The earliest ironclad warships of mankind, in fact, is not unusual, in ancient times the naval armies of various countries had the idea of covering the wooden hull with iron armor, the building ships of the Three Kingdoms period of China, the outer layer of the ship was installed with an iron shield to prevent the enemy's rockets and catapults.

In Japan, Oda Nobunaga deliberately built an ironclad ship in order to defeat Ishiyama Honganji, which is actually a large Ataka ship covered with an iron plate on the outside. In the end, he defeated the Murakami naval army of the Mori family in the Seto Inland Sea, and finally captured the famous castle of Ishiyama Honganji.

In fact, North Korea has also studied its own ironclad ship, the turtle ship built by Yi Sunsin is actually a primitive ironclad ship, the Japanese also suffered a big loss in front of the turtle ship, don't think the name of the turtle ship is not good, the front of the warship is really carved a black ** Oh, and it will also spray poisonous smoke outside.

Of course, these so-called ironclad ships in the Middle Ages were not what Xiao Letian wanted, and the batch of ironclad ships built by the Europeans in the mid-19th century relying on the design ideas of sail battleships was not what Xiao Letian wanted.

In 1858, the French built the world's first ironclad ship, the Glory, with a displacement of 5,630 tons, but this is still an ironclad battleship, not a pure ironclad ship.

Subsequently, in 1860, the British produced a pure steel battleship Warrior with a displacement of 9,137 tons, this time it was considered to have abandoned the wood in the iron plate, but the sails were still there, and the guns were also arranged in the same way as the sail battleships in the past, with one on the left and one on the left.

As for the American Civil War, although this is the first time that ironclad ships have been used in actual combat, the two ironclad ships, the Virginia and the Monette, are too weird in shape, and they can only shoot at each other in the inland river, and they cannot enter the ocean at all.

In Xiao Letian's eyes, the origin of ironclad ships in the real sense should be pushed back another 30 years, and in the early 20th century, this time is really the era of ironclad ships.

Pure steam power abandons the sails, and the central axis of the main gun can rotate the turret freely, completely abandoning the smoothbore gun...... Such an iron-clad sea monster is the sea overlord in Xiao Letian's mind.

What I want to show today at the Volkeng shipyard is the top-secret plan jointly led by Xiao Lotian and Prince Carr, a very bold attempt.

The Vulken shipyard is located on the banks of the Oder River in Szczecin, right next to the sea and north to the Baltic Sea. The shipyard had invested in a huge dry dock for the sake of secrecy, and had erected a huge shelving with wooden frames and tarpaulins, and the engineers and workers who had access to it were all reliable and carefully selected from the Prussian side.

When the carriage of the Winged King drove into the shipyard, Fang Guan and the others found that a gold-painted carriage was parked in front of the office building, this carriage was all too familiar to them, it was the car of Prince Karl.

"The prince has arrived, pay attention to your appearance......" King Yi carefully reminded the others, but this was useless to Fang Guan, and as soon as Prince Karl in the living room picked up a cup of coffee, Fang Guan screamed and rushed over.

"Godfather......" Fang Guan brought a gust of wind and threw himself directly into Prince Karl's arms. In order to avoid Fang Guan's white dress, the coffee in Carl's hand ended up spilling on his pants.

"Oh, you're so naughty! I ought to find you a great prince to keep you in check......"

"No...... I don't want a prince, I know gladiatorial fights one by one, like aggressive cocks......"

"Haha, who do you like, and click on that French intelligence officer?" Karl laughed.

Fang Guan shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently, "I just gave him a chance to pursue me, and the rest depends on his ability......"

Karl rubbed Fang Guan's hair, stood up and said apologetically to the Wing King, "I'm very sorry, I'm going to change my clothes......"

After a while, Prince Karl changed into clean clothes and walked out, and then the students saluted the prince in turn, and after some greetings, King Yi said, "Look at His Royal Highness's mental outlook, it seems that there should be no major problem with throat disease!"

"Yes, I really want to be grateful to dear Xiao, the doctor said that my lesion was found very timely, and I am afraid it would be dangerous if it was a few years later...... God bless him, why would he not know the prophet?"

"Maybe this is the charm of Brother Xiao, how could he design such a strange battleship without some magical means?"

"That's right, I invited a lot of military experts to study it together, and they all agreed that this kind of warship will completely create a new idea of naval warfare, maybe we are really ahead of the times this time, although it is not perfect, but I am personally willing to take this risk......"

The Winged King shook his head, "The prince is wrong, this time the risk is borne by our Ryukyu independently, in the early stage, 900,000 taels of silver scientific research funds were allocated to build this dry dock and a large amount of equipment, and in the later stage, 1 million taels of silver were invested in three times for the construction of the hull, and 1.9 million taels of treasures were all spent by our foundation!"

"No, no, no, Your Excellency, don't settle accounts like this, I don't think Xiao Lotian will calculate like this, in order to provide engineers for the design and construction of this battleship, Prussia stopped the construction plan of two battleships in a row, and transferred top engineers from steel mills and machinery factories in various places...... Even our brave spies have lost more than a dozen of them, and that's a cost!"

The two looked at each other and smiled, the temptation between politicians was very forceful until the point, and it was not okay to quarrel with red faces.

"Of course, we don't want to forget the support from the Prussian side, but if it weren't for the original drawings of the Xiao brothers, I'm afraid your genius designers wouldn't have been able to come up with such a strange battleship......"

"Yes, I admit that Xiao Letian's design ideas are not changed, if this idea is verified in actual combat, then I think your two countries will be 30 years ahead of this era......

"Oh, that's good...... Money is only valuable when it is spent, we Chinese are not misers, although 1.9 million taels is very painful to me, but I think the cost will not be so high in the future, right?"

Karl stretched out his hand and made a gesture of please, "Let's talk while walking, the cost of 1.9 million taels is indeed very expensive, a British Victoria launched in 1859 costs 150578 pounds, and the normal displacement is 6959 tons, which is the normal cost of a wooden-hulled sail battleship......"

"And the ironclad warriors launched in 1861 cost 377392 pounds, with a normal displacement of 9,137 tons, and the cost has more than doubled.

The group started from the office building and walked towards the closed dry dock, all the way were full of elite Prussian soldiers, and even the Wing King saw a few familiar faces, when the stone bridge was bloody, there were a group of Prussian soldiers and Xiao Lotian who fought together, and now they have been transferred a lot.

"According to our previous budget, even if the style of Xiao Letian's battleship is extremely weird, the cost should not be more than double that of the Warrior, 1.9 million taels according to the current ratio of pounds to silver, that is a full 630,000 pounds, which is indeed very high......"

"However, the cost is not calculated in this way, Xiao Letian requires the performance of the barrel of the battery, now all the steel mills in Europe can not be manufactured, the strength is not enough, we must gather a lot of scientists to study the supporting new steel, as well as the shape of the battleship, Xiao Lotian has to protect the armor, which also increases the difficulty of the design......"

"What's more critical is the turbine unit, Xiao Letian wants a cruiser, which must take into account multiple considerations of speed and reliability, and the whole design work is completely beyond our imagination...... By the way, hasn't the beautiful Miss Cai Bixuan been following the design team? I think she should be well aware of the intricacies of this battleship......

While talking, at this time, the door of the dry dock finally opened for them, and when the Wing King and his party walked into the dock, everyone gasped, and the monster in front of them was completely beyond everyone's imagination.