From the sunny Hawaiian Islands to the scorching German Marshall Islands, from the tropical Solomon Islands (Southern Hemisphere) to the Mariana Islands in autumn, from the remote Samoa to the bustling San Diego, through the beautiful Panama Canal, into the charming Caribbean Sea, visiting Havana and Florida, and continuing eastward along the east coast of the United States, the "Ku Chulin" carried its passengers to enjoy the most representative climate and scenery of the two oceans. Broadening their knowledge and horizons, sharpening their will and tempering their physique, even Her Royal Highness the Irish Queen, who seemed to be weak, stubbornly adapted to the harsh life at sea, and with her joyful singing voice, she turned the boring voyage into a happy time for the cadets of the navy. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

In late August, the Irish training ship finally arrived at New York, the most important stop of the trip.

In this era, there were many conservative Europeans who insisted that London, Paris, and Vienna were the greatest cities in the world, and there were also many people of insight who looked beyond Europe. In terms of size, population, and prosperity, New York has long been behind all the famous cities in Europe. Standing here, looking at the high-rise buildings, the dense transportation lines and the busy port and wharf day and night, marvel at the modern atmosphere displayed by industrial technology, as if you have come to a city ahead of its time.

The reason why it is different from the cosmopolitan metropolises of Europe is that most of its buildings and facilities were born in the industrial age, and it is a city made of steel, brick, and concrete, which is full of industrial magnificence without the historical style, which is precisely the epitome of the United States.

Once again, when he came to New York, Natsuki was nowhere to be found. As his wonderful honeymoon came to an end, and when he returned to Ireland, he would have to focus most of his energy on national affairs, so he put aside all his reverie for a while, and took Charlotte to wander the streets of Manhattan, watch musicals on Broadway, and pick up gifts in famous and ordinary shops.

It wasn't until the last two days of the trip that Natsuki and his entourage had an official meeting with U.S. dignitaries and military generals at the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

So far, there has been little cooperation or confrontation between the United States and Ireland at the political and diplomatic levels, but the strategic alliance between Ford Motor and the Limerick vehicle manufacturing plant has undoubtedly facilitated in-depth contacts between the two sides. In order to reduce its heavy dependence on German capital, Ireland brought in a very considerable amount of American capital between 1917 and 1918, in which the US government played a key role. In return, the Irish military acquiesced to the release of the vehicle's technical data by American engineers on the basis of their work, greatly speeding up the development of the country's first mass-produced tank.

Despite this, Natsuki has no good feelings about the United States and its top brass, and he has always regarded the secret cooperation between the two sides as a deal to take what they need, and most of the military and political leaders who want to come to the United States have a similar mentality.

The U.S. government has always flaunted its peace-loving and neutral international stance, and the continuous expansion action is not to mention for the time being, at this time the British government is secretly building a "super queen" in the giant dockyard of the New York shipyard, and the London Treaty signed in 1915 clearly restricted Britain from designing and building a new generation of capital ships before 1920. Morality is only a cover to deceive opponents and their own people, and interests are the primary consideration in their decision-making.

During his stay in Hawaii, Natsuki became good friends with the outspoken General Friedel, and saw from this American soldier the mainstream thinking of contemporary Americans, who did not see Germany as a terrible enemy, because if the Germans wanted to invade the United States, they had to cross the vast Atlantic, and before that, they first had to level Britain, seize the Azores, and then establish a strategic transit point on the east coast of the Americas, after being frustrated in the Portuguese crisis, The Germans' attention was clearly focused on Africa and West Asia, and more importantly, the German navy grew far behind the U.S. navy in the postwar period, which was already slightly ahead of the German navy in total tonnage at the end of 1918, and the lead would continue to expand in the years to come.

However, it is clear that the thinking of the top level of the United States is different from that of ordinary people, and they know very well that the reason why the United States has been able to catch up from behind and surpass the traditional powers to become the world's largest in terms of industrial scale and gross national product is not only the result of the interaction between good social and economic conditions and the natural geographical environment, but also the benefits of long-term economic construction in a good environment. They do not mind the replacement of old and new hegemony between Britain and Germany in their inherent areas, but they absolutely cannot tolerate a conflict between the two that will affect the national security of the United States -- the United States is not afraid of Britain's strength because the United States has defeated the British Army on land and is confident that it will deal with the British army, which has rarely improved for many years, but if the German Navy achieves control of sea power through the improvement of both technology and scale, then the security of the United States at home will be threatened like never before.

In the final analysis, the United States at this time was still a fledgling emerging country, and no diplomatic, economic, or military could be compared with Britain in its heyday.

If you want to become a true world empire, you must constantly increase your strength. Based on this starting point, the U.S. officials who came to the Waldorf Astoria couldn't wait to take advantage of the home negotiations to induce Ireland to provide more and more in-depth help for the construction and development of the U.S. military.

At the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. homeland defense relied primarily on naval vessels and coastal defense forts. It has a population of 100 million, but only 77,000 regular army troops and 120,000 National Guards, outdated weapons and equipment, and the cavalry units chopped with sabers are the elite of the army. Military leaders did not know the organization of corps, divisions, or brigades, and the Army had maintained its regimental structure since the Civil War. The outbreak of the European war in 1914 was supposed to be an excellent opportunity for the Americans to observe the development of military technology and ideology, but before the Americans could seriously observe and think about the tremendous changes brought about by various military changes to the mode of warfare, the Allied countries, which had the advantage in overall strength, had already collapsed in the face of the combined fist of the Germans.

Machine guns, artillery, and tracked chariots replaced cavalry, bayonets, and dense arrays of guns on the battlefield, which may seem simple to say, but there are unimaginable difficulties in putting theory into practice. In the latter part of the war, the Germans unhurriedly explored new tactics of air-ground integration and infantry and tank coordination on the Russian battlefield, but the Americans were left with only the painful memories of the British and French -- neither the selfless lessons shared by the British Navy nor the help given to the American military by retired French officers to achieve reemployment could replace the role of actual combat.

In the three years since the end of World War II, thanks to the efforts of President Wilson and military generals, the size of the U.S. Army Standing Army has gradually expanded to 500,000 and established a modern reserve military service system. Relying on its advantages in the industrial, economic, scientific, and technological fields, the United States has developed and produced all kinds of new weapons that performed well in the war, and then equipped the army in large quantities, but the British and French officers who served as advisers to the US army are still pessimistic about the combat effectiveness of the US army, and some people even think that the 500,000 US troops will be beaten to the ground by the 500,000 German troops on the battlefield, because the fighting consciousness of the majority of US officers and the vast majority of soldiers is unqualified.

What worries high-level people in the United States even more is that since the end of the war, the Germans have never relaxed the pace of rearmament warfare. Field Marshal Moltke Jr. once said in public that the opponent of the German Army was any foreign enemy who dared to invade the European continent, but judging from the military exercises held by the German army and the remarks made by Kaiser Wilhelm II on some private occasions, a large-scale landing offensive was a new tactic that the German army painstakingly studied.

The German army could not give the Americans the opportunity to learn from each other, and among the Allied countries, only the Irish army was closest to the German army in terms of structure, training, and operational thinking, and as long as the Irish army gave appropriate cooperation, so that the American generals and officers and men could get the opportunity to get close to actual combat training, or let them understand the true essence of the German army's combat style, the US government was willing to meet Ireland's demands in terms of economic, trade, and financial capital.

For such a request, Xia Li clearly rejected it on the spot. If you agree to such a thing to quench your thirst, wouldn't it be as simple and naïve as these Americans in front of you?

In fact, the United States at the end of the 10 th century not only had many military shortcomings, but also did not have as good a social and economic field as the outside world imagined. Behind the rapid economic development and the soaring stock market are the frequent occurrence of mining disasters, environmental degradation, and serious corruption. Food safety is plaguing the American people, the working environment of workers is poor, the intensity is high, the wages are low, the gap between the rich and the poor is wide, the polarization is serious, the social contradictions are prominent, and social stability is facing a very severe challenge -- the main factors that led to the collapse of Tsarist Russia are actually the same in the United States, which claims to be free and democratic!

In response to these ills, President Theodore Roosevelt began to intervene administratively in the economy while in office, and his successor, Woodrow Wilson, continued to do so. Specifically, it is a "progressive movement" that guarantees fair trade in the form of legislation, opposes monopolies, protects workers' rights, and encourages social ills. Over time, these policies have been effective, but they have also created huge pitfalls. The reason why the world economic crisis will first erupt in the United States has been foreshadowed for a long time.

(End of chapter)