The two battleships and four cruisers parked at Xintianfu Pier allowed Huangzhuang's managers, officers, soldiers, workers, and ordinary people to visit them intermittently for eight days.

After the maintenance of the battleship was completed, Zhu Jingyuan took Charles and Charlotte, as well as representatives from Britain and France, to visit.

For Charles and Charlotte, the main thing is natural novelty and expectation.

Diplomatic and political personnel such as Grenville, Monroe, and Talleyrand were in a state of alertness.

When the car they were riding in approached the pier, they stretched their necks and poked their heads out through the windows from time to time.

When the car entered the dock area and arrived at the docking area of ​​the battleship, they were even more focused and focused.

As the distance quickly shortened, the silhouette of a huge battleship appeared above the dock, which also gave them a big shock.

"My God, these two ships are so big..."

"The length of this hull...I estimated that it may be 70% longer than the 16,000-ton Formidable class!"

"Even compared to the reputation level of the test ship with a full large-caliber main gun, it is at least 50% longer!"

"If the length increases so much, how terrifying will the tonnage be?"

"At least 40,000 tons, or even 50,000 tons..."

"There are still two such huge warships here, which shows that they are already mass-produced models..."

"Why is this happening? How could the Ming Dynasty build such a huge warship!"

"This is completely unreasonable!"

"Your Excellency Nelson was prepared to use quality over quantity, so he planned a battleship with a displacement of 30,000 tons.

"Now it seems that even if this kind of super battleship is built, it can only be regarded as a second-class battleship..."

Britain and France, especially the British, including American officials, were all surprised by the two ships.

They were still immersed in shock and disbelief until the car came to a stop under the battleship.

Their tonnage estimates exceeded the battleship's actual tonnage because they were based on traditional battleship hulls.

The ratio of length to width of a traditional battleship hull is smaller, and the overall battleship will be fatter.

The ratio of length to width of Zhu Jingyuan's new battleship has been enlarged, making the overall hull more slender.

If the two shapes of warships have the same length, then the traditional warship will definitely be wider and the tonnage will be larger than the new warship.

Diplomats from Britain and France simply looked at the length of the battleship from the side and could not directly see the width.

By estimating the tonnage of the new battleship based on the lines of traditional battleships, we came to the terrifying conclusion that it might be 50,000 tons.

Everyone's first impression of these two ships was that they were extremely huge.

It wasn't until they arrived below the battleship and were about to board the ship that they realized another situation.

The shapes of these two ships are also completely different from traditional battleships.

Charles followed Zhu Jingyuan, raised his head and looked at the main gun on the huge hull, and said quite unexpectedly:

"These are all... triple-mounted main guns..."

Zhu Jingyuan said of course:

"Yes, in order to increase the firepower density and reduce the length of the hull occupied by the main gun, a triple main gun is used.

"With three triple turrets, there are already nine large-caliber artillery pieces.

"If it is a twin-mounted turret, four turrets will only have eight guns, but the weight of the turret may exceed that of three triple-mounted turrets."

Charles does have a basic understanding of the navy:

"The difficulty should be relatively high. Can we in France do it?"

Zhu Jingyuan said quite directly:

"You can explore accordingly, but for your new warship design, it is recommended to continue to use twin-mounted turrets."

Charlotte was a little disappointed at the moment, but he immediately felt that this was a natural situation.

At the same time, Talleyrand, the foreign minister, could see even more things.

"This kind of warship with a displacement of at least 40,000 tons is only equipped with three turrets.

“Triple turrets are specially designed to reduce the number of turrets and the volume they occupy.

"The more hull tonnage and space must be used for defense and speed.

"Then the armor defense level and speed of this ship must far exceed that of traditional battleships."

When the technical level is certain, the design of a capital ship must make a trade-off between attack, defense, and speed.

A 40,000-ton ship has nine 360mm main guns, which is obviously not an option to maximize firepower.

So it definitely strengthens the other two.

Talleyrand was testing Zhu Jingyuan, hoping to get more key information.

Grenville, Monroe, Jefferson and other British representatives, after hearing Talleyrand's words, they all cheered up and looked at Zhu Jingyuan.

Of course, Zhu Jingyuan would not answer directly, but said with a noncommittal smile:

"We have worked hard to find a balance point that is as reasonable as possible between firepower, armor, and speed."

Having said this is like saying nothing.

The so-called "balance" is very subjective, and different people have different understandings of balance.

The balance understood by Zhu Jingyuan, a man with the experience of later generations, is actually very extreme in the eyes of people of this era.

People of this era would never imagine that Zhu Jingyuan would directly increase the speed to thirty knots.

Zhu Jingyuan felt that the speed of thirty knots was already the result of balance.

If the speed is extremely enhanced, it should be increased to more than thirty-two knots, so that the battleship can chase the cruiser.

The representative works are the "Super Cruiser" Iowa and the "Large Cruiser" Alaska.

At the same time, even in the armor itself, Zhu Jingyuan's balance is different from others.

Zhu Jingyuan wanted to divide the armor into two parts: side vertical main armor and deck horizontal armor.

In Zhu Jingyuan's eyes, the latter is actually more important.

The weight of the horizontal armor of the Fearless and the Invincible exceeds the weight of the vertical armor.

Now that Talleyrand, Grenville, and Monroe heard these words, their inner analysis and judgment were far different from Zhu Jingyuan's.

They could not imagine what a ship with thirty knots would look like, and they had no concept of horizontal armor of more than 100 millimeters.

"The speed may exceed twenty-three knots, or even reach twenty-five knots. Lord Nelson's ideal battleship speed is about twenty-five knots..."

"The thickness of the main armor should be 360 ​​mm. Even if our battleships use 360 ​​mm main guns, they may still be unable to penetrate at a distance of ten kilometers..."

"According to our country's technical level, we definitely cannot obtain the same level of indicators at similar tonnage, and we can only continue to give up one or two."

"Even if the speed is extremely enhanced, it will be difficult to exceed 25 knots, and it is even less likely to form a speed advantage over 25 knots.

"Strengthening armor and firepower is the best choice..."

Differences in cognition and judgment will directly lead to differences in combat ideas.

The strategies and tactics they used to create "balanced" battleships in their own minds may not have any effect when faced with actual balanced battleships, and may even have the opposite effect.

Under the guidance of the naval etiquette officer on the ship, Zhu Jingyuan boarded the warship with representatives from Britain and France.

After arriving on the deck, the representatives of the British and French courts subconsciously observed and estimated the width of the deck.

They quickly determined that the ship was narrower than expected.

The aspect ratio must be over seven!

The aspect ratio of traditional battleships is usually in the range of six points, or may even be less than six.

Usually only cruisers pursuing high speed will have such a large aspect ratio.

Therefore, they all naturally determined that the speed of this ship should be twenty-five knots.

At the same time, the tonnage of the battleship was also revised and placed in the early 40,000 tons, which is very close to the real tonnage.

After estimating the width, aspect ratio, and tonnage, they began to observe the facilities on the deck.

They once again discovered differences from traditional battleships.

Secondary gun.

This ship's secondary guns are all turret-shaped.

Only the 40 mm caliber gun is still an open structure.

Except for the 160mm secondary gun, it can be seen that it has a very large elevation range.

In order to deal with possible air threats, the high-speed capital ship designed by Zhu Jingyuan had a large number of anti-aircraft guns from the beginning.

Except for the 160mm secondary gun, the other small and medium-caliber artillery are actually anti-aircraft guns.

The number of anti-aircraft guns far exceeds that of normal battleships in the period when dreadnoughts were just formed.
To be continued...