At dusk, the bright orange glow fills the sea, casting a light and soft veil over New York City, which is dominated by man-made buildings such as the Brooklyn Bridge, Broadway, and the Municipal Building. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info at the docking place of the "Charlotte" training ship, the pier is a prosperous dream-like world, the lights are bright, the drunken gold fans, the song and dance theater is full of brilliance, the delicacies of luxury restaurants, and the jewelers are full of dazzling colors, all full of worldly temptation; On this side of the dock is the simple life of Prussia, simple, rigorous, industrious, thrifty, serious, sometimes it feels dull and depressing, but more often it is positive and fulfilling, full of the ambition of a struggler.

Sitting on the lifeboat on the side of the ship, Natsuki spread the letter paper on his knees, and weighed the words with a fountain pen with a golden shell:

"Charlotte. Hello Miss Hill.

I am still writing to you aboard the German Navy training ship Charlotte, which is moored in the modern harbor of New York, home to the world's largest bridge and tallest building, but I'd rather be in Thetford and enjoy its tranquility and beauty with my eyes closed. Yes, I seem to smell the green meadow again......

People often think that New York is a free shopping paradise, but unfortunately I am not a good gift picker, and most of the time I spend on the shore is spent visiting famous people such as inventors and writers.

Tomorrow we're leaving New York, and my gut tells me that one day in the future, we'll be dancing together at Broadway and visiting the famous Fifth Avenue. Well, that's all for nowadays, my best greetings to you and your family, and good health.

Your faithful friend, Joachim. ”

After putting pen to paper, Natsuki carefully examined the letter from beginning to end, and then neatly folded it and put it in the envelope. Raise your head and look around, in the most prosperous commercial port on the American continent, New York, ships from all over the world are like marquees in and out, mooring, people can easily see Europe's newest and largest and most luxurious transoceanic cruise ships, but also see many ships with legendary history, such as the "Charlotte", a sail-powered flat-deck cruiser belonging to the middle and late last century, is really not unusual. During a previous visit to Naval Station Charleston on the East Coast of the United States, the German Navy cadets also visited the sail-powered warships of the American Civil War. Some of them have become floating military museums, some are still training sailors for the U.S. Navy, and occasionally go on round-the-world voyages like the Charlotte.

Before dinner, the young German naval cadets were doing their daily homework on deck, carefully cleaning the deck with a more serious attitude than bathing themselves, and arranging the ropes and sails in an orderly manner like old seamen. With almost a third of the way through the voyage, everyone has made significant progress compared to the state they were in at the beginning of the ship, and the young team is showing its vigor.

Everyone is born with a certain potential, and on this training ship, the future elite of the German Navy is gradually showing their expertise. Some trainees excel in technical positions, such as Otto. Cyriakos, born in 1891, has become the best gun observer of the ship's 22 crews; There are people who are widely recognized by officers and peers in command positions, such as Feng. Kaganac, who had become the commander of an 88 mm 30 x diameter single-mount rapid-fire gun, commanded a crew of nine cadets; Some of them have shown excellent leadership skills and have gradually established themselves as organizers. Combining noble birth and affinity, extraordinary courage and strong physique, excellent vision and intelligent mind, and a variety of unexpected talents, Natsuki is undoubtedly the most special of them all.

During the arduous voyage across the Atlantic, a total of four cadets have been temporarily appointed as "acting captains", and Natsuki has the most frequent and longest time. Compared with competitors of the same age, his greatest advantage is that he knows how to respect, whether it is giving orders or correcting mistakes, he pays great attention to the expression of language and demeanor, and never easily hurts the self-esteem of others -- because his life experience is still very limited, and the young naval cadets do not yet have the open-mindedness to bend and stretch, some inadvertent psychological injuries may affect their enthusiasm, and then cause immeasurable changes in their military careers, and irreparable losses at the level of battles and even the fate of the country.

The last batch of trainees who landed on leave have returned to the ship one after another, but Tesla still has not appeared. With the continuous expansion of the Friedrich shipyard's business, Natsuki's net worth is also growing rapidly, even if the 100,000 marks advanced to Tesla are really lost, he does not need to frown, but his impression of this legend is like a plummet. Even if he was truly talented, he was left with the memory of a frustrated scientist, and the great inventions of the miraculous wireless power transmission, ball lightning, gravitational portals, and various electromagnetic principles were all just charlatans' gimmicks.

Just when hope turned into disappointment, Nikolai. Tesla showed up, and he took the most common taxi on the streets of New York to get to the pier. A top hat, tuxedo and pointy shoes, the outfit looked like he was going to a banquet, and the bag he carried was larger than a regular briefcase, but it didn't look like it could fit his personal luggage......

After saying hello to the officer on duty, Natsuki got off the boat along the gangway, and the two met on the dock. Natsuki noticed that the "mad scientist" had shaved his beard very seriously, the collar of his shirt was very clean, and his mental outlook had changed significantly from the last time they met. It's just that as soon as she opened her mouth, Truss still had that businesslike face.

"Do you want to talk here or find a café?" He asked.

Seeing that the taxi carrying Tesla to the dock was still parked there, Natsuki decisively decided: "Let's talk in the car!" ”

Walking briskly to the taxi, Natsuki took out a five-dollar bill from his pocket and said to the driver in English, "Hey, man, can you borrow your car for ten minutes, and we'll talk in the car." If you don't mind, you can smoke a cigarette next to you. ”

The taxi driver looked at Natsuki with a lazy look, accepted the bill with a displeased face, slowly opened the door and got out of the car, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, twisted his fat buttocks and walked not far away, and half-turned to stare at his car - New York is not a place to live in peace.

Natsuki made a gesture of please, allowing Tesla to get into the back seat of the taxi and get into the car from the other side.

Tesla took out a brown paper bag from his bag that was large enough for two whole loaves of bread and handed it to Natsuki, "This is what you want." ”

Natsuki opened the seal expectantly, and as the dimpling sunset sun wore it, he quickly examined the drawings. The cabinet-like offshore oil rig was familiar to him, and behind the design was another stack of drawings.

Tesla said gently: "Because the specific conditions of each sea area - such as the depth of the sea, the speed of the current, the structure of the seabed and so on are not the same, there is no machine that can be used all over the world, I can only make a general design of a basic nature, many details need to be developed, and a competent mechanical engineer should be able to complete it." As compensation for this incomplete, there is an improved steam turbine design, which was patented in the United States, and I attach a letter of authorization...... Hopefully, it's what you say - for the benefit of humanity. ”

Natsuki looked up at Tesla in some surprise, and then continued to immerse himself in the design drawings marked with precise data and annotations. With the vision and judgment of a professional modern marine engineer, he quickly realized that the current value of the "bonus" was significantly greater than that of the offshore drilling platform intended for the future. In this majestic era of giant ships and cannons, the great powers and countries are vying to climb the ship's technology tree, weapons, armor, and power, if they can achieve a key leading edge in any key field, they will have the opportunity to win in the key naval battle, and then dominate the historical destiny of their own country and even other countries.

Before the advent of the First World War, Britain had always relied on its strong national finance and shipbuilding industry to form an absolute advantage in fleet size, main gun caliber and ship speed, and although the overall strength of the German Navy ranked second in the world, there was still a gap with the British Navy in many aspects. Looking back on the magnificent history of the war, people often only see the excellent armor technology and subdivided compartment design of German warships, and ignore the "heart disease" of these stiff lines in the power system -- because of over-trust and reliance on water-tube boilers, most of the German high seas fleet, from large torpedo boats to capital battleships, have hidden dangers of unstable power equipment, and the huge reciprocating steam engine has a negative impact on the design and layout of ships. Unfortunately, technological developments between the two world wars failed to fundamentally change the problems of German warships, and by the time of World War II, German ships with geared turbines were still plagued by power failures, so much so that the engineers on German warships were not inferior to professional mechanics.

High cost, complex structure, and limited combat effectiveness - in the Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, Natsuki fully realized the importance of improving the power system for German naval ships. However, the delicate division of modern industrial technology made it much less possible for an engineer to build a gas turbine single-handedly, and the metallurgical and forging technologies of this era could not provide metal parts with the strength to meet the specifications, so Natsuki had to take the steam turbine as the target of the current stage of technical research.

In the development of steam turbines, the British were both pioneers and technology monopolies, and from the late 19th century to the 30s of the 20th century, Parsons was the only synonym for steam turbine technology, and it made huge profits through patents and licensing. In Germany, the Danzig shipyard introduced Parsons direct-drive steam turbine technology at a high cost, and the resulting Parsons-Scholader turbine freed most German dreadnoughts from the bulky and bulky reciprocating steam engine. However, Parsons, who was funded by the British Navy, obviously did not give the best technology to the country's potential enemies, and the Germans, although they were proficient in machinery, relied too much on the relatively mature steam engine, so that they lagged far behind Britain in the research and use of steam turbines, at least until the end of World War I, they failed to achieve a technological breakthrough in the basic technology of Parsons's steam turbines, and the maximum speed of Germany's large surface ships always lagged behind the British warships of the same class - Natsuki was troubled by this problem. Tesla sent him an unexpected gift.

In the world of physics, Nikolai. Tesla's turbine is one of many of the technical ideas that Tesla left behind for future generations. It is contrary to the traditional operation mode of direct impact of fluid on turbine blades, and the turbine driven by fluid centripetal force has a theoretical efficiency that greatly exceeds that of ordinary turbines, but due to the extremely high requirements for material strength and technical precision, it is still used in laboratories and a few special fields until the beginning of the 21st century. Of course, what Natsuki is holding in his hand is not the Tesla turbine that was patented in 1913, but an "impulse steam turbine" that is different from the reactionary operating principle of Parsons' turbine. This steam turbine is more compact and lighter than the Parsons steam turbine, and with the same power and speed, the impulse steam turbine requires only half the stage of the reactionary steam turbine - historically, John of England. In 1910, the Brown Company and the American Curtis Company introduced the first reactionary steam turbine in order to break Parsons' monopoly on technology, but unfortunately, due to the failure to fully grasp the relationship between the high speed of the impeller and vibration, the Brown-Curtis steam turbine suffered frequent failures, and this excellent turbine design was eventually withdrawn from the market. It was not until the mid-30s that General Electric succeeded in developing practical impulse steam turbines, which were superior to Parsons steam turbines in all aspects, which also made the warships built in the later period of the United States Navy have very excellent power performance.

Although the exact effect of Tesla's turbine design will not be known until the prototype is completed, Natsuki, a naval architect from a century later, has a strong professional instinct: it will eclipse the British pride of Parsons turbines!

Realizing that the German prince was fascinated by the new engine he had designed, Tesla not only did not look joyful, but rather showed a hint of melancholy, as if he had foreseen the scene of the German warship galloping at high speed at sea. Perhaps, he knew very well that the political pattern of the Balkans was destined to go through the baptism of bloodshed, and that Serbia's effective military construction had also made its rulers abandon the wise strategy of enduring humiliation and maintaining obscurity, and that the spread of nationalist ideology was out of control, no matter whether the German-Austrian camp's maritime strategy won or lost, it would not change Serbia's historical fate......

After carefully evaluating the design value of this steam turbine in his mind, Natsuki turned his attention to the Tesla-designed offshore drilling platform. In fact, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, high oil profits greatly promoted oil exploration and exploitation activities, in addition to land oil exploration, the development of offshore oil resources is also increasingly deep, and some far-sighted people have long put forward the idea of offshore oil drilling platforms. In 1897, the Americans built a wooden frame in the tidal zone off the coast of California and placed a drilling rig on it to drill a well, which was the world's first offshore well. At this time, the reason why there is no real offshore oil drilling platform is because the onshore oil resources are still in the extensive exploration and exploitation stage, and the desire to exploit seabed oil is not urgent, on the other hand, the limitations of metallurgy, welding and power technology also restrict the development of seabed resources.

Based on the practice of its predecessors, Tesla's offshore drilling platform has both a simple and stable frame and an ingenious internal structure, which fully demonstrates the great inventor's expertise in motor power, with realistic operability and unconventional creativity, and even takes into account the emergency setting in the event of a blowout.

"They're priceless." Natsuki exclaimed sincerely, "Wait a minute, I'll go get the check." ”

Tesla said, "No need, Your Highness, the money you paid last time was enough." ”

Natsuki looked at each other in surprise, is there really someone in this world who thinks a lot of money?

Tesla said solemnly, "Thank you for helping me through the toughest times, and now, my lab is powered up again and everything is back on track." If you go to my lab now, you can see artificial lightning. ”

"Heh......" Natsuki smiled, "I'm afraid it won't work this time, I hope I can have a chance next time." ”

"Then I will say goodbye, Your Royal Highness Prince Joachim." Tesla was polite – even a little sympathetic.

Before Natsuki left, the two shook hands.

As night falls, the bustling city lights are bright and flashing, this is the last night of the "Charlotte" docking in New York, and tomorrow it will set off again, sailing south along the east coast of the American continent, visiting several German migrant settlements such as Porto Alegre in Brazil, and then bypassing Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean to pay an official goodwill visit to Santiago, the capital of Chile, and sending four rapid-fire guns and a batch of ammunition to the German military delegation stationed in Chile for a long time to help the Chilean army train their modern artillery. After that, the cadets would embark on a challenging long-distance voyage across the unpredictable waters of the Southeast Pacific, driving more than 6,000 nautical miles without stopping, and then visiting the German colonies in the Pacific - Western Samoa, the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands and German New Guinea. These overseas colonies are small in size, but they are like devastated gems and strings of bright pearls in the vast ocean, and the geographical location of the transit stations of the voyage is bound to make them more and more important strategic value in the future.

In fact, before the outbreak of the First World War, Germany had been trying to strengthen its influence in Latin America. In 1900, Admiral von Tirpitz informed the Reichstag Budget Committee that Germany would eventually establish a naval base off the coast of Brazil. In the same year, the German ambassador to Mexico argued in a report that if Germany had acquired a colony in Latin America in the past, it would have been worth more than the whole of Africa. The Kaiser's reply to the report was: "Correct, that's why we have to take supreme power in the region." "In addition to economic penetration, Germany also strongly supports immigration to Latin America. By 1900, there were 350,000 German immigrants in southern Brazil, about 120,000 Germans living in Chile, and German settlements in Argentina and Central America. The German government actively encourages these immigrants to maintain and carry forward German national traditions and sponsors German schools and German churches. German military infiltration in Latin America is also remarkable. In 1896, German instructors began training the army for Chile, and in 1900 Germany sent a military delegation to help Chile establish a military academy. By 1914, Germany had sent military missions to Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. At the beginning of this century, Germany's influence in Latin America was not only part of its strategy of competing with Britain for global hegemony, but also aimed at the United States. The Kaiser consistently refused to recognize the Monroe Doctrine and asserted the right of European countries to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

(End of chapter)