In July, summer was in full swing in Europe.

In the cool weather after a heavy rain, Chen Tian and his entourage came to the German Royal Shipyard in Wilhelmshaven for a visit and inspection, and by the way participated in the launching ceremony of a batch of new ships.

It is precisely because the Kaiser will be present at the launching ceremony that the Royal Shipyard has adjusted all four Guardian-class cruisers scheduled to be launched in batches this month to the same day. After launching, the ships are expected to undergo 8-10 months of post-construction work before they are finally completed.

When Chen Tian came to the slipway accompanied by Admiral Bol and some other generals, four "guardians" with a design displacement of 7600 were waiting there silently, along with thousands of shipyard workers and people from all walks of life who came spontaneously for the launching ceremony.

The Guardian class was the first class of escort cruisers designed and built by Germany after the war, and in the face of the increasingly busy German overseas routes, from the Kaiser to the admirals, they were eagerly looking forward to a more suitable cruiser to be put into active service in batches, in order to replace the reconnaissance cruisers and large destroyers with limited range and insufficient firepower to serve as escorts. After the initial design and debate that lasted more than two months, the Guardian-class light cruiser was finally born. Although this cruiser was a new venture for both the German Navy and the shipyards, the German Navy was eager to order six ships, four of which were to be built on the Royal Shipyard in June 1915 and two a month later at the Blomfors shipyard in Hamburg. At present, these four ships, codenamed "Hausen", "Bilow", "Mackensen" and "François", are also the first Guardian-class cruisers to be launched.

In the cool breeze, the ribbons and colored balls of several cruisers on the slipway fluttered in the wind, and their power systems - 4 oil-fired boilers and 1 boiler turbine - have been installed, and they are designed for a top speed of 29 knots and a cruising range of 6,000 nautical miles at 14 knots. Since the installation of the superstructure and artillery will be carried out in the coming months, they are now outwardly only a bare-light hull.

When completed, the cruiser will be equipped with six 152 mm 50 caliber guns, and three twin turrets will be arranged in the front 2 rear 1; The secondary guns consisted of 4 105 mm rapid-fire guns, 8 77 mm anti-aircraft guns and 12 20 mm machine guns, and were equipped with twin 533 mm torpedo tubes on each side; The tail section will also carry a reconnaissance seaplane.

After boarding the viewing platform. Chen Tian also noticed that there are 3 ships in the dock opposite, according to the person in charge of the shipyard, that is the Schliefen-class cruiser that started construction in February this year, with a design displacement of 9,800 tons, and is one size larger than the Guardian class in appearance, which is expected to be completed in 1918, and will serve as the main ship of the colonial fleet after completion, and will be stationed in the colonial ports and responsible for patrolling and guarding the surrounding waters. , if necessary, it can be used as a merchant ship or merchant fleet escort ship. The Admiralty's order for three cruisers of this class, all built by the Royal Dockyards, is expected to cost 1.75 million marks per ship, 350,000 marks more than the cost of the Guardian class, two more 152-mm guns for the main guns, and one more maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

Champagne crumbled, colored balls opened, and amid the cheers of thousands of soldiers and civilians, Chen Tian and the generals of the Admiralty watched as the four new cruisers slowly slid down the slipway. Although for a long time to come, Germany's land and sea transportation will still need to be protected by old warships, but these new forces in front of us are still extremely gratifying.

After the launching ceremony, Chen Tian and his entourage also visited other ships under construction at this shipyard. According to the person in charge. At present, the Royal Dockyard receives orders for warships by almost half compared to before and during the war. Most of the vacated docks have been converted to the construction of civilian ships, two large oil tankers that can carry crude oil and 10,000 tons have already started, and the construction of one 20,000-ton ocean cruise ship, one oil tanker with 10,000 tons of crude oil and two 10,000-ton ocean-going cargo ships are planned to start construction within this year.

After the end of the trip to the Royal Dockyards. Chen Tian did not return directly to Berlin, but flew to Hamburg to inspect the Vulcan shipyard, where the battleship "Electoral" was built, and the Blomfors shipyard, where the battlecruiser "De Fllinger" was built, which is currently responsible for the construction of nearly one-third of the German Navy's light and medium ships, and the new battlecruiser "Thessaloniki", built in the name of the Turkish Navy, is also under intense construction on slipway No. 3 at the Blojfors shipyard.

After the "Hamburg Day Tour", Chen Tian flew to his "old nest" - Königsberg in East Prussia.

On the slipway of the Königsberg shipyard, Chentian finally met the future main aircraft carrier of the German Navy, the Zeppelin-class "Zeppelin" that laid the keel in November 1915 and the Zeppelin-class "Tirpitz", which started construction in January 1916. Previously, Chen Tian had only seen their line drawings on drawings, and it was the first time he had seen the real thing with his own eyes.

Due to the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, the design displacement of the two aircraft carriers under construction is only 20,000 tons, but the actual displacement will definitely exceed this figure. It is expected that the full load displacement is close to 10,000 tons. After the design of this class of aircraft carriers has shifted from focusing on the number of aircraft carried to paying equal attention to the protection of survivability and carrying capacity, they are expected to have a maximum aircraft capacity of only 60 aircraft, which is only 10 more than the 15,000-ton "Lisa" and much less than the 75 aircraft carriers of the "Prince", but they will still go down in history as the first standard aircraft carrier in Germany and even in the world.

Under this design idea, the Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers have a speed of 25 knots, while the surface and underwater protection has been greatly improved, of which the armor at the waterline position has reached a maximum thickness of 72 mm, and there are watertight compartments and torpedo compartments. The wooden flight deck was covered with thin armor, and the hangar deck had armor 45 mm thick. The anti-aircraft firepower of aircraft carriers of this class is equally powerful, with 8 77-mm anti-aircraft guns, 24 20-mm machine guns and 48 machine guns.

In terms of construction costs, a Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier with carrier-based aircraft is budgeted at 9.5 million marks, the German Navy has only placed orders for two ships, and after the "Super Duck Mother" was delisted, there are 12 large slipways dedicated to the construction of aircraft carriers. As a result, in addition to the two slipways for the construction of the "Zeppelin" and "Tirpitz", four of the other 10 slipways are vacant, and six are building civilian 10,000-ton tankers. With the rapid development of German shipping, the old German shipping company Jubit's oil tanker can carry 12,000 tons of crude oil is bound to be broken, and more and more large oil tankers will also be active in the Persian Gulf Mediterranean route.

The two aircraft carriers under construction certainly made Chen Tian full of confidence, but this was not all he planned.

The sun is blazing in the north of Scotland in July.

Under the scorching sun. A group of formally dressed gentlemen walked on the quiet slipway, one of them with a cane, walking with a slight limp.

"This is the former slipway No. 1 of the John Brown Shipyard, which was used to build large battleships before the war, and one of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships was built here! You see, the location of the mast that protrudes from the water not far away is the battleship, which was sunk by German planes before it could be completed! ”

The introducer is a middle-aged man in his early forties with a pale face, who is Addison Brown, the current owner of the shipyard. This historic shipyard was badly damaged in the war. Addison did not have enough money in his hands, so he was looking for a buyer to sell the shipyard after the war, but the former chaebols and big capitalists had long since slipped away to the United States and Canada, and those who remained in Britain were basically poor, so he did not welcome a group of real buyers with purchasing power until now.

Looking in the direction of Addison's finger, everyone saw a small mast, and below it was the "stillborn" Queen Elizabeth-class battleship Barham, which was started in 1913 and launched in October 1914, and was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 1915, but was severely damaged in a ground air raid by German naval aviation in December 1914. In a larger air raid in February of the following year. The warship, with a design displacement of 290,000 tons, was completely sunk in the shipyard. It is said that before the British government evacuated, in order to prevent the battleship from being salvaged by the Germans and repaired, it was also blasted underwater, but the exact effect is unknown.

At the head of the procession of gentlemen was an old man of about fifty years old with glasses. In English with a Scottish accent, he said:

"If it continues to block the waterway, we won't be able to continue building ships even if we buy this shipyard!"

The buyer spoke, and Addison hurriedly replied: "Actually, we have also considered this problem, but its tonnage is too large, if you want to pick it up and transport it, the conventional method is to plug the leakage and drain it, but before that, the situation of the wreck must be clarified!" As you know, the original workers of the shipyard fled and scattered, and there were said to be German bombs that could explode at any time underwater, so none of the hired divers wanted to go down! ”

"Alas. What a shipyard, it's a pity! The old man said with pity, and then prepared to turn around and walk back.

Addison panicked, "Sir, please stay, in fact, if you are willing to pay a little more, it is not too much of a problem to get it up!" ”

The old man looked back at the current owner of the shipyard, "This should be your business!" I don't want to buy a shipyard with shipwrecks and bombs! ”

"But, sir, if I have enough money to clean up the shipyard again. Why should you sell it? Addison looked helpless.

"In that case......," the old man thought for half a minute, "I can buy this shipyard, but the cost of cleaning it must be deducted from the purchase price!" ”

"This ......," Addison looked at the group of "Scotsmen" in embarrassment.

The old man stretched out two fingers, "One price, 20 million pounds!" ”

"20 million pounds ......" Addison looked very reluctant, his offer was 50 million pounds, and a sunken ship would instantly depreciate the shipyard by more than half, of course he was unwilling. But after thinking about it for a while, he couldn't find a better way, so he had to discuss with the other party with a bitter face:

"Well, let's take a step back by ourselves, how about 4 million marks?"

"Mark? Sir, are you talking about the Deutsche Mark? The old man was astonished.

"Sir, you are aware of the current situation!" Addison lowered his voice and said: "The pound is depreciating a lot now, if you pay me pounds, maybe it won't be worth the current amount when I get it!" ”

"3.8 million marks! Whether the deal is closed or not, just one sentence," the old man looked keenly at the declining shipyard owner.

"That's ......" Addison gritted his teeth and stretched out his right hand, "deal!" ”

At this time, no one noticed that the middle-aged man with the crutches lowered his head and had a smile on his face. 830,000 marks, the warship in the water is probably not more than this price, let alone such a large shipyard with a good geographical location, covering an area of more than 200 hectares, and still has many warehouses, docks and machine tools. It would have been possible to acquire the many shipyards on the banks of the River Clyde for less than 20 million marks, and the situation would have been better than expected.

That's it. In just one summer, the "Scots" frantically bought up nineteen large and small shipyards on the banks of the River Clyde and incorporated them under the property of the Scottish Mercenary Company.

Gradually, many rumors of this mercenary company appeared in Britain, and the most heard and believed by the locals was that this group of people had been sent by the British government in exile to regain control of shipbuilding in northern Scotland in order to secretly supply ships for Edward VIII's navy. Of course. It was also believed that the "Scots" had a considerable amount of money in their hands and had bribed the officials of Robert I's government, so the German government would not have noticed it at all.

However, it has also been pointed out that this was a conspiracy of the Germans, who simply wanted to use British shipyards to build ships for them, which would then be used to attack the government of Edward VIII in exile in Canada.

There was a lot of debate and hard work, until the company posted advertisements across Scotland for the recruitment of skilled workers with high salaries, and the controversy became insignificant to those who were in desperate need of a job, and a large number of young, middle-aged and even old people who had worked in the shipyards flocked to Glasgow, so much so that there were long queues at the company's recruitment office every day. In the words of one of the Scots. Filling your stomach and feeding your family is much more important than fucking bullshit politics.

Shortly after entering the former John Brown shipyard. The new owners began recruiting divers, repairing the shipyard equipment, and a month later began salvage work on the Balham's hull. After three weeks, the dilapidated battleship finally returned to slipway No. 1, where it was once built. People soon found out. The ship was not just a waterway as the Scottish Mercenary Company executives had claimed, and the Mercenary Company executives announced that the Barham would be converted into an ocean-going freighter due to the better preservation of the Barham hull than expected.

Subsequently, Balham's badly damaged superstructure and the only two main turrets were removed, the above decks were cleared, and hull repair and remodeling work soon began.

When shiploads of high-quality steel and ancillary equipment are brought into the shipyard, most shipwrights don't think carefully about how the shipyard owner has the magic to get their hands on so many good materials. When the outline of this "ocean-going freighter" was about to take shape, the shipyard made even more inexplicable moves: the original shipwrights were transferred to other ship areas, and hundreds of workers who were "transferred" from nowhere were assigned to start the later construction of the ship. A huge curved roof was built above the slipway, and a tall subway wire mesh fence was built around the slipway, so that outsiders could not get close to the slipway within 100 meters.

The situation continued until the following summer, when the "new ship" was launched on a rainy night, and then quietly left the shipyard under the tow of two freighters, and after meeting up with several mysterious ships waiting in the open sea, it disappeared from view before dawn.

Beginning in October 1917, a transport ship called the Voyager was added to the German Navy's internal profile and incorporated into the North Sea Fleet under the command of Prince Heinrich. Although the name is a transport ship. But the full crew on it turned out to be 1,568 people, and outsiders had never seen it in a German port!

It was not until a naval exercise in February 1918 that the German admirals saw the top-secret "transport ship" on the sea. After a large-scale refit, this heavy aircraft carrier built with the queen Elizabeth battleship Barham as the hull reached 30,000 tons with a full load displacement, in addition to the armor defense is more prominent, its 75 aircraft carrying capacity is also equal to the record set by the "Prince", the two ships were the aircraft carrier with the largest number of aircraft among the aircraft carriers of various countries at that time.

Although the German Navy did its best to prevent the heavy aircraft carrier from being known by foreign countries, it was soon learned by American and Japanese spies. In order to avoid a potential crisis, the German government reached an agreement with the Turkish government to name the aircraft carrier "Kemal" and included it in the list of ships of the Turkish Navy, but like the battle cruiser "Thessaloniki", the "Kemal" was only in name in the Turkish Navy, and the actual controller and commander was still the German Navy.

While the German Navy was actively renewing its ships and expanding its strength, the Americans and the Japanese were not idle. The four new battleships of the US Navy, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Nevada were all put into active service before 1917, and the aircraft carriers CV1 and CV2, which were converted from old battleships, and the completely newly built CV3 were also included in the combat sequence in 1918; The four battleships of the Japanese Navy, Hyuga, Ise, Yamashiri, and Fuso were also completed before 1918, and after acquiring the German aircraft carrier "Super Duck Mama", they immediately began to develop and build their own domestic aircraft carriers, and in 1917 and 1918 respectively built a 15,000-ton light aircraft carrier and a 21,000-ton medium aircraft carrier. By 1919, the ratio of aircraft carriers in Germany, the United States and Japan had evolved from the initial 3:0:0 to 6:3:3, but given Germany's leading position in aircraft carrier technology and the close alliance between Germany and Japan, the United States was far behind in maritime power.