On a hot summer day, Natsuki arrives in a wheelchair at the Royal Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven. www.biquge.info In accordance with the shipbuilding plan of the German Navy Office and the dockyard arrangements of the shipyards, the first of the five Caesar-class battleships was built in this powerful military shipyard.

It is customary for ships to hold a relatively simple in-house groundbreaking ceremony before laying the first keel. Because of the shipbuilding alliance, in addition to Admiralty officials and Royal Dockyard staff, the other four shipyards involved in the construction of the Caesar-class battleships were also represented - the presence of these representatives was not a form of courtesy. Before the construction of a second ship of its class was started at the Hamburg shipyard in Volkeng, their respective technicians and skilled shipwrights were involved in the hull construction. At first glance, it may seem that shipyards will need to bear the additional cost of these people's assignment allowances, but as long as the group construction can reduce the cost and shorten the construction period as Natsuki expected, this is a worthwhile investment.

After attending the groundbreaking ceremony, more than 80 mechanics and shipwrights sent by four shipyards, including Hamburg Volkson, immediately plunged into the intense and orderly construction together with the workers arranged by the Royal Shipyard. In the German shipbuilding industry, this is an unprecedented novelty. The naval officials who coordinated and supervised the shipbuilding saw the positive side and praised Prince Joachim for forming a shipbuilding alliance, but Natsuki was uncomfortable with the praise. After taking up the post of director of shipbuilding, in order to avoid the entanglement of public and private affairs, he announced that the Friedrich shipyard would not enter the field of building large and medium-sized ships for 20 years, but would focus on the construction of ships of light cruisers and below, and that he himself would only be responsible for the supervision of the construction of large and medium-sized ships, and that the light ships would be appointed by the Navy Office. In order to facilitate the cooperation of five major shipyards, he was invited to serve as chairman of the shipbuilding alliance, and although he received the consent of the Kaiser and the head of the navy, he did not have many worries and could no longer do as he once wanted. On the other hand, the shipbuilding alliance and group construction should be able to play a positive role in theory, but whether it will be misinterpreted or even loopholes in the face of practical interests, Xia Shu is not completely sure.

In the VIP room of the Royal Shipyard, Alfred, chief technical engineer of the shipyard. Hertmayer carefully read the melancholy in Natsuki's eyes. When no one was around, he said to Natsuki, "Any attempt is more or less risky, and no matter what the end result is, one thing we can be sure of is that shipyards will never destroy their reputations for immediate gain." ”

Natsuki looked up at the middle-aged man who had made a good impression on him during the shipbuilding alliance talks, and nodded: "The serious and rigorous attitude and exquisite and flawless quality are the most proud aspects of the German shipbuilding industry, and I am not worried about this. But if our efforts don't work or we go too far from what we expected, then we can only watch the British distance themselves from us! ”

"I fully understand your intentions, Your Highness." The naval engineer, who has an elegant temperament and a relaxed voice, said: "The competition between the two navies is a contest between the shipbuilding industries of the two countries, and it is also a competition between the two countries. The British have maintained their superiority at sea for hundreds of years, and our chapter has just begun. We can relax and not be in such a hurry. With the current momentum of development of our country, even if we fall behind in the number of fleets for a while, we will eventually be able to catch up with and surpass theirs in the long run. ”

"You're right." Natsuki replied, "We should have faced the competition between countries with a more peaceful mind, but unfortunately we don't necessarily have that much time. ”

Hertmeyer didn't ask why, he looked out the window, and from here he could see the ships moored in Wilhelmshaven, many of which were built by the Royal Dockyards.

"I like warships since I was a child, I like to see their majestic figures sailing on the sea, they are the collection of industrial civilization, the crystallization of the wisdom and sweat of shipbuilders, and the representative of a country's strength and confidence, so I have no hesitation to devote myself to the shipbuilding industry. When I see the warships gliding down the slipway, I feel as if I have seen my own children born, and when I see them outfitting and setting sail, my heart is always filled with joy and happiness. While fighting war is one of their innate calling, I don't want to see them return to port scarred, let alone hear about their heroic sinks. If wars could have been avoided, I'd rather they end up as museums in mooring ports, or a little bit dismantled and reused to build new ships and complete the cycle of life. ”

Natsuki can empathize with the ideals and worries of a naval engineer, but the ambitions and sorrows of royals are difficult for Hertmayer to understand.

"Do you believe that there is a cycle in life?" Natsuki asked.

"I guess it's a law of nature!" Hertmeyer replied with a smile: "Everything has a law, what we have to do is not to create the law ourselves, but to find the law and conform to the law, just like fishing and hunting, with the right methods and tools, we can naturally achieve the goal." ”

"Uh-huh, that's true." Natsuki looked thoughtfully out the window, the hard-working attitude of the shipbuilders was not inferior to the worker ants in the anthill, but that didn't mean that they had already played 100% of their efficiency. The crux of the problem is not the difference in individual ability or consciousness, but the capital system and industrial model. In fact, history has long interpreted the quality and quantity of the industrial world from a dialectical point of view, whether it is the "quality first" of the Germans or the "quantity first" of the Russians, which is inferior to the overwhelming "quality parallel" of the Americans. Large division of labor, large flow of water, and large support, this kind of standardized operation has endowed the American industry with extremely strong production capacity. Taking the shipbuilding industry as an example, American shipyards are not responsible for all manufacturing links, but mainly assembly, most of the parts are interchangeable standard parts, and the castings are also prefabricated parts. These parts are produced on an assembly line in each factory and then transported to each slipway for assembly, which not only ensures product quality, promotes process improvement, but also greatly improves the speed of mass production.

Although the industrial model of the United States is good, not everyone can use it immediately, the so-called national conditions and rules of the country, the starting point of the industrial revolution of the great powers of the countries is high and low, the pace of the process is fast and slow, the evolution mode also has its own characteristics, and the final industrial model also bears its own profound imprint. Even with a large injection of capital and resources, even Germany and Britain, whose industrial strength is second only to the United States, still cannot replicate the large-scale assembly line production of the Americans, and the resistance comes from all sides, and it is by no means easy to overcome by the strength of a few people.

On the one hand, there is a step-by-step rational thinking, and on the other hand, there is no time to wait, and on the other hand, Natsuki is troubled by this irreconcilable contradiction, coupled with the complex situation on the other side of the strait, he gradually feels a kind of familiar trouble. Before recovering from a leg injury, he travelled between Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Berlin just as Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the inventor of the Zeppelin, founded the Deutsche Airship Transport Company, which carried cargo, mail and passengers by airship. In search of convenience, Natsuki became one of the first customers of the airship's commercial route, and inadvertently advertised this novel means of transportation.

Seeing that the royal family took the airship many times, from the aristocratic and wealthy to the middle class and the small burghers, many people enthusiastically bought tickets just to try it, and the number of Zeppelin's commercial routes soon increased from two to six, during this period, the heavens favored these brave adventurers, not a single airship was in distress due to weather or mechanical reasons, and the improvement of the technical performance of the airship also made the German military high-level eager to try it - after the German Army purchased more airships to form more aviation squadrons, the German Navy was also preparing to expand the size of the existing aviation reconnaissance force, and compared to those extremely expensive battleships, the cost of the Zeppelin is very low. A rigid airship of the same size as a dreadnought costs only 1.8 million marks, which is only comparable to a large torpedo boat of the 1906 class.

From the embryonic appearance to the growing maturity, the performance of the zeppelin in military exercises and commercial operation is very eye-catching, but this kind of aircraft as a weapon of war has huge limitations, appropriate investment is beneficial and harmless, excessive consumption is pure waste. As the shipbuilding director, Natsuki has no right to question the expansion plan of the naval aviation force, but he is familiar with using his royal status, and the upper route has the effect of multiplying the effect with half the effort. Because his own crash has made the Kaiser preconceived that the plane is not a reliable flying machine, Xia Shu then funded a domestic standard aviation exhibition in Danzig, a total of more than 30 aircraft carried out more than 100 air shows, during which there were no casualties or damage to one person or one aircraft, the reliability of the fixed-wing aircraft has been verified by facts, including the Kaiser, the imperial high-level officials were also invited to participate in the exhibition, and enjoyed the wonderful performance of multi-plane formation flight, plus Xia Shu's just right explanation, A considerable part of the Kaiser's enthusiasm for the Zeppelin was transferred to aircraft as small and agile as high-speed torpedo boats.

As for Tirpitz, the strategic organizer who firmly held the power of the German navy in his hands, also maintained a great curiosity about all kinds of new weapons. Under Natsuki's analysis, he realized that although the airship was gorgeous, it was difficult to form a close coordination with the fleet, and the aircraft was rudimentary, but it could be an efficient auxiliary tool for the fleet. As a result, only one-third of the planned expansion of the naval airship force was retained, and the savings were far from enough to add a dreadnought, so after much coordination, the money was eventually used to strengthen the naval aviation force - after an open competitive bidding, the German Navy decided to purchase 24 land-based aircraft and 36 seaplanes from Hubert Air for short-range reconnaissance, alert and liaison, and the 60 aircraft were delivered in three years.

(End of chapter)