Time passed in a hurry, and it was so calm that it entered 1902. This year is very important for both Ferdinand and Bulgaria!
In March, Ferdinand's second son was born, and took an Orthodox name-Boris, which is the name of the oldest eldest son in history. Full name: Boris Clement Robert Marley Asylum Stanislav Saxony-Coburg-Gordaski.
The reason for this name is mainly because his eldest son, Ferdinand, chose Roman Catholicism in his religious beliefs. In order to appease the hearts of the people, Ferdinand gave this Orthodox meaning to the second son!
The way of choosing is very childish. Under the witness of the major religious figures in Bulgaria, each faction has its own side, and the little one crawled to the side of Roman Catholicism. It is naturally considered that this is the will of God and ended this contention. war.
It is estimated that the little guy is still very depressed. If he was not quickly taken away by Ferdinand's eyes, it is estimated that he would not mind turning around and going to every religion!
As a matter of fact, religion in Bulgaria is now a contentious one. Although everyone believes in Christianity, the factions within Christianity are also a mess.
In addition to the three main Christian factions, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodox, there are a bunch of small factions. Of course, Bulgaria is also the three major factions!
At present, there are about 9.86 million Bulgarian Orthodox Christians, accounting for about 73.6%, Catholics are about 2.35 million, accounting for about 17.6%, and Protestants are about 1.1 million, accounting for about 8.2%. The rest are other Little faction.
But the Orthodox Church has also been divided into several waves. Among them, 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 Constantine Orthodox Church occupies 6.8%, the Romanian Orthodox Church occupies 4.2% ...
Anyway, there are a lot of messy factions and a contentious situation, which is 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 will change to that faction tomorrow. Religious devotion can no longer be found in them, and religion has been lost in Bulgaria. A binding force on people!
Therefore, the number of believers counted by the major religious factions may be much larger than the actual number, and there is quite a situation of a hundred returning homes.
According to Ferdinand's idea, it is best to study two ways of Buddhism, so that the gods of different religions can live under the same roof.
Oh, no need to be so troublesome, big guys all believe in God! Just let the church accept believers from different factions, worship together, and hold a wedding together!
At present, there are individual churches. This has already happened, and often the priests are half annoyed!
In addition to a little extra, Bulgaria built its first visible warship, the Constantinople, and successfully completed a sea trial in May!
Ferdinand also personally participated in the launching ceremony. The Constantinople is a cruiser with a displacement of 9450 tons, 13,500 horsepower, 121.84 × 19.81 × 7.32 meters, 20 knots, and short-term rapid 21.4-23.8 knots, 10000 Nautical knots / 10 knots, 234mm cannon × 2, 10 × 152MM cannon, 16 × 3 pound cannon, 570 people.
This is a copy 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 more than the British!
Oh, do n't be surprised, even if the shipyard is acquired, the technicians are dug, and the gap in the shipbuilding industry cannot be filled immediately.
Even if this warship is not advanced, it is a product of the British Empire more than a decade ago. But for the Bulgarian navy industry, this is also an inter-era development!
After Bulgaria's first naval development plan was made in 1898, Ferdinand insisted on self-reliance and taking the road of independent research and development of warships.
No way, Ferdinand was frightened by the news on the Internet. It is said that the warships sold by the British are cut-off versions, and their performance must be greatly reduced!
By analogy, other powers are not good! If you buy a fleet and suddenly find out that all your ships are parallel imports after the outbreak of the war, it will be miserable!
Instead, let's take care of ourselves slowly. No, you ca n't, but you have a bottom line in your goods, knowing that you have a few pounds or two, or you can make a suitable strategy based on your own strength!
So the only large shipyard in Bulgaria, Dicksf Shipyard, shouldered this great mission!
Independent research and development is definitely Ferdinand putting gold on his face. In fact, the mission of the shipyard is to imitate warships.
From the first torpedo boats, mine boats, minesweepers and other small surface warships began to imitate, to larger destroyers, cruisers, for this reason the intelligence department has also made a lot of drawings.
However, basically all futures! The advanced shipbuilding technology is kept secret, and the warship drawings are not one or two, they are all made in tons, even if they want to steal it!
In order to experiment, the Navy also gave up a handful of training ships and directly let engineers disassemble the research. It took five years to see the results.
Oh, these are the foolish words, in fact, they bought the technology from the British, and then dug the engineers from various countries, and successfully copied it after some effort!
This series of battleships served in the Royal Navy as early as 1888. It is said that the British can now compress the tonnage to less than 7,500 tons.
However, although the tonnage is a bit larger, in this era, performance has not fallen behind, and it can still meet the requirements of the Bulgarian Navy!
As for the cost, we can see from the tonnage that it must be much higher than the British! How much does the British spend? Ferdinand doesn't know. Anyway, now I want to buy at least 250,000 pounds!
The cost of Dicksf Shipyard is very clear, totaling 5.884 million levs. (Approximately £ 234,000) This is a pure construction cost without any profit. Ferdinand is still very concerned about his own industry.
And the shipyard's offer to the navy is only 6 million levs, which is equivalent to volunteering to help, of course, the navy has to pay for the technology itself!
However, for Ferdinand, all this is worth it. He had not expected to make money by selling warships, otherwise it would take far more than a year to build such a warship, which is far less profitable than the merchant ship!
Of course, in the past few years, the results of the Dixdorf shipyard are far more than that. More than ten warships have been built for the Bulgarian Navy, including two destroyers. Now Bulgaria's total tonnage has finally exceeded 30,000 tons!
As for combat effectiveness? Ferdinand personally thinks that it is generally stronger than the two big men of the Ottomans and Manqing. As for other countries, don't compare it!
Bulgaria's naval combat experience has also smuggled smuggling ships, and nothing more. The only advantage is probably that the morale of the officers and men is high, and they dare to fight hard!
...
On this day, Ferdinand is playing with little Ferdinand. This is the last childhood life of the little guy. Starting next year, he will start hell-like aristocratic training. In this regard, Ferdinand is powerless!
At this point, Secretary of the Navy Petrov submitted a report to him: "Sir, this is our future shipbuilding plan for the Navy, please look over!"
Ferdinand took the report and took it seriously. The more he looked at his brows, the tighter Zou got. After watching it, he glared at Petrov, and then said, "My Minister of the Navy, are you sure that it is not April Fools Day? What? "
Petrov smiled awkwardly, and then replied, "Your Majesty, there is nothing wrong! This is our naval development plan for the next five years. Didn't you say that the Bulgarian navy will be expanded twenty 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 all planning according to your requirements!
If you think this scale is too small, we can continue to expand to ensure that you are satisfied! "
Ferdinand sneered: "Very good! As long as Bulgarian shipyards can build battleships, I will approve them. I will go to the government to fight for them for you!"
What about Bulgaria's shipbuilding industry, can Ferdinand still be unclear? You should know that there are only two Bulgarian ships capable of building warships. In addition to his own Dicksf shipyard, there is also a national shipbuilding factory just established by the Bulgarian government.
As for the technical strength, it is clear that Dicksford Shipyard has to take advantage. The newly established State-owned Shipbuilding Factory has just been established. Qualified workers have not been trained. It will be difficult to achieve this without two or three years of running!
After listening to Ferdinand, Petrov said excitedly, "So, do you agree with your Majesty?"
Ferdinand smiled and said, "Don't forget the prerequisites, these battleships must be built in Bulgaria!"
Ferdinand thought that even if a group of designers and engineers were dug up by the Navy Department, it would not be possible to start construction of battleships immediately! After all, many technologies involved in this are not available in Bulgaria!
Petrov smiled awkwardly and said, "It's not impossible for us to build our own, but there is still a small trouble that requires your approval, you see?"
Ferdinand sneered and said, "Okay, let's just say, as long as it's not too much, I promised!"
Suddenly, Petrov took out another stack of documents and handed them 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 jointly build, we pay for research and development, they provide technology, and the two sides work together.
They also need colonies to be protected. The demand for shipbuilding is greater than ours. If we can provide funds, I believe the Dutch government will not oppose it! "
Ferdinand first stunned and then reacted again. Yes Bulgaria does not have technical strength, does not mean that other small countries do not have it?
There is no conflict of interest between the two parties You pay for the technology, I pay for it, and we can cooperate in research and development and share the results!
In this way, Bulgaria can fully participate in this great change.
Not only the navy, but also multilateral cooperation in other fields? Although Bulgaria is now a group of enemies in the Balkans, does it really have an inextricable knot with anyone in Europe?
Ferdinand said happily: "Okay, your admiralty has made great achievements this time! But this shipbuilding plan is temporarily put on hold, or 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 for an early agreement with the Dutch to create our own battleship! "
Happy and happy, Ferdinand has not forgotten that the era of the fearless ship is coming, and the current battleship is about to be eliminated.
In order to accumulate shipbuilding technology, it is acceptable to build one or two ships. If you build a bunch at one time, the fearless ships will be eliminated as soon as they come out, and he will have no time to cry!