Daheng Jingshi, Crown Prince Holibat looked at the latest warship design plan transferred by the Daheng Empire, but he was still hesitant in his heart.

This time, the battleship plan is the latest hybrid main gun battleship designed by the Great Hengren according to the requirements of the Orr Kingdom.

Crown Prince Holybat is not a person who does not understand the navy, in fact, the Holybat dynasty is not a crown prince without real power in the Orr Kingdom, in fact, he is already the actual military commander in the Orr Kingdom, responsible for the construction of the army and navy.

After all, the Orr King is old, and Crown Prince Holibat has already taken over most of the power in the Orr Kingdom more than ten years ago, even more so after the Orr War.

Under his leadership, the foreign policy and the construction of the army and navy of the Orr Kingdom moved closer to the Daheng Empire, and the two sides even reached a military base exchange agreement, although this military base exchange agreement was actually the main garrison of the Daheng Empire in the Orr Kingdom's Lane base, and the Orr Kingdom only symbolized a small fleet stationed in a small coastal port exchanged by the Daheng to them.

However, even this symbolism implies an actual military alliance between the two sides.

This is completely different from the fact that the Liej Kingdom was forced to unilaterally lease the Bowa military base of the Great Heng Empire.

The diplomatic relations between the Great Heng Empire and the Orr Kingdom, after more than ten years of continuous deepening exchanges, have gradually evolved into a practical military alliance, and it is only a military alliance contract that is just a paper away.

In terms of this diplomatic relationship between the two sides, the military construction of the Orr Kingdom is also moving closer to Daheng in an all-round way, and its army units are all equipped with Daheng, and the same is true for the navy.

In the early years, the Orr Kingdom would also purchase some warships from countries such as the Kekel Empire, but since the Orr War, the Orr Kingdom's warship procurement has been fully shifted to the side of the Daheng Empire.

After the Orr War, the Orr Kingdom signed a military procurement contract with the Great Heng Empire totaling hundreds of millions of Heng Yuan.

This included a large number of warship purchases.

The two completed battleships with high portholes and two armored cruisers have become the core and main warships of the Orr Kingdom Navy.

Since last year, the two sides have continued to negotiate the procurement of the last two battleships in the 2+2 program, which was also the first time that the Daheng Empire opened up the export of hardened armor and medium-caliber rapid-fire guns.

Based on this, the purchase of a battleship was signed last fall, and the new generation of battleship was improved and designed based on the prototype of the Jingzhou-class battleship, which is the third ship in the 2+2 plan.

However, the second battleship plan was slightly postponed, and the plan was originally finalized in the first half of this year, but because of the outbreak of the Lichen Incident, the impact of the two Bowa naval battles was too great, so soon the ship's procurement plan changed, and the Orr Kingdom requested that according to the experience of the Bova Naval Battle, but also because the Krull Kingdom and the Daheng Imperial Navy both had mixed main gun battleships appear and entered service, and other countries have also followed up successively, so the Orr Kingdom proposed to change the No. 4 ship in the 2+2 plan to a mixed main gun battleship.

In this regard, the Daheng Empire naturally met its requirements, and designed a mixed main gun battleship based on the Gaoqing mixed main gun battleship.

Increased firepower and changed the secondary main gun from four single-mounted 250-mm rapid-fire guns to four twin-mounted 230-mm rapid-fire guns.

Crown Prince Holibat is still very satisfied with this design plan, and it meets the requirements of the Orr Kingdom in all aspects, and even surpasses it.

The only problem is that it's too expensive!

Just the four 300 mm 45 times caliber main guns and the eight 230 mm 45 times caliber main guns are worth several million Heng Yuan.

Coupled with the comprehensive coverage of the latest Luojing hardened armor, the price of this armor is higher than the performance of Luohai armor, but it is only twenty or thirty percent, but the price is directly doubled.

Then there is the power system, in order to make this battleship with a displacement of 17,000 tons run 20 knots, a lot of mixed-combustion power steam units are crammed in.

When the firepower, armor, and power are all designed to the top standards of our time, the price is also skyrocketing.

And because this is a foreign trade warship, the price can only be negotiated by the Orr Kingdom and the weapons trading company, which is much more expensive than the Daheng Empire's own procurement.

In the end, the price of the preliminary negotiation between the two sides was that the hull of the No. 4 ship plus armaments and other bits and pieces of equipment was expected to be 8.5 million Heng Yuan!

This does not include incidental costs such as ammunition and spare barrels for the purchase of kits.

At the same time, after purchasing this new warship, their Orr Kingdom also had to send personnel to receive training, and at the same time, they also needed to add special maintenance facilities, personnel, and so on.

At that time, the money spent will be tens of millions casually.

It's too expensive!

And this is not that the Daheng Empire deliberately cheated them, that is because the current new generation of warships is so expensive, in the past, a main battleship could be taken down for two or three million, but in the past few years, the price has climbed to five or six million, and now, it is already eight or nine hundred.

In the face of such an expensive price, the Orr Kingdom naturally tried to bargain, but the people of the Daheng Empire Weapons Trading Company directly refused, and said that the current price is all based on the good cooperative relationship between the two sides, otherwise it will be tens of millions per minute.

In addition, the Orr Kingdom also inquired about the cost of the Gaoqing through special channels, although they did not know the exact figure, but they probably also knew that the ship cost more than seven million.

However, this is the capital ship that started construction three years ago, and the tonnage of the Gaoqing is smaller, the firepower is worse, and most importantly, this is the internal procurement price of the Daheng Empire's military, and the shipyard has no profit at all.

In this way, Crown Prince Holibart also knows that there is probably no room for negotiation about the price of the new warship, unless the firepower is reduced and the protection is reduced, then the price can be reduced in an instant, and it is not impossible to win it within seven million, but after lowering the standard, is the new warship still the latest warship?

Besides, they have made a lot of diplomatic efforts to obtain new naval guns and top-level hardened armor, and there are a lot of exchanges of interests behind them.

If there were no such diplomatic efforts and an exchange of interests, the Daheng Empire would not have let them go to the export of Luojing armor and top-of-the-line naval guns of 300 mm and 45 times caliber, especially the 300 mm and 45 times caliber main guns, which the Daheng Empire itself had not yet completed mass production, but belonged to the top naval guns of contemporary times.

Without paying a certain special price, simple foreign trade procurement is not sold for any amount of money.

At least for now, except for the Orr Kingdom, other countries don't expect to be able to get this kind of top-level naval artillery of the Great Heng Empire in a short period of time, in this case, if you ask the Orr Kingdom to give up the new naval guns and top-of-the-line Luojing hardened armor in order to save costs, they will be even more unhappy.

It took such a big price to get the export approval of the Daheng Empire, and because the price was expensive, I didn't buy it, isn't this putting the cart before the horse!

It's just that this new warship is really expensive, so expensive that the local tyrant of the Orr Kingdom has to hesitate again and again, otherwise the order for the fourth ship will not be negotiated for so long and has not been decided.

The landlord's family has no surplus food!