"Xu, are you really going to give the new plan to the Germans?" Back at the hotel where Xu Jie was staying temporarily, Vittorio asked angrily.

"Do I have any other choice? That Bragali general is forcing Beiyang to betray the country, you have been to the Qing Dynasty, you should know that Beiyang, as a feudal town, is impossible to agree to such conditions, and there is no need for this kind of insincere negotiation to continue. For the sake of my country, I had no choice. Xu Jie smiled bitterly.

"Does that mean that our cooperation, our ** design bureau will be dissolved?" Saying this, Vittorio's heart tightened, and his words trembled a little.

"Do you think the Germans will agree to share the technical information that was sent to them with the Italians?" Xu Jie smiled dumbly. "However, I will always be your friend, whether I am in Italy, Germany, England, or back in the Qing Dynasty, I welcome you." Xu Jie said sincerely.

"You're leaving Italy?" Vittorio said dejectedly.

"If I can't negotiate with your country within 15 days, I think I'll have to leave for Germany immediately." Xu Jie said helplessly.

"Do you really have a plan for the construction of new battleships, and not for improvements on the basis of Garibaldi?" After hesitating for a long time, Vittorio still decided to complete the task given by Brin with a cheeky face - to find out the military situation!!

"You don't believe it?" Xu Jie said with a smile. Vittorio had been beating around the bush for a long time, and now he was finally getting down to business. However, Xu Jie does not intend to refuse, after all, there is nothing that the Italians are interested in, how can you convince Italy to provide all-round help to Beiyang? Therefore, Xu Jie plans to pass Guò Vittorio to the Italian government to break some news~~.

"That's not what I meant, I'm just curious." Vittorio said awkwardly.

"I think you've seen my X-Class Patrol Improvement Plan, right?" Xu Jie said.

"Is that the three twin 10-inch guns? To be honest, I'm not very bullish. Vittorio pouted. This 10-inch turret placed in the middle occupies too much space, and Yan zhòng squeezes the space of the power compartment and the gun gallery on both sides, so that the number of secondary guns will inevitably decline, and I personally conservatively estimate that in the case of no more than 10,000 tons, there will be no more than 4 side-chord 6-inch secondary guns. ”

"That's right, if a twin 10-inch turret is placed in the middle, the number of side chord secondary guns will definitely drop significantly, and my plan is to have 4 6-inch guns, but not gallery guns, but turret guns." Xu Jie explained.

"Personally, I feel that in terms of firepower projection per unit time, it is not advantageous compared with the original Garibaldi class." Vittorio said disappointedly.

"The ability of a battleship to penetrate the opponent's armor in addition to the amount of firepower per unit of time is also an important factor, and I think the Italian military has already tested the hardened armor. I personally estimate that as long as the hardened armor reaches more than 3 inches, it can withstand the attack of 6-inch rapid-fire guns, so this is also the purpose of my design of ** light armored cruisers, but if you want to resist 10-inch guns, the protection must reach at least about 5 inches. Xu Jie said.

"After the appearance of hardened armor, the relationship between attack and defense of battleships was reversed at once, it turned out that the artillery was dominant, in order to ensure the strength of protection, the side chord armor belt was often more than 14 inches thick, and now, with the emergence of hardened armor, only 5 to 6 inches thick, can resist the attack of large-caliber guns above 10 inches." Vittorio nodded. "Tell me about your new plans."

"My Garibaldi improved warship is actually preparing for the new first class of warships. The new ships will still use 10-inch guns, but they will use a new three-pack turret, and the layout will be the same as that of the Garibaldi Improvement, with a central axis arrangement and a secondary gun turret, and the tonnage will be expanded to more than 14,000 tons. Xu Jie replied. …,

"Can you be specific? It's too vague. Vittorio said with some dissatisfaction.

"Well, I'll do a little more, first, to adopt a new rangefinder and information transmission system to ensure that the number of actions of the opposing warship can be obtained as much as possible when the artillery fires. in order to increase the hit rate. Second, enhance underwater protection. As for how to increase it, this is a secret, and it will definitely not be just a subdivision of the compartment anyway. Xu Jie said as he looked at Vittorio's somewhat gray face. Thirdly, it is necessary to prepare for the development of a new type of armor-piercing projectile, from now on, the warhead of an armor-piercing projectile will fragment when it hits hardened armor, and my new armor-piercing projectile will try to solve this problem (a qualified armor-piercing shell with a cap consists of 4 aspects, a cap, a buffer layer between the shell charge and the projectile body, a passivation charge and an excellent fuse). As for the fourth, this is a secret, unless the cooperation between Beiyang and Italy can continue, otherwise, I think you can only wait for about 5 years to know the result. Xu Jie laughed.

In Xu Jie's plan, the new battleship must use 10-inch guns at present, first of all, the existing 10-inch guns are absolutely enough in terms of performance, although in the face of hardened armor, 10-inch guns are powerless, but 12-inch still can't penetrate 6-inch hardened armor (there is only one example in history, God knows how this is penetrated--! And if it's more than projection, it's obviously 10 inches higher. Secondly, if Xu Jie can really make the mature cap-piercing shell come out, the guys with 9-inch main equipment in later generations can obviously block the 10-inch cannon at a distance of about 5KM, but they will definitely not be able to carry 12 inches (the historical Russo-Japanese naval war is about 5KM). Therefore, in order to make this 14,000-ton battleship still have combat power in 10 years, Xu Jie plans to consider replacing the twin 12-inch main guns when designing the gun circle. In history, there was a BB that had a plan to change its guns, one was that Lao Sha's 11-inch 3-joint main gun was considered to be replaced with a double-linked 15-inch gun, and the other was that when Japan was designing the super-armored patrol, it considered replacing the 310 main gun with a 410 main gun if necessary to participate in the decisive battle of the fleet. However, the former was not carried out because of time and money and Lao Sha's overweight problem, and the latter was just a plan, but Xu Jie didn't mind realizing this replacement plan in his own hands.

"It seems that there is a gap between us." Vittorio sighed.

"No way, we're all working for our country. Personally, however, I hope that the cooperation between the Qing Dynasty and the Kingdom of Italy will continue. Xu Jie comforted.

After the conversation between Vittorio and Xu Jie, the two sides spent three days peacefully, and the Italian side needed to reassess its shape and revise its strategy, and Xu Jie needed to think about the problems he would face in future negotiations. Both sides waited for the other to request a resumption of talks in order to take the initiative, and the silence continued until five days later, when an urgent telegram from the Italian embassy in Germany broke the silence.

"General Bragali, I think we should abandon our claims to sovereignty in order to obtain a continuation of cooperation. The Germans couldn't wait a little and wanted to take their place, and Mr. Vittorio's report showed that Mr. Xu did have a new plan, and that he had already begun to implement it. Brin said as he handed the telegram to Bragali.

"I want to know, is this really that important for Mr. Xu to the construction of the navy?" Bragali asked.

"Isn't the ironclad fact that more than a dozen **-class cruisers have been built, and that the new Garibaldi-class armored cruisers were also planned by him? Brin said dissatisfied.

"In fact, I personally feel that the greatest interest of the Kingdom of Italy in the Far East is not to occupy a certain piece of land, but to obtain economic benefits, the Kingdom of Italy lacks sufficient capital reserves, the military strength is not enough to travel thousands of miles to maintain its enclave in the Qing Dynasty, and even the small Abyssinian country in Africa has not been completely conquered, in this case, it is not a ridiculous thing to go thousands of miles away to fight for a palm-sized territory? Italy's future lies in the Mediterranean, in Africa, in the Middle East. Brynn finished his opinion in one breath, and then waited for Bragali's reply.

"Well, Minister Brin, I'll get your opinion on that, and I think it's time to end this negotiation." Bragali said a little helplessly, after all, Brin's influence is not limited to the navy, since he thinks that the original plan needs to be revised, I am afraid that the upper peak will also make adjustments to the negotiations.

Thank you to the book friend Huang Shanqiao, the reward of the life-threatening scholar and the evaluation vote of TQ1377~~. There is a more tonight~~ Let's support it a lot~~.