Li Hongzhang was shocked by the sudden change of face between Britain and Germany, but the order had been signed, and he had to pay liquidated damages if he wanted to return it. Although he was extremely angry at the backlash between the two countries, fortunately, the British destroyer cost very little, and the German side did not have to pay cash, and it still had enough money to continue to find the warships that could be bought.

Although the Japanese were dissatisfied with the fact that the two warships they had bought enough to fight the Dingzhen II could not return to China immediately, at least it was a good thing for them that these two ships did not fall into the hands of the Qing State.

On the surface, the Japanese now have one more ship, and their strength has greatly increased, but in fact, they are still helpless against the Dingzhen 2nd ship.

The Beiyang Naval Division is now sinking the Jiyuan, and its strength has been damaged, but considering Fang Boqian's escape behavior in Dadonggou, in fact, the Jiyuan is not considered a combat force. And now Jiyuan and Fang Boqian don't have to bear the infamy of escaping from the battle, although their last desperate resistance is just a helpless move to be forced to be in a hurry.

Moreover, the warships in the Beiyang are also stronger than in history, so the strength of the two sides has not changed much, and the result should not deviate too much from the original history.

As for weakening Japan, Jochen did not think about it at all from the beginning.

If Japan had won a crushing victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan would not have inflated itself enough to dare to challenge Russia; If Japan could not obtain the 200 million taels of reparations after the great victory, it would not have enough capacity to build a naval fleet sufficient to challenge Russia; If Japan had not had both courage and strength, he would not have been entitled to the support of the British; The absence of British support would affect his confidence in challenging Russia.

And Russia has always been Germany's heart disease, although Wilhelm II has many problems in the implementation of policies and foreign speeches, but the starting point is basically correct, and his advocacy of the Yellow Peril theory is not that he really believes in the Yellow Peril, but in order to turn Russia's attention to the Far East. For this purpose, Germany vigorously supported and indulged in Russia's issue against Japan.

Naturally, Japan must not be weakened too much now, otherwise no one will be able to deal with Russia in the future.

But in fact, it is not right to say that this is Jochen's support for Japan, 800,000 pounds to buy two Oldenburg-class to go back, without these two ships the Japanese can win the first Sino-Japanese war. But what good can it be in the Russo-Japanese War? £800,000 plus a little money is enough to buy a Fuji-class.

However, the German government naturally turned a blind eye and acquiesced in allowing merchant ships to depart from the Mediterranean Sea to carry out a shipload of arms from the Austrian Army warehouse.

In order to realize the replacement of the Austrian Army, the major arms companies in Germany are making every effort to produce German-style equipment, and the original Austrian arms companies have also begun to change production, so there are now a large number of weapons in Austrian warehouses that were originally withdrawn from the Austro-Hungarian army.

Historically, in 1894, the Qing Dynasty purchased more than 45,000 rifles of various types from Germany, 8,000 Austrian rifles, and 10,000 Belgian rifles. There were 10,000 French rifles and 24,000 British rifles, but no more than 20,000 new smokeless powder rifles were among these firearms

Germany said that the Austro-Hungarian new smokeless powder rifle Manlisha M1886, which had been withdrawn in large quantities, had a large stock and could be shipped out of the port of Pula at any time, and the Qing government immediately asked for it.

In addition to rifles, a small number of small and medium-caliber artillery pieces were also purchased by the Qing Dynasty, and these weapons were sold through middlemen. It is much faster to ship to China through private channels than to buy from other countries piecemeal.

But it's all about the Army. The Navy doesn't care how much the Army can get out of it. Now the attention of the top brass of the Navy was all about the new shipbuilding program of 1895.

The design of the new battleship and destroyer has long been finalized and is waiting for the start of construction. But now Jochen and his fellow Navy guys are hesitant to stare at the design of an armored cruiser.

"Sigfried, tell me, how did you come up with this design?" Jochen said with some eagerness that this time was due to the war in the Far East. Jochen didn't pay attention to Popper's work, and as a result, the Admiralty knew about the design before he did.

"Yes, Your Highness, that's right." Poper began to elaborate on the origin of the design: "I've been thinking about it since I talked to you last time. How to meet the firing of 6 main guns on the side of the side with as little weight rise as possible, while using all turret design.

The most direct way is to adopt a decentralized layout on the central axis according to the main gun arrangement of the Brandenburg class, but the location of the ground shaft and ammunition depot of one of the main guns in the middle will affect the layout of the power compartment.

In addition, in order to use the main gun with a gun silhouette and not let the secondary gun position be pressed too low, I adopted a long bow design, which can be seen in the original design. ”

Speaking of this, Poper paused for a moment, and after receiving an affirmative answer, he continued: "In this case, there is a difference in height between the No. 2 and No. 3 turrets, so move the No. 2 turret back and use the upper deck drop of the bow tower to stack the two stern turrets on top of each other, so that the space in the middle can be freed up and the deck space can be saved." ”

That's right, Jochen was in front of him with a groundbreaking design of a 3-seater twin 210mm gun with a long bow and a rear piggyback on the central axis.

Coming up with this design is obviously not just a flash of inspiration as Poper said, and the center of gravity shifted backward, the structural strength change, and a series of other problems brought about by the concentration of the two turrets of the piggyback guide zhì are not just as simple as changing the position of the turret.

Jochen wasn't without thought about adopting a piggyback layout early, but he was conservative about whether the designers could solve the problems that came with adopting this design, but now Pooper had a big surprise for him.

Of course, such a design is not acceptable to everyone.

Rear Admiral Hoffman, commander of the First Cruiser Fleet, was the first to put forward his opinion, after all, the new cruiser would be attached to his fleet after it was completed: "The two main guns are concentrated in the rear, so that there are only two forward fire, and I have seen your other design, if you use the main gun, you have four forward firepower, and the weight of the four guns is lighter than one turret, so I don't see the advantage of this design." ”

"I learned that the latest twin turret that Krupp is working on is electrically driven, which has advantages over the old steam-powered drive in both rotation and lifting. And if a single-mounted gun profile is used, it is obvious that such an efficiency cannot be achieved.

Secondly, the four main guns in the middle gun frame are all on the side side, which is greatly affected by the roll of the hull, so it is not as good as the full center line arrangement. And although it lacks forward firepower, it is the most effective against the enemy on the side side. Moreover, the main gun is installed in the gun profile, so the secondary gun will inevitably descend to the deck, and too close to the sea surface will also affect the use of the secondary gun. "Popper has a lot of confidence in his design.

In fact, it's not just the efficiency problem that Poper said, when the Dadonggou is finished, everyone begins to line up in a straight formation, and at that time the bow is really of little significance to the enemy.

Moreover, the bow can generally be used against the enemy in pursuit, but in the case of pursuit, both sides are sailing at full speed, and the projection of the width of the hull is far smaller than the projection of the length, and the error caused by the ranging is greater, and the hit rate of both sides can be described as a tragedy, so the pursuit of forward firepower is undoubtedly inappropriate.

"Two-thirds of the main guns are facing backwards, isn't that a good design for escaping, which is very demoralizing. A graceful battleship can make a soldier feel high-spirited, and an escaped battleship can imagine the impact on the soldiers' feelings. ”

This is true, but in today's technology, beauty can only give way to technology.

"Placing the main guns in the middle, as Brandenburg did, not only affected the power system arrangement, but also affected the firing range of the main guns in the middle, and now all the guns are arranged in the rear, so it will not be affected.

Of course, theoretically, it is possible to move the main gun forward to form a bow piggyback, but in order to form a backpack, the position of the main gun needs to be further heightened, not only to increase the weight of the turret seat, but also to increase the bridge accordingly, so as to avoid being blocked by the front turret from the forward view.

This will lead to a sharp increase in weight, and the hull will naturally have to be enlarged accordingly to bear such a weight, which will lead to an increase in tonnage and an increase in price, which is not a big problem.

The real problem is that the center of gravity of the ship rises and moves forward, and the center of gravity moves forward, which may lead to a larger draft in the front than in the rear, which will affect the high-speed navigation performance of the hull, and the rise of the center of gravity will lead to a decrease in the stability of the hull, increase the roll period, and even lead to capsizing. ”

"That's true, the tail piggyback type maximizes performance with minimal weight and structural impact, if you follow the arrangement of the battleship, the main turret in the middle is only about 70 degrees on both sides, if you move to the stern, although the firing angle to the front has not changed, but it can have an extra 110 degrees of firing range to the rear, which is obviously a reasonable design, I think performance is more important than aesthetics at this time." Jochen spoke for Poper.

"So Your Highness, you mean that the next class armored cruiser adopts this design?" Muntz asked.

"No, the next stage still uses the design of the main gun." Jochen gave an answer that surprised everyone.

"Your Highness, you seem to appreciate this design, why don't you adopt her?" Muntz asked curiously.

"This design represents a direction, but there are some problems. First of all, the concentration of ammunition depots brought about by such a design, I think the original protection standards cannot meet the demand, and better protection will inevitably lead to an increase in tonnage.

In addition, due to our current technical limitations, the length of the propeller shaft affected the arrangement of the main guns, and Sigfried's design was achieved by placing the rear main turret as close to the stern as possible, which had an impact on the linearity of the hull as well as the stern structure.

So I think it's not yet ripe for this design to be realized at the moment, and instead of forcing it now, it's better to wait for the new cruiser to provide us with more experience and more mature technology before trying it. To be on the safe side, Jochen decided to put this forward-thinking design on hold for now. (To be continued......)