It is also worth mentioning that this kind of steel-faced ironclad armor was first used by the British in 1877 in history, and the famous Dingyuan ironclad ship used this kind of armor for its main armor belt, while the sister ship Zhenyuan was to save costs, and the armor belt under the waterline was still wrought iron armor.

In order to compete for orders for the navy's armor and other shipbuilding materials, and to compete for the honor of the country's largest iron and steel company, the Jiangnan Mining Company and the Tianjin Coal and Iron Company have competed with each other over the years, and their pursuit of some new technologies is more urgent than that of the navy.

The progress of armor technology can be regarded as an outstanding example of healthy competition in domestic industry.

For example, Shanghai Linde Machinery Co., Ltd., as the only R&D and supplier of a large shipborne steam engine in China, has no worries about orders after having a monopoly.

There is also the Shanghai Arsenal under the Royal Arms Corporation, which is the only factory in the country that can produce large-caliber rear-loading naval guns, and there are no so-called competitors at all.

And this situation is not satisfactory to the military.

It's just steam engines and naval guns, even if they want companies to compete, but the military doesn't have so many orders to support two large R&D enterprises, so they can only endure it for the time being.

Although the No. 4 battleship scheme with a new steam engine and new armor is comparable to the Chiyou class in terms of tonnage, the difference between the two is indeed quite large, and the difference in appearance is also the same.

Lin Zhe looked at the design plan in his hand, he just glanced at the drawings twice, anyway, he couldn't understand these design drawings or anything. He was more interested in some of the textual descriptions of the design and its design intent.

This is more intuitive than simply reading the text, and it is clearer whether the Navy needs this battleship.

This can be seen from this battleship. The Navy is still firmly implementing the five-year development plan set that year, and the overall naval strategy is still to remain on defense.

This can be seen from the low freeboard design of the fourth battleship.

Although in recent years, the low freeboard design of capital ships has become the mainstream in the world. However, it does not mean that all warships will adopt a low-freeboard design, such as the Imperial Navy's Chang'e-class armored cruisers, which are not low-freeboard designs, but high-freeboard designs for standard ocean-going warships.

Under the level of contemporary industrial technology, low freeboard and high freeboard have their own advantages and disadvantages, and warships with low freeboard design can often carry more and larger main guns because of their low center of gravity. Although the main guns of the high-freeboard design of the warship are less, its ocean-going seaworthiness is quite good.

And the current battleships of the Empire are all low-freeboard designs. Because the main warships of the Imperial Navy did not expect to run to the depths of the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean, the battleships of the Imperial Navy were mainly in the direction of the South China Sea, to be precise, outside the Pearl River Estuary or the port of Singapore, and their main mission was to intercept the British East India Fleet.

So seaworthiness or something, for the battleships of the Reich, was not so important.

After reading the No. 4 design plan, Lin Zhe asked Hu Licai some details in detail, and then nodded and signed his name on the design plan. In the end, he also set the name of his No. 4 battleship by the way: Shundi.

After the design of the Shundi is determined, the construction of this battleship will begin at the Qingdao Naval Shipyard, but this year only preliminary preparatory works will be carried out, and the keel will be officially laid. It was January 1870.

Because of the limited number of 10,000-ton docks in China, only three 10,000-ton docks in China are now building Chiyou-class battleships, and the Chiyou was the first to be constructed in the No. 4 dock of Qingdao Naval Shipyard. Final work is still underway and is not expected to be completed until November this year. And get out of the dock and head to the dock for later outfitting.

The Shundi had to wait for the Chiyou to be launched. to be able to carry out formal construction work.

However, in the second half of next year, that is, in the second half of 1870, the large 20,000-ton dock of the Guangzhou Shipyard will be able to officially undertake the battleship, and the fifth battleship will be able to officially start construction at this time, if nothing else, the fifth battleship should be the second ship of the Shundi.

The Chiyou will be launched in November, the navy attaches great importance to this, and many high-ranking naval officials will attend the launching ceremony of the Chiyou, Lin Zhe also wanted to go, but Qingdao is far away from Nanjing, and as the emperor, Lin Zhe wants to travel is more troublesome.

In addition, after the Chiyou is launched, it still needs to be outfitted and seaworthy, and there will be a formal service ceremony next year, so Lin Zhe decided to go directly to Shanghai to hold the service ceremony next year, and by the way, he can also go to Shanghai to see the local development.

In 1869, the Imperial Navy continued to build ships intensively, and in that year, the Imperial Navy officially commissioned the second class ironclad ship Kuafu, two iron-ribbed wood-hulled cruisers Cullen and Hanyang, a fast cruiser, and a number of small gunboats and other auxiliary ships.

Interestingly, the Imperial Navy commissioned four Randolph-type gunboats in one fell swoop this year.

What is a Randolph-type gunboat? In fact, it is often referred to as the mosquito ship in later generations, this small gunboat was developed in 1867 by the famous British warship designer George ? The Rendall design, usually with a displacement ranging from two hundred to five hundred tons, was then armed with a large-caliber gun.

This kind of gunboat looks like a ship, but in fact it is not used as a battleship, but as a sea battery, the most obvious feature is that this kind of gunboat needs to be anchored when firing guns, otherwise as soon as the huge ship guns are fired, no one knows where the small tonnage ship will go.

After the interview in 1867, this kind of gunboat has become the latest type of ship in the world, and it is quite hot in the world, and the British Royal Navy has purchased dozens of ships in one go.

As the leader of the world, the British Royal Navy can be regarded by it even if it is not as bad as that, and this kind of ship is really cheap to be honest, two or three hundred tons, ten thousand pounds is not needed, even if it is a big man of four or five hundred tons, at most it is more than 10,000 pounds, which is much cheaper than the Imperial Navy's fist export battleship Zhenguang series gunboats.

When the Imperial Navy designed and purchased warships, it was naturally not resting on its laurels, but keeping a close eye on the world.

In 1868, the official construction began, and the Rendal gunboats that started construction were called "mosquito-class gunboats" As the name suggests, although this kind of mosquito-class gunboats may seem inconspicuous, if a large warship is bitten, it will hurt.

The Mosquito-class gunboats had a displacement of about four hundred tons, a speed of seven knots, and were paired with an eleven-inch front-loading rifled gun.

The reason why the front-loading rifled guns were used instead of the rear-loading rifled guns that were always used in the Imperial Navy was very simple, the cost problem.

The price of a ten-inch rear-loading rifled gun is tens of thousands, and the purchase cost of the Mosquito-class gunboat is only 50,000 yuan, in other words, the price of a ten-inch rear-loading rifled gun is more expensive than a whole Mosquito-class gunboat!

The Imperial Navy had not yet had the luxury of equipping such a cheaply positioned sea battery with the most advanced breech-loading rifled guns!

In addition, the Imperial Navy also served an experimental torpedo boat, the appearance of this torpedo boat was also influenced by the development of international military technology, in 1866, the world's first white-headed torpedo appeared, and then under the intervention of the Imperial Navy, the Royal Arms Company, which was mainly responsible for the research and development of naval weapons, purchased a number of white-headed torpedoes, and introduced relevant technical patents, so as to begin to develop and produce their own torpedoes.

After the successful imitation, the Ministry of Naval Affairs specially designed a torpedo boat to carry a white-headed torpedo, and this is the 'Sea Shark-class torpedo boat', but the Imperial Navy is still relatively unfamiliar with the torpedo weapon, so it is now mainly used for experiments.

In addition to the above-mentioned combat warships, the Imperial Navy also served a number of auxiliary warships, such as minelayers, supply ships, etc.

The construction and commissioning of these warships greatly strengthened the strategic defense capability of the Imperial Navy, and this capability will be further improved with the official commissioning of the Chiyou in 1870. (To be continued.) )