If you want to say that the city of Datang now has the strongest industrial atmosphere, then it must be Weinan.

It only takes more than an hour to take the first batch of mass-produced medium-sized steamships to reach Weinan from Chang'an, and the maximum load of this kind of steamer built for the purpose of rapid passenger transportation is only 3,000 stones, which is converted into a draft of about 200 tons.

However, such a ship is equipped with two large three-cylinder steam engines as power propulsion, the normal speed can reach more than 18 kilometers per hour, and if it is downstream, it can even run more than 20 kilometers per hour, an hour, nearly 45 kilometers or so, from Chang'an to the downstream waterway, it can basically achieve the speed of thousands of miles a day.

Of course, it can be faster, but no matter how fast, safety is not guaranteed, in order to let such a fast boat walk on the waterway, the Wei River even has to be specially divided into fast boat travel channel, and slow boat travel channel.

Because, the old boats will be slower to turn and avoid, and with the lively scene of thousands of ships and sails in the Weihe River anytime and anywhere, it is easy to hit the boat.

This steam-powered ship named 'Prince' is a special ship for Li Chengqian, which is divided into three floors: the lower cabin is the workshop, the middle cabin is a room for resting, and the upper cabin is a small sightseeing banquet cabin, which is very luxuriously decorated, and more than 100 people are on the ship, and it does not seem to be too crowded.

If it is a passenger ship that specializes in external operation, the internal structure may be simpler, just install a whole row of seats, in that case, a ship can transport hundreds of people, from the wharf in Xunyang County, within three days to Jiangling, from the Weinan wharf, within three days, up to Dengzhou Laizhou, within five days to Hangzhou Bay, eight or nine days, to Guangzhou City.

This kind of speed of traveling thousands of miles a day is already very fast in the eyes of people in this era, but in Sun Xiangfu's opinion, it is still surprisingly slow.

In later generations, from Xi'an to Guangzhou, the train is a matter of one day, and now you don't stop day and night, and it takes eight or nine days to arrive, which is simply weak.

The children of the Sun family are all in their childhood in Jiuyuan County, so they are not afraid of water at all, after they arrived on the boat, they are more familiar than Sun Xiangfu, obviously, they have been on the Prince before, Sun Xiangfu does not need to take care of them, they occupy the best viewing angle position, and play with the telescope on the ship.

"What do you think, teacher, how is this ship built?" After sitting down on the sofa in the upper cabin, Li Chengqian asked Sun Xiangfu a little proudly.

From the first trial voyage of the steamship, to every subsequent sea trial, and then to the final formation, the decoration has been carried out like this, Li Chengqian has participated, so far, the speed and comfort, there is no comparable speed, after all, Li Shimin was in the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, and there was no need for such a ship.

Sun Xiangfu nodded with a hint of admiration, and asked, "How many ships can it produce in a year?" ”

Li Chengqian replied with a smile, "You should ask how many ships can be produced in a month, after the technology is formed, we will manufacture all the parts in batches, and now, Weinan Shipyard has ten large production lines, five are for passenger ships, five are for cargo ships, basically take the standard parts and components that are built, and they can be built into ships, and each production line of passenger ships can be built one every month."

The structure of cargo ships is simpler, in less than 20 days, one can be produced, in two months, 15 ships can be produced, this year only three months of mass production, passenger ships and cargo ships, already more than 40 ships.

However, at present, this kind of small and medium-sized ships of 3,000 stones are all inland rivers, used for civil and commercial use, for letters, parcels, mail, and fresh goods transportation, etc., and the real all-steel warships and large ships sailing in the open sea, manufactured in Hangzhou Bay Shipyard, there are more navigational and shipbuilding talents. ”

When Sun Xiangfu supervised the manufacture of military equipment in his early years, he used this set of methods of refinement and decomposition, standard manufacturing, and assembly and molding, which has now been used by various industries, which is more efficient and simpler.

This kind of small and medium-sized ship is not a warship, except for the bottom plate, most places do not need to be poured with steel plates, and it is naturally simple to manufacture.

According to the output mentioned by Li Chengqian, I am afraid that in a few years, the ships on the rivers and lakes in Datang will have to be replaced, and in this way, the efficiency of the entire passenger transport and logistics will be greatly improved.

Sun Xiangfu asked again, "Can the shipping personnel driving such a steam ship keep up with the speed of getting on and out of the ship?" ”

Li Chengqian replied, "I am a little nervous, the students of the Navigation College are all fragrant and sweet, and the talents taught are to be used for ocean navigation, so I want to set up a special steamship driving class at Lantian Technical College to train pilots." ”

Sun Xiangfu smiled and said, "One class is definitely not enough, you can divide it out and set up a special college, thousands, tens of thousands of scale training, in the future, we need to use similar talents, there will be more and more." ”

Li Chengqian thought about it, now there are only dozens of ships, and the hundreds of people trained before have all been used, and in the future, I don't know how many such ships need to be piloted, so he nodded and said, "What the teacher said is, turn around, I will let Yuwen Shilang handle this matter." ”

Here, Li Ke thought of some people who ran ships on Shannan Road, and suggested to Li Chengqian, "We have to give priority to those sailors who have experience in running ships, in addition, there is not enough college in Chang'an, and there are more people who are familiar with shipping in Jiangling." ”

Li Tai also reacted and said, "Although there is a branch of the Navigation College in Guangzhou, there are many merchant ships and passenger ships that go to the mainland, and they also need to start training." ”

Sun Xiangfu said with a smile, "Then open three colleges!" Our Datang, an institution that teaches ordinary people to learn skills, is only too little, not too much. ”

When the three of them heard this, they all smiled, at this moment, they were thinking about not only driving steamships, but also other industries, which seemed to be able to be implemented in this way.

Only Cheng Chumo felt a little depressed, he could fight on horseback, and driving a steamer was too high-tech, he wouldn't.

Next to the Weinan wharf, is the Weinan shipyard, after the prince stopped on the wharf, the boat and a group of people went ashore, to the shipyard, just entered the gate, Sun Xiangfu saw the No. 1 dock inside, a tall steel plate wood hull, because there is no carbon arc welding technology has not been developed, for the time being, can only use this model to build the hull.

This is a large steam cargo ship being developed and built by the Weinan Shipyard, and its draft, or load, should exceed 3,000 tons, which is about 15 times larger than the 'Prince' they were riding just now.

Moreover, its sailing speed will only be about 30% slower, according to the budget before construction, the average sailing speed of the river can reach about 12 to 13 kilometers per hour, 24 hours a day, 300 kilometers without a problem.

As for the larger 5,000-ton sea ships, as well as the navy's warships, they were built in the Hangzhou Bay Shipyard, with the steam engine as the power, they are not afraid that the ship will be too big to run, in later generations of China's marine fishery ships, there are more than 4,000 tons of displacement, and during the First World War to the Second World War, there are many steam-powered cargo ships with a load of 10,000 tons, and its upper limit is still very high.

However, shipbuilding technology has to be researched and developed step by step, and at present, 5,000-ton cargo ships can only be completed theoretically.

In any era, the development and construction of such a large ship is not something that can be completed overnight, so far, it has been built for more than a year, but it has only poured out the hull.

In the future, it will have to go through the same process of repeated improvement and testing as the small and medium-sized passenger ships that are now mass-produced, before it can be truly launched, and it can be completed in five to ten years, which can be regarded as fast.

And five to ten years later, maybe Datang's new generation of turbine engine, will be able to come out, earlier, Sun Xiangfu said something about its principle, now, has begun in the research stage, the model machine is about to be built.

In fact, people who understand the steam engine will generally think of some improvement models, and later generations will start to improve the steam engine for industry, to its emergence and popularization, it is only a few decades, and the Tang Dynasty people who have come into contact with science and formed a national trend of learning and research are not necessarily stupider than later generations.

Yang Shunshui is almost sixty years old, although he comes to work in the shipyard every day, but in fact, he can't take care of anything anymore.

The current shipyard is not only exquisite in design, but also in the metal materials of the bottom plate, the pressure bearing strength of the keel, the application of steam engines and even circuits, the calculation of the bending force of the hull, and so on.

He just watched the boys at work in the shipyard, and he would be happy to see them all the new ships being built and launched.

Therefore, the old Yang Tou, who was idle and had nothing to do, found Sun Xiangfu and others for the first time.

Li Chengqian has been running to the shipyard a lot in the past few years, Yang Shunshui is no longer surprised, Sun Xiangfu has not been to the shipyard for almost ten years, when Yang Shunshui saw him, he didn't care about the few front teeth he was missing, and he smiled ugly, and greeted him happily.

"It's a pleasure to come to the shipyard and see you old for the first time."

The two did not follow the social atmosphere to do any greeting gifts, but directly shook their hands together and shook vigorously, people who really have a deep friendship do not need to be polite.

"I, I'm glad to see you coming, you haven't been here for more than ten years!"

Sun Xiangfu smiled and said, "I didn't come because you did a good job here, and you don't need me to come, there are still many people in our Datang who can't grow fields well, and they need me to teach them, so ah!" I haven't been idle all these years. ”

"What you do is a big thing for the benefit of the country and the people, I still know this old man, but the old man is useless now, and I can't help you much."

Speaking of this, Yang Shunshui was somewhat disappointed, while Sun Xiangfu smiled and said, "You have done everything, what are your children and grandchildren doing?" We have to let them do more things, explore more advanced technology, and benefit more people in future generations! ”

Hearing Sun Xiangfu so much, Yang Shunshui laughed out again with a mouth full of gaps and said, "Hehe, you are right, when I turn around, I won't come to the shipyard to be an eyesore, and I will tell my grandchildren to study at home." ”

Li Chengqian said with a smile on the side, "You have to come to the shipyard too, with you, these juniors will work harder, and if you don't slack off at your age, they will have no reason to slack off." ”

"So, old man, I'm here to the shipyard? Or do you tell your grandchildren to study at home? Yang Shunshui asked Sun Xiangfu in a bit of confusion.

Sun Xiangfu replied with a smile, "You don't have to worry about it, you can do whatever you want." ”