The battle between the USS Washington and the USS Wyoming in the Taiwan Strait, although it was only a skirmish, could not even be called a typical battle, and it did not have any groundbreaking tactical or strategic significance for the history of the world's navies.

However, it was significant for the Imperial Navy, as it was the first naval engagement of an Empire-built ironclad ship, and it proved that many of the new technologies used by the Imperial Navy were correct and had great advantages.

Whether it was an open-air rotating turret or a teak wrought-iron hybrid armor, it was a result that satisfied the Imperial Navy.

This move directly prompted the Imperial Navy to increase its investment in ironclads and placed an order for the third ocean-going ironclad!

According to the design code of the shipbuilding section, the first of which represents the main ocean-going warship of the Navy, and the fifth type is the fifth plan within the Naval Shipbuilding Section. Several years ago, the Shipbuilding Section began to conceive and design a new generation of the Navy's capital ships.

After the official start of construction of the Pangu-class ironclad ship, the design of the new generation of capital ships has become the main work of the shipbuilding section, and many designers of the shipbuilding section have proposed as many as seven or eight proposals in the past two years.

Among them, it is worth mentioning that the No. 1, No. 5 and No. 8 schemes, of which the No. 1 scheme is a new design, the tonnage directly catches up with the latest British large-tonnage ironclad ships, the design tonnage is as high as 9,000 tons, and the sail steam hybrid is still used, and the armament is planned to use more than 250 mm rear-loading guns.

Although this design scheme seems lofty, it is actually a castle in the air for the imperial shipbuilding and naval artillery industry, whether it is the Shanghai Shipyard or the Qingdao Naval Shipyard invested and built by the Navy itself. There is simply no ability to make a huge hull of nine thousand tons.

Then there are the naval guns, whether they are 250 mm or 280 mm ship guns. For Jiangnan Weapons Company, the only supplier of naval guns, it all belongs to Zenith Star Technology.

At present, the main naval artillery products of Jiangnan Arms Company are still 120 mm and 150 mm breech-loading guns. That is, the 150-mm naval gun of the 1857 model and the 120-mm naval gun of the 1857 model.

Although these two naval guns have been produced for many years, Jiangnan Arms Company has been working hard to improve the high manufacturing cost of rear-loading guns, the low barrel life and reliability problems.

After several years, the reliability of the latest production of rear-loading guns has been greatly improved compared with those produced in the early years, and at the same time, it is very important that the manufacturing cost has decreased, providing certain conditions for large-scale manufacturing and production.

Therefore, from the perspective of technology and cost, Jiangnan Arms Company hopes that the Navy will continue to purchase these two types of artillery on a large scale, after all, they have been engaged in these two types of artillery for so many years, and now they can be regarded as able to solve most of the problems. Let these two guns enter a period of maturity and stability, if the Navy does not continue to purchase them on a large scale, won't the improvement research funds they have spent in the past few years be wasted?

In this kind of big background, in fact, the Jiangnan Weapons Company has invested relatively little in the research and development of other types of rear-loading artillery, although there are also research and development of 180 mm and 220 mm calibers, but limited domestic supporting enterprises, well, mainly due to the steel quality problems of Jiangnan Mining Company, the research and development progress of these two large-caliber naval guns is very slow.

Although Jiangnan Arms Corporation has preliminarily mastered the technology of rear-loading rifled artillery. But the manufacture of a hundred and twenty mm as well as one hundred and fifty mm artillery and the manufacture of two hundred and twenty mm or even two hundred and fifty, two hundred and eighty mm guns are two different concepts.

Larger caliber artillery requires larger raw materials and larger processing equipment. For example, a hydraulic press, a hydraulic press needed to forge a 150-millimeter gun and a hydraulic press to forge a 250-millimeter artillery are two different things.

If it wants to make a ship gun of a larger caliber, what does Jiangnan Arms Company need to do? The design of the artillery is all the simplest. Any artillery designer can do the job. What was really difficult was that the Jiangnan Arms Company was almost going to build a completely new arsenal and purchase equipment from scratch. It's no easier than building a Linde machine factory.

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, if you want to measure how strong a country's industrial technology is. Basically, it is enough to directly see whether it can manufacture large warships on its own, and it is absolutely impossible for countries with insufficient industrial basic technology capabilities to build large warships.

The design of the hull, the steam engine as the power, and the large-caliber naval gun, these things are absolutely impossible to make without the technical ability to pass the test.

Although the empire's industry has developed rapidly in recent years, it has to be admitted that the empire's industrial level is still stuck in the introduction and imitation of technology at the very department level, and the overall industrial level is not very strong.

It is unlikely that the empire of this period would build ironclad ships with a tonnage of up to 9,000 tons.

After the 9,000-ton design of this plan was shot, all that remained was plans five and eight.

The No. 8 scheme is a modified version of the Pangu class, the tonnage has not been expanded too much, the standard displacement is 2,600 tons, and the armament still maintains four 150 mm and six 120 mm rear-loading guns, using open-air rotating turrets, but the power has been enhanced, under pure steam power, the maximum speed can reach 13 knots, and under the hybrid power up to 16.5 knots.

In addition, the endurance has been greatly improved, and the amount of fresh water and coal loaded is 30 percent more than that of the Pangu class.

However, the navy is not satisfied with this small redesign, in the eyes of the senior generals of the navy, although the initial design of the Pangu class is already excellent, but after all, the tonnage is too small, and the tonnage of only more than 2,000 tons is still strong in the East Asian seas.

But compared to the main warships of the European powers, it was too small.

The naval power of these two years, well, mainly the United Kingdom, its Royal Navy has intensively started a large number of ironclad ships in the past few years, and there are two Warrior-class, two Defense-class, and the Royal Oak that have been put into service. In addition, there are a number of small ironclad ships such as the Discovery.

There are many more ironclads under construction or already being launched for outfitting, including the Achilles. Two Hector-class ships, the Enterprise. Three ships of the Queen's Husband, three of the Sovereign, three of the Minotaur class, two of the Scorpio class, etc.

This large number of ironclads is enough to make the admirals of any country on the planet of the present day tremble.

In recent years, the British Royal Navy has maintained a rate of four or five ironclads in service each year, and most of these ironclads are large warships, ranging from 6,000 tons to 10,000 tons.

The British Royal Navy was so strong that it was impossible for the Imperial Navy not to feel the enormous pressure.

It is important to know that the imaginary enemy of the Imperial Navy is not the navy of the neighboring countries, and the navies of Japan, Siam, or any other backward country are not the Jiaxiang enemies of the Imperial Navy. There were two imaginary enemies of the Imperial Navy, one was the British Royal Sea Ju and the other was the French Navy.

His imaginary enemy is so powerful, the Imperial Navy has been worried about it in the past few years, and it was also out of this concern that it vigorously supported the development of ironclad ships at the beginning.

If a war breaks out with Britain and France, how can the Imperial Navy resist their ironclad ships? Only those small ironclad ships that have only more than two thousand tons?

And this is also why the Imperial Navy ruled out the Pangu-class minor reform plan of the No. 8, and finally chose the Pangu-class overhaul plan of the No. 5 plan.

The design tonnage of the scheme is a standard 4,000 tons, and this tonnage was the final result after repeated discussions between the Navy and the Shanghai shipyard.

When the Navy sent a tender consultation to the Shanghai Shipyard. The reply of the Shanghai shipyard was that with the current equipment and docks of the Shanghai shipyard, it could build warships with a tonnage of up to 4,000 tons, and if it wanted to build larger hulls. Then it is necessary to cause the equipment to be upgraded technically, and at the same time to build a larger dock, and the equipment to be upgraded. It takes time to build a new dock, and when the time comes, it will be a year or two away.

And the Navy's shipbuilding cannot be stopped. Capital ships must be launched every year in order to maintain the size and combat effectiveness of the Imperial Navy. So can't wait.

Therefore, the design scheme of the last 4,000 tons was selected, and the overall design of the scheme still follows the design of the Pangu class, using the same teak wrought iron hybrid armor as a series of British ironclad ships, using sail-steam hybrid, equipped with a horizontal flat duplex steam engine, four coal-fired boilers, with a maximum output of 2,000 horsepower, using single-shaft and single-propeller propulsion, the maximum speed can reach 12 knots under pure steam power, and the maximum speed can reach 15 knots under sail-steam hybrid.

In terms of armament, the mature and reliable 1857 150 mm series guns continued to be used, with 16 150 mm rear-loading guns and 8 85-mm rear-loading guns.

As can be seen from the artillery configuration, this battleship is used for the decisive battle of the ocean-going fleet!

Although this battleship may not be as good as some of the latest ironclad ships designed and built by the United Kingdom in terms of performance, at least it will not lag too far behind.

After the design of the battleship was completed, the Shanghai shipyard soon started construction, and the ship's name was named Yandi.

However, although the navy placed an order for the Yandi, this was forced by reality, and in their hearts they also wanted those large warships of tens of thousands of tons.

Since there is no Daxin dock in Shanghai Shipyard, and although Shanghai Shipyard is said to be a royal industry, it is a commercial enterprise after all, in addition to receiving orders for warships, in fact, the main business of Shanghai Shipyard is to manufacture civilian ships, and all kinds of merchant ships are the main head of their construction.

In the absence of obvious profit prospects, it is difficult for Shanghai shipyards to quickly allocate funds to build a dock and related equipment for the construction of 10,000-ton warships.

Therefore, this time the navy decided to be self-reliant, directly increased the investment of the Qingdao Naval Shipyard, and directly proposed to build a 15,000-ton dock in order to build large warships for the navy in the future.

The Qingdao Naval Shipyard represents the future hope of the Navy, and now, the Navy has to rely on the Shanghai Shipyard to build warships for itself!

Looking at the future 10,000-ton warship development plan submitted by the Navy, Lin Zhe nodded lightly with a smile on his face, looking at these people under his hands who were more enterprising than he imagined.

Lin Zhe naturally knows what the future direction of the navy will be, but when he knows, it doesn't mean that people in this era also know.

Even the British side, which now represents the trend of naval development, still has great opposition to ironclads, which can be seen from the stubborn use of broadside guns by their ironclads.

A full-fledged navy is often one with a large number of conservative forces.

However, the Imperial Navy is a force that does not have much historical baggage, and as a new and backward force, the Imperial Navy is looking for every possibility to improve its naval strength and catch up with the British Navy.

Therefore, they can support the development of ironclad ships without hesitation, and now they are even more radical to put forward a plan to build 10,000-ton steel warships.

This plan is not a short-term plan, but a long-term plan, and the plan is divided into many details, including the expansion of the 10,000-ton dock within the navy, but to build a 10,000-ton steel warship, it is not only the shipyard's dock, but also the cooperation of many domestic industrial forces.

For example, in the steel industry, to build such a huge warship, the performance demand for steel is very high, and on steel, it needs the technical support of Jiangnan Mining Company.

In the future, Shanghai Linde Machinery Company is bound to develop a steam engine with greater power, and the output power needs to reach at least 6,000 horsepower, so that the use of sail steam hybrid power can barely make the battleship run more than 14 knots.

The speed of 14 knots is already the minimum standard of the main ironclad ships in contemporary times, and the large ironclad ships in the UK are basically more than 14 knots, and can even reach 15 knots.

It's not enough to have a steam engine, you have to have a transmission system, and the huge propeller alone is not so easy to handle.

The design adopts a single shaft and a single propeller, the requirements for the bearing shaft are quite high, and the requirements for the propeller are even higher.

At present, the company that provides propellers in the empire is Shanghai Linde Machinery Company, but the propellers they manufacture can meet the needs of warships under 5,000 tons in size, and if they want to propel 10,000-ton steel warships, they need to manufacture larger propellers, and this is not a simple matter.

In addition to power, the armament requirements are also quite high, if it is a 10,000-ton giant ship, it is naturally impossible to continue to use 150 mm naval guns as the main gun, and it is definitely necessary to use larger caliber naval guns.

At that time, even if you don't need 250 mm or 280 mm breech guns, you will have to use at least 200 mm or more naval guns.

This naval artillery needs the support of Jiangnan Arms Company.

In the manufacturing process of 10,000-ton giant ships, not only the support of the above-mentioned enterprises, but also the support of the entire industrial system.

Specifically, hundreds of domestic enterprises may be involved, from light industry to heavy industry, steel to chemical industry and even textiles.

Without the support of the entire empire, it would have been impossible to build such a huge steel ship.

Fortunately, the navy also knows how difficult it is to build a 10,000-ton giant ship, so they do not expect to start construction within a year or two, the navy's plan is to carry out technical reserves from now on, from docks, power to naval guns to armor, etc., and expect to complete the technical reserves required to start construction in three years, and then officially start construction, and the construction time is estimated to be three to four years, during this period of time, enterprises can continue to develop and upgrade technology, and wait until the enterprise completes the technical upgrade. It was when the 10,000-ton giant ship was completed and launched.

The Navy is hoping to see the first 10,000-ton giant ship put into service in seven years, well, preferably six years!

In Lin Zhe's view, although the plan proposed by the navy is a bit radical, it is still within the controllable range, and if you work hard, there is no hope that the first 10,000-ton giant ship will be put into service in six years. (To be continued.) )