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In the cold winter of London, the weather is cold and damp, and at the beginning of the 20th century, the smog was very serious, and it was not uncommon to go out without seeing anyone. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoOn such a day, Natsuki stayed in a salon at Buckingham Palace, sitting around a table amicably with his wartime opponents, talking loudly about weapons that could be used against each other in the next war. At first glance, this scene may seem incredible, but throughout history, similar things are not unusual.

In Natsuki's eyes, Lord Fisher, the patriarch of the British Royal Navy, is a remarkable figure, because he not only saw the development trend of capital ships, but also led this change with extraordinary courage, so that the British Navy achieved a sublimation from quantitative change to qualitative change at the turn of the century. Before the outbreak of the Great War, except for Germany, a formidable adversary, the British Navy could ignore the naval fleets of any great power, and the British Grand Fleet, which proudly rushed to the waters of Jutland, was the greatest creation of the industrial age.

It is a pity that in the waters of Jutland, the sword was defeated by the strong shield, and the gorgeous was lost to pragmatism, and the technical details such as the shell fuse, damage control and some subjective factors determined the victory or defeat of the naval battle. After the end of the war, when people put aside their utilitarian intentions and studied the performance of the British and German navies in the war from an objective point of view, they found that the British capital ships were not as vulnerable as initially thought. In terms of individual combat power, Britain's super-dreadnoughts are stronger than any German dreadnought, and as long as they can adopt the tactical strategy of exploiting their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses, British battlecruisers still have a lot to do...... In other words, the failure of naval battles was not the sole responsibility of the ship's designers, who built new fleets with first-class performance based on the traditional tactics and tactics of their own navy, but the users did not fully understand their advantages and disadvantages and use them properly.

By the end of 1918, Lord Fisher was in his twilight years, but he was still quick thinking and accurate. During the conversation, he expressed his satisfaction with the Allied standard aircraft carrier introduced by Natsuki himself, and even bluntly praised it in front of his colleagues, saying that this was a new warship of epoch-making significance, a core force in naval warfare on a par with dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, and the potential to dominate the sea after more than a decade -- all of these judgments coincided with the historical trend. The Lord also suggested that the transfer of standard aircraft carriers should include carrier-based aircraft and aviation weapons technology, but the actual rulers of the British Navy, the British Admiralty Balfort and the First Sea Lord, Baron Weems, were somewhat oblivious to Lord Fisher's valuable advice of gold, and they may not have believed from the outset that Ireland would sell a standard aircraft carrier with strategic secrets to Britain against the wishes of the German ruling class. You must know that the German Navy regards aircraft carriers as an effective extension of the main fleet's field of vision and firepower, and they will appear in every large-scale exercise, and at present, except for the "Rupresit" converted from the "Tiger" battle cruiser, the other aircraft carriers in active service of the German Navy have been embarrassed, and their positions will sooner or later be replaced by the newly built standard aircraft carriers and subsequent improved models, so they must be regarded as the core technology by the Germans. Since the birth of the dreadnought, only two of the battleships and battlecruisers built by Germany have been transferred to foreign countries, one is the battle cruiser "Von de Tann" transferred to Ireland through Ottoman Turkey, and the other is the super dreadnought "Mohammed" built specifically for Ottoman Turkey.

Balfour and Baron Weems were not very active, but Sir Dynecott, the director of the shipbuilding bureau, was very active, but his role here was that of a shrewd and cunning spy who tried to get to the bottom of the design of a standard aircraft carrier, or induced a more detailed explanation by questioning, and after more than three hours of conversation, he received many positive or no answers from the King of Ireland, although he found nothing in terms of technical details. However, it is still helpful for the British Navy to further understand the condition of standard aircraft carriers.

It can be seen that when he was about to leave, Sir Dyne Cott was a little unsatisfied and a little frustrated, Britain also has first-class mechanical technology, why can't it build qualified aircraft carriers?

In fact, the answer is very simple, in the absence of plug-ins, the construction of new ships is the same as leveling and fighting monsters, it must be developed gradually and reasonably, and even if most of the capabilities rush up, some overlooked keys may still lead to total failure.

The German side has not yet fed back information, and the British are not bent on purchasing, Natsuki thought that things would have to delay for some time to see, but he did not expect that the day before he and Charlotte left the UK, the proposals of the Anglo-Irish economic cooperation agreement have been negotiated, and only the heads of state of both sides signed the document, at this time, King George V proposed to Natsuki in front of Natsuki that the British Navy would purchase a standard aircraft carrier from Ireland, and he hoped that Natsuki could carefully consider the deal from the position of the king of a country. Make informed decisions for long-term cooperation and mutual development between the UK and Ireland.

Coincidentally, on the same day, an envoy sent by the Kaiser arrived in London with his own letter. Wilhelm II's attitude was not as wise and generous as Natsuki expected, but regretted that Ireland was about to sign an economic cooperation agreement with Britain, because in his opinion and his economic advisers, Ireland did not need to open up the British market to continue to maintain the good momentum of economic and trade development, as long as Ireland canceled economic cooperation with Britain, Germany would give Ireland the same economic and trade preferences, and give priority to Irish military enterprises in the next year's arms procurement projects.

As for Britain's request for a standard aircraft carrier, listing a bunch of reasons such as strategic height, technical level, emotional factors, etc., Wilhelm II's opinion is very clear: no way!

What Natsuki didn't expect was that the person entrusted by the Kaiser to serve as a special envoy this time was actually his bare-ass playmate, His Royal Highness Prince Christian of Oldenburg. He was not yet a senior admiral in the Light Fleet, and he had few far-sighted views on the overall development of the German Navy, but from the perspective of a German admiral, he was surprised by Britain's intention to order standard aircraft carriers from Ireland, and felt that this must be a high-level means for the British to obtain the technical intelligence of the Allies, and it seemed that Ireland should not resell the technical secrets that cost the lives of thousands of people to the British for the sake of immediate gain. Christian's idea is not unreasonable, after all, Britain is rich, most of the ships were sent to the bottom of the sea during the war, and then defeated and ceded the land, but did not collapse like France and Russia, after hooking up with the United States, successfully bypassed the restrictions of the London Armistice Treaty, and in a little time, a new main fleet will appear in front of the world, and Britain's industry, economy, trade, and finance have suffered far less severe than the outside world expected, with the joint efforts of all levels of Britain, Britain's recovery momentum over the past two years has been so strong that it has overshadowed the economic miracle that the Irish are proud of.

Although Christian's eloquence is not as good as that of officials who have been in politics for many years, he was indeed ordered by the Kaiser to persuade Natsuki to change his original intention. However, the relationship between the two is good, but Christian has been a follower since he was a child, and he has always admired Natsuki's talent and vision, and on the question of whether he should accept the British shipbuilding order, he listened to Natsuki's explanation with enough patience, and felt that Natsuki's consideration was tenable, so he did not continue to dwell on this matter from his personal position. It's just that people are soft-spoken, and it is difficult to persuade in front of the Kaiser.

Through Wilhelm II's reaction, Natsuki knew that there was no way to make the stubborn emperor change his mind by letters alone, but unfortunately when he visited Germany before, the British side had not yet proposed an order, otherwise it should not be too difficult to persuade the Kaiser and Tirpitz with Natsuki's rebuttal skills. Now that he turned around and went to Germany again, it was a small matter to change the scheduled itinerary halfway, and Wilhelm II already had a preconceived idea, and it was likely that he had already discussed it with his staff officials, and it would not be so simple to reverse the situation. Having this already happened, he decided to take advantage of the situation and ordered the officials accompanying him to inform the British Government that since the British King intended to tie economic and trade cooperation with shipbuilding cooperation, he would postpone the signing of the agreement until everything had been negotiated.

According to the Irish officials who went to inform them, the sudden change came as a surprise to the British, who had already prepared the signing ceremony and the internal celebratory banquet, and planned to issue an official announcement the next day. All that went well would have been in place for all tax incentives to be implemented in time for the New Year of 1919, but now all of this had to be put on hold.

Although the British side was unwilling to accept such a change, how arrogant and majestic King George V was, how could he show his intention to bow his head and compromise to the King of Ireland, but British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald hurriedly came to negotiate and babbled on and on and on again about the various conveniences for Britain and Ireland to conclude an economic cooperation agreement, and then euphemistically said that His Majesty the British King had absolutely no intention of forcibly tying up the economic and trade agreement with the cooperation of standard aircraft carriers, and that the two sides may have misunderstood the meaning.

Natsuki had a good impression of the British prime minister, who pursued a policy of peaceful development, but he would not retract his decision because of his one-sided remarks, and he had already thought of a countermeasure, suggesting to MacDonald that the two sides could first sign a memorandum of understanding on economic and trade cooperation, and then convert it into a formal agreement when the conditions were fully ripe.

Although the British Prime Minister was very reluctant, he had no choice but to resign in politics and diplomacy, let alone wishful thinking, and then, with the approval of King George V, authorized the Chairman of the Board of Trade to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Secretary of State for Economy and Trade of Ireland, taking the first step on the road of comprehensive economic and trade cooperation between the two sides.

(End of chapter)