Chapter 24: The Empire's First Fleet

  Entrusted by the German Emperor, Feng Chengqian dare not be playful.

  On the last day of April, Feng Congqian went to the Vulkan shipyard in Szczecin to personally oversee the design and construction of new warships.

  Feng Chengqian personally served as the chief designer and employed a large number of young and promising engineers.

  For the Imperial Navy, this was an excellent opportunity to cultivate a ship designer, so Feng Chenqian did not intend to let those rigid engineers occupy the main position.

  From the very beginning, the design work did not go smoothly.

  Even open-minded young engineers found it difficult to understand Feng's advanced ideas and thought he was daydreaming.

  For example, Feng Chengqian insisted on arranging the turret along the longitudinal axis and installing thick armor for the turret.

  Actually, the main problem lies with Feng Chengqian.

  The biggest problem is that Feng Chengqian ignored the technical foundation of this era.

  For example, in the arrangement of the turret, Feng Chengqian did not consider that under the limited performance of the power system, the firepower layout would definitely make concessions, otherwise the performance of the warship could not be balanced. Even if the firepower is strengthened, it will lead to a decrease in other performances.

  At the time, in order to meet the speed requirements of the warship, it was necessary to minimize the protected area, which also limited the length of the warship. If the three double-turret guns were arranged along the longitudinal axis according to Feng Chongqi's requirements, the length of the warship would exceed 140 meters, while adopting a one-forward and two-side arrangement could shorten it by 20 meters. Don't underestimate these 20 meters, which means that the amount of armor used on the warship will be reduced by thousands of tons. In addition, an overly long hull will affect the stability of the warship and reduce the shooting accuracy of the artillery.

  However, Feng Chengqian did not immediately realize this problem.

  After the engineers raised defensive and dynamic problems, Feng Chongqian chose another solution, changing the twin turret to a triple turret. According to his idea, this change could control the length of the warship within 125 meters without reducing the number of main guns.

  This idea is also unrealistic because the empire only has twin turrets, no triple turrets.

  At the time, there was no reliable triple turret mount available worldwide.

  Even if a triple turret were designed separately, it would take two to three years, regardless of cost-effectiveness, and could not keep up with the construction progress of warships.

  Although Feng Chengqian did not give up the triple turret, he took out 500,000 imperial marks and issued a tender to several major armament factories such as Krupp, starting from scratch. However, he also had to make concessions, that is, when the triple turret could not keep up with the construction progress, adopt double turrets.

  At this time, new problems emerged, that is, how many turrets to adopt.

  At that time, Feng Chengqian believed that two turrets were enough.

  Although the number of turrets is the same as those on "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan", they are arranged vertically, with each turret having a firing arc of more than 240 degrees. As a result, the firepower density on both sides is twice that of "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan". However, at that time, there was no mature naval tactics, and the pursuit battle in the sailing era was obviously not suitable for the steam era, so this design method was opposed by many engineers.

  What's more, officials sent by the Qing government also believed that two turrets were far from enough.

  To know that the displacement of this battleship exceeded 10,000 tons, much larger than the "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan", if only two turrets were installed, it would obviously be too thin.

  Feng Chengqian believes that increasing firepower does not necessarily require an increase in the number of artillery pieces.

  Despite the opposition from all engineers, Feng Chongqi insisted on his own views and proposed to the Qing officials that if they felt the firepower was not strong enough, they could use larger-caliber naval guns, such as 350mm naval guns with a caliber of 40 times, thus exceeding the firepower delivery capability of six 300mm guns in the case of only four guns.

  It must be admitted that this is a more ideal compromise.

  But to persuade engineers and officials of the Qing government was by no means an easy task.

  In addition, at that time the German Empire could not produce a naval gun with a caliber of 350 mm, even if it was under development, and it would take another year or two to deliver.

  Because of this matter, the design work was delayed for almost a month.

  In the end, Feng Chengqian and the equally stubborn engineer each compromised a bit, with the warship adopting three turrets, all arranged along the longitudinal axis. The No. 2 turret was located between two smokestacks, and was designed to mount 300mm guns rather than 350mm guns from the start.

  This design allows for maximum utilization of the space between the boiler room and the steam engine room.

  In other words, with three turrets arranged along the longitudinal axis, the length of the battleship can be controlled at around 130 meters, only ten meters more than the 120 meters insisted by engineers.

  However, Feng Chengqian was still not very satisfied with this.

  In his view, even with three turrets, it would be best to use triple turrets, and later decide whether to use three triple 300mm guns or three twin 350mm guns, in order to maximize the service life of the warship.

  The question is whether the plan proposed by the engineer was recognized by the Qing officials.

  Feng Chengqian had no choice but to accept reality, and simply resorted to a trick, namely letting the William Harbour Shipyard join in, responsible for building the first warship for the Imperial Navy, only intentionally slowing down the construction progress, so that this warship would be completed last, while the four built for the Qing Dynasty would be completed ahead of schedule.

  This is done in order to modify the design during the construction process.

  In early August, Feng Chengqian submitted the design drawings to Frederick III and reported to the Qing officials.

  At that time, there were two sets of design drawings, one for the Qing and one for the Imperial Navy.

  Frederick III did not ask in detail, just let von Tirpitz handle it, as long as he didn't mess things up. This is also understandable, Frederick III was not familiar with the navy.

  Judging by the indicators at that time, the design plan for the Qing Dynasty was more advanced and reasonable.

  The four giant ships named "Chao Yuan", "Hong Yuan", "Fu Yuan" and "Ji Yuan" had slightly different basic data when they were built. Taking "Chao Yuan" as an example, the standard displacement was 10,800 tons, the full load displacement was 12,400 tons, the length of the ship was 128.5 meters, the waterline length at standard displacement was 119.2 meters, the standard draft was 7.4 meters, and the maximum draft was 7.7 meters. They were equipped with six 305mm (German standard, or 300mm if British standard) main guns, eight 150mm secondary guns, four 37mm machine guns, three torpedo tubes, and two torpedo boats. The maximum armor thickness of the turret was 300mm, the side armor was 280mm, and the command tower was 320mm. They were equipped with eight boilers, two triple-expansion steam engines, with a maximum power of 9,800 horsepower, double-axis double-propeller propulsion, and a maximum speed of 16 knots.

  In terms of performance, these four giant ships are absolutely unparalleled in the Far East region and are also very advanced globally.

  After receiving the design book, Li Hongzhang was extremely satisfied and immediately approved the construction order. He also allowed the Imperial Foreign Ministry to set up a labor recruitment office in Qingdao.

  The name "Qingdao" first appeared in official documents.

  By comparison, the ironclad warship specially built for the Imperial Navy and later named "Friedrich der Grosse" by Frederick III was not as dazzling.

  According to von Cramon's requirements, the "Friedrich der Grosse" was designed with triple 300mm or twin 350mm guns. As a result, the length of the "Friedrich der Grosse" reached 132 meters, the draft increased by 0.2 meters, and the displacement increased by 1,500 tons. The number of boilers was reduced to six, and the propulsion system output power was only 8,400 horsepower, with a maximum speed of only 12 knots. To reduce the displacement, the secondary guns were reduced to four, and other armaments were also reduced.

  To anyone, a battleship so slow in speed is of no use at all.

  From today's perspective, this is indeed a problem.

  Who would have thought that more than a decade later, after "Shenyang" and other four vessels had become history, the "Friedrich der Grosse" not only was still in service but also rejuvenated for a second spring?

  More than a decade later, "Friedrich der Grosse" underwent its first major refit, receiving new water-tube boilers and steam turbines that increased the power of the propulsion system to 24,000 horsepower, which in turn raised the ship's speed to 24.5 knots (45 km/h; 28 mph), meeting the standard for the first generation of battlecruisers. After being rearmed with twin 350 mm (14 in) guns, "Friedrich der Grosse" remained a powerful warship.

  Feng Chengqian's foresight preserved the assets of the Imperial Navy to the greatest extent.

  There would be no development and growth of the Imperial Navy without any accumulation bit by bit.

  Later, many people believed that the "Friedrich der Grosse" opened a whole new era. However, most historians still do not consider the "Friedrich der Grosse" to be a true battleship in the classical sense, as it was equipped with short-barreled 300mm main guns and reciprocating steam engines when completed, which had significant performance differences compared to later battleships, even after improvements were made.

  Yet no one can deny that "Friedrich der Grosse" was the first step of the Empire towards becoming a naval power.

  At that time, deliberately compressing performance indicators was also beneficial to the empire.

  To know, the most concerned about the Imperial Navy is Britain. If the Empire builds a powerful main battleship, it will definitely stimulate Britain to build new warships, and the Anglo-German naval arms race will begin before the Empire is fully prepared, making the Empire's chances of winning even more slim.

  Make Britain believe that the Empire cannot build advanced warships, so as to make Britain relax its vigilance.

  Judging from the situation at that time, it indeed had such an effect.

  The four "Chih Yuen" ships were delivered to the Qing Navy within two years, while the "Ting Yuen" took a full three years to complete and did not enter service until 1893. By this time, four more battleships were under construction. The slow pace of expansion had a very numbing effect on the Imperial Navy.