After determining the construction plan of the four new generation of Endless Sea-class battleships, this also means that the battleship construction of the Daheng Empire is finally on the fast track.

Before this, after many generations of exploration, such as the Pingbo second-class battleship that changed its design halfway, and after the technical foreshadowing of the unification-class second-class battleship, and then after the attempt of the Yonglin-class battleship, the Daheng Empire was finally able to design and build a battleship that could keep up with the level of a first-class power in terms of performance.

Many of the new technologies mentioned above, especially the Iron Armor, will be used not only on the Endless Sea-class battleships, but will also be used on other new generations of warships.

For example, the new generation of cruiser plan, that is, the follow-up ship plan of the Chongke-class armored cruiser, will also use steel-faced iron armor to further improve the protection capability of key parts.

At the same time, it will be equipped with more advanced and mature steam engines to increase the speed and strive to increase the speed to more than 18 knots.

The Imperial Navy hopes to further improve its protection capabilities and speed while ensuring firepower through the advancement of new technologies.

This allows the new generation of armored cruisers to better perform reconnaissance missions and two-wing rapid guerrilla missions.

And these two points are also the core requirements of the Daheng Imperial Navy for armored cruisers: to provide reconnaissance for the battlefleet, or to assist the battlefleet in a line decisive battle as a high-speed formation on both wings.

This is also the reason why the armored cruiser has an armored box and at the same time adopts key protection and a large number of watertight compartments, equipped with 250 mm and 30 times the caliber of naval guns.

This concept of focused protection is very different from the armored cruisers of the mature period that appeared on Earth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Because the armored cruisers of the early twentieth century on the earth adopted surface protection, it was because of the popularization of hardened armor, and at the same time, the technology of large-caliber naval guns failed to keep up, resulting in a decline in the threat of the main guns of battleships.

At the same time, the popularization of the rate of fire and the prevailing deck-washing tactics made the survivability of non-surface-protected battleships greatly reduced, and the armored cruisers had to adopt surface protection, otherwise they would be deck-washed.

This is how the armored cruisers of the early twentieth century with surface protection appeared!

However, with the development of naval artillery technology, the caliber of the main gun of the battleship also rose rapidly from the 12-inch level to the 13-inch and 14-inch level, and finally to the 15-inch and 16-inch level.

Coupled with the prevalence of heavy artillery, it also led to the complete withdrawal of armored cruisers with the concept of surface protection from the stage of history, giving way to the newly emerged battle cruisers.

However, the armored cruisers of the Daheng Imperial Navy did not need surface protection, and they could not engage in surface protection, because there was no hardened armor in these years, and it was impossible to obtain good protection effectiveness while controlling the thickness of the armor.

And there are no rapid-fire guns these years, although Lin Ziran has long asked the navy to pay attention to the research and development of rapid-fire guns to increase the rate of fire, but still hasn't come up with it, and other countries haven't heard of any rapid-fire guns.

Now everyone is using all the same guns, regardless of whether the main gun or the secondary gun, the rate of fire is very slow, this secondary gun is not a big threat, and the armored cruisers of the Daheng Empire naturally have no need to engage in surface protection!

Based on its own situation and technical level, the armored cruiser created by the Daheng Imperial Navy is more similar to the initial battle cruiser in terms of concept and tactical positioning.

Whether it is a Chongke-class armored cruiser, an Endless Sea-class battleship, or other cruisers and other warships, the design of these battleships is based on its own national defense manufacturing capabilities and strategic and tactical positioning.

However, Lin Ziran, the emperor of the Daheng Empire, was not very satisfied with the current warships of the Daheng Empire's navy, these warships seemed to be very advanced, but in fact they did not open up the essential gap with the old ironclad ships.

The reason why these shipbuilding plans have been approved now is because many technological research and development have not yet been successful, and it is impossible for the Daheng Imperial Navy to live on only a few second-class ironclad ships.

With the birth of new technologies, all kinds of new warships will inevitably become more powerful, and when a large number of new technologies are made, then it is time to engage in dreadnoughts.

Toss for a few years, and when the time comes, get a bunch of dreadnoughts out, a large caliber main gun in the water, hardened armor protection, and unified shooting, and be able to run more than 20 knots, and then send the Navy of the Krull Kingdom into the garbage heap of history!

In August of the fourth year of the reign of Qiansheng, Lin Ziran took a special train along the Jingzhou East Line, which had just been completed and opened to traffic, 'Jingzhou North Station to the easternmost East Seaport of the Jingzhou Peninsula,' to Quping Naval Base, where he personally presided over the commissioning ceremony of the cruiser Chongke (an armored cruiser) of the first class.

At the same time, he also presided over the groundbreaking ceremony of the new generation of Endless Sea-class battleships, the lead ship of the Endless Sea, at the newly completed Quping Naval Shipyard.

Since its completion and commissioning, the Chongke armored cruiser has become the most powerful warship in the Daheng Imperial Navy, and its performance even surpasses that of the two second-class battleships Tongyi and Luohe, which were commissioned one after another last year.

After all, the battleship Unification seems to be a second-class battleship, but it is still an attempt and experimental product of the Daheng Empire to build warships, and many technologies are not mature.

The steam unit of the battleship Unification has the same type of core unit as the Chongke, but the steam unit power on the Chongke is thirty percent greater than that of the battleship Unification.

Even the battleship Unification was inferior to the armored cruiser Chongke!

The Chongke armored cruiser is equipped with the latest 250 mm 30 times caliber naval gun, this naval gun is the first mature product of the Daheng Empire to concentrate on conquering large-caliber naval guns, its barrel quality is quite excellent, can withstand many strong charge shots, at the same time the processing accuracy is further improved, the shooting accuracy is greatly improved, with the image rangefinder, enough to effectively threaten the enemy's capital ship at a distance of four or five thousand meters.

As for the unification class battleship, it seems to be equipped with a 300 mm caliber naval gun, but it is only 25 times the caliber, and when the artillery was developed in the early days, the technology was not very mature, so the naval gun also looked bluffing in caliber, but the power was not very good, especially in the long-distance artillery fire at medium and long distances, because the accuracy was not high, the dispersion was relatively large, even if there were auxiliary tools such as a composite rangefinder, its hit rate was still very average.

In the era of rapid development of contemporary technology, especially at present, the Daheng Empire is spending huge sums of money to introduce equipment and various technologies, which have made all kinds of technologies, especially the technologies of basic industries, develop by leaps and bounds, and even catch up with the average level of various countries in some fields.

In this case, it has also made the span of warships built by the Daheng Imperial Navy in recent years extremely large!