At the beginning of August, when the war was raging on the Eastern Front, the Irish delegation arrived in Denmark as scheduled. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 InfoThe Danes accepted the reborn Kingdom of Ireland with a friendly gesture, and they were also one of the first European countries to establish diplomatic relations with it, and the Danish people's feelings about the candidates for the Irish throne with a German royal background are somewhat complicated, because the Germans forcibly occupied the Faroe Islands during the war, and now they return sovereignty to the Danish government, but force the Danish government to agree to the German navy's continued use of Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, which has caused dissatisfaction in Denmark.

With the successful experience of resolving the resistance of the French people, Natsuki was not worried that the Danish bad feelings would affect the trade cooperation between Ireland and Denmark, although there was intelligence that the British might secretly make unfavorable moves against him, but during his visit to Denmark, Natsuki still frequently appeared in public, showing people with a humble, friendly, and cordial attitude, and his good appearance and bearing status as usual He won a lot of impression points.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the political and military influence of the Kingdom of Denmark has long since waned around the world, but their shipping industry and overseas trade are still among the best in Europe. During the war, the Danish merchant fleet was still active in all oceans. Now that Britain's own economy and industry have been battered, and the status of the world's empire has plummeted, many countries are vying for its share of global trade – either out of economic and political ambitions, or simply for greater economic gain, as in Denmark. After the legal status of the Kingdom of Ireland was recognized by the world, the Danish merchant fleet began to accept business from Ireland and helped Ireland sell a large number of agricultural and animal husbandry products to Europe and the United States.

Under the active operation of Natsuki, the two countries quickly started substantive talks on the market alliance for agricultural and animal husbandry products, and Ireland had imported shipbuilding, food processing, and oil refining technology and equipment from Denmark, and the day after arriving in Copenhagen, the German diplomat in Denmark forwarded Natsuki a letter from the Kaiser, which surprised him, and the letter was signed two days ago, indicating that it was sent quickly at the behest of the Kaiser. In his letter, William II referred to two recent major British moves: the relocation of a large number of industrial facilities from the British mainland to Canada and the organized mass immigration, and the settlement of a colony-for-aid agreement with the United States to hand over to the United States a number of islands belonging to the West Indies on the west coast of the Atlantic, near the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, in exchange for large American aid.

The United States has a vast territory and abundant resources, and since its independence, there has been basically no major external threat, its armament burden is relatively small, its domestic market is huge, its population is large and of high quality, and its economic environment is relatively relaxed. After two industrial revolutions, the United States became the world's number one economic and industrial power, and in 1900 steel production was close to the sum of Britain and Germany, and by the outbreak of World War II, American steel production even exceeded that of Britain, France and Germany combined. In 1914, the national income of the United States was $37 billion, Britain, with its vast colonies, was only $11 billion, Germany, which was on the rise, was $12 billion, France was only $6 billion, and Japan was a pitiful $2 billion. Although the United States was never involved in the war, this did not prevent it from becoming a giant with the strongest military potential.

Wilhelm II's intention in writing this letter was not only to reveal information to Natsuki, but his intelligence service mentioned in the report that it was highly likely that Britain would hand over to the Americans the full set of technical drawings for the two powerful capital ships, the Queen Elizabeth class and the Tiger class, and that the United States would build a number of super-dreadnoughts and battlecruisers for Britain under the colony-for-aid agreement - possibly a modification of the Queen Elizabeth and the Tiger. Since the treaty between the United States and Britain was non-allied, the terms of the treaty bypassed the restrictions of the London Armistice Treaty, and Germany's diplomatic pressure had little effect.

It is clear that German victories in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf were met with a strong British response.

In view of the new crisis in Germany's maritime strategy, Wilhelm II believed that it was necessary to reset the strategic planning of the German Navy, and that it was not enough to rely on a few Bavarian-class and 15,000-ton multi-purpose ships to support the situation, and that the design and construction of a new generation of capital ships must be accelerated, and the standard of these capital ships should be raised to 35,000 tons or even 40,000 tons, and Natsuki, who presided over the design and construction of the Nassau, Helgoland, Caesar, King's IV dreadnoughts, and all battlecruisers, He is undoubtedly the most discerning and capable master of ship design in this era. Therefore, the Kaiser hoped that Natsuki would continue to preside over the design and construction of the new German capital ships, and for this reason he was willing to consider temporarily relocating the design and development institutions of the German Navy to Ireland.

From the perspective of the candidate for the Irish throne, this move can tie the interests of Germany and Ireland together, whether it is Wilhelm II or the crown prince on the throne, Germany has to spare no effort to support Ireland, which is exactly the "hotbed" that the new Kingdom of Ireland needs, but helping Germany to build a real large navy is likely to accelerate the formation of the US-British alliance, and then lead to the next big war, when it is inevitable that life will be ruined, and the unpredictable outcome of the war is likely to push Ireland to the abyss of disaster.

From a personal point of view, building an extremely powerful warship is not only Natsuki's specialty, but also his long-cherished wish, not to mention that he is more predictable of technological trends than anyone living in this era, if he refuses this invitation, the German Navy may enter the misunderstanding of blindly developing heavy artillery warships, thus ignoring the strategic role of aircraft carriers and various auxiliary ships, and eventually leading to the defeat of the Allied camp, and the chain reaction here may make Japan more unscrupulous to invade China, which Natsuki never wants to see.

Since it was the German emperor who had a request for himself, after some careful consideration, Xia Shu wrote a long letter, not only putting forward his own requirements for the German Navy's shipbuilding planning, design and construction, but also suggesting that Germany end the war with Russia as soon as possible -- Xia Shu's reasons are also very good, and the tenacity of the Slavic nation is well known to the world, even if the Russian Empire is completely defeated militarily, not only can the Slavs not be obedient, but also sow the seeds of hatred, so that Germany will needlessly invest a lot of manpower and material resources in Eastern Europe, And if there is an early ceasefire, the terms of the truce are used to promote economic aggression, and the Ukrainian grain and Russian minerals can be obtained far and continuously without the need for military occupation, which is the real wise move.

Only three days later, Natsuki waited for the Kaiser's reply. Wilhelm II responded vaguely to the war on the Eastern Front with only a few words, and it seems that he still wanted to take this opportunity to slap the Russians, who had long been opposed to the German-Austrian alliance in the Balkans, and by the way, completely cut off their ambitions for Mesopotamia's oil resources. The German Emperor was really interested in his world naval plan, and he accepted several requests from Natsuki, agreeing to be funded by the German government to establish a naval research center in Limerick, the new capital of Ireland, and operate jointly with the German naval technical department in Kiel, which means that the ship technology of the German and Irish navies will be shared for a long time, in order to prevent leaks, the Kaiser proposed that the naval research center in Limerick be directly responsible for the security of the German Navy, and install counterintelligence personnel in the Irish naval department. If it were other allied countries, they would definitely find such a request barrage and unreasonable, but the current situation in Ireland is very different, full of British spies and Irish people who secretly defected to Britain, and there are not many people who Natsuki can really trust, and the advantages of using Germany's military and intelligence forces appropriately in the early stage will outweigh the disadvantages, and it is not too late to gradually reduce its dependence on Germany when Ireland's national operation is on the right track.

As for the naval grand strategic plan proposed by Natsuki in his heart, he adopted the principle of top-down, that is, he personally agreed with the Kaiser on the construction plan of the ships, and then the high-ranking officials of the German Navy conducted a technical discussion on the plan, and then submitted it to the Imperial Naval Technical Committee to determine the specific design parameters, calculate the expected cost, and finally submit it to the Reichstag for approval of the budget. After all, Muller and Boll were capable of carrying out the regular affairs of the navy, and their ability to organize naval construction was still a little worse than that of the old Tirpitz.

In the second reply, Natsuki gave Wilhelm II two pre-options, one is to build four 35,000-ton Mackensen improvements, four 40,000-ton Bavaria-class improvements, and four 45,000-ton ultimate battle cruisers in nine years within the scope of the German government's normal financial resources, plus the four Bavaria-class ships under construction, by 1922, the German Navy will have a core force composed of 8 super-dreadnoughts with first-class performance and 10 battlecruisers with superior combat power, and with King-class, The ambitious plan of the Caesar-class dreadnoughts and Moltke-class battlecruisers as a formidable second echelon was entirely in line with Kaiser Wilhelm II's penchant for giant ship artillery, while the three 30,000-ton and three 20,000-ton aircraft carriers built during the same period took up only a small amount of capital and resources, and most of them could be built in shipyards in Ireland and France.

Natsuki's second pre-option, which can be evaluated in terms of aggressiveness, planned to build five Mackensen Improvements, five Bavarian Improvements, and two Ultimate Cruisers over a six-year period, with an average of two ships per year, while reducing the number of aircraft carriers to four. In order to compensate for the lack of carrier-based aviation, two armored cruisers, two light cruisers and four transport ships handed over by the British will be converted into auxiliary aircraft carriers.

In these two pre-selected schemes, Natsuki did not mention the number of cruisers and torpedo boat destroyers, with the current construction speed of the German Navy, it will certainly not be able to meet the covering task of such a large main fleet, but once the plan is launched, Germany's industrial and shipbuilding resources are basically concentrated on the capital ships, and the construction of light ships has to give way to the capital ships again. Or the best way to overcome difficulties.

(End of chapter)