In order to get orders from Maozi, over the past few months, German designers have designed more than 20 warship plans of various sizes based on the new battleships that have already started construction in their own country (German battleships will not be named until they are launched). Tirpitz, who had already been promoted to rear admiral, sent these draft drawings to St. Petersburg in the hope that they would be transferred to the Russian Admiralty by the hands of the German ambassador to Russia, Rastle. Unexpectedly, as soon as the things were delivered, poor Rustle suddenly fell and was seriously injured in his own home.

Speaking of this, Lastel coughed, he avoided Qing Ying's staring gaze, and continued: "After learning about this situation, His Majesty means that since this idea was put forward by His Highness, then Your Highness, you will have to take full responsibility for this matter. Now that His Highness happens to be in the Winter Palace again, it's up to you to sell the battleship to the Russians. ”

Qingying's eyes widened, and she said with a face full of disbelief: "What, let me go?" Is this your plan? Mr. Rastle, even if you have mobility problems, there must be others under you; Could it be that all my German diplomats in St. Petersburg, except for you, sir, are dead? ”

Hearing a slight anger in Qingying's words, Rastele hurriedly explained, "Your Highness is angry. In addition to me, Germany does have two senior diplomats here, who are ready to be deployed at any time; But asking Your Highness to sell warships to the Russians is what Your Majesty meant! Qingying was taken aback and said, "My father told me to go?" That said, I'll say that it's incredible! ”

Rustel smiled slightly and said, "Actually, this time the three countries interfered to repay Liao, and Russia already owes us a favor; And this time selling warships to the Russians is also in the interests of the two countries. Due to the peculiarity of His Highness's status, if you were to do this, you would be more representative of the German Empire, and even better than me. As for diplomatic negotiations, Your Highness has no need to worry at all, and I will tell you everything you need later. There was a look of admiration on his face, and he said angrily: "The emperor has high hopes for His Royal Highness, and his intentions don't need me to say anything more, right?" ”

Qing Ying exhaled a long breath. After a while, there was a complicated look in his eyes, and he nodded slowly: "Sir, please tell me, what is the point of this ship sale, and what should I do?" Rastele sighed, fiddled around the bedside table, and then took out a bound document and put it in Qingying's hand.

"Your Highness, this is the document I received yesterday from Berlin from the Admiralty, which contains nearly 30 design proposals, all of which have been prepared for this naval arms sale. It's a pity that I don't know anything about the navy at all, and I didn't see anything after looking at it for a day, and Your Majesty said that you still know something about it, which is one of the reasons why he gave you this task. Seeing Qingying turn the first page of the information, Rastele paused and continued: "Every design in this can be chosen by the Russians. His Majesty means that at a time when the Russians are preparing to build a navy, it would be better to get all the orders of the entire Russian Far Eastern Fleet to the shipyards of the German Empire! ”

Hearing the last sentence, Rao is Qingying already knew William's temperament better, and was still shocked by his cheap father's ambitions. According to Qingying's original meaning, he sold Maozi a few ships with a good conscience, and let Maozi and Japan fight to the death, and he said the same in the telegram; But he didn't expect William's ambition to be so big, and he wanted to pocket all the orders of Maozi's Pacific Fleet. In history, when the Russo-Japanese War first broke out, the number of capital ships of the Maozi Pacific Fleet reached half of that of Japan, plus some scattered auxiliary ships, and the cost of building ships alone was almost 10 million pounds! Qingying smiled bitterly and did not comment on this issue, all his current minds were attracted by the material in front of him.

The document is about 40 pages long and covers information on 8 battleship designs, 11 cruiser designs, and 6 dome cruisers. Although all of them are handwritten, with some blue-black ink stains in the margins, the main text is neatly written, and the images are clear and clear, making it a rare and excellent material. In order to prevent the leakage of key design secrets due to the loss of this material, it only drew three views of the battleship after completion, and marked some general weight distribution and performance data, but did not draw a series of the most critical things such as the structure of each part. Qingying's naval attainments just happened to be able to understand the information presented above. Qing Yingden, who discovered this, was overjoyed and began to greedily analyze every design on it. While reviewing these warships, Qingying also wanted to see what kind of things the German Navy Design Bureau would come up with after his influence?

The sun sets, the lights are on, golden and shiny, bright and bright. Before she knew it, Qingying sat in front of Lastle's bed for 3 hours.

After a long time, Qingying closed the text in front of her, and then exhaled a long breath, with a look of joy that could not be concealed in her eyes. Since the lead duck scandal, Wilhelm II, in a fit of rage, has successively driven several conservative old guys out of the design bureau; Under heavy pressure, the design of the Admiralty has made a leap forward in the future, which is far from being comparable to the same period in history. The Germans began to boldly equip battleships with more powerful guns, which basically solved the problem of serious redundancy of structural strength in another plane; The optimization and innovation of the underwater line type has brought the marine boiler technology that Germany is proud of to the fullest. Judging from the data shown in this material now, compared to Italy, which has the best design at the moment, it is not far behind, if it cannot win. (You read that right, the late 19th century battleship design had to be the first to be Italy.) Although their military effectiveness was widely criticized by later generations, their design concept was unsurpassed: the dreadnought's all-heavy gun concept was first proposed by Italian designer Vittorio in 1903. In addition, in the pre-dreadnought era, Italy established its supremacy in the field of battleship design with a single Garibaldi class, becoming an eternal god and legend among armored cruisers. ）

Now there are good ships, but what kind of ship is suitable for Maozi, which can play her due role in the Pacific Fleet of Mao's country in the Russo-Japanese War? Is it a battleship with heavy artillery and thick armor, or an armored cruiser with balanced performance, or a cheap mass-produced dome cruiser? For this problem, Qingying no longer has to think about it; Before crossing over, there was already the clearest answer in the world he was in.

Because the dome cruiser had no waterline armor and was very prone to water, it was already backward at the end of the 19th century, when rapid-fire artillery skills were advancing by leaps and bounds, and could only exert a residual heat in the second- and third-rate naval countries; At the beginning of the 20th century of the Russo-Japanese War, it was basically useless, and could only bully some ships that were lower than themselves. If they were brought to the main battlefield, they would not survive a round under the armoured cruisers and battleships. Maozi's navy had been defeated badly enough in the Russo-Japanese War, and Qingying had to strengthen Maozi's fleet well, and let them fight to the death with the Japanese navy.

Since dome-armored cruisers with low protection are useless, what about battleships with strong armor? This idea appeared and was immediately rejected by Qing Ying. Since the German Navy was currently operating only in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, the rate of fire of the battleship's main guns was particularly important. In order to pursue a rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute, the Germans equipped their battleships with 283mm caliber guns, and the shell weight was only 240 kg; The 305mm heavy guns equipped with the mainstream equipment of the battleships of the contemporaries could fire shells weighing more than 360 kg, and the 283mm guns on German battleships were much inferior in caliber and power (of course, the German 283mm guns had a faster muzzle velocity and could reach 820m/s). In this document, all battleship designs were armed with only 283 mm guns; With Maozi, a nation that pursues ruggedness, Qingying didn't expect them to look at such a delicate style of battleships in Germany.

Although with the strength of Krupp's military industry, it is possible to develop a standard 305mm L40 main gun, but with the current metallurgical level and mechanical industry, it is still difficult to quickly reload nearly 400kg shells. The reason why the German 11-inch gun's bullet weight still maintains a light bullet of 240kg, instead of increasing to the normal 300kg, in addition to achieving a high muzzle velocity and a straight and accurate trajectory, another very important reason is to reduce the pressure on the ammunition delivery system, so that it can meet the gun's ability to fire 2 rounds per minute. If the battleship's main guns can't fire a single shot, this pursuit of single-shot power is meaningless. At the end of the 19th century, when fire control on battleships was not developed, the main role of large-caliber guns with a low rate of fire was to deter the enemy, not to achieve the actual effect after its hit.

What can really help Mao Zi recover the decline of the Navy in the Far East is not the battleships with strong armor, but the armored cruisers with balanced performance. Due to the slow speed of battleships, her tactical play was greatly limited, and she was only able to carry out the mission of the decisive battle of the fleet, but the armored cruiser was not. Patrolling at a speed of more than 20 knots can effectively avoid battleships with a speed of about 17-18 knots, cruise the oceans, and destroy any enemy in front of you except battleships. Japan is a country that relies heavily on maritime shipping, and its daily throughput tonnage is measured in 10,000 tons; As long as there are a few large armored cruisers dangling in front of their homes, it will inevitably seriously affect Japan's war potential, and thus directly feed back into the land war situation. The armored cruiser cruised along the course of the Japanese merchant ships, and when the battleship came, I left, and when the battleship left, I came again, and when I encountered other ships, I sank it directly. At the beginning of the 20th century, when there was no aircraft reconnaissance, this kind of obscene tactics of patrolling and breaking up diplomatic relations was almost unsolvable, and the only factor restricting the installation and patrol breaking was its own endurance range!

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