"The army has conquered Lushun!"

…… Ten days ago, when the army conquered the 203 heights, they believed that it was only a matter of time before they conquered Lushun, but they did not expect it to be so soon, when the officers were there talking about the recovery of Lushun.

Several generals and officers successively walked into the Navy Ship Administration Office located in the rear of the courtyard of the Admiralty, which is the headquarters of the Navy's warship design and supervision, but there are not many people here at this time, and most of them are in the two shipyards in Ma'anshan or Jiangnan to supervise the construction of the Navy's warships.

"Zhutao, you're weird cold here, what's going on? Didn't turn on the heating? ”

Entering the conference room, Ye Zugui did not feel the heat in the other rooms.

"The heating is broken.".

Shi Tiange said without raising his head.

"You look at my coat. These days, I'm used to wearing a coat indoors. ”

"Broken? Didn't you tell them? ”

Shi Tiange was silent, thinking about this several times, but in the end he forgot that who had anyone's business in the Ship Administration Department, even if he was the director, was very busy now, let alone this kind of thing.

"Sergeant Liu."

Ye Zugui shouted out the door, and after a navy sergeant entered the office, he commanded again.

"You go and inform the logistics department, and ask them to fix the heating in Director Shi's office before this afternoon, if it can't be repaired, the logistics department will be removed, what will they do in the department!"

After that, he turned his head to look at Shi Tiange, this is a rare talent in the Admiralty, the director of the Ship Administration Department, the director of the Navy Shipbuilding, in the eyes of Ye Zugui, he is more important than ten generals, what China lacks most now is his kind of talent, especially this kind of talent who can lead students, the Navy Department of the Navy has been established for half a year, in addition to designing warships, he has trained dozens of shipbuilding supervisors for the Navy.

"Zhutao, blame me for this matter, I haven't repaired it for so long, you are a southerner, you can't stand the cold, ...... turn back"

"Minister, you and Commander Sa are here, I'm afraid it's not for my heating!"

Only then did Shi Tiange put down the pencil in his hand, left the workbench, and personally poured tea for the two generals.

Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing listened to this, smiled at each other, took a sip of tea first, put down the teacup in their hands, and then Ye Zugui looked at Shi Tiange and said.

"Zhutao, let's know something about the Navy's seven-year expansion plan!"

Raise your eyes, if it is someone else, Shi Tiange is afraid that he will cast a look at you as an idiot.

"Minister, I participated in the formulation of the Navy's seven-year expansion plan! Build a large number of light armored cruisers and heavy armored cruisers, as vehicles for cruising the world and training sailors, and then build the main battleship after the personnel and technology are mature, this is still my suggestion! ”

His answer made Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing look at each other, and Sa Zhenbing asked another question.

"I have read your report on the shipbuilding capacity assessment of the two factories in Ma'anshan and Jiangnan, and mentioned that the Jiangnan plant has the ability to manufacture 10,000-ton cruisers after adding equipment, while Ma'anshan has the ability to manufacture 15,000-ton warships!"

"Just ability!"

Shi Tiange looked at these two generals, now the navy is talking about the main battleship, the navy does not have a main battleship, although the two "Zhenhai" class made the navy somewhat stunned, but after all, it is a warship of "war is not war, patrol is not cruise", the ship has served as the main force of the navy since returning to China, so it fell into a kind of embarrassment: as a cruiser, they do not have enough speed, and the enemy cruiser can use the speed to easily get rid of the threat of its heavy artillery; Participating in the decisive battle as battleships, their armor is too thin, and their survivability in high-intensity artillery battles is doubtful; Its heavy guns may work well for fire support, but these are tasks that can be accomplished by cheap gunboats.

They asked if this shipbuilding capability was preparing to build its own warships?

"Although China's modern shipbuilding industry is more ancient than the book, but the accumulation of shipbuilding technology is far inferior to the book, taking Ma'anshan Shipyard as an example, although the equipment is the purchase of first-class shipbuilding equipment, more than 300 technicians, most of them are directly hired from Britain and Germany, these two pieces are nothing, but what about the workers? Among the nearly 6,000 workers, only more than 1,100 workers have more than 10 years of experience in shipbuilding and ship repair, and only 2,000 people have more than 5 years of experience. ”

When answering the questions of the two of them, Shi Tiange wondered in his heart why they had such a problem.

"Minister, the reason why it was originally formulated to focus on cruisers was that in addition to taking into account technical capabilities, more importantly, the number of officers and crew members in the navy was insufficient, so it was proposed to be used as a vehicle for cruising around the world and training sailors, and then build the main warship after the personnel and technology were mature."

Looking at Shi Tiange, Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing listened silently.

"In the Spanish-American War and the Russo-Russian War, the armored cruisers of various countries participating in the war had excellent performance, because of this, for some navies in the rising period, the investment in equipping battleships is expensive, and it may be a good choice to purchase or build armored cruisers with relatively little investment, and it is in line with the development needs of our navy to mainly armored cruisers! And it's not that it will arouse the vigilance of the great powers! ”

"That's the way it is! The development of armored cruisers is indeed in line with the needs of the development of the Navy, but now there is a question: whether the development of armored cruisers meets the needs of the national defense strategy, this question we have to consider! ”

Speaking of this, Ye Zugui's tone was very low, and his expression and words were full of the helplessness of the navy that was unable to resist the enemy in the previous "tariff incident", even now, if that plan is implemented, the navy still needs to "avoid war and protect itself, and stand by to move", and it is impossible for the navy without capital ships to go to sea to seek a decisive battle of the fleet and defend coastal defense.

It is precisely for this reason that the navy showed hesitation when Germany expressed its willingness to sell the "Bismarck" armored cruiser; on the one hand, the "Bismarck" and the "Zhenhai-class" had the same embarrassment of "fighting non-warfare and patrolling instead of patrolling," and on the other hand, it was because the navy did not want to waste precious funds on such embarrassing ships.

"The Navy needs capital warships, at least warships that can fight a decisive battle with capital warships! It doesn't matter what kind of warship! ”

Sa Zhenbing stopped talking, picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea, looking at the silent Shi Tiange.

"The Navy needs a warship for a decisive battle with the main battleship!"

Shi Tiange's mind came to mind that half a month ago, the Naval Intelligence Department had just forwarded a piece of information on the development of the Chinese Navy, and as the first imaginary enemy of the Chinese Navy, the Navy had been paying close attention to the development of the Navy's strength and technology.

"If you really need it, then build a cruiser! In this way, it is easy for the ruling axe to approve it, after all, it is within the plan, and it will not arouse the vigilance of the powers! ”

Shi Tiange continued to add.

"A new warship of about 15,000 tons, equipped with two twin 12-inch turrets, similar in armor to armored cruisers, about 8 inches, although the protection is weak, but the speed is not inferior to that of armored cruisers......"

"Zhutao, you mean to imitate the "sub-armored cruiser" and "ugly armored cruiser" in this book. ”

The two of them glanced at each other, and they could read the joy in each other's eyes, in fact, the purpose of their coming here was to discuss with Shi Tiange whether the Ma'anshan Shipyard had the ability to produce warships similar to the "Zi Armored Cruiser".

"The ...... of the book I can't afford it! ”

Shi Tiange's face had a hint of disdain, he would never copy the design of this warship.

"It's just that this type of armored cruiser is equipped with the same caliber of main guns as a battleship, but in terms of its use, it is still the same as an armored cruiser that fights in concert with a battleship, but I'm talking about a cruiser, not the same concept."

"A battleship that combines the powerful firepower of a battleship with the high mobility of an armored cruiser, and now new technologies such as steam turbines and new boilers provide the possibility of building a new type of battleship. The British Navy once put forward the idea of an "ideal cruiser", which is basically the concept of a cruiser, "fasterthanthestrongest, strongerthanthefastest". ”

"Faster than the strongest, stronger than the fastest."

Sa Zhenbing repeated in Chinese, the last sentence Shi Tiange said.

"That's what the British need, but not what we need!"

Shi Tiange laughed, his heart was very happy at this moment, after all, he had been paying attention to this ideal cruiser as early as England, and now all he needed was to convince them to support him in designing a cruiser.

"Britain's vast overseas colonies needed cruisers, so they wanted a cruiser to hunt down the cruiser with ease, because its main guns allowed it to attack enemy ships before they were within range of the cruiser. And its high speed allows it to hunt down ordinary cruisers, but also evade its nemesis battleship, or attack the opponent's damaged battleship in naval battles, just like himself, only a supporting role...... But that's not what we need, we need warships that can fight the capital ships in naval battles! What we need is not only to be faster than the strongest and stronger than the fastest, but also to adhere to the principle that we must be fiercer and faster than the strongest firepower. Nelson famously said that in the final analysis, naval warfare is a conversation between the two sides with artillery. Whoever has a big mouth and speaks fast will basically win, and the big mouth is the caliber of the artillery, and the fast talk is the rate of fire. Therefore, the cruiser should increase its firepower as much as possible, increase the amount of one throw, and also increase the range, with the help of the most advanced aiming equipment, the actual long-range shelling! ”

"Can we meet the technical requirements?"

Ye Zugui mentioned a thing that he was most concerned about.

"It's nothing more than the difference between fast or slow construction! And the completion of the design will not be possible until at least around July this year. ”

"Perhaps, we can build two and try it out, but the ruling side ,......"

While Sa Zhenbing agreed, he also raised his own concerns, after all, the navy had made a decision not to build capital ships for five years.

"In the name of a cruiser! And now the government is probably more concerned about the upcoming national elections."

(To be continued)