The matter of choosing the messenger was left to Lucien, after all, when it came to liars or something, the Ministry of Truth had the most of them, even more than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of course, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also has its own advantages, that is, many guys in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs receive salaries in both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also secretly receive salaries in the Ministry of Truth, or in the Ministry of Public Security, or even in three departments at the same time.

Lucien found a guy in his department who had a very good job ability, and last time, this guy helped him find out a lot of guys who were in the Ministry of Truth, their hearts were in the Ministry of Public Security, they got their salaries in the Ministry of Truth, and they got bonuses in the Ministry of Public Security, so they fell into Lucien's eyes.

After talking to this person, Lucien decided that this was a very capable guy who was worth reusing. This guy has a cocoon on his hands that he grinded out when he was a craftsman, and when necessary, he can always show an honest and stupid hat, but he knows five Chinese, has received a fairly good education, and more importantly, his mind is quite clear, he can clearly see where his interests are, and he is very bold, not afraid of death, and not afraid of letting others die. Or to put it more plainly, this guy is a born liar and robber.

This guy's name is Victor de Treville. Well, just look at the name, and you know that he is a nobleman. But the background is not self-controlled, and the path can be chosen. Just as in "Ninety-Three Years", Guo Wen, who was born in the aristocracy, firmly stood on the side of the revolution, and Victor is also a progressive aristocrat who betrayed his origin and firmly stood with the revolutionary masses. He severed ties with his brother, who remained in the reactionary camp. He played a major role in Napoleon's fight to suppress the rebellion of the nobility at the crucial point of his ascension to the First Consulship, and he is now one of the trump cards of the Ministry of Truth.

So now as soon as he received this task, Lucien thought of him.

And Victor also knows that although he is highly valued, he faces a big problem. That is, he has always worked in the secret department.

In the eyes of many people, working in the secret department is extremely powerful, very prestigious, so powerful that you can't even mention your name. But this is actually a misunderstanding, the result of being distorted by various dramas. The more names you can't mention, the more you can be sacrificed at any time - no one knows about the sacrifice anyway. Don't say the kind that can't be mentioned by name, most of the time, it's the commander of the Jinyi Guard with a name and a surname, and the civil officials who are serious and the eight classics, especially those who are from the Shujishi, in fact, Mao is not counted.

If you really want to climb up, you must find a way to turn to the bright road, and you must become a character whose name can appear in the newspaper. And Victor knew that this trip to Santo Domingo as the envoy of the First Consul Napoleon might be such an opportunity.

So after receiving the task, Victor immediately went home to prepare, he only explained to his wife "I'm going on a mission", and took the luggage that had been prepared a long time ago - because he often needs to go out immediately because of a certain task, so there will always be a set of luggage at home that has been packed in the box and can be picked up and can go - and go out.

His wife, who had long been accustomed to all this, didn't ask him where he was going or when he would come back. Because most of the time, these are also "classified". Instead, Victor himself added, "This time it may be a long time to go out." And when he went out, his son Edgar said in a milky voice, "Daddy come back, remember to bring me paint, I'm running out of paint." ”

Victor smiled and answered, and went out the door.

There was already a carriage waiting at the door.

"To Russell's Pier." Victor got into the carriage and said to the coachman.

The quay de la Serre is a quay on the Seine where steamboats go to Le Havre. In order to protect the propeller's secret, except for the navy's warships, civilian steamships are still only allowed to use paddle wheels. This of course slows down the boats, but because the ships are non-stop day and night, this is already the fastest way to get from Paris to the Atlantic coast. Of course, if you go in the opposite direction and go from the Atlantic coast to Paris, it is still faster to take the mail train.

By the time Victor arrived at Le Havre, the staff of the Ministry of Truth had prepared a ship for him to Santo Domingo.

This is a large steam cruiser with three towering masts and two large chimneys, named "Free Trade", the so-called large steam cruiser, which is the latest experimental warship of the French Navy, and its displacement has reached the level of a second-class battleship, that is, about 2,300 tons.

In addition to the significant increase in displacement, she also uses a number of new technologies. The first is the steel keel.

In this era, the keel needed to build a battleship is a hard-won strategic resource, although there is already a keel splicing technology, but the strength of the splicing keel is obviously not comparable with a giant tree that grows directly, and the use of splicing is also very limited. Therefore, the keel has seriously limited the size of warships and other ships.

But the advent of cheap steel has changed that, steel is stronger than any wood, and you can make it as thick as you want, and you can grow as long as you want. The only problem is that steel corrodes easily in the offshore environment. While most of the other parts of a boat are replaceable, the keel is irreplaceable. Once the keel is severely corroded, it almost means that the ship is completely finished.

Of course, this is not without a solution, such as adding chromium to steel to make stainless steel. In fact, in the laboratories of the military-industrial complex, stainless steel has already appeared. But chromium has only just been discovered, and its extraction is not easy, which makes the cost of stainless steel quite high. Moreover, the corrosion resistance of the stainless steel currently produced in the laboratory of the military-industrial complex is not enough to resist the salt spray environment at sea, and the strength is also average compared to ordinary steel. Therefore, this technique is not suitable for being used to make the keel of a warship.

Another related technology is the galvanizing of the entire steel keel. On the earth, the reserves of zinc are far less than chromium, but its refining is not difficult, a mysterious eastern country has been able to produce a large number of metal zinc as early as a thousand years or so, until the nineteenth century, metal zinc is one of the fist products exported by a large country.

The melting point of zinc is very low, which makes the galvanizing process quite simple, no electroplating or anything, only the hot dip method is required.

The keel of this battleship is based on this technology.

The use of steel keel has made the cost of this more than 2,000-ton big guy relatively reduced. The savings in construction time are even more significant.

The boat still uses a hybrid of steam and sail, but is equipped with two larger steam engines and is equipped with twin propellers.

Of course, the steam engine and coal bunkers took up a lot of space, so the ship still had only a full gun deck and a short lower gun deck.

However, compared with the "Equality" in the past, the firepower of the "Free Trade" is still much stronger. It had a full twenty rear-loading rifled guns of 110 mm caliber. Two of them were mounted in the bow of the ship, and the other eighteen were distributed on both sides of the warship. The upper gun deck has seven guns on each side and the second gun deck has two guns on each side.

Although the number of cannons has increased by only two, the rate of fire and power of each cannon have increased significantly.

The Free Trade has completed many voyage tests in the offshore area, but this is the first time for her to sail across the Atlantic. And this voyage was also designed to sail to the New World, in order to defend free trade between the Old and New Worlds.

In fact, the ship is not ready for such a voyage, but the situation in Haiti has changed, and a warship that can shake the field is urgently needed. It was only then that Napoleon asked the Navy to allow the "Free Trade" to sail the ocean in advance.

On the night after Victor boarded the ship, the ship sailed out of the harbor and sailed out into the open sea.

The speed of the "Free Trade" was not very fast, on average, only about 7 knots, of course, because they did not start the steam engine, but sailed on the sails. Although the coal tanks of the "Free Trade" are large, they cannot support transatlantic voyages.

Victor had never traveled far away on a sea ship before, so he was very curious about life at sea at first. But the novelty soon passed, and the days suddenly became monotonous and boring. The voyage across the Atlantic took more than a month, and in this more than a month, Victor was able to see nothing but the blue sky, which was the blue sea, and the blue sea, which was the blue sky.

Occasionally, they would encounter one or two other ships, but most of them avoided them from a long distance, and occasionally one or two came closer, but when they saw the size of the "Free Trade", they immediately turned around and ran away.

"Mr. Treville, this is your first time on such a voyage, right?" Captain Zola asked, seeing Victor alone looking boredly out into the sea.

"Yes, this is indeed the first time I have participated in such a voyage, I have also been on a sea boat before, but in the Mediterranean, from Marseille to Genoa, at that time I already felt that the sea was really too big, but now I know that the Mediterranean Sea is really too small. By the way, Captain, how long do we have to get to Santo Domingo? ”

"Ah, Mr. Treville, you've asked this question more than once. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow, in short, we're almost there. Captain Zola replied.

Victor smiled embarrassedly, and was about to say something, when he heard the lookout post shout, "Ship found, thirteen o'clock!" ”

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