Negotiations with Germany did not go well, ostensibly the focus of the two sides was the difference in construction standards, but in essence it was the issue of the purchase price of warships, and more deeply, the conflict of national interests between the Tang Empire and Germany. From Germany's point of view, it was most advantageous to buy the best ships at the lowest price. From the point of view of the Tang Empire, what could be provided to Germany was only ordinary warships, and the price would definitely be a lot of money.

First of all, Nie Renfeng reached a preliminary agreement of intent with the commander of the German Navy, Field Marshal Raeder, and the main content of the agreement was only one point, that is, the Tang Empire would do its best to provide Germany with a powerful fleet in the shortest possible time and strengthen the combat effectiveness of the German Navy. Because this is only an intent agreement, there are no details involved in the agreement. For example, the so-called greatest efforts of the Tang Empire, how short the shortest time was, as well as the size of the fleet and the specific performance of the main warships, all of which were negotiated by the representatives of the two sides.

The representative of the Tang Imperial Navy was Tan Renhao, as well as the staff officers of the headquarters who were arranged by him. In addition, there were several government representatives who were responsible for negotiating with the German side on non-naval issues, and Tan Renhao's job was to complete the specific performance requirements of the new warships, as well as the size of the fleet, that is, the number of warships purchased by the German Navy. The two negotiations are not taking place in the same place, but they are closely related.

Initially, the German side demanded that, according to the standards of the German Navy, Germany should send engineers to be responsible for the overall construction arrangement, while the shipyards of the Tang Empire only needed to provide basic equipment and relevant local workers. Germany, on the other hand, would pay for the construction of a kind of battleship that would belong entirely to the German Navy. Tan Renhao unceremoniously pointed out the many problems in this proposal, and many of them simply cannot be solved.

First. If the new battleship had been built in full accordance with the German naval construction standards, even if the German side had the relevant design drawings. Then the shipyards of the Don Empire will definitely carry out a large-scale transformation of the infrastructure. The cost of this renovation is not low, and it can even be said that it is quite expensive.

Herein lies the problem, even if the German Navy was willing to pay for the retrofit, the slipway could not remain empty after the construction was completed. It is also impossible to wait for the second order of the Germans, then the slipway will have to continue to build battleships for the Reich Navy, and all the remodeled infrastructure will have to be replaced, and who will bear the cost? The German Navy was certainly not willing to pay, but the Imperial Navy of the Don did not have any reason to pay for it.

Second, many of the technical standards of the German Navy were unattainable by the Tang Imperial Navy. This is not to say that the technical standards of the German Navy are more advanced and the craftsmanship of German shipyards is better, but that the specific differences between the two sides in terms of the performance requirements of warships are the result of the two sides. For example, at that time, the battleships of the Tang Imperial Navy attached great importance to the ability to defend underwater parts, and the third batch of "New Provincial Capital" class battleships increased the thickness of their armor below the waterline. However, the German Navy did not have high requirements in this regard.

This involves a lot of details, that is, the shipyards of the Tang Empire were not necessarily able to build the Neudi battleship according to the standards of the German Navy. How to solve this problem?

Third, the impact of the differences between the two sides on some important components is almost impossible to resolve. This was mainly reflected in the caliber of the battleship's main guns. At that time, the Bismarck-class battleships of the German Navy had a caliber of 382 mm guns and twin turrets. The technology is already well established in the German Navy. But the problem is that the Tang Empire did not build a production line of 382-mm guns and related equipment, and if you want to transform the artillery production line, this problem is even greater. If the German factories were responsible for the production of artillery, and then these guns were transported to the Tang Empire, how could the transportation problem be solved? Moreover, the artillery was attached with the turret, the main gun turret of the battleship weighed more than 1000 tons, and the German factories were all homegrown, and they could not be sent to the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean by land transportation at all, but could only be loaded in the Baltic Sea, and this route had been blocked by the British Navy.

With these three problems alone, there is no way to solve them. Moreover, in addition to these three problems, there are many other problems, such as the problems that may arise in logistics. Among all the problems, as long as one cannot be solved, then even if the shipyards of the Tang Empire build battleships, they are just beautiful decorations, and there is not much combat power at all.

The problem is obvious, and this is no longer a bargain, the Germans are not stupid, the questions raised by Tan Renhao are very realistic, and the German Navy is not willing to spend a lot of money on a few expensive vases. In the discussions of the previous day, the two sides focused on resolving these issues.

At least, the Germans showed their sincerity at this time, and Tan Renhao also expressed the sincerity of the empire. The construction of warships, especially battleships, which can cost tens of thousands of tons at every turn, is a very troublesome and systematic project. In peacetime, the design work alone would have taken years, and then the prototypes had to be built and the pools had to be experimented with, but now in order to build new warships for Germany in the short term, these problems had to be solved.

"Now, most of the problems that don't take too much time and money are basically solved." Tan Renhao has been reporting to Gan Yongxing on the relevant situation of the negotiations. "There are two solutions, one is to still use German standards, which is mainly used to solve the details that our shipyard does not need to do too much. I arranged for a few staff officers to discuss the details with the officers of the German Navy, and the relevant results will probably be available in a few days. ”

"Are the Germans willing to bear the associated costs?" Gan Yongxing has a lot of work, so he doesn't often ask about the details of negotiations.

"This part of the cost is not large, and the German side has promised to bear the relevant costs when signing the formal contract, including the cost of renovation after construction."

Gan Yongxing nodded slightly, waiting for Tan Renhao to continue.

"Other problems involved details that required a lot of money or a lot of time, and the German Navy decided to solve them by lowering the technical standards. We've also roughly counted it. There are not many problems in this regard, and we have already proposed that in some cases it is possible to improve the performance of the warship. At the same time, the standards of the Reich Navy are not to be used in detail in terms of conflicts with the German naval standards. The German side is doing a detailed study and will probably give us a clear answer in the next few days. ”

"So. What are the main remaining questions now? ”

Tan Renhao smiled and shook his head. "It's mainly about some key details, such as the caliber of the main gun, the power system, the propulsion system, and the armor steel. The structure of the turret, the caliber of the secondary gun, and so on.

These were directly related to the details of the basic performance of the battleship, and the German side was still unwilling to make concessions. And we are now dividing these issues into several categories and proposing to negotiate separately and resolve them one by one. ”

"The Germans are still so stubborn, it looks like they're looking for trouble."

"Chief of Staff, in fact, the mentality of the Germans is understandable." Tan Renhao shrugged his shoulders, "At least, the Germans are very sincere this time. And judging from what we have now, the German Navy has long completed the design of successors to the 'Bismarck' class battleships, but they have not had the resources to build these ships. And now it can only be relied on us. From the Germans' point of view, we would also demand that these new ships, which surpassed the Bismarck-class battleships in terms of performance, be as good as possible, without making concessions on important issues. ”

"So, what are you going to do to convince the Germans?"

"If you want to solve the problem with a unified approach. It was almost impossible to do, and the Germans would not agree. Tan Renhao paused slightly, "I have prepared several methods to adopt different solutions for different problems. For example, in terms of the power system of warships, the Reich Navy's boilers have always been better than those of Germany, and actual combat has proved this, so we would recommend that the German Navy adopt our boilers instead of using German technology to produce boilers. In terms of the main guns of battleships, Germany's artillery production technology has its own uniqueness, and in some respects it is more advanced than ours, and we also have our own uniqueness, so we will propose to use the advantages of both sides to produce new artillery, and adopt the gun caliber standards of the Imperial Navy, so that we can meet the needs of ammunition support, and there is no problem of opening a new ammunition production line.

In terms of secondary gun caliber, armor, etc., we can use German standards, or even provide these parts directly by Germany, or produce them according to German standards. I have already arranged for the relevant staff officers to do the specific work, and we will be able to come up with the concrete agreement document in two days, and then we will have specific consultations with the German representatives. ”

"Maybe that's the only way."

"At least that's the best solution we can find right now, the Germans are not stupid, if they want to get the best ships for the least amount of money, they have to find a way to solve these problems, and if they can't come up with a better solution, then they have to take our proposal."

"Looks like you already know the Germans well."

"Chief of Staff, the Germans are aware of the seriousness of these problems, and we have shown enough sincerity and made concessions in concrete negotiations, then it is impossible for them to refuse our proposal."

Gan Yongxing laughed. "It seems that there is nothing wrong with the headmaster arranging for you to do this job.

These technical problems are not difficult to solve, and the additional problems are just who keeps a little more and who pays a little more. ”

Tan Renhao smiled and shook his head, he is not engaged in technology, but he knows very well that technical problems are the best problems to solve, and problems outside of technology are the most difficult to solve.

"Let's put it this way, the most annoying thing for the Germans right now is not the technical details, but our offer." Gan Yongxing changed the topic, "The negotiations on Tehran's side are not going well, and there is a big gap between the price offered by Germany and our asking price, and it will take a lot of time to talk about it." In addition, there is a big problem when it comes to payments. ”

Tan Renhao was not surprised, he had also heard relevant news in the past few days.

In terms of calculating the price of battleships, the Tang Empire insisted on calculating all the transformation costs in the first batch of warships, so that if Germany purchased the second batch of battleships, it could not calculate the transformation costs, and if Germany did not purchase the second batch of battleships, then the Tang Empire would not lose money.

However, the German side only counted fifty percent of the cost of the first batch of purchased warships, and only signed a contract of intent with the Tang Empire to purchase the second batch of warships, not a formal contract. In addition, there is a huge price gap between the two sides in terms of the calculation of the cost of the battleship itself. When these problems are taken together, the price gap between the two sides is terrifying.

In terms of payment methods, Germany insisted on paying in annual installments on credit, while the Tang Empire insisted that Germany should pay in hard currency. In other words, Germany wanted to pay for the purchase of warships through normal trade, while the Tang Empire insisted that warships should be sold by wartime standards.

The difference between these two payment methods is huge. If the German method is adopted, then Germany can pay for the purchase of these warships in ten or even twenty years, and even if the interest is calculated, then Germany will not suffer much. The demands of the Tang Empire were straightforward, and Germany would either have to settle directly in gold, or barter warships for warships, and refuse to accept paper money, or any other new currency.

This is a direct reflection of the actions of the two countries in defending their national interests, and it also reflects the real relationship between Germany and the Tang Empire.

Even if the war is not over yet, the two countries are only allies of interests, and because of the difference in national interests, it is inevitable that there will be worlds of differences on specific issues.

"Renhao, you're done with the past few days, so take a good rest." Gan Yongxing stood up as he spoke, "The price negotiation has little to do with us, we just need to do a good job in technical negotiations." So, you don't need to worry about things on Tehran's side. ”

"I know, then I'll take my leave." Tan Renhao also immediately stood up, "Chief of Staff, you should also go to rest early!" ”

After leaving Gan Yongxing's office, Tan Renhao breathed a sigh, even if he was dealing with allies, it was not an easy thing!