Chapter 1 Turkish Decree (5)

  "The fruit picker has arrived." Standing on the command tower, Luitenant Rykens withdrew his gaze and adjusted the military cap on his head, saying with a scorching tone: "Look, Silem, your efforts have ultimately benefited the British after all."

  A small boat drew alongside the Barbaros Hayreddin, a gangway was lowered and with the help of sailors and ropes, Turkish Minister of the Navy Cemil Pa?a and several British naval advisors boarded the old coast defense ship.

  "Major General, how did you come?" The late-coming otaku raised his frozen right hand, and after a brief pause at the brim of his fur hat, he gave a sloppy salute to his nominal superior, Turkish Navy Chief Advisor Major General Limps.

  "Captain Slime, today is the day of artillery assessment, I came to inspect your training results..." Captain Slime's sluggishness made Lieutenant General Limps somewhat displeased. The British always liked to show off their gentlemanly demeanor in front of outsiders. The general let out a barely audible cold hum, his right hand wearing white gloves swept across his forehead, symbolically returning a salute, and condescendingly said.

  From a historical perspective, the Anglo-Saxons are a branch of the Germanic people. From a bloodline perspective, the British royal family and the German royal family have close ties. In modern history, before 1888 when Kaiser Wilhelm II ascended to the throne, Germany and Britain had very good relations in both diplomacy and civil exchanges.

  Of course, the estrangement between Germany and England cannot be entirely blamed on the German Emperor. The Baghdad Railway affair, the Kruger telegram, the Boer War, the eccentric personality of the German Emperor, the threatening High Seas Fleet, John Bull had hundreds and thousands of reasons to dislike the Germans, while the arrogance of the British Empire was also evident to the Germans, who were equally hostile towards England.

  In fact, the German army advisor Otto Liman von Sanders and the British naval advisor in Turkey got along quite well, and the two men also maintained a good private friendship. However, within the navy itself, things were somewhat different, with both the dialectical relationship between the German and British navies and the competition between Germany and Britain for discourse power over the Turkish Navy determining that the German and British advisors would be in a state of "peaceful coexistence" on the surface but secretly at odds until death.

  "Captain Silem, you have received the documents from the Ministry of the Navy?" The Anglo-German naval arms race has continued to this day, with the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet, the two most powerful fleets in human history, staring each other down across the sea, already locked in a life-and-death struggle. Originally, Alfred von Tirpitz and John Arbuthnot Fisher had been friends for many years, but now they were sworn enemies, their decade-long feud well-known throughout Europe. Even Heidi Silem and David Beatty, who had once considered each other to be close friends, had grown distant. Whenever British and German naval officers met, the atmosphere was tense and explosive. A certain incompetent Minister of the Navy, Cemil Pasha, stepped forward, laughing awkwardly as he tried to ease the tension: "The Sultan Osman I is expected to enter service in the second half of this year, but its crew has not yet been fully assembled. You are also aware of the mess that is the Ottoman Navy... General Liman and I have used every means at our disposal, but we still can't scrape together a thousand sailors. Rauf suggested that I take some experienced sailors from the Hayreddin Barbarossa... I had no choice but to come here..."

  From mid-January, the workers who had lost their jobs due to the cancellation of the Rio de Janeiro were summoned back to work on the ship, now renamed Sultan Osman I. The battleship was expected to be launched in July and fitted out with armament, followed by sea trials. Meanwhile, crewing the ship with qualified personnel was gradually being put on the agenda, a task more difficult than building the "Seven-Turreted Yavuz".

  The navy is a technical branch, far from being able to be handled by the rusty Turkish sailors and illiterate rural fishermen. The newly appointed British naval advisor General Limps and the captain of the Ottoman Sultan Osman I, Rauf, rummaged through the Turkish Navy, which was like scrap metal, and pinched and squeezed among the dimly lit naval department's clerical officials, even following the principle of "it is better to kill one thousand than to let one go" along the Black Sea, deep into small fishing villages, yet still unable to assemble a full crew of 1,000 for the Ironclad. Just when the British advisor was anxious and couldn't eat or sleep, Rauf finally remembered that the Turkish Navy had another ship, the Barbaros Hayreddin.

  "Rauf?"

  At the mention of Rauf's name, Wang Haitian's pupils involuntarily contracted and he glanced over at Rauf. The Turkish national hero seemed somewhat lacking in heroic spirit, hanging his head and not daring to look at Wang Haitian.

  "De Kuyper Pasha, as the Turkish naval advisor, our duty is to train personnel for the Turkish Navy who can operate modern warships. As for the distribution of these sailors, that's Turkey's own business." Heide-Sellem fell silent for a moment, stretched out his hand and pulled over Lütjens, who was looking gloomy and unwilling, to get the crew list of the Goeben.

  Under the intimidation of the otaku, the sailors on the Barbarossa-Hairedin-class coastal defense ship trained with great diligence. After all, they all yearned to serve on those two super-dreadnoughts, to become the dream lover of the Constantinople maiden, to become the maritime guardian of the Ottoman Empire or even the vanguard of opening up new territories. The newly-trained sailors on the Barbarossa-Hairedin-class coastal defense ship were transferred away one after another. The sailors who received the transfer order were overjoyed and shed tears of happiness, while those who were not transferred were disheartened and despondent as if they had lost their soul.

  "Rauf that ingrate actually has the nerve to stab you in the back after begging from the British, and yet you still consider him a friend!"

  Training ended early, taking advantage of Istanbul's twilight, the otaku and Lutz walked leisurely along the seaside path filled with fallen leaves, heading towards their apartment. Lutz occasionally kicked up leaves and pebbles, splashing up a lot of dust, and in no time at all, he had cursed the decrepit Turkey, shameless Britain, and the expressionless Rauf.

  Seyyid Ali and Turkish national hero Hüseyin Rauf Orbay had a good personal friendship. During the First Balkan War, the Greek Navy blockaded the Turkish Straits and occupied many Turkish islands in the Aegean Sea. Young Rauf led the British-made armored cruiser Hamidiye to break through the Greek naval blockade line, bringing asymmetric warfare to an extreme, making the Greek sea transportation lines almost paralyzed. King Haider, who was keen on "asymmetric warfare", was very interested in Rauf's combat practice and often exchanged ideas with him, becoming familiar with each other. However, after the Turkish government decided to purchase the battleship Yavuz Sultan Selim in 1913, Rauf's attitude towards Seyyid Ali underwent a subtle change, he became distant from Seyyid Ali as he was appointed as the captain of the battleship Sultan Osman-? Evvel and deliberately kept his distance from the German advisory group.

  "Who do they think they are? With two mediocre dreadnoughts, the Turkish Navy will become a world-class navy overnight? Adequate naval funding and advanced warships, excellent ports and favorable geographical location, strong military-industrial strength and well-functioning logistics support system, large numbers of well-trained active and reserve officers and sailors, well-functioning officer training systems and far-sighted naval strategic policies, decades or even centuries of forming a great maritime nation... these are all essential factors for a world-class navy. What do the Turks have..."

  "Lüttwitz, I've said it before, in the naval competition between Greece and Turkey, the Greeks may not necessarily be the biggest losers, nor will the Turks necessarily be the biggest winners. The real winner can only be the Germans!"

  "The Angles and Saxons are also Germanic!" Lütersen said irritably.

  The otaku also doesn't explain, facing the vast sky and laughing unscrupulously, has a bit of Li Bai's "Laughing loudly towards the sky, we are not ordinary people" kind of aura.

  "Heidi Seiler!"

  A familiar voice came from the side of his ear, the voice was very old and hesitant, it always made people feel impatient. The otaku's recklessness froze for a moment, and he turned around.

  "Mr. Dick, is that you?!" The otaku forced out a faint smile, turning his head to look at the once-called "dad" Keel merchant Dick. A strange emotion took over his heart, silently biting his lip, the taste of blood making the otaku's apathetic soul tremble, he looked up and stammered.

  In Lü's eyes, the stay-at-home dad was a true iron-blooded man, pure and unadulterated. Even when his relationship with his wife was not harmonious, his father and daughter were weak and sickly, he had achieved nothing in his 20-year career, and even fell to joining the crisis-ridden Turkish advisory team to prolong his military career, the stay-at-home dad didn't say much. But today, Lü clearly saw the tears in Wang Haidi's eyes, this strange scene made Lü's hair stand on end.

  "Westlem, I'll go first...". Luteinse retreated in disarray.

  The little garden outside the apartment fell silent, Wang Haiting made an effort to calm down his turbulent emotions, while Dick was organizing his words.

  "I have a cargo ship that runs the Mediterranean route, but it collided with a Russian fishing boat in the Black Sea and caused some trouble. I came over specifically to deal with this matter. Since you're in Istanbul, I thought I'd drop by to see you." The once portly businessman now looked somewhat gaunt, sitting on the apartment's sofa, leaning on his cane, seemingly flustered, his hands and feet tangled together as he blurted out an explanation.

  "Mr. Dick, don't worry that I will interfere with Catherine's peaceful life, I am married and have a lovely daughter, although the family life is not very harmonious, but barely can hold on." Wang Haitian said calmly, facing the bleak Turkish sunset, emotionlessly mocking.

  After falling out with the Imperial Navy Minister Tirpitz, he was exiled to the Kiel shipyard as a dispensable naval liaison officer, and his promising military career came to an abrupt end. In 1900, he was forced to participate in a war aimed at plundering his own country. He thought that was the darkest chapter of his life, but he only guessed the beginning and couldn't guess the ending.

  Not even the most terrible nightmare could replicate what happened to Walter Hiett. In 1900, he received a telegram from Catherine cancelling their wedding, and Walter Hiett, who considered himself a high-class gentleman, became a laughing stock, nailed to the pillar of shame. In 1901, his good friend David Beatty got married, and a drunken Walter Hiett cried like a child at his friend's wedding, almost getting beaten up by the bride Ethel Field. In 1902, Catherine got married, with Victor, the son of an MP, as her groom, while Walter Hiett also got married, but to Annie instead.

  "In the past, when my legs were nimble, I always liked to carry a civilized cane. Nowadays, my legs are no longer good, and standing for a while makes me feel tired. I want to use a cane but don't know how..." The old Dick grasped his cane tightly and tried to stand up, succeeding only after several attempts. With great effort, he leaned on the armrest of the long chair, patted his crippled leg, and smiled bitterly as he continued: "Xylia, why did you choose to come to Istanbul, where war and chaos are frequent? Even I, a merchant who doesn't understand military affairs, know that the Balkan Peninsula is very dangerous..."

  "It's precisely because Turkey is so perilous that the reward will be substantial!" Wang Haitian's eyes reddened, and he said coldly: "Freesia's rheumatism, Schreck's eye disease, and daughter Aiyue's frequent illnesses - if I don't struggle to make a living, should I let my whole family go hungry?!"

  "Retire and come back to help me, I'll give you a salary of one thousand imperial marks per month..." Dick hobbled over with his cane, grasping the shoulder of the young master and asked.

  "If it were someone else, I would immediately take off my uniform and follow him, but if it's you, all I can say is sorry!" Wang Haitian gently pushed away Dick's hand on his shoulder and turned to leave.

  "No! You must answer me!" The old Dick let out a low, angry roar and hobbled after him with his cane. "Victor is dead!"

  PS: Extremely grateful for the support of [沁园春雪] and [1805年的咸肉]. 沁园春雪, I let you down, don't scold me...