February 8, 1633, Spring Festival.

The unexpected exchange of fire with the Spaniards near Lake Rocha a while ago was like a breeze blowing, and on the surface it seemed as if nothing had been left, but judging from the recent intensive militia military training in Tatan Harbor and Dingyuan Fort, it is likely that the matter is still secretly fermenting.

The Chinese New Year is also a legal holiday of the Executive Committee, and the festive atmosphere in the city of Tatandon is stronger under the organization of the Executive Committee, and these European immigrants may not understand the meaning of the Spring Festival, but they only need to know that there is free wine and food distributed today, and the joy of the festival is so simple.

The atmosphere at the Navy Yard at the mouth of the Big Fish River is particularly lively, as the first large ship built here will undergo sea trials today. Wang Qinian, a naval commissioner who had previously been able to command only shore defense artillery, finally ended his bare-bones career and owned his first warship, the 250-ton "East Coast Eagle."

The East Coast Eagle was built after a year of hard work by more than 60 European shipbuilders and more than 200 apprentices in the naval shipyard, with the assistance and guidance of many European instructors from the Navigation School. The round-stern galleon has three masts, foremast, mainmast and trailmast, is 27 meters long, 7 meters wide, has a draft of 3.1 meters, and has a displacement of 250 tons. Liftable upper sails and top sails are installed on both the mainst and foremast, a spinnaker on the trail mast, and an upper mast on the bow and foremast. Masts were also installed between the lower and upper sails of each mast.

The crew of the "East Coast Eagle" was 30 people, in addition to which more than 80 gunners were required. Wang Qinian transferred all 60 students from the 32nd class of the Navigation School to the ship for internship, of course, they all worked under the guidance of instructors and a group of European sailors. In addition, 80 shore defense artillerymen were seconded to the ship and temporarily served as gunners. After everything was arranged, the East Coast Eagle raised its mainsail and slowly sailed out of port for sea trials.

"Wind direction: east to north! Turn the halline, control the rim of the sail...", yelled Julien de Eblore, who had been a teacher at the nautical school for a year, was now bearded, and was completely the same as the handsome young man with spirit a year ago, but he seemed to be much more mature.

"Understood! Turn the halline! Jivin, a student of the 32nd class of the Navigation School, responded loudly, and led his friends to quickly untie the sail rope and sail rope fixed to the bow mast, and then shouted the horn together, and the mainmast sail boom slowly turned under their manipulation, and after turning in place, Jiwen fixed the sail rope to the bow stilt.

"The wind speed is too high! Remove the mainmast auxiliary sails...", Yu Lian continued to order.

"Understood! Remove the mainmast auxiliary sail! The trainees quickly removed the two detachable auxiliary sails under the mainmast.

There were two bow guns in the bow, and the gunners were doing nothing at this time, and when they saw the swift movements of the little ones, they immediately cheered. The little ones seemed a little shy, laughed and dispersed.

Wang Qinian took Lu Ming, John Ston and other officials from the navigation school to watch their operation with great interest. These students learned about navigation in the morning and practiced in the shipyard in the afternoon, and participated in the construction of the "East Coast Eagle" almost from start to finish, so they knew the ship inside and out.

Below the bow is the storage room, above is the sailors' lounge, and on the top floor is a gun deck with two bow guns, two 12-pounder steel guns, and bunkers for soldiers to shoot.

Leaving the bow and stepping on the wooden grid-like cover below the amidship deck and above the cabin, the group reached the stern. The stern has a low stern integrated into the entire hull, which is divided into three levels: the lowest level is the officer's lounge, the middle level is the captain's quarters, and the upper level is the bridge; There was also a gun deck on the stern, with two 12-pounder steel cannons mounted and a certain number of army soldiers to fire.

Each floor of the stern tower is connected by stairs, and Wang Qinian descends to the low, dark officers' lounge at the bottom. This is the place where the middle and low-ranking officers on the "East Coast Eagle" live, Wang Qinian looked around with the dim oil lamp hanging above his head, and saw a long table placed at the top of the staircase, and some benches were placed around the long table, which was a place for the officers to rest and entertain (playing cards, drinking tea, etc.). Directly opposite the bulkhead was the hammocks in which the officers slept, each with his own belongings under the hammock.

The second floor of the stern tower is the captain's quarters and the residences of the officers and officers. The captain's interior was simple compared to the ships of other countries of the era: desks, chairs, cabinets, charts, etc., and the floor was covered with imported Turkish wool carpets, which were probably the most luxurious items in the room. There was also an open-air verandah behind the captain's quarters, part of which was covered and used as the captain's and officers' toilets; Below the rest of the porched deck is the steadfast chamber, where the helmsmen operate the rudder with a long wooden lever, and a skylight on the deck to make it easier for the helmsmen to observe the sails.

The third floor is the bridge. It is here that officers observe the enemy, issue orders, or direct operations, and are generally the core part of the ship.

Wang Qinian carefully observed this ship, and the 17th-century sailing ship had so much knowledge and so much exquisiteness, which made him, a naval non-commissioned officer in the 21st century, quite emotional.

At this time, the "East Coast Eagle" had already left the port and was currently sailing in the open sea. Yu Lian looked at the streamers on the mast tower and ordered loudly: "The wind is 15 degrees north-east, and the wind is headwind; Turn the rudder left and head 30 degrees east-north! ”

"Understood! Turn the rudder left and head 30 degrees east-north! Mitning, a 32nd navigator, poked his head out of the deck skylight and repeated the order aloud.

"Raise the mast on the spinnaker!"

"Understood, raise the mast on the spinnaker."

……

The East Coast Eagle sailed north against the wind. In fact, sailing against the wind is really a very technical work, at this time European sailors in practice to find out the art of sailing against the wind, they called "sailing against the wind", but the specific principle may not be accurately explained until the 18th century.

Although there are not many science and engineering talents in Zhongli, it can easily answer the force analysis problem at the middle school physics level. After carefully analyzing the force analysis of the ship under the combined action of wind and current, he pointed out that if there is a small angle between the ship and the direction of the wind when sailing against the wind, then the ship can sail forward in a zigzag shape at a large angle under the combined action of the wind and the reaction force of the current generated by the veel of the ship's movable keel. Of course, this method greatly increases the voyage, but it is still very practical when navigating the wind in the complex and changeable sea area, and it is one of the basic sailing skills.

The 250-ton "East Coast Eagle" moved slowly at a speed of 3 knots, and the gunners began to get busy, and the next thing was to conduct artillery training between the ships. At this time, the sea surface was not small in wind and waves, and the ships were very turbulent, so in this case, there was naturally no accuracy in artillery fire at all (of course, the accuracy was also pitiful when the wind and waves were not large). However, Wang Qinian just wants everyone to be familiar with the feeling of naval warfare, and as for the shooting skills at sea, this still needs everyone to sum up their experience after a large number of live ammunition shooting.

In addition to two 12-pounder guns in the bow and stern, the East Coast Eagle had eight guns on each side of the amidships deck. Among them: 2 24-pounder guns, 2 18-pounder guns, 4 12-pounder guns, and a total of 20 large and small guns on the ship. With the displacement of 250 tons of the "East Coast Eagle", the installation of 20 guns, especially the 20 guns of which is not a small caliber, would have been a great burden, and if one was not done well, it could easily sink due to the unstable center of gravity like the Swedish "Vasa" in 1628.

But all this is completely different with the presence of lightweight steel naval guns. The Swedes must now regret that if they had completed the battleship at a cost of more than £60,000 a few years later, they might have spared the Vaasa by being able to buy light steel guns from Traversal.

The "East Coast Eagle", which was equipped with 20 guns, was still sailing steadily on the bumpy South Atlantic Ocean, and with the order of Lu Ming, the acting captain of the artilleryman, the two 12-pounder steel cannons in the bow were fired first, and the effect was... Belch... The results are far from ideal. Wang Qinian held the telescope and watched near the predetermined impact point for a long time, but did not wait for the shells to fall.

Lu Ming was unmoved, walked behind each artillery piece one by one, and gave the order loudly to "fire". The remaining 18 guns were fired in turn, with mixed results. After firing, the gun crew began to reset the guns, and this layer of gun deck was built with some inclination angles, so that the gunners could reset the guns more quickly and with less effort after the guns were fired.

"Don't be in too much of a hurry." Wang Qinian looked at Lu Ming and said with a smile, "Our gunners are used to firing artillery on batteries without bumps, and it is already good that the first artillery training on the sea has been played like this." I got to know our lads, gave them some time to train, and once I got used to it, the precision came up very quickly. ”

"I wasn't too worried." Lu Ming also said with a smile: "In this era, the battleships exchanged fire on both sides of the board and the side of the ship very close, firing and beating each other, and occasionally there were some ways to jump in the gang to fight and seize the ship, just because the range and hit rate were too pitiful, and they had to be like this." The practice must be practiced again, but we are now only more than 100 gunners at full strength, and the sailors are only so many in the navigation school, is there less of them? ”

Regarding Lu Ming's tentative question, Wang Qinian did not answer immediately. The things involved in this are more complicated, and even involve the dispute between sea and land, and he can't answer for a while, so he can only cover up the past.

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