The arrival of the DPRK and the pro-embassy may be the first time for the DPRK itself to see the strength of a modern industrialized country in an official posture, and this has had a profound follow-up impact on the DPRK, the most important of which is to strengthen the attitude of the pro-China faction led by Yi Yuying on the North Korean side.

That is, to resolutely cling to the thigh of the Chinese Empire and adopt a comprehensive Sinicization reform.

However, for the imperial side, the arrival of the Korean Peace Mission is insignificant, and even Lin Zhe himself does not pay much attention to it.

After all, with the current strength of the empire, the attitude of North Korea itself is not important, but the attitude of the empire towards North Korea.

By the time the Korean Peace Mission had left, it was already 1875.

The year 1875 was a very important juncture for the Empire, especially for the Royal Navy.

In this year, the fifth 10,000-ton battleship of the empire, the Yaodi, was officially put into service, which was the second ship of a Shundi-class battleship, which completed the overall construction in 1874, and after subsequent outfitting and sea trials, it successfully joined the imperial Royal Navy in September 1875, and was incorporated into the fifth battleship detachment together with the Shundi.

In addition to the Yaodi, the empire also commissioned the third armored cruiser Qinglong in this year.

This means that on this day in 1875, the Imperial Royal Navy already has five 10,000-ton battleships and three armored cruisers, all of which were commissioned after 1870, and the oldest ship is only five years.

These eight capital ships represent the most elite strength of the Imperial Navy today.

In addition to these eight capital ships, the Imperial Navy also had some second-class ironclad ships built and commissioned before 1870, such as two Kuafu-class, one Tianwu, three Yandi-class, five Pangu-class, and two offshore ironclad ships, the Bifang and the Emperor.

In addition to ironclad ships, there are still some cruisers, including five fast cruisers, eight conventional cruisers, small ironclad ships of several hundred tons, shallow gunboats, and a large number of others.

As of September 1875, the total tonnage of the Imperial Royal Navy was about 170,000 tons, and its total tonnage had surpassed that of Italy, Austria-Hungary and other countries, and was the fourth navy in the world after Britain, France and Russia.

However, the total tonnage of the Imperial Navy and the total tonnage of the Russian Navy are actually not much different, the tonnage of the Russian Navy is 200,000 tons, but it is only 30,000 tons more than the Empire.

However, the third or fourth in the world is far behind the world's first and second largest in the world, with the British Royal Navy having a total tonnage of about 680,000 tons and the French Navy about 480,000 tons.

However, although the total tonnage of the Imperial Navy is not as good as the previous ones, it is worth noting that the number and tonnage of the capital ships of the Imperial Navy are not small.

This is due to the fact that the composition of the Imperial Navy and several other navies differed.

Due to the lack of other overseas colonies, the Imperial Navy's area of activity was confined to the waters of the western Pacific, and in terms of its scope of activity, it was a typical strategic defense navy, and its naval warships were mainly composed of capital ships for decisive battles and small warships for coastal use, while the number of cruisers and other types of ships in the middle was relatively small.

Unlike Britain and France, they have many colonies, and the naval warships, in addition to the capital ships, also need to maintain a large number of cruisers.

Military spending is limited, and if you build more cruisers, you will naturally not have much money to build ironclads, and if you build more ironclads, you will naturally have no money to build cruisers.

The Imperial Navy was only a quarter of the total tonnage of the British, but the tonnage of capital ships was much more than a quarter.

From 1857 to 1875, the number of ironclad ships of more than 1,000 tons in service in the British Royal Navy was very large, reaching dozens, but the British during this period were very keen to build second-class ironclad ships of several thousand tons, although the number was large, but the total tonnage of ironclad ships was actually not large, adding up to about 220,000 tons.

And what is the tonnage of ironclad ships in the Imperial Royal Navy? It reached more than 120,000 tons, that is, more than half the tonnage of the British Royal Navy.

In addition, it is worth noting that the warships of the Imperial Navy are generally large in tonnage and short in age.

For example, the Reich had five battleships, and how many first-class ironclads of the same class did the British have? Ten of them, and half of them were old ships that were commissioned before 1870.

It can be said that throughout the seventies, in the field of the most high-end 10,000-ton warships, in fact, the empire maintained the same speed of construction and service as the British.

This is not to say how quickly the shipbuilding industry of the empire has developed, but that the British have ushered in the most restrictive cabinet ever for the navy, and the allocation of naval funds has come to a near standstill.

During the same period, France, Russia, and Germany, including the Empire, all four countries set off a climax of large-scale naval expansion.

This 70s was a very rare period when the navies of other backward countries narrowed the gap between the strength of the British Royal Navy.

By 1875, the strength of the Imperial Royal Navy had surpassed that of the British Royal Navy's East India Fleet in the Indian Ocean.

However, the Imperial Navy will not stop there, in fact, the expansion of the Imperial Navy has always continued, and the core goal of building a capital ship every year will not change.

For example, in 1873, the third ship of the Shundi-class battleship had already started construction and was still under construction, and in 1874, the fourth armored cruiser was officially started.

And this year, according to the planned expansion of the navy, the construction of another capital ship will be started.

It's just that there are still certain differences in the navy on how to build the new capital ships, after all, the new generation of battleships has a great deal to do, and there are different opinions within the navy about what kind of battleships to build.

Some insisted on maintaining the core design philosophy of the Chiyou and Shundi classes, which continued to be equipped with a 250 mm main gun, with a diamond-shaped layout of four twin turrets and a low freeboard.

However, some people also believe that with the further strengthening of the protection capability of warships of various countries, the existing 250 mm caliber main guns can no longer penetrate the armor of new warships, and it is necessary to use larger caliber main guns with longer barrels.

At the same time, due to many problems such as easy flooding in high sea conditions, the seaworthiness of the Chiyou-class and Shundi-class battleships is quite poor, so it is hoped that the freeboard design at a conventional height can be adopted to improve the seaworthiness of the battleship and the firepower in high sea conditions.

However, these differences have their own contradictions.

A larger diameter and a longer body tube not only represent higher requirements for the industrial base, the cost is higher, but also the weight will be greater.

The greater weight meant that the battleship's main guns could not be loaded too much with limited tonnage, and the center of gravity could not be too high, so a low freeboard design had to be used.

Lin Zhe, as the emperor, also knew about these controversies within the navy, but he didn't have a good solution for a while, after all, the current technical conditions are limited, and it is difficult to take care of all aspects of the warship design, and there must be trade-offs.

And more importantly, none of the current warships have been tested by war, and no one knows how effective this actual combat will be.

This is true not only of the Empire, but of other countries.

The British, even worse, had completely lost their direction on how to design the future battleship, so they tossed back and forth between the central axis turret and the central gun gallery.

On the contrary, the Imperial Navy was better, and the design of a rotating closed turret with a steel breech-loading rifled gun had already been determined.

The Imperial Navy hesitated only on the trade-off between firepower and seaworthiness.

However, this hesitation is unlikely to last, after all, as time passes, the design of the new capital ship will always have to be determined.

In the end, a compromise was reached within the navy, and they were ready to use a larger caliber naval gun, that is, a 300-millimeter naval gun, in the capital ship to start construction this year, with a double central axis layout at the front and rear, with a total of four main guns.

Considering that the rate of fire of the main gun is quite slow, it can only be fired once in nearly four minutes, so it does not deliberately require too many main guns, but appropriately strengthens the firepower of the secondary guns, and is equipped with a total of 10 single-mounted 150 mm 35 times the caliber guns.

The main gun and the secondary gun have not yet been developed, and the research and development timetable given by the Shanghai Arsenal is to strive to complete the prototype gun before 1878, and then strive to be on the ship before 1879.

But this is the most optimistic scenario, and in fact it is very common for the development of new guns to be delayed for several years.

Therefore, in order to avoid that the research and development of new guns could not catch up with the service time of the battleship, the turret was reserved for design, that is, if the Shanghai Arsenal had not completed the research and development of the 300-mm main gun by the time the main gun was installed on the battleship, then the 300-mm 25-caliber main gun that had been developed would be used.

Speaking of this 300 mm 25 caliber naval gun, the fate is a bit bumpy, at first it was developed as a Yandi-class main gun, but later the navy adopted a 250 mm 30 times caliber main gun, because it can carry a larger number of main guns.

Therefore, this artillery was not in service, and the two prototype guns built at the Shanghai Arsenal were purchased by the navy and then used as the new generation of main coastal defense guns of the Wusong turret.

The new ships are expected to use 300 mm guns with 30 times the barrel, and they will also be twinn, which means that the combined weight of the turret and gun is not light.

The ship's administration department has abandoned the previous low freeboard design, and in order to keep the center of gravity not too high, it can only reduce the number of guns.

Otherwise, the hull will have to be enlarged, and the larger the hull, the greater the weight of the armor, in order to reduce the weight of the armor.

The hull is larger, and the level of the steam engine has not achieved leapfrog development, at least the three-expansion steam engine has not yet been made, so it can only be simply added to the way of adding more boilers to increase the power, and then there will be a chain of vicious reactions.

Therefore, the Ministry of Naval Affairs was very resolute in limiting the tonnage to 10,000 tons, adopting a front and rear central axis, a double-mounted enclosed turret layout, with four 300 mm 30 times the caliber of the main gun, and eight single-mounted 150 mm secondary guns and a number of small-caliber secondary guns.

Adopting a conventional freeboard design, the armor belt is still steel-faced iron armor, with armor thickness ranging from 150 mm to 350 mm, and the concept of key defense is adopted, which weakens the armor thickness of non-core compartments and thickens the armor thickness of core compartments, turrets, and control towers.

This design is actually similar to the pre-dreadnoughts of later generations, the difference is that the pre-dreadnoughts of later generations are all built of steel, and the caliber of the guns is larger, and the tonnage is larger.

Although the design concept of this new warship of the empire is relatively close to the dreadnought of later generations, the technical level of the seventies and the technical level of the late eighties of the later generations are naturally very different.

For example, the hull and armor are still made of wrought iron and steel-faced iron armor, while the pre-dreadnoughts of later generations are basically all-steel hulls and hardened armor.

In terms of power, the inverted cylinder steam engine is still used now, while the later generation is a three-expansion steam engine.

In terms of firepower, later generations generally used more than fourteen-inch main guns, but now only twelve-inch guns can be used, and as for speed guns, there is no shadow.

Therefore, although the basic concept is similar, in fact, the two are very different.

After the design of the new warship was determined, it was the first time to start construction at the Qingdao Naval Shipyard, and the first ship was named Shaohao before it started, and the class of ships was also called Shaohao. (To be continued.) )