In the opinion of the three giants of the Beiyang Naval Division, the main guns of the Jingyuan and Laiyuan should be ranked first, followed by the new rear open front battery for the second ship of Given Town.

However, after Li Hui's estimate, he found that the sum of these two expenditures could almost spend all the remaining funds, so he resolutely opposed such a loser's approach, and vigorously pushed his own more cost-effective "updated gun mount plan", "The theoretical fastest rate of fire of the main gun in Dingzhen is 1 round in 3 minutes, and I am afraid that it is not easy to even 1 round in 4 minutes in actual combat, but if it is replaced by the Vavisel gun carriage used in the main and auxiliary guns of the Zhijing 2nd ship, it can easily hit a rate of fire of more than 1 round in 3 minutes even under actual combat conditions, and if it is replaced with a smokeless propellant pack, The firing interval can be shortened by nearly 1 minute, that is, 1 round in 2 minutes, which has reached the advanced level of 12-inch naval guns in the world. The rate of fire of the 210 mm and 150 mm naval guns with the Wavisel gun mount does not need to be introduced, but it is on the Zhiyuan and Jingyuan, and everyone has seen it. Such a rate of fire coupled with the power of a large caliber, even if it is not comparable to the real rapid-fire guns of the same grade (such as the 210mm retiring gun corresponding to the 150mm rapid-fire gun), the gap has been greatly narrowed, the key is that such a transformation is far less expensive than directly changing the gun! ”

Li Hui estimated that the more than 400,000 taels of silver were barely enough to re-install the front battery for the main gun and the given town after the installation of Jinglai, and because the rapid-fire gun must use a smokeless firing powder pack to give full play to its advantages, this is a large expense, so in fact, the two ships in Dingzhen can only be modified with one, that is, at most, only 6 150mm rapid-fire guns can be added.

And if this silver is used to buy the Avaisel gun mount, it is enough to buy all the old gun mounts (8 305mm, 1 260mm and 9 150mm) on the Beiyang Naval Division. There is still silver left over after all of them, enough to buy a base smokeless propellant pack for each gun, and even if the impact of a single shot on the ability to damage is not made public, it is obvious which option is more cost-effective.

Data doesn't deceive, Liu Buyun and the others were quickly persuaded by Li Hui, but they still had some doubts in their hearts and had to say, "Dongyang, do you mean to use this silver to replace the old cannon with the Vavisel gun carriage, and then buy a base smokeless medicine pack for each cannon (including Zhijing and Chaoyang, who don't need to change guns)?" The price is about the same, but we haven't used the smokeless medicine pack before, so we have to train specially, right? How is this one base enough? And isn't the maroon medicine bag that I bought earlier a base wasted? ”

Liu Junmen can rest assured that the launch power of the smokeless medicine bag is exactly the same as the maroon medicine bag used by the navy before, and it can be used directly as a chestnut medicine bag. This is also to take care of our old guns, really use a full-charge smokeless medicine pack, even if it does not explode, the life of the body tube will inevitably be greatly shortened, then we can't afford it. As for the problem of the surplus of maroon powder packs, just let the family send another base coach bullet, anyway, this is not worth much", Li Hui's words dispelled the doubts of the three giants of the Beiyang Naval Division, plus the venture capital company also stated in the contract that if the performance of the smokeless medicine bag is significantly different from the original maroon medicine bag, it can be refunded in full, and the transaction with a total amount of more than one million taels of silver was finally finalized, although this batch of goods was not delivered to the Weihaiwei base until the end of the sea parade in May 1894, But in China at the end of the 19th century, this was a rare level of efficiency

During this period of time, Li Hui has researched and completed the key technology of "armored cruiser", so that the system can be used to produce the perfect armored cruiser that has just appeared in the world, although the optional models only include those built and put into service before 1900 in history, such as the Garibaldi-class armored cruiser in Italy, but it is more than enough to deal with those warships currently in service in the world.

And if the target is only a protective cruiser that does not even have waterline armor, with the overwhelming superiority of the perfect type of patrol in firepower, especially defense, it will definitely win one against four, or even one against five.

And judging from the example of the historical Russo-Japanese naval battle of Tsushima, before the armor-piercing shell was applied, the 6-inch thick Krupp hardened armor was enough to completely immune to the attack of the 12-inch caliber cannon in actual combat, so the current armored cruiser actually has almost no inferior defensive power to the battleship, and the ineffective blasting shell caused the blasting shell to wash the deck became the mainstream tactic, which weakened the firepower advantage of the large-caliber naval gun a lot.

Therefore, compared with the battleships of the same time, the defense and firepower of armored cruisers are not much different, but the speed is a cut faster and the cost is much cheaper, which is much more cost-effective.

In fact, the armored cruisers in the past ten years in history can be called BUG ships, and there is still a lack of deep-water ports in China that can berth former dreadnought battleships, so it is not surprising that Li Hui temporarily shelved the research of "former dreadnought" technology and chose "armored cruisers".

Of course, even a large armored cruiser (a standard row of less than 5,000 tons is not enough to give full play to the advantages of this ship type, and even if it is such a boutique as Admiral Shire, the cost performance cannot be compared with that of a large armored cruiser that has achieved a qualitative change. The cheapest Garibaldi-class, the first ship in history, is also sold for as much as 680,000 pounds, about more than 4 million taels of silver, even if Li Hui asks venture capital companies to discount it, Beiyang still can't afford it.

Even after the First Sino-Japanese War, Beiyang received emergency appropriations, taking into account the expenses for the maintenance of warships and pensions during the war, Beiyang still could not pay the huge amount of money for the purchase of ships.

In the final analysis, the reason why Li Hui researched this technology was only to use it as a backhand to deal with the sudden purchase of ships by the Japanese army to strengthen its strength, and if the strength invested by the Japanese side in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle did not change much compared with history, then the combat strength of the current Beiyang Naval Division alone would be enough to defeat the Japanese Combined Fleet.

In this regard, after watching the naval parade held not long after, Li Hui's confidence was further strengthened

Since the situation in North Korea was becoming increasingly tense at this time, Li Hui suggested that certain reforms should be made to the projects and procedures of the Grand Parade to make them closer to the requirements of actual combat and more scientific in design.

Taking target shooting as an example, the target ship is no longer fixed, but is towed by the Zhiyuan or Jingyuan at the fastest speed, in order to simulate the four high-speed cruisers of the Japanese Navy, and the firing distance is no longer the exaggerated 5,000 meters, but is replaced by 2,000 meters, which is more in line with the actual combat situation (by the way, it also avoids the second ship of Zhijing being accidentally injured).

At the same time, in order to eliminate the influence of luck as much as possible and accurately reflect the gunnery training status of each ship, it is also to take advantage of the relatively greater psychological pressure during the Great Parade to carry out a special intensive training, and each naval gun in the Great Parade has to fire half a base number of shells.

In this way, even if the shooting of the secondary artillery is omitted, the time for the artillery drill will still be greatly extended, and the original part of the tactical drill can only be cut to the point that it can no longer be cut, and it will be over after just a formality.

However, this is exactly what Li Hui originally planned, considering the pervasiveness of Japanese spies, only by doing so can the tactics of the third division of the Beiyang Navy Division be kept secret to the greatest extent