"Your Majesty, this is the first battleship of the empire equipped with a steam turbine - the Storm, according to the division of battleships launched by the empire not long ago, this battleship should be classified as a battleship."

At the foot of Beisha City, Zhang Liang was introducing to Xiao Ming a behemoth parked in the military port, different from the ordinary ironclad ships built by the empire a few years ago, this battleship has a displacement of 35,000 tons and is equipped with three triple 406 mm main guns.

According to the standard of the main gun caliber of the battleship designated by the empire to be greater than 203 and not more than 406 mm, this battleship can be described as a giant among battleships.

Looking at the 216-meter-long Storm, Xiao Ming showed a satisfied look.

Time flies, the war in Europe is over, and the Vienna Convention Organization is perfectly established, and two years have flown by.

In the past two years, Xiao Ming focused mainly on the construction of the empire's ocean-going combat capability.

As Tang Wenjie said, half a year after the establishment of the Vienna Entente, Spain, Portugal, Prussia, France, Britain, and Tsarist Russia announced the establishment of the St. Petersburg Entente in St. Petersburg, strategically confronting the Empire.

In the face of the six major European powers and the St. Petersburg Entente with a population of hundreds of millions, Xiao Ming had no way for a while, after all, the last war in Europe was already challenging the empire's ocean-going shipping capacity.

Therefore, if a world war really breaks out, even if the empire has an advantage in weapons, I am afraid it will not be able to make up for the numerical inferiority.

It was precisely with this factor in mind that he asked the members of the Entente to rein in their sharpness during the past two years, mainly to strengthen commercial and trade contacts and promote economic development.

The Empire, on the other hand, used peacetime to intensify its efforts to innovate its weapons, and at his request, if the Empire wanted to cross the oceans and fight in Europe, the Empire's military level would be at least close to that of the beginning of World War II.

The battleship Storm is proof that the Imperial military industry is advancing towards this goal.

"That's how it tastes like a cannon giant, let's go, go up and have a look."

Xiao Ming said to Zhang Liang, he was followed by many admirals, all of whom were waiting for such a battleship to be installed in the fleet as soon as possible.

Boarding the battleship, Xiao Ming visited the internal structure of the battleship one by one under Zhang Liang's introduction, in addition to the use of steam turbines, the artillery also adopted the technology of automatic loading, and there was a special conveyor in the ammunition room to send the shells directly from the ammunition room to the gun latch position.

The reason for this transmission method was that the battleship's main gun was of large caliber, which meant that the weight of the shells would also be large, and it would be very inefficient to reload manually.

So he gave this transmission structure in the blueprint, so that the battleship's main guns could be fired twice in a relatively short time.

"This battleship is huge." Liu Chen's saliva almost remained, and he said: "Your Majesty, as long as the Pacific Fleet has such a battleship, it is enough to destroy a fleet in Europe. “

When the other generals heard this, they all agreed, compared to the ironclad ship, which was only about 90 meters long, this monster with double the length, armor thickness and firepower was enough to be called the overlord of the sea.

Xiao Ming showed a hint of a smile, and he said: "You guys are not good enough, this battleship is nothing, and the Imperial Navy has even more majestic plans." “

Liu Chen was pleasantly surprised when he heard this: "I hope the emperor will make it clear." ”

Now, Xiao Ming will not sell it, he said: "If you want to defeat the St. Petersburg Entente, you can't just fight on land, so I have been planning the Imperial Air Force all these years, and now the major aircraft manufacturing centers of the Empire have produced a lot of excellent bombers, but there is a lack of a platform to send bombers to Europe, this kind of platform is more important than battleships, aircraft carriers." “

"Aircraft carriers?" Liu Chen showed a look of yearning, he could already imagine a huge warship carrying bombers sailing on the ocean.

Xiao Ming nodded, he turned to look at the imperial admirals, most of these generals were young admirals except for some old faces.

These young admirals all graduated from formal naval academies and were well versed in the construction of modern navies, and they would be the future of the Imperial Navy.

"That's right, it's an aircraft carrier, this is a large surface ship, the main combat method is to use aviation to destroy the enemy's warships, of course, this combat method against the European Navy is a bit overkill, at present, these warships mainly play the role of transport fighters." Xiao Ming explained to everyone.

Liu Chen nodded, in the past two years, the empire suddenly put away its fists and let the Entente organization behave in a low-key manner, the purpose is to beat the put away fists, so that it can have enough strength to destroy the St. Petersburg Entente in one blow.

After all, the confrontation between the two Entente powers will sooner or later lead to conflict, and according to the characteristics of the common defense of the Entente, no matter who shoots the first shot, other countries will be involved in the war.

Therefore, in his view, a full-scale war in Europe is almost inevitable, and St. Petersburg will not sit idly by and watch the empire gradually control the discourse in Europe, and the empire will not tolerate the St. Petersburg Entente becoming strong and competing with the empire for colonies all over the world.

In the blueprint described by Xiao Ming, endless expectations rose in the hearts of the generals, and this Beisha City was just a point for the empire to build warships.

The Empire now controls the country's large shipyards, and in their opinion, the Storm has been launched, which means that other shipyards will have battleships similar to the Storm launched.

As the generals thought, through all these years of construction, the empire has already had thirty-six shipyards capable of building large surface ships.

The Beacon Shipyard is only one of them, and it is only responsible for the construction of one battleship, but this does not mean that the Beacon Shipyard is only capable of this.

In fact, in addition to battleships, the Shipyard of Beisha was also building ocean-going carriers, large supply vessels, and marine maintenance vessels, both commercial and civilian.

And the rest of the shipyards are in a similar situation, according to Zhang Liang, after the launch of the Storm, the empire will have forty-seven warships launched one after another.

These forty-seven battleships included nine battleships and thirty-eight cruisers, and as for the aircraft carrier plan in his mouth, Zhang Liang was planning.

Aircraft carriers carrying monoplanes are not much more technologically advanced than battleships, and they can be built when the main industrial capacity is reached.

During World War II, the United States wartime produced 26 large aircraft carriers, 9 light aircraft carriers, 115 escort aircraft carriers, 10 battleships, 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 498 frigates, 203 submarines, tens of thousands of landing ships of various kinds, and tens of millions of tons of civilian ships

The current industrial capacity of the empire is not as good as it, but the level of two or three percent is still there, and this is more than enough for the current world.