Moments later, the door to the Emperor's study opened, and Prime Minister Bernhard. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info von. Billo stepped back with a respectful face. Turning to see the two princes and Tirpitz, he was slightly surprised. At this time, the royal attendant had already pushed the door open, and the two sides had no time to greet each other, only nodding to each other.

"Coming?" Wilhelm II stood by the window at his desk, and judging by his tone and demeanor, his mood was not bad.

"I would like to pay the highest respect to Your Majesty!" Natsuki was the first to greet the Emperor, and on most occasions, he expressed his absolute respect for the rule of the Empire in such formal terms, despite their indisputable father-son relationship.

Christian and Tirpitz also saluted the emperor separately in wording appropriate to their respective statuses.

"Oh, Prince Auguste, thank you for your respect, and for the opportunity to convey my sincere greetings to His Majesty the Grand Duke."

After completing these high-sounding salutes, the Emperor returned to his desk: "Jochen, I am proud of your outstanding performance at the Naval Academy, I am so sorry that I could not personally go and confer on you the title of Outstanding Cadet, your diligence is bringing the royal family and the navy closer together." ”

"It's a great honor for me to have your affirmation." With this appropriate response, Natsuki tried his best to show a calm and joyful demeanor, and his acting skills became more and more profound.

The Emperor lit a cigarette in his hand: "In the morning, the Earl came with your design drawings to report on the adjustment of the scheme of the two large cruisers, and I heard that the senior experts of the Royal Navy's Technical Committee were stunned by your bold idea, and they finally voted to approve your design plan. If this proposal is indeed worth the risk, as the Technical Committee has assessed, I will find a way to persuade Congress to increase your budget. ”

Natsuki was not in a hurry to speak, but gave Wilhelm II the oil paintings he had painted on the train. Seeing this color picture, which was slightly larger than the page, the German emperor's eyes lit up: "Ha, you actually imitate my use of color!" ”

This is a piece of cake for Natsuki, who has been able to enter and exit the emperor's study freely since he was a child.

Observing carefully, the emperor was full of praise: "Beautiful, very beautiful!" This is the Imperial Navy battleship in my imagination, mighty, domineering, majestic, and so beautiful! Jochen, you are ...... Unparalleled genius! ”

"This should be what people call blood inheritance!" Natsuki cheekily boasted, "I'm lucky that I inherited the talent of a first-class military strategist from you, and the inspiration of an artist from the empress, so I was able to depict your glorious vision on the drawings." ”

The sycophant slapped the right place, and the emperor nodded comfortably: "Well, well! Great! ”

Natsuki took the opportunity to unfold the general design of the ship, and the black lines on the pure white drawings obviously did not have the intuitive beauty of oil paintings, but they had the precise calculations that were put into practice.

The Emperor looked at it very seriously and asked, "Does reaching a speed of 25 knots come at the cost of weakened armor and firepower?" ”

Wilhelm II's penchant for warships is well known, and he also left behind a historical joke about "the emperor designed warships". But Natsuki has carefully studied Wilhelm II's "Royal One", and although it lacks professional attention to some details, it will never become a duck cast in lead. Judging from the technical level at that time, the "Royal One" should have been a light cruiser with good performance, but why did it attract historical bad criticism from professional ship designers?

The root of the problem is still the role of the emperor.

The people felt that the ruler should govern the country wholeheartedly, and that taking other positions would only lead to misleading the country and the people, while for the officials in power, the ruler should sit on the throne and guide the country, and the specific things should be handled by specific people. As a naval commander with excellent coordination and organizational skills, Tirpitz had a strong sense of opinion on the construction and development of the German navy, and he hoped that the High Seas Fleet would gradually become a powerful force capable of challenging British maritime supremacy according to his own ideas.

With the firm support of Wilhelm II, Tirpitz gained a very high dominance in naval affairs, and almost no one in the entire empire could challenge his authority, except for the emperor himself, who was qualified to dictate, and after gaining the notoriety of "lead duck", Wilhelm II did not try to design warships again, but only put forward broad or clear requirements for some technical indicators of the newly built warships - Tirpitz completely mastered the naval power, which is the guess in Natsuki's heart.

In response to the emperor's question, Natsuki looked at Tirpitz and introduced unhurriedly: "Our competitors have set strategic goals for traditional cruisers that can be found, caught up, and beaten, and use this as a guide to continuously build newer and better large cruisers. From the point of view of our current naval strategy, the only requirement for a colonial cruiser is to be able to retreat in the face of a strong enemy. Therefore, we felt that the new cruiser should appropriately elongate the hull, enhance the seaworthiness, use more powerful boilers and more efficient steam turbines, ensure a speed of not less than 25 knots, and only strengthen the armor defense, not weaken. In terms of firepower, all the main guns were placed in four twin turrets, and the gun silhouette secondary guns, which were originally located on the lower broadside, were all moved up to ensure practicality in rough sea conditions. ”

When Natsuki made this smooth explanation, the Admiralty Minister remained expressionless.

"Hmm...... What does our Count Tirpitz think? "Having dismissed his own misgivings, Wilhelm II naturally consulted with the supreme authority on the part of the navy.

"It's a near-perfect design, with just a few details that could have caused serious flaws." Tirpitz said in a low and slow tone, "First, at present, only the British have installed steam turbines on large ships, and it is impossible for us to get a full set of operating data from them, and install new equipment on two large warships without sufficient technical foundation. Second, although the turret structure is conducive to the concentration of firepower, it is not conducive to dispersing the gun position and reducing the probability of joint damage, and the weight is much higher than that of the gun profile. Thirdly, the excellence of high-speed torpedo boats means that large ships are exposed to an increasing threat of lightning strikes, and theoretically, secondary guns deployed close to the waterline are beneficial for repelling enemy torpedo boats that are ready to attack. ”

Natsuki caught a glimpse of surprise and ambivalence on the Emperor's face, and it was clear that Tirpitz had not said this during his morning visit—it was his clever way to maintain his personal integrity in front of the Emperor by avoiding behind-the-scenes discussions.

Since the Minister of the Navy was worried that his dominance of the navy would be threatened by himself, Natsuki quickly changed his strategy and followed the logic of Tirpitz's language and said: "As the teacher said, we are not familiar enough with the performance of the steam turbine, and it is also risky to make a big adjustment in the power configuration, and adjusting the gun profile auxiliary gun on the side is also a risky attempt, so we wrote to the teacher for help, and only the teacher in the whole of Germany can solve this problem." Other than that, Prince August and I were confident in the design. ”

Hearing Prince Joachim say this, Wilhelm II's conflicted expression immediately dissipated, and he raised his head to look at Tirpitz: "Tirpitz, who can do everything, should be able to find a solution, right?" ”

The Admiralty Minister had apparently not expected Natsuki to use such a retreat trick, and the Emperor's words silenced him, staring at the blueprints on the table.

When the emperor's attention was also on the design drawing, the corners of Xia Shu's mouth provoked a sly smile, but now Christian was at a loss, and his dumb eyes seemed to say: I'll it, which play is this?

It was about five minutes—not enough time to take a nap, but five minutes of silence was quite long in the Emperor's office. Tirpitz said: "The way to increase speed is not simply to replace the steam turbine with higher theoretical efficiency, it is not mature enough, it is not stable enough, and considering that our four-cylinder, three-expansion reciprocating steam engine has been successfully proven on the 'Prince Heinrich', I think it is possible to use this high-cost, coal-intensive power equipment that can provide more power output, and equip the ship with 20 to 22 new Schultz." The Sannik Rov Navy boiler, combined with the oil pouring technology, should have been designed to increase the power by 33,000 to 34,000 horsepower. The proposal to abolish the underwater torpedo tubes in the bow of the ship can be considered for adoption, and it is not impossible to adjust the arrangement of the gun's side guns, but it should be treated with caution. As a prudent consideration, I propose that the general design of His Royal Highnesses Prince Joachim and Prince August be modelled on the technical drawings of the Royal Naval Technical Committee, with the construction still in the hands of Blom and Weser Shipyards. ”

"I totally agree with the teacher!" Xia Shu quickly expressed his position at the first time, which also made the contradictory look on the emperor's face disappear.

"Since Jochen has no objection to the Count's proposal, the general plan for the new cruiser is thus determined! How about handing over the drawings to the Royal Naval Technical Committee? The Emperor looked at the two parties with a consultative gaze.

"Totally agreed." Natsuki's answer was very refreshing, and those who didn't know it might think that they were discussing something that had already been drafted. In fact, Natsuki is just following a simple and practical principle: never touch other people's bread under any circumstances.

The Minister of the Navy, who had no way out, decisively put away his previous solemn expression, and his tone became more positive: "I will urge the technical committee to complete the design and demonstration work in the shortest possible time to ensure that the construction of the two cruisers will start early next year at the latest." According to the master scheme that we have just agreed upon, they will weigh at least 1,200 tonnes more than the original design and will likely cost 20 million marks. ”

"This tonnage and cost are about the same as Britain's latest Duke of Edinburgh-class armored cruisers, and our cruiser's performance is definitely much higher than that of the Duke of Edinburgh!" Natsuki's words had already reached his mouth, and he swallowed it after thinking about it. The British Duke of Edinburgh is still on the design drawings, and all the data is highly classified, and the German professional spies have not yet made any gains, so there is no reason for them to explain their situation so clearly, not to mention that Tirpitz has always been very sensitive to this information.

"I'll take care of the funding issues." The emperor's answer was very refreshing, which was enough to show his great confidence in Aiko's talent for building ships.

As the unshakable anchor and strategic helmsman of the German Navy at this time, Tirpitz had an imperceptible worry in his eyes, which obviously came from his "proud protégé", the fledgling but great potential Prince Joachim. After such a confrontation that was not heated but full of political wisdom, Natsuki clearly saw that Tirpitz was by no means a man to be manipulated, and that his strong desire for control led him to reject all rivals, without the slightest consideration that a prince as Joachim should have sought supreme honor in commanding fleets rather than building them. For Germany, the best outcome would be for the two to be in their own right.

PS: 1. The Grand Duke of Oldenburg in this period took August as his surname, so Christian was "Prince August of the Duchy of Oldenburg".

2. The oil pouring technology is an attempt by the Germans to improve the efficiency of coal-fired boilers, that is, to sprinkle heavy oil on the red-hot coal in the boiler to make it mixed and burned, but this attempt ultimately failed. In fact, proper sprinkling of water on coal can actually improve combustion efficiency.

(End of chapter)