Led by Prince, Chen Tian and his party arrived at the Schutt-Lunze company on the outskirts of Hamburg, where there were huge semi-cylindrical buildings on the flat ground, in which the airships were built and assembled.

"This is the construction of an airship that our army has ordered, and if the funds are sufficient, we will order more!" The prince led the others into one of the greenhouses, and the people stood in front of this kind of building and looked so small, Chen Tian felt like he had arrived in a giant's castle.

It looked like the skeleton of the airship had been completed, countless workers were busy installing the airbags and shells of the airship, and there were two external pods and several engines on the ground next to it.

"Your Royal Highness the Prince, how can the skeleton of this airship be wooden?" Chen Tian always felt that this airship was a little strange, and after observing it for a long time, he found that the keel was wooden, and in his impression the Zeppelin should be made of aluminum keel, he had seen a photo of a wrecked airship before, and there was a huge skeleton left after the airship burned.

"That's right, Zeppelin's airships have an aluminum keel, and Schutte-Lantz has a wooden keel! Although the wooden keel will increase the weight of the airship itself, the cost is much lower! For the same 10 million marks, you can build 3 airships with aluminum keels, but 5 airships with wooden keels! Prince's words also represent the Army's pursuit of airships, compared to Tirpitz's Admiralty's purchase of mostly Zeppelin's aluminum-skeleton airships.

"It's also a good idea to pursue low cost and high quantity!" Chen Tian felt that at the beginning of the war, airships were rarely attacked, and pilots were relatively easy to train, so it would be a good choice to use a large number of airships for long-range high-altitude bombing, and most of the reconnaissance and battlefield support tasks would be left to the planes to complete.

After all, it was a big guy with a length of 230 meters, a diameter of 23 meters, a hydrogen storage capacity of 26,700 cubic meters, and a load capacity of 2 tons.

Prince suddenly leaned into Chentian's ear, "With these airships, we can bomb Paris!" ”

"And London!" Chen Tian said this casually, but found that Prince's facial expression became a little weird.

"Do you think we're going to go to war with the British?"

This sentence is a joke for the earthlings decades later, and now only 3 years after the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, the German crown prince is actually confident in the neutrality of the British. Then he told Chentian in a very serious tone:

"They are our cousins on the other side of the Strait, and although we are competing with them fiercely now, it is just a game, and I don't think they will and will not dare to side with our enemies when war breaks out!"

After knowing him for more than 20 years, Chen Tian gradually got to know the German crown prince. Not only was this guy born with a fox face, thin as a wicker, and weak, but he was also mediocre, arrogant, conceited, short-sighted, elusive, and liked to do amazing things like his father.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, don't trust the British too much, all we can trust is our country!" For the future results, Chen Tian has no way to explain to him, maybe the world has deviated from the original trajectory with his arrival, but Britain, France and Russia are pursuing the balance of European power, and they will never tolerate the emergence of a situation in which Germany is dominant, and Germany has developed to this extent, it is no longer possible to use politics to expand its strength, and the conflict of national interests makes a world war inevitable in a few years, and the rising Germany will either defeat the opponent to lead Europe, or be defeated by the opponent and suppressed.

"If there is a real war, we will not be able to defeat their navy, and the fleet will be trapped in the harbor by them!" Prince shook his head, pessimistic.

Chen Tian didn't say any more, he just wanted to end the tour early and meet with another person, a person who would play the most important role if Britain and Germany went to war—the German Admiralty, Field Marshal Tirpitz, who had just been appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet.

"I don't want Germany and Britain to be at war, what we want to do is to greatly strengthen the German navy, so that the British can think twice about taking hostile actions! However, as far as I know, the Army will use the Schlieffen plan to attack France through neutral Belgium. In 1904, Prime Minister Bilow reminded him of Bismarck's warning that a material victory would win public opinion, but a moral defeat would lose public opinion, and that an invasion of Belgium would add another helping hand to the anti-German forces. I have no right to interfere in the affairs of the Army, but my Navy and I must be ready to fight against the mighty British Navy! Tirpitz had a premonition that war between Germany and Britain was inevitable, but he was worried about whether the German navy would be able to confront the British navy in the short term.

Chen Tian felt that if this continued, coupled with the Kaiser's love for valuable warships, the history of the German Navy becoming an "existential fleet" would repeat itself. It seems that he is going to teach this soul of the German Navy a good lesson.

"Your Excellency, what hope do you think we have of victory if the main force of our battleships engages the main force of the British fleet?"

"What? Their battleships are almost twice as large as ours, and we are sure of defeat! Tirpitz gave the answer without thinking.

"So how much do you think their main fleet will lose if we lead their main fleet into an ambush circle of dozens of submarines and hundreds of aircraft?" Tatsuten knew that the Kaiser would not firmly support the tactics of unrestricted submarines, and if he could use ambush tactics to inflict heavy damage on the British Navy in one battle, the German Navy would have a hope of victory.

"This ......"

"If we are going to sacrifice all the submarines and aircraft and use hundreds of torpedoes against them......"

"At least we can consume more than half of their warships, and then our sea power can compete with them. If they blockade their sea transport again, then the British Navy will definitely lose! Tirpitz jumped for joy like a child.

"Great! That's great! I'm going to make a brilliant plan, I'm going to let the German warships sail freely in the English Channel and all over the world! Your Royal Highness, you are such a genius! ”

Chen Tian smiled, for the German Navy, the important thing is not whether there are dozens of submarines and hundreds of aircraft, but confidence, confidence to defeat a strong opponent.

Ten days later, Prince and Chentian presented the Emperor with a description of the role of the airship and the aircraft carrier, as well as a development plan. Among them, Prince proposed to build 200 zeppelins in the next five years, and Chentian proposed to build six seaplane carriers and three aircraft carriers in the next five years.

One month later, the Emperor and the Minister of the Navy announced another plan to rebuild ships, reducing one-fifth of the original planned battleships, and using the savings to build airships and aircraft carriers. Later, the Cabinet approved the purchase of 120 Zeppelins for the Army and 50 Zeppelins for the Navy, to be produced by Schutt-Langz and Zeppelin, respectively; Approved the Navy to purchase 6 seaplane carriers and 1 aircraft carrier, which will be built by the Königsberg shipyard in Chentian.

The British government welcomed Germany's move to reduce its battleship construction program, believing that Germany's move had put Europe in a more peaceful atmosphere, and that their navy's huge military spending had already been criticized by all quarters at home, and that they could finally reduce their own shipbuilding plans accordingly to reduce financial pressure.

After receiving a large order from the Navy, Chentian's shipyard began to get busy. In recent years, the scale of the shipyard has been expanding, and now it has tens of thousands of skilled workers and the ability to build 100,000 tons of ships per year. In addition, Chentian exchanged one of the existing seaplane carriers of the Baltic Fleet for a cruiser with Tirpitz's High Seas Fleet.