Do you still remember how you spent your 16th birthday and what kind of gifts you received?

Xia Shu's first 16th birthday was so dull that there was no clear impression in his memory. If Charlotte encountered a violent storm on his way back or had a malfunction that was difficult to repair in a short period of time, then his second 16th birthday might be so simple.

The fact is that after leaving Spain, the Charlotte was smooth sailing, sailing nearly 4,000 kilometers in just two weeks, and returned to Port Kiel on December 15, 1906.

16 years ago on December 17, Prussian prince Joachim Franz Hubert was born in the German Empire Palace in Berlin.

In traditional European countries, boys are considered adults at the age of 16 and can enjoy the treatment of adults and perform their duties as adults.

After a long voyage of 170 days, Xia Shu saw that she became more handsome, strong and mature in the mirror. Her faces around her were less youthful and ignorant, and added to the vicissitudes of wind and sun. She could see the agility and stability of adults in every move.

After attending the graduation ceremony held by the Kiel Naval Academy for the voyage students, Xia Shu boarded the train to Berlin accompanied by two royal servants.

In the early morning of December 17, Xia Shu stepped onto the platform of the Potsdam Station in Berlin. Unlike previous trips, this time, he wore a gorgeous and straight military dress, a white gold ribbon, and a helmet with bright feathers, and strided across the neatly lined up Royal Guards. In the middle of winter, the temperature was colder, Xia Shu rode through the main streets of Berlin city in an open-top royal carriage. Because the royal family had announced that Prince Joachim was about to hold an adult ceremony, many citizens who came spontaneously were waiting to pay tribute to the talented Prussian prince.

Xia Shu waved to the onlookers from the carriage, saying that many people would never have the chance to enjoy this kind of treatment of parading alone and receiving gifts from the people.

The carriage arrived at the Berlin Palace, and Xia Shu walked past the majestic imperial guards again. The salute sounded, including the German Emperor, the queen, the crown prince, and other important royal relatives, including the princes, princes, princes, grand dukes, have gathered in the main hall. They will witness the coming-of-age ceremony of the royal boy and his obligations, responsibilities and glory.

On such a grand occasion, Xia Shu had no intention of stage fright. He straightened his chest, held the sword in his left hand, walked into the main hall of the palace with a steady and powerful pace, then took off his hat with his right hand, paying tribute to the German Emperor, the queen and the crown prince with traditional royal etiquette.

The German Emperor had a majestic expression, the queen's expression was kind, and the crown prince's face still had that elusive smile on his face.

When the Xia tree stopped in front, the main hall was silent. Emperor William II of Germany said in a loud voice: "Prussian Prince Joachim, our son, the pride of the Hohenzollern family, today you are 16 years old. From now on, you should take the sword as your heart, be loyal, and bravely assume the responsibilities that a member of the royal family should bear, and fulfill the sacred duties entrusted to you by the state. Joachim, I will give you the glorious mission of protecting the glory of the empire in the name of the German Emperor, and may good luck be with you... God bless Germany!"

After witnessing the coming-of-age ceremony of every brother, Xia Shu was no stranger to all this. He drew his sword and sweared in a righteous manner: "God is the testimony of me, Joachim, here he swore: In this life, he will fight to defend the unity, justice and freedom of Germany, unconditionally loyal to my country, loyal to my emperor, I will move forward bravely and never retreat... God bless Germany's will!"

When the crown prince William wore a badge that symbolized the honor of the Hohenzollern family on the chest of the summer tree, the royal relatives applauded and greeted them, and what was even more interesting was still behind.

At their own coming-of-age ceremony, the Prussian princes were not only able to receive honors, but also granted the royal family. Crown Prince William, the second prince Aitel, the third prince Adalbert, the fourth prince Augustus, and the fifth prince Oscar, without exception, they obtained their own private territory and property.

At the coming-of-age ceremony of the last prince, William II, the leader of the Hohenzollern family, announced that he would grant all of the same rich royal property. The property list includes more than 600 hectares of royal territory in Bromburg (i.e. Bydgoszcz, today's northern Poland city), shares of Friedrich's Royal Shipbuilding Factory, which was originally held by the royal family, and part of the royal cash assets.

For the core members of the royal family, such a gift is completely expected. Its content and scope are not greater than any Prussian prince before. However, the operating conditions and development prospects of the Royal Friedrich shipbuilding factory definitely exceed the industries under the names of several princes, and this alone is enough to be enviable. Although the royal territory of Bromburg is not a commercial center or tourist destination, it has a flat terrain and fertile land. It is adjacent to the Vistula River, which is very convenient for shipping, and is only more than 100 kilometers away from the Danze Port where Friedrich shipyard is located. On this territory, there is a Gothic castle with a history of more than 400 years. It was originally a military fortress and king of Poland in the past.

The Shrine Palace was incorporated into Prussia in 1793. It has been the royal family of Prussia for more than a hundred years since then, and it has basically maintained its original historical appearance. It is rumored that in the early 18th century, the defeated party buried an astonishing amount of treasures under this castle to make a comeback in the future, but it was unable to reverse the trend. After that, the Polish royal family set it up as a palace and ordered people to search for this batch of treasures. The Prussian royal family also cleaned and searched it with the same purpose. It is said that it is still hidden deep in an unknown hidden position, leaving it for those who are destined to open the legendary chapter of the king.

Whether the ancient castle contains the legendary huge wealth, Xia Shu is not interested in the value created with his mind and hands. The operation of Friedrich's shipyard is in a steady rise, and he has the energy and desire to expand new business areas. In this royal gift, bank deposits and securities reached more than 5 million marks, equivalent to nearly 300,000 pounds. Judging from the price level in the early 20th century, this is a considerable amount of funds. Two years ago, the choice of the Five Prince Oscar was to improve the residence of the territory castle.

In the condition, he was also criticized by public opinion for his overly luxurious decoration. This time, Xia Shu did not repeat the same mistake, and he did not reach the stage of "nest building nature" thriving. The money imposed and the dividends from Friedrich's shipyard were used for long-planned investments: opening Hubert Dynamics in Danze, establishing Hubert Airways in Bromburg, and establishing Prince Hubert Shipyard in Ireland. In addition, Hubert Weapons, a comprehensive military-industry group covering sea, land and air has taken shape.

With capital and industry, how can we lack talents?

Not only in the 21st century, but in any era when heroes compete for hegemony, the most valuable one is always talent. In order to attract talents, Xia Shu established a commercial technology department at the Friedrich Shipyard very early, equipped with full-time "star scouts" to establish a talent database, from the famous and talented powerful to the emerging and outstanding calf, all of which were paid attention to. Then Xia Shu decided which characters needed to dig deeper into information, which immediately contacted and contacted, which offered employment offers, and which cooperated through funding.

Now, Friedrich's shipyard is in charge of Ernest Karls and John Holland. Over the years, it has recruited many well-known engineers and young and outstanding potential talents in the industry. With their joint efforts, the shipyard has successfully transformed from building old-fashioned sailboats to a first-class military shipyard with distinctive technical characteristics and quality advantages in the field of light ships. Orders from the German Navy and other countries have provided rich profits, and has also made Xia Shu's plan to build a super military enterprise on the agenda.

Hubert's Arms Company was not established for a long time, with an initial investment of only 1.5 million marks, and half of the funds were used to acquire the small arsenal located in the suburbs of Danze. Most of the original skilled workers voluntarily stayed, but there was a lack of designers with the concept of automatic weapons and corresponding precision equipment. Under very limited conditions, Uncle Weizel's son-in-law, "Cauliflower Head", Tony Bereta, took on the important task of chief designer and technical director,

He also found his cousin Sylves Beretta from Italy for help. After several months of hard work, they successfully transformed the manual Gatling machine gun eliminated by the German Army into a special armed new weapon of the "Thunder" two-seat high-speed torpedo boat. The new weapon used for the six-barrel structure and 13 mm caliber. When shooting, the torpedo boat engine shaft drives the barrel to rotate. The firing rate can be adjusted between 200 rounds, 280 rounds and 360 rounds per minute. When power is lost, hand-crank can also be used.

With the mass production of "Thunder", Tony's rotary machine gun produced a total of more than 200, which made Hubert's first pot of gold. Out of recognition of the development prospects of the weapons company, Xia Shu joined forces with Christian to invest more. The company quickly introduced new machinery and equipment and flow-through production lines, and recruited a group of gun technicians and electrical experts. In the spring of 1906, the weapons company launched its real main product, 20mm caliber gas-guided ship machine gun, which can be installed separately.

It can also be used in dual-mounted or quad-mounted modes. It is a highly efficient close-defense weapon. Compared with the same type of weapons, it has the advantages of simple mechanism, fast firing speed, and good stability. Not only does Friedrich's shipyard order a large number of medium-sized, large torpedo boats and light cruisers, but other German shipyards have also sent purchase orders one after another. The production and operation of the weapons company has entered a new stage, and the accumulated technical strength has also laid the foundation for the future research and development and production of aviation and land warfare weapons.

With the successful experience of Friedrich Shipyard and Hubert Weapons, Xia Shu has a very clear idea of ​​the development blueprint of the three new companies, namely autonomous, characteristic and practical.

In the field of fixed-wing aircraft, although Xia Shu is not an expert, his common sense knowledge is enough to make him play the role of a prophet in the early stage of aviation technology. The "scouts" also found a very amazing powerful Hugo Junckers. The aircraft has only been around for a few years. The mechanical engineering professor at the Aachen University of Technology has started this exploration and research. In order to let Junckers join his aviation company to take the lead, Xia Shu accepted the various conditions he proposed, including setting up the aviation laboratory in Aachen so that he could continue to teach and carry students in aircraft design research. In addition, Hubert Airways will also pay Junckers' student assistants and give priority to providing well-paid jobs after graduation.

The original intention of putting Hubert's shipyard in Ireland, where the industrial foundation is relatively weak, was to fulfill its promise to John Holland. Because of his experience of docking at Cork Port during his training voyage, Xia Shu now regards it as an important investment of military and political significance, and has won the secret funding of the German government on this ground. In order to make the function of the shipyard more concealed, Xia Shu also played a trick in the background of the investor's identity and let an Irishman named Duff Hubert act as the number one shareholder and nominal operator of the shipyard, and hired a high salary.

Several local Irish officials served as consultants at the shipyard. In fact, 80% of the shares of the shipyard are in Xia Shu's hands, and 20% belong to John Holland. Because there is no high technical requirement for producing 200-ton short-range submarines, Friedrich's production capacity is not enough to complete all foreign orders, Xia Shu then transferred the production task of the "Holland Viii" submarine to Hubert Shipyard, and provided more than 600 jobs to the local Irish people. Following the agreement with John Holland, they gave them quite generous salary.

Among the three newly established enterprises, Xia Shu valued the most. The first project it launched was the Tesla steam turbine technology brought back by Xia Shu from the United States. At this time, the design and finalization of the German Navy's first-class dreadnought was completed. The four new warships were handed over to the four best German shipyards, William Royal Shipyard, Bremen Wiess Shipyard, Stettin Vulken Shipyard and Kiel Germania Shipyard. They were scheduled to start construction in February 1907, with a specified construction period of 21 months. With the reserved commissioning and adaptation period, they are expected to be officially put into service in the summer of 1909.

Combining the design ideas of "foresight" and "creative" in Xiashu, the paper performance of this class's new warship is very balanced. Krupp will provide the armored steel plates and naval guns they need according to the construction period. Siemens is responsible for providing first-class electrical equipment, and the power system will use Schultz-Sunnycroft coal-fired boiler and the Parsons steam turbine. This is also the first time that the German Navy has adopted steam turbine technology on large capital ships. In this regard, the Germans

Although it started late, it can be seen that the British Ocean Cruises using steam turbines successfully gained strong power. The newly built cruisers of the British Navy and even the USS Defence battleship were also equipped with steam turbines. They followed up decisively and used civilian ships and light cruisers to detect the performance of steam turbines. When Xia Shu proposed the "coal-fired boiler + steam turbine" power plan for the Sharnhorst-class armored ships in the design of the new battleship, the Navy's senior management gave them very firm support.

With practical steam turbines, the German Navy was able to get rid of the power constraints of the reciprocating piston steam engine. However, relying on foreign technology to imitate is only a temporary measure. When the Shuofei Shipyard obtained the production license for the Parsons Steam Turbine, the British must have used upgraded models with better performance and more stable operation. In this context, as long as the Tesla steam turbine is successful, the difficult problems that plague Xia Shu and the German Navy will no longer exist. However, looking at the design drawings and parameters alone, no one dares to conclude that it has all the conditions for success: controllability, stability and practicality...

The era of the industrial revolution is an era of the outbreak of all kinds of new inventions, new technologies, and new designs. It is not difficult to obtain a technological invention. The key is whether people have the vision and courage to create it, because it may be a great success in theory, but it is not worth investing in the market. This means that investors will suffer huge economic losses and devote their valuable time, energy and opportunities to pure technological progress.
Chapter completed!