"Bang bang...... It's riveted on a steel plate! As soon as he heard that this ship was built with the help of Qi Zu, Hong Tao put away his sneering face, picked up an iron rod from the ground, and knocked it the hull, which was the sound of metal hitting metal. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"No, my father has already built a steel ship, I can't be worse than him! I had a steam engine, he didn't have it at the time, and it was built with rust! Wen Xiaoqi straightened his stomach and began to despise Hong Tao.

"How much does it weigh?" Hong Tao is not too calm, if there is a steel-hulled ship, the naval guns that fire round shells are probably going to withdraw from naval battles, even if the speed is slower, it is not a big deal. The fleet sails with a few steel warships, and this thing is an iron turtle on the sea, and no one can move it. With a few more naval guns, it is most suitable to fight a tough battle, and you will no longer have to walk a tightrope around with the fleet, and you will have to face it head-on.

"A little more than twenty tons...... If you add the deck compartments, it is estimated that it will be about twenty-five tons, and the net weight without coal and water will have a total displacement of about sixty tons. Wen Xiaoqi knew the data of his broken ship well, and without waiting for Hong Tao to continue asking, he told the rest.

"It's not too heavy, so why can't you run fast? Let's go up and see your machine. "According to the weight of a sail warship, such a small ship with a displacement of less than 100 tons, made of wood, must weigh about 20 tons. In this way, it is not a disadvantage to build a ship out of steel, a little heavier, but not as strong. And with the continuous progress of steel materials and the development of steam engines, the weight of iron-hulled ships will only get smaller and smaller, and the horsepower will become larger and larger. But there is no room for such progress in timber and sails, and they have come to an end now.

"This way, this way, come, give me the lamp, go and get two more!" Hong Tao was going to see the steam engine, and Wen Xiaoqi was very excited. This iron-hulled ship is not new, when they were in Jinhe City, Wen Lao Er and Wen Si built it. What is to be proud of is the machine installed in the ship, that is his own housekeeping skill, except for Hong Tao, no one will!

"Your boiler is not right, it's too big, it's heavy, it takes up space, and it doesn't produce enough steam, so the machine won't work." The cost-effective Wen Xiaoqi test ship didn't even have a deck, and the entire cabin was divided into three parts. The bow and stern were empty enough to hold coal water and cargo, and the middle compartment was occupied by three iron guys.

Two of the three iron guys were smaller, and that was a steam engine, and the largest was a horizontal iron cylinder. Don't ask, this is Wen Xiaoqi's boiler, and there is a stove-like thing built with refractory bricks underneath, and the thick chimney is poked behind the stove.

For the steam engine, Hong Tao can only know a little bit about the general principle. How well Wen Xiaoqi's steam engine was built can't be seen at a glance. However, Hong Tao understands the structure of the boiler a little bit, and some of the knowledge in the heat treatment major can be used in boiler manufacturing, which is also the focus of the examination.

The quality of a steam engine depends on the manufacturing process and design rationality of cylinders, pistons, connecting rods and valves, and the other half depends on the performance of the boiler. This is an important piece of equipment for heat conversion, and without an efficient boiler, even a steam engine made with a digital lathe, it will not produce enough power.

The big steel cylinder in Wen Xiaoqi's lane is barely the most primitive horizontal boiler, but it is too primitive, and the heat conversion efficiency is extremely low, and it is estimated that it cannot even reach five percent, and it is strange that the power output can be large.

Boilers, literally explain its efficacy. pots, places to hold water; stoves, things to heat. When you put a heated stove and a pot of water together, you have a boiler. However, in order to make the steam engine have enough power, it is definitely not possible to rely on a large cauldron alone, and it cannot produce so much high-temperature and high-pressure steam. In order to increase the power of the steam engine, it is necessary to find a way to improve the heat conversion efficiency of the boiler.

So how do you boil water as quickly as possible? It is most feasible to increase the contact surface of water storage equipment and flames. But no matter how big the bottom of the pot is, the fire is so small, you can't light the whole boat. It doesn't matter, there is another way to increase the contact surface, that is, to turn the bottom of the pot into a tube one by one, the flame passes through the tube, and the area of the bottom of the pot is increased in disguise, which is the same as the principle of the radiator of the car water tank.

This type of boiler is called a fire-tube boiler, the flame passes through the tube, and the water is contained in a jacket on the outside of the tube. If you think differently, put all the water in the water pipes, do a lot of dense work, and then let the fire burn outside, which is more efficient, it is called a water tube boiler.

Both of these methods can improve the efficiency of the steam engine, but Hong Tao can only choose the former. Water tube boilers require a lot of water pipes, and this production method needs to be processed by electric welding, which cannot be done by the current process. In comparison, the processing technology of the fire tube boiler is more convenient, as long as the tubes are not so much, it can be done without electric welding.

"Changing the boiler...... That's right, I've changed the machine many times, but it didn't work, why didn't I think of changing the boiler!! One sentence woke up the person in the dream, Wen Xiaoqi was stunned for a few seconds, and then reached out and gave himself a big mouth, pig brain!

"Tap it, I'm just mentioning it, I don't know if it can be done." Hong Tao heard the crisp sound of this life, and his face hurt a little, it was really hard!

"It can definitely be done, you can see the problem at a glance, can it still be done? Change, this will change, I'll call someone and tear it down first! Wen Xiaoqi's face was probably wooden, but his brain was not wooden, and the more he pondered, the more he felt that what Hong Tao said was right.

"Oops...... Don't do it first, what's the tossing of this big night, go back and get a good night's sleep, and I'll do it tomorrow during the day. Hong Tao doesn't have such a strong desire for knowledge as Wen Xiaoqi, it's not that he doesn't want to finish the boiler transformation as soon as possible, but he is really unsure about this matter. There is also the problem of the material's ability to withstand high temperatures and high pressures, which is not only troublesome to test, but also very dangerous, and it cannot be completed overnight, so I really don't care about these hours.

"You've just come back, and you're definitely tired. I'm fine, I'm idle every day. I'll call someone to demolish it, you go back to sleep, and when you come tomorrow, you will directly renovate it, so it's just right! Wen Xiaoqi finally humanized once, fully understanding Hong Tao's age and fatigue, but he did not give up the plan to dismantle the boiler.

"Yes, then you are busy, pay attention to safety, let them do it, you can command on the side!" Now that Wen Xiaoqi understands, Hong Tao is not hypocritical, he still has to sleep. At this age, I really can't stay up all night, I can't slow down for several days, and I'm uncomfortable.

Early the next morning, it was not Wen Xiaoqi who woke up Hong Tao, but Swan. He came earlier than Wen Xiaoqi, how hateful! If he hadn't shown a map with his hand, Hong Tao would have touched the gun from under the pillow.

"Why did you ask me to go on an expedition so early?" The sleepy-eyed Hong Tao didn't see clearly what the map in Swan's hand was, and he was still rubbing his eyes.

"Hey, hey, there's no need to go on an expedition, I haven't been idle for more than half a year since you left, I have found the west coast of this continent, and I have reached the forty-ninth parallel to the north, and there are too many woods to the north. I want to come back and rest first, and then I will continue north from the Kingdom of Texas and try to explore all the land that is not marked on the map. These days, I will first take Mercy and Weng Ya to the city of Tula to see and see your great palace, and when they go to work, how about I immediately lead my troops to explore? Swan took a towel and wet it in the basin, and waited until Hong Tao had wiped his face and was slightly sober before pointing to the map to explain his intentions.

"You don't care about the canal construction site?" Hong Tao looked at the map, Swann had explored the vicinity of Vancouver along the west coast of the North American continent, and then went east along the later state of Montana, and then went south along Wyoming and Utah, which is equivalent to almost turning the western part of the United States. And it's not a blind look, there are a lot of small marks on the map, where there are mountains, where are deserts, where are forests, where are villages, as long as you see along the way have been written, it is really a lot of effort. But Hong Tao didn't praise Swan, blurted out a question.

"Those slaves are really honest, they have enough to eat every day, and whale meat, although the work is a little tiring, but most of them have resigned themselves to their fate. In fact, even if they are allowed to run, there is nowhere to run, as long as the ship is controlled, that place is a dead end. Trekking hundreds of kilometers in the rainforest, without food or drink, there are mosquitoes everywhere, and I can't even tell the direction, and I die even worse. I didn't think it was enough to waste all my troops on the construction sites, and I kept only fifteen men at each site, and then I left more than fifty men to guard the ships at Stone Harbor. Swann didn't feel wronged, he and Hong Tao were like natural enemies, there were differences when they met, and every time he was unlucky, he got used to it.

"Well, you have the final say on the construction site, and I don't interfere. Don't rush to find the way, if you have time to spare, go and help me train a Marine. How about using your army, about a thousand? Hong Tao also realized that he was a little too strict with Swan, which was not intentional, but the sequelae of not letting himself worry about it every time.

"So much! There are less than 800 people in my army, and less than 1,500 people are trained......" Swan was not very happy again, he knew that Hong Tao's request for marines must have something to do with going back to save the Great Song Dynasty, and he personally brought out these army troops, and he would definitely not be reluctant to send them all out at once.

"Look, this hasn't contributed to the alliance yet, so let's start to make my own little calculations! There are weapons, you slowly get together, I'm in a hurry, give me a first. In addition, I have to thank you for helping you get out of the West Coast, and do more reliable things in the future, I promise to praise you every time we meet. "Actually, in all fairness, Swann has made the greatest contribution here, but he belongs to the kind of character who does a lot of work but does not fall well, and it is always the shortcomings that are easy to remember. Hong Tao searched hard, and really found a lot of Swan's advantages, so he quickly praised a few words to make up for the guilt just now. (To be continued.) )