Due to the low communication ability of this era, orders could only be transmitted by heralds on horseback, so even if Li Xuan gave the order to launch the second phase of the operation, it would not be able to fight for a while.

Even at the moment, the exact time has not been set!

Because the various troops that launched the campaign were too far apart, the Second Infantry Division, which was currently preparing to attack Jingzhou, was still stationed in Yuezhou, and the Third Mixed Regiment, which was preparing to attack Anluzhou, was still waiting in Wuchang Mansion.

The 1st Infantry Division of the 1st Army, which had just retreated from Huangzhou and was still floating on the ship, was still floating on the ship, and the 10th Mixed Regiment, which was also used for operations in the Hanyang direction, was still in Wuchang along with the 3rd Mixed Regiment.

The other main force, the 7th Mixed Regiment, is still in Shizhou, and this unit still doesn't know that it has been arranged to attack Badong and defend the Sichuan troops to come out to rescue Jingzhou.

Limited by the low means of communication, even the Tang Army has already established a perfect post station system on the Yangtze River, and the transmission of military orders can be carried out in an expedited manner of 500 miles.

However, the order issued by Li Xuan in Jiujiang also took many days to reach the troops, and then the troops would carry out relevant actions according to the order.

This is also the reason why the second phase of the battle plan formulated by the Privy Council has a length of more than three months!

And the normal southwest campaign will be a battle that lasts for half a year or even longer!

Of course, the time for the main forces of the two sides to duel is actually far less time, and most of the time is wasted on the transmission of orders and the march of troops.

If everyone is in the same place, and then directly fight the decisive battle, plus the preparation time is only a few days, the real short-handed battle time is estimated to be only a few hours.

However, for these few hours, the Datang Army needed several months to prepare.

At this time, Li Xuan was desperately hoping that the radio could be made as soon as possible, not for anything else, but to be able to quickly transmit various military orders.

It's a pity that although there are a lot of demons in the Royal Institute of Technology, it is not so easy to get radio communication, which is more difficult to do than steam engines, rear-loading guns, rear-loading rifles and other weapons.

Li Xuan instructed the establishment of an electrical research group at the Royal Institute of Technology very early, but at present, they are still in the exploration of various electrical theories, as well as various repeated experiments, in order to have a deeper understanding of electrical knowledge, otherwise, they just know the rankings of electricity and electromagnetism, and it is useless!

What's more, even if you know electromagnetism, you know what wireless telegraphy is, but how do you do it?

Not to mention the rest, how to provide a stable power supply for the telegraph is a super problem for them, directly use the power engine, but how to stabilize the voltage?

In the case of chemical batteries, what materials and combinations are used?

These are actually the problems they urgently need to solve.

So now, they don't know a lot of theories, but the theories they know are rote memorization, but how to apply what they have learned, how to use these theories to get the telegraph out, that's the problem.

It's like everyone knows that nuclear fusion can be used as a super energy source, but no one can do it, because it is very difficult to turn nuclear fusion into controlled nuclear fusion.

In fact, many scientific and technological studies in the Tang Dynasty have these problems, and they know a lot of lofty things from the simple textbooks compiled by Li Xuan himself.

For example, the students of the Royal Institute of Technology who study the steam engine, they know what a high-pressure steam engine is, and they know that the high-pressure steam engine can get more power in a smaller volume and weight, but can they do it?

Can't do it now!

There is nothing else, that is, the material is not good, the processing technology is not good, and in the final analysis, the processing technology is not good, that is also because the material is not good.

Li Xuan can tell them all kinds of messy common theories, but Li Xuan can't tell him the proportional formula of various materials, hemp, he is not a science student, it is good to know some basic theories, is it possible that you can still expect him to know the proportional formula of titanium alloy......

They did a lot of testing, and the last test showed that with the current level of materials and processing, the air pressure of the steam engine was greater than 0.13 megapascals, then it could not withstand it.

And this, in fact, is still the level of the laboratory, if it is for industrial production, this data needs to be further reduced to 0.1 megapascal.

Otherwise, they would have already made a high-pressure steam engine, and it is not that they could not design it, but there were a lot of design drafts, and if the materials and processing level were passed, they could be built in minutes, and if they could be built, then the new five-horsepower steam engine would be only one-twentieth of the volume of the existing low-pressure steam engine.

What is this concept?

This means that if they are really made, these high-pressure steam engines can really be used as the power of trains and warships, instead of being like now, they can only be used as toys.

However, the high-pressure steam engine is limited by materials and processing technology, and it can't be done, so now the steam engine research group in the Royal Institute of Technology has basically given up the research on the high-pressure steam engine, and is ready to wait for a breakthrough in the process to do it.

Although the low-pressure steam engine is large in size and small in power, it doesn't matter, it is not used as industrial power!

Nowadays, several enterprises in the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, in line with the attitude of supporting new technologies and using them at a loss, have begun to use steam engines in small quantities, especially in several coal mining areas, which basically use steam engines to pump water.

Jiangnan Textile Company also began to use a small number of steam engines.

As for private enterprises, I'm sorry, there is no use, not for the sake of secrecy and not to sell to them, but people don't want it!

The steam engine developed by the Royal Institute of Technology and produced by Zhaoqing Machinery Company sounds like a very lofty thing, but the cost of use is basically more than ten times that of hydropower.

Coal consumption is high and coal prices are high, resulting in high fuel costs.

And what's even more desperate is that the failure rate of this ghost thing is extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinarily high!

Enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, which are state-owned enterprises, not to mention the wealth and wealth, and have political tasks, to support the development of the steam engine, this steam engine can not be sold, no one uses it, how to get more research funds, how to improve the steam engine!

So even if it's garbage, they have to grit their teeth and use it.

But people are not stupid, after using the steam engine, they know the broad prospects of this thing, it doesn't matter if you use it now, you can use it in the future, so they buy the current steam engine to support the research and development of the steam engine, that is also conditional, that is, they signed a contract of priority and exclusivity, and when the new steam engine comes out, they have the conditions of priority purchase and use for two years in advance, and the term is ten years.

That is to say, within ten years, the Royal Institute of Technology will come up with a more practical steam engine, and after it is made, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises will have the exclusive right to use it for two years, and after two years, this type of steam engine can be sold to the outside world.

If it weren't for the opportunity in the future, why would they spend so much money every year to buy and use these steam engines that could have lost money to their grandmother's house!

However, the R&D funds for steam engines are not only supported by enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, in fact, the Navy is the bulk of the support!

However, the navy does not want a low-pressure steam engine, and they have no interest in this kind of steam engine that is large and destined to be used only in industry, they are only interested in high-pressure steam engines, and they are very interested.

Although they haven't seen even one of them in kind, just looking at the data on paper is enough to make them extremely excited, and if they really want to get it, they can move it directly to the battleship in minutes, and then use it as the power of the battleship.

The materials are not good, the processing workers are not good, and this high-pressure steam engine cannot be built?

The Navy said that it doesn't matter, the materials are not good, let's do the materials first, the processing technology is not good, let's first engage in the machinery and equipment required for processing!

What, you said that material research and development to carry out countless tests, it takes a lot of money, just to do the test a year to cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, the navy said that although our navy's military expenditure is not as much as the army, but there are millions of taels of silver a year, this year to take out 10,000 taels of silver is not a thing, your material research and development we have to package.

Then the students of the Royal Institute of Technology looked with contempt: this is just one of the material research and development funds, our Royal Institute of Technology has at least dozens of similar material research and development projects, if your navy wants us to do it in a short time, you need to launch many projects at the same time, and you can't stop it without hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in a year!

The Navy says the money counts as a fart...... Wait, what are you talking about, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver?

Ma Dan, why don't you grab it!

If you don't give it, you have to go to the army, the research and development of this material is not the business of our navy, and their army will use all kinds of messy new materials to make guns and cannons, and their army has money, so look for them!

However, the navy couldn't come up with the money to support all the material research and development, but it still gritted its teeth to support several of the projects that seemed to be more reliable, and then after settling the accounts, the generals of the navy found that the shadow of the high-pressure steam engine was not seen, and they had already spent almost 100,000 taels of silver on the research and development funds for this.

This allows them to equip a cruiser.

This reckoning made them feel distressed with their teeth, but no matter how painful their teeth were, they had to grit their teeth and continue to give money!