The four-nation alliance on the east coast in the north, the overseas and diplomatic pressure behind them is now very large, so their demand for new warships is very urgent, and the delivery time of many warships is relatively tight, such as the two princess-class battleships, which are required to be completed and delivered within two years, so these two warships, one has been started this month, and the second one will be started next month, and the second will be completed and launched next year, and delivered the year after next.

At the same time, the construction of the Daheng Empire's own warships and the construction of the war for the Orr Kingdom Navy made the shipbuilding industry and related defense industries of the Daheng Empire still operate at full speed even after the end of the war, and continue to expand in scale.

In order to meet the construction plan of large-tonnage ships, Luohai Shipyard and Jingzhou Shipyard began to carry out large-scale expansion last year, expanding the existing docks and building new large-scale docks, expanding two 15,000-ton docks, three 10,000-ton docks, and six 5,000-ton docks in just one year.

At the same time, the Central Arms Company has brought the 'Quping Naval Repair Yard,' which was formerly under the internal jurisdiction of the Navy, into its jurisdiction, and has invested a huge amount of money to upgrade it into the Quping Shipyard, and the initial plan is to upgrade and expand the existing 10,000-ton dock to a 20,000-ton dock, and to expand one of the 5,000-ton docks to a 10,000-ton dock.

Once the upgrade is completed, it will add another large shipyard capable of building 10,000-ton warships to the Great Heng Empire.

And the formation of Luohai Shipyard, Jingzhou Shipyard, Quping Shipyard three major shipyards layout.

The pressure brought about by the huge shipbuilding plan is not only limited to the shipyard, after all, it is only a terminal assembly plant, and the related industries in the middle and upper reaches are also under great pressure.

For example, to expand the shipyard, you have to add and upgrade equipment, and these shipbuilding equipment are all large equipment, which need to be provided by the midstream machinery factories, and in the past, the scale and technical capabilities of these machinery factories were also defective, so they themselves also need to expand and upgrade technology.

In addition, the battleship is not only built with a hull, but also equipped with a series of core components, the most important of which is the steam engine, armor and naval guns.

At present, the empire's two main shipboard steam engine manufacturers, the Luohai Steam Engine Factory and the Steam Engine Factory under the Jingzhou Machinery Bureau, are already running at full power, working overtime to produce new steam engines to supply warships and even civilian merchant ships.

In terms of armor, Luohai Iron and Steel Plant, Zishengzhou Iron and Steel Plant, and Fengyang Iron and Steel Plant can all provide wrought iron armor, but the combined production capacity is relatively limited, and the most important thing is that in order to keep up with the pace of naval power, the Imperial Navy has asked for a new type of armor such as steel-faced iron armor.

The new armor has higher technical requirements, even if it is the Luohai Iron and Steel Plant, which is currently the most mature armor technology, it is still relatively difficult to mass-produce steel armor with qualified quality and high performance, which requires continued investment in equipment upgrading and technology research and development.

Not to mention naval artillery, in order to solve the problem of naval artillery, the navy has even set up a naval artillery research room, and dispatched technical personnel from all over the country to concentrate on tackling key problems and developing naval artillery technology.

Whether it is a 300-millimeter 30-caliber naval gun under development, a 250-millimeter 30-fold naval gun, or a 200-millimeter 35-fold naval gun, they are all facing great pressure, and these naval guns have already been scheduled to be installed on the ship, leaving them not much time for research and development and organizing production.

In addition, they also had to simultaneously pre-develop more advanced large-caliber naval guns, such as 300 mm 35 times the naval gun, 250 mm 35 times the 35 times the naval gun.

At the same time, the naval artillery research room also received a research and development task from His Majesty the Emperor Lin Ziran personally, that is, to develop rapid-fire tube annealing guns, and Lin Ziran asked the R&D department to concentrate on solving the problem of rapid fire naval guns as soon as possible.

In Lin Ziran's opinion, the current rate of fire of naval guns is too slow, even for a medium-caliber naval gun like 150 mm, the rate of fire is very slow, and it can only be fired in 1.5 minutes.

Large-caliber naval guns were even worse, with the rate of fire of 200 mm and 250 mm naval guns being only 2.5 minutes per round, and 300 mm naval guns taking 3.5 minutes per round.

The above is only the theoretical rate of fire, and the actual combat rate of fire is even slower due to various factors such as aiming.

For this reason, Lin Ziran asked the naval artillery research and development department to develop tube annealing guns, in order to improve the rate of fire of naval guns, even if it is impossible to solve the problem of the rate of fire of large-caliber naval guns in a short period of time, but the rate of fire of those small and medium-caliber naval guns must also be solved, such as 100 mm and 120 mm caliber naval guns.

The navy also attaches great importance to the rapid fire of naval guns, although it is said that in these years large-caliber naval guns can penetrate the installation of the enemy's capital ships, if the small and medium-caliber naval guns can increase the rate of fire, they can also effectively threaten the enemy ships.

It's just that it doesn't matter when the retracting rapid-fire cannon will be developed, it's a matter of maybe.

This thing is no longer an idea proposed by Lin Ziran, designers can make it by tossing and tossing casually, which involves basic materials and processing technology.

For example, if you want to carry out pipe withdrawal, you need to use hydraulic pressure or spring, and both of these have very high requirements for basic materials and processing technology, otherwise it is impossible to produce qualified hydraulic reentry devices.

The shipbuilding plan on the Navy's side has brought great pressure to the national defense industry, but it has also brought surging power, and with sufficient orders, the relevant enterprises in the national defense industry can have enough income and profits, and they can develop more advanced technology, upgrade equipment, and then produce better products.

At the same time, it can also drive employment in the defense industry, so that more people can get a stable job.

From last year to now, the number of employees at the Luohai shipyard alone has increased by more than 1,000 people, and the same is true for several other shipyards.

On the side of the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau, although the war is over, the army's orders have been greatly reduced, and there is no overtime in the past, but there are still no layoffs, because the navy still continues to order artillery, and there are also a large number of orders for foreign trade naval guns and army artillery.

Therefore, the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau is still running at full power.

As for machinery and steel further upstream, the mining industry has actually seen explosive growth.

What does it take to build a ship and a gun? Steel is needed, and a lot of steel, whether it's armor or hulls or equipment or whatever, all need steel, and all of that steel needs to be provided by the steel mill.

And in addition to the defense industry, there is also a large part of the demand for steel, and that is the railway!

In fact, the growth of the steel industry driven by the railway is even more exaggerated!

Multiple railway lines are operating at the same time, the number of rails required is massive, and a large number of steam locomotives are required, which require a large amount of steel production capacity to support.

At the end of the Unification War, the preliminary statistics of pig iron production in the Daheng Empire were only about 800,000 tons, and the steel output was only 20,000 tons.

However, in the first year after reunification, that is, this year, it is estimated that the output of pig iron will soar to 1.8 million tons, and the steel output will be guaranteed to 50,000 tons, mainly due to the smooth operation of the expansion project of Luohai Iron and Steel Plant started last year, and at the same time, Jingzhou Iron and Steel Plant and Chongke Iron and Steel Plant resumed work and expanded production.

But next year's production will be even larger, because in addition to the three steel mills mentioned above, many others are also expanding.

The economic department is very optimistic that the pig iron production capacity of Qiansheng three years, that is, next year, is expected to exceed 3 million tons, and the steel production capacity will exceed 100,000 tons.

And in the next four years and five years of Qiansheng, there will be a greater guarantee!

Because in the 'comprehensive economic development plan', the iron and steel industry is a key development industry, the three major steel production bases of Luohai Iron and Steel Production Base, Chongkecheng Iron and Steel Production Base and Jingzhou Iron and Steel Production Base have been determined, and the three major steel plants of Luohai Iron and Steel Plant, Jingzhou Iron and Steel Plant and Chongke Iron and Steel Plant have been fully supported to support the development of the three major steel plants of Luohai Iron and Steel Plant, Jingzhou Iron and Steel Plant and Chongke Iron and Steel Plant, and the steel industry of six medium-sized steel plants in other parts of the country.

Through policy and financial support for the above-mentioned iron and steel plants and related industries, we will strive to achieve leapfrog development and strive to increase the output of pig iron to 6 million tons and 500,000 tons of steel in the fifth year of Qiansheng.

This is the great power of the Great Railroad Program and the Naval Development Program!

Of course, this is also greatly related to the abundant and easy-to-mine iron ore resources and coal resources in the Daheng Empire, as well as good river transportation and railway transportation.

For example, in Nanhai Prefecture, there are abundant iron ore and coal resources that are easy to mine in Luohai County alone, and Luo'an County, which is slightly further north, also has abundant iron ore and coal resources.

The iron ore and coal resources of these two states alone are enough to support the iron ore and coal resources needed for the development of a large country.

Not to mention, although Nanhai Prefecture is rich in iron ore and coal resources in the Daheng Empire, it is not the most, and the most is still in Pingnan Prefecture, where the iron ore is more high-quality and coal mining is easier.

In addition, Zisheng Prefecture is also a large state of mineral resources, although the degree of development is not as large as that of Pingnan Prefecture and Nanhai Prefecture, but the rich reserves of iron ore and coal resources are no less than that of Nanhai Prefecture.

Other states also have iron ore and coal resources to a greater or lesser extent.

In terms of iron ore and coal resources alone, the Great Heng Empire prides itself on being the second in the world, and no country dares to say that it is the first.

Abundant reserves, easy to mine, high-grade iron ore and coal resources, these not only allowed the steel and related industries of the Daheng Empire to develop rapidly, in fact, this was also an important factor for Daheng to fall into civil strife and the industry to develop steadily, because the resources were too abundant, and the feudal towns at that time could get a steel factory with just two tosses......

Steel and coal are the foundation of modern industrial development, with steel and coal can develop railways, steam, steel, ships and machinery and other industries on a large scale, so that the new Lin dynasty can have the confidence to catch up with other powers in a short period of time and return to the first-class industrial country industry as soon as possible.

It's just that although the output is there, the quality is a little unreliable.

Anyway, the railway company has complained more than once that the quality of the rails produced by the major steel manufacturers is too scummy, and it is not a little worse than the same level of foreign products, and the price is not cheap.

On the side of the railway company, in order to obtain qualified rails, they have to strengthen quality inspection, and at the same time choose reliable manufacturers as much as possible, otherwise they will accidentally get a lot of inferior products.

On the side of the railway company, the complaint of the shipbuilding industry is also very great!

The quality of the wrought iron, steel and other materials used to build the ship is not good, and the supply of warships is just that, although the performance is slightly worse, but the overall quality can still be guaranteed, after all, the supervision is very strict.

However, the quality of steel used in auxiliary ships and civilian ships is very worrying.

As for the steel-faced ironclad composite armor that the navy has always wanted, whether it is Luohai Iron and Steel Plant, Jingzhou Iron and Steel Plant, or Chongke Iron and Steel Plant, they have not been able to come up with qualified mass production products for a long time, and they can only make some laboratory products if they die.

However, the armor needed to build warships is not a certain half, and it has to be thousands of tons at every turn, and if there are more warships built in a year, it will be thousands or even tens of thousands of tons of steel-faced ironclad armor.

However, it cannot be mass-produced!

The Navy is helpless about this, and the steel plant is also helpless!

They can't mass-produce them and there is no good way, this thing technology is much more difficult than wrought iron armor, and it requires a very high production process to get it out, and it requires a variety of more advanced production equipment, and at present, in the Daheng Empire, a vote of machinery factories can not provide qualified machinery and equipment, and their steel factories have no way.

Armor and other products rely on mechanical equipment, and naval artillery is dependent on high-precision large-scale equipment, what steel furnace, crane and other basic equipment not to say, more important is forging presses, the production of large-caliber naval guns need large forging presses, one or two hundred tons are the starting requirements, want to produce more than 300 mm caliber naval guns, what is needed is one or two thousand tons of forging presses, can process large-size parts of large smashing machine, rolling mill is the core equipment.

And these stupid-looking large-scale processing equipment don't seem to be anything at first glance, but when you really do it, you know that these things are not easy to manufacture.

There are some top-level equipment in the Daheng Empire, such as several thousand-ton and two-thousand-ton forging presses, 500-millimeter edging machines, and 350-millimeter rolling mills, all of which were imported by the previous feudal towns for several large arsenals.

The Daheng Empire itself, before and even now, does not have the production capacity of these large-scale equipment for the time being.

Even though it has recently started research, the 2,000-ton hydraulic forging machine developed by Luohai Machinery Factory is also steadily advancing, but it still needs a certain amount of time before it is practical.

The lack of these basic equipment is also an important reason for the current difficulties in the production of large-caliber naval guns, large-size steel-faced ironclad armor and other large-size steel products in the Daheng Empire.