In the Naming Regulations of the Republic of China, cruisers, destroyers, and frigates were named after counties as much as possible. At the very least, the battleship was named after the prefecture. As for the names of the provinces, Weeser privately prepared to use them for the naming of future aircraft carriers.

Whether the newest two warships will be attributed to battleships or cruisers, the Admiralty has different opinions. China has a habit of re-honoring, and if two warships with a displacement of 8800 can be called battleships, it fills the gap in battleships. Wei Ze was also a little wavered at first, but after thinking about it carefully, who was this going to fool? Heavy cruisers are honestly called heavy cruisers. If a name could change the facts, Weeser would not care at all about calling those cruisers of more than 4,000 tons battleships.

For this matter, Weeser also called the group of comrades who proposed it to seriously educate them. As a result, Weize was not happy, and these colleagues were not happy. Weser just made a note in his heart and made some marks on the minutes of the meeting, and he never talked about it again.

What a country needs to be followed by the expansion is to digest the fruits and prepare intensively for war with the British, with the aim of peace that begins after the war. When the time of peace for the spoils of war comes, there will be sufficient time and conditions to make personnel appointments and dismissals according to the performance at that time.

At this turbulent stage, what Wei Ze has to do now is to keep his mouth in check. Meaningless grumbling and dissatisfaction will not help and will only lead to meaningless conflict. And people can also change, and Wei Ze also expects comrades to grow up. Just as China's shipbuilding industry is growing, people should also change.

For these two heavy cruisers built by the Dalian shipyard, Weeser never dared to say his true evaluation. What he really thought was, "That's what a ship is called."

After two years of actual operation of the power plant, the 3500 hp steam turbine has been put to the test, and the subsequent upgrade can be done slowly, and the marine version has been able to work effectively. Unlike the three-rise steam engine, where all the components need to be carefully considered, the wheels of the steam turbine have the problem of slightly expanding after heating, and the structure is much simpler.

The steam pipe parts produced by the 7,000-ton hydraulic press have also greatly increased the diameter of the boiler gas pipe, and the cruiser of more than 4,000 tons used eight boilers, but now it has been reduced to four, and this guy has saved hundreds of tons of load. The three engines of the heavy cruiser used six boilers, which were able to run to 18 knots with ease.

Carburized armor thinned the physical thickness of the armor, saving a lot of tonnage. There are a large number of other technical applications that make heavy cruisers even more. Weeser is most concerned about seaworthiness. Large tonnage can achieve high freeboard, and high freeboard has good seaworthiness. The Navy did not have a deep understanding of seaworthiness and knew that at the beginning of the year the cruiser sailed in the Indian Ocean and encountered large waves. More than ten meters of large waves fell, and dozens of tons of seawater fell on the foredeck of the cruiser. At this time, the cruiser was bumped, and the bow was lowered and lifted up just now. The hatchback was struggling, the hull material was not strong enough, and the bow broke when boarding. Fortunately, the Navy often conducts training on this problem, and everyone is in a hurry, but it is not helpless. In the end, the warship reluctantly sailed back to port.

The high freeboard is much better in this regard, even if the big wave of more than ten meters is down, only a few meters can actually be splashed on the deck. The dome structure of the deck, as well as the stiffeners in the front, the likelihood of the bow being knocked off was greatly reduced.

The two heavy cruisers were Suiyuan and Ningyuan, and the two modified cruisers Dangyang and Yuncheng were sailing in formation in the Indian Ocean. A war between China and Britain in a few years is unlikely to be fought in the Pacific, let alone in the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean is the most suitable battlefield. Although China has no intention of entering India, it has no intention of sparing Sri Lanka. It is necessary for the fleet to first familiarize itself with the situation near Sri Lanka.

On August 12, when four British ironclads went straight to the Chinese fleet, the Chinese fleet felt from top to bottom that the British were going to come and play with their lives. For soldiers, this kind of judgment is a very intuitive thing. For example, the smoke that billowed from the chimney of a British warship's boiler was turned on, such as the direction of the guns of the British ships, and the people on the deck of the British Navy. These individual details may not prove anything, just like a master duel, the opponent is likely to come slowly. But those details will make the master feel that the opponent is threatening. The details on the British warships all point in one direction, "convenient for combat".

The commander of the Chinese fleet was Ding Ruchang, commander of the Fifth Fleet, and the North Sea Fleet had been transformed into the Sixth Fleet, and the experienced North Sea Fleet personnel had also been assigned to other fleets. According to more reliable rumors, the Fifth Fleet will be stationed in the Indian Ocean in the future, so Ding Ruchang personally led the team to the Indian Ocean to accumulate experience. The possibility of a conflict with the British fleet was also considered before the voyage, and the opinion of the Military Commission was "improvisation".

So the fleet held a meeting while preparing for battle. At this time, if he wanted to run, it was too late, but Ding Ruchang didn't want to run at all. He posed the question, "What will the British do if we sink a British warship?" ”

"They're probably going to send a fleet to get back to the grounds, right?" The commissar replied.

"Do they have any warships that can get back to the field?" Ding Ruchang continued to ask.

This question is indeed thought-provoking, if the British Royal Navy is unable to defeat the Chinese Navy at all, except for a desperate counterattack, the British Royal Navy is afraid that it will not come to the initiative to die. Now British warships dare to rush over to challenge the Chinese Navy, because in the previous naval battles, the Chinese Navy did not sink a single British warship. Therefore, it was the British standard ironclad that rushed over, and the British thin-skinned ironclad ship was pressed far away, and as for the non-armored ships, not even a shadow could be seen. This is enough to show that the British Navy has keen observation, serious thinking, and serious study.

The final results of the discussion were not long in coming, and the fleet went to war with the British Navy in accordance with the instructions of the Military Commissar "Adaptation".

Britain has a tradition of fighting when it encounters the enemy, and the Chinese navy has no tendency to escape. After the decision of both sides, the naval battle soon began.

The four British warships were all modified warships, and instead of a centerline layout, they adopted a hexagonal layout. Three main guns can be used when facing the enemy head-on, and four main guns can be used when facing the enemy on the side of the ship.

The Chinese Navy is still traditional in the layout of the center line, with two heavy cruisers armed with five twin 250 guns and eight twin 120 guns. Two cruisers were armed with four 150 guns. Judging purely from the point of view of firepower, the overall firepower of the Chinese fleet does not fall behind.

The artillery battle began at a distance of 2,000 meters, and as soon as the artillery was fired, the Chinese navy discovered that the British had used a reliable burst fuse. Because the shell exploded after slamming into the sea. This is a technology that China's electric fuse once stood alone in the world, and the navy has also considered that the British will copy the shells that did not explode after smashing into a British warship. And the more stable flight trajectory of British shells is enough to prove that their artillery technology has also developed to a considerable extent from plagiarism.

Although the Chinese Navy itself often says not to base victory on the expectation that the enemy will stagnate. Seeing such rapid progress of the British, the officers and men of the Chinese Navy were also very unhappy.

The mood of the Royal Navy of the British Empire was even more unhappy, the four ironclads of this operation had all participated in the last naval battle, and the commander was impressed by the shelling of the Chinese Navy. The warships were remodeled and equipped with new guns, and the British Navy felt that it had the same artillery power as the Chinese Navy last time. In terms of naval combat experience and artillery bombardment experience, the British Navy is undoubtedly far superior to the Chinese Navy. With the learning objectives in place, it is inevitable that the British Navy will make rapid progress.

But as soon as the two sides fought this time, the British Navy felt that the Chinese warships were replaced with more vigorous artillery. If both sides opened fire at the same time, the shells fired by the Chinese warships would have exploded, and the shells fired from the British warships had not yet been able to fly to their destinations. This shows that the Chinese Navy has adopted a more powerful medicine. This fact can also be discerned by the fire and smoke that erupts from the muzzle of the gun.

At this time, the fleets of both sides could only start the battle under certain technical conditions, and the British Royal Navy tried to determine the distance between the warships of the two sides at a distance of 2,000 meters, not wanting to repeat the old incident of being washed by Chinese artillery fire last time.

Then the British Navy found that this time the Chinese Navy did not make any effort to get closer, in order to take advantage of their extremely fast rate of fire. This time, the guns of the Chinese warships began firing at an exaggerated high angle of fire, and the shells flew in an arc over a distance of more than 2,000 meters and smashed towards the deck of the British warship.

At this time, the commander of the British fleet began to scold the British Admiralty for playing the piano indiscriminately, and he didn't even know the latest situation of the Chinese Navy, so he tricked his brothers to send them to death. The higher the shooting angle, the higher the angle of entry of the landing point. In the past, the angle of fire of artillery in naval battles was relatively flat, and most of the parts of the bullets were on the side of the ship. The reason why ironclad ships appeared was to use thick ironclad to protect the ship's side. The deck is much less protective than the ship's side.

But the Chinese Navy is as mentally ill as it is mentally ill, and it has a very broad mindset. Now a means of shelling against the deck has been developed. In the three naval battles of the Western Pacific, Britain paid a lot of price and learned some Chinese artillery technology. So the commander of the British fleet was well aware that the accuracy of Chinese artillery was quite high.

Before he could come up with a solution, the Ravage Ironclad was the first to be hit. A Chinese shell roared and smashed into the teak deck of the Ravage, and the tungsten steel reinforced warhead of the 250 armor-piercing shell directly broke through the teak deck several centimeters thick with huge kinetic energy, and penetrated the iron plate less than 50 mm thick, and plunged into the engine room of the Ravage, and an unlucky boiler was hit by an armor-piercing shell, and the gas supply pipe was smashed when it landed. Steam gushed out of the cracked pipes, burning the hapless stoker.

And that was just the beginning, as two more armor-piercing shells hit the deck of the Ravage and entered the wheel bay. The time-lapse fuse carried inside the armor-piercing shell detonated the explosives, and the wheel compartment was destroyed. The engine room of the ravage was filled with high-temperature water vapor, and the stokers who had not had time to escape were burned to the bridle, and even the stokers who managed to escape were more or less scalded by the steam. The ravage's speed slowed down.

On 15 August, the transoceanic telegram arrived in London. Four ironclad ships of the Indian Ocean Fleet engaged the Chinese Navy, one of the British fleet was slightly wounded, two were hit, and the ravage first lost power, and the upper turret was washed in blood. The Ravage, which refused to surrender, was sunk by the Chinese Navy at close range. Most of the crew was captured.

The British Empire's Indian Ocean Fleet's evaluation of this battle is that it hopes to complete the new battleships as soon as possible, and with the current strength of British warships, it will not be able to confront the Chinese Navy for the time being.