“…… The fourth ship, 'Yue Nuo Hua Side', reportedly carried 1,756 knots of curved straight wood, and the fifth ship' Banug's arrival, it is reported that there are eight hundred and four teaks, and the shipwrights are delayed because of the cost of timber, and if the first shipwork is exhausted, the second will be built, which is not exempt from protracted expenses, because the second slipway can be built before the middle of the eighty horsepower, and now the four ships are coming one after another, and the wood is not only for the needs of one ship, because on the one hand to catch up with the unfinished work of the first keel, on the other hand to shovel and lay the second keel, and choose a day to start the work, the foreign craftsman and other models have been completed, the Chinese craftsmen, that is, the size of their sub-injections, the axe saw, are easy to master, especially easy to read。 Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info......"

"Since the beginning of this year, the iron factory has been stacked with stones, the wall foundation has been on it, but the beams and columns are precious materials, the suffering is looking for purchases, the day before yesterday Yige intends to use iron pillars, has been tried to cast one, the cost of heavy work is late, it is not easy to tell the same, and now it is planned to still use foreign wood, and the road is dangerous, and the total must come to the next year to get to work, check the contract contains a five-year deadline, starting from the date of the opening of the iron factory, the funds are so scarce, and the factory is so difficult, the more the day, the more it costs, the more it costs, fortunately, the former temporarily set up the factories, can be the first to build, and now temporarily take the iron factory, then the iron shaft and iron wedge on the ship, can be built, Temporarily set up the cast iron factory, then large and collar, small and gear, can be successful, cellar furnace is also applicable, according to the Japanese Yige, all five years of the limit, please start with the first month of next year, inspect the craftsmen outside the province, work with foreigners, oral hand-painting, quite able to understand its intentions, but the division of the engine, the rise and fall of water and gas, not a long time to melt through, can not explore the essence of the ear, together will be Siamese wood to the work, the first hull completed, the second hull through the beginning, and the iron plant starting limit teaching situation, will be the same Kejing Bo Shaanxi and Gansu Governor Zuo Zongtang, Fuzhou general minister Wen Yu, Fujian and Zhejiang governor minister Yinggui, Fujian Fu minister Bian Baodi, the conjunctive Gong fold by the post 400 li Gu played......"

In the first half of 1869, the Harbour Master's Yard was busy, and with the exception of the factories and workshops that were being built one after another, the focus of attention was on the increasingly complete hull of the ship on slipway No. 1. From the first month to the beginning of April, thanks to the intense efforts of the Chinese workers, the hull of the ship was basically completed. From April to May, while making and installing masts, rudder blades and other parts, and on the other hand, under the careful guidance of French foreigners, the steam engine and boiler were installed into the ship's hull, and at the same time manufacturing and installing ventilation cylinders and propellers, etc., the power system of the "No. 1 steamship" was basically installed at the end of April. After May, craftsmen built masts on the masts that had already been erected, anchor winches on the bow, and copper skins covering the bottom of the ship. By the beginning of June of that year, in the summer season, the "No. 1 steamer" was completed. It can be said that since the materials were in place, the construction efficiency of the shipyard's "No. 1 steamship" has been quite high.

At this time, the slipway sleepers under the hull have been replaced by wooden braces. The hull of the "First Steamer" has been completed, but the mast and chimney and other superstructures still need to be assembled after launching.

On June 10, 1869, the "First Steamer" was bustling with people. One day earlier, the slipway sleepers that had been under the hull of the No. 1 ship were removed and replaced with wooden wedges, and at this moment the hull was low on the wooden wedge tire frame, the two sides were supported by more than ten pillars, and the copper-wrapped bottom of the ship was thickly coated with lard, butter, and soap, so that it could slide smoothly into the river when launched. After Shen Baozhen, the Minister of Shipping, took the lead in promoting Zhou Kaixi and other shipmaster officials to worship Mazu, the god of the river, the god of earth, and the god of the ship, at noon, under the command of the chief superintendent of foreigners, the craftsmen removed the wooden supports outside the side of the ship in order, pulled out the remaining wooden wedges under the ship, and rowed the "No. 1 steamer" with sky blue painting to the river.

In an instant, the "No. 1 steamship" was several feet from the shore, and the crew on board took advantage of the situation and dropped in the middle of the river, and the huge hull of the "No. 1 steamship" stopped steadily on the surface of the river, splashing only a slight wave.

Seeing this spectacular scene, the people gathered on the shore, whether Chinese or foreigners, were all silent and silent, and when they saw the ship stopped, they couldn't help but applaud and cheer.

Prime Minister Shen Baozhen personally named the first steamer, called the "Wannian Qing", which can be said to contain infinite meaning. At this time, most of the buildings in the shipyard area were still low-slung temporary sheds, and in such difficult and simple conditions, the "No. 1 steamship" built by Chinese and foreign employees finally came out.

The "Wannian Qing" belongs to the 150-horsepower large steamer in the shipbuilding plan of the shipyard in the five-year shipbuilding plan, and the ship type can be roughly classified into the category of gunboats. The design parent of the "Wannian Qing" was the French "LaMotte-Picquet" class gunboat. The "LaMotte-Picquet" class gunboat is a first-class steam warship built in France between 1858 and 1859, a total of 5 ships of the same class were built, the displacement of the class is 687 tons, the length of the ship is 54.55 meters, the width is 8.52 meters, the draft is 3.22 meters, and it is equipped with a steam engine, with a power of 150 horsepower, 570 horsepower, and a speed of 7.9 knots. This class of warships is very similar to the famous clipper ship of the sail era, and the shape is slender and graceful. In terms of appearance, the "Wannianqing" is almost identical to the "LaMotte-Picquet" class, but it is not simply imitated, and the "Wannianqing" has been expanded in size and tonnage, which is to meet the purpose of "dual-use weapons and merchants" proposed by Zuo Zongtang, and increase the cargo compartment in the original gunboat design, so as to have the dual identity of a gunboat and a cargo ship at the same time.

The displacement of the "Wannianqing" reached 1450 tons, almost double that of the parent type, and the hull waterline was 68.02 meters long, with a total length of 76.16 meters (excluding the bow mast), which was also larger than the parent type, but the width of the "Wannianqing" was 8.9 meters, which was similar to the parent type, and the width of the ship did not move and the length was increased, which made the "Wannianqing" look more slender in appearance. In terms of draft, the bow draft of the "Wannianqing" was 4.03 meters and the stern draft was 4.64 meters when it was heavily loaded, which was not very deep in foreign countries at that time, but most of China's coastal ports have not been mechanically dredged, and the water depth is shallow, and the draft of more than 4 meters in the "Wannianqing" is already astronomical for many Chinese ports.

The power system of the "Wannianqing" consists of a steam engine and two boilers, and adopts the form of single-shaft and single-propeller propulsion. The style of the steam engine is a British-made vertical two-cylinder reciprocating type, with a height of 3.84 meters, a base width of 2.88 meters, a length of 3.2 meters, and a power of 150 horsepower in imaginary number and 600 horsepower in real number, which is similar to the power of the steam engine equipped with the parent "LaMotte-Picquet" class gunboat. The two boilers that are used with the steam engine are also purchased from overseas and are square coal-fired boilers. This type of boiler was widely used on steam ships around the mid-19th century (this style of boiler was used by famous steam warships such as the Warrior in the early days of the British Navy). The square boiler is actually a kind of low-pressure boiler, and the working pressure of the two square boilers of the "Wannian Qing" is 2.75 atmospheres, because the width of the warship is narrow, and the two boiler boilers adopt the back-to-back installation style of the furnace doors facing the bow and tail of the warship respectively, rather than the arrangement of the furnace doors on large warships facing the left and right sides of the warship. The boiler facing the front of the warship is 3.39 meters high, 5 meters wide, 3.16 meters deep, and has 5 furnace doors, while the boiler facing the back of the warship has only 4 furnace doors, and the height and depth are the same as the boiler in front, and the width is only 4 meters. In order to facilitate the nearby supply of coal, a coal tank was arranged in front of the furnace doors of the two boilers.

To a large extent, the "Wannian Qing" still retains the characteristics of a sail warship, with a mast in the bow and three mainmasts on the main deck that are slightly tilted backwards (of which the foremast has a cross girder, and the middle and rear masts only have an oblique girder), and the sails can be hung up when necessary. The construction on the open-air deck of the "Wannian Qing" is very simple, in front of the middle mast is the engine room shed, chimney, and hair dryer, and the corresponding boiler and steam engine are in the hull below it, and not far before the chimney is the command center of the whole ship - a flybridge across the two sides, equipped with standard compasses on it, navigation lights installed on both wings, and a wooden wheelhouse under the flybridge, and there is no armored command tower necessary for later warships. As a common practice for warships in that era, in addition to the main hydraulic steering wheel in the wheelhouse, there was also a set of spare manpower steering wheels before the "Wannianqing" rear mast, because the warship was small in tonnage, so it was equipped with a double steering wheel. In the front and rear of the chimney and flybridge buildings, two sets of huge cargo covers with a capacity of 260 tons can be seen distributed on the deck. The engine room and cargo hold occupy almost two-thirds of the space in the "Wannian Qing" ship, and under the remaining bow deck are the anchor chain cabin, toilet, sailor cabin and other cabins, and the remaining space in the stern is all the officer's living quarters.

The "Wan Nian Qing" uses a very beautiful French paint. The hull is completely painted sky blue, and since the hull is wooden, in order to make the underwater part corrosion-resistant, the hull under the waterline is wrapped in copper, so the color under the waterline is copper. This beautiful painting is the first time in the eyes of the Chinese people, and it has amazed the viewers. Although the "Wannian Qing" is a warship, the slender hull and gorgeous paint make the first impression of this ship very beautiful.

After completing the launching ceremony of the "Wannian Qing", Shen Baozhen noticed that Zhou Kaixi's face was a little pale.

"Shan Shan, are you too tired?" Shen Baozhen asked with concern, "Why don't you go back and rest earlier?" ”

"It may be that the weather is too hot, and some of them are suffering from heat stroke, so they don't matter." Zhou Kaixi smiled and waved his hand, and his eyes were focused on the "Wannian Qing" again.

"Today is a big day when the ship is launched, why don't you see Kunyu coming?" Zhou Kaixi didn't see Lin Yizhe's figure, and asked Shen Baozhen.

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