The speed of the ship has exceeded ten knots when sailing with full sail under the tailwind, and the speed of the ship slowly increases when the wooden ship slowly splits the waves, although the ship is a little bumpy, but every time it splits the waves, it will fiercely split a white wave, and a long wake is projected behind, and in the wake, more than a dozen ships are close behind.

It was a large fleet, consisting of sixteen warships, enough to intimidate all opponents at sea and run rampant in the seas. Perhaps the most striking of these are the two huge three-deck warships. These two three-deck warships can be said to be the only two giants east of the Cape of Good Hope, and the sun and moon flags fluttering on the mast and the dragon ornament on the bow of the ship clearly indicate where these two warships belong - they are the most powerful "Sengoku-class" warships built by the Loyal Navy.

Although the warships of the Loyal Army Navy Fleet imitate the European style, but unlike the navies of European countries, the Navy of the Loyal Army has emphasized standards from the beginning of its formation, from the original "Haibo class" dhow gunboats, and then to the "Warring States class" first-class warships, their biggest feature is that each class of warships has its unified ship shape, and they are equipped with guns of the same class. However, compared to the 40-ship cruisers, the number of three-deck warships built is very limited, and only two have been built so far.

The reason for this is not the lack of financial resources, but the limitation of the technical level, because of the limitations of shipbuilding technology, so there are still many problems that have not been solved in the European three-deck warships, the most serious of which is the lack of stability of the hull. Due to the arrangement of three full gun decks, their fleets appear unusually tall - the incongruity in the ratio of ship height to width makes them extremely unstable.

"It's the best warship in the world!"

Standing at the stern of the ship, Zhu Ke's tone seemed a little excited, as the second officer of the "Qin State", every time he stood on this warship, he would look very excited, although Zhu Ke had a standard Chinese name, but his appearance was very different from the Chinese, the blonde and blue-eyed he was Dutch, he came to China with the ship last year, took the initiative to join the Loyal Army Navy, and naturalized as a Ming person.

"I never thought that there would be such a perfect first-class ship in the world, and it would be so perfect to maneuver at sea!"

Turning his head to look at the Admiral standing beside him, Zhu Ke muttered.

"Your Excellency, you may not know that almost all first-class ships in Europe have stability problems, and more than thirty years ago, the Swedish "Vasa" capsized shortly after sailing due to the unstable center of gravity caused by the high superstructure, and it was nothing more than a third-class battleship equipped with two gun decks and 64 guns. In fact, because most three-deck warships were symbols of wealth and power for princes and nobles, the stern was marked with a large number of ornate and intricate sculptures, adding to the already troublesome stability problem. And a series of problems such as hull handling caused by this were even more criticized by sailors. However, this problem does not exist on the "Qin Guo"! ”

"Warships are used to fight, not to show wealth and power, what is the power and wealth of warships? It is its powerful combat effectiveness, which is the root of everything! ”

As the commander of the fleet, Sun Mingzu's tone was extremely calm. His words, though simple, show that the Loyal Fleet is different from any other navy - he is more practical and more focused on actual combat. Instead of the heavy and ornate sculptures of the stern of comparable warships in Europe, he has a large three-sided glass window with a fairly open view on three floors. Such an improvement not only reduced the weight of the stern and lowered the center of gravity of the stern, but also facilitated the observation of the rear of the hull side by the captain. Secondly, he appropriately lowered the height between the decks, and because the hull was wider, the walls of the ship were more inclined inward, thus greatly reducing the center of gravity of the whole ship. Moreover, it also wraps copper under the waterline to slow down the corrosion of the bottom of the ship and prolong the service life of the battleship.

"Of course, Your Excellency, this is the difference between us and the Western Fleet, Your Excellency, please believe that if our fleet appears in Europe now, we can completely defeat all the fleets in Europe, we have the largest fleet in the world, and we also have the most powerful warships! I dare say that it only takes one "Qin State" to make the whole world surrender. You must know that those first-class ships in Europe are too large, too deep in draft, and too slow to participate in fleet operations. It simply cannot be compared with the "Qin State" "

Zhu Ke's exaggerated words were exchanged for the laughter of more than a dozen officers in the stern, and this laughter was more of pride and pride. They naturally knew how powerful the "Qin Guo" was. He is not only powerful, but also nimble, completely different from the imaginary clumsiness and not inferior even to an ordinary cruiser.

The main structure of the Qin State is made of oak wood from Liaodong, a total of 2,500 high-quality oak trees are consumed, and the keel on the battleship is made of hard but elastic teak splicing, this wood comes from Burma, at that time, neither Liaodong nor Burma was under the control of the loyal army, and it was solved through trade. In fact, this has always been the reason for restricting the development of the navy, because the large forests of the mainland have been cut down in the palaces built by successive dynasties, so from the day the navy was established, the materials for warships have been heavily dependent on Liaodong and Taiwan, and now Dingnan. With the recovery of Liaodong, the navy no longer needed to transport timber and even iron ore from there to Yuzhou Island, as in the past, but only needed to build it locally, thus saving a lot of costs. There was no need to even move shipbuilders from Haizhou, there were ready-made shipyards in Liaodong, which were used by the Manchus to build rice-carrying ships, with thousands of skilled shipwrights from Shandong and Beizhili.

Now, the construction of naval warships has slowly shifted to Liaodong, as for Haizhou, in the future, I am afraid that it will only be a supplement to the naval shipyard, unless a hundred years later, the navy's timber forests planted on both sides of the official road can be cut down, maybe at that time, Haizhou will become the navy's shipbuilding center again.

Perhaps, for the thousands of shipbuilders in Yuzhou, the loss of the vast majority of the navy's orders is not good news, but for the fleet, the construction of warships in Liaodong means lower costs and more warships.

"Qin Guo" is just a very ordinary first-class battleship, although it is now the largest battleship in the world, but don't forget, we still have "Qi Guo", and in the future, more first-class ships will be built, one is only 320,000 taels, if you move to Liaodong, the cost can be controlled within 300,000 taels, perhaps, we can build more first-class ships, of course, there will be more powerful warships than the "Warring States class". ”

"Will there be a more powerful warship than the" Sengoku class "? ”

The Admiral's answer made Zhu Ke ask in surprise.

"I don't think it's possible! You know, it has 102 cast iron cannons and 2 short heavy guns. A single salvo fired by a ship can fire a half-ton shell, which is enough to destroy a warship, how can there be a more powerful warship than it? ”

"Who knows? Maybe in Shi Si's mind, there is already a more perfect warship, you know, in his opinion, the "Warring States class" is not perfect. ”

Of course, Sun Mingzu's words were more ridiculous, after all, as we all know, the "Warring States Class" was designed by the king himself, and it can be said that it is an extremely perfect warship. In contrast, Shi Si is a bit of an "eye-catcher", and he doesn't seem to have any successful works except for the successful design of a dhow and a two-deck 48-gun cruiser. That's why everyone spoke in such a ridiculous tone, but when Lin Ming, who was standing on the side, heard these words, as a student of Shi Si, he naturally didn't want the teacher to be so sarcastic, so he defended.

"The Sengoku class is not perfect, and it also has its flaws, for example, in order to lower the center of gravity, the heaviest guns of the "Sengoku class" are mounted on the lowest gun deck. One of the problems that arises from this is that when a battleship is sailing in the wind and waves, the portholes of heavy artillery are the most easily flooded by seawater. But in naval battles, broadside heavy naval guns are often the difference between victory and defeat. So many times the sailors braved the strong winds and waves to load gunpowder and projectiles, and then opened the porthole, pushing a heavy ship gun to the porthole to fire, and if the wind and waves were a little stronger, its lowest porthole could not even be opened to prevent surges, which also meant that in many cases, the heaviest guns could not be used. ”

Lin Ming's words made everyone stunned, this is indeed a fact, especially in the process of the battleship's voyage to the South China Sea for sea trials, it has been poured into the cabin by seawater more than once, and for this reason, the porthole can only be closed in many cases.

"Well, there is indeed such a problem, but the three-deck battleship plays an irreplaceable central role in both actual combat and deterrence against the enemy, and don't forget that as soon as we go to the South Seas, we force the Dutch to withdraw their reinforcements to Batavia."

The proud words came out of Sun Mingzu's mouth, this kind of victory of the soldiers who surrendered without a fight is incomparable to ordinary victories, and this victory is brought by the "Warring States class", and now the Loyal and Righteous Army Navy Division has two "Warring States class".

"You see how huge this battleship is, now we have two, in a few years, we will build more warships, seven, ten, even a dozen, maybe even more, for Westerners, they can't see that the lower porthole can't be opened in the waves, what do they see?"

After a slight pause, Sun Mingzu stared at the sea and smiled proudly.

"What they see is a giant that cannot be shaken!"