East China Sea.

Two giant ships were slashing the waves and sailing towards Japan. The Tokugawa Miyazai flag flying on the mast clearly indicated the ownership of the two giant ships.

It was the Tokugawa family who searched the treasury, squandered the treasury, withdrew the music, and kept the palace, and customized the two ironclad ships specially customized for the French by the Tokugawa Shogunate Navy!

That's right, it's the iron-clad ship!

Although the gun-type iron armored ship next to the ship still uses a large amount of wood material during the construction process, the entire hull is wrapped with a layer of 100-120 mm of dry iron armor. As a sister ship of the same type, both warships are 77.8 meters long and 17 meters wide, with a full load displacement of 5,700 tons. The boiler equipped with can provide it with 2,500 horsepower and allow the warship to gallop across the ocean at a speed of 13 knots.

Its firepower is thirty-six fifty-pound cannons, all of which are supervised by France. They are of high quality and can fire wooden fuses, that is, flowering shells. They have unparalleled destructive power for wooden warships.

When the shogunate envoy Tadashi Mizuno arrived in France, the ambitious French emperor Napoleon III had just won the Crimean War and had an extremely prestige for a while. The French emperor ambitiously started the great colonial era of France again.

In order to open up a vast colony, France must have more powerful and more advanced warships. Experience in the Battle of Sipno told him that the widespread use of flowering bullets greatly reduced the survivability of wooden warships in naval battles.

Based on the need to ensure the defense of naval ships, ironclad ships were finally put on the agenda.

The French took the lead in designing the cannon-type ironclad ship beside the Glorious ship. When the drawings of the ship appeared in front of Tadashi Mizuno, Tadashi Mizuno said nothing.

purchase!

In fact, at this time, no country in the world had built essential iron-clad ships. The French also felt the stones across the river. The construction of the Glory was of considerable experimental nature. Although France had the support of the ambitious emperor Napoleon III, there were also opponents.

Now, it's great. I'm happy to meet a Japanese sucker who is willing to pay for the French to test the ironclad ship.

The order contract for the ironclad ships between France and Japan was signed immediately. According to the French design, three ironclad ships started construction almost at the same time. One was a test piece of the French, that is, the Gwangju. The remaining two were used by the French to practice and sold to the sister ships of the Tokugawa Shogunate by the way.

When Tokugawa Kyofuku participated in the celebration of Queen Victoria's 20th anniversary in London, he saw hundreds of warships of various types of British Royal Navy, arranged in a row at sea and accepted the inspection by Queen Victoria. The group of warships that could not be seen at a glance opened his eyes to Tokugawa Kyobo and also made him, who was still young, full of his longing for giant ships and cannons.

After learning that Tadashi Mizuno had ordered two warships from France, Tokugawa Kyofuku also rushed to Paris in person to meet with Napoleon III, asking Napoleon III to pay attention to the friendship between France and the Tokugawa Shogunate and build two powerful warships for the shogunate.

Gu Sheng

The French, who secretly wanted to suppress the British colonization again, were trusted by the Tokugawa Shogunate and made rapid progress in building the ironclad ship, which only took more than a year.

When An Zheng sent European envoys to return to France from Russia, the ironclad ship was actually completed. But the ship could not drive back to Japan by itself, so fortunately the shogunate sent hundreds of naval cadets to study in the UK and France over the years. So Mizuno Tadashi ordered these shogunate students to board the ship for training in the following time.

Cooperate with the crew hired by France to be familiar with the various situations of the two warships. Wait for the envoys to end their visit to the United States, and then set off from France to return home together.

Everyone in the Shogunate Navy knew that a 2,000-ton Hamirimaru came, and no one in the Shogunate could open it for a while. After watching for a long time, everyone finally boarded the ship and drove it. Now they saw two giant ships worth more than 5,000 tons, which was really shocking and delightful. What was shocking was whether they could drive back to Japan for such a large ship as a shogunate. What was happy was that they would serve on the world's first-class warships in the future.

Napoleon III, who was trusted by Tokugawa Keifuku and had a good intention to be a good player in the Tokugawa shogunate, opened a door to convenience for the two warships. Even the shogunate did not ask for any training costs during the French period. Anyway, the cooperation between the two sides not only facilitates the French to actually understand the performance of this early ironclad ship, but also accumulates experience for the next step of improving and building more advanced ironclad ships.

After the envoys moved back to the Azores from the United States, all the members of the shogunate embassy boarded two shogunate warships and drove back to the Far East.

It happened that the French special envoy Gro, under the order of Napoleon III, cooperated with the British army and prepared to continue to fight the Qing Dynasty. This allowed the two shogunate warships and the students on the warships to have the opportunity to sail with the fleets of the British and French powers.

Don’t underestimate the fact that sailing on the sea can command the fleet to leave the port safely and arrive at the destination safely. This is a profound knowledge. In a country lacking warships, there may never be such an opportunity in its lifetime. The two shogunate warships and students can encounter large-scale warship formations that sail across the ocean, so just have fun.

Because it is a hybrid of steam engines and sails, the fleet sails very fast. Along the way, it is a colony of Britain and France, which can quickly replenish coal. It was not until India that the entire fleet stopped and was able to rectify.

They were about to attack the Qing Dynasty. Whether it was the Earl of Erkin from the United Kingdom or the Earl of Gross in France, they actually hoped that the two warships of the shogunate could participate in the battle.

The battlefield is the best place to test new weapons.

Through actual combat, we can understand the advantages and shortcomings of the ironclad ship. As a great power and a colonial empire, Britain and France are actively developing their navy. There are now four ironclad ships in the world, one French Glory, one British Warrior, and the remaining two are the shogunate ships in front of us.

It is impossible for the ironclad ships of Britain and France to travel to the Far East to participate in the war, so they can only hope to fool the shogunate into the field and see what is happening.

The shogunate's righteousness, Tokugawa Kyofuku, was fooled by the two of them. Fortunately, he was a sensible person. The shogunate emptied out the warships he bought, so how could he use them as test items for foreigners? Even if the two of them were talking nonsense, Tokugawa Kyofuku did not agree.

Erkin and Gro almost promised to lend another million to the shogunate. Seeing that Tokugawa Keifuku was really determined, they gave up. They led their troops to attack the Qing Dynasty, while the shogunate envoys returned to Japan in ironclad ships.
Chapter completed!