Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, Hermitage.

In the splendid hall, Tsar Nicholas II sat quietly on the main seat, his face still looking heroic, but the years still left an indelible mark on this face. The crystal lamp shook, the glass bell rang, and when the last melodious bell was gone, Nicholas II slowly raised his head; At some point, the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Witte and the Admiral Havelan had come into his sights.

"I called you two here today to discuss issues related to the development of the navy. Our efforts to import warship-building techniques from Germany now seem to be in trouble. The Tsar's voice echoed through the spacious hall with a clear and clear meaning, "After Essen arrived in Germany, he met with his nephew Ettel, the German Admiral Tirpitz, and his cousin Willy, but they all expressed their willingness to refuse to transfer their skills to my Russia. Even Sonia's cousin came forward to change the attitude of Ettel, the weakest link. Tell me, what should I do next for the Russian Empire? ”

Havelan said suspiciously: "Your Majesty, I remember that the Reich once authorized General Essen to allow him to lower his standards in the event that the Germans would not let go, so that the Germans would transfer slightly inferior skills to us. The Germans won't even agree to this, will they? Nikolai said lightly: "In the first round of the meeting between Essen and Little Etter, Essen was already forced to ask the Germans to provide a slightly inferior technique. However, the attitude of the Germans was extremely resolute, they only accepted the orders for arms purchases made by our Russians at the German shipyards, and showed no sign of relenting in the refusal to transfer technology, even if we reduced the level of technology to the same level as that of the Americans. ”

Speaking of this, Nikolai couldn't help but feel a sense of anger in his heart. The 300 million marks that Germany had given to Japan a year and a half earlier was not so much an attempt by Kaiser Wilhelm to make up for the tensions between Britain and Germany that had become strained by his visit to Constantinople, but rather a deliberate attempt by Germany to create a crisis for Russia in the Far East by taking advantage of Japan. Although Germany was in favour of Russia's eastward expansion, they were absolutely unwilling to see Russia defeat Japan quickly and easily; What they want most is a massive Russian hemorrhage in the Far East, preferably the kind of war losses that will break Russia's bones. Because of their clear knowledge, Russia had tasted the sweetness of the Far East strategy since the time of Alexander II, and now it has long been determined to win the 2 million square kilometers of Yellow Russia; Therefore, the Germans strengthened Japan's practice and forced Russia to throw as many rubles as possible into the Far East, which could not compete with the German mainland, in order to weaken Russia's military strength in Europe as much as possible!

But even if you understand the sinister intentions of the Germans, what can you do? Germany dominates Central Europe and rushes into the universe, with millions of steel guns and thousands of artillery pieces; In addition, its prosperous and abundant financial resources, majestic industry, and united citizens have endowed it with extremely powerful land war capabilities. Even Russia, known as the steamroller of Europe, had to weigh whether the stick in its hand had enough weight when it threatened Germany with force. As for imposing trade sanctions on Germany, this tactic may have been relatively good five years ago, but it is no longer effective. With the opening of the mite market, Germany was satisfied with the purchase of cheap raw materials and dumped goods, and there was no longer any dependence on the Russian market; Russia, on the other hand, has always maintained a considerable demand for German industrial products due to its own low industrial capacity. If there is a tariff war between Russia and Germany, Russia will be hurt even more severely than Germany. Moreover, Russia's main task now is to defeat Japan, and by the way, to take the entire northeast and Korea in the bag, and it must not turn against Germany at this juncture.

After listening to Nikolai's story, Havelan was silent for a while, and then slowly spoke: "Since the Germans are not willing to help us, then we can only adopt the techniques of the French." Although their tonnage utilization was somewhat inferior, the 'Prince' was after all comparable to the Japanese battleships in all its performance, and now the French had transferred to us the blueprints of their newer battleship 'Madame de la Sister-in-law' (well, Suffren), according to which the Imperial Navy designers were making the most recent modifications to the previously prepared copy of the Prince. I believe that it will not be long before this class of battleships, built by our own Russia, will open up territory for the empire in the Far East. ”

Nikolai said slowly: "General, those yellow-skinned monkeys have 4 battleships built by the Germans in their hands, I need to know if this warship imitated and designed by the designers of the Dao Empire can open up the situation for my Russia in the Far East?" Havelan said respectfully: "Your Majesty, please rest assured. The four ships ordered by Japan in Germany were all small battleships with a displacement of just over 10,000 yuan, and their performance could not be high, and the 12,900-ton 'Prince' built for us by the French was enough to compete with them. In the modified version of the design, we increased the tonnage to 13,500 tons just to be on the safe side, and there would be no problems against Japanese battleships with a displacement of 3,000 tons smaller than them. ”

That is to say, even if the Reich absorbed the shipbuilding skills of the French, it was still very different from the Germans; Moreover, the Admiralty did not have any conclusive evidence that Russian warships could be the enemy of German warships in the Japanese Navy. Nikolai said with some dissatisfaction. Havelan replied, "That's true. But the French are already the best design providers we can find; The Americans' Retvizan was too mediocre, and on the whole it was still slightly inferior to the crown prince. ”

"Your Majesty, why do we have to build our own battleships?" An untimely voice suddenly sounded in the hall. Chancellor of the Exchequer Werther, who had been standing silent from the beginning to the present, whispered in his hoarse voice: "The Germans just did not transfer their skills to us, but they did not refuse our desire to order battleships from them. That being the case, we can expand our Pacific Fleet by placing orders with German shipyards. We have already bought 4 capital ships from them, why not give the remaining 5 battleships to the Germans to build? ”

Hearing this opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nikolai's eyes flashed with a strange color, and Essen also sent a telegram back, saying that the order for the two battleships and the two armored cruisers was going very smoothly, and that it had now entered the most advanced stage of technical requirements. His mind was spinning, and he was about to speak, but Havelan had already jumped up first, and said in a tone full of disbelief: "Lord Count, do you want my Russia to cheapen all the newly built warships to those evil Germans?" You must know that our Russia is not an inferior yellow-skinned sea monkey like Japan, but one of the six top powers in the world, if even such things as battleships have to rely on imports, then our Russia's reputation in the international community will be greatly reduced! Moreover, if the navy is not self-sufficient, how can our Russia gain a foothold in future wars? ”

Witt took out a handkerchief from his bosom, gently wiped the punctuation marks on the Admiralty's face that had soared to his face due to excitement, and said unhurriedly: "General Havelan, I am the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I only think about things from the point of view of the money bag, and military things have nothing to do with me. He turned his head, bowed slightly to Nikolai, and said, "Your Majesty, please forgive me for my presumptuousness just now. Because I have something to say in my heart for too long, to the point where I have to say it. ”

Nikolai had a look of surprise on his face, Werther has never been a person who gets excited easily, what happened today? He nodded slightly, and said, "My earl, there is no one else here, just say what you have to say." ”

Witte took a deep breath and said, "Your Majesty, do you know the naval procurement price of my Russian Navy warship?" ”