After finalizing the basic principles of cooperation with Bismarck, Scrooge went to the University of Göttingen as usual. At the University of Göttingen, Scrooge is undoubtedly one of the most popular figures, because he always brings something new and interesting to the table. According to some scientists, Scrooge was actually very inspired by pure theory, but he focused more on technology than on science, otherwise he might have been more successful in science. As for the other reason for welcoming him, it was more mundane, and that was that Scrooge never came empty-handed, and he always brought all kinds of donations or something. Although these donations come with some conditions, such as the University of Göttingen having to accept a certain number of exchange students from the University of Cleveland. But this condition is not a difficult task for the University of Göttingen. Although on an academic level, the University of Cleveland is still far behind Göttingen, at least, in mathematics. But in other subjects, especially in engineering, the University of Cleveland is definitely one of the top universities in the world, the only problem is that its history is a little shorter.

After signing a series of cooperation agreements with the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin, Scrooge finally embarked on the road back to China. At this time, the first new warship he and Morgan built for the Navy was officially launched.

It was the first fast cruiser built for the Navy by the Morgan-MacDonald shipyard. It is customary for the factory owner to have a woman smash a bottle of champagne on the hull of the ship when the launch is announced, and the boat slides down the slide into the sea. The launch of this boat was no exception. Morgan's wife, Mimi, took on the role. After Morgan spoke on behalf of the shipyard, Mimi raised the champagne in her hand and smashed it towards the bow of the fast cruiser. The champagne bottle smashed into the cruiser's steel bow, and the three-thousand-ton cruiser began to slide backwards toward the sea along the butter-smeared rails.

The stern of the cruiser hit the water, splashing a wave of snow, and the warship itself shook a little, but apparently the anti-swing fins played a big role, and soon the ship returned to stability. However, a successful launch does not mean that the ship is built, in fact, in order to avoid the impact of the launch and damage some important parts, many things have not yet had time to be loaded on the ship. A tugboat hauls it into a dockyard, where it will load the last of its parts—propellers and weapons systems. Then we can officially start testing at sea.

It took a few more months to install these things, so it wasn't until April that the boat was officially built. On April 6, 1868, the cruiser, named Cleveland, was again towed out of dry dock by a tugboat to begin her sea trials.

The Navy, including the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy, has taken sea trials of the cruiser very seriously, and since the launch of the ship, the warships of the Royal Navy stationed in Bermuda have been circling around the Morgan MacDonald shipyard, apparently trying to take the opportunity to see what the new warships of the U.S. Navy are doing.

There was a lot of new stuff on the ship: steam turbines, knapsack turrets arranged on the central axis, tube-retreat main guns of the same caliber, and case-hardened steel armor. Some of the advantages of these things can be seen, and some of them cannot be seen at a glance. The Royal Navy was most concerned about the speed and seaworthiness of the ship. In the eyes of the British, they were not afraid of any opponent in a head-on confrontation.

The initial sea trials of the cruiser "Cleveland" were only general sailing, testing rudder efficiency and cruising fuel consumption, as well as the state of the ship in general sea conditions. On the first week-long voyage, the British's warships tried to follow at first. The Cleveland increased its cruising speed to 18 knots, and it wasn't long before the British's mast sank below sea level – a speed that exceeded the British's limit.

However, the Americans did not really want the British to see something, so by the time of the second round of sea trials, the high-speed cruiser simply appeared directly in the newspaper reports. The newly established Wall Street Journal issued an exclusive report on the fast cruiser sailing from New York to the port of Tampa in Florida at an average speed of twenty knots. And it is accompanied by a photo to illustrate.

"Amazingly high speed. What do you guys think of this boat? Chancellor of the Exchequer Benjamin 61 Disraeli asked the naval officers in front of him. Although he was only the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because the Prime Minister Earl Derby's health was so bad that he could barely govern, Benjamin 61 Disraeli became the de facto Prime Minister in the cabinet.

"Sir, the high speed of this ship is what we expected." One admiral replied, "We have acquired the technology for steam turbines." And, in order to gain time, we also ordered a batch of marine steam turbines from MacDonald. Similar models will soon appear in our Navy. And we are trying to create larger warships, including battleships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons. So this kind of warship is not too much of a threat to us. But some of her other design features are very interesting, and one of our young people came up with some interesting insights after studying the photographs. ”

"Is that the young man you are carrying? Well, the lad is already a lieutenant colonel at such a young age. Lieutenant Colonel, can you tell me what is your name? Benjamin 61 Disraeli asked.

"My name is John, John 61 Abbas Noth 61 Fisher." The young lieutenant colonel replied.

"Lieutenant Colonel Fisher is an expert in gunnery." "A lot of the recent changes to the Royal Navy's Shooting Lessons are the result of his research. ”

"Very good!" Benjamin 61 Disraeli said, "What do you see from the relevant intelligence? ”

"Your Excellency, this is a picture taken by our warship at close range." Lieutenant Colonel Fisher took out a photograph from the bag he was holding in his hand and placed it on the table, "There are still these, but let's look at this picture directly, this is a three-view of the 'Cleveland'-class fast cruiser drawn by our technicians based on photos from different angles." Your Excellency, you see, this warship has a high freeboard design, and the bow of the ship is obviously drifting outward, which shows that they attach great importance to seaworthiness, and this ship should also have a good appearance in high sea conditions. All the guns were arranged on the central axis, with two turrets in front and one in the back. This is a very special arrangement, and your Excellency, please note that there is a base under the B turret, which makes it higher than the A turret so that the A turret will not block the range of the B turret when facing the enemy head-on. If you can make sure that the center of gravity is not too high, this is a good design.

Your Excellency, you see, according to the arrangement of the artillery, the most suitable direction for the use of fire is still the side. When firing to the side, all three turrets, a total of six main guns, can fire. This shows that such warships of the Americans are still intended to fight in columns......"

"Wait." Benjamin 61 Disraeli asked, "Why do Americans still insist on using columns now?" ”

"I think there could be several reasons for that. First of all, because the Americans feel that their warships are faster, and when they seize positions, it is always easy to occupy a better position, and it is more convenient to use columns to seize positions and maintain an advantage in position. Secondly, probably, they were quite confident in their artillery. Lieutenant Colonel Fisher pointed to the guns on the three views and said, "Your Excellency, please look at these guns, they have some characteristics: first, all the guns are the same, on this warship, there is no so-called first main gun and second main gun, all the guns are the same. This allows all turrets to fire according to almost the same parameters when firing. The aiming efficiency of the artillery and the efficiency of the firepower will be higher than that of ordinary warships. Secondly, you see, these guns are quite limited in caliber, but the barrels are very long. Judging by the pictures, the barrel length of these guns is about five meters. Now it seems that no one in the navies of any country uses a cannon with such a long barrel. The longer barrel allows the shell to accelerate longer. The speed of the cannonball is likely to be faster, and the faster the cannonball, the better the penetration. Most of the Americans' artillery of this kind was designed to penetrate the ironclad of enemy ships. If their guns can penetrate their opponents' armor, but their opponents have a hard time penetrating their armor, and they have higher speeds, then they don't have to rely on ramming angles to solve the problem. Then the column is naturally better than the horizontal line. ”

"Well, well analyzed. Youngster! Benjamin 61 Disraeli said, "But there's one thing I don't quite understand. Well, you see, the freeboard of this kind of warship is already very high, which can easily cause the center of gravity to be too high, and the stability of the guide is poor when sailing. If such a problem occurs, then the freeboard will be so high for nothing, right? On the basis of the freeboard is very high, they also use a fully enclosed turret structure, which will definitely further make the center of gravity higher, and then on this basis, the B turret is also raised, and with such a long barrel, plus the length-to-width ratio of this ship is also larger than that of ordinary warships, in this way, how to ensure the stability of the ship? How to ensure that there will not be a situation where the whole ship will shake in a single shot? "It can be seen that although he is only the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin 61 Disraeli is also quite good at the navy.

"Your Excellency, look at the artillery in these pictures." Lieutenant Colonel Fisher had already prepared for this question, "The caliber of these guns is small, and we judge from the photos of these guns that the caliber of these guns should be about 4 inches or 5 inches." And on our cruisers of comparable weight, the caliber of the main guns used is 8-9 inch caliber, so our guns will naturally be much heavier. ”

"With such a small caliber, even if it penetrates the armor, the lethality is limited." Benjamin 61 Disraeli asked, after all, at this time, semi-armor-piercing shells with explosives were far from appearing.

"As long as you can penetrate the opponent, and you can make the opponent unable to catch up, you can't run away, fight slowly, you can always defeat the enemy." Lieutenant Colonel Fisher replied.

"You can see that the patience of the Americans is really good. Young man, do you think the Americans are in the right direction? Benjamin 61 Disraeli asked.

"The idea of the Americans is interesting. I think there are some things we can learn from as well. "We will also have high-speed warships, so we can also fight in columns, so our ships in the future should also use the central axis of the artillery." As for whether small-caliber shells with high muzzle velocity are used, I think it still needs to be studied. It is better to have a real combat example. It is still difficult to judge whether the Americans are doing the right thing. ”

"If it weren't for the fact that we agreed not to sell ships with steam turbines to any other country because of the transfer of technology, I would have liked to equip the Spaniards with ironclads with steam turbines, and let them try it with the Americans, so that we can see the results." Benjamin 61 Disraeli said with a smile.