The Great Jin Kingdom, Bagua City, and Wuji Palace.
Fat Daoguang was in his study room at this time, holding a photo of a little girl and looking at it carefully. While looking at it, he commented: "The little girl is quite cute, she is round and round, and she looks a bit... right at first glance. , what is her birthday and horoscope?"
"Back to the Emperor, she was born at 4:15 in the morning on May 24, 1819 in the Western calendar. She is a little rabbit."
The person who answered Emperor Daoguang's question was Qishan, Daikin's ambassador to the UK, who had returned to report on his duties. Look, this ambassador did his job so well that he even found out the birth date of the future Queen of England. I also know that Victoria is born in the year of Rabbit!
Daoguang squinted his eyes and counted with his fingers. He frowned as he counted: "The little girl has a lot of descendants, but she is a bit weak. Whoever wants to marry her may not live long. You have to talk to Nikolai about this matter. Tell me, he now has two sons, and the younger son Constantine is still young, only a little over one year old."
"Your Majesty," He Shen asked at the side, "can she be incompatible with you?"
Fat Daoguang nodded, "Then little Zhuge is right, she and I are somewhat incompatible. This Victoria is really capable of defeating me!"
Having said this, Fat Daoguang frowned. This little girl seems to be a bit self-sufficient. Be careful!
Thinking of this, Fat Daoguang stopped pestering the matter. Instead, he changed the subject and asked Wu Zhenzhen: "What did King Nicholas I of Pingxi say? How much can we pay to help him?"
"When I return to the emperor," Wu Zhen said, "Nicholas I promised to give us 5 million rubles, and another 5 million when the matter is completed."
Fat Daoguang twirled his beard and said: "Ten million rubles is a lot, but can you take this job? I won't screw it up, right?"
"Your Majesty," Wu Zhenzhen said with a smile, "You can't smash it. The Rakshasa Army is the best in the world, and the strength of the Black Sea Fleet cannot be underestimated. The Turks are no match at all."
Fat Daoguang asked again: "Can I have more?"
Wu Zhenzhen shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, now is not the time to increase the price. If the Turks resist tenaciously and the Rakshasa army makes slow progress, it will not be too late for us to increase the price."
Daoguang nodded, "That's right, now is indeed not the time to increase prices."
He said leisurely: "If Constantinople changes its owner, the war in Europe may intensify. At that time, I will personally send an army to India and meet Victoria for a while to see who can defeat whom." !”
Qi Shan, the ambassador to the UK, heard this and reminded with a smile: "Your Majesty, Princess Victoria currently lives in Kensington Palace in London, not in India."
Daoguang smiled: "It would be better not to be there!" He then glanced at Wu Zhenfa and said, "Go and tell Nicholas that I agreed!"
"This slave accepts the order!"
Shanghai, Jiangnan Heavy Industry, Changxing Shipyard.
In a corner of the huge shipyard. In four consecutive 30,000-ton dry docks, four relatively small 15,000-ton battleships were lying quietly in the docks. Suddenly, the turbid Yangtze River water rushed into the dock along the half-opened opposite gate, and the water line continued to rise along the bottom of the battleship.
These four battleships still use white paint that is quite eye-catching on the sea. After all, it is not war time yet. There is no need to consider the issue of camouflage color. The most important thing is to show the world the majestic military power of the Ming Navy battleships.
It is night now, and under the illumination of searchlights, these four warships are like four metal monsters about to rush to the ocean, reflecting dazzling light. In particular, the six brand-new square box-like turrets with sharp edges give people an extremely powerful feeling of coldness and majesty.
Zhuge Weidao, who had just returned to the Ming Dynasty, was now sent to Shanghai as a member of the Naval Armament Commission to supervise the launch of these four battleships.
He was now standing on the bridge of one of the battleships, looking at the three turrets below - one at the bow, and the other two on both sides of the ship near the bow. The same three turrets are also installed on the stern and on the side decks on both sides near the stern.
Each turret is equipped with a twin-mounted 240 mm 45-caliber Taiping Seven-year-old naval gun - looking at the model of this artillery, you can tell that it is a fairly new artillery. And now in this era, metallurgy, gun casting, sighting and other technologies are advancing rapidly. It may be two years away from the second generation of artillery.
And this 240mm gun is almost seven or eight years newer than the 305mm gun previously equipped on the Hongwu Emperor class! It can be said that it has been greatly improved in all aspects, the only thing inferior is that the diameter is 65 mm smaller.
However, before the advent of capped armor-piercing projectiles and the emergence of various high-quality armor steels, it became very difficult to penetrate the armor belt of a battleship with artillery shells, even without washing the deck.
So these 12 240mm guns are much stronger than the original 4 305mm guns.
Zhuge Weidao's lips curled up slightly when he thought of the "cheap and good quality" of this Hongwu Emperor model.
Although the Ming Navy is now developing better 20,000-ton battle cruisers and 30,000-ton battleships.
In addition, there is a hero class that is also derived from the Hongwu Emperor class.
But this does not mean that the Hongwu Emperor-class battleships that have been built or are under construction can be discarded. After all, the Hongwu Emperor-class hull is not small, with a standard displacement of over 15,000 tons.
There is certainly a lot of room for improvement on such a big ship.
Moreover, in the Ming Dynasty's navy, there are as many as ten Hongwu Emperors in active service, and they are all new ships with a short service life. Of course it's impossible to throw it away and make a new one...that would be too rich!
In addition, there are still six Hongwu Emperor-class ships under construction in the docks of major shipyards!
This Hongwu Emperor class is a real dumpling ship!
Therefore, while designing the hero class, plans are being made to upgrade the existing and under-construction Hongwu Emperor class.
Moreover, the more advanced Hero-class is actually a foreign trade ship. The cheap and high-quality Hongwu Emperor-class Improved Type II (also known as the Han Hongwu Emperor-class) is the private model of the Ming Dynasty Navy.
If all eighteen Hongwu Emperor-class ships are renovated and built, the strength of the Ming Navy will be greatly improved!
Of course, the current international situation is already a bit tense. Moreover, what is being renovated at the same time is not only the Hongwu Emperor class owned by the Ming Dynasty, but also all the Emperor classes of the Rakshasa Kingdom... They may soon be fighting the fleet of the British Empire, so they must hide their strength.
Therefore, the second type of Hongwu Emperor is still a top-secret project.
As a top-secret project, they can only be hidden in a dry dock to complete all construction. Including outfitting, it must be completed in the dock, and even launching must be done at night!
And after being launched, these four battleships will be towed immediately to Jiaozhou Bay, the home port of the Ming Dynasty's home fleet, and complete the last few months of testing there.
After these four battleships leave the Changxing Shipyard, one of the four 30,000-ton dry docks originally used to accommodate them will usher in a new top-secret project.
The construction of the 20,000-ton battlecruiser, which has been in preparation for a long time, will begin here.
It will only take two years at the fastest before Ming Dynasty's first fully oil-powered battlecruiser using steam turbines can begin testing.
If this type of battlecruiser can pass all tests. Then, the design of the Ming Empire’s first aircraft carrier can almost begin!
When Zhuge Weidao thought about the aircraft carrier, the water filling of the dock had been completed.
All four battleships floated on the water, and with the help of tugs, they began to sail towards the river little by little...
At the same time, in the distant Gulf of Riga, Nicholas I was standing on a high place, looking at the Catherine the Great, Peter the Great (Hongwu class, unmodified), Admiral Orlov A huge formation composed of ships such as the USS Alexander I and the USS Alexander I slowly left the port and finally disappeared into the vast sea.
