"The Great Qing Kingdom has sent troops?" Zhang Qiang learned the news on a new battleship on sea trials, and the new ship was already on its second sea trial.

The first trial voyage was not equipped with artillery, just an empty ship, plus some mobilized cadets and some old sailors to adapt to the new ship, but also to see the ability of the new ship, as well as the experiment leakage and whether there is any discomfort under various sea conditions, this voyage is a month and a half, almost from Hangzhou Bay sailed around the treasure island state, went to the South Seas Malacca sea around the circle.

At the same time, five 800-ton warships, six 600-ton warships, and 36 300-ton warships of the First Fleet sailed out, and after passing through the defense area of the Second Fleet, two more 1,000-ton warships were added, and when they arrived in the defense area of the Third Fleet, five more 600-ton warships joined in, and the Fourth Fleet joined 36 180-ton warships, reaching the surface of Annan, and two 300-ton warships of the Fifth and Sixth Fleets joined in.

The warships of the fifth and sixth fleets can be said to be the most old, and the tonnage is not large, most of them are six-hundred-ton warships, the smaller the ship, the faster the speed, of course, in this era, you don't have to say how much faster it can be, just keep up with the speed of six knots, compared to the slower and slower speed of the thousand-ton warships of the Huaxia Kingdom, the speed of these small ships is not bad.

Some can run at a speed of seven knots, and a speed of one hundred and eighty tons can run at a speed of eight or nine knots, which is equivalent to the speed of a bicycle. The average speed of a general sailboat is only equivalent to the speed of a person's usual walking, and the slightly faster is just the speed of running, which is now equal to the speed of riding a bicycle, of course, it is not a fast speed, if you talk about the speed of a race, it cannot be compared.

After the sea trial, the ship went back and improved a lot, and the corresponding tonnage increased a lot, and now it is close to 800 tons.

Because it is the product of the combination of the clipper ship and the Galen boat, it does not have the usual speed of 12 to 14 knots of the clipper boat, and there is no speed of 16 to 178 knots when the fastest downwind, but it can maintain a speed of 10 knots, and the speed of 12 to 13 knots when needed is considered good.

This is a new ship, of course, the speed is a little faster, and in some years, the speed will definitely slow down, but no matter how slow it is, it will definitely not be slower than the speed of the previous new ship, at least it can reach the speed of eight or nine knots, which is also faster than the fastest speed of the Huaxia Army.

In the past, the fastest speed of the new ship of the Huaxia Army was only nine knots, and the speed of the big ship could reach six and five knots, the speed of the small boat was uncertain, and the boat had eight or nine knots of speed when it was downwind, and the fastest time could reach the speed of twelve knots, but with the size of the boat, the speed of twelve knots was equivalent to being out of control, in addition to falling apart was the end of the ship's destruction and death, if you wanted not to destroy the ship, you had to cut off the main mast immediately, and then let the ship drift in the wind and waves, so the fastest ten knots of the boat was already the limit.

In order for the boat to have sufficient speed, the hull must be strong, and at the same time conform to all the structures of wind mechanics, and it must be of the right weight, and the structure of the wooden boat must not be able to resist the structural imbalance caused by the shock caused by the violent wind speed.

In order to take care of the hull in the early stage, the new ship only traveled at a speed of six knots in the early stage, and the maximum speed was tested in the later stage, with a maximum speed of 13.5 knots, and a stable navigation can be used to sail stably at a speed of 10 knots, and the final average speed reached a speed of 8.5 knots.

The second trial was equipped with more buildings, artillery, cables, masts, sails, fully armed, and the maximum speed was a little more than 12 knots, with an average speed of 8 knots.

That's more than half the speed of the original ship.

This kind of battleship was finally finalized, but Zhang Qiang listened to the advice of the levy soldiers, reduced 10 guns, reduced ammunition reserves, and reduced the iron sheet protection on some non-critical surfaces, so that the average speed of the whole ship was increased to nine knots, the stable navigation was increased to 10 knots, and the speed of sailing with full sail downwind could reach 14,5 knots, which is already a remarkable speed on the current sail battleship.

The reduction of 10 guns is equivalent to a reduction of 50 crew members, the original 275 crew members, now only need to use some ship sailors and gunners, soldiers, it can reduce the weight of the ship even more, the free space can carry a lot of cargo, although it can not be compared with the load of a special warship of 600 tons, but it can also ensure that the ship can sail far away without replenishing food and fresh water.

Although the firepower has been reduced, there are still a terrifying eighty-five guns, which is about the same number of guns as the third class battleships that have been built in the West.

Moreover, the hull is lower than them, the windward side is reduced, which makes it more agile and faster, as long as it is not when there is no wind, the two sides bombard each other at a very close distance, and the new warship is not inferior to the enemy's super warship, the kind of battleship equipped with up to one hundred and ten guns, with seven decks and a tonnage of more than three thousand tons.

However, the new warship has another disadvantage, the mast is too high, there are too many sails to be hung, the Chinese are used to the combination of Chinese and Western, so there are soft sails and hard sails, and the technical requirements are high when temporarily operating, and the requirements for the coordination and management of personnel are relatively high.

Moreover, due to the reduction of armed personnel and sailors, you cannot get too close to the enemy during the battle, otherwise you will be jumped by the enemy, and there will be more than 700 people in a boat, and you will be able to take you down in your boatload of more than 200 people.

Of course, I believe that there are not too many such opportunities, and the Huaxia Kingdom will not give the enemy this kind of opportunity, and some of them are also caused by slackness and carelessness of personnel, or the consequences of a commander like a pig's head.

Standing on the deck of the fully armed new warship for the second sea trial, Zhang Qiang looked at the calm sea at this time with a telescope, but his heart was churning, the Great Qing Kingdom actually sent troops to Jeju Island, when did the Great Qing Dynasty actually have such a kind?

But no matter what, Zhang Qiang doesn't want to meddle in this battle, anyway, it won't affect the Huaxia Kingdom, that's a headache for the third prince, Kong Youxing's troops are already in Hiroshima County, Prime Minister Yan has not launched the final counteroffensive because of the second prince, just relying on the strength and defense line to defend the Shikoku Mansion, the enemy has no choice but to take him, recently the Japanese have deployed a large number of troops to plug the leak in order to deal with the landing on China Island behind the third prince, and the Japanese on Shikoku Island have only 200,000 troops, In addition, the strength of the second prince is only 300,000 troops.

More than 600,000 people have been killed and wounded on both sides in Denios County, and of course the Japanese have to die more, because they are the main attackers, and in the trench warfare of World War I, the attacking side is often the side with the greatest casualties, and the defending side must have suffered more casualties than many of the attacking side.

"Hasn't the second prince made up his mind to leave?" Zhang Qiang asked.

The attendant of the Military Intelligence Department behind him said: "According to the latest information, the second prince and they are planning an action to resist the Japanese, last time they rebelled against the Tessie, but they did not capture the ship, the Tessie people have already left, just killed some Tessie, captured a few Japanese dhows, and the Japanese are very unhappy, if they didn't want them to resist us, the Japanese would have attacked them a long time ago." ”

"Find someone to contact the second prince and them, if they want to go, we provide ships and pick them up, we can't wait any longer, let's reduce some opponents first." Tell the second prince that where he is willing to go, we will send him there, and we must not embarrass them, but the fare has to be paid, whether they use Huaxia yuan or gold, silver and jewelry, it is really not good, and handing over their troops to Prime Minister Yan is also considered a fare for the ship. ”

(End of chapter)