After more than a year of development, the modern special shipyard has now begun to take shape. At this stage, the factory has a total of several engineers, more than 10 technicians, more than 60 craftsmen, and more than 150 apprentices, totaling more than 200 people. Although this scale is not as good as the two traditional shipyards of Dayuhe Naval Shipyard and Zhenhai Shipyard, it is definitely a heaven and an underground compared to the cold scale of a dozen people and seven or eight guns when it was first founded.

With the further development of domestic industry, higher requirements have been put forward for the capacity of inland waterway transportation. In particular, the expansion of Changshan iron mine, the expansion of Ping'an coal mine, the construction of a large brick kiln factory and other national large-scale projects have been carried out one after another, the demand for inland river transport capacity has surged, and more than 40 inland river transport ships currently in service are completely insufficient, and many goods often need to be stacked on the wharf for a long time before they can be transported away. In view of this situation, the Ministry of Communications ordered modern special shipyards to start using Paranasson to build newly designed 72-ton inland river steam carriers - this kind of wood is abundant in domestic reserves, quite cheap, not to mention those precious hardwood resources; On the one hand, the United Industrial Credit Bank began to squeeze out a sum of money to lend to the modern factory, allowing them to buy machinery and recruit workers.

After expanding their staff, modern special shipyards began to gradually turn their attention to the domestic inland waterway transportation market, which is in demand, and of course, before they could do so, they had to find a way to put the "Chopper" multi-purpose expedition ship in order. Because according to the plan of the Admiralty, next month (February), the "Chopper" and the "Breaking Wave", which has completed maintenance, will leave the mainland and go to the New China Colony, and then use it as a base to explore the feasibility of the Far East route.

Modern special shipyards, of course, do not dare to slack off on this. You must know that this is a political task. There is no room for sloppiness. Soon. On January 28, the "Chopper" sailed nearly 200 kilometers in Duck Lake, reaching an average speed of about 5-5.5 knots. This was without the use of sails, and if they had spread all the sails at that time, it was estimated that it would not take them a day to sail directly from Hekou Fort to Ping'an Town, a speed far from being comparable to those ordinary sailboats.

The "Breaking Wave" has also undergone maintenance and renovation in the Hyundai factory this time. The technicians made a major change to the ship's steam engine power system, so that the air tightness of the cylinder was further strengthened, which meant that the output power of the steam engine was strengthened in disguise. Tested. The speed of the renovated "Breaking Wave" in the duck lake has reached about 3.5-4 knots, which is more than 20% higher than the original, which means that the endurance of the ship has been further strengthened.

"Now there is no steam engine with higher output power in the second engine factory?" Li Yi stood on the deck, rubbing his chin with his hand, and asked a little greedily. The full name of the second machine factory is the second machinery factory, which has just been established for only two or three months, and was established by the boiler workshop of the previous machine factory, and the director of the factory is Li Hongxing, the deputy director of the former first machine factory and the director of the boiler workshop. As the only professional steam power system supplier in China, the second machine factory has nearly 300 large and small technical personnel as soon as it was established, and the technical power can be described as extremely strong.

At present, their main research and development task is the marine steam engine "Popeye-1" and its subsequent modifications. As well as the high-horsepower steam engine "Barbarian-5" developed for railway locomotives and the "Barbarian-4" type for steel rolling. In addition to these, their work is basically only to integrate the existing steam engine models, minor repairs, and so on. All in all. Their tasks are not light, but considering that they have trained a large number of technical personnel, including a few top technical personnel with high school degrees, it is not as difficult to complete these tasks as imagined.

"Hehe, you're really not greedy enough." Wei Hua turned his head and smiled at Li Yi and said, "Not for the time being." The steam engine with an output of more than 30 kilowatts can be used in the era of mixed sails, and you don't look at how big our ship is. Let's talk about it when there are larger ships in the future, even if you don't talk about it, the officials and gentlemen of the Ministry of Communications above will urge Li Hongxing to launch a larger-powered marine steam engine project. It's really not good, the current 48.3 horsepower steam engine can also be improved. Well, don't we always say that there is a steam leak in the cylinder? Then we use a compound steam engine, that is, the two steam engines are strung together, and the steam in the upper cylinder leaks into the next cylinder to continue to push the piston to do work, which reduces a large part of the heat loss caused by steam leakage, and should be able to increase the output power a lot. However, this kind of compound steam engine is generally used on large ships, and your ships are still too small, and a single cylinder is enough. ”

"What is a compound steam engine? Why haven't I heard of it? Give me a popular science. Li Yihao asked shamelessly.

Wei Hua glanced at Li Yi with contempt, and said angrily: "Have you heard of the three-rise steam engine?" That's three cylinders strung together! The two cylinders strung together are of course called a compound steam engine. Xiao Li, don't keep entangled with those European dilapidated aristocratic ladies who come here when you have nothing to do, and Chang Kaisheng has a virtue. You are a man with a wife, and you are still raising illegitimate children outside, what is this like! I think it's better for you to spend more time studying! It's good for you, really, listen to me. ”

"Hey, hey." Li Yi smiled and did not speak again, but stood on the aft deck and watched the busy sailors on the ship. Nowadays, the shortage of sailors is also a major bottleneck restricting the development of the navigation industry in the Republic of China on the east coast of China, and although the navigation school on the south bank of Dayu Lake has been expanded several times, it can only provide about 100 graduates per year. These people are "their own people" to the Admiralty, and they belong to the subordinates who can be used with confidence, and the officers of the Navy generally like to promote them to be non-commissioned officers on the ship, so as to better carry out their will.

In addition to these, the United Front Work Department can only use some pirate-turned-officers and soldiers in the East Coast Navy to go to the Caribbean Sea to fool some pirates into surrendering, but this number is also limited. And as the East Coast went to the Caribbean every year to recruit down-and-out pirates, this trick has become more and more ineffective over the years, because most of the pirates who want to be good have been recruited by the East Coast. Most of the pirates recruited each year went to the navy, while the hundreds of Malay slave sailors whom the Ministry of Communications had spent great efforts to screen and train could only be assigned to the transport ships of the inland waterway transport company and the South China Sea transport company.

Li Yi's "Chopper" has a rated crew of 105 people (including gunners), which is the same number as the "Breaking Wave". It was really nerve-wracking to fill the 100 or so sailors at the beginning, because the gap in the Navy's demand for sailors this year was too great. According to the plans of the Admiralty and the progress of the shipyard, two new warships will enter service in about two months - the high-speed cruiser "Jingwu" and the frigate gunboat "Totoaba". Not to mention the "10 August" class battleship that Wang Qinian boasted of in the "44 Fleet" plan, which is still lacking; although the construction of this battleship is still being debated, there is no doubt that the navy's demand for sailors has been increasing in the past two years, and the normal way of training sailors is completely unable to satisfy the navy's rapidly growing appetite.

Therefore, it is conceivable how much effort Li Yi made in order to make up the number of sailors on the "Chopping Wave". He didn't know how many favors he had begged his grandfather to tell his grandmother, and he barely managed to get together most of the people on the ship. But Rao is like this, there are still a considerable number of gunners who are from coastal defense artillery, and many of them have never been to sea at all, and it seems that it will still take some time to get them used to the rhythm of the sea. And the Chopper is a sailing ship with a steam engine on board, which is also new to the sailors, and they also need time to get familiar with the equipment, learn how to use, maintain and maintain the equipment, which takes time.

"The holds of each ship are filled with 400 tons of refined coal, and they are all placed in the bilge, which will be used as ballast." Wei Hua suddenly said, "This coal is theoretically enough for the 'Chopper' to sail non-stop for 3,200 hours, of course, the life of many equipment may not be so high, not enough to support you to sail for so long." Well, after this rectification, the coal consumption of the 'Breaking Wave' has also come down, about 135-140 kilograms of coal per hour, and 400 tons of refined coal is enough for her to sail for about 3,000 hours. Add to that the sails, and your endurance looks limitless. Add to that the fact that you have fishing trawls and small desalination units on board, and your ability to survive at sea is absolutely unsurpassed. ”

"Loading 400 tons of refined coal is almost the limit, but it's a pity. Let's wait until we get to Xinhuaxia, a while ago they wrote a report and came back to say that they had found a high-quality coal mine, hoping that they would have already produced coal by this time. The higher the calorific value of coal, the higher my endurance. Li Yi said with a sigh.

The data on paper for the "Breaking Wave" and the "Chopper" are about the same, because of the addition of a lot of steel plates and a large number of high-density hardwoods, its unladen displacement is more than 300 tons. The standard displacement is 730 tons, in fact, this data is also inaccurate. Because it is designed to be used as a sea exploration ship, there are many miscellaneous equipment in the ship, such as artillery, ammunition, fresh water, beer, spirits, food, fuel, spare parts and other items, so that its standard displacement is as high as 730 tons. And the full load displacement is only 850 tons, so a ship with 360-400 tons of fuel is the limit.

On February 1, 1642, the expedition ships "Breaking the Waves" and "Chopper" sailed out of the Estuary Pier with a full load, and then crossed Duck Lake into the South Atlantic, making a low-key sail towards the South African River Harbour. (To be continued......)