White seagulls fly in the sky, and the small fish under the water are easily carried to the sea by the current stirred up by the propellers, so as to facilitate the seagulls to hunt.

In the scaffolded port of Tianjin, a few warships are moored at the berths. The warships had lowered their anchors and their sails folded, except for the tall masts and the dense cobweb-like rigging, but they did not have the courage of full sails. Weese didn't visit those ships. Led by the naval officers, Weser and the officers headed straight for a warship with a light gray livery on it.

Among the warships, this ship stands out as unremarkable. There are no wall-high ship sides, and there are no closed gun doors on both sides of the ship's sides. With the sail power completely removed, the deck appeared empty. The bloated central structure of the Ironclad has also become quite slender, and the enclosed turrets on the deck are much lower than the tall turrets of the Ironclads. Not only is it far inferior to a 5,000-ton battleship in terms of appearance and volume, but even a 3,600-ton warship is larger, more imposing, and more complex than the Qingdao.

But Wei Ze would never look at this Qingdao in this way. 4000 tons of displacement, pure steam power. Other foreign warships of this tonnage must have at least 60 guns on board, and the Qingdao, which adopts a centerline layout, has five twin turrets arranged from head to point, and the unified 150 caliber guns are slender compared to the mainstream 250 and 305 of this era. If a battle had followed, the warship would have been able to use only ten guns against three times its own enemy guns.

Boarding the warship, Weser watched from every position on the warship without saying a word. In a sense, the warship is ridiculous. When one's own accumulation has not reached a certain level, but it is necessary to forcibly complete the work for which there is no experience, the resulting result is bound to be ridiculous. The kind of part that is beyond the reach of the cat can be seen everywhere.

Warship design is a very systematic project. Every compartment, every passage, must be load-bearing, and when the warship is hit, it must be able to avoid other structures as much as possible. The best design bureaus were able to unify these two seemingly completely opposite goals. There is no doubt that something that an inexperienced design bureau will pay attention to a certain function in a certain area, and it takes a lot of time to achieve a balance in the overall design. The 100-year navy does not refer to the fact that the life of all warships of a certain warship or a certain fleet can last for a hundred years, but refers to the height finally reached by continuous accumulation and tempering over the past 100 years. The navy of the new China undoubtedly did not have such a heritage.

But from another point of view, this warship is respectable. Just as the early cellular Big Brother was replaced by a digital cell phone, the digital signal phone was replaced by a smartphone, and the button phone was replaced by a touch screen phone. Each breakthrough not only brings to the end of those once dominant large enterprises, but also allows more new enterprises to emerge.

The Qingdao is undoubtedly an epoch-making product of this kind. The original design of this warship was completed seven years ago, and the first warship found itself a ridiculous problem during sea trials, and with each shot, the whole warship resonated. Even the pots and pans in the kitchen will jump happily to the sound of the cannons, making various sounds. In the end, the warship had to be converted into a "real body" after sea trials, and various dismantling and addition of the hull were made in order to solve the resonance problem.

By this time the second ship was built less than a quarter, and on the experience of the first, the second was redesigned. Before the second was built, the first had already been sent to the shipbreaking yard for dismantling. After the second warship was pulled out of the sea trials, the resonance problem was solved, and the riveting problem was completely exposed. A hull made entirely of steel is different from a wooden ship. The timber of the wooden boat is all dried, even if there are still gaps and some seepage parts when they are launched. When the wood absorbs water, it expands, and these gaps are automatically plugged. This is not the case with warships made of steel, and as the iron plates are rusted by the sea, the gap will only get bigger. Wooden boats can also be filled with wood chips mixed with adhesives such as gums, and hulls made of steel can only be dismantled and replaced with new ones.

Dealing with these problems allowed the second warship to go in and out of the dock and at sea, and after many breakthroughs in riveting technology, the ship was almost rebuilt. Of course, this is not to say that the first one did not have this problem, but the problem of water leakage was not the main problem of the first warship at all.

The two test ships had only one real yàn number, and after the second one was upgraded, it was finally upgraded from a "real yàn body" to a test ship. It wasn't until the third ship that it had its own port number 099 and the title of "Qingdao". In a sense, the Qingdao is also a test ship, and all ten guns use the "control and retreat/re-entry system", which means that these ten guns are all tube-retreat guns.

When the gun is fired, the gun body drives the brake and retreat tube to retreat, and the liquid at one end of the piston flows from the leak to the other end due to pressure, and the liquid occurs at this time to prevent the gun from recoiling.

The reentry system uses gas to absorb a part of the recoil force, and when the recoil ends, the compressed gas pushes the recoil into place due to its extension. In this way, through the intermediary of the guò system retreat and re-entry machine, the barrel and the gun carriage are elastically connected, which is not only conducive to reducing the weight of the gun, but also creating conditions for increasing the firing speed.

Conventional artillery uses a gun rail, and after the gun is fired, it retreats along the track, using the power of the spring and hook to cancel out the recoil of the gun and stop the gun at the end of the track. Then rely on manpower and mechanical power to push the artillery back to the firing position and continue to fire, except for the Qingdao, the other naval guns of the Guangfu Army basically work like this.

Although the principle of the "re-egress/re-entry system" is not complicated, and Weizer can even provide some design drawings, it is very complicated to process. To do gas-liquid sealing, first of all, there can be no air leakage, which requires very accurate circular processing. Precise machining requires good tools and lathes, which can only be achieved with technology after the Second Industrial Revolution.

Wei Ze made the second industrial revolution in China, but China's industry, which did not even make the first industrial revolution, could only rely on the direction that Wei Ze said to move forward without a foundation. After more than ten years of accumulation, there has been a breakthrough now, and the new machine tool can finally process a more qualified product. The army's 75 field guns are better, and the navy can at most make a stupid black and thick 150-gun gun mount. The technicians also explicitly told Sù Weeser that they could only guarantee that the 150-gun "retraction/re-entry system" would operate well for 50-90 rounds in a row, based on the actual results. That is, after a naval battle, the guns of warships and ships must be maintained and even repaired, and if they fight continuously, reliability must be left to fate.

"Governor, is it too little to send only three warships to Japan?" Ruan Xihao asked after waiting for Wei Ze to inspect the ship.

"If I could, I would also like only the Qingdao to fight." Weese replied.

Two fists are hard to beat with four hands, and heroes can't stand up to many people. It is difficult for a soldier with a breech-loading rifle to oppose ten enemies with breech-loading guns, and this is an absolute law from the point of view of the army. Ruan Xihao said in surprise: "Dudu, this is not appropriate. ”

"That's a Navy thing, the Army is watching for the time being. If it turns out that this is not suitable, the Navy will make adjustments. "Wei Ze gave a Jianyì.

Nguyen Hee Ho is an army, and although the Northern Command has certain transfer authority over the North Sea Fleet, it is an inter-service collaboration. The immediate superiors of the North Sea Fleet were the commander of the Navy, not the commander of the Army. After listening to Wei Ze's answer, Ruan Xihao decided not to question this issue for the time being.

The officers and men on the Qingdao were very touched by the fact that Governor Wei Zedu was able to inspect the ship for three consecutive days, and the officers and men who were able to serve on this warship knew the significance of the Qingdao. This is the "first ship" of the new Chinese Navy in the true sense of the word, and the warship looks simple, but it uses advanced technology that has been tested on other warships. Weeser can find 10,000 faults with this warship, but the personnel sent by the Navy to this warship are basically treated as "teaching troops." An ordinary gunner may be an artillery commander on another warship, and the responsible soldiers of each post are basically captains on other warships. As more and more warships are built in the future of Qingdao's design ideas, everyone will become the backbone of other ships. The Navy's training department had long emphasized that Governor Wei Zedu personally came to inspect it, which made everyone believe this statement.

At the end of the third day of inspection, Weeser addressed all the members of the Northbound Fleet publicly, "Comrades, now the country has a difficult task to be entrusted to you, to fight overseas. This task may seem unrelated to China, but in the long run, it is a task that is closely related to China. I hope that you will be able to show the spirit of the Chinese soldiers in fighting for the country and conscientiously complete this work. When you return victorious, I will celebrate everyone's success! ”

For Weese, it was just a very simple speech. This military operation was not a decisive war with the British Royal Fleet, but was at best a military operation on the scale of a campaign. Since reality can't make Wei Ze's blood boil, he can only issue a plain and to-the-point order.

But the soldiers who listened to Wei Ze's speech didn't think so, just being able to personally accept the direct orders of the generalissimo of the three armies, Wei Zedu, was enough to make these soldiers enthusiastic. After listening to Wei Ze's speech with excitement, the commanders and fighters first shouted in accordance with the response that the troops had already spoken: "Resolutely obey the order!" Serve the Motherland! ”

After shouting this, everyone felt that the feelings in their hearts had not been vented because of this, and standing in front of them was the founder and founder of the Liberation Army. It is also a leader in naval equipment, and everyone knows that most of the naval warships, including the Qingdao, were the initial design ideas provided by Wei Zedudu. When the commanders and fighters boarded these warships, they were in a sense putting their lives in the hands of Wei Ze.

At this time, someone among the soldiers suddenly shouted: "Long live the governor!" Long live China! ”

This sentence completely echoed everyone's mood at this time, and the next moment, the commanders and fighters shouted at the same time, "Long live the governor!" Long live China! Long live the Governor! Long live China! ”

Looking at the excited comrades in the audience, Wei Ze also smiled and beckoned. This move made the atmosphere of the whole venue even more intense. But Wei Ze felt a disgust for himself at this time. Being in a high position at this time, Wei Ze can no longer experience this feeling of wholehearted devotion, which is a feeling of being truly alive, survival, death, honor, and war. The unknowns and associations brought by this qiē can make young people very excited, but Wei Ze can no longer be moved by these, and he can no longer be crazy about them.

The young man in front of him represents a kind of power, a power that can destroy the old world and create a new era. Weser knew this very well, and even knew how to mobilize this power. However, Weeser was only very aware of this, only very well about how to mobilize this power. That's all.

On the other hand, Wei Ze's heart is still calm in addition to calm.