Lin Haijiang is not particularly worried about the British side's sale of warships to the Qing court Beiyang for the time being, because even if Beiyang gets these warships to form combat effectiveness, it is still far from his own imperial fleet, especially the seven warships he returned to China this time, especially the two Dragon-class capital ships.

The British sell other [***] ships are required to pay for a one-time surname, and the ships sold to you are often worse than their own ships of the same class, Lin Haijiang knows that with the habits of the British, they will definitely cut corners when building warships for export, for example, the armor does not meet the actual thickness standard, according to the British, the warships sold to you must be able to penetrate our British warships of the same class, did the British sell the battleships to the Qing court Beiyang cut corners? Lin Haijiang is not completely sure of this, after all, these warships are temporary resolutions made by the British Parliament when they are about to be built.

However, this time, the British took the initiative to greatly reduce the price of the warships sold by the Qing court, and from this point of view, it seems that the British have changed their previous strategy.

However, it is absolutely unexpected for Lin Haijiang to be able to get two dragon-class capital ships, it can be said that these two warships are the culmination of the Prussian shipbuilding industry, and it can be said that the whole world's warship system has triggered a revolution across surnames due to the warship design used by Lin Haijiang's Chinese Imperial Fleet, and the honor-class and glorious-class armored protection cruisers have become typical warships that countries around the world compete to follow.

The power system of the Sovereign-class battleship includes two three-cylinder vertical three-expansion steam engines, three-shaft and double rudders, while the Dragon class uses four double-cylinder vertical three-expansion steam engines, and the design of two-shaft and double-rudder is corrected and thickened at the main keel, and the problem of too large tilt of the side sharp turning angle of the Sovereign-class is changed, but it is a pity that due to the problem of machining precision, Therefore, the speed of the Dragon class is about three knots slower than the maximum speed of the Sovereign class.

The armor protection of the Sovereign class also set a new standard for contemporaneous battleships, with the main armor belt on the side of the board about 77 meters long and 2.64 meters high, of which 1.52 meters extends below the waterline, and the main armor belt in the middle of the side is 457 mm thickest at the thickest point, which is more ideal and reasonable for the protection of the Dragon class than the Sovereign class.

Historically, the Sovereign class is a basic example of a pre-dreadnought battleship, as evidenced by the fact that its basic design was adopted by the world's major naval powers. White's epoch-making design greatly advanced the evolution of battleships and allowed Britain to be far ahead of its rivals in capital ship development, a superiority that was only challenged many years later. The Sovereign class occupies an important place in the history of the development of naval battleships in the world.

This is also the main reason why Lin Haijiang adopted many Sovereign-class designs on the basis of meeting the level of industrial manufacturing, and the new design is not necessarily suitable for the warship, which has extremely high requirements for the overall balance of the weapon carrier, the Sovereign-class battleships are mainly deployed in the Mediterranean Sea and mainland waters after they are put into service, and the Sovereign-class battleships have never been deployed in Asia in history.

Lin Haijiang clearly remembered that in history, when the Sovereign-class battleship was built, it was equipped with 4 343 mm caliber MK2BL main guns, with a total weight of 67 tons and breech loading. With 10 MK4 152.4 mm rapid-fire guns, 12 57 mm and 47 mm rapid-fire guns, and 7 406 mm torpedo tubes, including 2 underwater broadside tubes, 4 overboardside tubes and 1 stern tube, it can be said that the Sovereign-class battleship was a weapon-carrying platform, although this design did not change until the beginning of the twentieth century.

At this point, the Dragon class abolished the configuration of sub-caliber guns, and the dreadnought in the usual sense has two meanings, in a narrow sense, referring to the British battleship Dreadnought launched in 1905.

In a broad sense, and in many cases, it refers to the all-heavy artillery battleships designed and built by various countries with the Dreadnought as a template, which is a general term for a new type of capital ship that has been built by various naval powers since the beginning of the 20th century.

If subdivided, dreadnoughts in a broad sense can also be divided into early dreadnoughts, super-dreadnoughts, later Dwart-type dreadnoughts, treaty-type dreadnoughts, and high-speed dreadnoughts.

However, Lin Haijiang knows very well that since the era of the Naval Treaty, some people no longer regard the battleships after that as dreadnoughts, but because these battleships still meet the core meaning of dreadnoughts, that is, all-heavy artillery battleships, they still belong to the dreadnought type strictly speaking.

The Dragon-class battleship is a new type of attempt, and Lin Haijiang knows that in the next few decades, the giant ship cannon will dominate the sea, and this advantage will be maintained until the arrival of the aviation era after 1925, before which the giant ship cannon will be a sign of the naval era.

The reason why Lin Haijiang provided the drawings of the Dragon-class warships to the Prussian side was that the Chinese Empire did not yet have the experience and technical reserves to build more than 10,000 tons of warships, and the shipbuilding industry was different from the industrial infrastructure, which could be said to be changing with each passing day, and it was a gradual process.

In order to learn as much as possible from the successful design experience of the Dreadnought-class battleships, the Dragon-class battleships canceled the second caliber main gun used for attack on the previous battleship design, and were equipped with a single large-caliber main gun of a unified model, and only retained the secondary gun used to defend against light warships.

According to the theories of naval research in later generations, under the condition of improving accuracy, a greater number of large-caliber artillery salvos can effectively hit targets in long-distance naval battles.

Lin Haijiang also noticed that the historical Intrepid used a high-power steam turbine as power, making the ship a kind of warship with a revolutionary surname in technology, and became the ancestor of modern battleships, and established the basic mode of artillery and power of battleships of the world's naval powers for the next 35 years, and the range and sailing speed of battleships continued to increase significantly.

In terms of the division of the caliber of the main guns, the dreadnoughts of the British Navy equipped with main guns of more than 13.5 inches are often called super dreadnoughts, and their main gun turrets are equipped on the centerline of the hull.

The appearance of the dreadnought battleship made the battleships in service in the navies of various countries at that time obsolete, and various countries began to build this kind of dreadnought with the concept of all-heavy artillery to replace the former dreadnought, which triggered the competition of naval armaments of various naval powers, especially before the First World War, the British and German navies launched a naval shipbuilding competition around the construction of dreadnoughts, and other countries also joined in. In 1916, the Battle of Delan was the largest naval battle in the history of dreadnoughts, and the glorious era of dreadnoughts reached its peak. After the end of World War I, the Washington Treaty, signed by the world's leading naval powers, was mainly aimed at such warships.

Lin Haijiang knew that the person who was pushing the butterfly wings to flap now was himself, and let the dreadnought-class battleship come out in advance, for Lin Haijiang, even he couldn't tell the right from wrong.

However, the power system of the dragon class made Lin Haijiang a little disappointed, the mixed combustion boiler developed by the Germans not only had to be equipped with two fuels, but also occupied more space inside the ship, and the power output of the steam turbine could not make the battleship obtain the theoretical maximum speed of 17 knots, and the power system of the dragon class still needs to be improved, but compared with 1861, the dragon class has the advantage of fighting all the ships under construction in the world.

Continuous renovation is crucial for battleships, with the Prussian-built Dragon-class battleships and a large number of skilled workers and engineers involved in the construction of the Prussian Hamburg shipyard, Lin Haijiang is full of confidence that the Hainan shipyard can afford to build 10,000-ton battleships, it can be said that Indochina Peninsula and Hainan are already battleships in the basic definition, and now those ironclad ships such as soapboxes, bathtubs, slippers, and the speed of the ironclad ships that are still hovering at ten knots have not yet been completed. Lin Haijiang was a little complacent about this.

How long can you maintain your advantage? Lin Haijiang didn't know, he believed that the launch of the two Dragon-class battleships would definitely cause a sensation in Europe, and the core confidential data of the Dragon-class believed that it wouldn't be long before the British, French, and even Dutch and Spanish spies would get it from Prussia, and this world without secrets was really a headache for Lin Haijiang, but Lin Haijiang was not particularly worried, because the British and French, who had strong self-esteem, would definitely change the Dragon-class with balanced surnames to achieve the perfect point beyond recognition.

No country's emperor, head or queen wants to see the pride of their country, and the giant warship is even the same as someone else's, if it is they who are copied, then it is barely acceptable, especially for the British Empire, face is sometimes really important.

With the original eighteen armored protection cruisers and the seven newly returned warships, the tonnage of the new ships of the Imperial Navy in Lin Haijiang is already the first in the world! However, this No. 1 Lin Haijiang really couldn't be happy, because none of the warships of the main fleet of the Chinese Imperial Navy were domestically produced, and all of them were imported foreign products.

The main reason for Lin Haijiang's return to Guangzhou is that the fleet is getting bigger and bigger, and it is naturally necessary to make some adjustments to the personnel of the fleet, it can be said that the performance of the graduates in the early stage as captains and first officers is basically okay, but there are also some who cannot withstand the test, or whose ability is not competent for their own posts, Lin Haijiang is ready to make some adjustments, and he must let the First Fleet of the Imperial Navy ensure the absolute high fighting spirit and combat effectiveness.

Returning to Guangzhou, Lin Haijiang was the first to meet with the two captains of the Indochina Peninsula and the Hainan who had returned to China this time, and the meeting with Lin Haijiang was in the government affairs hall of the head of state, and those who attended were Zhang Yunji, Li Anmin, Jia Wuji, Tang Zhiqiang, Qin Shuige, Ma Jiang, Guan Chao, Du Haipeng, Yang Tianhua, Feng Guohua, Xu Muchen, and others.

It can be said that there are celebrations for the return of students over the years, but there has never been a celebration in the government hall of the head of state, and the people below can be said to be discussing, most people speculate that the main significance of this celebration may be the return of the dragon-class battleship, originally Prussia only built one for the Chinese Empire, but because of the Franco-Prussian War, the Chinese Empire continued to provide a variety of new weapons, so that the Prussian army had an advantage, after learning that Britain was ready to join forces against its allies who were trying to rise in the Far East, Therefore, Prussia, which had no intention of sea power, decided to sell all the warships that had been built and were being debugged to the Chinese Empire, and this was the beautiful talk of the return of the two giant ships.

Under the rhythm of the Haijiang March, Lin Haijiang, who was dressed in the generalissimo uniform of the empire, walked onto the rostrum, looking at his subordinates in the audience, Lin Haijiang was a little excited, the Chinese Empire is growing at an unprecedented speed, and this growth reveals incomparable vitality!

Lin Haijiang glanced at the captain of the Indochina Peninsula, Zhanyang Zi Xusheng, this young man who exudes youthful vitality, he graduated from the Prussian Naval Officer Academy with the first place in all the cadets, it can be said that he has set a precedent for previous cadets, the school made an exception to award him the first-class continuing school medal and the silver-handled command knife, and the captain of the Hainan is even more incredible, Xia Xue, the only daughter of a wealthy merchant in Guangzhou, voluntarily signed up to go to Prussia from the Imperial Fortress to study naval technology, After returning from the second year of study, he ranked second among all Chinese students in various assessments, so he was temporarily appointed as the acting captain of the battleship Hainan.

Lin Haijiang remembered that Xia Xue went to study abroad or made trouble with his father, and he gave it approval at home, the white little girl was gone, replaced by a dark-skinned and heroic female captain, Lin Haijiang actually learned that Xia Xue was the acting captain of the Hainan after he was a little entangled, according to the usual practice, he would appoint the official appointment of the acting captains of the two ships, and then Li Anmin announced the appointment of the captains of the remaining five ships respectively Blitz 05, Blitz 06, Blitz 07, Blitz 08, and Blitz 09.

A girl being the captain of a battleship? Lin Haijiang knows that this is not only shocking, but can even be described as a disappointing appointment, Lin Haijiang can see from Xia Xue's disappointed expression that the little girl is deeply in love with the navy, Lin Haijiang is very strange that fanatical nationalists like Zhanyang have a soft spot for giant ships and cannons, why does Xia Xue also like this tune?

It would not be news if a woman drove a fighter jet, a supply ship, or even a combat ship in the future, but now it is 1861, and there may be countless pairs of eyes staring at this matter, Lin Haijiang is even a little afraid to look at Xia Xue's faint sad gaze, as if he is a cruel villain who has snatched its only carrot from the hands of a cute rabbit.

Suddenly, Lin Haijiang realized that he was too ridiculous, was he still afraid of what others would say? Even the queen mother of the Qing Dynasty has slept with us, what gossip are you afraid of? Or the undercurrent is surging, giving Xia Xue a formal appointment, not only can create a precedent for the employment system, but also maintain his absolute authority.

Lin Haijiang looked at the two blank appointment letters in his hand, he had not filled in his name, which meant that no one knew the specific person to be appointed until the last moment.

Lin Haijiang's original intention was to advocate open cooking, but when exactly to cook it and how to cook it openly, these must be decided by yourself!

Lin Haijiang cleared his throat and said with a smile: "Next, in the name of the Generalissimo of the Chinese Imperial Army and Navy, I will officially appoint Lieutenant Commander Zhanyang as the captain of the battleship Indochina Peninsula of the Second Fleet of the Imperial Navy, and Liu Jing as the deputy captain of the Major!" ”

Lin Haijiang deliberately paused, looked at Xia Xue, who seemed to be trembling slightly, and said: "Lieutenant Colonel Xia Xue is appointed as the captain of the Hainan Ship, the flagship of the Second Fleet of the Imperial Navy, and Lieutenant Colonel Wei Haiwei is transferred as the deputy captain!" ”

Oh my God! Tang Zhiqiang looked at the little girl standing beside him dumbfounded, looking at the head of state on the stage, Tang Zhiqiang really hoped that he had heard it wrong, before the chief of staff Li Anmin and talked to him, he may be the commander of the Second Fleet, in addition to the two battleships, the nine fastest and largest armored protection cruisers Blitz 01 to Blitz 09 were all incorporated into the Second Fleet.

However, Tang Zhiqiang's greatest wish is not to be the commander of any fleet, but to command a giant ship to gallop on the sea frontier, such as a behemoth like the Hainan, as if Ma Jiang said that Tang Zhiqiang was mentally abnormal, and Ma Jiang himself served as the commander of the First Fleet. It's clear that it's showing! If Tang Zhiqiang dies, he will definitely die!

Ma Jiang only has jealousy, envy, and hatred for Tang Zhiqiang!

Xia Xue listened to the appointment and saluted excitedly, and then the adjutant on the side motioned for the two to step forward, and Lin Haijiang folded the blank appointment letter that had just been read out! personally put on the captain's identification badge for Zhanyang and Xia Xue, and then presented them with naval swords.

Lin Haijiang suddenly found that the gaze exchanged between Xia Xue and Zhanyang was not simple? Lin Haijiang, who still knew something about things between men and women, immediately realized that the captains of the two battleships under his command were likely to fall in love with each other? Lin Haijiang has not looked over the latest revision of the Navy Officer Regulations, and it is not clear whether the two are allowed to fall in love, but Lin Haijiang knows very well that once Zhanyang and Xia Xue get married, then the rules of Haijiang require Xia Xue to give up her position as captain and transfer to civilian work, and if Xia Xue is pregnant, she will be directly transferred to the reserve.

Lin Haijiang knows that women, as flowers in the army, often pay much more than men if they want to be recognized for their achievements in the army, and even the equality of men and women in later generations is still an empty and weak slogan.

However, this also made Lin Haijiang realize that this was an excellent opportunity for publicity, and using a romantic love as a gimmick for his own conscription seemed to be able to achieve good results, after all, compulsory soldiers or forced conscription to serve in the army are not as good as voluntary enlistment.

The lively ceremony ended quickly, but people's topics still stayed on Xia Xue's captain's identity, and for a while, Xia Xue's family background and identity were also different.

And Lin Haijiang stood in the war room of the General Staff and looked at the map! Li Anmin, Jia Wuji, Zhang Yunji and others stood aside silently.

(To be continued)