After the talks, the emperor and the crown prince returned to Berlin by special train, while Chentian and Tirpitz went to the airport to board a plane.

"Your Excellency, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince seems to be quite dissatisfied with the Admiralty, is that so?" On the way to the airport, Chen Tian invited Tirpitz to ride with him in the same car.

"Yes! At present, most of our national defense budget is used for the construction of the navy, and in recent years, the shipbuilding plan has been repeatedly expanded, which has taken up too much military spending, so the cabinet did not approve the prince's application for several additional military expenditures for the army on the grounds of insufficient funds...... Alas! Speaking of which, Tirpitz, who is over sixty years old, is quite helpless.

"That's it! But then again, the army doesn't seem to have made any big moves recently, so why does the prince want to increase military spending? It seems that the amount is not small! ”

"It is said that the additional military spending is used to build large airships! The total number of requests from the prince is more than 20 million marks, and it is almost possible to build 3 new battleships! It can be seen that Tirpitz did not intend to oppose the crown prince, but if he built three less battleships, then his shipbuilding plan would be disrupted, and the consequences would be unimaginable.

"Led Zeppelin?" Chen Tian was surprised to find that he had forgotten the place of airships in the history of human aviation, and now it seemed that he had reached the period of rapid development of Zeppelin. Although most people think that the airship was originally a huge lighter, and the flight speed was not as fast as that of an airplane, its endurance, flight altitude, and load capacity far exceeded that of an airplane. If it weren't for his own appearance, the range of the plane by the end of World War I would have been only a pitiful few hundred kilometers, and it is no wonder that the prince would value the airship so much.

"Presumably, the Admiralty is also very tight on funds, so how much money can we get for this aircraft test?" Chen Tian glanced at Tirpitz as he spoke, he was frowning his brows and looking very embarrassed.

"Your Royal Highness, tell me how much money this experiment will cost, and then I will try to find a way!"

"Not a single mark!" Chen Tian stretched out a finger and shook it in front of him.

"What?" Tirpitz couldn't believe his ears.

"Yes, the Admiralty doesn't need to send out a single mark, it only needs to provide a target ship for testing!" In fact, the test does not require much money, but it is not easy to find a suitable target ship, especially for the air-dropped torpedo test, a freighter or sailing ship with a shallow draft is simply not competent, and it is too expensive to build a target ship or use a large ship.

"There's no problem with this, I happen to have two decommissioned old cruisers in my hands, and the Admiralty will send them to you as soon as possible!" Tirpitz readily agreed, and the two ships were exactly what Chentian wanted.

"Thank you so much, Your Excellency, Lord of the Admiralty!"

Before they knew it, they had arrived at the airport, and before parting, Tirpitz said something that made Chen Tian have a lot of memories:

"Do your best! I'm old, and the future of the German Navy is in the hands of you young people! ”

After returning to Königsberg, Chen Tian immediately summoned experts to form an air-to-ship attack test team, which he personally presided over. These experts include Thieleman, who is in charge of aircraft design in the aircraft factory research office, Rovs and Lahelo, engineers who developed aerial bombs, aerial bombs dropped by mercenaries in Turkey, torpedo experts Ricken and Lake in the submarine research room, the torpedoes that sank the Turkish Navy cruiser were improved by them, and the first aircraft carrier "Super Duck Mother" has been launched for half a year, and the construction of the superstructure has been basically completed. Lyman was also involved in the group.

"Gentlemen, here are the best experts in their fields, and we have gathered here for one purpose, and that is to accomplish something that no one has ever done before, or even thought of!" The six experts in front of Chen Tian used to be unknown little people, aircraft designer Tielemann used to be an ordinary engine engineer, bomb experts Rohus and Lahailo were once the technicians in charge of fuze research at the Krupp factory, torpedo experts Ricken and Lake were low-level technicians in the navy responsible for maintaining torpedoes, and Lyman was an engineer in a small shipyard, but they were all used here because they were brave enough to accept new things and have been trying to learn and study in their own fields.

On the oval table in front of everyone was a model battleship and several small wooden planes, and Chen Tian picked up one of them and looked around.

"First of all, you have to believe that planes can sink battleships! Then, all we have to do is find a way to do it with bombs and torpedoes! ”

Everyone's eyes silently moved back and forth between the model of the plane and the battleship.

Soon both Ricken and Lake said that air-launched torpedoes were theoretically feasible and that they needed to find a way to improve a normal torpedo into an aerial torpedo dropped by air.

Rovers and Laherlo kept frowning. It is no wonder that now their aerial bombs are only 5KG, and they use time-delay fuses, which are almost no threat to battleships with armor thickness of 200-400mm in key parts.

"The armor of the battleship is concentrated in the side and turret, their deck is relatively much thinner, as long as the bomb falling in the air has enough speed and weight, then it can completely penetrate the deck and explode inside the battleship, and the powerful bomb can bring some damage to the battleship even if it explodes on the side of the ship!" After Chentian's suggestion, the bomb experts finally woke up as if they had been empowered.

"Torpedoes have the benefits of torpedoes, bombs have the benefits of bombs! Let's start working on how we can use them to attack surface targets! ”

Although the engineers have a direction to work towards, Chen Tian feels that success is not easy to achieve, after all, they are basically starting from scratch. Sure enough, in addition to the smooth modification of the aircraft used to carry bombs and torpedoes, the improved torpedoes exploded in the water in several successive airdrop tests, which caused a headache for torpedo experts. Aerial bombs were more problematic, although the factory quickly produced hundreds of kilograms of aerial bombs, but Rohus and Lahailo had their own opinions on whether to use trigger or delay fuses, and the last half of the bombs were equipped with trigger fuses, the other half with extended fuses, and the hit rate of air-dropped bombs was also a troubling problem.

Fortunately, these are only technical problems, and by the time the target ships provided by the Admiralty arrive at the port, they can officially start the first test.

In the calm sea outside the port of Königsberg is an old warship moored.

The Admiralty provided Chentian with two target ships, the 3,000-ton Landshut and the 3,500-ton Ulm, which are now the iron-boned wooden cruisers Landshut launched in 1876.

Chen Tian and the others were on a hill in the harbor and were preparing to observe with great anticipation.

The first to fly over the harbor were two Sky X-planes that were conducting air-dropped bomb tests. This type of aircraft has been tried in Turkey, but at that time it used hand-thrown 5KG aerial bombs, and this time their belly has been modified to hold four new 50KG aerial bombs, one loaded with 4 trigger bombs and the other with 4 delayed bombs.

Five minutes later, two planes dropped bombs from 100 meters in the air, and four huge water columns rose 30 meters away from the right side of the battleship.

"Alas!" The engineers beside Chen Tian let out a sigh, and the pilots seemed to have dropped their bombs prematurely.

"Tell Captain Fritz to let his pilots practice bomb throwing during this time! I don't want this to happen when His Majesty the Emperor comes to visit! After putting down the binoculars, Chen Tian summoned the officers on the side and gave a few orders. Fritz, known as the "Angel of the Ground" in the Turkish War, had been promoted to captain, and it was he who commanded the flying team that participated in the test.

"Yes! Your Royal Highness! The plane on which the torpedo tests were carried out in the back was piloted by him personally! ”

After listening to the officer's introduction, Chen Tian nodded slightly, Captain Fritz is now one of the few pilots with actual combat experience, and he has also heard of the deeds of this angel.

As they spoke, a plane slowly flew over the harbor, and the aerial torpedo under the belly was very conspicuous. Fritz was depressed when he learned that all the bombs had been missed, and he was holding his breath to behave well. The plane gradually lowered to a height of more than 20 meters above the water, the nose of the plane was facing the starboard side of the target ship, and at a distance of about 600 meters, Fritz pressed the button, and the plane instantly became much lighter, and then he manipulated his plane to turn and began to climb.

After everyone saw through the telescope that the torpedo had sneaked in the water for several tens of meters, it began to draw a white water mark on the surface of the water and rushed towards the target ship.