Tirpitz snorted in a low voice, full of resentment and unwillingness, and said: "According to my original plan, it is to replace all these 13 old ships within seven years, so the implementation of this naval law must be supported by sufficient financial resources." And this old fellow Chillingsfest, who had already agreed to the amount I asked for a month ago, suddenly regretted it this afternoon! For the next seven years, the guy squeezed 35 million marks a year from the navy's military spending; In 7 years, that's almost 250 million marks! And this money can build 12 capital warships with a displacement of 13,000 tons, or pay my 50,000 naval officers and men for 10 years! ”

Chillings Pfister? Hearing Tirpitz say the name in an angry tone, Qingying was slightly stunned, and a thin old face immediately appeared in her mind. As the successor to former Prime Minister Caprivey, Chillingsfest has always played a role in cleaning up the mess for William during his six-year tenure; Whenever the emperor caused any bad effects because of his irascible impulsiveness, he always dealt with the aftermath silently. Unexpectedly, such a low-key person would refute Tirpitz's face; You must know that Tirpitz, a talented bearded man, is almost the most favored celebrity in the military circles now!

"Mr. Alfred, have you offended the Prime Minister somewhere? Since he took over as prime minister, the need for military expenses has been very generous, and this year 54 million marks have been earmarked for the Navy for the construction of cruisers! He should be using the money to do something else, right? Qingying said suspiciously.

Tirpitz was stunned, his expression changed, and finally he froze into a helpless face, and lamented: "Your Highness, what you said is not bad. This guy is going to use this money to build the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. Qingying was surprised: "Isn't this canal already open in June this year?" On the day of the opening of the canal, my father also took a fast cruise ship from the westernmost point to the easternmost point of Khortenau, and held a grand opening ceremony of the canal; If it weren't for that, this canal wouldn't be called Kaiser Wilhelm's Canal! ”

Seeing Qingying looking at him with even more puzzled eyes, Tirpitz suddenly realized that there was a language problem in his words. He waved his hand slightly, and said apologetically: "It's not to build, but he wants to widen this canal again; If this is not done, then this canal will have no meaning for the main battleships of our Imperial German Navy. Immediately, he told Qingying the ins and outs of the whole thing.

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Since the 80s of the 19th century, with the development of the economy, Germany's maritime shipping has gradually begun to prosper. At that time, Germany had a vast outlet to the Baltic Sea, and tens of thousands of tons of cargo had to be handled every day; It is quite inconvenient for these cargo ships to enter and exit the Baltic Sea and have to make a large detour along the Danish Peninsula north into the North Sea. In addition to merchant ships, small movements of German warships also required a detour of the Danish Peninsula; Once Germany and a certain country enter a state of war and need to mobilize warships, since the vast majority of the sea in the middle does not belong to them, it is necessary to act according to Denmark's face. This feeling that the lifeblood of the Navy cannot be held in one's own hands is not reassuring. In view of this, Germany decided to build an inland canal from the mouth of the Elbe River in the west to the Gulf of Kiel in the east, connecting the waters of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. In this way, it will not only promote the economic development of the Baltic Sea coast, but also ensure the absolute safety of the warship movement of the German Navy in wartime.

In the time of Wilhelm I, there were no big guys in the German Navy at all; In addition, the size of merchant ships and cruise ships at that time was relatively small, so when the canal was designed, it was natural that it was not very large. The profile of the canal is an inverted trapezoid: although the width of the water surface is large, reaching 56.7 meters, the underwater width represented by the bottom is miserable, with a width of only 22 meters, and the height of the inverted trapezoidal is only 9 meters, which means that the maximum depth of the canal is only 9 meters, which greatly limits its capacity.

Historically, this canal could barely keep up with the German Navy's former dreadnoughts and armored cruisers, and it was really a little powerless for the capital ships built by Germany in the dreadnought era. At the urging of the German Navy, the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal was expanded in 1907 and completed in June 1914. The expanded canal is 102.5 meters wide on the surface, 44 meters underwater, and 11 meters deep, allowing for the passage of all dreadnoughts, and still retains a considerable margin. The reason why the Germans only remembered to expand the canal in 1907 was because the capital ships built by Germany in the pre-dreadnought era were not large, and the Kiel Canal could barely meet the needs of the navy; The last pre-dreadnought German class, which was started by the German Navy in 1904, has a width of only 22.2 meters and a draft of 8.23 meters, and can be safely navigated in specific waterways.

In this plane, however, it's a different story entirely. Due to the establishment of the theory of "appropriate large-scale warships" in the Qing Dynasty, the German Navy embarked on the road of balanced performance of tonnage amplification as early as possible, and the tonnage of warships has been improved by leaps and bounds compared with historical facts; The new battleship, which began construction in 1894, had a design displacement of 13,200 tons, which had reached the level of the historical German "Deutschland" class, which had only begun construction in 1904! This time, Germany started construction of capital ships with a displacement of more than 13,000 tons 10 years ahead of schedule, and the Kiel Canal was a little insufficient when it was launched. It is important to know that the width of the new battleship has reached 23 meters, and the draft of the full load is close to 8.4 meters, as long as it is a little larger, the canal can hardly withstand it; according to the current development trend of the capital ships of the German Navy, who can guarantee that the volume of the next class battleship will not exceed the standard?

"The re-widening of the canal will not only allow the Imperial battleships to travel smoothly between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, but also greatly boost shipping and the economy due to the increase in navigation. That is why I made a proposal this afternoon to reopen the canal. And in order to avoid the dilemma of widening the canal as soon as it is completed, I also propose that the canal be widened in one go to meet all the needs for the next 30 years. Tirpitz said lightly, with a hint of extreme resentment in his words, "This was originally a basic project that would be beneficial to both the military and the government, but this old fellow Chillingsfister said that this project was an additional budget dedicated to the Navy, and that it was to be built by diverting the military funds of our Navy!" 250 million marks, that's it! ”

Hearing this, Qingying finally understood the ins and outs of the matter. Looking at Tirpitz's faintly blue face, Qingying's heart was full of surprise and excitement. The reason why Qingying was so excited was because he, as a traverser, could not have understood the pitfalls of the former dreadnought.

In 1906, the battleship Dreadnought was born, sweeping all the former dreadnoughts except the quasi-dreadnoughts into the garbage heap. Compared to the broadside firepower of its eight 12-inch guns and its fast speed of 21 knots, the four 12-inch guns and the speed of 18 knots of the former dreadnoughts are really a fighter in the garbage. In the face of the summit showdown between the two naval powers, Britain and Germany, which will break out in 20 years, the role of the former dreadnought is almost zero. Therefore, Qingying has always wanted to reduce the lineup of 24 former dreadnoughts of the historical German ship in some way, and spend more money on dreadnoughts. What he didn't expect was that the achievement of this goal was caused by the butterfly effect caused by the improvement of the performance of the German Navy's warships and the concept of large-scale warships he proposed two years ago!

Due to the large design of German warships, the lack of navigable capacity of the Kiel Canal was revealed 10 years in advance; For the sake of national security, Germany wanted to widen the canal in the pre-dreadnought era. This time, Chillingsfister turned out to be so good that he used naval military funds to expand the canal; As a result, the speed of the German Navy's violent forces in the pre-dreadnought era will be greatly slowed down, which is completely different from Qingying's idea of reducing the former dreadnought lineup! Happiness came so suddenly, Qingying was a little uncomfortable for a while; He secretly refreshed for a while, and then he pretended to be a mourner, and said suspiciously: "Why does the prime minister want to draw this money from the navy's military expenses to expand the canal?" ”

Tirpitz snorted coldly and said, "This guy isn't thinking about his political achievements?" He said that the canal was built for 8 years and was not officially opened until this year, and now it is being used to pull shipping along the Baltic coast to boost the economy; At present, the navy wants to close and widen the canal that has just opened to navigation again for its own needs, which is unacceptable to him. He said that if it was to be expanded, then the Navy would have to bear the full cost of it! Your Highness, listen, what kind of absurd logic is this? The railways that stretched in all directions within the empire were also originally built for the purpose of rapid mobilization and assembly of the army; If according to his statement, wouldn't these billions of marks have to be deducted from the army's military spending? ”

"Did my father agree to this kind of thing? With his love for the navy, he must not want to see this happen, right? Qingying was still a little uneasy, and asked cautiously.

Tirpitz said lightly: "In order to prevent His Majesty from intervening, the Prime Minister took out a detailed list of all the income and expenditure budgets for next year within 2 hours and handed it to His Majesty. In that report, the billions of marks of annual revenue of the German treasury were all allocated to various construction projects, and the various places were arranged in an orderly and full manner; Even His Majesty the Emperor failed to find the slightest fault in it. Speaking of this, Tirpitz rubbed his head painfully, and said with some anxiety, "Your Majesty doesn't know what's going on with Lu Dao, knowing that Prime Minister Lu Dao has not done his best, and he can squeeze out the funds for the expansion of the canal from him, why did Lu agree to his budget for the coming year?" Even if the army's military spending this year is close to 600 million marks, the gold coins in the money bag of the Ministry of Finance are absolutely clanging! ”

PS: The collection has barely increased in the past two days.,The author is very sad, if you have any suggestions for the plot.,You might as well tell it in the book review area.