The Italian vocal performance may be able to impress many, but this must not include Natsuki, who knows too well what a lame and ridiculous commodity this half-hearted ally is in the political and military arena, and the reason why he sits here calmly sipping tea is because he happens to need such an "unreliable" collaborator this time, so that the British can get the coveted high-speed torpedo boat technology, and then hopefully invest a lot of money, manpower and time in it. Finally, in the face of the brutality of war, it realizes its fragile nature. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

From this rooftop with a wide view, Natsuki raised his eyes to look out over the River Thames. In terms of content, it is not as profound as the Danube, which feeds many peoples; In terms of mind, it is not as majestic as the Volga River, which has a basin of one million square kilometers; In terms of form, it does not have the meandering beauty of the Rhine, nor the elegance of the Seine, but its busyness, its opulence and even the hegemony it symbolizes are enough to stand out from any river, and this is its magnificent era......

With years of accumulation, Vance is a first-class shipbuilding enterprise in Italy and even in the Mediterranean, but its continuous losses make it stretched thin in terms of liquidity. Esposito revealed that in order to get out of the doldrums and get out of the doldrums, they drew up an ambitious plan, which was backed by loans from bankers. Now everything is ready, all that's missing is a flawless design. If they can cooperate with the new champions of the King's Cup Water Race, they are confident that they will win orders for high-speed torpedo boats from the countries around the Mediterranean, as well as from countries in Asia and the Americas, and thus achieve a great recovery.

When it comes to the substance of technical cooperation, Natsuki still maintains a steady attitude that is not appropriate for his age, and he does not rush to keep the rhythm and atmosphere under his control. From the other party's tactful expression, he keenly grasped the key message: Vance could only come up with 200,000 pounds of money to buy the design, and they also knew that this money was not enough to buy the entire design of the "Kraken", so they proposed a profit-sharing plan -- in addition to a one-time payment of the design fee, in the future, Vance would pay Friedrich Shipyard a patent fee of 200 pounds for every high-speed torpedo boat built on the basis of the "Kraken".

The winner's prize and the generous return on the pre-race bet have largely solved the funding gap for the expansion and renovation of the Friedrich shipyard, allowing Natsuki to calmly examine the pros and cons of different buyers and different options. In the era when internal combustion engine technology was in the ascendant, there were only a handful of shipbuilding companies that really had the ability to design and manufacture high-speed speedboats, and as far as Natsuki knew, it was not Swann who was most eager to get the "Kraken", but the British Sunnikrov shipyard with which he had a close cooperative relationship. The latter is Britain's premier military shipyard, specializing in torpedo boats and destroyers. In Britain, which has a long history of shipbuilding, the reason why the Thornikroft shipyard, founded in 1860, has become the leading shipyard in the country in just a few decades, and mastering the core technology of torpedo boat construction is the secret of their fortune. Since the construction of the world's first torpedo boat in 1876, orders from the Royal Navy, the French Navy, the Chinese Navy, the Russian Navy, and the Chilean Navy have flown to the shipyard, and its profitability has quickly surpassed that of many traditional shipyards. By the end of the 19th century, the Sunnikroft shipyard had undergone a major expansion, and its shipbuilding business expanded further, and it has become one of the most distinctive and powerful shipyards in the British shipbuilding industry.

"To tell you the truth, I have received several requests before I came here, and two of them are particularly generous, but based on political considerations and emotional factors between the allies, I am still inclined to carry out long-term, stable and secure cooperation with you."

Natsuki's words of attitude made the two Italians present breathe a sigh of relief, and the expressions on their faces were like the sky after the rain, the dark clouds dispersed, and the sun returned.

"In view of the current delicate international situation, I have several requirements that must be clearly written into the agreement and strictly enforced: first, in order to avoid unnecessary distractions, our cooperation is a secret agreement and must not be made public, and under no circumstances can Swann provide technical drawings and data to third parties. Second, Swan's supply to countries other than Italy must be approved by us in advance, otherwise it will be deemed to be in breach of contract and shall pay the agreed amount of liquidated damages. Thirdly, in order to accurately calculate the cooperative royalties, Swan must provide us with a detailed and accurate sales list, involving political and military secrets, and we guarantee its absolute privacy, otherwise we will compensate Swan for liquidated damages......"

Natsuki's list of terms and conditions may sound very harsh, but in fact, each one leaves the Italians room to maneuver. As a famous wall-to-wall and anti-bone boy in history, how could the Italians be bound by a paper agreement? Without much hesitation, they swore yes, and this 100% sincerity eventually led to the signing of a secret agreement in London to share Kraken technology.

Receiving 200,000 pounds in cash from an Italian company, Natsuki and his team's trip to the UK was a huge success. Following the usual business philosophy, Xia Shu immediately "spread his money" at the Friedrich Royal Shipyard: the shipyard management received a reward ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 marks each, the main design and supervision personnel of the Kraken speedboat received a generous reward of up to 100,000 marks, and the shipyard technicians and ordinary workers also received special incentives equivalent to one to two months' salary. In this era of the supremacy of capital, the vast majority of enterprises are strict and even cruel to the management of workers, resulting in workers' strikes from time to time, and in the Friedrich shipyard, the loose and active management method ensures the morale and stability of the whole team, over time, it has become a paradise in the consciousness of shipbuilding workers, many engineers, technicians and skilled workers come to visit, so in its several expansion and upgrading processes, there has never been a shortage of manpower.

A little more than two months after the conclusion of the King's Cup water race, the Italian company Swann has unveiled their new high-speed torpedo boat: the Lightning. This twin-engined, single-seater torpedo boat can reach an astonishing speed of 45 knots at full load, making it an incomparably sharp maritime assassin in the relatively calm Mediterranean. Once publicly displayed, the "Lightning" quickly caused a sensation, the Italian Navy immediately ordered 40 ships, Britain, France, Russia and other countries also showed strong interest, but for some reasons that did not want to be public, Swann finally rejected the purchase intention of Britain and France, and signed order agreements with Russia, Turkey, Spain and other countries, these orders alone were enough to make Swan's production line run at full capacity for two consecutive years.

As Natsuki predicted, the Friedrich shipyard and the Swann company joined forces to monopolize the high-speed torpedo boat market for not long, and by the autumn of 1905, the British Sunnycroft shipyard also built a high-speed torpedo boat with first-class performance. The British Royal Navy, which had been suffering from a lack of excellent torpedo boats, quickly issued a huge order to the Sunnik Croft shipyard to equip two hundred and forty single-person double-barreled high-speed torpedo boats within two years for coastal defense and channel blockade missions.

After the delivery of the first new torpedo boats, the Royal Navy quickly formed the corresponding offshore formations and combat commands, and then set up a training school specifically for high-speed torpedo boats. However, copying was clearly not enough to help them become the real champions, and the following year's Seine Cup and Venice Cup water races, the ambitious British team lost back-to-back races, and Swede Gustav and his new boat from Germany swept the field, breaking the speed record set by "The Kraken" in the King's Cup. To the horror of the British Navy's top brassiers, the German Navy soon afterwards unveiled their experimental high-speed torpedo boats, which were not only extremely fast, but also equipped with four torpedo tubes for the first time, and these torpedo vehicles looked lighter and simpler than conventional equipment. All of this has forced the British to continue to invest in other ways to change this embarrassment by hosting sprint races, developing their own technology and even stealing it.

PS：

1. The "Three Emperors Alliance" is a political alliance concluded by Germany, Russia and Austria in 1881, which has no obligation to attack or defend together, which enables Russia to go all out to deal with Britain in Turkey, and enables Germany to continue to isolate France and maintain the containment of Russian-Austrian relations and the mediating position between the two.

2. The "Triple Alliance" is a military alliance concluded between Germany, Austria and Italy in 1882, which stipulates that it has the obligation to participate in the war defensively, as long as a country is attacked by France or France and Russia, the Central Powers have the obligation to participate in the war, and if a country is attacked by Russia alone, the Central Powers should maintain good faith and neutrality. The First World War was caused by Austria and Germany declaring war on Russia and France respectively, and Italy invoked the terms of the alliance to maintain neutrality, and later renounced the alliance and joined the Entente camp.

(End of chapter)