The cold wind howled, the frost and snow flew, and the ringing of the New Year's bell, the giant wheel of time slowly sailed into the new era of 1915. In the face of the brand-new wall calendar, countless people made their best wishes for the future on New Year's Eve, and the golden red and emerald green fireworks bloomed in the sky over major cities, which was strange and brilliant.

In Germany, every household has a new map of Germany and the world; Compared with a year ago, the land controlled by the Iron Cross has undoubtedly expanded several times more than before the war. Seeing this unprecedented expanse of territory, every German is filled with excitement and pride: what they have achieved today is far beyond the ancient and modern times, even in the Holy Roman Empire at its peak!

The only thing that made them have a hint of gloom in their bright mood was the illness of Emperor William. A few days ago, on Christmas Eve, for the first time, the voice of the Crown Prince was no longer the rich middle-aged male voice, but the clear and magnetic voice of the crown prince. At the first New Year's Eve ceremony after the war, the emperor was also absent from the scene when the princes were all present and the important ministers were gathered, which had to arouse speculation from the outside world. In the face of reporters' inquiries, the government spokesman confessed that His Majesty the Emperor was in bed recuperating due to a cold wind; Before the emperor recovered, one of his powers was temporarily transferred to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who assumed the power of the monarch.

Although Qingying's image has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the German people for more than 20 years, people generally regard this handsome and promising young man as the best heir to the imperial throne; However, compared with Emperor Wilhelm, who led them step by step from poverty to richness and from weak to strong, the German people undoubtedly have more inseparable sincere feelings. Whether it is an executive, a magnate or a coachman, a shoemaker, a prince or a private citizen. They all gave their deep blessings to this immortal emperor. I hope that his healing will come soon.

For Qingying. This incident undoubtedly put him under considerable pressure. In addition to the military, political and state affairs weighing on his shoulders, the outside world's speculation about William's illness is also an important reason: due to the strict military training he received in his early years, William's body has always been very healthy, even if he can't catch the dragon and the tiger now, it is not a problem for him not to be affected by the disease. This unexpected illness will inevitably arouse suspicion. Faced with this situation, Qingying, who was bitter in his heart, could only try his best to prevaricate, trying to make this incident a small cold accident: he could not say that William was overly sad because of the death of his first love, which he had never pursued. I can't let go of my feelings, so I can't afford to get sick under the erosion of the cold wind, and I can't manage the situation today, right?

However, taking advantage of William's illness this time, Qingying was able to come into contact with the complete imperial power for the first time. The prime minister, who was responsible to the emperor, and more than a dozen secretaries of state, who were equivalent to ministers at the level of the state, were under the control of the emperor, and thus drove the entire empire to rumble; And the chief of the general staff who was in charge of the general staff, and nearly a million strong troops with the highest honor of loyalty to the royal family, became the most reliable arm of the emperor under the command of the Junker officer corps. Although the power of both the positions was somewhat excessive, this framework also greatly avoided the possibility of the emperor making wrong decisions on important matters. The excellent qualities of the German nation of loyalty and obedience to oaths. It also makes it easy for monarchs and ministers to unite and do their best to promote the great cause of the empire. Not to mention. With the victory of the war, Hohenzollern's status in the hearts of the German people has reached an unprecedented peak, no matter from which point of view, the throne that Qingying is about to take over is as stable as a rock, and it is in the most golden season in history!

Under Holwig and Moltke Jr., two old swarking Sasuke, Kiyoying, who had already had quite independent experience, quickly adapted to the life of this decision-making center. Along with the orders issued by him, arms were sold, bases were established, overseas investments were made, trade was expanded, and financial manipulation was ...... A series of work have begun to be implemented in full swing. He now finally understood why Ulyanov had to withdraw from the war to retain his power at the expense of being brutally slaughtered in the Brest Treaty. This feeling of holding an empire in the palm of his hand is indeed ten times more tempting than drugs, and even he who has been in the center for many years is a little difficult to resist the charm of this One Ring!

On January 6, 1915, Kolchak, who was entrenched in Siberia, sent another telegram demanding the purchase of another 200 million marks worth of arms and prisoners, of which 60% was to be paid in gold. As Trotsky assembled a large number of overseers to carry out indiscriminate killings on the Red Army soldiers who had retreated without orders and who had been enthusiastic about fighting, the advance of the White Army, which had been imposing in the snow, was suddenly slowed down, and the idea of quickly crushing the enemy was frustrated. In this case, Kolchak had no choice but to ask for help from Germany, which had a large number of elite prisoners of war.

In the face of the shopping needs of the financiers, the German government did its best to cater to them: Qingying immediately ordered the gathering of 50,000 prisoners to be released in the prisoner-of-war camp, and the preparation of the necessary materials for the fleet's voyage. In the process, Qingying suddenly discovered a problem that has been unsolved since September last year: to this day, Germany, which has replaced France as the world's second largest colony, still does not have a cruiser that can show that it has saved in the ocean!

Thinking of William's resentment over the situation, Qingying immediately contacted the relevant technical department to inquire about their progress on several key subsystems. To his delight, whether it was the quadruple turret with the abolition of the common saddle design and the four bomb lanes, or the bulbous bow and tail plate based on the fluid theory, a decisive breakthrough had been made in the four months of technical research. Seeing the detailed technical reports in front of her, Qingying's heart was also full of relief. Although the bulbous bow and quadruple turret were only put into use in a very small number of countries even during World War II, and the tail plate was a black technology that only appeared after the war, most of its difficulty was based on the discovery of this point, and the actual implementation was only a corresponding calculation. The French had already done most of the preliminary work for the quadruple turret, and all the German engineers had to do was the final split saddle gun mount; This is especially true of the bulbous bow and stern plate based on fluid lì, as long as Qingying gives a direction for improvement, they will naturally use rigorous calculations and physical models to finalize it.

Seeing that all the subsystems were ready, Qingying immediately began his blatant trip.

In the other dimension, all the Treaty Patrols are crispy with strong offense and weak defense. Because with the evolution of naval warfare, the speed of a cruiser such a second-class capital ship needs to be at least 32 knots, and for a 10,000-ton warship, the power marginal effect brought by its pursuit of high speed itself will inevitably make the ship need to spend an extremely astonishing weight ratio in terms of power. Taking the German Navy in World War II as an example, the Bismarck battleship with a standard displacement of nearly 44,000 tons achieved a speed of more than 30 knots with a power dry weight of 3,085 tons, and the proportion of power in displacement was only 7%; The 14,500-ton Hippert-class heavy patrol has a power dry weight of 2,400 tons, accounting for 16.5% of the displacement. You know, this is still an ordinary heavy patrol with a speed of no more than 32.5 knots, and if the speed reaches more than 35 knots like the Japanese heavy cruise, the proportion of power in displacement will also be greatly improved!

Since power takes up too much weight ratio, the weight that the cruiser can distribute to the armor is naturally greatly reduced. Even more weight-consuming is reflected in the hull structure. Because of fluid learning, in order for a warship to achieve high speed, it must have a long enough captain to increase the speed of the barrier; Due to structural mechanics, an overly slender hull will greatly increase the weight of the battleship's hull, further reducing the weight that can be used for armor. Also take Bismarck and Hippert as examples: the former has a waterline aspect ratio of 6.72, and the hull weight after adopting comprehensive welding technology accounts for only 27.06% of the standard displacement; The aspect ratio of the latter is 9.14, and the hull weight accounts for 39.52% of the standard row!

The double weight of the ship and the hull soared, which already made the weight distribution of the cruiser's armor extremely stretched; And in this case, the factor of protection size has to be inserted. Since the power of the cruiser was not much smaller than that of the capital ship, the length of its core compartment must also be close to that of the capital ship: this light weight of armor and large protective area undoubtedly made the armor thickness of the treaty cruiser only maintain a very low range!

The U.S. Northampton-class heavy cruiser had only a narrow 76 mm thick main armor belt that covered only the power compartment; The British Kent class was even more streak, with only a 102-mm armored box for the ammunition depot inside the hull. The main equipment of the French Dukena class is no more than 25 mm, and it can only resist small shrapnel at most; Italy's Trento class has a 70mm thick main fit, while Japan's Furutaka Aoba has a 76mm thick main fit. The armor of these Treaty Heavy Cruisers was completely defenseless against the 203 mm guns: the Japanese 203 mm L50 guns could easily penetrate 150 mm thick armor at a distance of 15,000 meters, while the German Hipper-class guns could penetrate 186 mm at a distance of 15,000 meters. Considering that this distance is already remote for the battle between the heavy patrols, when the distance is closer, the artillery penetration will be even more terrifying! (To be continued......)

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