After receiving the reply of the Argentine Navy inspection delegation, the senior management of the Pacific Trading Company was excited, because this means that the Argentine side already has a very big intention to place an order, whether it is to purchase from the Tianjin Shipyard or the Songhu Shipyard, the Pacific Trading Company does not care, because they are second-hand dealers anyway, as long as the Argentine Navy is purchasing warships from the Empire, they can transfer a hand from it.

Moreover, the quotations of these warships were all submitted by the Pacific Trading Company, and the shipyard could not decide the final quotation on its own.

At present, the imperial ordnance trade process is relatively complicated, first the Pacific Trading Company looks for customers, and then the domestic manufacturers provide products or designs, etc., and provide quotations to the Pacific Trading Company, which is the purchase price between the enterprise and the Pacific Trading Company.

Then the Pacific Trading Company on the basis of this price, plus their own profits, and then negotiate with the customer, after the customer is satisfied, the customer directly signs an order with the Pacific Trading Company, and the Pacific Trading Company places an order with the domestic enterprise.

Finally, the three parties work together to complete the entire transaction.

To put it simply, Pacific Trading is like an intermediary that facilitates transactions between the two parties and earns the difference in price.

However, the Pacific Trading Company generally does not raise the price too high, often follows the international mainstream price, and even sometimes takes the initiative to reduce the price to win orders, after all, the Pacific Trading Company is not a company that takes making money as its own responsibility, as a royal enterprise, their biggest task is to respect the needs of the country's industrial development, and the country needs these orders, so even if the Pacific Trading Company is not profitable, it must also pull these orders to domestic defense enterprises.

In the following days, the Argentine Navy held meetings with the delegations of Songhu Shipyard and Tianjin Shipyard, and the main body of the meeting was not to discuss the price, but to discuss how to provide the Argentine Navy with the most cost-effective one. And a warship suitable for the strategic needs of the Argentine Navy.

In this era, the procurement of warships is actually tailor-made in many cases, and it is impossible for other countries to purchase your existing warships in the same way, after all, each country's national conditions are different, and the demand for warships is also different.

For example, the Imperial Navy has been developing towards the ocean, so most of the warships built are ocean-going warships. It is necessary to make trade-offs in protection, firepower and speed, as well as seaworthiness and endurance.

However, the Argentine Navy is mainly engaged in coastal defense, and what they need is warships with strong coastal defense capabilities.

After these multi-party talks, in the end, the design of the Songhu shipyard made the Argentines more satisfied.

The design provided by the Songhu shipyard is not advanced, but it is a good consideration of the strategic needs of the Argentine Navy, and the price is relatively cheap.

The design was a standard displacement of 1,800 tons, with a twin 200-mm gun in the bow with an open-air rotating turret with a complete waterline armor belt and a thickness ranging from six to eight inches. Due to the heavy weight of the attached guns and the thickness of the armor, in order to lower the center of gravity, a low-freeboard design, which has become very popular in recent years, was adopted.

In terms of power system, the steam engine system with mature technology can push the speed of the ship to nine knots.

At the same time, at the strong request of the Argentine Navy, the ship was also equipped with a sail system.

The price of this battleship is not very high, only 100,000 pounds.

And there's a very special thing about this design. That is, this battleship will be the first 200-millimeter ship of the Empire to be shipped.

In 1866, it was affected by the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary. The Imperial Navy believed that the caliber of the main gun of the capital ship could not be less than nine inches, and finally chose the level of ten inches as the main gun of the main ironclad ship.

This also led to the loss of the follow-up research and development momentum of the 180 mm and 200 mm guns of the Royal Arms Company.

Later, there was a rumor within the navy that an ocean-going ironclad ship with a tonnage of 2,000 or 3,000 tons would definitely not be equipped with a 250-millimeter large-caliber main gun, and that the previous 150-millimeter naval gun was too small, so the research and development of the 200-millimeter naval gun was resumed.

But so far. No warship in the Navy has yet adopted a two-hundred-millimeter main gun!

These Argentines were the first to try, but they were not stupid, they were determined after seeing the test firing of the Royal Arms Company's sample gun and confirming the specific performance.

After the ship type was determined, the Argentine naval expedition made intensive telegraph contact with their country. And then finally it was approved.

On the eve of their departure from Shanghai, they formally signed a purchase contract with the Pacific Trading Company for the purchase of two 1,800-ton ironclad ships supplied by the Songhu shipyard, including the hull and various subsystems, for 195,000 pounds.

In addition, they have procured a number of port facilities, as well as two Zhenguang-class gunboats and a large amount of spare ammunition.

The entire order amounted to £280,000.

And this contract is the largest warship contract ever received by the Empire, twenty-eight pounds, which is equivalent to one hundred and thirty thousand yen in the Imperial Circle.

This will play a great role in promoting the domestic defense industry, because the profits of this kind of foreign trade orders are very large, and when the Pacific Trading Company makes purchases, the price is often higher than that of the military.

The Songhu shipyard that took over the two offshore ironclad ships is even more excited, although the tonnage of these two ironclad ships is not as good as the Coulomb cruiser they are building, but the profit is much more, and more importantly, the Songhu shipyard has shown great sincerity in this transaction, this offshore ironclad ship, it can be regarded as they are specially tailored for the Argentine Navy, and the price is not expensive, if the order for these two warships can be completed, They will receive a great deal of favor from the Argentine Navy.

Lin Zhe, who was in Nanjing, also smiled with satisfaction when he heard that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Imperial Navy, the Pacific Trading Company, the Songhu Shipyard, the Royal Arms Company, and the Linde Machinery Company had worked together to knock down the order.

Through this order, it can be regarded as making the empire's warship manufacturing industry officially come to the forefront, and it is qualified to compete with traditional maritime powers such as Britain, France, and Italy.

Although relying on the recent expansion of the Imperial Navy, domestic shipyards will not really lack orders, but the profits of military orders are not as much as foreign trade orders, and most importantly, no one will be afraid of more orders. (To be continued.) )