In the middle of summer, when heavy rains are pouring over the verdant land, Natsuki and his friends sit behind floor-to-ceiling windows, smoking and drinking tea, at the Fairy Manor in the northern suburbs of Limerick, the private residence of the candidate for the Irish throne. Although the signing of the Armistice of London www.biquge.info left a great regret for the Irish, it at least provided a reliable guarantee for the independence and stability of Ireland, and the British, who hated the independent regime of Ireland, had to put away their swords and watch the reborn kingdom survive its relatively fragile "infancy" during the German military station.

The men on the left and right sides of Natsuki were all under forty years old, dressed in well-dressed suits, full of energy and ambition. On the left is the veteran of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the supreme leader of the Coke coup, Eamon Kanter, who was elected as the prime minister by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland at the suggestion of Natsuki, exercising the supreme power of the head of government, responsible for forming a government cabinet, promoting a formal constitution, and a series of important matters such as domestic and foreign affairs. On the right is Patrick Pearce, a key member of the Irish Volunteer Army and the actual initiator of the Coup d'état in Cork, who entered the Kanter cabinet as Secretary of State for Defence, responsible for the army and defence of the Kingdom of Ireland.

In this large, simple, elegantly decorated room, there were young people, middle-aged people, and gray-haired old men, and there were no other people in military uniforms except Natsuki. They conversed in a harmonious atmosphere, and no one deliberately acted as interpreters, but the different languages did not create a chaotic scene of chickens and ducks speaking - because the armed independence factions that were united in power did not trust the Irish local officials of British rule, and were reluctant to hand over the power of the country they had bought with their blood to the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who were in the upper echelons of power and who advocated democratic self-government rather than violent resistance. Based on Natsuki's special status and Germany's great help to Ireland's independence, they preferred to rely on a group of senior advisors hired by Germany to reorganize Ireland's economic, industrial, financial, and social order, and these advisors selected and contacted by Natsuki brought together talents from all walks of life, including strongmen such as former Deutsche Bank Vice President Kurno Herrall, and former Prussian Interior Minister Otto Helen Brooks, who quickly demonstrated their convincing ability when they first arrived. With their help, the central government of the Kingdom of Ireland was able to function in an orderly manner, and the two sides entered a honeymoon period that complemented each other.

"Understandably, after the great famine of the last century, most Irish people have deliberately prioritised the food-producing industries of crop cultivation and livestock raising to ensure that they can survive these difficult times. Geographically, Ireland is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and high-quality pastures account for more than two-thirds of the arable land, which is most suitable for the development of animal husbandry, and almost all the Irish people living outside the cities raise cattle, sheep and poultry, producing a large amount of meat, eggs, fresh milk and dairy products, and producing more butter here than in Germany. Helen Brooks, who is nearly seventy years old, said slowly, "However, it is necessary to remind everyone here that in this era of rapid industrial development, no country dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry can obtain the status of a first-class power, the French only look strong on the surface, and the two wars separated by 43 years show the fact that the French people's war mobilization ability is far worse than that of our Germany, I think, this is the significant difference between an agricultural country and an industrial country." ”

"There's no doubt that any rising country needs a strong industry." The young Irish Prime Minister continued, "For many years, most of the proceeds from our butter exports went into the coffers of London, and only a small part was used to build Ireland's infrastructure. With the exception of the four ports of Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Limerick, the rest of the region is very backward in transportation, and most of the factories are family workshops with poor productivity. Now the situation is different, the consumption of the war has greatly increased the demand for butter, cheese, leather, and meat on the world market, and it is optimistically estimated that this year's export of agricultural and animal products will bring Ireland between 30 million and 40 million marks, and we will use this money to build the first iron-smelting and steelmaking plants, and to build our first cannon before we establish our industrial production. ”

Helen Brooks and Kantor, one focusing on theory and the other on planning, are actually the same idea: to build an industrial system in Ireland. In peacetime, Ireland can import industrial equipment from the European continent without restrictions, but if it has no industry of its own, ships need to be sent abroad for repairs, engines need to be purchased from abroad, and defense is too dependent on other countries, and once it is blocked by British sea, even the best equipment will not be effective because of the lack of necessary maintenance.

Helen Brooks, a German, didn't know Ireland as well as her own, and Kanter, a shrewd accountant, was a freshman in national affairs. Now that the Second Industrial Revolution is coming to an end, the widespread use of electricity, the creation of internal combustion engines and new means of transportation, the invention of new means of communication, and the development of the chemical industry have reached a high level, it is time to build a national industrial system on the basis of a near-blank foundation, even if it can be solved with money, it is an astronomical amount far beyond the financial resources of Ireland. It took nearly 100 years for Prussia to develop from a traditional agricultural country to a first-class industrial power in Europe, during which it underwent several reforms, and had a solid foundation laid by compulsory national education, and later received a great impetus from the Franco-Prussian War and the unification of the German Empire.

It is precisely because of these sober understandings that Natsuki feels very conflicted. On the one hand, countries dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry have developed slowly and weakly in the industrial age, and their domestic economies are highly vulnerable to the influence of the international market, making it difficult for them to build an independent and strong national defense. On the other hand, if Ireland is forcibly pushed onto the track of industrialization through external aid and loans, it will inevitably face the dilemma of lack of competitiveness in products and lack of stamina for development, and if it is not done well, it will fall into a national debt crisis.

Ireland's national industry is a big problem, but it's not out of the question. Most of Natsuki's private property in Germany was returned to the German royal family or sold to the German government in exchange for various equipment and materials urgently needed by the Kingdom of Ireland after the war, and the Irish throne candidate was only a title with informal power, which could not bring Natsuki any material wealth for the time being, but the successful experience of running the industry for many years allowed him to return to the profession with ease. When the Friedrich Royal Shipyard was taken over by the German government, the hard-working shipyard operations director Wiesel quit his lucrative job and willingly followed him to Ireland, with many others who had been blessed by Natsuki or impressed by his unique charm. With these powerful assistants of Wiesel, Natsuki confidently and boldly borrowed 30 million marks from Deutsche Bank, bought large tracts of land and dockyard facilities in the disastrous Dublin and Cork Harbour, plus the Limerick Hubert Shipyard that was originally jointly owned by him and Holland from the British, and soon formed the Hubert Marine Group, which owned three large shipyards and a shipping company, and adopted a joint operation strategy with the Irish government, forming a transport fleet from cargo ships purchased by British and French bankrupt merchants at low prices, buying a large number of agricultural and animal husbandry products in the hands of the Irish people who had been stagnant due to the war and reselling them to Britain and Germany, and then using the profits to buy ships in poor condition but complete structure and send them to their shipyards for repair, and then put them into the operation of the Atlantic trade routes, exporting butter and cheese to Spain and even the United States on the other side of the ocean -- the income of 30 million to 40 million marks that Kantor mentioned was actually a huge profit obtained from the winds of speculation after the war, if calculated at normal prices before the war, Ireland's agricultural exports are only around 10 million marks a year, a figure that falls far short of in bad years.

"In the two industrial waves, Britain, the United States, and Germany have become the leading industrial powers. We started much later than these countries, and the country's technical conditions and natural resources are also unsatisfactory, and it must be a very long process to catch up with other countries by conventional means, but if our industry takes a path with characteristics and advantages, the situation may take a big turn. Speaking of which, Natsuki bought a pass and let everyone here speculate about his intentions.

Some people are staring at butter, cheese, and meat, and think that they can use modern industrial means to produce canned products that are easier to store and store than traditional products, and use Irish canned food to seize the international market share of agricultural and animal husbandry products, which can be regarded as a more reliable idea. After some discussion, Natsuki revealed the mystery - to establish an Irish military industry with submarines, torpedoes, small-caliber guns and airplanes as its fist products!

Even before the outbreak of the war, the Hubart shipyard in Limerick was already a well-known European manufacturer of high-speed speedboats and submarines, and its small Holland submarines were of high quality and low price, suitable for commercial operation, scientific applications, and could also be used to train boaters and explore naval tactics, and had received orders from Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy and even Ottoman Turkey. However, many of the machinery at Hubert's Shipyard was dismantled or destroyed by the British during the war, and the Irish submarine designer John Holland has died, and the reconstruction of Hubert's Shipyard is a real reconstruction.

"Diesel-powered small and medium-sized submarines will be a long-term bestseller in the international arms market, and the steel, engines and instrumentation equipment used to build submarines have certain technical requirements, and it is expected that it will take us three to five years to achieve national production, when the entire military industry chain can support at least 20,000 workers. In peacetime when there is no threat of war, the annual sales of submarines are about 10 units, and once there is a threat of military conflict or even war, this number will definitely increase exponentially. A distinctive and practical military industry is certainly much more lucrative than the butter we peddle everywhere, and it can be the most deterrent combat force of the Irish Navy, making any ship commander who wants to get close to the shores of Ireland think twice. ”

(End of chapter)