On May of the eighth year, Fernando, the governor of the Philippines, sent a messenger to Beibing and met Deng Haonan in Xingyuan.

The messenger conveyed Governor Fernando's greetings to Deng Haonan. At the same time, Governor Fernando's request for Deng Haonan to send troops to help was conveyed.

Deng Haonan was worried about how to intervene in the war between Spain and the Netherlands, and Fernando sent a signal for help.

The Spanish believed that it was the Zolan who had robbed their treasure ship. The Dutch demanded it, but the Dutch refused to admit it, and war broke out.

Spain was still a first-class European power until the end of the Thirty Years' War in Europe. At this time, the Spaniards had an army of about 40,000 in the Philippines, and the number of naval warships has now reached more than 100 after expansion, of which 60 main warships are first-class cruisers, and their firepower is between 40 guns and 56 guns, of which 56 gun cruisers are equivalent to the Pacific Fleet's Beiyun-class fourth-class sail battleships, about 15 ships, and their combat power is strong.

After the Spanish Philippine colonial government declared war on the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch in Batavia immediately retaliated. After declaring war on the Philippines, warships were urgently dispatched from the Indian Ocean and Africa to the Far East, ready to pack up the Spaniards in the Philippines.

The Dutch East India Company had more than 11,000 ships around the world, including 900 warships used in warfare. Rear Admiral Arnhem, the governor of the East India Company, brought in forty cruisers, and the original sixty ships increased to a hundred, and a large number of frigates responded. For a time, the Spaniards in the Philippines felt the strength of the Dutch East India Company.

The Dutch did not plan to send troops to occupy the Philippines, but only wanted to teach the Philippine fleet a lesson in naval battles and make some war reparations after the war. At the same time, through the Guò War, the Dutch East India Company had an excuse to increase the number of warships in the Far East to counter Di Haonan's Pacific Fleet. Of course. The Dutch also thought about looking for shame on the Pacific Fleet. It's just that it hasn't been poured out yet.

Deng Haonan naturally likes to rob while the fire is hot, and he also agreed to Fernando's request in his heart. But he still posted the messenger for three days. In his words, it's healthier to get sunburned.

On the fourth day, Na Haonan summoned Fernando's messenger and offered to help his old friend. However, at present, the Liaodong Army is suppressing bandits in Jiangxi, and military spending is somewhat tight.

The messenger didn't understand what Deng Haonan meant, and hurriedly said that Governor Fernando had already explained that if the Ming army was willing to send troops to help, military expenses and other related expenses would be paid by the Philippine colonial government.

Deng Haonan then agreed to Fernando's request to send troops, and as for the specific details, he sent Chen Yaoming, Minister of the Navy of the Liaodong Governor's Office, to Manila to negotiate directly with Fernando.

The messenger got Deng Haonan's nod. So he returned to Manila to report to Fernando.

Here, Deng Haonan convened a naval meeting to discuss the matter of war against the Dutch East India Company. The meeting decided to send the main fleet of the Pacific to participate in the war. However, thirty cruisers went to the Pacific to rob the Spanish treasure fleet. There is no news yet, and only thirty cruisers left in the home port have just been formed. Navy officers and men need to get used to it for a while before they can participate in the war, so the Admiralty decided to conduct naval exercises for a period of time. Then wait for Shi Jianfei to lead the fleet back and then go south to participate in the battle.

Deng Haonan fought against bandits in the governor of Nanzhili. Mid-May. Two frigates of the Pacific Fleet were attacked by the rebel Suli sailors near the mouth of the lake, killing and wounding more than 20 sailors.

The next day. Deng Haonan ordered the fleet to assemble only at the mouth of the lake to find a decisive battle with the Suli naval army.

The Suli Navy had more than 50,000 men, but there were no large ships. As a result of fighting on Lake Poyang. Most of the warships used were flat-bottomed sand boats, and because the warships were all new. Time was short, and the maximum tonnage was only 200 tons. However, the number is huge, as many as more than 4,000.

For the first time, Su Li commanded such a large number of small boats in a naval battle, although he completely annihilated the Jiangxi naval army near Duchang on Poyang Lake, and achieved a great victory. However, Su Li was apprehensive about the Pacific Fleet, and did not deploy well when he attacked the two frigates patrolling the Yangtze River, and guided the battle plan that could have been completely annihilated, but in the end only more than 20 people were on board, allowing the two frigates to escape.

As revenge. On 17 May, the Pacific Fleet assembled 40 frigates to shell the rebels along the shore of the lake, killing and wounding more than 700 rebels.

On the evening of the 18th. The Soviet Union's territorial naval forces attacked the anchorage of the Pacific Fleet, but the Pacific Fleet had already prepared. Waiting for the rabbit. Beat the Sully Navy.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Su Li immediately turned around and fled, and dozens of warships of the Pacific Fleet followed in pursuit. chased until dawn and drove Su Li into Nanhuzui. The Sully Navy had only a dozen earthen guns and faced heavy shelling from the frigates of the Pacific Fleet. The small sand boats were sunk into the river one by one. Less than half a day's work. Most of the Suli Navy was lost. There was no way, Sully had no choice but to order a breakout. Unexpectedly, the Pacific Fleet blocked the river with iron locks and bombarded it with artillery, and the Suli Navy was unable to break through.

By the afternoon, Sully saw that there was no hope of breaking through. In the end, he gave the order to abandon ship, and the whole army landed and fled by land.

In this way, the Pacific Fleet won a great victory at Nanhuzui and captured more than 1,000 enemy warships. Wiped out more than 10,000 rebel sailors.

Deng Haonan issued a commendation order, and the news spread, and the morale of the Ming troops from all walks of life was greatly boosted, while the rebels were demoralized.

The Beiyun-class fourth-class sail battleship is undergoing sea trials, and the relevant sea trial results and numbers are being summarized at the Xiaonanjiang Naval Base. This class of ships embodies the crystallization of the wisdom of naval arsenals and shipyards, Western warfare

He Gong, Cao Jie took its essence, and was integrated into the design of Ya Oriental technology and future experience: the elite of the continent.

Of course, there are no fewer problems. Due to the Ming Empire's naval shipbuilding business, it was already far behind the West by the time of the Apocalypse. The Naval Engineering Agency got off to a late start. Until now, only small-scale modifications could be carried out on the basis of others, and coupled with the tight maritime situation in Southeast Asia, Deng Haonan demanded that he try his best to catch up with the pace of Western navies, so the Beigumo-class battleship is only an enlarged version of the Dolphin-class cruiser. Although there were many problems during sea trials, it did not affect the overall performance.

But these exposed problems are summed up and will be corrected when the construction of this class of battleships officially begins. Compared with the more than 200 years of seafaring experience in the West, although this experience is not much, it is the Chinese people themselves who have explored and summed up.

As a fourth-class battleship, in addition to the increased firepower, as a battleship, her hull has been strengthened a lot. In addition to the use of fine hardwoods. A layer of steel plates was also added to the outside. Considering the speed, the steel plate is not thick. It is only 30% thicker than the iron sheet. Compared with the previous Dolphin and Flying Fish grades, although the steel plate is not thick, it is much stronger than the previous iron sheet, and the ability to resist blows has also been enhanced. A fourth-class battleship of the North Cloud class, equivalent in tonnage and firepower to the current Spanish first-class cruisers. In contrast, the Beiyun class has detachable and assembled steel plates as protection, which Deng Haonan calls reactive armor. In the West, only warships with more than 70 guns can see the addition of a layer of iron sheet on the outside, because the more artillery guns require the higher the protection ability. In firepower. The Beiyun class uses the Apocalypse seven-year God of War artillery at medium and short ranges, and the Zirui rear-loading rapid-fire gun, which has an advantage in terms of rate of fire.

The Apocalypse Seven-Year God of War Gun is an improved version of the Apocalypse Five-Year Style, which is mainly optimized for the airtightness brought by the Zirao rear-loading type, increasing the chamber pressure and improving the effective firing range. The gradual maturity of steelmaking technology brought about a revolution in precision rolling equipment, and the arsenal used more and more sophisticated instruments for measurement and cutting, making the seven-year artillery much better than the five-year artillery.

The Beigumo-class battleships will be massively armed with solid shells, grenades, and chain shells, with a small number of flowering shells. The main reason is that the flowering bomb is expensive, not to mention the high cost, there are too many restrictions in ship-to-ship combat, and the accidental damage is strict. In previous battles, when using flowering shells in combat, many soldiers were not killed or injured because of their unstable flowering elastic performance. The Joint Naval Conference believes that the benefits of the flowering shell cannot compensate for the losses caused by it. A good gunner can achieve effective results against the enemy with cheap solid shells. Thus, flowering shells were allowed to equip the fleet only in small quantities.

However, the research on the flowering bomb was not stopped. Deng Haonan does not have much time and energy to devote to weapons research, but he has already put forward the theory and concept of fuze, and handed it over to the experts of the arsenal to find relevant materials and explore technology, and strive to manufacture modern artillery shells as soon as possible.

In terms of seaworthiness, the North Cloud class is known for its slender hull. Compared with the fat hull of the West, the wave-breaking performance is better.

In addition, the draft is deep, and the stability is strong, which is suitable for deep-sea operations.

It can be said that in the Far East, the Beiyun-class battleships can already dominate. But. The Beiyun has just been put on trial, and it will not be built in batches until July. At the same time, the high cost of building ships in the Beiyun class has always been a problem for Di Haonan.

Two Beiyun ships can build three first-class cruisers with a western guide, which shows its high cost.

But the upfront investment requires throwing money, which is also a matter of no choice. Although Di Haonan was distressed, he also had to accept the reality.

According to the original plan, "once the Beiyun sea trials are successful, the Admiralty will approve the construction of ten Beiyun-class battleships to enhance the strength of the Pacific Fleet."

In the past, only the first ship of each class of warships had a name, and the other ships were indicated by the port number, and occasionally the officers and men of some warships would give their warships a name. Starting with the Beiyun class, the battleship enters the ranks of battleships, and there will also be an official name for it.

The ten battleships to be built in the Beiyun class were named as follows: Beiyun, Beishen, Beirui, Nanxiang, Hai'an, Haiyan, Guangcheng Xiaofukang, Chengqing, and Aopu. Among them, the Beiyun is a newly built warship, and the Beiyun in the sea trials will be removed from the list and turned into a test ship of Xiaonanshan Shipyard after the sea trials.

According to the standards of the first level of design, construction and service, the next level of battleship has already been demonstrated and designed in the Xiaonanshan Naval Design Institute during the sea trials of the Beiyun.

The next class of battleships was rated as the Xiangying-class small, because the Beiyun-class battleships were enough to defend the sea power and dominate the Far East, so the designers of the Xiangying-class began to make bold reforms and experiments in the design.

The "Soaring Eagle-class Jiya" is designed as a third-class sail battleship, including the bow mast with a total length of mimeters, width, blade meters, draft of 6 meters, mainmast height meters, steel-hulled hull, estimated displacement, stew. Four-masted Western soft sails. The bold design of the twin foremasts enhances the ability to eat wind. Increase speed. The mainmast is hung with five crosssails, the rear mast is hung with a triangular longitudinal sail, the diamast is hung with a seven-sided triangular steering sail, the flying scissor bow, and the large ramming angle design. High freeboard wave protection design, trapezoidal stern. It is expected to be equipped with seventy-two Apocalypse seven-year God of War guns and a double-deck gun. Symmetrical layout. The middle three-storey battlement. The capacity is mocking, under the wind at full speed, the maximum speed. knots, old knots at standard speed, mouth knots at normal cruising speed. The battery life is 6 months.

Thanks to the theoretical support of new technologies. For the first time, the Falcon-class battleships will have a steel-hulled hull.

This all depends on the guidance of Deng Haonan, and the small iron boat can be built. It was feasible for Hou Bian to sue them for crying, but at that time he was not able to produce a hungry hull. Now Deng Haonan has obtained the original Yongle Canon, which has explained in detail the construction process of the steel-hulled hull in the construction information about the treasure ship.

Of course, before the construction of the steel-hulled hull, the Admiralty Engineering Department completed the construction of two pieces of equipment. That is the hydraulic press and the steam engine.

The function of the hydraulic press is clear, it is the most central equipment for the construction of the hull of a battleship. Whereas, the steam engine is used to provide kinetic energy to the hydraulic press, otherwise the hydraulic press will not work.

It does not require any technical difficulty to build a hydraulic press for the hull of about 2,000 tons, and only a hydraulic press of about 500 tons is more than enough.

The Eagle-class battleships are not hybrid warships, but are still powered by wind energy. Therefore, there is no need to build a shipboard steam engine drive and turbine device, which cannot be learned by looking at the information of the treasure ship, and it will not take three or five years. These ancient people did not want to understand the meaning.

The Falcon-class battleship only uses a hydraulic press to create a steel hull, which is not too difficult. The only difficulty is that Deng Haonan asked the Xiangying class to adopt a flying scissor bow. This is also the reason why the speed of the Soaring Eagle class has soared to eighteen knots. With a steel-hulled hull and a scissor bow, and four masted sails to power it, eighteen knots is already conservative.

Of course, there is a big difference between the design speed and the actual speed. It is more dependent on the size of the wind and the resistance of the battleship's navigation, and the designers dare not boast about it, once the sea trial does not meet the requirements. Or maybe it's a big gap. That's a shameful thing.

Take the Beiyun-class battleship as an example, and design eleven knots of speed. As a result, the sea trial ran to the twelfth section. There is no doubt that these designers pursued a modest and cautious strategy.

The Flying Shear bow is not possible on the Exocet class, mainly because of the adoption of the Flying Shear bow. The speed of the battleship soars rapidly, and when the bow breaks through the seawater, it will encounter very strong resistance, which can easily tear the wooden flying scissor bow, thus leading the battleship to disintegrate during the voyage.

With a hydraulic press, it's different. The flying scissor bow made of steel hull can be forged by a hydraulic press, which can be imposed on the bow in advance, so that the steel can withstand thousands of tons of water pressure, so that when sailing at high speed, it can withstand the huge reaction force brought by the sea water and achieve the purpose of high-speed sailing.

The principle of the steaming machine is very simple, there is no shortage of materials, and although the manufacturing process is rougher, this does not affect the use of the steam engine. For those experts under Na Haonan's hands, they will not be unfamiliar after a month or two of surprise.

After the use of the steel-hulled hull, it not only enhances the protection ability of the battleship, but also sinks the steel into the water, so that the battleship invisibly increases the stability. In the past, wooden warships needed to spend a considerable part of the cabin space to store ballast, but now with the steel-hulled hull, the ballast property is much reduced. Make more room for other things.

According to the design, the steel required for a Xiangying-class battleship will reach hundreds of tons, which is the steel production capacity of the Liaodong Governor's Office for three months. After this qiē was brought down, the Admiralty would have to bear a financial deficit of three million taels, which undoubtedly made Deng Haonan feel distressed.

However, Deng Haonan still approved the development and construction plan of the Xiangying class, because in addition to being a sharp sword to enhance the strength of the navy, it is also a manifestation of comprehensive national strength, and it can also increase the employment opportunities of tens of thousands of people. Of course, Deng Haonan has never been in a loss-making business, and in his heart, he has always had such an abacus.

"As much as you spend, you should add a few zeros to the end and earn it back from others."

This is Deng Haonan's business experience, as for how he earned it back and how he earned it back. His men guessed it.

The construction of the first test ship of the Falcon-class battleship took a long time, the main thing is that many things are the first time. Deng Haonan encouraged this kind of bold attempt, if it didn't work once, then the second time, the third time, until it succeeded, at all costs.

The first ship, the Xiangying, is expected to start laying the keel at the Xiaonanshan Naval Shipyard in December of tomorrow, but the manufacturing of core equipment such as steam engines and hydraulic presses took a certain amount of time, which led to the completion of the Xiangying-class battleship being pushed back again and again.

Due to the abundance of time, the two first-class sail battleships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan will be delivered to the Pacific Fleet in the pseudo-year. Until then, workers and technicians sent to England and France to learn shipbuilding techniques had not been able to master the construction of large warships. It was also impossible to build first-class battleships in China, so Deng Haonan gave the Admiralty a lot of time to study the treasure ship technology in the Yongle Grand Canon.

Of course, treasure ships are also to be built. However, it is easy to learn the steam engine, and it is still a long way to go to put the steam engine on the battleship and use steam power to drive the battleship.

You can't eat a fat person in one bite!

Regarding the construction of the Xiangying-class battleship, Deng Haonan gave a lot of construction. The first is to build a small two-hundred-ton steel-hulled ship for testing, and then continue to build larger warships after gaining experience and numbers.

To this end, the Xiaonanshan Shipyard first built a small warship of 200 tons for testing. Save the design parameters and sea trial numbers. Then a 500-ton battleship was built, another 800-ton battleship was built, and finally the construction of the 1,400-ton Xiangying began.

This conservative way of building ships, although it takes time and money, is steady and steady. Na Haonan was very satisfied. D