In the face of Yu Mingjun's praise, the director of the Qian factory gladly accepted, this battleship can be regarded as his most proud work, for the time being, not to mention China, even in the world, there is no one who can surpass him, because of this steam engine, he is very confident in this battleship. Of course, the application of the steam engine to warships was also taught by Liu Xia, and without Liu Xia's guidance, the ships he made were estimated to be wooden sailboats.

"If the general is polite, if there is no guidance from the prince, where would such a magnificent steel giant ship be built? The lower officials were ashamed. ”

"There are still five warships under construction in the shipyard, one of which is 30 zhang in size, and the other four are 20 zhang in size like the warship received by the general. Now the keels of the five battleships have been laid, but only two battleships are being fitted with steam engines, and if all five battleships are launched, it is estimated that they will have to wait until next year. ”

When Yu Mingjun heard this, he frowned, before these five battleships came out, it meant that he had a battleship in his hand, how could this be good.

Director Qian seemed to understand Yu Mingjun's worries, and said with a smile: "The general doesn't have to worry at the moment, although only one steel giant ship has been built now, but it can collect some wooden sailing ships from other places to act as warships first, and there are not many pirates yet, they also have a large number of wooden ships, the general might as well go and seize them." ”

Yu Mingjun could only nod helplessly and said, "What Director Qian said is true." General Ben also plans to do the same, I only hope that Director Qian can complete the construction of the battleship as soon as possible! ”

"Definitely, definitely." Director Qian said with a smile.

"This battleship is equipped with two steel cannons in front and one in the back. Twenty guns were mounted on the left and right, for a total of forty. At the bottom of the cabin is the steam room, which needs to be powered by some people who constantly burn coal. In the middle floor, there are musket pills, as well as the crew's quarters. Each piece of steel armor is two inches thick. A real steel monster, the overlord of the sea. ”

"The construction of this battleship has almost used up the steel of our steel plant, which is why several other battleships have been built more slowly." The iron ship built at present is not an iron ship in the actual sense, and a huge wooden ship was built inside the iron ship, and the outside of the wooden ship was wrapped with steel.

Director Qian kept explaining the power of the ship to Yu Mingjun, and Yu Mingjun listened to it with admiration.

Yu Mingjun led the soldiers to walk around the steel giant ship for a long time, so that the soldiers were familiar with the environment of the ship, and then went to the wheelhouse, the wheelhouse is a very important place, this battleship is different from the ordinary wooden sailing ship, he is not driven by sails and oars, but by the steam engine to generate power, so as to urge the turbine below, the turbine rotation makes the ship forward.

It is difficult for someone without technology to be able to control this ship, and the steam engine technology is still in its infancy, so it is relatively simple, and there are no complicated instruments. Nor does it require a particularly high technical content.

In the afternoon, a few soldiers brought by Yu Mingjun understood the operation of the ship under the explanation of the engineer of the shipyard, so under the leadership of the engineer, the battleship began its maiden voyage.

Smoke billowed out of the high chimneys, and slowly the huge ships began to move. In a few moments, the whole ship had moved out of the harbor and began to sail into the depths of the sea.

Yu Mingjun stood on the deck of the ship, looking at the endless blue sea in the distance, and the smoke pipe behind him, and then looking at the huge ship covered in steel armor, his heart was full of heroism.

"If such a steel giant ship collides with an ordinary wooden ship, wouldn't it be able to smash the wooden ship directly?" Thinking of this, Yu Mingjun's eyes lit up, but such a huge ship also has disadvantages, it is too big and clumsy, and it is not easy to turn.

The ironclad ship wandered around the sea for two or three hours, and finally sailed into the military port of the North Sea Fleet in Jiaozhou.

It was the first time they had seen a ship wrapped in iron, and it could move itself without sails or oars.

This is a military port, and ordinary people can't enter, otherwise this military port would definitely be surrounded by people who come to see the excitement.

Amid the cheers of the soldiers, the group on the warship walked down the deck with waves of arms. All of them were smiling.

"General, what's the name of our warship?" A soldier approached Yu Mingjun and asked curiously.

Yu Mingjun was stunned for a moment, just now he was only happy and really didn't think of a name for the warship, only to see him walk around for a while, and said: "The name of this first warship is better left to the prince to decide." So Yu Mingjun immediately asked the guards to rush to Luoyang. Ask Liu Xia for the name of the warship.

A few days later, the messenger came to the city of Luoyang and handed the letter to Liu Xia. Liu Xia looked at it, smiled slightly, and said: "This giant ship has been built, but it's a pity that this king can't leave for Jiaozhou at the moment, otherwise he has to see what this ironclad ship looks like." ”

"The first battleship is called the Zhenyuan Ship! Guarding the distance for the king, the number is 101. With that, Liu Xia wrote the name and number on a piece of paper and sealed it.

"Someone, send this letter to Jiaozhou."

"Yes!"

A guard walked in, took the envelope, and hurried down.

"It seems that if such a letter or a document is to be sent to other places, it has to be temporarily transferred, which is not good! A postal system had to be built. Thinking of this, Liu Xia shouted to the guards outside: "Come on, come in." ”

"Go and call a few of them." As he spoke, Liu Xia handed the guard a piece of paper with the names of several people written on it.

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However, it is said that since the railway from Luoyang to Yanshi was built and opened to traffic, in the past few days, trains from the Institute of Science and Technology can be seen running back and forth on this railway for testing. From one train at the beginning, to two trains today, back and forth from Yanshi and Luoyang. Yes, these are all tested and tested, and they are not carried by idle people.

After a few more days, Luo Chengxian finally settled down, and all the locomotives and rails along the way were inspected. So he began to prepare to welcome Liu Xia to take the train. If Liu Xia takes this train, it will definitely push the train to the peak of public opinion and make more people understand the train.

Of course, there are also many people who want to find a way to get on the train and try it, but now that Liu Xia has not taken the train, where does the ordinary person Luo Chengxian dare to let them board the train first? The reason why Luo Chengxian and others boarded the train was because they were the development team of this train, and they had to board the train to test the performance of the train. But not for ordinary people.

Even if they wanted to board the train, they would have to wait until Liu Xia finished sitting.

So Luo Chengxian refused the requests of many officials, and those officials listened to Luo Chengxian's thoughts, and also stopped the idea of wanting to board the train first, Liu Xia was equivalent to the emperor in these years. Where did they dare to cross Liu Xia?

When both trains returned to Luoyang Railway Station, Luo Chengxian asked the soldiers to decorate the train to welcome Liu Xia.

At the same time, the invitation to board the train with Liu Xia was also issued, according to Luo Chengxian's arrangement, a train was dispatched that day, a train with six carriages, and one carriage can seat 100 people, that is to say, about 600 people. Among them, Liu Xia has to be alone in a carriage, and Liu Xia also needs to take the guards to board the train to protect his safety. In this way, there are no less than 300 officials who can be invited.

Among these 300 people, it is not possible to be officials alone, but also to invite some representatives of officers from other armies, representatives of the families of some servicemen who died in battle, and representatives of officials. For future commercial use, Liu Xia also needed to invite some representatives of businessmen. Of course, in the end, Luo Chengxian sent five invitations to the people in Luoyang City at random.

As soon as these five invitations came out, a huge wave suddenly appeared in Luoyang City, and suddenly the value of the invitation doubled, and some people even bid a hundred silver coins to buy it, but none of the five people who got the invitation made a statement to sell.

Then, on the black market, the price of an invitation continued to skyrocket, eventually reaching as high as 1,000 silver coins.