The gossip between Li Hongfei and Zhu Yujiao is not on the table for the time being, and now the two of them came hand in hand to witness the trial voyage of the first steam warship. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

This new-style warship basically retains the prototype of the Haicang ship, and even the sails are retained.

The only area that was replaced was the conversion of the paddlewheel thruster, which was originally driven by manpower, to be driven by a steam engine, and a large chimney was installed near the attic of the warship.

Paddle wheel thruster is a kind of propulsion tool of the ship, which uses the paddle wheel to rotate and the blades to propel the ship with water, and the paddle wheel thruster is more advanced than the propeller, oar and other propulsion tools.

As early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Chinese invented paddle steamers that were run by manpower, which were called "car ships" or "steamers" at that time.

Paddle wheel is a kind of marine thruster with local water, installed on both sides or tail of the ship, similar to the shape of a wheel, equipped with a number of paddle boards around the wheel, dial the water backward to make the ship forward, because most of the wheel is above the water surface, so it is called "paddle wheel".

"Xiaguan has seen the princess and the concubine!" Wu Hao, the prefect of Suzhou, stepped forward to salute.

The rules of the feudal period are such fucked up.

The horse is far less powerful than the general of the army, but after several powers are superimposed, it is the idle position of the horse that has become the highest title.

Who made it a royal honor?

A mere fictitious title is still from a grade, which is a grade higher than Li Hongfei's previous official rank.

However, even so, Li Hongfei, who has experienced a hundred battles and has more than 100,000 mercenaries under his command, is still no better than an underage girl (the princess's official position is Zhengyipin).

"Okay Lao Wu, when did you see me doing all this false courtesy, it is the most important thing to let the sailors sail for a sea trial." Li Hongfei said as he pulled Zhu Yujiao to prepare to board the ship.

There is no way, Li Hongfei said before: he will personally test the performance of this warship.

At this time, the maid beside Zhu Yujiao suddenly reminded her: "Master Ma, the princess is delicate and frail, I'm afraid she can't stand the wind and waves." ”

This personal maid is the palace maid who scolded Li Hongfei in the palace at the beginning, named Xiao Ling'er.

When the princess got married, Zhu Youzhen did not send an old female official to Li Hongfei in accordance with the ancestral system, but let this little Ling'er continue to take care of Zhu Yujiao closely, which is a bit of a maid in the room..........

"Uh...... I'm sorry, I didn't think it through, or you just wait on the dock, and I'll ask Wu Hao to get you more delicious food. Li Hongfei hurriedly said.

Zhu Yujiao's body is actually not delicate, but she has suffered great changes in her life before, and she always has a pimple in her heart.

Now that she has left the palace, after nearly a year of recuperation, and Chen Yuanyuan enlightens the other party from time to time, Zhu Yujiao's knots in her heart have slowly unraveled.

Zhu Yujiao herself didn't feel anything, but Xiao Ling'er was specifically responsible for taking care of her, and when she heard that she was going to sea this time, Xiao Ling'er naturally wanted to remind her.

"Let's get on the boat together, I'll get out of the way." Zhu Yu said stubbornly.

Princess Changping and her father (Zhu Youzhen) have similar personalities, they are both the same stubborn, and it is difficult for others to persuade them to change what they have identified.

Moreover, as Li Hongfei's wife, it is rare for the two to see each other all year round, although Zhu Yujiao understands the reason in her heart, she does not want to let go of any opportunity to get close to each other.

Soon, the crowd boarded the steamer, and the craftsmen began to put the finishing touches on the hull.

"Lord Qiyu, the warship has been inspected and can set sail at any time!" Yan Yingyuan, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, said loudly.

"Let's go when you're ready!" Li Hongfei pretended to be calm and said.

In fact, Li Hongfei was still very nervous at the moment, and even he only dared to stand at the bow of the ship, obviously to see the scenery, but in fact he wanted to get as far away from the boiler room at the stern as possible.

After all, it's the first time I've tinkered with this kind of thing, so what if I can't open it? What should I do if the boiler explodes?

However, he did not dare to show his thoughts, after all, he was the boss of these people, and he had to show a very relaxed feeling.

With Yan Yingyuan's order, the machine in the power room made a loud noise, thick black smoke came out of the chimney, the water wheels on both sides slapped the river, and the steamboat slowly started under Yan Yingyuan's personal pilot!

"It's moving! It's really moving! There are no sailors, and even the sails have not been erected, such a big fellow, since he moved on his own! Onlookers on the shore said excitedly.

In order to test the performance of the steam engine, the steamer did not pull up its sails, and even then, the ship slowly moved away from the harbor and gradually increased its speed.

Fortunately, the warship finally left the port without any problems, and the boilers did not explode, and everything went smoothly.

"Old Yan, what is the current speed? Have you reached the maximum speed of a steamer? Li Hongfei asked.

"Lord Qiyu, the speed is not the fastest, the engine room is preparing to do the limit speed test, the current speed is about four knots, which is not much different from the original use of sails, if it goes on like this, maybe with the steam engine alone, it can catch up with the sail warship in terms of speed." Yan Yingyuan replied.

Li Hongfei didn't understand the unit of measurement at sea before, but since he took over the Yangtze River Naval Division, he has also made up some knowledge in this area.

When Zheng He went to the West, there were no clocks, voyage recorders, and other measuring instruments to accurately determine the speed of the ship.

So, a clever sailor came up with a clever method, that is, when the ship is sailing, throw a rope tied to a floating body to the sea, divide the rope into a number of knots on the rope, and then calculate the speed of the ship according to the number of rope sections dragged out in a certain time, so the "knot" becomes the unit of measurement of the speed of ships at sea, and the speed of sea water flow, sea wind speed, torpedo and other underwater weapons are also expressed by "knots".

In fact, the rope knot velocimeter method is not very accurate, with the development of science and technology, the speed measuring instrument of the sea ship in later generations, has been able to directly use numbers to show the speed, but the "knot" as a unit for measuring various speeds at sea is still used.

The exact "knot" of later generations was actually 1 nautical mile per hour (1 nautical mile = 1,852 meters).

And the four sections reported by Yan Yingyuan are equivalent to about 7.5 kilometers per hour, which is definitely second to none among the medium-sized warships of the Ming Dynasty, even if it is a small warship, it is not much faster than it.

If you hang the sail again, its speed can be increased by a lot.

When the speed is fast to the limit, even if you can't beat it, there will definitely be no problem in escaping.

Because this trial voyage needs to go to sea for inspection, it can be regarded as going downstream, and the wind in August is mostly southeast wind, and the sailing ships accompanying the escort are basically going against the wind, so when the warships arrive in Shanghai County, the ships accompanying the escort have long been gone.