Do you remember how you spent your 16th birthday and what kind of gifts you received?

Natsuki's first 16th birthday was so unremarkable that it was not very clear in memory. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoIf the Charlotte had been hit by a violent storm on its way home, or had a breakdown that would have been difficult to repair in a short period of time, his second 16th birthday might have been as simple as that.

The fact is that after its departure from Spain, the Charlotte sailed nearly 4,000 kilometers in just two weeks, returning to the port of Kiel on December 15, 1906.

Sixteen years ago, on December 17, Prince Joachim Franz Hubert of Prussia was inaugurated in the Imperial Palace of the German Empire in Berlin.

In traditional European countries, boys are considered adults at the age of 16 and can be treated like adults and perform adult duties.

After a long voyage of 170 days, Xia Shu saw that he in the mirror had become more handsome, robust and mature, and the faces around him were less youthful and ignorant, adding to the vicissitudes of wind and sun, and he could already see the vigor and stability of adults between his gestures.

After attending the graduation ceremony held by the Kiel Naval Academy for the cadets, Natsuki boarded the train to Berlin, accompanied by two royal attendants.

In the early morning of December 17, Natsuki stepped onto the platform of Berlin's Potsdam station. Unlike previous trips, this time, he wore a gorgeous and straight military dress, a gold ribbon on a white background, and a helmet with bright feathers, and strutted through the neatly lined royal guards. In the middle of winter, when the temperature is cold and cold, Natsuki travels through the main street of Berlin in an open-top royal carriage. Because the royal family had announced that Prince Joachim was about to hold a coming-of-age ceremony, many citizens spontaneously came along the way to pay tribute to the talented Prussian prince.

Natsuki waved from the carriage to the crowd of onlookers, a treatment that many people would never have had the opportunity to enjoy in their lifetime.

The carriage arrived at the Imperial Palace in Berlin, and Natsuki once again walked past the majestic Imperial Royal Guards. The salute was fired, and important royal relatives including the Kaiser, the Empress, the Crown Prince, and the princes, princesses, princes, and grand dukes gathered in the main hall to witness the coming-of-age ceremony of the young royal family, and to witness his obligations, responsibilities and glory.

On such a grand occasion, Natsuki had no intention of stage fright. With his chest straightened and his sword in his left hand, he walked into the main hall of the palace with a steady and powerful stride, and then took off his hat with his right hand to salute the Kaiser, the Empress and the Crown Prince with traditional royal etiquette.

The Kaiser's expression was majestic, the Empress's face was kind, and the Crown Prince's face still had that elusive smile.

When Xia Shu stopped in front, there was silence in the main hall. Kaiser Wilhelm II said in a high-pitched voice: "Prince Joachim of Prussia, our son, the pride of the Hohenzollerns, today you are 16 years old. From now on, you should take the sword as your heart, be proud of your loyalty, bravely assume the responsibilities of a member of the royal family, and fulfill the sacred duties entrusted to you by the state. Joachim, in the name of the German Emperor, I give you the glorious mission of guarding the glory of the Empire, and may good luck be with you...... God bless Germany! ”

Having witnessed the coming-of-age ceremony of each of his brothers, Natsuki was no stranger to all this, and he drew his sword and swore an oath: "God testifies, I, Joachim, hereby swear: I will fight for the defense of German unity, justice and freedom in this life, and be unconditionally loyal to my country, to my Emperor Majesty, and I will go forward bravely and never retreat...... God bless Germany! ”

When Crown Prince William placed the badge symbolizing the honor of the Hohenzollern family on Natsuki's chest, the royal relatives applauded, and they were still more interested.

At their own coming-of-age ceremony, the princes of Prussia will not only receive honors, but also royal gifts. Crown Prince William, Second Prince Aiter, Third Prince Adalbert, Fourth Prince Augustus, and Fifth Prince Oscar, all of them received their own private lands and estates.

At the coming-of-age ceremony of the last prince, Wilhelm II, the head of the House of Hohenzollern, announced that he would be given an equally rich royal fortune. The list includes more than 600 hectares of royal territory in Blomburg (now a city in northern Poland), a stake in the Royal Friedrich shipyard that was originally owned by the royal family, and a portion of the royal cash assets.

For the core members of the royal family, such a title was completely expected, and its content and scope did not exceed that of any previous Prussian prince, but the business conditions and development prospects of the Friedrich Royal Shipyard definitely exceeded the properties of several princes, and this alone was enough to be envied. Although the royal territory of Blomburg was not a commercial center or a tourist destination, it was flat and fertile, close to the Vistula River, easy to navigate, and only a little more than 100 kilometers from the port of Danzig, where the Friedrich shipyard was located. On this territory, there stands a Gothic castle with a history of more than 400 years, which was earlier a military fortress and royal residence of Poland, and was incorporated into Prussia in 1793 with the Danzig, Sorne, Gniezno, and Poznan regions, and has been the property of the Prussian royal family for more than 100 years, and has largely maintained its historical appearance - it is rumored that during the Polish Succession War in the early 18th century, the defeated side buried a staggering amount of treasure under this castle for future military expenses, But in the end, it failed to reverse the trend. After that, the Polish royal family turned it into a palace and ordered the treasure to be searched, and the Prussian royal family cleaned it up with the same purpose, and it is said that it is still hidden in some hidden location, waiting to be opened by someone who is destined to start the legend of the king.

Natsuki is less interested in whether the old castle contains the legendary wealth, and he cares more about the value he creates with his mind and hands. The Friedrich shipyard was on a steady upward trajectory, and he had the energy and desire to expand into new areas. In this royal gift, bank deposits and negotiable securities amounted to more than 5 million marks, equivalent to nearly 300,000 pounds. This is a considerable amount of money by the price level at the beginning of the 20th century. Two years ago, the fifth prince, Oscar, chose to improve the living conditions of the castle in the realm, and he was also criticized by public opinion for his overly luxurious decoration. This time, Natsuki did not repeat the mistakes of the past, and he did not reach the stage where his "nesting nature" flourished. The realized funds, together with dividends from the Friedrich shipyard, were used to make long-planned investments: the opening of Hubert Power in Danzig, the establishment of Hubert Aviation in Blomburg, and the establishment of the Prince Hubert shipyard in Ireland, together with the creation of the Hubert Ordnance Company two years earlier, a comprehensive military-industrial complex covering land, sea and air was formed.

With capital and industry, how can there be a lack of talents?

Not only in the 21st century, but also in the 20th century and even in any era of competition for hegemony, the most valuable thing is always talent. In order to recruit talents, Natsuki set up a business and technical department at the Friedrich shipyard very early, equipped with full-time "scouts", established a talent database, from the prestigious and talented power, to the up-and-coming and outstanding mavericks, all of them were paid attention to, and then Natsuki decided which people needed to dig further information, which ones immediately contacted them, which ones made employment offers, and which ones cooperated in the form of funding.

Now there is Ernest at the Friedrich shipyard. Karls and John. With their joint efforts, the shipyard has successfully transformed from building and repairing old-fashioned sailing ships to a first-class military shipyard with distinctive technical characteristics and quality advantages in the field of light ships, and orders from the German Navy and other countries have provided huge profits for it, and also made Natsuki's plan to build a super military industrial enterprise on the agenda.

Hubert Arms was a young company, with an initial investment of only 1,500,000 marks, half of which was used to acquire a small and failing arsenal on the outskirts of Danzig. In very limited circumstances, Uncle Wiesel's son-in-law, "Cauliflower Head" Tony. Beretta, who took on the responsibility of chief designer and technical director, brought in his cousin Sylves from Italy. Beretta helped. After several months of hard work, they succeeded in transforming the manual Gatling machine gun that had been eliminated by the German Army into a special armament for the "Thunder" two-seater high-speed torpedo boat -- the new weapon was a six-barreled structure, 13 mm caliber, and the barrel was rotated with the help of the torpedo boat engine shaft when firing, and the rate of fire could be adjusted between 200, 280 and 360 rounds per minute, and it could also be fired by hand when it lost power.

With the mass production of "Thunder", Tony's rotary machine gun produced a total of more than 200 units, digging the first pot of gold for Hubert Ordnance. In recognition of the company's development prospects, Natsuki and Christian made additional investments, and the company soon introduced new machinery and equipment and streamlined production lines, and recruited a group of gunsmiths and electrical experts. In the spring of 1906, the Ordnance Company launched its real flagship product -- the 20 mm caliber air-guided naval machine gun, which can be installed on the rotating gun carriage alone, and can also be used in a double-mounted or quadruple-mounted manner. Not only did the Friedrich shipyard place place a large number of orders for medium and large torpedo boats and light cruisers, but other German shipyards also sent purchase orders one after another, and the production and operation of the Ordnance Company entered a new stage, and the continuous accumulation of technical strength also laid the foundation for the future development and production of aviation and land weapons.

With the successful experience of Friedrich Shipyard and Huubert Ordnance, Xia Shu has a very clear idea of the development blueprint of the three new enterprises, Hubert Aviation, Hubert Shipbuilding and Hubert Power, that is, autonomy, specialization and practicality.

In the field of fixed-wing aircraft, although Natsuki is not an expert, those common sense knowledge is enough for him to play the role of a prophet in the embryonic stage of aviation technology, and the "scouts" have also found him a quite remarkable power - Hugo. Junkers. Only a few years after the advent of airplanes, the professor of mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University has already begun to explore this area with his protégés. In order to get Junkers to join his aviation company, Natsuki accepted his offers, including setting up an aviation laboratory in Aachen, so that he could continue to teach while taking his students to work on the design of flying machines. In addition, Hubert Aviation will pay Junkers' student assistants and give them priority in well-paying jobs after graduation.

The Shipyard of Hubert was placed in Ireland, where the industrial base was relatively weak, and the original intention was to fulfill the promise to John. Holland's promise, and because of his experience of stopping at Port Cork during the training voyage, Natsuki now sees it as an important military-political investment, and has secured secret funding from the German government on this basis. In order to make the function of the shipyard more hidden, Natsuki also played a trick on the identity background of the funder - let an Irishman named Duff Hubert act as the number one shareholder and nominal operator of the shipyard, and at the same time hired several Irish local officials to serve as advisers in the shipyard with high salaries. In essence, 80 percent of the shipyard's shares are in the hands of Xia Shu, and 20 percent belong to John. Holland. Because there were no high technical requirements for the production of 200-ton short-range submarines, and Friedrich's production capacity was not enough to meet all foreign orders, Natsuki transferred the production of the "Holland VIII" submarine to Hubert Shipyard, and provided more than 600 jobs for the local Irish, and followed the line with John. Holland's agreement gave them a rather generous salary.

Among the three newly established companies, Natsuki valued Hubert Power the most, and its first project was the Tesla steam turbine technology that Natsuki brought back from the United States. By this time, the design of the first class of dreadnoughts of the German Navy had been finalized, and the four new warships were to be built at four of Germany's best shipyards, the Royal Wilhelm Shipyard, the Wiser Shipyard in Bremen, the Shipyard in Stettinvolkeng, and the Kilgermania Shipyard, which were scheduled to begin construction in February 1907 with a stipulated period of 21 months, plus a reserved period of commissioning and adaptation, and were expected to be officially commissioned in the summer of 1909.

Combining Natsuki's "forward-looking" and "creative" design ideas, the performance of the new warships of this class is very balanced on paper. Krupp will provide the armor plates and guns they need to build the project, Siemens will provide the first-class electrical equipment, and the power system will use the Schulz-Sannikrovt coal-fired boiler and the Schulz-Parsons steam turbine, which is the first time that the German Navy has used steam turbine technology on a large capital ship. In this regard, although the Germans started late, they could see that the British ocean liners using steam turbines had successfully gained strong power, and the British Navy's newly built cruisers and even the Dreadnought battleship were also equipped with steam turbines, and they decisively followed up and used civilian ships and light cruisers to test the performance of steam turbines.

With the practical use of steam turbines, the German Navy was able to break free from the power constraints of reciprocating piston steam engines, but relying on foreign technology to imitate them was only a stopgap measure, and by the time the shipyard obtained the production license for Parsons steam turbines, the British must have used upgraded models with better performance and more stable operation. Against this backdrop, as long as the Tesla steam turbine succeeds, the thorny problems that plagued Natsuki and the German Navy will no longer exist, but looking at the design drawings and parameters, no one dares to conclude that it has all the conditions for success: controllability, stability, and practical cost......

The era of the industrial revolution is the era of the outbreak of various new inventions, new technologies and new designs, and it is not difficult to get a technological invention, the key is whether people have the vision and courage to make it, because it may be a huge success in theory, but it is not named in the market, which means that investors will suffer huge economic losses, and dedicate their valuable time, energy and opportunities to pure technological progress

In the field of steam turbines, Parsons and Curtis are two striking examples.

(End of chapter)