At the beginning of August, the war on the Eastern Front was fierce, and the Irish delegation arrived in Denmark as scheduled. The Danes accepted the rebirth of the Kingdom of Ireland with a friendly attitude. They were also one of the first European countries to establish diplomatic relations with them. The Danish people were somewhat complicated about the candidate for the Irish throne with a German royal background, because the Germans once occupied the Faroe Islands during the war. Although they now return sovereignty to the Danish government, they forced the Danish government to agree to the German Navy's continued use of the Port of Thors in the Faroe Islands, which aroused dissatisfaction among all walks of life in Denmark.

Having had successful experience in resolving the resistance of the French people, Natsuki was not worried that the Danish disgust would affect the trade cooperation between Ireland and Denmark. Although there was information that the British might make actions that were unfavorable to him in secret, Natsuki frequently appeared in public during his visit to Denmark, showing his humility, friendship and kindness. His good external image and demeanor were the same as usual and he won a lot of impression points.

Since the 20th century, the Kingdom of Denmark's political and military influence around the world has long declined, but their shipping industry and overseas trade are still among the best in Europe. During the war, Denmark's merchant fleet was still active in various oceans. Now, Britain's local economy and industry have been hit hard, and the status of the world empire has plummeted. Many countries are eyeing its share of global trade out of dual economic and political ambitions, and Denmark is just purely aiming for greater economic benefits. After the legal status of the Kingdom of Ireland was recognized by the world, Denmark's merchant fleet began to accept business from Ireland and helped Ireland sell a large number of agricultural and animal husbandry products to European and American countries. Denmark itself is also a major exporter of agricultural and animal husbandry products. Win-win cooperation is obviously a situation that both sides are happy to see.

Under Xia Shu's active operation, the two countries quickly held substantive talks on the market alliance of agricultural and animal husbandry products that Ireland had introduced shipbuilding, food processing and oil refining technology equipment from Denmark. On the second day after arriving in Copenhagen, German diplomats stationed in Denmark sent a handwritten letter from the German Emperor to Xia Shu, which surprised him. The letter was signed two days ago, indicating that it was delivered quickly at the instruction of the German Emperor. William II mentioned two major recent moves in the letter, one was to relocate a large number of British industrial facilities to Canada and carry out organized large-scale immigration, and the other was to reach a colony-for-aid agreement with the United States, which would hand over several islands belonging to the West Indies located on the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean, close to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the United States in exchange for bulk aid provided by the United States.

The United States has a vast territory and rich resources. It has basically no major external threats since its independence. It has a small military burden, a huge domestic market, a large population and high quality, and a relatively relaxed economic environment. After two industrial revolutions, the United States became the world's number one economic and industrial power. In 1900, the steel output was close to the sum of Britain and Germany. Before the outbreak of the war, the United States' steel output even exceeded the total of Britain, France and Germany. In 1914, the United States' national income was US$37 billion, Britain with a vast colony was only US$11 billion, Germany with a rapid rise was US$12 billion, France had only US$6 billion, and Japan had a pitiful 2 billion. The gap in comprehensive national strength between the great powers is obvious. Although the United States was not involved in the war from beginning to end, this did not prevent it from becoming a giant with the strongest military potential.

William II's intention to write this letter was not just to reveal the news to Natsuki. His intelligence department mentioned in the report that the UK was very likely to hand over the complete set of technical drawings of the two powerful battleships, Queen Elizabeth-class and Tiger-class, to the Americans. The United States will build several super-dreadnoughts and battle cruisers for Britain in accordance with the Colonial Exchange Aid Agreement. It may be an improved version of Queen Elizabeth and Tiger. Since the agreement between the United States and Britain is non-ally aligned, all clauses bypass the restrictions of the London Armistice Treaty, Germany's diplomatic pressure has little effect.

It is obvious that Germany's victory in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf was hit hard by Britain.

In view of the new crisis in Germany's maritime strategy, William II believes that it is necessary to reset the strategic plan of the German Navy. It is far from enough to rely on the support of several Bavarian-class and 15,000-ton multi-purpose ships. The design and construction of the new generation of main battleships must be accelerated, and the standards of these main battleships should be raised to 35,000 tons or even 40,000 tons. Xia Shu, who presided over the design and construction of Nassau, Helgolan, Caesar, King's fourth-class dreadnought and all battleship cruisers, is undoubtedly the most eye-catching and capable ship design master of this era. Therefore, the German Emperor hopes that Xia Shu can continue to preside over the design and construction of the new German main battleships, and for this reason he is willing to consider temporarily moving the design and development institutions of the German Navy to Ireland.

From the perspective of candidates for the Irish throne, this move can tie the interests of Germany and Ireland tightly together. Whether William II is in power or the crown prince, Germany has to spare no effort to support Ireland. This is the "hotbed" needed by the new Irish Kingdom, but helping Germany establish a truly great navy may accelerate the formation of the US-UK alliance and trigger the next war. At that time, life will inevitably be lost. The unpredictable war result may push Ireland into the abyss of disaster.

From a personal perspective, creating an extremely powerful warship is not only Natsuki's expertise, but also his long-cherished wish. Moreover, he is more predictive of the technological trend than anyone living in this era. If he refuses this invitation, the German Navy may enter the misunderstanding of blindly developing heavy artillery warships, thus ignoring the strategic role of aircraft carriers and various auxiliary ships, which ultimately leads to the failure of the Allied camp. The chain reaction here may make Japan invade China more unscrupulously, which is something Natsuki never wants to see.

Since the German emperor had something to ask for, after careful consideration, Xia Shu wrote a long letter, which not only put forward his own requirements for the German navy's shipbuilding planning and design and construction matters, but also suggested that Germany end the war with Russia as soon as possible. The resolute character of the Slavic nation is well known to everyone. Even if the Slavic Empire was completely defeated, it would not only not allow the Slavs to obey, but also sow the seeds of hatred, which made Germany unnecessary to invest a lot of manpower and material resources in Eastern Europe. If the war was truce as soon as possible, and the armistice clause was used to promote economic aggression, it would be possible to continuously obtain Ukrainian food and Russian minerals without sending troops to occupy it. This is a real wise move.

Only three days later, Xia Shu waited for the German Emperor's reply. Regarding the war on the Eastern Front, William II made a vague response with just a few words. It seems that he still wants to take this opportunity to severely attack the Russians who had been against the German-Austrian alliance for a long time on the Balkan issue, and by the way, the Russians completely cut off their ambitions for Mesopotamian oil resources. The German emperor was really interested in his world naval plan. He accepted several requests from Xia Shu and agreed to fund the German government to establish a naval research center in Limerick, the new capital of Ireland, and operated jointly with the German naval technical department in Kiel, which means Germany

The ship technology of the national and Irish navy will be in a shared state for a long time. In order to prevent leaks, the German Emperor proposed that the German Navy's Navy's Navy was directly responsible for the security of the war and to install counter-espionage personnel in the Irish naval department. If it were other allied countries, they would definitely feel that such demands were unreasonable, but the current situation in Ireland was very different. There were British spies and Irish people who secretly defected to Britain. There were not many people who could really trust. In the early stage, the appropriate use of Germany's military and intelligence forces would outweigh the disadvantages. It would not be too late to gradually reduce the dependence on Germany until the Irish country's operation was on track.

As for the top-down principle proposed by Xia Shu, he personally agreed on the ship construction plan with the German Emperor, and then a senior German naval official made a technical discussion on the plan, then submitted it to the Imperial Navy Technical Committee to determine the specific design parameters, calculate the expected cost, and finally submitted it to Congress for approval of the budget. The German Emperor agreed and expressed his vague acceptance of Xia Shu's suggestion that Tirpitz would take over the overall naval situation again. After all, Muller and Bohr are capable of carrying out conventional naval affairs, and their ability to organize naval construction is still a little worse than that of the experienced Tirpitz.

During the second reply, Xia Shu gave William II two pre-selected plans. One was to build four 35,000-ton Markensen improvements, four 45,000-ton Bavarian-class improvements, and four 45,000-ton Bavarian-class final battle cruisers within nine years within the scope of the normal financial support of the German government. In addition, the four Bavarian-class under construction, the German Navy would have the core force composed of 8 first-class super-dreadnought ships and 10 battle cruisers with super-powerful combat power. With King-class, Caesar-class dreadnought and Moltch-class battle cruisers as the powerful second echelon, this ambitious plan was fully in line with the German Emperor William II's love for giant ships and cannons. The three 30,000-ton and three 20,000-ton aircraft carriers built at the same time only occupied a small part of the capital and resource investment, and most of them could be built in shipyards in Ireland and France.

The second pre-selected plan proposed by Natsuki can be evaluated by the military force. It plans to build five Markensen improvements, five Bavarian improvements and two Ultimate Battle Cruises within six years, with an average of two constructions starting every year, while the number of aircraft carriers being reduced to four. In order to make up for the shortcomings of the carrier-based aviation, two armored cruisers, two light cruisers and four transport ships handed over by the UK will be converted into auxiliary aircraft carriers.

In these two pre-selected plans, Xia Shu did not mention the number of cruisers and torpedo boat destroyers. The current construction speed of the German Navy certainly cannot meet the cover task of such a huge main fleet. However, once the plan is launched, Germany's industrial and shipbuilding resources are basically concentrated on the main ship, and the construction of light ships has to give way to the main ships again. Judging from the current conditions, the ships handed over by Britain's compensation will be maintained and transformed, and then find a way to get a batch of light ships from the soon-to-be-fall Russians, or the best way to overcome difficulties.
Chapter completed!