 The first battleships built for the renewed Eight @-@ Eight Fleet Program were the two dreadnoughts of the Kawachi class , ordered in 1907 and laid down in 1908 . In 1910 , the Navy put forward a request to the Diet ( parliament ) to secure funding for the entirety of the program at once . Because of economic constraints , the proposal was cut first by the Navy Ministry to seven battleships and three battlecruisers , then by the cabinet to four armored cruisers and a single battleship . The Diet amended this by authorizing the construction of four battlecruisers ( the Kongō class ) and one battleship , later named Fusō , in what became the Naval Emergency Expansion bill . 
