Since Meng Ming handed over the task of developing steam engine ships to Chen Qinian, Meng Ming built a shipyard by the Wuzhang River and gathered a large number of skilled shipbuilders, among which Chen Mingcheng, a famous chief shipbuilder, was invited from the Ministry of Industry.

Meng Ming drew a model diagram based on the pattern of the fortune ship used by Zheng He in the Ming Dynasty to go to the West, which is a miniature version of the fortune ship. Zhang Mingcheng created an intuitive physical model based on the model diagram and built the ship based on it.

The steam ship was constructed with rudders, sails, keels, watertight compartments and waterfowl-shaped hulls.

The watertight compartment has appeared in the early Northern Song Dynasty, which is unique to China, and then this technology was transmitted to all countries in the world, but at this time it was still relatively primitive, and Meng Ming greatly improved it, dividing the ship into twenty-two sealed cabins.

There are three functions of the sealed cabin: firstly, because the bulkhead is closely connected with the hull plate, it plays the role of reinforcing the hull, which not only increases the overall lateral strength of the ship, but also replaces the process of adding ribs, simplifying the shipbuilding process.

The second is that the watertight bulkhead separates the cabins from each other, and during the voyage, even if one or two cabins are damaged and flooded, the water will not flow to the other cabins. From the overall point of view of the ship, it still maintains considerable buoyancy and does not sink. If the cargo in the water inlet area is removed, the damaged area can be repaired without affecting the ship's continued navigation.

Finally, the watertight bulkhead is used to divide the cabin into many compartments, and the loading and unloading of cargo and management are more convenient. Different cargo owners can load and pick up goods in individual cabins at the same time, which improves the efficiency of loading and unloading, and is convenient for management. It is convenient for cargo loading and unloading and storage, and can improve the efficiency of cargo loading and unloading.

Moreover, the keel was only invented during the Southern Song Dynasty, when Meng Ming introduced keel technology.

The keel structure is a longitudinal continuous member that runs through the entire length of the bottom from head to tail at the center line of the bottom of the ship.

Its main function is to use a hard material to penetrate the entire hull to achieve effective support of the hull, the shape of the ship is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, the bottom is pointed, the upper deck of the hull is relatively flat, and the below the side of the ship is like a knife.

If the hull is cut along the transverse plane, you will find that the cross-section of the ship is "V" shaped, and the keel that runs through the head and tail is set on the pointed bottom.

Although this design is not stable enough, because the lower part of the ship is below the water surface, and the keel structure is heavier and the draft is deeper, it will not affect the stability of the ship, but greatly reduce the resistance of the ship to move forward, save power, and ensure the speed of the ship. Meng Ming adopted a steel keel and adopted an ironclad ship structure.

The steamship was handled with a lighter balance rudder, which can be said to be as light as a lift. In addition to the unprecedented four-mast sails, the sail is selected with a rigid sail structure that can withstand stronger winds.

In terms of human power, the two sides and the stern of the ship have a very deep tail oar, which is equivalent to the propeller on a modern ship.

Meng Ming used a propeller and a paddle wheel as the driving mode.

The design scheme of the ironclad ship completely abandons the wood-hulled hull, and its side armor is first covered with a layer of one-centimeter iron plates from the inside to the outside, and two layers of staggered 20-centimeter chestnut wood are added to the outside, and another layer of wrought iron armor is added to the outermost part of the hull, and finally riveted with nuts and bolts.

The cabins below the waterline are equipped with two hexagonal boilers, two duplex steam engines (one spare), using single-shaft propulsion, and can reach speeds of up to one hour and four miles, and when using steam power and sails, the speed can reach one hour and twenty-four miles.

Now the steam engine is more and more stable, Meng Ming's steelmaking plant, has smelted better quality corrugated steel, dehydrated steel, steam engine has used these two kinds of steel and large and small tubular condensers to make a steam furnace, so that the shell can withstand pressure more and more strong. Eventually, the birth of the triple engine pushed the development of the reciprocating steam engine to the top.

The ship was about 25 meters long, 6 meters wide, had a draft of 1.8 meters, had a displacement of 140 tons, and had a capacity of 1,500 quintals (84 tons) in the past, with a cost of 12,000 quintals and a price of 20,000 quintals. It is four times that of the same tonnage ship, and the cost is higher. However, the service life will be longer than that of the boat, saving a lot of labor costs.

Meng Ming also built according to the model of a warship, with gun muzzles on both decks.

Chen Qiming and Zhang Mingcheng, as the two leaders of the development project, have been staying in the shipyard during this time, and they first built the dock. Dock refers to a dock-type building used for building ships, which can accommodate ships to enter and exit after being filled with water, and can build ships on a dry bottom after drainage.

The dock was invented by Zhang Ping, a native of the Song Dynasty in China. In 977 A.D., Zhang Ping served as a worship officer, supervised Yangping Dumu and shipyard, and lived in Yangping Town, east of Baoji City, Shaanxi Province. At that time, when building a ship by the Wei River, it was easy to be washed away by the water, so I had to send one boat and three households to guard it, and thousands of migrant workers were recruited and transferred a year, which cost the people and money. Zhang Ping then ordered the migrant workers to dig a large pit on the shore and build a boat in it, and after the boat was built, dig a hole, divert water into the pit, and the boat floated up and sailed into the river. The big pit is called "dock".

Zhang Mingcheng also built a 30-meter-long, 10-meter-wide, and 10-meter-high shed on the dock, which was the rainy season during this time, so in order to catch up with the construction period and not be affected by the weather, this shed was built.

The shed has three cranes in the dock. The crane can lift three tons of steel plate and wood, the power is driven by a steam engine, controlled by the gearbox variable speed, can move longitudinally and horizontally, so it is greatly convenient for the hoisting work, and the greater is to reduce the labor intensity, and greatly speed up the progress of shipbuilding.

Of course, the preparation work before the shipbuilding also took more than half a month, and these equipment were designed, built, installed and debugged by the students of Chen Qiming and led the school.

During this time, Chen Qiming and the students all ate and lived on the construction site, all of them were sunburned like black charcoal, but they were still full of enthusiasm and couldn't enjoy each other.