Lucia and Daming's exploration team meet, and William III doesn't care much on the surface, but he thinks carefully in his heart.

On the morning of the second day after the banquet, William III got up early and summoned Army General Blücher, Chief of Staff Scharnhorst, and Prime Minister Hardenberg to a meeting.

William III spoke directly:

"What do you think about yesterday's news?"

In fact, all three of them had already thought about it, and at this time Prime Minister Hardenberg was the first to speak:

"Lucia's quest has reached its limit, and we will reach our limit after we destroy the Kingdom of Bornu.

"To the north of Lake Baltic (Lake Chad) is wilderness and desert, which is our natural border with the Ming Dynasty.

"We don't need to be a direct neighbor of the Ming on the grassland, as Lucia did, because it reduces the likelihood of conflict.

"We have already acquired enough land to make New Germany more than twice the size of the mainland, and it is much more abundant.

"We already have resources that complement the local area, and we can continue to improve our strength as long as we develop them carefully.

"We have secured the border on land, and the focus in the future should be on the sea.

"Absolute safety on the route between the mainland and New Germany!

"As for what should be done, I would like to hear the thoughts of the staff officers and generals."

Wilhelm III nodded with a serious expression and looked at Blucher and Scharnhorst:

"Since His Excellency Hadberg has mentioned the General Staff, then His Excellency Scharnhorst will talk about it first."

Blücher smiled and waved to Scharnhorst, making a gesture of please.

Scharnhorst spoke confidently:

"We need a navy, we need a navy that will not fall behind in the face of England and Spain.

"The number of capital ships should reach at least seventy percent of that of the British, thereby reducing the idea that the British and Spain were our enemies.

"We have the finances to sustain a fleet of this size, and we have enough resources to build a fleet of this size.

"I hope to start building Dreadnought capital ships in the next step, and quickly increase the number to more than ten.

"And then as the development of the new Germany continued to expand, eventually reaching the size of the United Kingdom."

William III was slightly surprised:

"In the short term, does the Navy only need seven of the British? Is it just a matter of thinking about dealing with the UK and Spain? Isn't it necessary to think about France and Lucia? ”

Scharnhorst immediately said:

"The purpose of our development of the navy is not to be a direct enemy of the British, but only to secure the colonial routes.

"There was no direct contradiction between Prussia and England.

"The Hanover question was a contradiction between the Hanover royal family and the Kingdom of Prussia.

"George III's mental illness has been uncontrollable, and the Prince of Wales is a man of no opinion.

"The bourgeoisie and aristocracy of England will not be the enemy of our whole Prussia for the sake of the old courtyard of the king's house.

"If the British royal family is still in control of Hanover, it will also become the weakness of Britain in our hands.

】

"Unless Britain can easily destroy our navy and easily seize our overseas colonies.

"Otherwise normal Englishmen would not have fought Prussia for their king.

"In addition to the practical protection of the shipping routes, another task of our naval fleet is to dispel this idea from the British.

"We can build a navy while maintaining a relatively modest relationship with the UK.

"There is also no contradiction between us and the Spaniards, not even the royal contradiction of Hanover.

"As long as we have the ability to inflict heavy losses on them, the Spaniards will not be against us for no reason.

"We should also be able to maintain good relations with the Spaniards.

"The French, of course, are our enemies, but not the ones they are now.

"Now the French will fear that we are against them, not that we are afraid that they are against us.

"The French have become bogged down in the mudflats of the Colonial War of Independence in Yinzhou.

"Their biggest fear is that we are now suddenly attacking their homeland.

"Lucia is also our enemy, but she is not the enemy she is now.

"Neither of us wants to be an enemy of the other until our colonial development and construction reach a bottleneck.

"Once we go to war, it could be a full-scale war, from the homeland to the colonies.

"Our main enemy remains Austria.

"Even if we defeat France and Lucia, it will be difficult for us to annex and absorb the land and population of the other side.

"Only the German regions of Austria can be absorbed.

"If Austria is to be targeted, it is necessary to continue to build up the army, and more and stronger armored combat vehicles and aircraft should be produced.

Such an army was also used to deter Lucia and the French.

"We have the ability to threaten the French from the ground, and the French will not rashly interfere with our colonial routes.

"Our power makes the Lucians feel intractable, and they will target the Ottomans, Austria, and even Sweden.

"Our next goal is still to find the right moment to dismember Austria and completely unify Germany."

William III listened and nodded slowly:

"It makes sense, but when is the right time......

Then several people at the scene looked at Prime Minister Hardenberg together.

Hardenberg said very seriously:

"Of course, this is not the time, the most important task for us now is to be ourselves, watch and wait for the time to arise."

Blucher said thoughtfully:

"First be invincible, and then wait for the enemy to be invincible. You can't win against yourself, but you can win against the enemy. ”

William III was silent for a few seconds:

"Pass my order to officially start the construction of the second batch, at least two improved dreadnought capital ships.

"After the two dreadnought capital ships are put into service, the existing traditional warships purchased from the Ming Dynasty will be transformed into dreadnought capital ships."

Hardenberg bowed down and agreed:

"Your will."

William III said that the construction of the second batch of dreadnought capital ships was started, because the first batch is now more than half built.

After the end of the World War, the Ming Dynasty arranged craftsmen to guide Prussia, Lucia, Ottomans, Austria, and Italy in the development of their navies according to the original agreement, and took them to design and build capital ships.

The original plan of the Ming Dynasty was, of course, to build them traditional pre-dreadnoughts.

Two twin large-caliber guns were used, plus several sub-caliber guns were used to match.

In the process of this design, the Daming Intrepid was completed and launched.

However, this did not affect the Ming Dynasty to continue to sell ex-dreadnoughts to Prussia and other countries, and guided them to continue to design ex-dreadnoughts.

Until the news of the construction of dreadnoughts by the British was confirmed.

As well as the news that France and Spain also began to design and build similar warships.

So Daming took the initiative to change the drawings for Prussia and other countries.

The reason, of course, is not the confirmation of the news of the British man-made dreadnought, but the feasibility of "Daming has verified the relevant technology".

So Daming took the initiative to rebuild the same new warship.

After completing the design in this way, the design was changed, and after the construction started, the design drawings were greatly changed, and it took nearly three years to toss and turn, and now it is finally time for the melon to ripen.

On the distant continent of Tessie, in the northwestern part of Prussia proper, the royal shipyard Wilhelmshaven.

The launching ceremony of the first Prussian dreadnought battleship is taking place.

This brand new battleship was named Frederick the Great.

She had a full load displacement of 20,000 tons, and her main armament was four twin guns of 300 mm caliber and 45 times the diameter.

The power system is a steam turbine with a large water tube coal-fired boiler.

The maximum speed is designed to be 20 knots.

It was the Ming Dynasty who led Prussia to build the capital ship, and the launching ceremony also adopted the oriental model.

I didn't find a woman to smash the wine bottle, I found two little boys to set off firecrackers.

Among the entire Prussian aristocracy, the two most high-ranking young boys, the two sons of King William III.

The thirteen-year-old Friedrich Wilhelm, also known as King Wilhelm IV of Prussia.

Eleven-year-old Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig, also known as the historical German Emperor Wilhelm I.

The two bear children were very excited to set off firecrackers, and they were all very excited.

It's just that on this formal occasion, both of them were forced by their mothers to wear high heels, which made them both almost break their feet.

The whole ceremony was also very lively, and both the nobles and the cabin workers were very happy.

Because His Majesty's order has already been issued, the construction of two more improved warships of the same type will begin immediately.

At the end of the third year of Ankang, the new capital ships built by the Ming Dynasty under the guidance of the Taixi countries have reached the time of launching and entering service.

The capital ships of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal have already entered service or are about to be timed.

The target-type high-speed battleships of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the aircraft carriers built at the same time, have also reached the time of service.

Naval ships throughout the world are rapidly moving into the age of dreadnoughts.

With the exception of the Ming Dynasty, the British, who had made the fastest progress, had already completed the verification of the dreadnought battleship.

Consideration has already begun for new, larger-scale warships.

The House of Commons in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, held a special hearing for the next round of shipbuilding plans.

Admiral Horatio Nelson returned home from Yinzhou to attend the hearing.

Nelson stood in front of the podium with a document in his hand and called out loudly:

"After a lot of practical testing and verification, the vast majority of admirals have now reached a consensus.

"The new capital ship we designed is a truly revolutionary warship.

"They have an overwhelming advantage over traditional warships.

"After this new warship is put into service, the original old capital ships have all entered the countdown to obsolescence.

"It's just that there aren't enough new capital ships now, so the Navy still has to continue to use those old ships.

"Therefore, the future naval ship construction plan will all turn to new capital ships with all large-caliber main guns.

"At the same time, according to the information we have obtained, Daming, as well as other major Tessie countries, are building warships of the same type.

"This new type of warship, which directly eliminates all the old capital ships, puts all naval countries on the same starting line.

"We have completed the actual construction verification, and we are half a position ahead in this competition.

"We will continue to consolidate and even expand this advantage.

"We want to build more and bigger new capital ships as soon as possible.

"At the same time, we have already verified when we talked about it that our existing 300-millimeter main gun cannot effectively penetrate the new 300-millimeter armor of the Ming Dynasty.

"We must continue to greatly increase the power of our artillery in order to inflict effective damage on the capital ships of the Ming Dynasty.

"Since the production process of barrels and shells is difficult to improve quickly, we can only increase the caliber if we want to increase the power of the gun.

"We should use at least 330 mm, or even 360 mm guns.

"The larger caliber of the main gun requires us to enlarge the tonnage of the battleship carrying the main gun.

"At the same time, we can't compare with the size of Daming, and our production capacity is far lower than that of Daming.

"This makes it impossible for us to compete with the Ming in the number of warships built.

"We can only concentrate our limited resources and build fewer, but stronger, warships.

"In the design of the new capital ship, the larger the hull and the larger the caliber of the main gun, the greater the role it can play.

"It also requires us to build larger-scale capital ships.

"So my requirement is that the tonnage of the follow-up new capital ship should ideally reach a displacement of 40,000 tons.

"Eight to ten 360-mm guns.

"At the same time, it is necessary to increase the speed as much as possible, preferably to more than 23 knots, and fully use oil-fired boilers and steam turbines.

"That's what I suggested, and that's what the Navy requires."

Nelson's words quickly livened the scene.

Although most of the parliamentarians are not very familiar with naval ships, they still have experience and concepts about tonnage and caliber.

The original tonnage of the capital ships was less than 20,000 tons.

The experimental ship with all large-caliber naval guns is only a little over 20,000 tons.

The main guns used before were all three hundred millimeters, which had been maintained for many years.

Now Nelson wants to jump directly to 40,000 tons, and also asks to raise the caliber to 360 millimeters.

This directly formed the impression of being ambitious and happy.

The lawmakers at the scene discussed chaotically for a while, and Fox, as the opposition, was the first to speak:

"I can't quite understand what Lord Nelson meant, but that doesn't affect my opinion.

"Building this kind of super capital ship now will not allow us to quickly defeat the rebels in Yinzhou!

"Instead, it will further deteriorate our fiscal environment.

"I don't think we should start more capital ships until the end of the Yinzhou War.

"Not to mention the kind of super battleship you are talking about!

"The existing old-fashioned capital ships are enough for us to deal with the rebels in Yinzhou."

Nelson immediately said:

"Of course, these super capital ships cannot decide the situation of the battle in Yinzhou, but they can affect our future international status.

"More importantly, it affects the safety of our homeland!

"If we stop building capital ships, if we continue to use those old capital ships that are doomed to obsolescence, it will lead to extremely bad consequences!

"The gap between our navy and the Ming continues to widen, and this can only be regarded as a small problem.

"The really serious problem is being overtaken by Prussia and Lucia!

"If our navy is unable to defend itself against the Prussian navy, it will not affect the security of the Yinzhou colony.

"Our homeland, our capital, the city of London, where you are located, will be exposed to Prussian guns!

"You don't want your manor to be bombarded into ruins by Prussian naval guns!"

Nelson's words immediately elicited a large number of exclamations, and they were heartfelt exclamations with panic.

The security of the colony and the security of the homeland are not at the same level at all.

Fox was also visibly stunned for a moment, and then immediately questioned Nelson:

"This is an impossible thing, how can the Prussian navy surpass us?

"They need more troops, they need to guard against France, Lucia, Austria.

"It is impossible for them to invest a lot of wealth and resources in the construction of the navy."

Nelson immediately replied loudly:

"Do you mean to place your hopes on the choice of your opponent for the safety of the United Kingdom itself?

"For Prussia to go to their colony of Mexican, they must pass through our English Channel.

"For Prussia to ensure the safety of their routes, it will have to confront our navy.

"Prussia will inevitably develop its navy, and the Ming is guiding them in developing it.

"I've already said before that the current new capital ships have all the original warships in the countdown to elimination.

"We are already on the same starting line as countries like Prussia.

"Not to mention the fact that the French, the Spaniards, the Lucians could all become our enemies.

"So, at the bottom line, we should also maintain the basic advantage of the number of new warships over these countries.

"They're building a new capital ship, and we're going to build at least a larger one.

"Or if they build two capital ships, we will build three ships of approximate size.

"We have an advantage over any other country on the Europa continent to ensure our leading position in the Europa.

"You should choose one of these two directions, rather than give up."

Nelson's statement of the reality of the situation has convinced most of the lawmakers.

According to their understanding, Prussia should indeed do so, and Britain must respond.

There must be enough fleet to prevent a direct Prussian attack on London.

Although this is very unlikely.

But Nelson was right not to pin one's own security on the enemy's choices......

The key is......

"What about the Yinzhou War?"

Fawkes uttered another soul torture.