In fact, Lin Yiqing knows very well that although the purchase of mosquito ships will help coastal defense, it will not really restrain ironclad ships.

Hurd, who liked to talk about it, was actually a layman who knew only a little about the naval field, and after arousing the interest of the Qianguo people in purchasing warships, Hurd hurriedly discussed with his subordinate Jin Denggan, who was far away in London, how to sell warships. At that time, Li Shaoquan and other officials of the Qianguo State proceeded from their naval knowledge and were eager to obtain a powerful first-class ironclad ship. However, the construction of such warships is too expensive, the country's finances are extremely difficult, and they cannot afford it for the time being, and large warships also have extremely high requirements for the professional and technical knowledge of the ship's operators, so it is difficult to handle them. Hurd and Kim Tengan noticed one of the most fashionable warships in the world at that time, a small warship that was cheap and said to be the nemesis of the large ironclad Celestial Hell.

When the Fujian Shipyard was being built on the bank of the Majiang River in the southeast of Qianguo, a small warship with a strange appearance appeared on the British Tyne River on the other side of the world. At the time, even its designer, George? George Rendel himself could not have imagined that this small warship would become an important cornerstone of his life's work. The Staunch, translated as "Shidan" gunboat by Qianguo, is a small gunboat with a displacement of only 200 tons built by Armstrong, with a length of 22.86 meters and a width of 7.62 meters, which is short and wide, with a draft of 1.98 meters, equipped with 2 steam engines and 2 boilers, with a main engine power of 134 horsepower and a speed of 7.5 knots. And since entering the age of steam, the kind is smaller than cruisers. Slow speed. Artillery was placed on both sides of the deck. The old gunboat "for miscellaneous service" was completely different, and this small gunboat had several very distinctive features. It completely abandoned the traditional arrangement of shipside guns, and instead installed a 9-inch (229 mm) breech cannon in the open air in the bow, and the barrel of the giant gun was mounted on a set of trap-type gun carriages with four pillars, and the whole system was extremely complex. In normal times, the gun is seated low in the hull to prevent the center of gravity from being too high, to maintain the stability of the warship, and when used, it passes through the hydraulic system. Raise the gun to the deck in 4-6 minutes. After each firing round, the gun is slowly lowered below deck under the pressure of its own huge recoil to reload the next shot. Oddly enough, the warship had to anchor before the guns could be fired, otherwise no one could have predicted how the huge recoil would affect the boat.

In addition to the unique arrangement of the bow cannon, the shape of the small warship is also quite distinctive. The bow of the warship has a section of anchor deck, which adopts the style of tortoiseshell with a better wave-breaking effect similar to that of a torpedo boat, and is equipped with hanging anchors and other equipment. The main deck part of the anchor deck is rear, surrounded on all sides by walls to protect the crew. The deck, where the guns were mounted in the bow, was surrounded by higher collapsible walls. It is used to prevent the waves from crashing into the gun deck when the warship is sailing at high speed. The barrels of the warship's main guns protrude through a small opening in front of the wall. Because the lateral clearance of the gun door is small. The main gun can hardly rotate left and right, and the "whole ship aiming" method must be adopted, that is, the lateral firing angle of the gun must be adjusted through the rotation of the warship itself. To this end, Rendall designed the operating system of this small warship to be extremely flexible, and the rudder speed is higher than that of ordinary warships, and the whole ship can rotate in only 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Near the middle of the main deck, stands a tall chimney. To the surprise of the shipbuilding community at that time, the small ship did not even have a mast! And on this ship, apart from the captain's room, there is not even any living space for the crew. At a glance, these designs not only make it impossible to sail long distances, but even how to fly the navigation signal flag has become a problem. In fact, Rendall's unique design idea for this kind of warship is best explained here, that is, this short and wide small warship is not used to fight at sea at all!

In this era, large-caliber artillery is the most powerful weapon. On the ocean, it is carried on a large ironclad platform, and on land, it is a strong battery fortification. As a result, the ironclad ship and the fort developed into a pair of enemies who fought each other, compared to the ironclad ship, the huge cannon with black holes in the turret was eerie and terrifying, and it was difficult to offend; Since the fort is a fixed building, if the ironclad ship does not enter its own defensive range, but finds another way to secretly cross the Chen Cang, the fort will become a fictitious position. In order to resolve this contradiction, the army and navy circles of various countries at that time racked their brains, and as a result, they often fell into the cliché of infinitely increasing the caliber and power of artillery.

Randall's Staunch created a new weapon, the "water battery", or a battery on the water, which looked like a ship but was not actually used as a warship, and the small boats carrying the cannons were merely the platforms on which the cannons were mounted. Compared with ironclad ships that are also equipped with large-caliber guns, the cost of the water battery is very different, but the power of the loaded guns is not much different, and it is a low-cost, cost-effective artillery platform. Although it cannot compete with the ironclad ship on the sea, the artillery it carries can also give the ironclad a huge deterrent and have an advantage in coastal defense. Compared with the land forts, which consumed a lot of civil engineering and labor and were built over the years, the water forts had an even greater advantage in addition to the low price, that is, this kind of "forts" could be moved. According to the actual situation, a large number of coastal areas that need to be strengthened can be temporarily arranged to "garrison the choke pass and its strength to resist armor ships," and a group of batteries at sea can be formed in a short period of time.

This kind of warship, which is called a gunboat, is actually a fort, and at that time in the Qianguo was translated as a "root barge" ship, "root pozi", and according to its characteristics, it was also called "mosquito boat", which means that although this kind of warship is small, the cannon is huge, like a mosquito, in case it is bitten, it is also uncomfortable. In the West, such warships were called Randal-type gunboats according to the designer's name. It caused an immediate sensation and was considered the latest weapon for the defense of key ports, and the British Royal Navy purchased dozens of ships before and after. A number of other naval nations were also interested in it, and Rendall became famous all over the world.

As the General Taxation Department of Qianguo Customs, Hurd was well aware of the financial situation of Qianguo at that time, and he was not willing to sell large ironclad ships that Qianguo could not afford to buy in a short period of time. It's better to sell this kind of low price. In addition, it is said that it can defeat the small gunboat of the ironclad ship - the mosquito ship. Meantime. The British did not want Qianguo to have a real navy with ocean-going combat capabilities, and all they wanted to see was that Qianguo could maintain a small coastal patrol force and be able to appease the sea on its own and deal with pirates.

Although Hurd and Jin Denggan spared no effort to sell warships and hyped them up, Hurd actually had a clear understanding of the purpose of mosquito boats, saying that such ships were a sharp weapon against ironclad ships in shallow waters. Li Shaoquan also agrees with this. It is believed that "with this huge cannon boat, the mouth is the most effective, and it is more flexible than the land battery". As for the exaggerated remarks made by Kim Tenggan and others later, the more they talked about it, the more strange it became, and the claim that such warships could fight on rough seas was purely in their usual exaggerated style. In fact, Li Shaoquan, Hurd, and others had already understood from the beginning that this type of warship was a kind of water battery. However, many officials and literati in Qianguo, who knew nothing about the knowledge of warships, held that the mosquito boats bought by Li Shaoquan could not go to sea to fight, and that such ships were inferior goods produced by the West and were specially designed to defraud Qianguo. It can be said that it does not distinguish wheat. The reality is that in response to the absurd claim that mosquito ships can go out to sea to fight. Li Shaoquan was actually clear in his heart. But Li Shaoquan fully supported the plan to purchase mosquito boats, but Lin Yiqing understood that he had another reason.

Although there are no large ironclad ships, the existing cruiser fleet is basically capable of coping with the crises of its neighboring countries at sea, eliminating pirates, and ensuring the safety of sea routes. But this sign can be said to be very bad. Li Shaoquan saw the danger precisely because the state was in financial difficulties and could not come up with enough money to build or purchase large ironclad ships, so he proposed to buy mosquito boats, which were the sharp weapons of "small boats and huge cannons", in order to secretly resist this adverse current.

Since the purchase of mosquito ships cost less, and it can also make the invincible Russian ironclad fleet feel afraid when it infests the mouth of Qianguo, Prince Jing naturally chose to support it.

After inquiring with Armstrong, Hurd formally submitted the ship plan to the Prime Minister's Yamen, and Prince Jing, who was unstable about this trendy affair, beat the drum and passed the flowers, and transferred the responsibility for specific negotiations and purchases to Li Shaoquan, the minister of Beiyang. Li Shaoquan, who had been dealing with Westerners since the time of the Shengpyeong Heavenly War and had adopted a large number of Western-style weapons in his own army, was one of the few high-level bureaucrats in the Qianguo officialdom who was good at handling foreign affairs after Lin Yizhe's death, and he was also responsible for the defense of Gyeonggi. As a continuation of this decision, an edict was sent to Li Shaoquan not long after: "Send Li Shaoquan to supervise the affairs of Beiyang coastal defense...... All the divisions and divisions of the army and the establishment of bureaus and the discussion of the islanders shall be organized by the Minister and others." Since then, following Lin Yizhe, Li Shaoquan has become an important builder of Qianguo's coastal defense in the north.

After some consideration, Li Shaoquan sent a letter to Prince Jing, expressing his admiration for Prince Jing's determination to establish a Western-style navy. From the point of view of cost and credibility, he rejected all the alternative foreign foreign companies, and supported Prince Jing's idea of purchasing warships through Hurd, believing that "the General Taxation Department should be more reliable than foreign companies." Subsequently, he held a careful consultation with Hurd, and decided that the 260-ton displacement and 9-inch gun in the alternative plan were too small in terms of gun power and tonnage of the ship, and it was of little significance; The ship with a displacement of 1,300 tons and equipped with a 16-inch (406 mm) cannon was worried that the draft was too deep and the caliber of the gun was too large, "a huge cannon that had never been used in the west of the country", and that this kind of artillery, which had never been used before, was not reliable enough, and was unwilling to pay for the test of this artillery, so these two plans were abandoned. It was decided to order one Mosquito boat each with 12.5-inch guns and one with 11-inch guns, but Xuan again ordered two ships each because one was too thin. At the same time, it was agreed that on the premise of obtaining reliable information on the use of Western 16-inch guns, it was possible to consider ordering another large mosquito ship equipped with 16-inch guns.

Soon, the construction of four new warships began on the slipway in England, and for the sake of convenience, Kim Tengan named them "Alpha", "Beta", "Gamma", and "Delta" in Greek letters. Among them, "Alpha" and "Beta" belong to the first class equipped with 11-inch guns. The hull is entirely iron, and the overall layout is very similar to that of the Staunch, the pioneer of the mosquito ships. The warship has a displacement of 320 tons. The length of the ship is 35.97 meters. Width 8.23 meters. The draft is 2.29 meters, the power system is 2 steam engines, 2 coal-fired boilers, the main engine power is 235 horsepower, the two-shaft propulsion, the speed is 10 knots, the standard coal load of the coal tank is 40 tons, and the maximum coal load is 50 tons. In order to ensure that the warship meets the design standard of maneuverability, the bow and tail of the warship are exactly the same underwater line. And all are installed with rudder blades.

The main armament of this class of warships is the Armstrong 11-inch caliber No. 2 breech gun mounted on the bow, which belongs to the front-loading rifled gun loaded from the muzzle, the actual caliber of the gun is 279.4 mm, the barrel length is 4318 mm, the chamber is 660 mm long, and there are 9 double lines on the inner wall of the barrel, each 3023 mm long, and the gun can use 3 kinds of shells, the solid shell and the flowering shell weigh 249 kg, and the shotgun weighs 242 kg. The kit weighs 38.5 kilograms and can penetrate 326 millimeters of armor at a distance of 274 meters. Under deck in front of the artillery. There is a complex set of hydraulic ammunition lifting and loading devices, and when loading, the muzzle of the gun needs to be lowered so that the ammunition can be loaded into the chamber from the front down. In addition, the warship was equipped with a 3-inch Armstrong breech sampan gun on each side of the middle and rear of the main deck, and a Grimm gun as a guard weapon.

Considering that this type of warship needs to travel far to return to Qianguo, two masts were added to the original design to hang sails, and in order to increase strength, the two masts are also supported by herringbone auxiliary rods, and the "Alpha" class has become a unique mosquito ship with sails. In addition, the armored wall on the outside of the front of the "Alpha" class main gun emplacement is a fixed style that cannot be folded down, with a thickness of 0.5 inches, with limited anti-shabol capabilities, and the front of the wall is decorated with the symbol of the Qianguo warship: the Golden Dragon. Not far behind the main gun, there is an armor baffle with a thickness of 0.5 inches for the front, left and right sides, and the commander can stand behind the baffle during combat, which is considered an open rear armored command tower. Near the chimney in the middle of the main deck of the warship, there is an open-air command platform with a high position and a wide field of vision, and is equipped with navigation equipment such as steering wheels, compasses, and bells.

"Gamma" and "Daierta" are the class with 12-inch guns. The hull is also made of iron, slightly larger than the "Alpha", the displacement is increased to 420 tons, the length of the ship is 36.58 meters, the width is 9.14 meters, the draft is 2.44 meters, the power system is 2 steam engines, 1 coal-fired boiler, twin-shaft propulsion, the main engine power is 270 horsepower, the speed is 9 knots, the coal tank capacity is 50 tons, and the warship also uses the head and tail rudders. The main gun uses 1 Armstrong 12.5-inch No. 1 breech gun, which is also a front-loading rifled gun, the actual caliber is 317.5 mm, the gun body is 5727 mm long, the chamber is 699 mm long, there are 9 4330 mm long compound lines in the gun chamber, the gun also uses 3 kinds of shells, 371 kg of solid shells, 375 kg of flowering shells, and 373 kg of shotguns, the medicine pack weighs 72.6 kg, and the armor-piercing ability is measured at a distance of 274 meters 414 mmThe "Alpha" class is the same. In addition, the Gamma-class is equipped with two Armstrong 2.75-inch breech sampan guns and one Grimm machine gun in the middle of the main deck. Similarly, considering the long voyage that will be experienced back home, the limited coal carrying of the mosquito ship is difficult to supply, and the full sail design of 2 masts has also been added. In terms of appearance, this class of warships is very similar to the "Alpha" class, but the wall around the main gun has a larger range of protection, and there is a bunker-like closed command tower behind the main gun, which is better than the "Alpha" in terms of protection.

On the whole, the new class 2 warships have a small length-to-width ratio, a short and thick body, and the main engine power is small, and the speed is slow, which is not suitable for long-distance voyages, and is indeed just a water battery guarding the coast. For example, after the "Gamma" class has filled the bow ammunition depot with the standard 50 shells, if it does not add 10 or 12 tons of ballast to the stern, the bow will be submerged under the water.

After the construction of the four new warships, they were named "Longxiang," "Huwei," "Feiting," and "Cedian." After they were completed and returned to China, they immediately caused a sensation in Qianguo, and the coastal provinces expressed their envy for this kind of coastal defense weapon, which is said to be capable of defeating ironclad ships. For a time, from the south to the north, a boiling mosquito boat fever arose along the coast of Qianguo. (To be continued......)

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