Jiangnan Shipyard, as a rising star of the naval shipyard, from the assembly of admiral-class battleships to the self-construction of Chang'an-class battleships, a full 10 years of technology accumulation, coupled with the increasing consolidation of Shanghai's position as a financial center in the Far East, the shipyard has obtained a more favorable talent attraction than Beihai Shipyard, which directly led to the rapid rise of Jiangnan Shipyard as a new leader in the naval shipbuilding industry.

Originally, according to the naming rules of Chinese battleships, the name of this new battleship that was about to lay the keel should be promoted or more powerful Tang class, but, to everyone's expectation, Qin Kai seemed to have broken this naming rule very decisively, but gave the new battleship a louder name - Dreadnought class!

Standing next to the huge dry dock in the Huangpu Wharf of Jiangnan Shipyard, as the large gantry crane driven by the steam engine slowly sank the first main keel weighing 130 tons to the bottom of the 30,000-ton dock, Qin Kai still couldn't help but feel proud of the large number of young engineers and technicians here who were unknown and dedicated.

The core R&D team of Jiangnan Shipyard presided over the design and construction of the Dreadnought-class battleship, with Qingying and Hu Changchang as partners, and cooperated tacitly from the beginning of the construction of the Shang-class battleship, while the Han-class battleship used a 40-page steam turbine built by Nanyang Heavy Industry for the first time, and finally achieved very satisfactory design results.

"Prime Minister, Lao Hu and I have made a new layout for the structure of the Han-class battleship in the bilge of the battleship, and we have made many calculations, and the boiler room protected by 300mm armor in the bilge is enough to fit 28 new BH99 kerosene co-fired boilers...... If you can consider cutting part of the armor belt. We think. It is also possible to install 4 more boilers! "I saw that Qin Kai was very concerned about the start of construction of this new warship. Qing Ying, the chief designer on the side, can't wait to show off the power part he is most passionate about.

In order to push the new warship with a design displacement of an astonishing 22,000 tons to a high speed of 24 knots, these two have put a lot of effort into the BH99 kerosene hybrid boiler, which was just finalized by Nanyang Heavy Industries at the beginning of the year, but it can be described as an epoch-making product, the first time to adopt a number of new Beihai Machinery Plant new technologies such as water walls and superheaters, the most important thing is obviously the new design of mechanized fuel nozzles and room-fired boilers.

The previous combustion method of feeding coal into the coal by crushing coal grates was completely eliminated from the boilers of battleships and replaced by them. Mechanically ground pulverized coal and liquid fuel oil are injected into the boiler combustion chamber for maximum combustion efficiency.

Earlier, when Wu Tianlin, a senior engineer of Nanyang Heavy Industries, introduced the kerosene mixed combustion boiler to Qin Kai, Qin Kai had actually noticed the small problems of this type of boiler, and the use of nozzle technology greatly improved the combustion speed and combustion value......

However, on the whole, compared to earlier models of grate coal-fired boilers. The BH99 boiler has made amazing progress in steam pressure, water circulation efficiency, and heating surface, and cooperates with the 40-page steam turbine of Nanyang Heavy Industries Guangzhou Steam Turbine Factory. The power engineers reported to Qin Kai that 28 boilers could provide a huge power of no less than 70,000 horsepower!

70,000 hp...... This number still surprised Qin Kai, the source of the speed of the battleship naturally comes from the boiler and engine, the first Han-class battleship to install a steam turbine, in fact, due to its identity as a test ship of the Northern Fleet, did not pursue the limit of power, but it has also easily thrown a high speed of 24 knots, and although the tonnage of the Dreadnought-class battleship has been enlarged by 4000 tons, the achievements of domestic marine power, although it comes from the steam turbine technology cultivated by itself in Nanyang Heavy Industry, but the improvement and growth rate of technology, Or let him feel the huge boom on the industrial front.

And the achievement of this ship power has obviously completely surpassed the performance of the main European warships in this era, which makes Qin Kai can't help but pop up the concept of "high-speed battleship" in his mind, Britain's latest "Dreadnought-class" battleship because it still uses a four-expansion steam engine, although the British Empire's strong basic industrial capacity has stuffed 30% more boilers into the hull than in history, and the power has also increased by nearly 5000 horsepower, but the speed of the ship has just reached 20 knots,

Chinese warships have always paid attention to the speed of the fleet, and the importance of speed in decisive battles at sea has been greatly reflected in previous wars, and both the Admiralty and the Northern Fleet have conducted in-depth research on this topic, and the final conclusion made Qin Kai have to admire the military enthusiasm of these naval fanatics!

4 knots, as long as it has a speed advantage of 4 knots, under the same attack and defense efficiency, a high-speed maneuverable warship does not need to seize the deadly T-position, it is enough to occupy a favorable position and form a continuous full-fire engagement against hostile targets!

In this case, the 24-knots speed of the Han-class battleship is obviously enough to become a "high-speed battleship" in this era, and this dreadnought-class battleship with 70,000 horsepower and equipped with a more efficient kerosene hybrid pot wheel is obviously an ultra-high-speed battleship of this era, although the speed estimated by a group of designers in Jiangnan Shipyard is only 25 knots, but with the protection ability of 300mm carburized main armor belt and 75mm double-layer horizontal armor, this speed can already be called against the sky!

The emergence of dreadnoughts is obviously much earlier than the original trajectory of history, just when European countries are planning a new naval competition because of the emergence of Han-class battleships, Qin Kai did not suspend the pace of testing and research and development of new domestic warships, only by continuously improving the level and scale of domestic industry, can we truly stand at the peak of the development of the times, in order to free up more time for development!

Premier Qin didn't express his position directly, and several Navy bigwigs who were traveling with him had already rolled their eyes, and these Navy bigwigs, who hadn't eaten fresh meat for two years, naturally had long been eager to see through the Dreadnought-class battleships that Premier Qin personally inspected this time, and the navy spending had been negative for more than two years, and a large part of them were taken around the world by Xu Shoushan's guy.

"Prime Minister, it's almost the end of the year, I think we should add 10 million yuan to the budget for the new year, so that the navy can build four or five new warships of this kind, and then assemble a real fast fleet, which is enough to balance the entire Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean...... When the time comes, when Xu Shoushan comes back, he will just return to the furnace and disassemble all his wasteful and burning old goods! Lu Han leaned over to Qin Kai's side with red eyes and snorted.

However, Qin Kai has no intention of continuing to expand his territory, the land in the north with huge resources has been pocketed, which is enough to provide a foundation for the future development of China for hundreds of years, and the final negotiations in North Australia, Yi Shunding, who is in charge of the promotion, is obviously well versed in diplomacy, and has pushed the Chinese territory of North Australia inland to the barren Lake Mackay area in the middle, and the price paid is the so-called power exchange of the Western Australian territory.

Stopping at the chaotic and difficult to integrate West Asia, and making every effort to develop an economic circle facing the Pacific Ocean, this has long been the overall situation that Qin Kai has laid down, if it weren't for the early landing of the British in Australia, he even considered launching a full-scale war, however, now the barren Australian colony, adopting more docile diplomatic means, is obviously more beneficial to the development of the country, and more importantly, this will buy the most important development time for China to deal with the future war that will change the world!

Therefore, Qin Kai very resolutely rejected the great temptation of building a high-speed dreadnought fleet, but he didn't forget to give these hungry red-eyed navy bigwigs a vaccination, "Gengtang, this dreadnought-class is just a test ship for the Northern Fleet, and the navy will have to worry about it for a few years...... Forehead...... Maybe it's going to be longer! ”

Speaking of this, seeing Lu Han, the chief of the Admiralty, who was about to go berserk, he smiled and patted this guy on the shoulder, "Of course, the entry of a test ship into service in two years, this still has to be guaranteed, and the Admiralty will mainly focus on training, I promise...... The Cabinet will include the construction of a large fleet capable of galloping blue waters in its future armament plans! ”

Wipe...... One in two years! The naval bigwigs have blackened their faces one by one, although almost all the senior admirals of the navy have followed Xu Shoushan to travel around the world, but including the commanders of a large number of warships of the Northern Fleet and the Home Fleet, the one who does not think about bringing these increasingly powerful sea monsters, is Lu Han, who is bent on turning to the Admiralty, in fact, has not run to the Northern Fleet, and the concept of giant ship cannons has been deeply engraved in the bones of this generation of naval people. (Want to know more exciting news about "Industrial China"?) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner, select Add Friends to add an official account, search for "Qidianzhongwenwang", follow the official account, and never miss every update! (To be continued......)