On the National Day of 1846, Lin Hong officially took out the national treasure "Imperial Collection" for large-scale reprinting and distribution to provincial libraries in various provinces for national reading. I don't know if the national treasure he just got played a role, Lin Hong received several pieces of good news the next day.

The first was in the Zulu region of South Africa, where the empire acquired the first colony in South Africa, and although it was only in the form of a concession, Lin Hong saw the gold mines in the Transvaal region beckoning to him.

The second is that Dost Muhammad of Afghanistan in Central Asia has launched an uprising under the support of the empire, and has raised a clear banner to resist the British invasion.

The third is that the Royal Shipyard in Arthur is launching experiments with new ironclad ships. The ironclad ships of this class are tentatively designated as the "Xia" class, and the ironclad ships after that will be named after the historical dynasties of China. The Xia class is a 6,000-ton ironclad ship, which is basically a copy of the earlier Shanghai class, with a main armor thickness of more than 200mm, especially equipped with a newly developed rotating turret and a 230mm caliber battleship main gun. By the completion of this class of ironclad ships, the Royal Navy will fully enter the era of steam ships, and the sail warships will be officially eliminated from the main fleet of the Imperial Navy, either sold to South American countries or transformed into merchant ships and bought by shipping companies as merchant ships, of course, super battleships like 122 guns and several first-class ships will be pulled down for display in the Naval Museum.

The Shanghai-class ironclad ship that was built and launched in Mawei before, with a displacement of about 3,000 tons, is only a small ship in Lin Hong's opinion (compared with a sail battleship or a large ship), Lin Hong positioned the Shanghai-class as a second-class ironclad ship, and the Xia-class was positioned as a first-class ironclad ship, in addition, the Shanghai shipyard also developed a type of shore defense ironclad ship. Although there is no major breakthrough in technology, the mature structural design and accurate strategic positioning make this class of coastal defense ironclad ships almost impeccable in the coastal waters and become the main ship type of the (inland) Yangtze River Fleet.

Compared with the Shanghai class, the Xia class has broken through the problem of rotating turrets in technology, and the rotary turret is a stage in the history of the development of naval guns, and the rotary turret is also known as the open turret. After the development of naval guns from shipside guns to deck rotating guns, especially large-caliber guns, the rotation of guns became a problem. At this time, the electric motor has not yet appeared, and the power on the warship is steam. In order to rotate the naval gun, the hydraulic system was driven by a steam engine and the turret was rotated. Unreliable mechanical properties. A 12-inch naval gun weighs more than 70 tons. It's not easy to turn. Coupled with the fact that the turret armor is hundreds of tons, the reliability of the turret rotation is greatly reduced. Once stuck, the entire battleship lost firepower, and the Shanghai-class could not be built to rotate the turret, so the main gun was rotated in a fixed gun room instead. In the Battle of Singapore, an ironclad ship of the Empire was the gun room of the main gun, which was deformed by the British ship, causing the main gun to get stuck and unable to rotate and fire.

In 1861, during the American Civil War, designer John Erickson designed a unique ironclad ship for the Northern government, which later became known as the "Monitor". It completely abandoned the mast and freed itself from the shackles of sail rigging, and most uniquely, the warship adopted a circular turret that could be turned.

The so-called deck revolving platform is a round turret surrounded by armor, and flat armor is laid on the top, similar to a steel "can", in which artillery is arranged. A set of rotating mechanisms is installed under the turret, which rotates the entire turret, so that the guns in the turret can be "measured from all sides". Its basic feature is that the cannon moves with the battery, that is, the artillery itself does not move, but rotates with the battery.

After the Battle of Lisa, the horizontal formation of the bow against the enemy became the trend, and the design of the batteries along the center line was considered to be unable to make the guns in each rotary platform turn to the bow or stern direction at the same time, and "the front and rear could not fire each other", which did not meet the basic tactical requirements of the bow against the enemy. Later, when the British built the ironclad ship "Inflecil", they improved this, and designed the turret as a horn layout (or oblique battery), with two rotary platforms staggered at a certain angle and placed side by side in the middle of the warship. With this layout, it was possible to fire at the bow and stern of the ship at the same time from two rotating gun emplacements, and it was possible to arrange a compartment between the two sides without worrying about blocking the gun's firing range. Later, the Chinese Navy's ironclad ships "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" used this horn method to arrange the forts.

The use of the deck swivel suddenly increased the steering angle of the warship's guns, and its advantages were obvious compared to the old shipside guns and waist gun house layouts. But as with anything new, it inevitably has some drawbacks. First of all, the deck of the ship is rotated together with the gun belt, the thick armor of the battery itself is already very heavy, coupled with the weight of the large-caliber cannon in the battery, the whole platform is too cumbersome, and the degree of trouble to rotate such a big guy can be imagined, and it is very inconvenient to do it in ordinary times; Secondly, in order to rotate the bulky rotary table, a very complex hydraulic and gear transmission device is provided under the fort, and the whole set of equipment is too cumbersome, and it is easy to cause failure if you are not careful; And because the dead weight of the rotary table itself is too large, once there is a problem with the hydraulic drive device, it will be very difficult to use manpower to rotate the turret; Thirdly, in order to obtain strong survivability, the turret adopts a "stuffy tank" design, which can indeed resist the flying shells, but the smoke caused by the firing of the gun is not easy to dissipate, often after firing a shell, you have to wait for the smoke in the turret to dissipate before reloading and aiming, and the rate of fire of the gun is greatly affected. Moreover, although the circumferential firing range of the artillery installed in this closed turret was greatly increased because it rotated with the turret, the gun doors on the turret were relatively narrow, and the pitch angle of the gun was limited, which was not conducive to attacking targets at high and distant places. In the Egyptian War, the "Inflecil" was greatly troubled by this drawback, and could only sigh in vain when he looked at the enemy fortress on the mountain; The main guns of the Xia class are distributed in two front and rear of the warship, with a total of four 230mm caliber main guns, although they are still equipped with masts, but they do not hinder the firing angle of the main and auxiliary guns. The Xia class has no obvious improvement in speed, only on par with the Shanghai class, but with the Xia class's high 200mm armor, it can completely stand and the ironclad ships that are now under construction by Britain and France. After the Battle of Malacca, ironclad ships dazzled the eyes of the world's navies and began to develop them. Lin Hong attaches great importance to this information, after all, he can build such an invincible warship with the help of the system, and the European and American countries completely rely on their own scientific and technological products, and their warships will have reference significance for the naval development of the Chinese Empire no matter what kind of warships will cause in the end.

Navy ships often enter an era and need to change their appearance. In the era of steam ships, it was necessary to re-determine the naming rules according to the organization of modern ships.

In the end, Lin Hong decided that the first class of battleships such as ironclad ships should be named after the historical figures of each dynasty, such as the first ship of the Xia class named Xia Ji after the tyrant Ji, Ji Zhu (the battle of Xia Zhu to destroy the pig), Bo Mi (the battle of Xia Bo Mi to destroy Han Xun), etc.

Other capital ships at sea shall be named after the name of the province, the name of the provincial capital, the name of the subject country, and the name of the capital of the subject country. Such as Guangdong, Dongwanlu, Hangzhou, etc.

The cruiser is named after the domestic places of interest, such as the Yellow Bird Tower, the West Lake, and the Welcome Song.

Aircraft carriers, although far away, but Lin Hong still gave the names of famous mountains and rivers in China to this type of ship, such as Huangshan, Yangtze River, and Huashan.

Destroyers, this is a type of ship that will be widely used in the future, so there are still many ways to name it, and you can use the names of various places at the city level and county level.

Logistics ships, using the names of mountain ranges, such as Taihang, Kunlun

Lin Hong envisions that in the short term, his Royal Navy will have the 6,000-ton Xia-class and 3,000-ton Shanghai-class as the main warships, and the 1,200-2,000-ton Tetsuki and wood-hulled cruisers as the second-tier combat ships. The steam paddle steamer is used as the logistics supply ship of the navy. It is also equipped with 800-ton to 1,000-ton gunboats (ironwaki, wooden hull) for escort and reconnaissance.

The Admiralty then submitted a five-year naval development plan, planning to deploy six Xia-class, five Shanghai-class, 10 shore-defense ironclad ships, and 10 to 16 gunboats for the Beiyang Navy in the next five years, and the Beiyang Navy will have about six Xia-class, 11 Shanghai-class, and about 29 cruiser-class gunboats. Equip the Nanyang Navy with five Xia-class and thirty-three cruisers and gunboats, and in five years the Nanyang Navy will have the most cruisers of the four fleets. It is planned to purchase six to seven additional cruisers for the Indian Ocean Navy and transfer them to the East African Fleet, and to purchase five to six coastal defense ironclads and about 10 gunboats to be assigned to the Indian Fleet in charge of coastal defense in Burma Province and the protectorate of Bangladesh. In addition, the Admiralty plans to equip the Pacific Navy, which has the largest defense area, with a large number of gunboats and cruisers.

However, there is still a problem with the replacement of ironclad ships, that is, wooden-hulled ships often need more people to carry out * work, taking the Warrior as an example, the first ironclad ship of the British Navy, with a displacement of nearly 10,000 tons, but only 705 people on board. For comparison, a wooden-hulled ship, which is only more than two thousand tons, needs a thousand sailors. At the same time, the navy in the era of ironclad ships will not continue to maintain a super-large fleet, and a fleet of about ten warships is quite a lot, and will not continue to maintain a fleet of hundreds of wooden-hulled ships.

In other words, from any point of view, the Imperial Royal Navy is facing the retirement of a large number of excellent sailors. With the size of the existing or future ironclad fleet, it is normal to cut half of the staff.

Of course, if a battleship becomes a civilian ship, then there will be no need for so many cannons, and the number of gunners will be reduced. Lin Hong knocked on his head, and felt that it was necessary for the Royal Group Shipping Company to recruit retired naval soldiers to face the future naval disarmament. These navies are all good at fighting the wind and waves at sea, far better than the sailors who do not enter the current on civilian merchant ships, and it is better to give full play to their specialties and continue to contribute to China's maritime cause than to let them do other things professionally.

The total number of wooden-hulled sailing ships in service in the Imperial Royal Navy is about two hundred, and a considerable number of them are capital ships of huge size. Some of the capital ships can be converted and upgraded to new ironclad ships (that is, cladding ironclad in the shell), these ships can stay, and the mobile giant ships are not suitable for modification and enter the naval museum, and the modified battleships continue to serve. In addition, the warships that need to be eliminated can be equipped with steam paddle wheels and go directly to the artillery to become merchant ships