1825 My New Daming

Chapter 270 A New Species of the Ming Navy—Battlecruiser Torpedo Boats! (ask for subscription, ask for monthly pass)
Just when King Yapian of the British Empire was discussing with Wei Zhongtang and Lord Najue at Windsor Castle about launching a war against the peace-loving and peacefully developing Ming Empire.Zhuge Weidao was standing on the bridge of a huge warship, looking at the boundless sea around him.

This is no longer the Arabian Sea, nor the Indian Ocean, but the sea area that Da Ming himself called "Da Ming Nanyang".

The so-called Great Ming Nanyang roughly includes the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Karimata, the Gulf of Siam, the South China Sea, the Java Sea, the Sulu Sea, the Sulawesi Sea, the Makassar Strait, the Maluku Sea, the Banda Sea, the Wuhai, Luzon Sea and other large sea areas have been owned by the Celestial Dynasty since ancient times!Although some of these sea areas are temporarily occupied by Western imperialism, after the upcoming world war (which has already started) is over, Western imperialism will flee in despair.

Looking out from the bridge where Zhuge Weidao was located, the sea surface of Daming Nanyang was like a piece of blue, shining silk and satin, undulating layer by layer in the sea breeze.When the weather is fine, the sun shines, and the eyes are full of light.

There are large and small islands all over the sea in the South Sea, each island is green with jungle and white sandy beach.Every island seems to be full of vitality.And all of this, as far as the eye can see, is the sea of ​​Daming, the island of Daming, and the sky of Daming!Standing on the bridge, looking at the beautiful scenery of the ocean, islands, and sky belonging to Daming all day long, I really never get tired of looking at it.

The sea area that Zhuge Weidao's warship was passing was not on the merchant shipping route, so apart from a thousand-ton destroyer closely following, some old-fashioned sailboats could occasionally be seen passing by.Those motor sailboats are freighters and passenger boats traveling between the small islands in the South China Sea of ​​Ming Dynasty. If there is a favorable wind, they will hang white sails like clouds and sail along the wind, which is poetic.

Just when Zhuge Weidao wanted to chant a poem but didn't know how to chant, Guan Tianpei's voice suddenly rang out.

"Are you envious? Do you like it? Want it very much? If you want it, tell me, brother, I will send a report to the higher-ups and transfer you to the Nanyang Fleet as the deputy admiral and the admiral of the battle cruiser. In the future, the battlecruiser King Wuzhong will This is your flagship, this battlecruiser is much better than the airships and wooden planes of the Aviation Command!"

It turns out that Guan Tianpei's new position is the admiral of the Nanyang Fleet of the Ming Navy!
The Nanyang Fleet is the main force of the Ming Navy. Its strength is not comparable to that of the Persian Gulf Fleet, even the Beiyang Fleet and the Local Fleet.

The previous admirals of the Nanyang Fleet have all served as the highest naval positions such as Minister of the Admiralty and Chief of Naval Staff!People who are not from the eight great families can be the admirals of the Nanyang Fleet. Apart from Guan Tianpei, there are only three founders of the Nanyang Fleet, Liu Guoxuan, Chen Yonghua, and Chen Shangchuan, and Guan Tianpei is the fourth!

However, it was not his old boss who really attracted Zhuge to the way, and let him return to the mainland of Daming on a South Island-class passenger ship, and leave the Brunei Naval Port with his wife Natalie and his personal maid Ali to go north. The former Nanyang Fleet Admiral Guan Tianpei, but the battlecruiser Wuzhong Wang that he is currently riding on has just been assigned to the Nanyang Fleet!

This Wuzhongwang is the first ship of the "Bazhongwang" class, that is, the battle cruiser with a certain experimental nature equipped with oil-fired boilers and steam turbines, and a standard displacement of more than 2 tons.

When the British went all out to build the Victory class, the speed of shipbuilding was also not slow (Daming does not have 997 now, but it can work in three shifts). The ship was assembled.While Zhuge Weidao was busy securing the Persian Gulf, the 2-ton giant ship, which had been kept secret until now, had completed sea trials and was assigned to the Nanyang Fleet.However, this ship was not stationed in Brunei Port, the home port of the Nanyang Fleet, but was hiding in Crocodile Harbor on Palawan Island.

Palawan Island was taken back by Zheng Chenggong when he went south to Luzon. Although the Southern Luzon Islands to the east of Palawan Island were not recovered at the same time, they have always been a Spanish colony.However, after the era of sails ended, this place was no longer a node of galleon trade. After the colonial rule of the Spanish Empire in Mexico and South America collapsed, the Spaniards actually withdrew from the Southern Luzon Islands. They just love peace. The Ming Dynasty did not occupy it, but allowed the local Chinese-Spanish mixed-race families in Southern Luzon to exercise self-government and maintain the name of the Spanish territory, but the local politics, economy, military, education, etc. were all controlled by the Ming Dynasty. down.

The reason for doing this is that, apart from Daming being more "cowardly", the main reason is that Southern Luzon does not meet the conditions for being a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty - it is too poor!We still need to work hard to develop the economy so that we can become a vassal of Daming!

Moreover, the poor and crazy Spanish Bourbon dynasty was unwilling to let go easily, but demanded 1000 million silver dollars from Ming Dynasty for "traitorous money". If you spend 1000 million to buy a poor country, you will have to spend millions of dollars to subsidize it every year. Isn't that true? What is being taken advantage of?
Therefore, while maintaining the status quo of belonging to Spain, Southern Luzon was controlled by the Ming Empire in politics, economy, military, education, etc., and it seemed to be an alternate vassal state.

In this case, the Sulu Sea became the actual inland sea of ​​Ming Dynasty, and the King Wuzhong was based in Crocodile Harbor on Palawan Island, so it was difficult for outsiders to discover it.

But Zhuge Weidao is not an "outsider". He used to be a member of the Armaments Committee, and now he is the admiral of the Naval Air Force, and after taking over as the admiral, he will naturally be a naval armaments commissioner, so the Wuzhong Wang is no secret to him.

In addition, according to the plan, the hull design and power system of the Wuzhongwang will also be adopted by the Ming Dynasty's first fleet aircraft carrier.

Zhuge Weidao, the admiral of HNA, should come and have a look.

So Guan Tianpei simply sent Wu Zhong Wang a training mission to T Bay, and boarded the ship with Zhuge Weidao by the way.And because Natalie and Ali didn't have the corresponding authority, they could only take a passenger ship to Twan Island to meet Zhuge Weidao.

However, this 2-ton battle patrol is not Zhuge Weidao's "dish". What he really wants to command is an aircraft carrier formation.

Seeing that Zhuge Weidao didn't show much interest, Guan Tianpei began to introduce this cutting-edge warship that had just entered service.

"The standard displacement is 2 tons; the full load displacement is 2.42 tons; the ship size is 182 meters * 24.8 meters * 8.2 meters; the armor protection is 165 mm for the main armor belt on the side, 30 mm for the main deck, 55 mm for the deck around the turret, and 40 mm for the lower deck , the armor of the main turret is 175mm on all sides, the top of the turret is 75mm, the base of the turret is 175mm, the maximum armor of the conning tower is 250mm, and the top and bottom of the conning tower are 75mm. In addition, the side sides adopt a flared armor design, and underwater Lightning protection barriers, armor plates are also case hardened steel!
The power of Wuzhongwang is: 16 kerosene-fired steam boilers, 4 steam turbines, the maximum output power of the main engine exceeds 4.2 horsepower, and it adopts four-axis propulsion. The endurance at a speed of 10 knots can reach 7000 nautical miles, and the maximum speed is 24 knots!
武忠王号的武备则是：8门双联装300毫米45倍径火炮；16门100毫米45倍径速射炮；16门20毫米防空机关砲；2*4联装530毫米舰艏水下鱼雷发射管，2*4联装530毫米侧舷水下鱼雷发射管.”

"Wait," Zhuge Weidao heard the strange configuration, and looked back at Guan Tianpei, "Zhong Yin, why does our battlecruiser have so many 520mm torpedo tubes installed? This time it can launch 16 520mm torpedo tubes. Torpedo, is this still a battlecruiser? Isn’t this a battlecruiser torpedo boat?”

(End of this chapter)