On Tuesday, October 22, 1918, it was raining heavily all day in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and the outside temperature hovered between 5 and 6 degrees Celsius. Hundreds www.biquge.info of Swedish royal families, government dignitaries, army generals, and Irish expatriates are still waiting at the docks to welcome the arrival of the King and Queen of Ireland.

As the Irish Navy training ship "Ku-Chulin" arrived at the port, the pier resounded with the sound of rousing military music. From the end of the 19th century onwards, the Swedish government pursued a policy of neutrality and non-alignment, and the Swedish army was not involved in a single war after 1814, so much so that Sweden's defence forces have been described by some international commentators as "rotten wood sticks". The Swedish army at the beginning of the 20th century was indeed not comparable to the strength of its heyday. You must know that in the first half of the 17th century, Sweden, with a population of only 1.5 million, successively defeated Poland with a population of 10 million, Russia with a population of 15 million and the Holy Roman Empire with a population of 23 million, creating a military myth that is difficult for future generations to copy.

Accompanied by Gustav V, Natsuki once again inspected Sweden's royal guard of honor. This visit to Stockholm was his second official visit to the Kingdom of Sweden since his accession to the throne. The Swedes are of Germanic ancestry, and the Irish are descendants of the Kettels, and for a long time the two lived side by side and influenced each other, without historical disputes or too close. Today, the diplomatic relations between Sweden and Ireland have improved to a certain extent, driven by the friendly personal relations between the two royal families. Although Sweden's economy and industry are self-contained, and have such world-famous first-class enterprises as Forbos Military and SKF bearings, there is no urgent need to join the Irish-led trilateral economic and trade alliance, but the Swedish military is very interested in Ireland's submarine and aircraft technology, and Ireland's shipbuilding, aviation, and automobile industries also need high-quality balls and bearings. The Swedish government ordered 40 aircraft and five submarines from Ireland during the Limerick Expo.

Stockholm is known as the "Venice of the North" because of its beautiful scenery and many bridges, and the impression left on Xia Shu here is not only the charming natural and cultural scenery, but also the exceptionally delicious private Chinese food. During this visit, Sweden's **** Adolf invited them to the Chinese banquet as usual, but the difference was that Gustav V and a prince and nobleman were also invited to taste, adding a lot of funny and humorous jokes to this sumptuous Chinese feast, and Natsuki noticed that the chef from China had cut off the whip, and it seems that the fall of the Qing Dynasty had a somewhat lagging impact on the Chinese living in Europe.

Because of the foreshadowing of the previous meeting, Xia Shu chatted with Mr. Wang, the royal Chinese chef of the Swedish royal family, after the banquet, and heard the blonde foreigner speak fluent Chinese, the old king next door was very surprised, but unfortunately Xia Shu's language ability at the bottom of the box could not make their communication smooth, because the other party spoke Cantonese, and Mandarin was not as good as Swedish, which also made Xia Shu really regret.

With Xia Shu's last enlightenment and encouragement, the little prince of Sweden, Gustav, found his own direction again. Under his active promotion, the Swedish Navy strengthened military exchanges with the Allies camp, and through the exchange of warships and joint exercises, it drew valuable experience from the German Navy, which was rich in combat experience, and saw its own gaps and shortcomings, so as to adopt targeted measures to improve the combat quality of the officers and men of the Navy.

In the past two years, Sweden's domestic economic situation has been good, the export volume of industrial raw materials and finished products has increased by a large margin compared with the pre-war period, and the Swedish Navy has been able to build and put into service a number of new ships. The 7,100-ton coastal defense battleship "Sweden," the flagship of the new generation, has recently been put into active service, two warships of the same class as the "Sweden" are under construction, and are expected to be put into service one after another within four years, and the scale of the Swedish naval aviation and submarine forces has also been effectively expanded. Although the Swedish navy is far inferior to the naval forces of Germany and Tsarist Russia in the Baltic Sea, it is still capable of relying on coastal defense facilities to resist foreign aggression.

As a gift to promote military cooperation between the two countries, Natsuki originally planned to refit the 4,300-ton light cruiser "Gustav", which was commissioned ten years ago for the Swedish Navy at a very low price, to adapt it to the technical requirements of modern naval warfare. During his visit to Stockholm, he boarded the new flagship of the Swedish Navy, accompanied by Gustav, and gained a more practical understanding of the shore defense battleship with shallow draft, thick armor, and medium firepower. Earlier, due to differences between the political parties, the construction of the "Sweden" was cancelled for a time, and later the Swedish people raised most of its funds through fundraising, so that the construction of the "Sweden" could begin. It was a gift from the Swedish people to the Swedish Navy, so it was expected to be high by the people. At the beginning of the design, the main performance indicators of this coastal defense battleship were first-class or close to first-class, and it was even regarded as a small battlecruiser, but under the stimulation of the Anglo-German shipbuilding competition and the world war, the ship's technology advanced by leaps and bounds, and by the time the "Sweden" was put into service, the performance of the pride of the year had already fallen behind.

Through conversations with Gustav and some senior Swedish naval officers, Natsuki realized that the political and strategic benefits of a successful technical modification of the "Sweden" would be much greater than that of the "Gustav", but the problem was that the tonnage and construction of the shore defense battleship limited the scope for technical modification. From the extreme point of view of theory, this warship of more than 7,000 tons, even if it uses the most cutting-edge technology and the best quality materials, in the end it still can't stop a main shell of a super-dreadnought or an armor-piercing shell of a bomber, but in reality, the choice of tactics and the will of officers and soldiers often play a more important role than the technology itself, the most convincing example is the battle that took place in the Gulf of Riga in 1915, the old battleship "Glorious" of the Russian Navy first defeated two German former dreadnoughts in an artillery battle, Later, they calmly retreated under the heavy attack of two German dreadnoughts, and the Russian destroyers who fought together waited for an opportunity to damage the German battle cruisers.

Normal military thinking is not to go to extremes, and the technical modification of the "Sweden" is aimed at making it conform as much as possible to the standards of modern naval warfare, so that it can have the desired strategic deterrent effect. Since becoming King of Ireland, Natsuki has not only abandoned his old profession thanks to the entrustment of Kaiser Wilhelm II, but has also gained a lot of inspiration by dissecting British shipbuilding skills, and the design of standard heavy cruisers and standard medium aircraft carriers reflects his technical thinking that keeps pace with the times. After thinking and analyzing from a professional point of view, Natsuki orally proposed several ideas for improvement to Gustav.

To improve the performance of a warship, it is nothing more than to start from the aspects of firepower, fire control, protection, damage management, and power. The Bofors 1912 45 times diameter 280 mm main gun equipped with the "Sweden" has a maximum firing range of only about 18,500 meters, while the effective firing range of the dreadnought main gun is generally more than 20,000 meters. Taking into account the logistical situation of the Swedish Navy, Natsuki strongly suggested that the main guns of the "Sweden" be replaced with a 50 times the diameter model manufactured by Krupp, and the safe plan was to continue to use two twin main guns, and the bold plan was to directly use the triple main guns, which had been matured on German dreadnoughts, which delivered only 15 percent more ammunition per unit time than the twin main guns, but the long-range hit rate was more than 30 percent.

Another strong suggestion was to do away with the two torpedo tubes of the "Sweden", because from the experience of the Great War, it was undoubtedly very ridiculous to let a battleship with a speed of just over 20 knots carry out a torpedo attack mission.

Gustav has always admired Natsuki's talent and ability in ship design, and is very interested in the suggestions and ideas he put forward, but he can only reluctantly tell Natsuki at this time that all Swedish warships must use guns made by Forbos, which is not only a military consideration to save costs and ensure combat effectiveness, but also a political consideration to support the country's industry and promote technological innovation, and it will not be changed easily. In terms of actual performance, the Forbos 1912 280 mm gun has been a success, and with the needs of the Swedish Navy and potential customers, Forbes has no plans to upgrade the size or expand the caliber in the short term. Gustav believes that as far as Sweden's political situation is concerned, let alone him, the deputy minister of the Admiralty, even if His Majesty Gustav V personally comes out, the parliament will not approve the bill to purchase additional Krupp guns.

Including the turret, gun body, steering device and bomb lifting equipment, the cost price of a twin 50 times diameter 280 mm main gun system is close to 1 million marks, and the triple configuration of the same type of main gun has reached more than 1.2 million marks, Xia Shu is not a super tyrant with no bottom, can afford such a valuable gift, the so-called cheap or even free modification, refers to the Irish government to subsidize the cost of labor and basic materials during the ship refit, since the Swedish parliament is unwilling to come up with such a large amount of money to strengthen "Sweden" Natsuki had no choice but to give a second-best suggestion for the firepower performance of the ship and its successors, that is, to only increase the new fire control system and radio equipment made in Ireland, and deliberately strengthen the cooperation between the warship and naval aviation, coastal observation posts and other cooperative forces in daily training, so as to indirectly improve the long-range firepower efficiency of the warship, and at the same time improve the protection and damage management design of the "Sweden". If the Swedish parliament is really unwilling to allow such a warship to go to a foreign shipyard for refit work, he can ask the Irish Navy and shipyards to send technical advisers to assist Sweden's own shipyards in carrying out technical refits, without charging any technical guidance fees, and the personnel costs are paid by the Irish government itself.

The "Sweden" was in service for only one year, and all performance data were said to be important military secrets, but since the reign of Gustav V, Sweden and Germany have become very close, and after the outbreak of the war, the Swedish king tried to get Sweden into the Allied camp, but had to give up due to the opposition of parliament and political parties. During the war, Sweden's iron ore exports to Germany increased instead of decreasing, and some war materials were secretly provided, and the military cooperation between the two countries has been low-key. The "Swedish" was built with the help of German naval engineers, and Natsuki could have obtained information from the German Navy's intelligence arsenal if he only wanted to obtain technical data on it.

Gustav was well aware of these circumstances, and he was keen to use the Irish shipbuilding industry to give the "Swedish" a complete technical upgrade, and to adopt the ideal improvements for the two follow-on ships still under construction on the slipway, but his will could not determine the final outcome, and he could only do his best to get the support of the council as much as possible.

(End of chapter)