In order to maintain the stability of the situation on the western continent and avoid waging wars with unequal weapons against neighboring countries after the completion of the Valya Empire's rifled weapons rearmament, the Krull Kingdom has been committed to increasing the production capacity of breech-loading rifled weapons for more than a year.

The stability of the western continent and the southwestern continent is very important to the Krull Kingdom, far more important than the stability of the central and southern continents.

Because of these two places, they are supplied with a large number of agricultural livestock and industrial raw materials, and at the same time, these places are also the main markets for their industrial products!

In contrast, the Central Continent and the Southern Continent are also important, but they are both secondary.

And the four countries on the east coast located on the southern continent, although they are also important, but at this time they are neglected and are being cleaned up, although they also give some weapons shares, but the asking price is high and the delivery time is slow.

But the need for advanced weapons and equipment in the four countries on the east coast is very urgent!

They are watching the Orissa Empire and the Orr Kingdom in the south quickly change their clothes, and if they don't follow up in time at this time, the consequences will be unpredictable and even unbearable.

After the four countries on the east coast did not go well in their quest for weapons on the side of the Krull Kingdom, they naturally put their hopes elsewhere, and they turned around and found the Great Heng Empire.

Although the current Daheng Empire is currently the only country on the Blue Star that has the ability to supply breeched weapons to the outside world on a large scale.

Lin Ziran still attached great importance to the arrival of the delegation of the Kingdom of Io, and sent the Minister of Foreign Affairs to receive them in the early stage, and then sent people to invite them to visit the Jingzhou Machinery Bureau and Jingzhou Shipyard.

Its intention is very obvious, it is to sell weapons and equipment.

Of course, it makes sense to promote agricultural and livestock products.

Even if Lin Ziran has begun to change the structure of the agricultural and livestock industry in the Daheng Empire, the agriculture in the Daheng Empire will still be grain-based in a short period of time, and after the reunification of the country, agriculture will recover very quickly, and it is expected that this year's grain output will increase significantly.

The economic department predicts that due to the increase in grain production this year, although the country has digested as much as possible, there will still be a considerable part of the grain production capacity that needs to be exported, otherwise it will greatly affect the income of the peasants of the empire.

Many peasant families in the empire are counting on a good life after selling the harvest of grain.

At present, if we say that grain production has increased, but exports have stagnated, grain cannot be sold, and even prices have plummeted, this will directly lead to a large number of small and medium-sized farmers suffering heavy losses.

This is why the empire has sent two trade missions, in addition to purchasing equipment, but also to stabilize and open up the market for agricultural and livestock products, to ensure the smooth development of the empire's agriculture and the increase of farmers' income.

This problem is not big overall, although the grain production of the Great Heng Empire is high, there are more countries on the Blue Star that are short of food!

For example, the Krull Kingdom, don't look at them as the world's most powerful country, but their native country is very short of food because of the skyrocketing population, and they import a large amount of food from various colonies, puppet countries or other countries every year.

Of course, the Krull Kingdom has a wide range of colonies and puppet states, and they don't have to worry about food crises in their own country when they import food from these places.

But even so, they are also the number one grain purchaser of the Great Heng Empire, and this year alone has imported millions of tons of grain from the Great Heng Empire.

The Walia Empire on the western continent is also a country with many people and little land, and needs to import a large amount of grain every year.

Even the Olisa Empire, they need to import some grain every year to meet their internal needs.

Food has always been in short supply!

Most countries do not have enough food to eat, and very few exports, let alone large quantities.

Sitting on countless fertile land, the grain output is so large that it can not eat it and can export millions of tons of foreign countries every year, only this Daheng family, there is no other semicolon!

Therefore, the grain of the Daheng Empire is actually not worried about selling, it is nothing more than the price at which the grain is sold, after all, although grain is hard currency, there are not many countries that can come up with money to import grain in large quantities.

The Io Kingdom, one of the four countries on the east coast, after arriving in Daheng, took a brief visit, and soon signed an agreement with the Daheng Empire on the supply of agricultural and livestock products, agreeing to purchase a certain amount of grain every year.

However, the amount is not large, after all, their Io Kingdom is only a country with a population of several million, and even if they import food, they can't import much.

However, this grain purchase agreement is only superficial, and behind the scenes, the two sides are talking about the arms business.

Lin Ziran also attaches great importance to this!

Although only the Io Kingdom came, this Io Kingdom represents the East Coast Four-Nation Alliance, as long as the Io Kingdom is opened, then it is equivalent to opening the East Coast Four-Nation Alliance.

In the future, maybe they can also win the West Coast Three Alliance, this Three Alliance and the Four Nations Alliance are hundreds of years of traditional alliances, united with each other against the Orissa Empire.

For hundreds of years, the relationship between the Great Heng Empire and them has actually been good.

After all, they all have a common enemy: the Otissa Empire.

After a brief visit to the arsenal and shipyard by the delegation of the Io Kingdom, the reception officials sent by the Daheng Empire reported that the two sides had entered into more in-depth negotiations on the issue of arms trade, but the Io Kingdom still failed to make up its mind.

In order to promote arms exports, earn foreign exchange, increase employment and development in related industries in the country, and also to make up for the large gap in funds spent on ordering machinery and equipment some time ago.

Lin Ziran decided to personally receive the delegation of the Kingdom of Io.

On November 9, Emperor Lin Ziran received Prince Harrant and his entourage in the Foreign Affairs Hall of the Mirror Palace, and after the usual diplomatic protocols, Lin Ziran and Prince Harrant had a brief meeting.

In the simple conversation, Lin Ziran didn't say much.

In fact, he didn't need to say much, and his personal reception was already a sign of the importance that the empire attached to and the East Coast Quad Alliance.

And this attitude is what Prince Harant values the most, and it is also what the East Coast Quad Alliance needs the most.

The four countries on the east coast sent people to the Great Heng Empire to negotiate, asking for more than just importing weapons or importing food, they needed the support of the Great Heng Empire.

At the same time, it is also to test the attitude of the Great Heng people towards the side of the Orr Kingdom.

Well, the four countries of the East Coast are not only in a hostile relationship with the Orissa Empire, but also in a hostile relationship with the Orr Kingdom.

In the past two years, the Great Heng Empire and the Orr Kingdom have been fighting hotly, and everyone in the world knows that the Daheng Empire is helping the Orr Kingdom to change its clothes.

In this regard, Lin Ziran said that the trade between the empire and the Orr Kingdom is a normal trade relationship, and it is not mixed with any political purposes.

That's what the East Coast Quad wants to hear.

After receiving a satisfactory statement, Prince Harant of the Io Kingdom finally breathed a sigh of relief and was ready to negotiate with the delegation of Daheng on the matter of arms imports.

Lin Ziran did not participate in the detailed negotiations that followed, and naturally officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the three major arms companies, and even the military were responsible.

Because the sincerity of both sides was relatively high, a relevant agreement was soon reached, and the Io Kingdom would purchase 100,000 Luo'an III rifles and 250 army field guns.

In addition, they will also order two coastal defense ironclad ships, one dome cruiser, six gunboats, and 18 medium and large-caliber shore defense guns.

According to the agreement, the Great Heng Empire needed to train military personnel for them and assist them in reforming and reorganizing the army forces.

On the warship, although they were very satisfied with the coast-class foreign trade shore defense ironclad promoted by the Daheng Empire, because the Orr Kingdom ordered the ship on a large scale, in order to avoid the performance being known by the enemy, they asked for a newly designed shore defense ironclad ship and cruiser.

At the same time, because of the small number of orders, they hope that the coastal defense ironclad ships and cruisers they ordered can surpass the battleships ordered by the Orrs in terms of single ship performance.

For the requirements of customers, Daheng Empire naturally gives satisfaction!

They soon upgraded the design according to the coast-class ironclad ship, and designed a 5,000-ton ironclad ship, using a two-string crossbody turret layout, two twin 250 mm 25 times the caliber of the main gun and a number of 150 mm secondary guns, using key defense, improving the defensive thickness of the main armor belt and the armor of the turret and the command tower.

Key defense, which is also a very popular defense concept in the navies of various countries in recent years!

The main reason is that the navies of various countries are now generally equipped with large-caliber naval guns, and although the defense of wrought iron hardwood armor or steel-faced ironclad armor is very good, but in the face of these large-caliber naval guns, it requires great thickness to have a defensive effect, but the tonnage of ships is limited, so designers of various countries have begun to widely adopt the concept of key protection on some ships, especially small and medium-tonnage ships, in order to resist the main guns with larger and larger calibers and deeper and larger penetrations.

As for the secondary guns, the rate of fire of the secondary guns in these years is limited, and it is unlikely to cause much damage to the battleship!

Naval artillery and armor protection have always been developed in confrontation with each other, and when grenades were widely equipped with navies, they began to install wrought iron armor on wooden-hulled ships to resist the threat of grenades.

This was also an important impetus for the emergence of early ironclad ships.

When warships began to be equipped with wrought iron armor belts, and the wrought iron armor belts became thicker and thicker, it promoted the development of naval guns towards large-caliber guns, and at the same time, the navies of various countries in recent years were widely equipped with large-caliber front-loading rifled guns.

Its armor-piercing shells have also gradually developed from the original round ball solid shells to the conical armor-piercing shells of rifled guns, which has greatly improved the armor-piercing ability.

In order to cope with the threat posed by large-caliber front-loading rifled guns and armor-piercing shells, countries began to thicken the thickness of wrought iron armor and equip it with steel-faced iron armor.

When the thickness increased, the tonnage of the ships was insufficient, so the navy of various countries began to popularize the concept of key defense in the design of warships in recent years.

The core concept is to make an important part of the hull able to resist the fire of the enemy's main guns, ensure that the core compartment is not damaged, and maintain buoyancy.

According to the experience of the development of modern warships on the earth, it is the rate of fire of small and medium-caliber naval guns that allows warships to restore surface protection, which leads to a sharp increase in the power of the secondary guns of warships.

However, with the further expansion of the engagement distance, the appearance of hardened armor led to the weakening of the power of the secondary guns, and finally the situation of increasing the number of main guns, which finally led to the emergence of heavy gunboats, that is, dreadnought-class battleships.

According to the experience of the development of modern warships on the earth, the development of warships, in which the design concept is closely related to the development of technology, when the main gun threat is large, the secondary gun threat is small, the key protection will be carried out, when the main gun threat is small, the secondary gun threat will be large, the surface protection and even the situation of the secondary main gun.

At present, on the Blue Star, it is obvious that large-caliber naval guns are in charge!

Whether it is the large-caliber front-loading rifled guns that are now widely equipped by the naval powers of various countries, or the newly emerged rear-loading rifled guns on the side of the Daheng Empire and followed up by other countries in time, the power of naval guns has been greatly improved, thus forcing the warship designers of various countries to focus on the defensive layout of warships.

The design of the 5,000-ton ironclad ship provided by the Great Heng Empire to the Io Kingdom or to the four countries on the east coast is a typical example of this design concept:

Equipped with four large-caliber main guns, its main guns are powerful enough to threaten most modern warships!

At the same time, it adopts key defenses to ensure the defense capability of the core sector when it is attacked by the enemy's main artillery.

As for the defense of the secondary part, it only needs to resist small and medium-caliber secondary guns, and a large number of watertight compartments are designed to ensure that the secondary part can still ensure sufficient buoyancy after being shot.

The design of the ship, for the contemporary Blue Star, the overall survivability is quite good!

In this regard, the Io Kingdom or the four countries on the east coast are more satisfied, so they officially ordered one, and then it is estimated that there will be another one depending on the situation.

Only the dome cruiser is not so particular, although this thing is also important, but in the end it is just a cruiser, and if you modify it casually, you will come up with a 2,400-ton design.

After the customer is satisfied, the order between the two parties is officially signed.

As a result, the two years of Qiansheng have not yet ended, and the empire has successfully obtained orders for two large-tonnage warships, which has brought new orders to the empire's shipbuilding industry and related defense industries, but also brought great pressure.

However, in the following two months, the weapons sales of the Daheng Empire had no practical effect, and as time passed, many powerful countries were now able to produce breech-loading rifled weapons.

The weapon sales opportunities obtained by the Daheng Empire by taking advantage of the first-mover advantage have almost disappeared.