaped to the top of the world, the per capita indicators of the Kingdom of Ireland quietly entered the forefront of Europe, and the scale of the three major industries of shipbuilding, aviation, and automobiles left Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands far behind, and the degree of development in education, culture, medical and other social fields was also amazing.

At the end of the morning's festivities, Wilhelm II boarded a special train from Berlin to Danzig with members of the royal family and military and political figures, and Natsuki was the only foreign monarch who could enter and leave the Kaiser's carriage freely. For most of the trip, he sat around a small table with Kaiser Wilhelm, Wilhelm Jr., and the head of the German Navy, Field Marshal Müller, discussing the controversial and tempting plan for a new generation of capital ships.

With the launch of five Deutschland-class battleships and two Tirpitz-class battlecruisers, the costly 1918 Navy Act was nearing completion. The German government was under heavy financial pressure for this, but the international prestige that the completion of these advanced warships brought to Germany was obvious. Because there is no international agreement similar to the "Washington Naval Treaty", the naval powers have pursued "tall and mighty" within the limits of technology, and the tonnage and artillery caliber of the main warships have repeatedly broken people's preconceived notions, and countless resources and manpower have been invested in the field of military shipbuilding, resulting in an almost astronomical industrial output value. The German Navy's high-profile posture forced competitors to pour money into the bottomless pit that could otherwise be used to develop the economy and stabilize society. On the list of Germany's competitors, Britain and Japan are undoubtedly the most unlucky in terms of economic and social conditions. In order to completely get out of the shadow of defeat and return to the top of the world, Britain did not hesitate to invest a lot of money to build a royal fleet with the highest strength in just ten years after the war, their Britannia-class battleships have not inferior to the tonnage and performance of the German class, and the Admiral-class battlecruisers that can rival the Tirpitz class actually gritted their teeth and built four, and the 30,000-ton Tejlis-class aircraft carriers also built four in a row, and the price of building these first-class ships is to empty the family foundation that Britain has accumulated for hundreds of years. To keep such a fleet afloat, the British government spends more than 20 percent of its total military expenditure each year, which is a staggering percentage in peacetime. Looking at the world, only 25% of the Japanese government can make the British talk about masturbation - the high cost of the Japanese Navy in this crazy naval competition era to keep the first group, its total naval tonnage has been close to 1.5 million tons, compared with ten years ago doubled, the displacement of more than 20,000 tons of capital ships reached 24, which means that the Japanese main fleet theoretically has the strength to challenge the navy of Britain, the United States, and Germany, but the irony is that Japan's strategic reserve situation is very bad, If imports are interrupted, the oil stocks will only be able to sustain this huge fleet for three months, and the shortage of raw materials, factory closures, inflation, and other problems are deeply plaguing Japan's current industrial economy; public opinion in Japan blames the economic recession on the plundering of resources and the dumping of commodities in Asia by European and American countries on the one hand, and on the other hand, they advocate "occupying development" against China.

Although the newly commissioned Deutsche and Tirpitz classes were already the pinnacle of shipbuilding technology in this era, in the face of the situation that Britain, the United States and Japan could suppress the German Navy by any two countries, Crown Prince Wilhelm and Field Marshal Müller both firmly believed that it was necessary for Germany to launch a new round of "shipbuilding offensive", and they strongly advocated the construction of more powerful capital warships - for which the German naval technical department proposed a plan with a standard displacement of 55,000 tons and equipped with a new 18-inch main gun. Although Wilhelm II was interested in this plan, he still wanted to make a decision after listening to Natsuki's opinion.

The Japanese Navy in the old time and space, as early as the early 30s, put forward the plan to build the Yamato, and the Yamato class with a standard displacement of 64,000 tons was finally built, and the actual performance basically reached the expected level, with the metallurgical technology of the 20s, it is not impossible to build a 55,000-ton super-large battleship, but Natsuki is very clear about the development trend of ship technology and naval warfare mode. If the 55,000-ton battleship project is forcibly launched, not only will there be an additional price, but the value that can be obtained in the end will not be satisfactory.

Due to Natsuki's opposition, Wilhelm II temporarily shelved the plan to cost nearly 100 million marks per ship, but Natsuki was not naïve enough to think that he had won, knowing that after Tirpitz officially retired, the opinions of Crown Prince Wilhelm and Field Marshal Müller basically influenced the direction of the development of the German Navy. Today's Crown Prince Wilhelm is like the young Wilhelm II, with an almost fanatical obsession with giant warships. When he went to Danzig to participate in the naval parade, he actually wore a naval dress for the first time, and with great interest boarded the naval flagship "Deutschland", and consulted Reinhardt-Scher, who had been promoted to field marshal, about naval tactics.

If the retro-style land parade in Berlin was a demonstration of the essence of Prussian military affairs, then the naval parade in Danzig Bay was a true demonstration of the current strength of the German army. The four Deutschland-class and two Tirpitz-class, together with the three Mackensen-class and four Bavarian-class that were in service in the early days, formed the strategic cornerstone of the German High Seas Fleet, and those dreadnoughts and battlecruisers that were less than 20 years old still maintained a relatively ideal state of service, plus three 30,000-ton and five 20,000-ton modern aircraft carriers, the total German capital ship group of 33 maintained an overwhelming advantage over the British Navy with 19 capital ships. On an equal footing with the US Navy, which has 35 capital ships.

The German Navy chose to hold a naval parade in Danzig Bay this time, the most direct reason is that it is close to the German capital, so that the German emperor can review his army, navy and air force on the day of the enthronement ceremony, and the deeper consideration lies in military diplomacy - although Britain's military strength has been restored at an astonishing speed, the help of the United States cannot replace the support of the two former allies, so Britain has been adopting a strategy of forbearance and retreat towards Germany since the end of the last major war. Moreover, about half of its main ships are usually deployed on the east coast of Canada, and the fleet left in the home sea is far from enough to threaten the security of Germany's coastal defense, so the Germans also try to avoid overprovoking Britain, but Germany's attitude towards the reborn Soviet Russia is much tougher. During the civil war in Soviet Russia, the Germans provided a lot of support to the White Russian army, and even intervened twice, but the vast territory of Russia has become a red world, both the rebels and the interveners have fallen into a difficult predicament on Russian soil, and the Germans have to turn to the "Moltke Line" to isolate the ideological opponents.

In this way, all kinds of contradictions and disputes between countries and camps run through this era of economic prosperity and cultural prosperity, creating a peculiar prosperous era. In the past ten years, the scale of the industrial economy and the per capita industrial output value of the whole of Europe have increased by a large margin, and many European cities have changed their modern appearance, while during the same period, although the industrial economy of the United States has maintained a steady growth rate, its share of world industry and the proportion of trade have declined, and correspondingly, the military strength of the United States has been greatly improved, and its ambition and willingness to expand and intervene in foreign countries have increased.

(End of chapter)