After recapturing Haojing at the beginning of the year, the Datang Navy found that it was close to the mouth of the Xijiang River, and the port was relatively good, and it could also hold the mouth of the Pearl River, and it could cooperate with the Hong Kong base dozens of kilometers away, so the navy also set up a small-scale naval base here, and stationed a detachment for a long time, that is, the second detachment.

The Wuzhou is about to be launched, which is a big deal, whether it is for the navy or for the entire Tang Dynasty!

Because of the smooth launch of the Wuzhou, it means that the Tang Dynasty will have the first professional warship, and there will be more warships in the future!

The rise of the Datang Navy is the starting point of the Wuzhou!

For such a significant matter, Li Xuan naturally needs to go there in person!

At the beginning, he even went to see the mass production of the nine-pound artillery in person, and he naturally would not miss the launch of the battleship, which was more important than the nine-pound artillery.

On May 4, Li Xuan led more than 100 monarchs and ministers out of the city, and then went to the Zhaoqing Shipyard, which was only one wall away from the Zhaoqing Arsenal, to personally watch the launching ceremony of the Wuzhou!

After the group arrived at the Zhaoqing Shipyard, some first-time visitors were immediately amazed by the huge Zhaoqing Shipyard!

The Zhaoqing Shipyard, like the Zhaoqing Arsenal, can be said to have been built from a wasteland, covering an area of hundreds of acres, and the most important facility is the dock built with a lot of manpower and material resources.

At present, the Zhaoqing Shipyard has a total of three ships that can build 400-ton ships, and there are as many as six docks that can build 100-ton ships.

The reason why a larger dock is not built, it is because of the limitation of the navigation capacity of the middle and upper reaches of the Xijiang River, whether it is the Ming Dynasty in the past or the current Tang Dynasty, there is no systematic dredging of the Xijiang River, it is good in the spring and summer when the rain is abundant, but in the autumn and winter, after the water level drops, the middle and upper reaches of the Xijiang River become more dangerous, the water level is shallow, and there are a lot of reefs in Antelope Gorge and other places, and the navigation of ships with large tonnage and draft is more dangerous.

The ocean-going warships of the Tang Dynasty were all specially built for far-sea operations, and the draft was very deep, and the larger the tonnage, the deeper the draft.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, the Ministry of Industry simply rebuilt two shipyards in Lianzhou Port and Guangzhou to build large-tonnage naval vessels.

At the Zhaoqing Shipyard, the ships built are mainly third-class frigates of more than 300 tons and smaller river warships, or traditional Chinese ships with a shallower draft, such as sand boats and Guangzhou ships.

In other words, although the Zhaoqing Shipyard is located in Zhaoqing and has received more attention, in fact, the main shipbuilding base of the Datang Navy is not in Zhaoqing, but in Guangzhou, and even Lianzhou is better developed than Zhaoqing.

There is no way, who made these two places a treaty port, which already has a relatively good port and huge demand.

The Guangzhou shipyard built by the Ministry of Industry is larger than the Zhaoqing shipyard, with three 500-ton docks, and plans are being made to build dry docks capable of building 1,000-ton ships.

Compared with the exclamations of those who came here for the first time, Li Xuan and others who had been here were very calm!

The people of the Ministry of Industry have become accustomed to this, and many factories under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty are basically all large factories, several arsenals, shipyards, textile factories, and steel factories, all of which are very large factories.

Along the way, Li Xuan did not rush to see the Wuzhou that was about to be launched, but first visited some plants and equipment of Zhaoqing Shipyard.

Although it looks primitive and simple, Li Xuan knows that the technical content here is not much worse than that of Zhaoqing Arsenal!

After a brief look at the factory, Li Xuan came to the dock with hundreds of civil and military officials, regardless of size, all of them have unfinished hulls!

In the largest dockyard is a huge ship!

First of all, the size of this ship is extremely slender, unlike those traditional Chinese ships, which look like a square brick, but it is somewhat similar to Western ships, but it is only similar.

Because the ship in front of you is also very different from the Galen ship in the Western ships that are more common along the coast today!

The most obvious difference is that it is more slender and has three masts!

And this difference in body size is also the difference between the warship design of the Datang Navy and other countries, regardless of the design concept of the Ming Dynasty or the Europeans, the only mission of the warships of the Datang Navy is to fight at sea, and it is designed with different emphases according to different operational needs.

The slogan of the Datang Navy is: Use all the load capacity for combat!

For the naval ships of this era, it is generally necessary to take on the responsibility of loading, and the Datang Navy scoffs at this.

If you fight, you will fight, what kind of goods will you load!

If you want to load the cargo, there will naturally be merchant ships and even armed merchant ships behind you who are responsible, and the warships of the navy are used to fight!

This conceptual gap is directly reflected in the design of the boat!

The Wuzhou has a slender hull and three masts, what does this represent? High speed compared to other sailing boats of this era, as well as good seaworthiness.

In addition, the slender hull can also deploy more guns on both sides of the deck to further enhance the firepower!

If you don't have to load cargo, you can also use the freed up load to strengthen the hull structure and thicken the hull's defense.

Although this Wuzhou is only 350 tons, from the first day of design, it was born for war at sea!

Looking at this Wuzhou, Li Xuan seemed to have seen the day when the Tang Navy had completely risen!

It didn't take long for the Wuzhou to slowly enter the water with an order, and then float on the water!

The whole launching ceremony is not complicated, and it can even be called quite monotonous and boring, but Li Xuan is still full of interest, after the Wuzhou was launched, he also boarded the ship and carefully checked it, and then under the plea of the navy, he personally splashed ink and wrote the six words "the first battleship of the Tang Dynasty".

Although the Wuzhou is small, and the larger third-class cruiser Lianzhou will also be launched in the next month, it can still be worthy of the six words of the first battleship of the Tang Dynasty, because she has created a precedent.

And this kind of precedent does not even refer to the land of China, but on a global scale!

At present, the main forces of the navies of various countries in the world are Galen ships that are used for cargo loading and war, and even some old Karak ships are still in service.

Strictly speaking, these ships are actually armed merchant ships, but they are loaded with more artillery!

And the warships that were born purely for the sake of fleet warfare are not available for the time being!

The two types of ships currently designed and built by the Datang Navy, namely third-class frigates and third-class cruisers, are actually carved out of the same mold and adhere to the same core design concept.

Although there are some detailed design differences, for example, a third-class cruiser has two artillery decks, while a third-class frigate has only one deck, but strictly speaking, the difference is not big, if the third-class frigate is enlarged to five hundred and fifty tons, plus one deck, then it is a third-class cruiser.

After watching the launching ceremony, Li Xuan returned to the palace, but the navy was busy, they had to outfit as soon as possible, load all the guns, and then conduct a simple test, and directly drive the Wuzhou to the Haojing Naval Base.

And outfitting and testing are also simple, because in the process of construction, the main works and even the details have basically been completed, and only some simple affairs remain, after hitting the artillery and replenishing a lot of supplies.

Hundreds of officers and men who were drawn from various departments of the Navy, and the most elite naval officers and men in the Datang Navy at present, set sail on this frigate, and then went to sea all the way along the Xijiang River, and finally arrived at the Haojing Naval Base to join the second fleet under the First Fleet!

And in June, there will be a third-class frigate, the Xunzhou, which will also be completed and put into service.

By July, the first cruiser of the third rank, Lianzhou, would also be completed and put into service.

At that time, the Datang Navy will have three professional warships, even if the number is still less, but the strength will not be weak, the near sea dare not say, but if out of the open sea, with the excellent speed and maneuverability of these three ships, I dare not say that the traditional Chinese hard sailing ships and those Galen ships in the hands of foreigners, but they can also seize the T-head, and then use the side fire to hit the enemy's bow or stern position, occupy a tactical advantage.

Even if you can't defeat the enemy's big ship, you can escape with your high speed!

It is a pity that after these three battleships were launched into service one after another, the follow-up warships will have to wait for several more months.

The third third-class cruiser is expected to be commissioned in December, while the second third-class cruiser is expected to be commissioned in January next year, because when the Navy formulated the shipbuilding plan, it was divided into several batches, the first batch was these three, and the construction of the second batch of warships was delayed by several months.

Therefore, if the Datang Navy wants to obtain the fourth warship, it will have to wait for more than half a year, and if it wants to form a fleet with more than ten or more warships, I am afraid it will take several years.

But even if there is only one ship at present, it can only be increased to three in the next two months, but the Datang Navy has already formulated an ambitious combat plan to completely recover the Pearl River Estuary and even expel the Franc Machine!

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