Valley Emperor

In addition to these Fusang women, the total number of imperial people who have truly immigrated to Ryukyu House from China is actually only tens of thousands, and this is actually not too small.

The Luzon House, which has been developed by the empire for many years, is also the key area for overseas immigration of the empire. So far, the population has not exceeded 100,000.

And Gehe State, the most distant overseas territory from the empire, has a permanent population of four or five thousand people, and on the Honolulu Islands, an archipelago that still belongs to the military zone, there are currently more than three thousand imperial immigrants living there.

In fact, there are not many imperial subjects in overseas territories and major colonies. There are only tens of thousands of people. Most of them are only a few thousand people, and it is estimated that there are only a few hundred people.

Today, the vast majority of the population of the empire, it can even be said that all the population is concentrated in the local area, but they need food to feed.

Li Xuan himself has estimated that if there is no huge breakthrough in technology and the yield per mu of grain is not greatly improved, even if arable land is continuously developed in China, it will not be able to meet the growing demand for food. A huge conflict between population and land will definitely break out in the last few decades.

Naturally, Li Xuan couldn't just sit back and watch this happen. For this reason, the ultimate solution he proposed was: immigration!

Not colonization, but immigration, these two words have different meanings in the Tang Empire!

Colonization is an act in which a powerful country emigrates to the area it conquers and plunders the interests of the original local people.

But the Datang Empire was just a simple immigrant, and it didn't do much to plunder the interests of the local people.

The immigrant of the empire just moved the people from the areas with more people and less land to the areas with more people and more land!

As for the areas where there are fewer people and more land come from.

What are you doing when you are a million-strong army of the Tang Empire?

If you don't expand the territory for the empire, what's the use of this million army!

The various immigrations in the past were just small-scale attempts, but now, Li Xuan is preparing for a real large-scale expansion and large-scale immigration.

In other words, Li Xuan is ready to fight again!

To this end, after the 20-year Xuanping construction plan submitted by the Navy, Li Xuan rejected this plan without hesitation.

Just when everyone in the navy thought that the plan was too expensive, so the Son of Heaven would veto it, Li Xuan instructed the navy side: the navy is related to the empire's coastal defense security and global strategy, so when building the navy, be bold. Some, the steps should be bigger, and the concept should be new.

To put it bluntly, Li Xuan dislikes the plan that the Navy has come up with is too petty!

In this construction plan, in addition to the steaming improvement of the existing warships, there are only two steam battleships and three cruisers construction plans.

At the same time, Li Xuan is also dissatisfied with the design of the new warships in the navy, because the concept of these naval generals is still retained in the era of sailing warships. basically no innovation.

This is almost unacceptable in Li Xuan's view.

This steam engine has been developed, and you even made me a traditional sailing battleship made of pure wood. This is not nonsense.

What I want is a modern steam iron fleet, not sampans!

In the end, Li Xuan personally put forward a request for the construction of the navy. In addition to the modification of the existing sail warships, in principle, the navy should stop building new pure sail warships and convert them to steam warships.

At the same time, the design of the new steam battleship must follow three principles: faster speed, stronger firepower, and thicker protection!

It is required that in the new round of warship construction plan of the navy, build a fleet that can effectively safeguard the global interests of the empire!

Li Xuan did not put forward detailed technical parameters, because these things are not his job, his job is to put forward strategic requirements for the navy, and this strategic requirement is to maintain the interests of the empire on a global scale.

As for the specific type of warship to be built, and how large it needs to be, this is what needs to be done by people from the navy.

To be honest, the people in the navy were frightened by Li Xuan's words, because this time Li Xuan proposed global interests.

This also means that the imperial navy must build a navy with the goal of controlling the global waters and defeating any one or even multiple maritime powers.

Under such a goal, it is not only necessary to have a sufficient number of warships, but also that the performance of the warships is sufficiently advanced.

To this end, the navy has started research work on a new generation of warships. This research work is more about what kind of warships can be built and what kind of warships are needed under the current and expected technical conditions in the future. It enables the navy to maintain the interests of the empire in the global waters.

In this kind of big discussion, there was a quarrel on the side of the Naval Ship Administration Department for three days, and various warship plans were proposed and then rejected.

Either it's technically unrealistic, the performance doesn't get much improvement, or the cost is too high.

In the end, the Shipbuilding Department of the Ministry of Naval Affairs has synthesized various opinions, especially with reference to the Royal Institute of Technology, the Dingsheng Shipyard with the strongest technical capability in China, the Jiangnan Weapons Company with the highest level of naval guns, and is already a reformed Navy Steam Engine Factory, etc. The opinions of many R&D institutions and manufacturers have finally reached several conclusions.

The first is naval guns. The opinion given by Jiangnan Weapons Company is that under the current technical constraints, the rifled gun technology proposed by the Navy is very immature, and smoothbore guns are still the best choice, mature, stable, reliable, and Large-caliber smoothbore guns have enough range. At least the current smoothbore guns have a maximum range that far exceeds the effective range.

Affected by the accuracy of long-range shelling, the current naval battle distance, the optimal distance is still within 300 meters, beyond this distance, it is difficult to aim and hit.

Therefore, in terms of naval guns, we can still only choose traditional smoothbore guns, but artillery shells can be generally equipped with grenades. The grenades fired by large-caliber smoothbore guns are still amazing, and their lethality to wooden warships is huge.

As for the hull, Dingsheng Shipyard took out a steel-made test ship and showed it to the Navy. Although this test ship is only a mere tens of tons, it doesn't even have power, and only has a bare hull. It gave the Navy a great shock and inspiration, because it proved that the hull of warships can also be made of steel. Of course, due to the high cost of steel and lack of power, it is unrealistic for the whole ship to use steel. Yes, but it is completely feasible to add steel plates to the outer shell of the hull to enhance the protection capability.

In terms of power, the steam engine project team of the Royal Institute of Technology has given exciting news to the Navy. The developers of the steam engine project said that in theory, it is not a problem to design a larger horsepower ship-based steam engine. They are in the first one. On the prototype of the high-pressure steam engine, a steam pressure of up to five MPa was obtained!

But how to build such a high-horsepower steam engine, I'm sorry, that is not under their control, they are only responsible for theoretical research and development.

The Naval Steam Engine Factory is cautiously expressing that, due to the limitations of the current processing technology, it is impossible for them to increase the pressure of the steam engine without limit, and even the volume of the steam engine cannot be enlarged without limit. According to the current technical capabilities, At present, they can only manufacture a single 200-horsepower ship-based steam engine at most. After the completion of many large-scale equipment on their new-generation production line, they will be able to manufacture a single 500-horsepower steam engine in about five years.

As for five years, the time is too far, and they themselves can't expect it.

All aspects of firepower, hull, and power have given their own opinions, and according to these opinions, the Navy's shipbuilding department has finally come up with a new generation of warship design plans!

When Li Xuan saw the design of this battleship, he had to say that the technology tree seemed a little crooked!

The design of the new generation of warships he saw had nothing to do with the traditional style warships, but it was also very different from the steel warships in later generations.

The standard displacement of this new generation of warships is designed to be 1,500 tons. The reason why the design is not too large is because the Datang Navy has not built larger warships and lacks large-tonnage slipways. In addition to the 1,500-ton design, there is actually a 3,000-ton design. Well, the difference between the two is only the size of the hull and the number of artillery pieces. The rest are basically the same.

In addition, the hull is much slender than the traditional style warships. Just looking at the design drawings can tell that this kind of warship will be very beautiful after it is built.

The outer armor of the hull is no longer the thick wooden plank as before, but the method of wrapping wrought iron with wood. Its defense capability is lower than that of medium and short-range shelling of all naval guns at this stage, even if it is wrought iron. A 24-pound (32-pound) cannon is helpless against this armor.

In terms of firepower, the Navy has considered that the enemy's warships are all wooden warships, and their anti-strike ability is not strong. At the same time, the howitzer is already very mature and stable. The main mode of engagement of the Navy is not by firing solid bullets to hit the enemy, but by firing The grenade is used to attack the enemy, and the pursuit is not to sink the enemy's wooden armor, but to use the explosion of the grenade to kill the enemy's living force and destroy the enemy ship.

In this case, the Navy believes that the most grenades are thrown in the shortest time, and the enemy ship will become a fireball in a blast and sink to the bottom of the sea. This is the best way to fight!

At the same time, in order to simplify logistics, the caliber of the artillery should be as uniform as possible.

Under this idea, this new warship has two decks with artillery, and only two calibers of artillery, one is a 24-pound cannon, and the other is a 9-pound cannon. Twenty-four catties of artillery are the main ones, and the number of the two types of artillery adds up to sixty-two.

It seems that the number of artillery pieces is not large, but the projectiles projected per unit time and the killing effect on the enemy are more than the artillery layout of previous battleships.

In terms of power, the use of steam sail hybrid power is necessary. After all, the power of the steam engine is still not enough, and it can be expected that coal and water cannot be added in many places. At this time, it is necessary to use sail.

In daily sailing, the sail is the main power, and the steam engine is only the auxiliary power.

In terms of steam engines, the lunatics in the navy plan to install four steam engines in one go, making their total power up to 800 horsepower.

At the same time ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ in the way of propulsion, it does not use paddle wheel propulsion, but propeller propulsion, because after various tests, the Navy found that although the propeller technology is not mature, it is still better than paddle wheel propulsion. Much better, as for the immature technology, the navy intends to take the money directly!

The artillery layout of this newly designed battleship still retains the artillery layout of the sail battleship, but the hull and power are completely different from the traditional style battleship, and the outer shell is still iron!

This kind of battleship is very strange in Li Xuan's view. It is neither a sail battleship nor a steel battleship.

If it has to be positioned, then this should be a transitional battleship!

It was subject to technical constraints and tactical requirements, and was a special product of the Imperial Navy's transition from sailing warships to steel warships.

However, although this battleship, code-named 'a new generation of steam battleship' is only a transitional product, Li Xuan still has high hopes for it, and named the first ship 'Jiangnan'. The battleship named by the place name shows that Li Xuan attaches great importance to it.