Mediterranean Hegemony Road

Time flies by, and we entered 1902 without any surprise. This year is a very important year for both Ferdinand and Bulgaria!

In March, Ferdinand's second son was born, and took a rich Orthodox name - Boris, which is the name of the eldest son of the original owner in history, full name: Boris Clement Robert Mary A. Pius Stanislav Saxe-Coburg-Godaski.

The reason for taking this name is mainly because his eldest son, little Ferdinand, chose Roman Catholicism in his religious beliefs. In order to appease people's hearts, Ferdinand gave this name with obvious Orthodox meaning to his second son!

The method of choice is very childish. Under the witness of the major religious figures in Bulgaria, the major factions have their own side. The little guy climbed to the Roman Catholic side. It is naturally considered to be the will of God, ending the battle for faith. war.

It is estimated that the little guy is still very depressed. If he was not taken away by Ferdinand, he would not mind going around in a circle and mixing with each religion!

In fact, the religion in Bulgaria is now a hundred schools of thought contend. Although everyone believes in Christianity, the factions within Christianity are also a mess.

In addition to the three major Christian factions of Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity, 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%, about 2.35 million Catholics, accounting for about 17.6%, about 1.1 million Protestants, accounting for about 8.2%, and the rest are other small faction.

But the Orthodox Church has also divided into several waves, of which the Bulgarian Orthodox Church occupies 31.5%, the Greek Orthodox Church occupies 19.6%, the Serbian Orthodox Church occupies 2.5%, the Albanian Orthodox Church occupies 2.3%, and the Russian Orthodox Church occupies 22.7% , the Constantinople Orthodox Church accounted for 6.8%, and the Romanian Orthodox Church accounted for 4.2%…

Anyway, there are a lot of messed up 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 new ideas believe in this faction today and convert to that faction tomorrow. They can no longer find their devotion to religion, and religion has been lost in Bulgaria. Coercion on people!

Therefore, the number of believers counted by the major religious sects may be much larger than the actual number, and it is quite a situation of a hundred schools returning home.

According to Ferdinand's idea, it is best to study Buddhism and Taoism.

Immortals of different religions can live under one roof.

Oh, no need to bother, everyone believes in God! Just let the church accept believers of different factions, worship together, and hold weddings together!

At present, this situation has already occurred in individual churches, often making the priests half-dead!

Except for one more small point, Bulgaria built the first warship that can be seen by itself, the Constantinople, which also successfully completed the trial voyage in May!

Ferdinand also personally participated in the launching ceremony. The Constantinople is a cruiser, displacement: 9450 tons, 13500 horsepower, 121.84 × 19.81 × 7.32 meters, 20 knots, short-time rapidity 21.4-23.8 knots, 10000 nautical miles/10 knots, 234MM guns × 2, 10 × 152MM guns, 16 × 3 pounders, 570 people.

This is an imitation of the British Blake class, and the designers have made some improvements. There is not much difference in performance, 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 technicians are hired, the gap in the shipbuilding industry cannot be filled immediately.

Even this warship is not advanced, it is a product of the British Empire more than ten years ago. But for the Bulgarian naval industry, it is also an inter-generational development!

From 1898, after Bulgaria formulated the first naval development plan, Ferdinand insisted on being self-reliant and taking the road of self-developed warships.

No way, Ferdinand was also frightened by the news on the Internet in later generations. It is said that the warships sold by the British are all abridged versions, and all performances must be greatly discounted!

By analogy, other powers are not good goods! If you buy a fleet, and after the outbreak of the war, you suddenly realize that your ships are all parallel imports, it will be miserable!

Instead, it's better to be self-reliant and take it slow. If you can't do it, you can't do it, but you have a good heart for your own goods. You know how much you have, so you can formulate an appropriate strategy according to your own strength!

As a result, the only large shipyard in Bulgaria, Dixf Shipyard, took on this great mission!

Independent research and development is definitely Ferdinand putting gold on his face. In fact, the task of the shipyard is to imitate warships.

From the initial torpedo boats, minelayers, minesweepers and other small surface warships to imitate, and then to larger destroyers and cruisers, the intelligence department also obtained a lot of drawings for this.

However, it's basically overdue! Advanced shipbuilding technology is mainly kept secret, and there are not one or two drawings of warships. They are all made of tons, even if you want to steal them!

For the experiment, the navy reluctantly gave up a small number of training ships, and directly let the engineers disassemble and study it. It took five years to see the results.

Oh, these are all nonsense. In fact, they bought the technology from the British, and then the engineers dug from various countries successfully copied it after a lot of hard work!

This series of battleships was in service with the Royal Navy as early as 1888. Now, the warships with the same performance are said to have been able to reduce the tonnage to less than 7,500 tons by the British.

However, although the tonnage is a little 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, you can see from the tonnage, it must be much higher than that of the British! How much the British spend, Ferdinand doesn't know, anyway, it is at least 250,000 pounds to buy now!

And the cost of the Dixf shipyard is clear to him, totaling 5,868,400 levs. (approximately £234,000) This is a pure build cost without any profit. Ferdinand was still very concerned about his own business.

Moreover, the shipyard's quotation to the Navy is only 6 million levs, which is equivalent to helping out voluntarily. Of course, the Navy has to pay for the purchase of technology!

But for Ferdinand, it was all worth it. He didn't expect to make money by selling warships. Otherwise, spending more than a year to build such a warship would be far less profitable than building a merchant ship!

Of course, the achievements of Dixof 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 combat power? Ferdinand personally thinks that he is probably stronger than the two big men of the Ottomans and the Qing Dynasty. As for other countries, it is better not to compare!

Bulgaria's naval combat experience has also hit smuggling ships, that's all. The only advantage is probably that the morale of the officers and soldiers is high, and they dare to fight desperately!

...

On this day, Ferdinand was playing with little Ferdinand. This is the little guy's last childhood. He will start hell-style noble training next year. Ferdinand can't do anything about it!

At this time, the Minister of the Navy Petrov submitted a report to him: "Your Majesty, this is the future shipbuilding plan of our navy, please take a look!"

Ferdinand took the report and read it seriously. The more he looked at his brow, the tighter he became. After reading it, he glared at Petrov and said, "My Minister of the Navy, are you sure today is not April Fool's Day? Is it?"

Petrov smiled awkwardly, and then replied: "Your Majesty, that's right! This is our Navy's development plan for the next five years. Didn't you say before that the Bulgarian Navy will be expanded twentyfold within ten years? !

Now our navy has just passed 30,000 tons, and we will add another 90,000 tons in the next five years, just reaching the target you set. We all make plans according to your requirements!

If you think this is too small, we can continue to expand, guaranteed to your satisfaction! "

Ferdinand sneered and said, "Very good! As long as the Bulgarian shipyard can build battleships, I will approve it, and I will personally go to the government to win for you!"

How is the shipbuilding industry in Bulgaria, can Ferdinand still know? You must know that there are only two Bulgarian capable of building warships. In addition to his own Dixf shipyard, there is also a state-owned shipyard that the Bulgarian government has just established.

As for technical strength, it is obvious that Dixof Shipyard will have an advantage. The newly established State-owned Shipyard has just been established, and qualified workers have not been trained.

After listening to Ferdinand's words, Petrov said excitedly, "So, your Majesty, do you agree?"

Ferdinand smiled slightly and said, "Don't forget the prerequisites, these battleships must be built in Bulgaria!"

Ferdinand thought to himself, even if the Admiralty digs a group of designers and engineers, it is impossible to start construction of battleships right away! After all, many of the technologies involved here are not available in Bulgaria!

Petrov smiled awkwardly and said, "It's not impossible for us to build it ourselves, but there is still a little trouble that needs your approval, you see?"

Ferdinand sneered and said, "Okay, tell me, as long as it's not too much, I'll agree!"

Suddenly, Petrov took out another stack of papers and handed them to Ferdinand. Then he said: "Your Majesty, we have had contact with the Dutch Navy, and they also want to build a new generation of battleships, but the Kingdom of the Netherlands now lacks sufficient funds for shipbuilding!

We made a tentative proposal, the two countries will jointly build, we will provide research and development funds, they will provide technology, and the two sides will work together.

They still have colonies to protect, and the demand for shipbuilding is even greater than ours. If we can provide funding, I believe the Dutch government will not object! "

Ferdinand was stunned for a moment, but then he reacted quickly. It's true that Bulgaria has no technical strength, so it doesn't mean that other small countries don't have it either?

There is no conflict of interest between the two parties. You provide the technology and I will pay. You can cooperate in research and development and share the results!

In this way, Bulgaria can also fully participate in the upcoming big change.

Not only the navy, but also multilateral cooperation in other fields? Although Bulgaria is now surrounded by enemies in the Balkans, but in the European continent, there is really no unbreakable knot with anyone!

Ferdinand said happily: "Okay, this time you have made a great contribution to the Admiralty! However, this shipbuilding plan has been put on hold for the time being. Let's wait for the first new battleship to come out, and then start it!

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 be happy, Ferdinand has not forgotten that the era of dreadnoughts is coming, and the current battleships are about to be eliminated.

In order to accumulate shipbuilding skills, it is acceptable to build one or two ships. If you build a bunch of them at one time, and the dreadnoughts are eliminated as soon as they are released, it will be too late for him to cry!