On a pouring afternoon afternoon, with only a few citizens sheltering from the rain in the deserted halls of the Kiel Telegraph Office, two operators in dark blue uniforms read the newspaper idly behind the chest-high office counter. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info For human society, the telegraph is really a very remarkable invention, it has changed the primitive and inefficient mode of information transmission for thousands of years, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the cable telegraph network in most countries of the world has enabled people to communicate in real time from thousands of miles away. However, this does not mean that everyone can shoot telegrams as they please, they are charged per word, and they are directly linked to the distance transmitted. A short telegram from Kiel to Berlin costs a few tens of puffines (1 mark = 100 pfennig), and if it is taken abroad, especially in a country like the United States, which is separated by oceans, the price of a few simple words is enough to be heartbreaking.

"Transoceanic telegram, from the United States!"

The routine announcement in the telegraph room was unremarkable, but it stood out in the empty hall. The shelterers looked at each other curiously, and the staff in the telegraph room handed out a piece of paper through the window, and the male operator behind the counter took it in his hand and looked at it a few times, and his originally lazy and loose expression suddenly changed. He quickly took out a beautiful hard-shell envelope from the drawer, filled it with the newspaper, carefully packed the envelope into the straddle-type waterproof mail bag, then quickly put on the poncho and hurried straight out the door. Through the windows of the telegraph office, one could see him pedaling his bicycle with great difficulty, and in a short time disappeared into the rain.

Several shelterers looked at each other, but their limited curiosity did not drive them to the counter to find out. The gray-bearded shelterer diverted the subject and said, "It seems that this rain will not stop until it gets dark." ”

The middle-aged man in the linen tuxedo obviously did not have such patience, and he said with a melancholy expression: "It's really annoying on a rainy day, and you can't do anything." ”

The female operator left behind the counter yawned inappropriately.

While people were speculating about when the bad weather would end, the male operator who had left the telegraph office had arrived at the entrance of the Kiel Naval Academy at a drag racing speed. He got out of the car at the gate and said to the watchman: "Prince Joachim's telegram, from the United States." ”

Although Kiel was the most important naval base and shipping hub of the German Empire in 1905, it had a population of just over 100,000 people, and the size of the city was far less than that of large ports like Bremen and Hamburg. As in other small cities, the inhabitants knew each other well, and when they saw that they were old faces, the attendant of the academy directly allowed them to let him go, and kindly told him: "His Royal Highness the Prince should have a lunch break at his residence at this time." ”

The male operator thanked him and rode his bicycle through the quaint boulevard, and soon came to a brown wooden house. He put away his bicycle lightly, uncovered the poncho under the eaves, brushed his rain-soaked hair, and wiped his face with a handkerchief, and then he straightened his chest respectfully and knocked on the door lightly.

"Who is it?" A calm and green male voice came from inside.

"His Royal Highness Prince Joachim, it's me, Hans of the Telegraph Office. Dowler. The operator replied politely.

"Oh, wait a minute." The voice inside still sounded peaceful, without the slightest sense of arrogance and domineering.

Suddenly, a big boy wearing a striped shirt and bib pants appeared in front of the door, his short blond brown hair was neatly combed, his big blue eyes looked bright, and he politely invited the operator to enter the door. As usual, Dowler took only one step towards the threshold, presented the letter containing the telegram to the other party in both hands, and waited silently without saying a word. The handsome older boy took out the telegram from the envelope, read it intently, then walked to the desk, wrote the reply telegram on the letter paper with a pen, revised it several times in the middle, and finally handed the confirmed content to Dowler along with a few bills. The operator glanced at the letterhead, which, in terms of the number of characters, was a few marks left to cover the telegraph bill—the equivalent of three or four days' salary. The extra money was counted as hard work as usual, and the pleasant color on his face suddenly bloomed implicitly and shyly like the moon season in the rain.

"Thank you so much for taking a trip in such weather."

The big boy with an extraordinary temperament not only spoke politely, but also solemnly shook hands with this ordinary telegraph office staff member at the end. To put it nicely, this is to fully recognize and respect every worker, and to put it bluntly, it is to give the other party enough benefits and face. Such treatment was rare in such a hierarchical society, and perhaps in the newspaper operator's mind, Prince Joachim was already an angel.

He humbly said, "It is an honor to be able to serve you. ”

"Oh, by the way, please wait a little longer." The older boy hurried back to his desk, this time writing with his pen running smoothly on the letterhead, and in two minutes at most, he returned to the door with the letter and a dark green bill.

"Please send this telegram to the Friedrich shipyard in Danzig, with an additional note: it must be delivered to Monsieur Wiesel himself."

"Okay, Your Highness, it will be delivered accurately."

The standard deferential gesture of the telegraph operator showed his absolute respect for Prince Joachim, in fact, the Kiel Naval Academy also had its own telegraph lines and communication personnel, and the prince could use the free and efficient official telegraph system to transmit information if he wished, and it was definitely cheaper and more convenient to pay a symbolic fee for private appropriation of public resources than to send a telegram from the telegraph office, but he never did. When he needed to send a telegram, he usually made a personal trip to the telegraph office.

After seeing off the telegraph operator, Natsuki returned to his desk, picked up the telegram he had just delivered, and looked up in meditation.

The telegram read: Mr. Holland is at home, has no intention of being employed, and is willing to go on a short-term visit to Germany.

This Mr. Holland is no idle man, his full name is John. Philip. Holland, an Irishman, is regarded as the "father of modern submarines" by later generations for designing and inventing the Holland series of submarines. Holland began studying submarines at the age of 18, built his first submarine in 1878, lived in the United States for many years, was employed by the U.S. Navy, won the U.S. Submarine Design Competition in 1895, and built the epoch-making "Horan-6" submarine in 1897. However, like many of history's great artists and inventors, Holland had an ill-fated early work with Irish revolutionaries in exile in the United States to build submarines that could launch torpedoes against the British (sounds like something out of some movies), but the impatient revolutionaries suspended their funding of him and took away the two submarines that had already been built. Holland then worked with a friend to build a new submarine, which was destroyed by a slipway collapse during a test launch. The eventual success of the Holland-6 also failed to bring any benefit to Holland himself, and due to the prejudice and pickiness of some officials of the US Navy Department, the submarine was not only not adopted by the US Navy, but instead subjected the great inventor to vicious ridicule. Horan was forced to resign from the U.S. Navy in 1903 and never worked on submarine design and construction ever since.

Natsuki to John. Holland's knowledge stemmed half from his own knowledge of history and half from reports from agents sent to the Friedrich shipyard in early 1904 to the United States and Spain in order to recruit outstanding submarine engineers. The shipyard began to expand and upgrade in the autumn of 1904, and the first submarine dock has been built so far, and new engineering equipment has been put in place one after another, but the work of hiring external submarine technicians is progressing slowly, mainly because submarine construction is still a new industry, and there are very few excellent engineers who are reputable, and most of them are regarded as technical wealth by the government or major shipyards, and it is difficult for the outside world to find opportunities to poach, and the detectives selected by Natsuki and Wiesel are not all discerning Bole. They have brought back a lot of guys who are so fantastic, after Xia Shu's try, there are only three or four who have real skills, but they don't have the ability and experience to be independent.

On the other hand, although the German Germania shipyard that has mastered submarine technology is willing to provide personnel and technical support, as Wizel expected, their asking price is difficult for Friedrich shipyard to afford, and in-house research and development is still the most ideal way at present. If you can get John. With Horan's help, not to mention whether the Friedrich shipyard can achieve an unrivaled advantage in the field of submarine technology in the future, the development of its own submarine construction technology will definitely be able to achieve twice the result with half the effort. In Natsuki's view, although Holland has become disheartened due to various setbacks, submarines are after all the career he has worked hard for most of his life, and it is not easy to really give up. Moreover, the Irish had a long history of resentment with British rule, especially in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, when their independence movement flourished. John. Holland may not have been a hardcore independence activist, but judging by his work with the independence movement organization Fennia, he was at least not an anti-independence pro-British.

"If you have no friends, you will look for the enemy of your enemy", this was a famous quote of the famous French diplomat Delcasser, and Natsuki regarded it as a fight for John. An important opportunity for Holland. On the draft telegram he had just written, the words "free trip to the hot springs, invite his family to accompany him", "promise to provide assistance to Ireland", etc., while on the blank letter below was the imprint of the draft telegram sent to Danzig, with many more sentences on it, and the language was not as concise as the transoceanic telegram, which was vaguely recognizable: "Send someone to Ireland to find out the situation on the ground, and if he still has his family, invite him to Baden for a spa recuperation", " Organize people to complete the first and second sets of technical drawings as soon as possible and send them to me for review".

(End of chapter)