1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 494, Tirpitz’s ambition (1)

In November 1898, Scrooge left Duck Castle with a rare experience and accompanied a German to visit the Morgan McDonald Shipyard. It is certainly not easy for Scrooge to condescend to accompany him. He is the German Minister of the Navy Tirpitz.

Tirpitz was later known as the father of the German High Seas Fleet in later history. The huge High Seas Fleet was built during Tirpitz’s time as Minister of the Navy. Of course, during his time, Germany and Britain started a dreadnought race, which made Germany and Britain officially turned their faces, and laid the groundwork for the subsequent World War I.

Although in the First World War, the United States finally stood on the side of the British, but at least for now, the relationship between United States and Germany is still very good, because the two countries have a lot of international issues, especially on the issue of free trade. Have the same or similar views. Of course, although the most emerging industrial countries compete in the international market a lot, there are many opportunities for cooperation. For example, Germany, as an emerging industrial country, actually has many weaknesses, except for the lack of a large enough foreign market. In addition, there is a major defect that is the lack of raw materials.

As a major industrial country, Germany lacks a series of important raw materials, such as petroleum and rubber. Take the ship as an example. The United States ships in this time and space are already using heavy oil boilers because of Scrooge. Although the price of fuel alone is calculated, the price of heavy oil is still higher than that of coal, but considering the heavy oil The combustion value is higher, so ships using heavy oil boilers have longer voyages and have smaller fuel tanks. Moreover, the refueling of heavy oil is mechanized and requires fewer workers. Unlike a coal-fired boiler, a large number of workers are required to manually add coal to the furnace. In addition, in terms of maintainability, heavy oil boilers are also better than coal-fired boilers. Therefore, in terms of performance and cost, compared with coal-fired boilers, heavy oil boilers have obvious advantages. Therefore, most of the newly built ships around the world are equipped with heavy oil boilers. But Germany is very strange. German merchant ships, especially export merchant ships, use advanced heavy oil boilers, but their own merchant ships and even warships still use coal-fired boilers. The reason is that Germany does not have oil and fears that if a war breaks out, it will not be able to obtain oil supply.

As for rubber, it is also extremely important. Without this thing, cars and other things are a complete joke. There are also various rare metals, which are quite scarce in Germany. After acquiring Cuba, United States is equivalent to occupying the entire South American market, as well as the raw material origin of South America. For example, in Cuba, the world’s largest nickel mine, although the boss on the surface is Cuban, after a turn through the holding, it is McDonald. Therefore, when Germans are purchasing rubber, rare metals, etc., they often need to find United States. Therefore, there are still many economic exchanges between the two countries.

However, Tirpitz did not come to United States to buy these things, but to communicate with each other on shipbuilding technology. In this way, it is natural to deal with Morgan and Scrooge, who owns the largest shipyard in United States. NS.

Morgan certainly knew that although the Germans would not order warships from United States on a large scale, they would only order some parts at most. But he also understands that if the Germans start to strengthen the navy on a large scale, then the United Kingdom will definitely start to strengthen the navy on a large scale, and the British will definitely stimulate the United States government, and then the United States will also explode the navy. Then the whole world keeps up, and then-this picture is so beautiful…

Although Morgan likes ships, he doesn’t know much about technology, especially when it comes to navy stuff. Therefore, although he has a higher stake in the shipyard than Scrooge, the reception of Tirpitz still has to be made by Scrooge.

“Your Excellency, you see, this is the largest dry dock at the Morgan Macdonald Shipyard. The gantry crane above can lift more than 500 tons of items at a time, and is currently the largest gantry crane in the United States.” Zhi pointed to a large gantry crane and said to Tirpitz, “With this, the efficiency of shipbuilding can be greatly Ascension. Ah, Your Excellency, our ship-shaped exhibition hall is in front. Would you like to go in and take a look?”

Tirpitz has also long admired the name of “Morgan McDonald Shipyard”. He knows that although the scale of this shipyard is not the largest in the world, it can almost be regarded as the largest in the world in terms of technology. Although the British who feel good about themselves will not admit it.

In recent years, some revolutionary technologies of the Navy originated from this shipyard, such as gas turbines and central knapsack artillery. So Tirpitz is naturally quite interested in this shipyard.

“Mr. MacDonald, I am very interested in it,” Tirpitz replied.

The group entered the ship-shaped exhibition hall together. As soon as I entered the door, I saw a model of a cruise ship in the most conspicuous position.

“This is the model of the cruise ship we designed for the White Star Shipping Company.” Scrooge explained, “This ship has not yet been laid on its keel. But once it is built, it will be a miracle of our time. The ship has 40,000. It weighs a ton, is equipped with 26 boilers, 6 large gas turbines, and has a power of 150,000 horsepower. According to our calculations, this can make this miraculous ship reach a speed of about 32 knots, which will save everything in this era. Other ships are left behind. Unfortunately, we don’t have such ships yet, otherwise…”

“Otherwise, you can deliver humanitarian aid to the Boers under the eyes of the British?” Tirpitz laughed. On the issue of the Boer War, Scrooge’s attitude has always been the same. It is very clear that it is to support the Boers’ struggle for independence and freedom, and the Germans’ attitude on this issue is also very clear, that is, to support the Boers one-sidedly. That’s why Tirpitz would say such a joke.

“Ah, Lord of the Navy, this is really not good. You know that there is no problem with this ship getting rid of the British warship. Whether it is speed or seaworthiness under high sea conditions, it can overwhelm any British warship. In the blink of an eye, it can run without even seeing the shadow, but it still can’t do the task of transporting supplies to the Boers, because it is too big, and there is no dock for it to dock in all of Africa.” Gao Zhi also replied in a joking tone, “If one day the British blockade the Danish Strait and the North Sea, this ship can really try to cross the British blockade and transport those important humanitarian relief supplies to Go to Hamburg.”

“How is this possible,” Tirpitz also laughed. “No one can block the Danish Strait. If anyone dares to do this, the Imperial Army is fully capable of directly taking over the Danish Strait.”

“That’s more convenient, isn’t it?” Scrooge laughed. “This way the British can only block the North Sea, and then it will be even more difficult to cross their blockade.”

Tirpitz also laughed. Of course he knew the instigation in Scrooge’s words, but does the relationship between the German Empire and Britain still need to instigate? Besides, if Germany will always be friendly with Britain and will always be the British follower, then what is the point of his Minister of the Navy? For a long time, Germany’s military power has been lame. It has the most powerful army in the world today (which is almost beyond doubt), and a navy slightly larger than Denmark in scale. If this state continues, what did His Majesty the Emperor promote Tirpitz to do as Minister of the Navy? And as someone who has worked in Germany’s few overseas colonies, Tirpitz also understands the economic significance of colonies. However, if there is not a strong navy, what can be used to obtain colonies and what can be used to safeguard overseas interests? And if there are no colonies, no overseas interests, and the German domestic and even European markets are saturated, how can the economy develop? At that time, I am afraid it will be one after another economic crisis, one after another, strikes, uprisings, and revolutions.

“A specter, the specter of communism, lingers in Europe.” The European country that feels the most about this threat is probably Germany. The number and density of strikes in Germany today, the strength of the left-leaning communist groups and anarchist groups in Germany have clearly surpassed that of the United Kingdom, which produced the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” and “Das Kapital,” as well as those who like rebellion and revolution. And the famous France. With a colony, the British can make things like trade unionism, but Germany without a colony has almost no room for reconciling domestic class contradictions. The existence of a colony is not a small issue for Germany, but a question of life and death. On this issue, the entire upper level of Germany has actually reached a consensus long ago.

When many people in later generations mentioned World War I and the shipbuilding competition between Germany and Britain, they habitually felt that it was the cripple, William I, who caused the antagonism between Britain and Germany, and finally came up with it. The world war thing. This is not necessarily correct. William I was a bit like to fool around. For example, if he were not fooling around, Russia might not have been turned to France. In this case, the situation in Germany may be better. However, it was not a question of the lame being alone after falling out with the British. In fact, this is no choice. Because unless the United Kingdom is defeated, there will be no way out for Germany.

“I heard that you are building a battleship for the Brazilian Navy. Is there a model of this ship here?” Tirpitz asked.