"It's the so-called concept again!" After Liu Shang listened to the officer's explanation, such an opinion naturally popped up in his mind.

Most of the advanced weapons displayed by Haihan in the military exercises are claimed to be "conceptual products" in the development process, and they will neither be sold nor installed in the troops in the short term. But of course, this kind of thing is just to listen to, if it is not true, Liu Shang will not believe it anyway. The army had already displayed a lot of new weapons yesterday, so it was a very reasonable arrangement for the navy to display its own magic weapons before the end of the exercise.

However, there is still a big difference between this concept and the new warship imagined by Liu Shang, he originally thought that Haihan would probably build the next generation of warships in a larger direction, after all, from the exploration class, the expedition class to the majesty class, the tonnage of the warship is getting larger and larger, and the number of naval guns is increasing. If the battleship is to become more combat-effective, it seems that the only way to go is to deploy more naval guns on the ship, and with it comes the need for more hull space.

However, Haihan seems to have chosen another unexpected development route, not only did not increase the number of artillery, but carried out a large-scale streamlining, reducing the dense side ship guns to two rotating batteries, one in front and one in the back, and it seems that the combat effectiveness has not only not improved, but has been greatly reduced. Up to now, Liu Shang still can't understand the design intent of this new ship, but he knows that since the Haihan people let this ship appear on such an occasion, they probably have some kind of special ability.

Among the ships that have appeared so far, the export-oriented Exploratory-class warship with the smallest number of sideside guns is a one-sided four-gun gun, which is exactly the same as the ironclad ship called the "Warrior". However, compared to the design of this turret, which can be rotated in a flat plane, the gun emplacements of old warships are not so flexible, and the base of the gun carriage is fixed on the deck, and the corresponding firing range is much smaller.

There were many discerning people present, and naturally many people were already aware of these differences, and how this ironclad ship would perform in the next target shooting has become the focus of everyone's attention.

The speed of the "Warrior" into the firing sea is obviously faster than that of the sailing ships that appeared before, and even faster than the "Majesty", which makes people worry that if the shooting accuracy of its naval guns is not ideal, it is very likely that the first and last two batteries will only have one round of firing in front of each target position, and the error tolerance rate is quite low.

However, the facts soon proved that the audience was overly worried, and the ironclad ship had just sailed into the firing area, and before it had entered the best firing position of the first target position, the bow cannon fired. This firing distance is almost twice as far as the position where other warships fired their guns just now, which undoubtedly puts forward higher requirements for the aiming and firing accuracy of the artillery. However, the shell hit the target drawn on the cliff without any deviation, and the explosion of the shell on the cliff wall was much more dynamic than before, and after the flying rocks were scattered, there was already a clearly visible crater on the cliff wall.

"Awesome......"

Before Liu Shang could finish sighing, another gun from the bow battery also fired a shot, and it also hit this target impartially!

All the boats observing from the periphery were in an uproar, and after watching the target shooting exercises for several hours, the audience had a full understanding of the difficulty of the project. The last ironclad to emerge only had four guns, and even if all of them missed the target, it would not surprise everyone, but this one could hit two shots at a longer range, which was quite terrifying.

Liu Shang immediately thought of the kind of new artillery and artillery shells that he saw on Xieyang Island yesterday that could easily penetrate the iron plate target from a distance of several hundred meters; if it was a weapon like that, then it would be reasonable to make such a result, right? Although it would be quite difficult to shoot on an undulating ship, the shooting distance was several times closer than yesterday's, and the target was also larger, so it seemed that it was easier to shoot on land than yesterday.

But Liu Shang thought about it again, this ship is not only up and down, but also on the move, and it is not the same thing as the army's fixed artillery hitting fixed targets.

Before Liu Shang could figure out a specific answer, the two guns of the fort at the rear of the ship also opened fire one after another, hitting the target on the cliff wall. The target originally painted with white paint was hit by four shells in a row, and the earth and rocks collapsed one after another, and the original appearance was almost invisible.

When Liu Shang saw this, he faintly understood the key point for Haihan to take out this ironclad ship, fast speed, ironclad or secondary, these quasi-powerful and powerful guns are the most prominent places in its combat performance. While other ships need to use concentrated fire to ensure a better hit rate, this ship's guns can do it easily and strike better.

But with all the guns in turn shooting at the same target, at its current speed, will it have time to complete the ammunition reloading before entering the next target firing zone?

As soon as Liu Shang thought of this, he immediately recalled that when the army displayed the new artillery yesterday, the loading speed was not comparable to the breech gun in his own cognition, as long as the bolt behind the barrel was opened, the brass shell was withdrawn, and the next shell was loaded into it, and the whole process took only a few breaths. If the guns were of a similar configuration, they would have been more than enough to reload.

Sure enough, the performance of the ironclad ship did not disappoint the audience, and before sailing into the next target position, the two guns in the bow of the ship, which had already turned the angle, fired again in advance and hit the target flawlessly. Liu Shang's boat was cheering again, and even Yu Xiaobao, who had always been steady, took the lead in applauding.

Why Yu Xiaobao was so excited, Liu Shang naturally could understand that if the shooting target of the ironclad ship was replaced by another sail battleship, it would be completely unilaterally shelling the opponent outside the range of the opponent's range, and in terms of the accuracy and destructive power shown by this naval gun, it was not much different from the power of the shore defense artillery. This means that Haihan has a real mobile artillery battery at sea, and although the density of firepower output of this thing is not large, its power is comparable to that of shore defense artillery, and it is a powerful weapon that is difficult to match for existing armed ships at sea - unless it is fast enough to escape from under its gun, it can only be killed.

The ironclad ship completed the target shooting task without any delay, and Liu Shang did not even look closely at whether all the shells it fired hit the target, anyway, the final result was that all seven targets were hit, and the time was shorter than that of the "Majesty", which had the best results before. Considering that the "Majesty" had more than 20 guns on one side of the ship, and the "Warrior" only had four, and this kind of shelling was powerful enough to make its opponent desperate.

In fact, there is no need for the accompanying officers to explain this kind of scene superfluously, as long as they are not blind, they can already understand the horror of this ironclad ship after watching it one day. In front of this ironclad ship, the ships that had been used for target shooting before, including even the active warships of the Haihan Navy, seemed to have become a joke.

"Haihan people...... Sure enough, I'm not idle......" Liu Shang couldn't help but think that he had been wondering if the Haihan people would have some new moves in building warships in the past two years, and he immediately saw their results. Can Da Ming imitate such a powerful warship within ten or twenty years? Liu Shang was not optimistic about this possibility, not to mention the artillery on the ship, and the steam engine installed on the ship alone would probably not be able to be copied in a moment and a half.

Regarding the specific data of the "Warrior", such as tonnage, size, maximum speed, endurance, staffing, etc., the accompanying officers did not give a detailed explanation, it is obvious that except for the name of the ship, all other information is in a state of confidentiality, and Liu Shang can only rely on two eyes to judge and collect relevant information.

However, after completing the target shooting, the ship did not join the team of the combined fleet, and after going around the sea from a distance, it sailed straight south in the direction of Hainan Island, and had no intention of staying in front of the guests to show it at all. This was a slight disappointment for all the spectators, who would love to be able to take a closer look at the details of the ship, but the Haihan military apparently did not have such an arrangement to get them what they wanted. Anyway, the appearance and performance of the ironclad ship have played a sufficient deterrent role, and the purpose of the military's arrangement can be regarded as achieved.

The military will not announce the final results and rankings of today's target training, and only the commanders of the participating units will be able to obtain a statistical data afterwards. Liu Shang was disappointed when he heard the news, and he wanted to see how far the final results of the ironclad ship were from Haihan's existing warships. However, what he didn't know was that the record of this ironclad ship was not counted in the final result ranking, which means that the appearance of this ship was purely just a show off by the Haihan military, and it would not let the outside world get more information about the performance of this ship.

The troops participating in the exercise will return to their respective stations after a short rest on Xieyang Island and Weizhou Island, while the guests will return to Danzhou, and in the next two or three days, they will also participate in the military equipment exhibition jointly organized by Haihan Ordnance Industry and Haihan National Defense Works.

The main task of the inspection team in Danzhou is to inspect local government affairs, and observing the military exercises is only a temporary arrangement, and the subsequent arms sales are not directly related to their tasks. Yu Xiaobao didn't want to waste too much time on this kind of activity, they had been in Danzhou for several days, and so far they had not started to contact government affairs, and any further delay might affect the future schedule.

The next day, Mayor Zhang Xin held a special symposium to show the inspection team the local construction achievements and government management status in recent years. At times like these, Liu Shang is of little use, as he is in charge of trade promotion, but due to his lack of professional knowledge and the nature of his status as a temporary worker, he has no access to first-hand information. I can only sit in the back row as an observer to get a general idea of the local economic construction situation.

Danzhou used to be one of the important towns on Qiongzhou Island, but in 1630, when Haihan used force to take the northern Qiongbei region, he did not encounter much resistance in Danzhou City, and directly entered the city in the name of helping the government to quell the rebellion and took over control.

In 1631, local forces opposed to the Haihan planned an assassination operation in Danzhou, but under the layout of the Haihan Security Department, the assassination did not succeed, but was uprooted by the Ministry of Security, and the local clan forces with bad intentions in the Danzhou area were also eradicated. Since then, the security situation in Danzhou has been relatively stable.

Since the local cultural industry in Danzhou has always been relatively developed, after Haihan took over here, it took the cultural industry as a key regional industry. Danzhou is currently the largest number of private academies in the Haihan control area, these large and small academies are not only teaching the Four Books and Five Classics, in fact, now only the poetry and classics as teaching materials have been very few, most of the academies are vocational training as the main teaching direction, even the study of literature has mostly given up the eight shares, changed to a more practical official writing major.

According to the data obtained by Zhang Xin, there are as many as 1,000 students who graduate from various academies in Danzhou every year and work in various state-owned institutions in Haihan. There are also some people who will be selected by the Haihan Education Department to study in a higher national university because of their excellent qualifications.

Liu Shang listened and recalled that he had heard from others that there were more advanced institutions near Shengli Fort, and that the lecturers who taught there were all chiefs, and that it was Haihan's Guozijian who came to Sanya.

In addition to education, fishing, shipbuilding, agriculture and shipping are also major industries, although they are not as well-known as culture and education. Zhang Xin only mentioned a few words, then turned the topic back to the local representative industry, and specially introduced a man dressed as a Ming man here.

Liu Shang was also shocked when he heard the identity of this person, it turned out that this person was Yan Mingjun, who was transferred from Luoding Prefecture, Guangdong Province to Danzhou Governor four years ago. It is rumored that this person has long been eliminated by Haihan, but I didn't expect that this person had already descended to Haihan and became a magistrate.

Yan Mingjun actually doesn't have any real job at present, but he likes to dance and write, so Zhang Xin asked him to take charge of the local cultural and educational undertakings, which happened to be what he liked. Yan Mingjun knew that he could no longer return to Daming to be an official, so he accepted it calmly and became a special consultant in Danzhou with peace of mind. Anyway, Hai Han's treatment is not low, and he doesn't need to take too much responsibility on him, as long as he supervises the normal and legal operation of the local academy, this errand is much easier and more pleasant than being a governor.

(End of chapter)