The Jinzhouwei Shipyard, which built the Dreadnought battleship, held a lively launching ceremony for the new battleship in the cold winter months.
The shipyard owner invited the commander of Liaodong Capital to preside over the launching ceremony.
Set up an altar to worship the Dragon King, burn paper money and set off firecrackers.
The commander of the capital was responsible for offering incense to the Dragon King, and a child from a craftsman's family lit firecrackers.
Amidst the crackling of firecrackers, the floodgates of the dock opened, and the tugboat slowly left the dock with the Intrepid and moved to the pier to dock.
After the launching ceremony, Jinzhouwei Shipyard also went on a full holiday.
The subsequent interior renovation of the Intrepid will have to wait until later this year.
The Royal Jiangnan Shipyard, which is building the exploratory aircraft carrier Dinghai, was already on holiday on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month.
Because of the construction progress of the aircraft carrier Dinghai, it is impossible to launch it in time for the year before anyway, so there is no need to rush the work.
The design of the Dreadnaught battleship is based on the original battleship, changing the layout of the main gun, adding two main guns, and canceling the secondary main gun.
The technologies are very mature, and the armor and main guns are all ready-made, so there is no need to specialize in production.
The craftsmen and workers are also very skilled. The unification of the main guns made the construction more difficult. It was basically completed in one year after working hard.
But for a brand-new type of ship like an aircraft carrier, the entire superstructure is a completely new design, and most of the accessories have to be specially produced.
It was the first time for craftsmen and workers to build this kind of structure, so the construction speed was naturally much slower.
Although the tonnage of several early aircraft carriers in history was much smaller than that of battleships of the same period, their construction cycles all took one and a half or even two years, all because of lack of proficiency.
The original historical Jiangnan Shipyard was located in the Huangpu River in Shanghai.
After 2005, it moved to Changxing Island in the mouth of the Yangtze River.
The Jiangnan Shipyard in this world was named by Emperor Shizu himself, who placed the factory directly at Baoshan Institute and upgraded Baoshan Institute to Baoshan Guard.
The Baoshan Institute at that time was not the Baoshan District on the northwest bank of Wusongkou in later generations, but the northernmost Gaoqiao Town in Pudong New Area on the southeast coast of Wusongkou. The Baoshan District in later generations was called Wusongjiang Institute at that time.
Changxing Island had not yet been fully formed at that time, and the three sandbanks of Chongming Island had just been connected into one.
Shanghai was still a county at that time and was under the jurisdiction of Songjiang Prefecture in the south.
Songjiang Prefecture was located in Huating County, which later became Songjiang District of Shanghai.
Wusongkou where Wusong River and Huangpu River enter the sea, Baoshansuo, Wusongjiangsuo and other areas on both sides of Wusongkou, as well as all the sandbars at the mouth of the Yangtze River. These places that later belonged to Shanghai City belonged to Suzhou Prefecture in the early Ming Dynasty, and later returned to Suzhou It is under the jurisdiction of Taicang Prefecture under the government.
During the Renwu Dynasty, Emperor Shizu withdrew from Taicang Prefecture and placed the newly formed Chongming Island, as well as other islands and sandbanks in the Yangtze River Estuary, under the jurisdiction of Tongzhou in the north of the Yangtze River.
In order to avoid confusion with Tongzhou of Shuntian Prefecture, Tongzhou was renamed Nantong, the southern part of Yangzhou was split off and placed under the jurisdiction of Nantong, and Nantong Prefecture was established.
Emperor Shizu also specifically asserted that the sandbar at the mouth of the river would be connected to the north bank in later generations, so he placed it under the jurisdiction of Nantong on the north bank.
Observations over a hundred years later showed that the sandbar at the river mouth was indeed getting closer to the north shore, and it was only a matter of time before they were truly connected.
When geographers of later generations mentioned related stories, they all said with emotion that Emperor Shizu was really a god.
After the Ming Dynasty completed its own industrialization, areas with relatively developed commodity economies such as Yingtian, Suzhou, and Songjiang became important industrial and commercial centers.
Among these cities, Yingtian has a special status. Suzhou occupies half of the Yangtze River Estuary, has the best economic foundation and the largest jurisdiction.
Songjiang faces the East China Sea and is most suitable for heading out directly. However, it has not been invaded by foreign invaders in modern times and has no priority in opening ports. It is always slightly weak against Suzhou and Yingtian.
The goal of Songjiang's successive prefects was to surpass Suzhou, but unfortunately it was never realized.
Nantong, which originally had the weakest foundation, has acquired all the sandbars in the Yangtze River Estuary. In theory, the entire Yangtze River Estuary is under the control of Nantong, taking advantage of more advantages in the Yangtze River Delta, and its industrial and commercial development has also been quite rapid.
In particular, Chongming Island, which has taken shape in the Yangtze River Estuary, has become an important trade center in Nantong.
Overall, development in this area is quite even.
At the same time, the Ming Dynasty’s capital, the Forbidden City and the Qianqing Palace.
Wang Lai, director of the Ship Department of the Ministry of Industry, brought several people with him to deliver a model of the new warship.
The high-speed battleship is fearless: 32,000 tons empty, 40,000 tons fully loaded, a maximum speed of 30 knots, and nine 360mm 50-caliber naval guns.
Aircraft carrier Zhenhai: 30,000 tons empty, 40,000 tons fully loaded, maximum speed 30 knots, expected to carry 100 combat aircraft.
The two epoch-making warships designed by Zhu Jingyuan have finally been completely finalized.
In the current era, with the difficulty and complexity of designing such a "cutting-edge" level warship, completing it all within one year is absolutely overspeed.
Mainly Zhu Jingyuan led the team and used the experience of later generations to directly make decisions and directly determine the right direction.
There is no need for ordinary technicians to convince each other, otherwise time will be lost in wrangling.
In this era, the most commonly used tonnage data of naval ships are no-load displacement and full-load displacement. In daily communication and publicity, only full-load displacement is basically mentioned.
The tonnage sounds great.
The "standard displacement" often mentioned in later naval ship parameters only appeared after the Naval Treaty and was used to calculate the displacement under the standards used to limit the tonnage of the treaty.
Why does the Naval Treaty require a "standard" displacement?
Why not continue with full displacement?
Because different warships carry very different weights of fuel when fully loaded.
The Veneto class has a fuel capacity of 4,100 tons.
The Bismarck had a fuel capacity of 7,400 tons.
The Iowa has a fuel capacity of 9,000 tons.
These battleships of the same era have a fuel difference of nearly 5,000 tons at most!
The fuel capacity is directly related to the range.
Different navies have completely different needs for range.
It's fun to play in the bathtub of the Great Qin Sea, and the battleship's range of five to six thousand kilometers is enough.
The United States wants to fight on two oceans. From Norfolk on the east coast to San Francisco via the Panama Canal, the shortest single-line voyage is more than 10,000 kilometers, which is equivalent to the voyage from Zhanjiang to Djibouti.
If full-load displacement is used as the standard, and only 50,000-ton ships can be built, the weapons and equipment of Italian short-leg battleships will weigh four to five thousand tons more than American ships.
This was enough to upgrade the main gun from fifteen inches to eighteen inches.
The combat effectiveness is directly spread by two levels.
So there is the treaty standard displacement, which is the displacement without fuel.
There is no naval treaty, and of course no one has mentioned any standard displacement, although the data in the design indicators are readily available.
Daily use is still empty and full.
Zhu Jianyan walked around two two-meter-long battleship models and couldn't help but admired:
"The shape of this battleship... is completely different from previous battleships. The lines of this hull look very smooth and graceful...
Wang Lai also smiled and echoed the praise and said:
"Yes, Your Majesty, His Highness Prince Dashi presided over the design of these two new ships. Compared with all previous warships, almost nothing is exactly the same.
“The external shape of the hull above and below the waterline, the layout of the cabins inside the hull, the layout of the hull defense structure design department, the layout and command of the turrets, the matching of the power system, etc., are all completely different.
"These are two truly brand-new warships, extremely radical exploration warships."
Zhu Jianyan listened to these data and did not ask about the performance details of the ship at all. The industry had basically understood it before, but he was concerned about the cost of such a radical design:
"So...how much does it cost to build?"
The smile on Wang Lai's face suddenly became a little stiff:
"The estimated total cost of the battleship Fearless is one million gold coins, which is equivalent to 50 million silver coins.
“However, of the total cost, the early warship design and various new equipment research and development costs account for a large part.
“So as a completely new type of ship, aircraft carriers do not have large-caliber main guns and the armor materials used are not as good as battleships, but the cost is not low.
"In addition, there are newly opened shipyards and machinery factories everywhere, the prices of materials required for shipbuilding such as steel continue to rise, and workers' wages have doubled compared to before, so the cost of building new ships will increase. So high.
"If we continue to build multiple similar ships in the future, the overall cost will continue to decrease."
One million gold notes, directly converted according to the gold content, is equivalent to 7.32 million pounds in the same period.
For comparison, the cost of a single Queen Elizabeth-class battleship is 2.4 million pounds.
Two battlecruisers, Prestige and Counterattack, with a total price of 6.2 million pounds.
HMS Hood battlecruiser, the cost of a single ship is 6.02 million pounds.
Zhu Jingyuan's two new ships are each one-fifth more expensive than Hood, and a lot more expensive than the two Prestige sisters combined.
For battleships of the same size and class, the cost of an aircraft carrier should be lower than that of a battleship.
However, although the full tonnage of Zhu Jingyuan's aircraft carrier and battleship are the same, the hull of the aircraft carrier is larger than that of the battleship.
Therefore, the final two ships cost almost the same.
Although Zhu Jianyan was mentally prepared, he still felt a little sad when he heard the cost:
"Two million - gold notes...
"The previous 24,000-ton test ship cost less than 300,000 gold coins.
“The traditional capital ships that go forward cost only 250,000 gold coins or even less.
"If we use the average cost per ton, will this directly double?"
Wang Lai explained very embarrassedly:
"The average cost per ton has indeed doubled. The previous capital ships basically cost between 12 and 13 gold coins per ton. The two new ships cost 25 gold coins per ton."
Zhu Jianyan's expression became solemn when he looked at the ship model:
"According to my understanding, the greater the tonnage of a battleship, the lower the unit cost should be..."
Wang Lai nodded slightly and said:
"If it is under the same technical standards, it is indeed like this.
“The larger the tonnage of the warship, the greater the proportion of the steel structure of the ship body, and steel is the cheapest material for the warship as a whole.
“So the larger the gross tonnage, the lower the comprehensive unit price.
“But the Fearless and the Zhenhai are both completely redesigned brand-new warships, with almost no use of any original weapons and equipment, so the cost is so high.
“When the relevant technologies on these two ships become popular, the cost of subsequent similar new ships will be reduced.
“If the number of constructions increases at the same time, the average price can be spread down a bit.
"If two ships of the same type are built at the same time, the cost of the second one can be reduced to 800,000 gold coins. If there are three ships of the same type, the price of the third ship will continue to drop to 700,000 gold coins..."
Zhu Jianyan nodded lightly and did not make a decision immediately. Instead, he returned to his desk and flipped through the year-end statements submitted by the Ministry of Finance.
“Thirty-three years of peace, the gross national product was about 1.6 billion gold coins, and the fiscal revenue was 100 million gold coins.
"In the thirty-fourth year of Taiping, the total production value increased to 2.4 billion gold coins, and the fiscal revenue increased to 180 million gold coins...
"It is expected that the data for the coming year will maintain the current growth momentum or even continue to improve..."
The data for the thirty-three years of the Ming Dynasty is slightly lower than the combined data of Britain and the United States before the First World War in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, and five times that of the weakened version of Britain in this world.
The data for thirty-four years is 20% more than the combined total of Britain and the United States before World War I. Taking into account the economic growth of Britain in this world, it can reach more than six times that of Britain.
In the past thirty-four years, the GDP has soared by 50%, and the fiscal revenue has soared by 80%.
Because the war ended at the beginning of thirty-four years.
At the same time, at the beginning of the year, the royal family opened up six major industries and began to de facto withdraw from the vassal world.
In the second half of the year, the Ming Dynasty began to receive a large amount of land and population, and added four new vassal states.
The number of private factories and production orders have been growing explosively throughout the year.
Wages for ordinary workers returned to pre-war levels in the spring and doubled again in the second half of the year.
Therefore, the overall data of the entire Ming Dynasty showed restorative and retaliatory growth.
And this growth has just begun and will not be fully released until the second half of the year to the end of the year.
The data next year will probably not be lower, and may even be higher.
And this is also the most important reason why the countries in Europe and the West do not dare to continue fighting with the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Jianyan looked at these data and made a rough estimate:
"The cost of each new ship is one million gold coins, which is almost 40,000% of the total production value in the 34th year of Taiping. For one aircraft carrier and one battleship, it is 80,000%.
"Building two aircraft carriers and two battleships each, the total cost of the four ships is 15/10000 of the gross production value, which is 2% of the total fiscal revenue for 34 years."
When Japan built Nagato, the cost of a single ship was almost 4% of that year's fiscal revenue.
Ming Dynasty had to directly place an order for eight ships before feeling the pressure of one Nagato on Japan's finances.
When the British made Hood, the cost of a single ship was almost 15/10,000 of the GDP of that year.
Ming Dynasty had to place an order for four ships at the same time to feel the pressure of one Hood on British social production.
Although Zhu Jianyan didn't know the historical data of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life.
But looking at the price comparison with Daming's current data, we can understand the pressure that building these ships will have on Daming's finances and social production.
Zhu Jianyan thought about it for a while and then made a decision:
"If building two ships at the same time can save some money, then build two battleships and two aircraft carriers each. Anyway, all the old ships have been stopped...
"There is no need to be busy before the New Year. Let's go through the formalities after the fifteenth day of the New Year.
"There are also models of these two ships. Send them to the Supreme Emperor as soon as possible..."
Wang Lai immediately agreed happily:
"I obey."
