Vol 3 Chapter 18: Self-reliance

Time passed in a hurry and entered 19o2 without any surprises. This year is a very important year for both Ferdinand and Bulgaria!
In March, Ferdinand's second son was born, and he took a name rich in Orthodox meaning-Boris, which is the name of the eldest son of the original owner in history, full name: Boris Clement Robert Marley A. Pius Stanislav Saxe-Coburg-Godowski.
The reason for this name is mainly because his eldest son Ferdinand chose Roman Catholicism for his religious beliefs. In order to appease the hearts of the people, Ferdinand gave the obvious name of the Orthodox Church to his second son!
The choice is very trivial. Under the witness of the major religious figures in Bulgaria, the major factions have their own sides. The little guy crawled to the side of the Roman Catholic Church. It was naturally considered that this was the will of God and ended the struggle for faith. war.
It is estimated that the little guy is still very depressed, if it weren't for Ferdinand's swift hugs, he probably wouldn't mind turning around and going to every religion to mix it up!
In fact, the religion in Bulgaria is now contended by a hundred schools of thought. Although everyone believes in Christianity, the factions within Christianity are also in a mess.
In addition to the three main Christian factions of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodox Church, there are also a bunch of small factions. Of course, Bulgaria is also dominated by the three major factions!
At present, there are about 9.86 million Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria, accounting for about 73.6%, there are about 2.35 million Catholics, accounting for about 17.6%, and there are about 110 million Protestants, accounting for about 8.2%, and the rest is other Little faction.
However, the Orthodox Church is also divided into several waves. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church accounts for 31.5%, the Greek Orthodox Church accounts for 19.6%, the Serbian Orthodox Church accounts for 2.5%, the Albanian Orthodox Church accounts for 2.3%, and the Russian Orthodox Church accounts for 22.7%. , Constantinople Orthodox Church occupies 6.8%, Romanian Orthodox Church occupies 4.2%...
Anyway, there are a lot of messy factions, a situation where a hundred schools of thought contend, these situations are also inseparable from Ferdinand's indulgence!
Under the intentional guidance of the government, many young people who have accepted the new ideas believe in this faction today, and will convert to that faction tomorrow. They can no longer find their devotion to religion, and religion has been lost in Bulgaria. Mandatory binding force on people!
Therefore, the number of believers calculated by the major religious factions may be much larger than the actual number, and there is a situation of returning to a hundred families.
According to Ferdinand's idea, it is best to study Buddhism and Taoism, so that gods of different religions can live together under the same roof.
Oh, no need to be so troublesome, the big guys all believe in God! Just let the church accept believers of different factions, worship together, and hold a wedding together!
At present, there have been some churches, this situation has occurred, and the priests are often half-dead with anger!
In addition to a little bit more, Bulgaria built its first visible warship, the Constantinople, which also successfully completed its trial voyage in May!
Ferdinand also personally participated in the launching ceremony. The Constantinople is a cruiser with a displacement of 945o tons, 135oo horsepower, 121 meters, 2o knots, short-term 21 knots, 1oooo nautical miles/1o knots. , 234mm gun x2, 1ox152mm gun, 16x3 pounder, 57o people.
This is a copy of the British Blake class. The designers have made some improvements. The performance gap is not big, but the tonnage is a little bit higher than that of the British!
Oh, don't be surprised, even if the shipyard is acquired and the design technicians are dug out, the gap in the shipbuilding industry cannot be made up immediately.
Even if this warship is not advanced, it is a product of the British Empire more than ten years ago. But for the Bulgarian naval industry, this is also an inter-epochal exhibition!
From 1898, after Bulgaria formulated the first naval exhibition plan, Ferdinand insisted on self-reliance and took the road of independent research on warships.
No way, Ferdinand was also scared by the news on the Internet. It is said that the warships sold by the British are all reduced versions, and all performances are greatly reduced!
By analogy, other powers are not good products! If you buy a fleet and suddenly discover that your ships are parallel imports after the war, it will be miserable!
Instead of that, it's better to be self-reliant and take your time. If you don't, you can't, but your own goods have a bottom line, knowing how many catties you have, so you can make a suitable strategy according to your own strength!
As a result, the only large shipyard in Bulgaria, Dixf Shipyard, shouldered this great mission!
Independent research This is definitely Ferdinand's gold on his face. In fact, the task of the shipyard is to imitate warships.
From the first torpedo boats, mine-laying boats, minesweepers and other small surface warships to imitate, to larger destroyers and cruisers, the intelligence department has also brought in many drawings for this.
However, basically all have passed futures! Advanced shipbuilding technology is important to keep secret, and there are not one or two drawings of warships. They are all made in tons, so you can’t just steal them!
For the experiment, the Navy also reluctantly surrendered a few training ships, directly let the engineers dismantle and research, it took five years to see the results.
Oh, these are all nonsense of fools. In fact, they bought technology from the British, and then engineers dug up from various countries successfully copied it after a lot of hard work!
This series of battleships served in the Royal Navy as early as 1888. Now, with the same performance of warships, it is said that the British can now reduce the tonnage to less than 75oo tons.
However, although the tonnage is a bit larger, in this era, the performance has not fallen behind, and it can still meet the requirements of the Bulgarian Navy!
As for the cost, looking at the tonnage, it must be much higher than that of the British! Ferdinand doesn’t know how much the British spend. Anyway, it’s at least £250,000 to start with!
The cost of Dixf Shipyard is clear to him, totaling 5,868,400 lev. (About 234,000 pounds) This is a pure construction cost without any profit. Ferdinand is still very concerned about his own industry.
Moreover, the quotation from the shipyard to the navy was only 60 million lev, which is equivalent to helping out on a voluntary basis. Of course, the navy paid for the technology itself!
But for Ferdinand, all this is worthwhile. He didn't expect to make money from selling warships, otherwise it would take more than a year to build such a warship, which is far less profitable than building a merchant ship!
Of course, the achievements of Dixf Shipyard in the past few years are far more than that. More than ten warships have been built for the Bulgarian Navy, including two destroyers. Now the total tonnage of the Bulgarian Navy has finally exceeded 30,000 tons!
As for the fighting power? Ferdinand personally thinks that it is probably better than the two big men of Ottomans and Manchu. As for other countries, it should not be compared!
Bulgaria’s naval combat experience has also hit smuggling ships, nothing more. The only advantage is probably the high morale of the officers and soldiers, and they dare to fight hard in battle!
...
On this day, Ferdinand is playing with little Ferdinand. This is the last childhood of the little guy. Starting next year, he will start his hellish aristocratic training. There is nothing Ferdinand can do about it!
At this time, Secretary of the Navy Petrov handed him a report: "Your Majesty, this is our navy's future shipbuilding plan, please have a look!"
Ferdinand took the report and looked at it earnestly. The more he looked at his brows, the tighter he became. After reading it, he glared at Petrov and said, "My Minister of the Navy, you are sure that today is not April Fools' Day. Huh?"
Petrov smiled awkwardly, and then replied: "Your Majesty, there is nothing wrong! This is the plan for the navy exhibition of our Admiralty in the next five years. Didn't you say before that the Bulgarian navy will be expanded 20 times within ten years. !
Now our navy has just passed 30,000 tons, and another 90,000 tons will be replenished in the next five years, which has just reached the goal you set. We are planning according to your requirements!
If you think this scale is too small, we can continue to expand and we are sure to satisfy you! "
Ferdinand sneered and said, "Very good! As long as the Bulgarian shipyard can build a battleship, I will approve it. I will personally go to the government to fight for you for this batch of funds!"
How is the shipbuilding industry in Bulgaria, can Ferdinand still be unclear? You must know that there are only two ships in Bulgaria that are capable of building warships. In addition to his own Dixf shipyard, there is also a national shipyard just established by the Bulgarian government.
As for the technical strength, it is obvious that Dixf Shipyard has an advantage. The newly established National Shipyard has just been established, and no qualified workers have been trained. It is difficult to achieve without two or three years of running-in!
Hearing what Ferdinand said, Petrov said excitedly: "So, do you agree with your Majesty?"
Ferdinand smiled slightly and said: "Don't forget the prerequisites, these battleships must be built in Bulgaria!"
Ferdinand thought to himself that even if the Admiralty recruited a group of designers and engineers, it would not be possible to start building battleships immediately! After all, many of the technologies involved are not available in Bulgaria!
Petrov smiled awkwardly and said: "It's not impossible for us to build ourselves, but there is still a small trouble that needs your approval, you see?"
Ferdinand sneered and said, "Well, you can tell me, as long as it's not too much, I agree to it!"
Suddenly, Petrov took out another stack of documents, UU reading www. uukanshu.com handed it to Ferdinand. Then he said: "Your Majesty, we have had contact with the Dutch Navy. They also hope to build a new generation of battleships, but the Kingdom of the Netherlands now lacks sufficient funding for shipbuilding!
We made a tentative proposal. The two countries will jointly build, we will provide research funding, they will provide technology, and the two sides will cooperate together.
They still have colonies to protect, and their demand for shipbuilding is greater than ours. If we can provide funding, I believe the Dutch government will not object! "
Ferdinand was taken aback for a moment, and then he reacted quickly. That's right, Bulgaria doesn't have technical strength, doesn't it mean that other small countries don't have it either?
There is no conflict of interest between the two parties. You can pay for the technology, and you can cooperate in research and share the results!
In this way, Bulgaria can also participate in this upcoming big change.
Not only the navy, but other fields can also adopt multilateral cooperation? Although Bulgaria is now surrounded by enemies in the Balkans, but in Europe, there is really no untieable knot with anyone!
Ferdinand said happily: "Well, this time your Admiralty has done a great job! However, this shipbuilding plan is temporarily shelved, and it is better to wait for the first new battleship to come out and start again!
In this regard, I will ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to cooperate with you, and strive to reach an agreement with the Dutch as soon as possible to build our own battleship! "
Happy to happy, Ferdinand still has not forgotten that the era of dreadnoughts is coming, and the current battleships are about to be eliminated.
In order to accumulate shipbuilding technology, it is acceptable to build one or two ships. If one or two ships are built at once, the dreadnoughts will be eliminated as soon as they are released, then it will be too late for him to cry!
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