In 1837, at the age of eighteen, Victoria, Lord of Kent, ascended the throne as Queen of England, a position she held until her death in 1901. During the more than 60 years of Queen Victoria's reign, through the efforts of many prime ministers, Britain controlled the global sea power, dominated world trade, and its vast colonies spread across all continents, and the "empire on which the sun never sets" seemed to "be able to compete with the world". In the Victorian period, Britain produced Maxwell, the greatest scientist since Newton, Dickens, the most outstanding scholar since Shakespeare, Gladstone, the pioneer of liberal policy, and Palmerston, the famous diplomat.

It is said that the dominance of the British Empire reached its peak in 1865 at the time of Palmerston's death: "The plains of North America and Russia are our barns; Chicago and Odessa are our mining areas; Canada and the Nordic Peninsula plant trees for us; Australia shepherds our sheep; And Argentina raises cattle for us; Peru sent silver, and South Africa paid tribute gold; Indians and Chinese grow tea for us, and the Mediterranean is our orchard; As for our cotton plantations, we are expanding from the southern United States to all the warmer parts of the planet.

Of course, with the rise of the Chinese Empire, the world was bipolar as it was during the Cold War, but because the geographical location of China and Britain and the current navigation conditions determined that it was impossible for the two countries to engage in a direct head-on conflict, the disputes between the two countries were focused on trade and colonial affairs. China and Britain have colonies all over the world, so the navy is the key to the outcome of both countries. India is the bottom line of the dispute between the two countries, India as the most important British colony for the British Empire to send rich resources and wealth, although China stationed troops north of the Ganges but until the two countries declare war, it will never easily cross the Ganges, now Europe is China's largest commodity export market (the import is the industrial products of the European continent), once Britain cuts off the trade routes between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to start a war, the empire's economy will be seriously tested, More than two decades of industrialization were not enough to officially transform China's vast empire.

But it is still possible for China to concentrate its efforts on one thing, whether it is the two bombs and one satellite of later generations or the current imperial navy.

Around 1865, the Imperial Navy was almost modernized, and all sail warships were either in museums or converted into merchant ships. The empire now has four major navies: the North Ocean, the South Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean, plus the Egyptian fleet and the Atlantic Fleet, a total of nine fleets, a total of 32 main ironclad ships, 47 cruisers, more than 70 gunboats, 13 main ironclad ships, 8 cruisers, and the rest of the gunboats under construction. The total tonnage is more than 450,000 tons, second only to the United Kingdom. The British began to frantically expand their navy after passing the naval budget bill in 1844 in order to suppress the Imperial Navy, and by 1865, the British Imperial Navy had a total global tonnage of 517,000 tons, with 41 ironclad ships and more than 70 cruisers of various types, followed by France in 1865, and France had 20 ironclad ships by 1865, with a total tonnage of 400,000 tons. The world's navy triumvirate is proud of the others, and Russia, Austria, and Ottomans, who are behind the queue, are pulled away.

The navy as a high-tech service, in addition to the warhead of the major fleets, there is also the most important logistics department, and the most important of this is the naval academy system, "people" has always been the key to weapons and equipment, whether it is the army or the navy, since the establishment of the imperial navy, the construction of the academy has always been the top priority of naval construction, for this reason Lin Hong also specially sent people from Britain, France and other countries to hire retired naval officers to serve as lecturers, at the beginning of the hiring of foreign naval lecturers to teach, once caused protests from the military department, but Lin Hong still insisted, Maybe the strength of the current imperial navy is enough to make the empire a naval power, but compared with Britain, France and even Spain, the Chinese navy still lacks one thing, that is, the heritage of a naval power, which cannot be learned, it takes time, Lin Hong just hopes that the naval academy will learn their temperament and attitude from these foreign lecturers, and the self-confidence that a naval power should have, not that they are not confident now, but what Lin Hong wants is the kind of arrogance that the navy should have is arrogance and nothingness.

Since 1843, the empire has successively opened naval universities in Mawei, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shanghai, Keelung, Pontianak, and in 1850, Dalian Naval University and Vladivostok Naval University were opened. Ninety percent of these academy members entered the Imperial Navy, and the remaining one percent were mostly recruited by major consortia to their respective ocean-going fleets, and there were many complaints about the navy, after all, the students they trained turned out to run business, which made people feel angry, but Lin Hong didn't care, China's lack of maritime talents has a long history, and the navy did not have so many warships for these newly graduated guys to fiddle with, and this part of the students flowed to the trade fleet not close to help strengthen the development of China's maritime trade, What's so bad about these trainees getting the lessons of ocean voyages?

In addition to the formal naval academy, there are major consortiums to invest in the construction of the merchant marine academy is also in full swing, the royal consortium in Tianjin, Shandong and other places to open more than five shipping schools, and by the shipping started by the Zhejiang consortium is more active, by 1870 the Zhejiang consortium in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Fujian, Mawei, Quanzhou, Keelung and other places built more than 13 marine schools.

Of course, if you have people, you have to have ships, and Lin Hong's shipyard was built with the help of the system at the beginning, which is typical of how fast and easy to save. By 1870, the empire had eleven large shipyards (important cities such as Tianjin and Shanghai or strategic cities such as Mawei, Singapore, and Vladivostok). It has a number of 10,000-ton dry docks, a total of 24 medium-sized shipyards, generally building warships or merchant ships with a displacement of about 5,000 tons, small shipyards because of their low cost and quick results and suitable for domestic trade needs at that time in the coastal areas There are nearly 60 of them, these small shipyards generally produce some orders for merchant ships to run the South Seas and undertake the navy's inland gunboats, of course, the powerful shipyards began to undertake some foreign orders, such as a Li shipyard in Zhoushan, The design of this shipyard was also analysed by the technical department of the Navy, which was not well known but had won orders for Argentine river gunboats, and in addition to their cost advantages, their designs were more suitable for the hydrological environment of the Brahmaputra River basin than their foreign and domestic counterparts.

Warships can be said to be the essence of science and technology in this era, and the fields involved in the design and construction of a warship are not inexhaustible, such as structural mechanics, physics, mathematics, navigation, dynamics, fuel science, chemistry, architecture, etc., and the cost of warships is high because of the long construction period and the large manpower required.

At the beginning, all the drawings of the warship were bought by Lin Hong from the system, and the design was perfect and the structure was clear. And now the capital ships of the empire are basically designed by the Naval Ship Design Institute, and there are some small shortcomings in many aspects, and even misunderstandings, but they also witness the development and rise of the Chinese Navy.

For example, a new type of Tornado-class cruiser is now being built at the Mawei Shipyard, this warship is very distinctive, yes, it is relatively different from the current cruisers in service in the Empire, this Tornado carries four chimneys, although the appearance looks strange (the technology of the three-expansion reciprocating steam engine is not yet mature, and it still uses an old-fashioned steam engine), but it does not stop the Admiralty's enthusiasm for this warship. The reason is very simple, the design speed of this warship reaches 19.3 knots, which is far from the current stage of the cruiser's 16 and 17 energy saving ratio, of course, the pursuit of high speed must pay a price, the price is that the armor of this cruiser is so thin that an old gun of 120 mm caliber can penetrate it, and because it has four chimneys, its bomb area is larger and easier to be concentrated, and his armament is reduced from the original twin 150 mm caliber to 120 mm caliber because of the pursuit of speed, and the multiplier diameter has also been reduced from 40 times to 35 times the caliber. In Lin Hong's opinion, such a ship is basically useless except for running to the fast to be a notification ship for the fleet, of course, it is very suitable to escort the merchant fleet, basically it is the military expenditure to develop a type of civilian ship, but many new technologies have also been concentrated on this ship, such as the high pole and flying scissors, and the elimination of the ramming angle makes him look more like a modern ship. So Lin Hong didn't stop it, in his opinion, this is a detour that every naval country must go through, like France's green water navy and Russia's disc warships, it is really such a mistake that makes these naval powers constantly sharpen themselves and succeed. As long as it is not a strategic deviation, Lin Hong basically does not ask about the affairs of the navy