At the same time that our Young Master Lan and Shen Hanlin used the small skill of dust explosion to blow up the knife array blocked in the hole of the city gate, got on a ferry boat by the river after successfully escaped, and slipped away from Jiangnan Town unharmed, the two directors Wen and Li and the young master of the Huang family were also engaged in their own "battle".

"I said, Lao Wen, is the steam engine assembled in your workshop reliable? The boiler has been preheated for more than two hours, and the ship is still not open?! ”

In a hidden harbor by the big river on the south bank of the river, the young master of the Huang family was standing next to his dry dock, already waiting a little impatiently, and urged the two directors of the Wenjia Workshop vigorously.

In the dry dock, there is a river gunboat that has completed the assembly of the power system!

Belch...... To be precise, this can only be considered a small wooden ship with artillery and a steam engine!

The displacement of 75 tons, the total length of the ship of 21 meters (in fact, it is a little more than 20 meters), the hull width is 5 meters, the side height is 1.9 meters, the draft is 1.8 meters, the crew is 13 people (one captain, one first mate, one front and one front and rear gunner, four gunners, one helmsman, one chief engineer, three engineers), the maximum speed in still water is 7.5 knots, and the armament is two 32-pounder Caron guns and one bow and stern......

After carefully looking at the various parameters and design line drawings of the ship, Young Master Huang couldn't help it, and began to complain again:

"This cargo can also be called a warship? Call the gunboats all high! I think it's a police anti-smuggling boat! “

Wen Tongxin was not happy when he heard this, and turned his head to shoot back: "The hull of this ship was built by you!" The performance and parameters of the ship are limited and constrained by tonnage, and it is impossible to be perfect, and the finished product in front of you is already the most balanced product made within the range of tonnage! ”

"To put it mildly, the small size of this ship is the level of a large river paddle wooden boat, and it is not easy to change it into a military gunboat! You just gave me such a small tonnage platform, and the performance of the boat is too poor to build, don't you want the horse to run and the horse not to eat grass! Also, every stroke of this line drawing is still drawn by you, and you say that this ship is bad, isn't it equivalent to scolding yourself for not being level?! ”

Young Master Huang, the shopkeeper who shook his hands, was scolded by the professionals, and he immediately ran out of words, so he could only stare angrily.

"However, the prototype of our ship is still quite famous: China's first steam-powered inland river paddle steamer 'Huanghu', designed by Xu Shou, the first engineer in the late Qing Dynasty, was built in 1865 by Jiangnan Shipyard --- the Anqing Armor---y Institute after the relocation, and in the same year in the Yangtze River in the Xiaguan section of Nanjing, the successful sailing, in general is quite historical. Historically, the seaworthiness, speed and reliability of the main engine of the 'Yellow Bird' have also passed the test, and it is completely reasonable to use it as the prototype of our gunboat. “

Hearing this, Young Master Huang's face softened a little.

Wen Tongxin and Li Changting couldn't help but smile bitterly. In fact, Director Wen's words only said half of it--- the performance of the historical Yellow Bird is indeed fine, but her hull is really modified from a sand ship that transports grain, and the full load displacement is only less than 50 tons, the experimental nature is relatively strong, and the possibility of using it for military purposes was not considered at the beginning of the design, and it is completely a transport ship.

However, although there are many problems of one kind or another, the sea trials still have to go ahead. After all, no matter how small the mosquito is, it is still a piece of meat, and the traversers currently have no other ships available, and it will either be impossible to build a larger 100-ton gunboat, or it will take time, and it will take a long time.

A few people on the shore were still chatting when they heard a loud voice from the gunboat: "Boss, the dock filling has been completed!" The boiler pressure has also reached a predetermined level! “

The attention of the three people was attracted at once. I saw that the water level in the dock was basically the same as the water level of the river outside, and wisps of black smoke had begun to rise from the chimney of the steamboat.

Young Master Huang clapped his hands and stomped his feet excitedly: "Okay!" Very good! Immediately raise the boiler, start the main engine, pull out the anchor and set sail! ”

As he spoke, Young Master Huang excitedly jumped onto the boat in three steps and two steps, and then quickly got into the wheelhouse—the ship was too small, so there was no such thing as a "bridge". On the exterior wall of the cab are written in white paint two eye-catching large characters in Song style:

"Vernal equinox".

The same font was written on the guards of the bow and side paddle wheels.

A few days ago, over the issue of the name of the first ship, the three bigwigs Wen, Li, and Huang were inextricably fighting. The two directors insisted on using "Wen Jia", but Young Master Huang insisted on using the ship's original name "Huang Hu" - after all, his family was surnamed Huang! At a stalemate, both sides took a step back and agreed to follow the ancient Chinese practice of naming a series of small ships of the same class with the 24 solar terms, and named the small gunboat "Spring Equinox".

However, for Young Master Xiao Huang's insistence on being the captain of the first warship of the traverser, the two directors Wen and Li did not object.

No, our little captain is already in the captain's room!

"Check the boiler pressure value at the end!"

"The boiler pressure is normal!"

"Engine room!"

"The engine is normal! The coal bunker is full! Propulsion system ready! ”

"All gun emplacements!"

"Artillery ready!"

"Servos!"

"The rudder is normal!"

"The whole ship obeys! Pull anchor and set sail! ”

Young Master Huang yelled.

As soon as a few Huang family boatmen who had been standing on the edge of the anchor pile on the shore heard the shout, they immediately took action, untied the anchor tied to the anchor and the thick cable connected to it, and threw it onto the boat. The baffle at the junction between the dry dock and the river outside was also lowered.

"Servo activated! Forward One! ”

"Forward one!"

In the engine room, two shirtless young offspring bared their muscles and threw out their arms to scoop up loose coal—the plane was supposed to be called "Blackstone" or "Inkstone", but the traversers forcibly renamed the mineral "coal"—into the furnace of a red-hot boiler. The pointer on the boiler's simple pressure gauge was already pointing to the standard pressure threshold, and the stepper beam steam engine let out a heavy "hissing" sound and began to operate in a slow but unstoppable stance. The connecting rod of the engine drives the crankshaft that runs across the hull and drives the paddle wheel to start turning. As soon as the paddlewheel pulled the water back, the hull of the ship moved, and it sailed steadily out of the dock in patches of water and ripples.

"Hold on! Don't be nervous, just follow the operating regulations and precautions during the test! Even though the newly appointed captain was nervous, he did not forget to comfort his sailors.

"Yes! Captain! The four people in the engine room replied in unison. The young master of the Huang family spent a lot of effort to get these private sailors to call him "captain" instead of "young master".

"Right rudder one! Forward two! After confirming that the gunboat was completely out of the dock, Captain Huang Huan gave the order to turn and accelerate.

"Roger! Right hand rudder one! ”

"Forward two!"

The "Vernal Equinox" began to slowly turn to the right, with the bow facing the main stream of the river, and gradually accelerated out of the harbor where the shipyard was located.

"Honk!"

"Woo-------"

The whistle of the marine steam engine is long, long, and penetrating, and it seems to have never dissipated for a long time when it reverberates over the river.

In this way, the first cry of the industrial age effortlessly cut through the tranquility and serenity of this medieval world.