Ever since the Japanese fleet attacked the battleship Wuyishan and fought a naval battle in the waters near Arthur that ended in a draw, the sinking of the battleship Nagato has become a pain in the hearts of the Japanese people. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Eventually, in the early winter of 1832, the Japanese named the third battleship of the Nagato-class as the Nagato again.

At this time, the Japanese Navy had 14 battleships, including the Satsuma class Satsuma and Aki, the Kawachi class Kawachi and Settsu four battleships were relatively old, all of which were battleships ordered from Britain and France when the Japanese Navy was established.

Judging from the data, the Satsuma class battleships and the Hanoi-class battleships are only entry-level battleships, which have been built for a long time, and the tonnage is only 21,000 tons. Battleships of this class have now been completely eliminated by the navy of the British Empire, and the navy of the Ming Empire is still being used only in non-important positions.

Because the Japanese Navy is relatively poor, it can only save and use every bit of combat power, so the Satsuma and Hanoi battleships are still in the Japanese Navy, and they are organized as reserve fleets, and they are generally stationed on the mainland as strategic reserves. The main reason for this was that the speed of these four battleships was too slow to keep up with the speed of the main Japanese fleet.

After getting rid of these four old battleships, the middle force of the Japanese Navy's battleships was four battleships of the Kongo class and two battleships of the Fuso class. There were a total of six battleships in these two classes, and they were the core combat force of the Japanese Navy in the confrontation with the North Sea Division of the Ming Empire.

These battleships weakened their armor and strengthened their superiority in speed. The Japanese Navy had always been apprenticed to the British, and saw speed as an important factor in the fleet's position and victory in naval battles. This is different from the perception of the navy in Germany and the Ming Empire, which felt that thicker armor and higher survival rates were more important.

The Kongo-class battleship is a kind of battleship with "Japanese characteristics" built by Japan with reference to the design of British battlecruisers. It was thicker armored than the battlecruisers that the British valued more, and used the same guns, but reduced its speed.

The main reason for this modification was that Japan did not have the same wealth as the British Empire, so it had to use the battle cruisers for patrol and use as capital ships in decisive battles. This is also a compromise that poor countries have to make, because it has not been tested in real combat, and it is difficult to analyze the effectiveness of this improvement.

In the same way, the Japanese Navy is also trying to develop and try to catch up with the footsteps of a real naval power. Therefore, its new battleships Ise class and Nagato class are all real battleship designs. Both battleships had heavier armor, more advanced engines, and were a little faster.

In order to deal with the absolute numerical superiority of the Ming battleships, the Japanese Navy is still trying its best to improve the combat capability of a single battleship.

They used 356 mm guns on the Ise-class and Fuso-class battleships, which was the same caliber as the guns used by the main battleships of the Ming Empire. However, the Japanese stuffed six twin-mounted main turrets on their battleships in one breath - a full 1.5 times that of the battleships of the Ming Empire!

In this way, the cunning Japanese Navy turned the Ise-class and Fuso-class battleships into a kind of existence that could crush any kind of battleship of the Ming Imperial Navy in terms of firepower. Of course, this design is just a little cleverness of the Japanese themselves, it does not really improve the overall combat capability of the battleship, but is just a perverted choice to increase the density of firepower after paying a huge price.

As mentioned earlier, this design was actually flawed, and the design of the turret that spread densely on every section of the battleship's hull ultimately resulted in the length of the main armor belt. In the end, the entanglement directly caused the evil result of insufficient armor defense of the ammunition depot, and at the same time buried the hidden danger of the layout of the boiler engine room close to the ammunition depot.

Therefore, after the Ise-class battleships, the Nagato-class battleships canceled this design that pursued too much firepower, and returned the design to the mainstream four-seat twin-mounted main turret. However, the Japanese were not willing to compete with the Ming Empire, which was second only to the British Navy in terms of performance, so they were still strengthening the performance of a single battleship.

After a year of renovation, the battleship Mitsu and the newly built battleship Nagato were equipped with larger caliber guns - 410 mm caliber guns! This was already the largest artillery on the sea at that time. However, it is a pity that this project was completed in cooperation with Ceylon, and the volume and recoil of the gun were determined, and Japan could only use it on Nagato-class battleships.

Before the new battleships built by the Ming Empire entered service, Japan preemptively launched a Nagato-class battleship. And the refit of two new Nagato-class battleships was completed. However, there are still only two Nagato-class, two Fuso-class and two Ise-class, and four Kongo-class battlecruisers that can challenge the battleships of the Ming Empire Navy head-on.

Excluding the two Fuso-class battleships that are being repaired and modernized, Japan has only eight battleships that can be handled. And before the new battleship Nagato entered service, Japan had only 7 battleships that could enter the battle sequence.

This is also the reason why after the 5 battleships of the Ming Empire entered active service, the Japanese Navy only had 7 battleships to meet them. However, with the entry into service of the new Nagato battleship, this number has been increased to 8, and the Japanese are still working hard to modify the Fuso-class battleships so that they have the ability to fight against the top battleships of the Ming Empire.

"Your Excellency, Commander...... The number of troops we can gather now is 14 battleships, and the five battleships under construction by the Ming Empire are about to be completed, and we do not have an advantage in terms of overall strength. An officer stood on the bow of the new battleship Nagato, which had just been rushed to completion, and watched as the workers were installing the huge chrysanthemum insignia on the bow of the battleship. Facing the hunting sea breeze, he spoke beside the commander of the Navy's Combined Fleet, Takaichi Togo.

"You're absolutely right, Yagi-kun. If the Ming Empire really dared to concentrate his battleships, the defeat of our Japanese Navy would only be a matter of time......" Togo Kiichi looked at the sea in the distance, as well as the escort cruisers docked on the side, and sighed and said: "The Ming and Japan are not opponents of the same level...... The only reason we were able to get to where we are is is because this giant around us can't concentrate on us. ”

"The army is working hard to build a North Korean defense, and the reinforced concrete and other supplies consumed in a year are simply uncountable. It is hoped that they will be able to withstand the attack of the Ming Empire in future wars...... That would be able to win a chance for our Imperial Japan. He shook his head with a wry smile as he spoke, even he didn't want to believe that once the Ming Empire was fully mobilized, Japan would be able to win the war against the Ming Empire on the Korean Peninsula.

In the coming year, the Japanese Navy will focus on the route between the Japanese mainland and the Korean Peninsula. If this supply line is cut off, then the Korean Peninsula will be deprived of effective external support and will eventually be strangled by the Ming Empire. Almost half of Japan's main forces were involved in the defense of the Ming Empire on the Korean Peninsula, and if these troops were to lose quickly, the Japanese mainland would immediately be in danger of being attacked by the Ming Empire.

So what Togo is thinking about now is how to use his old fleet to compete with the fleet of the Ming Empire, which is also dominated by old-fashioned warships: he has 14 large ships that can be called battleships, and has an absolute numerical advantage over the North Sea Division of the Ming Empire.

However, all this is on the premise that the 5 newly built battleships of the Ming Empire were not all deployed to the North Sea Division. If the Ming Empire really concentrated all 5 new battleships in the North Sea Division, then the local superiority of the Japanese Navy would face new challenges.

Because the new battleships of the Ming Empire are not decorations, but new battleships that have been carefully designed and built: before it appeared, the Japanese even dared to say that their Nagato-class battleships were the most powerful single battleships in this sea area, but the emergence of the new battleships of the Ming Empire completely ended this pride of the Japanese Navy.

The battleships of the Ming Empire have always been named after mountains and rivers, except for Mount Tai, which cannot be selected because of the special status of the Zen sealing ceremony, the rest of the mountains have been occupied. Therefore, in the naming of the Ming Empire, the new ships began to be named after the sea. These five new battleships that have not entered service are the Yellow Sea, Bohai, Beihai, Donghai, and Nanhai. The first battleship to be completed was the Beihai battleship, so the battleships of this class are also called the Beihai class.

Because it was necessary to build a super battleship that crushed the Ceylon and Japanese navies, the Ming Empire also put a lot of thought into this type of battleship: the battleship used four twin-mounted 381 mm caliber main guns, and the armor thickness and tonnage reached the terrifying 40,000 tons - the biggest improvement was that this kind of battleship was the first time that the Ming Empire used heavy oil boilers as the power of the battleship, and the speed was increased to a shocking point.

From the beginning of construction, the Beihai-class battleships inherited the hope of the Ming Empire to surpass the Ceylon Navy and the Japanese Navy and regain hegemony in the ocean. So while using many emerging technologies, we also try to make every detail as perfect as possible. From the very beginning, the entire construction process adopted a strict state of war mobilization production, and every production link was strictly controlled and repeatedly checked. (To be continued.) )