The earliest iron-clad warships of mankind are actually not unusual. In ancient times, navies of various countries had the idea of covering wooden hulls with iron armor. During the Three Kingdoms period in China, iron shields were installed on the outer surface of the hull to prevent enemy rockets. and catapults.
In order to defeat the Ishiyama Honganji Temple in Japan, Oda Nobunaga specially built an iron-clad ship. In fact, it was just a large Anzhai ship with the outside covered with a layer of iron plates. In the end, he defeated the Murakami navy of the Mori family in the Seto Inland Sea. Finally, the famous city of Ishiyama Honganji was captured.
In fact, North Korea has also studied its own iron-clad ships. The turtle ship built by Yi Sun-shin is actually a primitive iron-clad ship. The Japanese also suffered a big loss in front of the turtle ship. Don’t think that the name of the turtle ship is not good. In front of other warships It really carved a crow, and it also sprayed poisonous smoke.
These so-called ironclads from the medieval era were certainly not what Xiao Letian wanted, and the batch of ironclads built by Europeans in the mid-19th century based on the design ideas of sailing battleships were not what Xiao Letian wanted either.
In 1858, the French built the world's first ironclad ship, the Glorious, with a displacement of 5,630 tons. However, this was still a warship covered with iron armor and wood, not a pure ironclad ship.
Then in 1860, the British produced a pure steel battleship, the Warrior, with a displacement of 9137 tons. This time, the wood in the iron plate was abandoned, but the sails were still there, and the artillery was arranged in the same way as sailing battleships in the past. There is a slip.
As for the American Civil War, although this was the first time that ironclads were used in actual combat, the shapes of the two ironclads, the Virginia and the Monitor, were too weird. They could only shoot at each other in the inland river and could not enter the ocean at all. .
In Xiao Letian's eyes, the true origin of the ironclad ship should be pushed back thirty years to the early 20th century, when it was truly the era of the ironclad ship.
Pure steam power gives up sails, the central axis of the main gun can be freely rotated, and the smoothbore gun is completely abandoned... Such an armored marine monster is the overlord of the sea in Xiao Letian's mind.
What will be displayed at the Volcan Shipyard today is a top-secret plan jointly led by Xiao Letian and Prince Carl, a very bold attempt.
The Vulcan Shipyard is located along the Oder River in Szczecin, close to the sea outlet, with the Baltic Sea to the north. The shipyard invested in a huge dry dock to keep it secret, and built a huge dry dock with wooden frames and tarpaulins. The engineers and workers who can enter here are all reliable people who have been carefully selected by Prussia.
When King Yi's carriage drove into the shipyard, Fangguan and the others discovered that a gold-painted carriage was parked in front of the office building. This carriage was too familiar to them. It was Prince Carl's car.
"The prince has arrived, pay attention to your appearance..." King Yi carefully reminded the others, but these words were of no use to Fangguan. As soon as Prince Carl in the living room picked up a cup of coffee, Fangguan He yelled and rushed over.
"Godfather..." Fangguan brought up a gust of wind and threw himself directly into Prince Carl's arms. The coffee in Carl's hand ended up spilling on his own pants in order to avoid Fangguan's white skirt.
"Oh, you are so naughty, I should really find a powerful prince to control you..."
"No...I don't want any princes. They all know how to fight, just like a fighting rooster..."
"Haha, then who do you like and click on that French intelligence officer?" Karl laughed.
Fangguan shrugged and said nonchalantly, "I just gave him a chance to pursue me. The rest will depend on his ability..."
Karl rubbed Fangguan's hair, stood up and said apologetically to King Yi, "I'm very sorry, I'm going to change some clothes..."
After a while, Prince Karl changed into clean clothes and walked out. At this time, all the foreign students paid tribute to the prince one by one. After some greetings, King Yi said, "His Royal Highness is in good spirits. It seems that the throat problem is not serious." It’s in the way.”
"Yes, I really want to thank my dear Xiao. The doctor said that my lesions were discovered very promptly. If it had been a few years later, it would have been dangerous... God bless him, why did he predict it in advance?"
"Maybe this is the charm of Brother Xiao. How could he design such a strange battleship without some magical means." King Yi smiled.
"Yes, I have invited many military experts to study together, and they all agree that this kind of warship will completely create a new way of thinking about naval warfare. Maybe we are really ahead of the times this time. Although it is not perfect, I personally am still willing to Taking such a risk..."
King Yi shook his head, "What the prince said is wrong. Ryukyu has borne this risk independently. In the early stage, we allocated 900,000 taels of silver scientific research funds to build this dry dock and a large amount of equipment. Later, we invested 100 taels in three installments." Ten thousand taels of silver were used to build the ship body, and the 1.9 million taels of treasure built were all money spent by our foundation."
"No, no, no, your lord, please don't settle accounts like this. I don't think Xiao Letian will settle accounts like this. In order to provide the design and construction engineers for this battleship, Prussia stopped the construction plan of two battleships in succession, and collected funds from steel plants from various places. , the machinery manufacturing plant deployed top engineers... and even our brave espionage personnel lost more than ten, these are all costs."
The two of them looked at each other and smiled. Politicians always pay attention to their strength when testing each other. Arguing with a red face is not an option.
"Of course we will not forget Prussia's support, but without Brother Xiao's original drawings, I'm afraid your talented designers wouldn't be able to come up with such a weird battleship..."
"Yes, I admit it. Xiao Letian's design ideas are worth a lot of money. If this idea is verified in actual combat, then I think your two countries will be 30 years ahead of this era..."
"Oh, that's good... money is valuable only when it is spent. We Chinese are not misers. Although 1.9 million taels makes me heartbroken, I think the cost will not be so high in the future."
Karl stretched out his hand and made a gesture of inviting us together. "Let's chat while we walk. The cost of 1.9 million taels is indeed very expensive. The Victoria, a British ship launched in 1859, cost 150,578 pounds and has a normal displacement of 6,959 tons. This is normal for a wooden-hulled sailing battleship. Cost..."
"The cost of the ironclad Warrior launched in 1861 was 377,392 pounds, with a normal displacement of 9,137 tons. The cost more than doubled. It can be seen that the ironclad warship itself is a money-burning toy, and non-powerful countries cannot play with it."
The group of people started walking from the office building to the closed dry dock. All along the way were elite Prussian soldiers. Even King Yi saw a few familiar faces. During the bloody battle at Stone Bridge, a group of Prussian soldiers were with Xiao Letian and the others. A lot of people have been mobilized for combat now.
"According to our previous budget, even if Xiao Letian's battleship has an extremely weird style, the cost should not be twice as much as the Warrior. 1.9 million taels, based on the current exchange rate of 1:3 in pounds to silver, would be a full 630,000 pounds. , it’s really high…”
"However, the cost is not calculated in this way. The performance of the fort barrel required by Xiao Letian cannot be manufactured by any steel factory in Europe. The strength is simply not enough. We must gather a lot of scientists to research matching new steel materials and battleships. The appearance, Xiao Letian insists on dome armor protection, which also increases the difficulty of the design..."
"What's more important is the engine unit. What Xiao Letian wants is a cruiser. This requires multiple considerations of speed and reliability. The entire design work is completely beyond our imagination... By the way, isn't the beautiful Miss Cai Bixia following us all the time? Is the design team observing? I think she should be very aware of the complexity of this warship’s craftsmanship..."
While chatting, the door of the dry dock finally opened for them. When King Yi and his party entered the dock, everyone gasped. The monster in front of them was completely beyond everyone's imagination.
