The celebration went well, and Arthur made more friends from the European royal family, including the nobles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the nobles of Bulgaria.

Coincidentally, the Bulgarian royal family is also a member of the Saxony Coburg Gotha family, and its Prince Ferdinand I is also distantly related to Arthur's grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Ferdinand I, a writer, botanist, entomologist and philatelist, was also criticized by his father's cousin, Queen Victoria, when he was chosen to be Prince of Bulgaria: "He is completely unsuitable, fragile, eccentric, and effeminate, and such a man is not fit to be the ruler of a country, and the act of inviting him to become Prince of Bulgaria should also be stopped immediately." ”

In fact, Queen Victoria was not the only one who questioned Ferdinand, as many European royal families at the time doubted whether he could be a proper ruler.

But, to the surprise of all his critics, Ferdinand I had great success during the first twenty years of his reign.

Of course, Ferdinand I was the ruler of Bulgaria for just over twenty years.

After suffering a crushing defeat in the First World War, Ferdinand I was entented

He abdicated and went into exile in Austria.

Ferdinand I was also considered a long-lived monarch, having lived until 1948, while the Bulgarian monarchy lasted only until 1946.

Of course, in addition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Arthur also established good relations with the Kingdom of Sweden, mainly because of Arthur's sister, Princess Margaery.

In 1905, Princess Margaery married Prince Oskar Frederick Willem Olaf Gustav Adolf, the future King of Sweden.

Although the development of history is different now, fate still brings the two together.

The Swedish side made a request for marriage to Australasia and Princess Louis, and Princess Louis, after thinking about it for a long time, also agreed to the marriage request of the Swedish side.

Arthur had no objection to this. Sweden remained neutral in both world wars and was a monarchy even later in life.

Although the King of Sweden lost all his rights after World War II, he was only a symbol of the state.

But this fate is definitely much better than that of most European monarchies, and even Gustav VI himself lived to be nearly ninety-one years old, which is definitely a good death.

Although Gustav would not become King of Sweden until more than 40 years later, he would at least be able to ascend to the throne and become the beloved king of the Swedish people.

Once it was decided that he was going to marry Sweden, the government and Princess Louis would take care of the rest.

Arthur didn't pay much attention to this, but he also prepared a rich dowry, and used the national specifications to prepare for Margaery's marriage.

Arthur had only one request, that is, Margaery had to live well in Sweden and fulfill her responsibilities as a younger brother.

After the feast, the nobles and officials of most countries chose to return to their respective countries the next day.

The vast majority of them are high-level people with high status and power in their respective countries, so they cannot leave their posts for too long.

Of course, not everyone is in such a hurry. Including Crown Prince William and Grand Duke Sergei, as well as Saburo Endo of the island country, chose to stay.

The islanders' purpose was simple, they wanted to continue to explore resource trade with Australasia, as well as order a dreadnought to strengthen the island's combined fleet.

These demands may seem ordinary, but the main problem is that the island nation doesn't have the money right now. The last Russo-Japanese War did not achieve much strategic goal for the island nation, but instead invested a lot of money.

At present, they are only surviving on loans from Britain and the United States, and their domestic dreadnought plans will not even wait until a year or two later.

This also led to various plans of the island nation being carried out on credit, and they even wanted Arthur to advance funds for them until they received more international loans.

Arthur smiled at this and directly ended the negotiation with the island country.

Arthur would not be foolish enough to advance money for the island nation to maintain trade between the two countries.

Now that a deeper level of cooperation has been reached with Russia, cooperation with the island countries has become dispensable.

What's more, the arms market and economy of the island countries are basically controlled by the British Empire and the United States, and the vast majority of the weapons and warships of the island countries also come from the British Empire.

Under such circumstances, Australasia tried to compete with the British Empire in the island market, and the result was basically failure.

Moreover, Russia is suffering from internal and external troubles, and it is impossible for the Russians to threaten Australasia. But island countries are different, the basic base of island countries is in East Asia, and after they develop, they can even threaten Australia and New Zealand.

This has happened in history, and Arthur has to guard against it.

After a brief exchange with the island nation, Arthur accompanied Crown Prince William and Grand Duke Sergei for a few days around Australasia.

In the end, Crown Prince William left satisfied, and even said that he would come back at the next wedding.

Of course, Arthur has not done nothing in the past few days with Crown Prince William, at least Arthur has been subtly influencing Crown Prince William, making Germany pay more attention to the development of 305 mm guns and larger caliber guns, and at the same time began to vigorously develop submarines.

In fact, the development of large-caliber naval guns has attracted great attention from the German side.

For no other reason, there are currently three known German dreadnought designs in the world, two of which are equipped with 305 mm guns (Australasia designed 305 and 280).

Only Germany was satisfied with 280 mm guns and did not have more research and expectations for large-caliber guns.

But times have changed. The dreadnought has received a completely new upgrade in terms of firepower, protection and power, and the 280 mm guns are enough for the old battleships that have come before, and whether they can cause enough damage to the newly born dreadnoughts is a question that no one can be sure of.

But in any case, judging from the written data, the Nassau-class battleships developed by Germany themselves were indeed slightly weaker than the Dreadnought battleships in terms of firepower.

Although the firepower is equivalent to that of the Australasian monarch-class battleship, there is just no way, because of technical limitations, it can only be temporarily equipped with 280 mm guns.

What Arthur didn't know was that, for his own reasons, Germany had begun to focus on the development of 305 mm guns, and already had plans for larger caliber guns.

Wilhelm II's idea was simple, if Australasia could design a powerful battleship that surpassed the data of the Nassau-class battleships, why didn't the German Empire design a super battleship with more powerful data in all aspects?

After sending off Crown Prince William, Archduke Sergei and Archduchess Mary were left in Australasia.

In fact, it is natural that Grand Duke Sergei will stay in Australasia to discuss the specific time and details of the wedding, and at the same time, the Russian government is also trying to reach a deeper cooperation with Australasia.

In addition to the wedding, what made the Russian government and Grand Duke Sergei pay more attention is the battleship comparable to the dreadnought proposed by Australasia.

After learning that Australasia had mastered dreadnought technology, Grand Duke Sergei sent several telegrams to contact the country, and obtained the approval of Nicholas II, giving him full responsibility for ordering warships with Australasia.

After receiving the approval of Nicholas II, Grand Duke Sergei was still very excited.

Dreadnought data greatly crushes old battleships, and no matter which Russian fleet is equipped with dreadnoughts, it will greatly improve Russia's naval strength.

At present, the first thing that needs to be determined is whether the warship designed by Australasia has the performance of a dreadnought, and secondly, how much such a warship will cost, and whether the Russian side can carry out large-scale construction.

Older battleships generally cost around £1,000,000, and the highest ones don't exceed £1.5 million.

This is also the reason why Russia has a good naval strength, and it can also make up a powerful fleet by smashing the pot and selling iron.

But if the construction of dreadnoughts is too expensive, it is basically not something that the current Russian government can afford.

At most, they can only order one or two ships to give their fleet a façade.

Grand Duke Sergei was indeed resolute enough, and after obtaining the authorization of Nicholas II, he approached Arthur the next day and asked his own questions.

Arthur had been prepared for Grand Duke Sergei's inquiry, so he replied with a smile: "Your Royal Highness, please rest assured, our monarch-class battleship is based on the data of the British Dreadnought battleship and the German Nassau-class battleship, after a long period of research, combining the advantages of the two battleships, the combat effectiveness of the design is comparable to that of the Dreadnought battleship. Our battleship is definitely of the dreadnought class, and its performance and combat effectiveness will stand the test. ”

The Russians still knew about the German Nassau-class battleships. In fact, after the dreadnought became known to the vast majority of countries, the German counterattack was already underway in secret.

In order to win the hearts of the Germans, and at the same time to fight back strongly against the British battleship Dreadnought, Germany released some data on the Nassau-class battleship, and declared that this was a formidable battleship whose combat effectiveness was not weaker than that of the Dreadnought.

A monarch-class battleship that combines the advantages of two types of battleships, the Dreadnought and the Nassau-class battleship, should have no problem reaching the level of a dreadnought, right?

The first update of 3,000 words, ask for support!

(End of chapter)