The completion of the Northwest Railway, which runs across the prairie on the east coast, is a milestone event in the railway history of the Republic of China. This 330-kilometer railway not only penetrates deep into the hinterland of the northwest inland of the east coast, but also adopts a number of the latest industrial technological achievements in China, making the quality of the entire railway to a higher level.

Rail transport technology has been innovated, and shipping technology, which currently accounts for the vast majority of the capacity of the East Coast, cannot be left behind. In the modern special shipyard, which has always led the new trend of shipbuilding technology on the east coast, a brand-new large ship has just undergone sea trials and has now returned to the shipyard of the factory for inspection.

It is worth mentioning that this ship is the first fully steam-powered ship in the history of the East Coast Republic, launched in November last year, with a total length of 72.3 meters, a width of 10.4 meters, a cabin depth of 6 meters, a draft of 4.7 meters, and a standard displacement of about 1,300 tons. On this steamship, named "Tahiti", a total of four small boilers and two cylinders (compound type, in fact, four cylinders) were installed, forming two compound reciprocating steam engines, with a total power of about 370 horsepower, driving two propeller propellers. According to the speed estimate during the sea trial, the speed in still water can reach about 6-7 knots, setting a new record on the east coast.

On the "Tahiti", Viviani, the chief designer of the modern special shipyard, for the first time, adopted the design of a double-expansion steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of steam utilization. In fact, in the early era of "low-pressure steam engine" (relatively speaking, compared to the middle and early 19th century, it was actually high pressure), the advantages of the compound steam engine were not very obvious, but when the Tieling special steel in the northwest inland of the east coast gradually began to be produced. After the success of ferromanganese smelting. Once again, the East Coast steam engine technology was revolutionized.

The application of new materials made it possible for steam engines to use greater air pressures. This results in higher output power. In the past, if the East Coast wanted to build a high-horsepower steam engine, the only way was to increase the size and weight of the steam engine, increase coal consumption, and then increase the overall output power of the steam engine. However, in fact, the "thrust-to-weight ratio" of the steam engine has not been improved, that is, the cylinder pressure per unit area has not been increased, and the speed of the steam engine has not been improved, so the efficiency improvement is limited for both marine power and land power.

But now everything is different. Nowadays, the steam power system on the east coast is not what it used to be, the emergence of the ferromanganese cylinder, so that the pressure that the cylinder wall can withstand is greatly improved, and the output power of the single-sided area is greatly enhanced, and it has entered the so-called "high-pressure steam engine" era, so the design of the compound steam engine with higher steam utilization efficiency has also been put on everyone's agenda.

In the construction of the "Tahiti", all the cylinders were ferromanganese cylinders, and the reciprocating steam engine composed of it not only had far more horsepower than before, but even the speed was not comparable to that of the past, which caused a sharp increase in the actual indicated power of the steam engine system. React to the ship. Even if a cast iron propeller is larger than ever before, the speed has been greatly increased. Therefore, without the help of sails and currents, a ship with a standard displacement of 1,300 tons can still be driven at a constant speed of about 6-7 knots in still water. This is a qualitative leap in the history of shipbuilding on the East Coast. What's more, there are so many boilers, cylinders, and propellers (2) on the ship, even if one of them breaks down and stops working, the ship will not completely lose power and encounter danger.

In addition to ferromanganese cylinders, the East Coasters also applied a large number of new things to their new ships. For example, with the application of new materials, the basic industry of the East Coast has now been improved by leaps and bounds, and the service life of bearings, connecting rods, cylinders, gears, flywheels and other parts has been greatly enhanced, and the accuracy has also been greatly improved; In addition, with the use of a small number of manganese steel produced by the crucible trial, manganese steel cutter bits began to enter a large number of various machining industries on the east coast, and the use of these cutter bits has effectively improved the machining accuracy of various parts, which is of great significance. When these things are taken together, the overall improvement of the machine is huge, in other words, the reliability of the equipment is improved, and the mean time between failures is extended, which is undoubtedly crucial for a fully steam-powered vessel.

After the overhaul of the "Tahiti" will be led by Zhang Jinhua, a veteran explorer on the east coast, around Cape Horn in the south of Tierra del Fuego, to the port of Araukan, where it will join the three migrant transport ships that are still undergoing major repairs and maintenance there. Then four ships will carry a small number of people and a large amount of supplies, and follow the cold Humboldt current north, quietly reach the Galapagos Islands, and go ashore to replenish fresh water. After this qiē, the four ships will follow Zhang Jinhua's "Tahiti" and sail along the warm current of the south equator through the southeast trade wind belt to Tahiti, where the people on the east coast had previously arrived.

The few easterners who would follow the ship would land on the island with weapons, and then try to cut down trees, dig bricks, and grow food for the maintenance of future ships passing through the island, and at the very end of the day, some fresh vegetables and fresh water. In the plans of the Ministry of Immigration and the Ministry of the Admiralty, Tahiti Island is a very important node in the South Pacific migration route, and a large number of ships will dock here for replenishment in the future, and the strategic position is very important.

After all, the Galapagos Islands are now out of the hands of the people on the eastern shore and cannot build any facilities on them, so this vital supply and repair base has to be moved to Tahiti. If ocean-going vessels, especially "quasi-clippers" with a high length-to-width ratio such as the East Coast Migrant Ship, do not undergo repairs after a period of time, the chance of damage to the hull and shipwreck is greatly increased. In today's South Pacific circular migration route, only the port of Jinshan in Australia and the port of Araucan in Chile have the ability to repair and maintain ships, and they are concentrated in the southern route, so it is still necessary to build a maintenance and supply base in the north for ships to do mid-way maintenance. This island is located in the center of the southeast trade wind belt, and is almost in the middle of the entire migration route, so it is perfect to use it as a maintenance and supply base.

However, finding an island like Tahiti in the middle of the sea is not an easy task. Even if you know the latitude and longitude and general shape of the island in advance, it is still not easy, after all, latitude is easy to measure, but longitude is difficult. At present, the people of the East Coast mainly rely on a large number of mechanical watches brought before the crossing to keep time, and then convert the longitude. But it's not always an insurance thing, so what if these watches are damaged? Therefore, it became extremely important to find a way to "copy" these mechanical watches, which were far ahead of their time in terms of technology and principle.

Mo Ming and Torricelli's Haidiao Watch Factory began the development of nautical astronomical clocks many years ago, and did not hesitate to invest heavily in recruiting talents. At present, the factory has more than 40 skilled craftsmen from Europe and the Ming Dynasty, who have designed a high-precision marine astronomical clock made by hand (the production of the machine does not meet the accuracy requirements) with the mechanical watch brought by the crossing as a reference, which is very accurate after testing and fully meets the requirements of use. Of course, the size of this chronometer is extremely complex and enormous, and it is completely incomparable to the sophisticated mechanical watches of the time-traveling masses. However, this was the first marine chronometer produced by the Eastern Coast Republic itself, and many mechanical watches brought by the Crossing could be retired, so in general, the emergence of marine chronometers is still a progress that cannot be ignored.

In addition to the production of the "Tahiti", which is an eye-catching all-steam-powered vessel, the Hyundai Plant has also been operating at full capacity for more than a year, producing a large number of inland steamboats, dredgers, whaling ships, cod fishing boats, ocean-going squid fishing boats, processing ships, refrigerated ships (ether/ether refrigeration), lighthouse ships and other types of vessels.

In particular, the classic 72-ton inland river/offshore general-purpose steam ship - the load is not small, the draft is shallow, the speed is fast, and it is deeply loved by users. The Hyundai plant produced more than 40 of these small boats last year, which made the number of small inland steamboats in the establishment of the East Coast Republic Inland Waterway Transport Company grow rapidly to 127, greatly relieving the pressure on logistics and transportation and strongly supporting economic construction. In order to keep up with the growth of the demand for sailors after the large increase in ships, the East Coast people also came up with frequent tricks, in addition to recruiting a large number of European and Ming sailors, their own training has never been left behind. At present, almost every civilian ship on the East Coast has an over-allocated number of sailors, in order to train more reserve personnel for future emergencies.

In addition, the second category of vessels that have increased significantly is probably fishing vessels of all kinds, which is due to the consistently high demand for seafood from the East Coast. Local cheap cod, squid, squid and whales are all an important part of the food consumption of East Coast residents, and these demands have put great pressure on the South China Sea Fishing Company, so shipbuilding orders are also snowflakes to the three major domestic shipyards on the East Coast, and even the small private Nova Shipyard has received a lot of orders, and has survived a difficult time when the factory was first built.

In addition to these two, the refrigerated ships ordered in large quantities by the Southern Railway Company also occupy a large number of slipways at the four shipyards. The successive commissioning of these ships has enabled a wide range of commodities from the Southern Cone, Chile and Peru to be transported to the East Coast ports in a refrigerated state, and the value has increased significantly. For example, various fishery products along the coast of Chile and Peru (produced in Peruvian fisheries), tropical fruits, animal fat, frozen meat, etc., have created a lot of profits for the Southern Railway Company.

On February 3, 1650, the "Tahiti" was overhauled, and then loaded with a group of men and supplies, slowly left the docks and sailed towards the port of Araucan. And after they left, a naval formation composed of several professional warships also quietly left the Zhenhai Harbor Naval Base and headed north. (To be continued......)