In the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, the Imperial Navy also had three wooden cruisers participating in the battle, and before the battle began, they were a separate column, and they also engaged in a skirmish with the British wooden battleships on the periphery, but these three wooden battleships did not affect the outcome of the naval battle.

They played soy sauce on the periphery, and then they found that the decisive victory and defeat between the two sides were divided.

In addition to the sail system, there was also a serious dissatisfaction within the Imperial Navy with the inadequacy of the protection of the open-air turrets, and there was an urgent demand to strengthen the protection capabilities of the battleship's open-air rotating turrets.

In this regard, a number of corresponding modification plans were urgently proposed, among which the most complete modification plan was to directly install the closed shells of the eight-year-old armor ship on the existing ironclad ship.

But this modification plan looks wonderful, but there is no value in the actual implementation, this directly change the turret, the amount of work is too large, it is estimated that the hull will have to be disassembled and reinstalled, not to mention the cost of the problem, the construction time alone is unacceptable, if the modification is carried out now, it is estimated that half a year later, the British fleet will attack again, and the battleships of the Imperial Navy are still on the slipway to accept the modification.

Therefore, the Navy has chosen a very simple method of refitting.

The first was to directly thicken the armor on the perimeter of the turret, which had previously had only a thin layer of iron plates, but now it was directly covered with armor plates up to 4.5 inches thick, the same thickness as the side armor of the hull.

The top of the open-air turret is simply covered with an iron plate, so that it becomes a rudimentary enclosed turret.

Of course, the iron plate attached to the top of this turret is very thin, and it is estimated that it will be difficult to resist shells falling from the sky. However, in these years, everyone's naval guns have a relatively short range, and they are basically straight ballistics. It will not appear and the kind of shells of later generations will fly for ten or twenty kilometers, and then form a curved trajectory. A direct attack on the deck of an enemy ship.

Therefore, it is enough for the iron plate installed on the top to block the fragments, and there is no need to be so thick!

In addition, because it was a critical stage of battle, in order to prevent shrapnel from flying everywhere after the shells fell on the battleship and exploded, it was planned to load a large number of sandbags on the battleship, especially around the turret, which was piled up with sandbags to increase the protection capacity of the turret, and it was also used to absorb shell fragments.

The above three measures are intended to be used by the Navy for emergency response. The refit will be completed in a short time, and it will be ready to meet the possible second attack of the British fleet.

In addition, the Navy is also based on the impact of the Pearl River Estuary Naval Battle, further research and development of various new technologies and changes to the design of new warships in the future.

One of the most important is to entrust the three major domestic weapons companies to develop more powerful naval guns and related shells, and put forward clear requirements for armor-piercing ability: that is, at least be able to penetrate the existing 4.5-inch thick mixed armor, and improve the armor-piercing ability as much as possible to cope with the possibility of thicker armor in the future.

In this regard, the three major domestic weapons companies have carried out relevant research, among which the technical force is the most abundant. At the same time, it is also the R&D and manufacturer of the 1857 series of rear-loading naval guns, and the Royal Arms Company, which is also developing a series of 180 mm, 200 mm, 250 mm and other major caliber naval guns, naturally has the greatest competitiveness.

As for the other two weapons companies, their previous focus was not on naval guns, such as Huguang Weapons Company. The company's main business is the development and manufacture of small arms and army field guns, and they currently supply the military mainly with rifles of the 1864 model, front-loading rifled field guns.

In recent years, the development of a rear-loading rifled gun for the army has been underway.

As for the Northern Arms Company. Its business is not very focused, and rifles and army artillery are produced. Some front-loading rifled naval guns were also produced, but it seemed that the spread was very extensive. However, in fact, the company's R&D capability is the weakest among the three major companies, and it basically does not have the ability to systematically develop advanced weapons.

Therefore, although the Navy is bidding for the three major domestic weapons companies at the same time, in fact, it is only the Royal Arms Corporation that can take up this task and carry out actual research and development.

As early as a few years ago, the Royal Arms Corporation had begun to develop larger-caliber, longer-barreled rear-loading guns, but due to the limited number of R&D personnel, it was impossible to say that a series of large-caliber naval guns were developed, so the two caliber naval guns of 200 mm and 250 mm were mainly selected.

This caliber corresponds to the imperial eight inches and ten inches respectively.

Of course, although the Royal Arms Company focuses on the research and development of these two levels of naval guns, it also has a certain degree of research and development of other caliber naval guns, such as 180 mm and 230 mm naval guns, which have also invested a certain amount of resources in preliminary research and development, but the progress is very slow.

The reason why the Royal Arms Corporation invested heavily in the research and development of 250 mm and 200 mm caliber main guns was mainly influenced by the development of a new generation of warships in the Navy.

For example, at present, the only test ship in the Navy, that is, the eight-year armor ship, which has not yet been officially named, is expected to use a 250 mm main gun.

At the same time, the 10,000-ton warships conceived by the navy in the early stage are also ready to equip this naval gun.

As for the 180-millimeter naval gun, it is intended to be used on the Navy's next-generation ironclad ships of the 5,000-ton to 6,000-ton class, and at the same time as the second-class main gun of the 10,000-ton battleship.

After all, even if it is a 10,000-ton giant ship, it is impossible to be equipped with too many 250-millimeter main guns, especially a rotating closed turret, so in addition to these small number of large-caliber main guns, a large number of sub-caliber main guns are also needed, and it is obvious that 150-millimeter naval guns can no longer serve as the second-level main guns of 10,000-ton giant ships.

In addition to the bidding for the naval gun system, the navy's internal warship design department, that is, the naval ship's administration department, also carried out the design of the new hull, and the requirements given by the navy's top management were to require the hull to be stronger, and at the same time to maintain better reserve buoyancy, the internal compartments to be treated with water ingress, and at the same time to strengthen the protection of the upper deck part. Specifically, it is to strengthen the protection capacity of the turret and strengthen the protection capacity of bridges and other buildings.

Avoid direct deployment of naval guns on the open deck. to ensure the safety of the gun position.

At the same time, it is also required to optimize the hull as much as possible to reduce the wave resistance. However, the aspect ratio should not be too large, because that would greatly increase the area of the armor belt, which would further increase the weight of the hull and increase the total tonnage.

For example, the Minotaur-class ironclad ship that was only commissioned by the British last year is more than 10,000 tons, and the main large ironclad ship used for the decisive battle of the fleet is 6.81, which is 6.81, and this aspect ratio is from the perspective of later generations. It is a representative of the short fat circle, and it has nothing to do with the beauty of the line.

At the same time, the Yandi-class ironclad ship of the Imperial Navy, although the tonnage is smaller, is also the main ironclad ship used for decisive battles within the Imperial Navy, and its length-to-width ratio is even smaller than that of the Minotaur class, with only a length-to-width ratio of only 6.2.

However, there are more ironclad ships in this era that have a smaller length-to-width ratio than the Yandi class, such as the British Defense Class and Hector, two ironclad ships of more than 6,000 tons, whose length-to-width ratio is only 5.57.

And the Imperial Navy's female snail-class offshore ironclad ships have a smaller aspect ratio. It's only a mere five .two.

For the same tonnage and power, the larger the aspect ratio, the smaller the wave resistance. In this way, the faster the speed, the larger the part that needs to be protected, and the longer the armor belt, the weaker it is.

Conversely, the aspect ratio is smaller. The slower the speed, the smaller the protective area and the thicker the armor.

Therefore, when the Navy Naval Officers are designing ships. It is often necessary to consider comprehensively, and it cannot be said that the aspect ratio should be increased simply for the sake of increasing the speed. Because then the protection will not be able to keep up, if the protection wants to keep up, then you have to increase the tonnage, the tonnage is larger, you need more power, and the power is larger, and the power is also larger hull and tonnage, so it falls into a dead loop.

Therefore, the hull design of each warship basically takes into account the strategic needs of its own navy, and it is not how the battleship designer wants to come.

For the Chinese Empire in 1866, the 10,000-ton giant ship was still a little far away, and if you want to build a 10,000-ton giant ship, you have to wait for eight years before it can be officially implemented.

Since the official start of construction in 1864, the eight-year ship has been under construction for more than two years, but it has still not been able to complete the hull construction work, and it is expected that the earliest launching time will be in the spring of next year, and there will be a lot of outfitting works after launching, such as the installation of guns and the like, and then it will have to be tested.

In this way, it is estimated that the earliest time in service will be after 1858!

It takes four years for a newly-built experimental warship to go from construction to service, which is very fast in modern times. You must know that the time required for the British large ironclad ships to start construction to launch, and then outfitting to completion and then to service is often more than four years, while larger warships often take five or six years.

For example, the Minotaur-class ironclad ship, its first ship was started in 1861 and launched in 1863, but it was not until 1867 that the outfitting and sea trials were completed, and the whole process lasted six years.

But these six years are actually a bit watery, because the British Navy is a mature navy, if you say that it is ahead of the world's naval technology, but it is extremely conservative, and the new ship often has to go through a lot of sea trials and various tests after completion, so the later time is delayed a lot.

However, there is no such idle time in the Imperial Navy, and now the Imperial Navy urgently needs warships to expand its strength, so the construction of warships is often overtime, and the sea trials after the outfitting is completed are directly responsible for the navy, directly while training and sea trials, and in an emergency, they are often directly on the battlefield, the most obvious example is the Yandi-class No. 2 ship Shaohao and the Pangu-class No. 4 ship Fuxi, these two warships from the completion of outfitting to participate in the Pearl River Estuary naval battle, only less than two months apart.

However, this did not affect their combat effectiveness much, because the Imperial Navy directly transferred ready-made officers and soldiers from the Yandi or other ironclad ships of the Pangu class to serve, and they had the service experience of ships of the same class.

However, even so, the navy is still very dissatisfied with the long construction cycle of the eight-year armored ship, if it is necessary to wait for the completion of the eight-year armored ship and the completion of the test before starting the construction of the 10,000-ton giant ship, when will it go, will it not be until 1859 to start construction, and then it will not be until about 1875 that the first 10,000-ton giant ship will be commissioned?

This time period was only a long time, and the dire situation facing the Imperial Navy did not have so much time for them to wait.

Therefore, shortly after the conclusion of the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, the navy officially submitted an emergency shipbuilding plan, including the navy's long-awaited plan for a 10,000-ton giant ship. (To be continued.) )