I want to be emperor

Tangier, this place has a long history. It is said that the Phoenicians established a city here in the sixth century BC, and it was already an important trading city at that time.

Later, it was occupied by many countries in turn, including the ancient Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese snatched the city from the Arabs and continued to operate it until several years ago.

The Spaniards took the city again from the Portuguese a few years ago!

For more than 2000 years, many rulers have controlled it one after another, which has also allowed the city to incorporate a variety of architectural styles and customs.

And the reason why this city changes owners every once in a while, and the continuous wars are raging, is nothing else, because the city's geographical location is very critical, located on the Pacific coast at the southern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.

It is only about 90 kilometers away from Europe, that is, Spain in the northern part of the Strait of Gibraltar, and only over [-] kilometers away from Cadiz, an important trading port city for the Spaniards on the Atlantic coast.

Of course, the more important thing is that this place can easily guard the Strait of Gibraltar. Controlling these and adding a strong navy can basically control the Strait of Gibraltar.

In addition, the local climate is pleasant and suitable for living and living, so it will naturally make many countries spy on it.

In the past, it was the locals in Europe and North Africa who robbed them, but now, it is the turn of the Great Chu Empire.

The Vanguard Fleet of the European Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Chu Empire chose this place as their foothold after wandering north to the Strait of Gibraltar.

Whether to set up a large military base or a trading port here in the future is another matter, but it is still very reliable to take it down as a foothold first.

So, the Chu fleet, which consisted of several warships and transport ships, decided to land here.

As for the Spaniards in the city?
I'm sorry, I was directly ignored by the Chu people.

Even before landing, the expeditionary fleet of Chu State did not send anyone to inquire about the situation in the city. They had no idea that the city had been occupied by the Spaniards for several years.

Several main officers in the expedition fleet thought this place belonged to Morocco.

Then the Spanish garrison in Tangier was dumbfounded.

What's the matter?

Why did these Chu people log in directly?
They didn't seem to offend these Chu people recently, and there was no conflict between the two families. Even when the Chu people swept across West Africa and occupied Tarfaya, a port city in southern Morocco, the Spaniards even sent envoys out.

When the envoys passed by, they only asked them carefully why the Chu people came to Europe. As for resisting the Chu people to sweep West Africa and invade Morocco?
They didn't dare to say a word.

Unlike some European countries who don't know the world situation, the Spaniards have traveled all over the world and have a clear understanding of the world situation. They are very aware of the strength of the Chu people.

They would not offend the Chu people for nothing. Even if the Chu people bullied their superiors, they would actually bear it most of the time. For example, in recent years, the Chu people have frequently invaded the Mexican region controlled by the troupe in North America, and even occupied the Baja California Peninsula. Then they continued to march into the Mexican region, occupying a large area.

However, although the Spaniards expressed a lot of protests, they occasionally organized resistance locally.

But the Spaniards never offended the Chu people for this, and they dared not send troops to fight back, attacking the North American territory controlled by the Chu people, and even the trade between the two sides did not stop because of this.

In this world, the countries that have a better understanding of the strength of the Chu people are Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

And it is precisely because they understand clearly that they are even more afraid.

It will not be the same as the previous Kingdom of Morocco. Seeing that the Chu people came to the door, they didn't even know what the situation of the Chu people was, so they hurriedly organized an army to fight back.

As a result, the [-] troops dispatched directly collapsed, losing more than half of them.

Moreover, the Moroccans who lost more than 2000 people fought back against the army. They didn't even see what the Chu people looked like, because they had never seen the Chu people from the beginning to the end.

The Moroccans didn’t understand the Chu people, so they attacked recklessly. In the end, the city was not recaptured, not to mention the loss of troops. The most important thing is that they heard that the Chu people sent warships to bombard several other coastal cities of the Moroccans.

What is embarrassing is that the Chu people also called the wrong person on the way.

Speaking of it, it is also because the Chu people do not know much about the situation in North Africa and Europe at present, or disdain to understand it. They only know that there is a kingdom of Morocco in the northwestern part of Africa.

Then I took it for granted that the Northwest Africa region belonged to the Kingdom of Morocco, including those coastal cities in Northwest Africa.

But I don't know at all. In fact, the current Moroccan Alavi Dynasty has not been established for a long time. Most of the controlled areas are inland areas, and many places along the coast are actually colonies controlled by Europeans.

Well, just like Tangier.

As a result, several warships sent by the Chu State Expeditionary Fleet, indiscriminately, shelled coastal cities when they saw them along the way, causing many Europeans, mainly the coastal colonial cities controlled by the Portuguese and Spaniards to be bombarded!
This sounds weird, and I feel that the Chu people are confused.

But you have to understand the psychology of Chu people...then you won't find it strange.

Because in the eyes of the Chu people, the aborigines in North Africa and Europe are actually just like that. They are better than those tribal aborigines in Africa, but they are not bad.

Anyway, in the face of rifled guns, they are all things that can't be shot.

This superior state of mind has led to the fact that Chu people don't care much about how many countries there are in Europe and what the relationship is between them.

No matter what country they are or how powerful they are, they will be the leeks of Chu State anyway.

The actions of the Chu people in Europe are also the European Free Trade Plan, which has never been aimed at a single European country, but the entire European region, um, and North Africa by the way.

Therefore, when carrying out military strikes, we don't even bother to distinguish who is who.

If you have time to find out the local situation and ask whose city it is, it is easier and less troublesome to directly bombard it.

After all, to find out the situation, you have to send people to land to inquire about the situation. If there are fewer people sent here, you may encounter danger or something. When direct shelling, you don’t even need to enter the port, just shelling directly on the sea a few kilometers away from the port is over.

And these days, the cities in North Africa and Europe are quite small, unlike the cities in the Chu Kingdom, which have a population of hundreds of thousands or millions at every turn, and the urban areas are also huge.

These European native cities have small urban areas, and many of them are fortress cities. For these small cities with small areas and small populations, there is no need to engage in large-scale coverage bombardment, and direct precise bombardment can destroy their ports and the urban areas near the ports.

The artillery used by the European Expeditionary Force of the Great Chu Empire was all rifled artillery. Even the relatively backward front-loaded rifled artillery equipped by the navy used cylindrical shells with a very large charge.

The front-loading rifled guns equipped on cruisers fired 150mm caliber high-explosive grenades. Compared with this era, its huge power can be called devastating.

For those small coastal cities of European aborigines, it is not necessary to use the entire fleet. Just pulling a cruiser or even a frigate to bombard them can cause huge losses to them.

And relying on such strong strength, the mentality of Chu people has always been very stable: I just hit you, and I hit the wrong person, but what can you do?
The focus is on a fine tradition of Chu's foreign expansion: arrogant and shameless!
It's the same here in Tangier now. The Chu army who landed doesn't care who the people in Tangier are, they just land and it's over.

When the first few armed merchant ships carried soldiers and began to land on the side of Tangier City, there was another frigate approaching behind, providing naval gun cover at any time.

At the same time, the cruiser Qiongzhou was next door with a frigate, preparing to name and clean up Tangier and other targets.

Then the Spaniards in the city were dumbfounded.

Before they had time to figure out why the other party came, and even before the envoys sent to inquire had boarded the ship and set out to sea, the opposite warship was already shelling several kilometers away.

After the Chu Navy officially opened fire, huge smoke and dust rose from the port of Tangier one after another, accompanied by bursts of dull explosions.

The loudest among them is the sound caused by the explosion of the high-explosive grenade fired by the 27-year-type 150mm front-loading rifle gun on the Qiongzhou cruiser.

The Qiongzhou cruiser is the eighth ship of the Jinzhou-class cruiser of the Great Chu Empire.

The Jinzhou-class cruiser is the core capital ship of the previous generation of the Great Chu Empire Navy, and it is very special. This battleship is the first mass-produced and the last mass-produced main cruiser of the Great Chu Empire Navy, and it uses front-mounted rifled guns in the design stage.

Because after the Jinzhou-class cruisers, the development of breech-loading rifled guns in the Great Chu Empire was relatively smooth. After the Jinzhou-class cruisers, the new generation of Datong-class cruisers began to use breech-loading rifled guns.

This also made the Jinzhou-class cruiser the only main cruiser in the Great Chu Empire that used front-mounted rifled guns at the design stage.

But although it seems that there is only one type, the number of Jinzhou-class cruisers is actually very large, reaching 28 in total.

At the same time, this is not the cruiser of the Great Chu Empire. There is only one that uses front-loading rifled guns. In fact, the Great Chu Empire also modified the previous three Toyosu-class cruisers, plus the Busan cruiser that was refitted during construction. Then there will be four Fengzhou-class cruisers equipped with front-loaded rifled guns.

There are a total of 32 ships in the above two levels.

In addition, there are eight cruisers converted from old battleships with relatively small tonnage. Although the performance of these old battleships with iron-rib wooden shells and old-style steam engines is a bit poor, the tonnage is there, no matter what, there are two to three thousand tons.

Therefore, some ships that were relatively new and in better condition were refitted at that time, mainly with front-mounted rifled guns, and continued to serve as cruisers after refitting.

The above-mentioned forty cruisers are the main cruisers of the Great Chu Empire currently equipped with front-mounted rifled guns. They are widely distributed in the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and local coastal waters, and undertake the main combat missions.

In addition to them, there are actually more than [-] old cruisers that have no modification value and are still equipped with front-mounted smoothbore guns.

It's just that these cruisers are relatively old, and some don't even have steam engines... The overall combat effectiveness is too low, and there is currently no modification value.

These ships are basically dawdling in the second- and third-tier fleets. If it weren't for maintaining the establishment and training officers and soldiers, the navy would want to retire them all.

There are also some older ones that have been sealed up, but it sounds good to say that they are sealed up, but they are actually thrown at the docks waiting to be sold.

Or some ships in better condition may be bought and refitted, and then used as merchant ships or the like, but the fate of most of these ships will be dismantled.

Strictly speaking, these sealed and sold warships do not mean that they have little combat value, at least they are good for fighting the natives, but the cost performance is too low.

A warship needs at least two or three hundred crew members. The salary of the crew alone is not a small sum, and then a group of high-paid naval officers and soldiers drive an old-fashioned warship equipped with a smoothbore gun to go out to fight... This is definitely an advanced fighter pilot driving a tractor to farm!

waste.

In order not to waste, the current Great Chu Empire Navy and the first-line battleships in active service basically no longer use smoothbore guns, but front-loaded rifled guns and more advanced rear-loaded rifled guns.

Smoothbore guns, not to mention completely eliminated, are basically invisible in the first and second-line fleets, and can only be barely seen in some third-line garrison fleets or some inland river fleets.

And this situation is estimated to not be too long, and it is estimated that it will be completely eliminated in three to five years.

After all, the production of breech-mounted rifled guns is increasing nowadays. In addition to equipping new ships, some breech-loaded naval guns will inevitably be used to refit old warships. After the front-loaded rifled guns on old battleships are removed, they will not be wasted.

According to the Great Chu Empire's own goal, it is hoped that the entire navy will be fully rifled before Chengshun 40 years ago.

The entire navy's rifling plan, starting from the 27th year of Chengshun to the 40th year of Chengshun, is expected to take a total of 13 years, using both front-loading rifled guns and rear-loaded rifled guns.

No way, the navy is too large, and there are too many rifled guns needed for various warships and coastal defense forts.

Among other things, the scale of the first-line ocean-going warships alone has reached more than 250, and tens of thousands of rifled guns are needed.

This is just a first-line ocean-going warship, and the specific indicators are: new combined steam engine, front-loaded or rear-loaded rifled guns, iron-ribbed wooden hull or all-steel hull, combined sails or pure steam engine power.

Among these first-line ocean-going warships, there are 28 Jinzhou-class cruisers alone.

More advanced Datong-class cruisers with rear-loaded rifled guns and a full-load displacement of [-] tons. Currently, six ships have been built, and more than ten ships are under construction.

There are 4000 battleships with a full load displacement of more than 7000 tons, including eight Suzhou-class battleships with a full load displacement of more than [-] tons, the Hantian battleship with a full load displacement of [-] tons, and six Yingtian-class battleships under construction with a full load displacement of [-] tons.

As for the rear-loading rifled guns, it is estimated that the new generation of Jinling-class battleships with a full-load displacement of tens of thousands of tons, the first ship is still under construction.

And the even bigger ones are the Baling-class frigates, which are even more crap. A total of 75 frigates have been built... And these 65 Baling-class frigates only took five years in total, and an average of fifteen frigates were built a year...

More advanced... Well, in fact, it is just a change of skin on the Baling-class frigate. The Qingyang-class frigate equipped with 120mm rear-loading rifled guns has been built. More than ten ships have been built, and they are currently under large-scale construction. It is estimated that there will be dozens of larger ships.

The above-mentioned first-line battleships, whether newly built or refitted, all have several common characteristics, that is, they are equipped with rifled guns, equipped with combined steam engines, and are ocean-going main battleships with excellent endurance.

It does not include a larger number of offshore patrol ships, inland river gunboats, and other types of auxiliary warships.

Many senior navy generals don't know how many of these inferior and auxiliary ships are, but the total amount must be very large.

Because the Bangladesh squadron alone has more than 30 inland gunboats and more than 20 offshore patrol ships, plus some auxiliary ships, there are more than 100 ships.

And similar coastal and inland river missions, there are more than ten relatively large overseas squadrons.

And there are even more small squadrons!
The main ocean-going warships plus offshore, inland river warships, and a large number of auxiliary warships, in addition, the navy also has a large number of coastal defense batteries.

These are rifled guns that require massive quantities.

Therefore, the pressure on the navy's rifled guns to be replaced is much greater than that of the army!

This is why in the European expedition fleet this time, the two main forces sent by the army are equipped with the latest rear-loading rifled guns, but most of the warships sent by the navy are equipped with front-loaded rifled guns.

Only two are the latest Qingyang-class frigates.

Moreover, strictly speaking, these two Qingyang-class frigates are not here for combat, but for testing.

The navy wants to know how effective the Qingyang-class frigate with a full load displacement of more than 700 tons is in combat overseas after using a 120mm rear-loaded rifled gun.

If the combat effectiveness is good, then the Navy has decided to further expand the number of equipment for such frigates.

After all, the Datong-class cruisers with a full load of more than 3000 tons are a bit expensive. The Navy wants more frigates to replace some of the cruiser's combat missions, in order to achieve the purpose of reducing the size of the new cruiser.

As for the new generation of battleships, the navy is more like a scolding mother. The new generation of Jinling-class battleships with tens of thousands of tons is a complete scam.

It's too expensive.

The navy also finalized an order for eight ships at the beginning, and planned to build a squadron of two [-]-ton battleships for fun.

As a result, when the quotation came out, the general orders were cut off on the spot, leaving only four ships.

Because the domestic industry actually offered a price of 250 million Chu Yuan for this crap.

In the eyes of the navy, this price is simply crazy!

You must know that the purchase price of the Yingtian-class battleship of the previous generation of more than 6000 tons was only more than 80 Chu Yuan, and the purchase price of the Taiyuan-class battleship of more than 7000 tons was more than 90 Chu Yuan.

Now the [-]-ton Jinling City battleship has a tonnage of [-] tons more. If the price is normal, such as a million yuan, the navy will admit it.

But 250 million?Let's be honest, the Navy can't afford it!
Even after the order was cut to four ships, the Navy still felt that it was too expensive.

Thinking about shrinking the orders for two of the [-]-ton battleships and replacing them with two cheaper battleships.

We don't want an advanced battleship of [-] tons, but it is also possible to build two small battleships of [-] to [-] tons, as long as they are equipped with large-caliber rear-loading rifled guns.

Not only battleships are more expensive, but new cruisers are also expensive now. The purchase price of a Datong cruiser with a full load of 60 tons has reached more than 20 Chu yuan, which directly increased by more than [-] yuan compared with the Jinzhou class with a full load of [-] tons.

The navy is also very scolding about this.

In the end, I had no choice but to focus on frigates with lower positioning and cheaper prices, trying to let frigates assume part of the tactical positioning of cruisers.

This is why the new frigate is equipped with multiple 120mm naval guns. The Navy just wants this frigate to replace the cruiser and undertake some of the main combat tasks, especially overseas garrison combat tasks.

In the vanguard fleet that landed in Tangier this time, one of the two frigates, the Shiquan frigate, is the fifth ship of the Qingyang-class frigate.

In order to test combat performance.

At this time, it also followed the side of the Qiongzhou and shelled the port area of ​​Tangier.

But during the bombardment, several officers of the navy frowned slightly, because the 34mm rear-loaded rifled naval gun of the 120 model on the frigate Shiquan seemed to have good firepower.

However, in terms of explosive power, it is still too far from the shells of the 21th-style 150mm front-loading rifled naval gun on the Qiongzhou cruiser.

After all, the explosive power has nothing to do with front loading and rear loading. Both are rifled guns that fire cylindrical shells. With the same caliber, there is actually little difference in explosive power.

Originally, the navy thought that the caliber would be smaller, but if the fixed ammunition was used, the rate of fire would be faster, and the final firepower should not be much worse.

But the gap in actual combat is bigger than imagined.

An exaggerated description is that when a 150mm shell goes down, there will be no grass in a radius of 120 meters, but if a [-]mm shell goes down, there will still be people alive and kicking within a radius of [-] meters.

In addition, the 120mm naval gun is much less effective against buildings and solid fortifications.

When shelling Tangier's coastal defense forts, the 150mm naval guns on the Qiongzhou used semi-armour-piercing projectiles to clean up these rocky and civil-structured coastal defense forts.
However, the semi-armour-piercing projectiles fired by 120 mm sometimes fail to penetrate, and occasionally penetrate because the explosive charge in the semi-armor-piercing projectile is too small, and the explosive power is not enough, resulting in insufficient damage capability.

After watching a round of shelling, several officers sent by the Navy Headquarters who were watching the ship looked at each other and sighed in unison. The plan of the Navy's top management to save money may not work.

This 150mm rear-loading rifle can't be saved!

Not only can it not be saved, but also a lot of equipment is required.

But the reason why new warships are expensive is that apart from new technologies such as steam engines and hulls, a considerable part of the additional cost is due to this rear-mounted rifled gun.

Large-caliber long-barreled rear-loaded rifled guns are very expensive.

The breech-loading rifled guns used by the Army are far inferior to the large-caliber long-barreled naval guns used by the Navy in terms of manufacturing process difficulty and cost.

The same is the 150mm artillery. The 150mm light howitzer on the army side has only seven or eight times the barrel, and the process is very simple.

However, the 34-year-style 150mm rear-loaded rifled gun used on the Taiyuan-class cruisers of the Navy has a barrel length of 25 times, and the maximum range can even reach [-] meters.

At present, a series of breech-loading rifled guns of the Navy are basically 25 times the barrel. This barrel does not seem to be high, and it is not even as high as some medium-caliber front-loading smoothbore guns, but the difference between rifled guns and smoothbore guns is huge.

Only under high chamber pressure, when the barrel rotates out of the bore along the rifling, how to ensure that the rifling is not severely worn and strive for a higher service life is a very complicated process problem, involving a series of issues such as barrel material and inner bore processing.

Moreover, the larger the caliber and the larger the multiple diameter, the more difficult the process will be, and the higher the scrap rate will be, and the cost will remain high.

This is why the navy's naval guns of the same caliber far surpass the army's field guns, and the requirements for craftsmanship are not even at the same level.

It is because the cost of new naval guns and other new technologies is too high that the navy wants to use cheaper frigates to take part of the combat missions of some cruisers... It is a pity that the existing frigates do not have enough firepower in actual combat!
You said that the frigate is equipped with a larger caliber naval gun, and it is equipped with a 150mm naval gun or even a 170mm naval gun, which is putting the cart before the horse.

For the Great Chu Empire, the most expensive thing is the new type of naval gun that has just appeared a few years ago, but the hull is not worth a lot of money.

As for a larger hull that requires more power, which in turn leads to an increase in power costs, don’t worry about it, just reduce the speed.

To deal with native sailing ships, the speed of pure steam engines is [-] knots, [-] knots or even [-] knots. In fact, there is not much difference. They are all hanging... As for daily sailing, in order to save money these days, the Great Chu Empire Navy basically uses sails for daily sailing except for large-tonnage battleships.

This is why there are more advanced steam engines now, but the pure steam engine power of various new warships in the navy is basically below [-] knots. No matter how high the cost is, the cost will rise sharply, and the practicality is the same, so it is not worth it.

This is also a unique situation faced by the Great Chu Empire's navy. This situation would basically not occur in the modern countries in the original time and space, because all countries in the original time and modern times had competitors.

As strong as the British Royal Navy, they are still facing the challenge of the French. When designing warships, comprehensive consideration must be given to maximize combat performance, while cost is second.

But the Great Chu Empire has no opponents, not even one!

Therefore, when designing warships for the Great Chu Empire Navy, cost and cost performance are the first considerations.

Otherwise, the [-]-ton battleship will be built for you in minutes. It is impossible for the new generation of Jinling, which has been under construction for more than two years, and the hull has not yet been completed.

The Navy is slow to allocate funds, and shipyards and supporting manufacturers have no money and naturally do not actively construct.

Optimistically, the battleship Jinling may not enter active service in the Navy until 40 years after Chengshun.

And considering the huge maintenance and navigation costs of this [-]-ton giant ship, there is a high probability that this thing will also be a dock museum after it is completed and put into service!
Not to mention anything else, just the coal burned and the ammunition used for a training trip to sea are enough for the navy to be heartbroken for a long time.

Moreover, the new ship uses too many new technologies, so there must be many faults. If there are some problems with this thing, such as power failure, the high-level navy will be dumbfounded.

It's better to be a pier museum honestly at the pier!