"Before the appearance of the German 305mm turret battleship, it is better to sell Maozi a ...... to install the cruise" After determining the target direction, Qingying began to carefully review the 11 installation and patrol designs in this material.

Since the armored cruiser has just appeared in the navy, the fixed blueprint that can be used for reference is limited; In order to prevent technical faults and avoid risks, German designers borrowed a lot from the example of the new battleship that had just started construction a few years ago; The 11 designs in front of Qingying, from the 7,000-ton PS-1 to the 13,000-ton PS-11, can basically see the traces of the former on his body. Almost all of them are long-bow ships, the third deck is not much higher than the waterline, and the design speed is between 19 and 20 knots, but there are differences in tonnage, weapons and armor.

After some repeated comparisons, Qingying selected the 8th plan with moderate tonnage as the main brand of Mao's arms sales at present. With half of the coal fired and replenished loaded, its displacement is 10700 tons; The design power is 17,000 horsepower, and the maximum coal load is 2,200 tons. If these indicators are met, then she will be able to run up to 20 knots; When sailing at a cruising speed of 10 knots, the range is up to 7000 nautical miles. She is armed with 8 40xd 210mm guns, 8 40xd 150mm secondary guns, 10 40xd 88mm secondary guns, and 5 450mm torpedo tubes; Four of the 210mm guns were arranged in the form of two twin turrets, one in the front and one in the front, and the other four 210mm guns were arranged in the form of four single turrets on the broadside of the ship's amidships. The reason why it was not all arranged along the center line was due to the possibility of being besieged by the enemy and the control of the length of the hull. Rao is like this, even after 10 years, it is still an extremely powerful firepower configuration. In addition, she had a large area of waterline armor 150mm thick, which was able to bounce even 305mm shells fired by battleships during the Russo-Japanese War, when the armor-piercing shells were not yet mature.

The reason why Qingying gave up the design of those super cruisers and chose this plan with moderate tonnage was not because he was kind enough to save Maozi money, but because of his unique considerations. Mao's purpose in developing the Pacific Fleet was to compete with the Japanese Navy, so the performance of Mao's warships only needed to surpass Japan's. And this plan to be sold to Maozi is strong enough compared to the British parallel cargo patrol that was equipped in Japanese history!

Historically, in order to prepare for war with Russia, Japan turned to Britain politically, economically, and militarily; While receiving a large amount of British capital injection, it also reluctantly gained the ship design ideas of Armstrong Shipyard that were not suitable for the Japanese Navy at all. Japan is an emerging naval power, and it lacks a penetrating understanding of the navy, but simply understands the importance of the navy; After seeing that the British Navy was strong, he gave full play to the spirit of learning from the wise and wise, completely copied all the routines of the British Navy, and did not deeply explore where the British Navy was strong. In the pre-dreadnought era, the British Navy was strong in the excellent quality of naval personnel, and the various types of warships that were more than cattle hair; And in terms of ship design, Britain can only be regarded as decent. Compared with Italy, which had the world's best ship design at that time, the performance disparity between the two warships was as great as heaven and earth!

For example, the first class of armored cruisers, which Britain started construction for Japan in 1896, had a design displacement of 9,700 tons, a speed of 21.5 knots, and were equipped with four 203 mm main guns and 14 152 mm secondary guns, and protected only a small strip of 7-inch armor from the waterline. The Garibaldi-class armored cruiser built by Italy during the same period, with a design displacement of only 7,400 tons, is also equipped with 4 203 mm main guns and 14 152 mm secondary guns, and also has a large area of 6 inches thick broadside armor! Although she has a slightly inferior speed of 20 knots, her power output of 13,000 hp is definitely an indicator of 21 knots. If the Italians were to slightly change the underwater line type, it would only take about 7,700 tons, which would be enough to achieve all the performance of the British 9,700-ton battleship.

From the monarchy to Duncan, the British have been solving the problem of warship performance with tonnage for 13 years; It wasn't until 1902 that they finally got the hang of it. The British Agile class battleship, which was started in 1902, has a design displacement of 11,800 tons and is equipped with 4 254 mm main guns and 14 190 mm secondary guns; Although the speed and armor were still lackluster, Agile was a complete step up in firepower compared to the previous ships, and it was a difficult first step. Throughout the pre-dreadnought era, Britain has always been unsatisfactory in the design of warships, but because the Royal Navy has so many warships, and the quality of the officers and men of the navy is also extremely good, under this dazzling light, people do not notice the darkness in it. At that time, almost all the countries in the world that were interested in touching the seas were looking up to the radiant Royal Navy; And the Italian navy is like a brocade at night, empty of good ships and no one pays attention at all, which is a tragedy within a tragedy.

Historically, under the careful teaching of the British, the scale of the Japanese patrol fleet began to appear, but the performance can only be said to be average. The five cruisers ordered by the Japanese Navy were basically the same as the first ship: their displacement ranged from 9,300 to 9,750 tons, their speed ranged from 20 knots to 21.5 knots, and they were all equipped with four 203-mm guns and 12-14 152-mm secondary guns. And Qingying's design for Maozi is fully equipped with 8 210mm guns, and she also has a large area of broadside armor that is better than Garibaldi. As long as the Mao sailors are not novices who have just served, there is no problem at all in sweeping away these guys with British blood one-on-one!

In addition, Qingying's reason for choosing this design is another consideration, that is, to try to avoid the naval butterfly effect caused by this.

Historically, countries really began to storm armored cruisers until after 1898; And now that 1895 is just over halfway through, the armored cruiser is in its infancy, the great powers are exploring the direction of her development, and basically no one is the first to taste the crab. Even if there is a construction, it is only a careful attempt. In this case, once there is a template with balanced performance, countries will rush to follow suit, or at least learn from it. If Germany suddenly sold Maozi a super patrol with a displacement of more than 14,000 tons and equipped with 8 240 mm main guns, then the installation and patrol built by Britain, France and the United States in the future will definitely no longer be the same as in history. Qingying's biggest advantage is that he has an understanding and familiarity with the development of history after that no one else has; Once the future is at a loss, it is definitely not a good thing for him. In addition, the increase in the size of armored cruisers may even lead to the early appearance of battle cruisers, which was the heyday of the British Navy's frenzied violence; If Britain had built a large number of battle cruisers that could be effectively used during World War I in the pre-dreadnought era, then for the high seas fleet, the ratio of the number of capital ships available to both sides would be even greater than in history!

This solution can effectively solve almost all of the above problems. The 210 mm caliber guns are of the same class as the 203 mm guns that have been heavily equipped with armored cruisers in historical countries, and this small difference due to different standards is completely negligible. In addition, although the number of 210-mm guns in this scheme was a little higher, reaching 8, which is twice as many as the 4 main guns in historical facts, the number of secondary guns was also correspondingly reduced: she was only equipped with 8 150-mm secondary guns, while the historical patrol had 12-14 6-inch guns of the same class; Overall, the increase in firepower is still acceptable. After all, her tonnage is 1,000 tons larger than the historical loading patrol. Her real strength lies in her armor, which covers 65% of the waterline with 150 mm hardened armor at a height of 3.5 meters, and can even bounce off 305 mm heavy bullets fired by battleships during the Russo-Japanese War, when the hard hat technique is still immature; In addition to this, there was a large area of upper armor up to 100 mm thick on the main load, which made almost the entire freeboard part of the battleship immune to 8-inch shells. And armor is the most overlooked. Qingying has almost 10% certainty to conclude that her birth alone will hardly cause any deviation impact on the development of historical facts.

————————————————————————————

The plan was decided, Qingying accepted the materials, and after bidding farewell to the old man Rastle, he drove back to the Winter Palace. After returning to the Winter Palace, he rushed into his room, carefully considering how to move Maozi to buy warships from Germany and squeeze money out of Maozi's hands. In the face of Sonia's provocation and frolic, Qingying did not act as angry as usual, but pondered on her own, leaving only Sonya with a confused and confused look.

After thinking about it for a few hours, Qingying decided to use Nicholas II as a breakthrough. Although the emperor was not as proficient in the navy as Wilhelm II, he was the supreme ruler of the country after all, and if he could be convinced, the matter would be largely certain. In addition, Nicholas II is still his own cheap Shu, and with this relationship, it is much easier to talk. If Qingying went directly to the XX who coordinated the construction of the Mao Navy, first, the two sides had never met, and second, Qingying's age was really a little young, how could the other party talk too seriously with him, a foreign country who was not yet 13 years old?

However, Nicholas II was busy with affairs and did not stay in the Winter Palace all the time, and it was not easy to find him and make an appointment. Qingying thought about it, and finally found out helplessly that if she wanted to meet Nikolai again, she had to start through the girl Sonia. For this reason, Qingying had to beg softly again, and after paying the painful price of selling herself for 3 days to accompany her to shopping and playing in the playground, she finally coaxed the girl to be happy and promised to wrap this matter on her. Although Sonia was a little violent, her efficiency was still very commendable, and I don't know what method she used, she actually let Nikolai in the Imperial Village return to the Winter Palace in advance, and met with Qingying the next night.