Director Wen and Director Li stood on the shore, holding a pergola, looking at the "Spring Equinox" that was gradually moving away, and did not speak for a long time.

After a long time, Li Changting took the lead in breaking the silence:

"Look at it like this, why does it take more than an hour for the little yellow boat to be on trial, right?"

"Probably more than that." Wen Tongxin didn't know where to get a straw, and chewed it in his mouth, "It takes a lot of time to test the normal sailing performance, full-speed sailing performance and left-right asynchronous steering performance of the turbine...... Two hours is not always enough! “

Director Li sighed: "According to what you say, there is really a lot of work to do!" Can Xiao Huang do it alone? “

"If you can't do it, you have to do it." Director Wen continued to chew the straw while staring at the workers in the dockyard next to him from a distance to outfit another gunboat of the same level "Summer Solstice", "Now among the three people present, he has learned ship design and has experience in operating ships, and he can catch ducks on the shelves, but if the two of us go to ......."

He spit out the straw with a "puff": "That's definitely not going to happen!" “

"It's also huh." Director Li sighed, and also took out a dog's tail from the grass next to him and held it in his mouth, "But Xiao Huang shouldn't have any experience in commanding military ships, so I'm afraid that the position of commander of the river fleet in the future will have to be reserved for that Shen Hanlin, ah no, it should be called Commander Shen!" ”

Wen Tongxin didn't answer, but smiled and said, "What about the river fleet...... You see, how many boats do we have now?! “

"The first batch of 'Spring Equinox' class gunboats is expected to be built, that is, the 'Spring Equinox', 'Summer Solstice', 'Autumn Equinox' and 'Winter Solstice' four ships. We don't have anything but these four ships! The shortage of ships is still secondary, mainly due to the shortage of sailors, which depends on the progress of Xiao Huang's training. When he comes back, I have to tell him that he and Shen Mengze will team up to set up a naval master martial arts hall, so that the yamen that cultivates naval talents will hang up the sign first. ”

"Hehehe, each of us has a heavy burden!" Director Li smiled bitterly, "Xiao Huang is now also a ship designer, the director of the Huang shipyard, the captain of the gunboat, the ship trial instructor and the sailor to teach the martial arts hall, Shen Hanlin has not come back to be put on the two hats of the commander of the river fleet and the principal of the naval master's martial arts hall, and when he can come to the shipyard, he will have to be arranged to take a gunboat with him!" ”

"Not to mention being a steamer room supervisor, chief mechanical engineer, assistant ship designer and outfitting engineer, all four hats! Compared with you, my work is really easy, just a good mind to manage the chemistry laboratory and make all kinds of products, tired is a little tired, but I don't have a lot of skills! ”

Wen Tongxin snorted again: "It's good if you understand!" I said earlier that you don't know how to be blessed in the midst of blessings, and you are still not convinced. Now you know?! “

Li Changting laughed awkwardly twice and lifted the topic: "Hey! Don't mention it! “

"But have you come up with a few more ships that are easy to build quickly and add more possessions to the navy? We're so short of ships right now! “

Director Wen lowered his head and muttered for a while, then raised his head and said, "I have two kinds of ships here, which can fully meet the needs of rapid production. The first is the anti-smuggling boat--- a real anti-smuggling boat, which is expected to have a displacement of only 20-30 tons, and no more than 35 tons, and is only equipped with a Dahlgren 12-pounder smoothbore sampan gun in the bow, and the crew is also less than 10 people. However, this kind of small boat is better than fast speed, flexible operation, low cost, suitable for large-scale dumplings, and the single-expansion horizontal steam engine used is also convenient to manufacture. This kind of small boat has a very shallow draft, and can go deep into the shallows, harbors and even wetlands that many large ships cannot reach, whether it is water patrol, escort merchant fleets, arrest water bandits, serve as the advance of the fleet or assist large ships to carry out shore bombardment tasks, it can be said to be all-rounder. The most important thing is that the threshold for the operation of this kind of ship is relatively low, and some sailors can be mounted with a little training. The only downside...... It's just that the protection is not very good, and the reserve buoyancy is not much. But this is not a big problem, this kind of dinghy can easily run to 10 knots or even 12 knots in the shallow water of the river, there is absolutely no unpowered sailboat on the big river in this plane can be faster than her, the boat can't beat and run away when it sees her, and the enemy ship that is too big to pose a threat to him can basically only follow her far behind and drink the waves. “

"If you still don't have any worries, then when we get enough hardwood planks or when the ironworks are able to mass-produce wrought iron plates, we can use wooden or iron armor plates to add a circle of down-down hoardings to this dinghy, and erect them to protect the crew when defending against the enemy."

"Sounds pretty good...... But such a small ship can't use paddle wheels, right? Are we going to make a propeller now? “

"In the previous life, the four-bladed or multi-bladed propeller with complex curved surfaces was not to be thought of, but the kind of double-bladed windmill propeller can still be processed in our workshop, and the waterproof coating treatment of the paddle shaft mouth is not a problem. You know, in the middle of the 19th century, even John Bull's famous ironclad ship Warrior used double-bladed single propellers, but they were larger. “

Director Li breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good!" But what about the second type of ship you're talking about? ”

"I call my second type of ship an artillery ship." As a senior engineering dog, Wen Tongxin thought that the oral description was not intuitive, so he simply broke a branch and drew a picture on the sand at the water's edge, "The prototype of this kind of ship is an enlarged version of the first practical rear paddle steamer "Charlotte Dundas" in Britain, with a displacement between 50 tons and 60 tons, the length of the ship is only 15 meters, but the width is nearly 5 meters, the low freeboard, the draft is 2.5 meters, and the overall look is fat and flat like a hazelnut shell. In 1803, the original self-propelled speed of this kind of ship was only 3 knots like a turtle climbing, but if we used our improved horizontal steam engine, the speed should be 5-6 knots. “

"The merit of this ship is one word: steady!" Wen Tongxin began to gush endlessly, and spat stars splashed, "Due to the relatively deep draft, wide hull, and large proportion of broadside, the roll amplitude of this kind of ship is very small, which can provide a stable omnidirectional firing platform for large-caliber mortar guns. My assumption is that this kind of ship is not equipped with any weapons, only a 10-inch mortar gun and matching ammunition on the foredeck, and the army artillery crew operating the gun will go directly to the ship as sailors. In the future, the main force of shore bombardment of our river fleet will be these hazelnut shells, and a large number of such artillery ships will be very terrifying when they are lined up in a long line to bombard the opposite shore, and the sound and light effects will also be terrifying, and the scene alone will be enough to deter all potential opponents who are plotting against our crossing group. If the phobia of insufficient firepower still can't be cured, then replace the 10-inch mortar with a 13-inch 'Great Dictator' mortar, anyway, the range is the truth, and the caliber is justice! “

Director Li frowned: "I've heard of the 13-inch mortar gun, the power is not to say, during the American Civil War, the Mississippi River Fleet under the command of Northern Army Grant used this thing to teach the Southerners to behave in Vicksburg." But that cargo is a big iron lump weighing nearly 8 tons! Can the small body of our shelling ship carry it? Don't be tired and tired by then, make a mosquito boat! “

"Don't worry, you won't build a mosquito boat." Director Wen waved his hand, "Besides, the artillery ship, as the name suggests, is a ship specially responsible for shore bombardment, and it was designed to fight against surface ships at all, so it doesn't matter whether the mosquito ship is a mosquito ship or not." “

"Hmm...... That's what happened. Li Changting nodded in agreement, and then raised a new question: "Then according to what you say, the cost of our shipbuilding is actually mainly in the power system and shipborne artillery?" “

"You can say that, but it's not absolute." Director Wen continued to analyze, "Let's talk about the spring classification gunboat, now our ship has not yet been painted with anti-corrosion paint on the hull and bottom, the secondary weapons used to prevent the enemy's small boat raids have not been installed, and the power cabin does not even have a shed!" Therefore, the ship that Xiao Huang drove out can only be regarded as an outfitting semi-finished product at best, and it still needs to be processed. In order to ensure the longevity and durability of the vessel, these costs are obviously not to be saved. “

"That's right...... Hey, that's terrible, I don't know when we'll have our own ironclad ship! Director Li sighed.

"Don't worry, our 350-ton and 500-ton river gunboats have already begun to be designed, and the ironclad ships will be made one day!"

"There will be bread, there will be milk, everything will be there!"