Chapter 73 South China Sea Patrol Plan

Chen An's side was a young officer, who was in his early twenties, and his expression was calm, but his eyes were also deeply attracted by the 501 ship, and unlike the other military attaches on the bridge, this young man had a completely different temperament from other officers and soldiers.

Chen An obviously also saw the young man's expression, and suddenly asked: "Mingyuan, you have lived in the UK with your father for many years, and you have also studied at the military academy over there, so you can be regarded as having seen the world, what do you think of this battleship?" ”

This young man is Chen An's nephew Chen Mo, the word Mingyuan, in his early years, he went to the UK with his father who was in the comprador business for many years, and a few days ago, his father decided to return to his roots because of physical reasons, so he also returned to this homeland after many years of absence. After Chen Mo arrived in China, he was unwilling to take over being a foreign comprador like his father, so he came to be in the army with his uncle.

Obviously, with Lao Chen's own eyes, it was already difficult to evaluate the battleship in front of him, and the limited knowledge of the ship he knew could not distinguish the true strength of the ironclad ship opposite.

"Uncle, that twin cannon, the latest warship in the British newspaper is this style, but it seems that this cannon is a little special, and the barrel is more slender than the cannons I have recently observed in the navies of the Far East" Chen Mo took the clairvoyance and observed for a while.

"When did our Nanyang Naval Division have such a new type of warship......" Chen An muttered.

"It's not the latest," Chen Mo said on the side, "The new warship of England is said to have 10,000 tons, and I think this warship is the most than 4,000, but in the Great Qing Kingdom, it is a first-class warship."

The steward of the Ji'an ship next to him said: "Lord Chen, the Qin Supervisor has sent a flag, please go over and discuss the inspection plan."

"This Qin Supervisor is really polite, he is the chief official, and he still needs to discuss with me," Chen An smiled slightly, turned his head and said to Chen Mo: "Mingyuan, you and I go over together, the two managers over there, Lu Han and Xu Shoushan, were originally the number one person in our Nanyang Naval Division, and my uncle still has some face, so I will introduce you to this Qin Supervisor, not to mention the introduction, there are not many people in the Nanyang Naval Division."

The two of them boarded the Nanyang Navy Division training ship that had been shrouded in mí fog all the time, in fact, there have always been rumors of this training ship in the Nanyang Navy Division, and the Qin Supervision Office of the ship administration recruited a lot of people from the Navy Division, and then Lu Han and Xu Shoushan ran back to pull away a lot.

Although there are so many relationships, but the military attachés and sailors who have entered the training camp are all 120,000 points to cherish this opportunity, as long as they are not fools, they can understand the energy of Lord Qin, this battleship has been changed and changed, how much strength does this have to be done, so the secrecy of the training camp has always been very good.

When questioned, the officers who had dealings with the old man of the Nanyang Navy Division only talked about such topics as good salaries and hard training, and did not mention the issue of training ships at all, nor were they allowed to mention them.

Therefore, even though No. 501 has been launched for half a year, the outside world, including many factories inside the shipyard, have no idea about the territory nestled in the corner of the shipyard and guarded by soldiers of the security regiment with loaded guns and ammunition all day long.

Qin Kai personally met Chen An in the command room of the bridge, which can be said to be a very polite approach, after all, he was inspected by Ding Richang's generals in the South Seas, and he was the chief officer of this fleet with only two ships, but it was precisely because the fleet of this Nanyang Naval Division only had two warships.

The last time Qin Kai saw Chen An, he was still in Dashunfeng to go to Guangzhou, Chen An was the master, Qin Kai was a guest, but after calculating, Qin Kai's status in Mawei Shipbuilding was much higher than Chen An, and today's situation is obviously not the beginning, as soon as Lao Chen entered the command room, he wanted to bow down and salute, but he was held by Qin Kai after walking a few steps

"Chen Guandai, there are no outsiders here, there is no need to be formal, this time I patrol Nanyang, and I still need a lot of assistance from the old pipe."

"The superintendent is polite, this is a matter within the scope of this matter, not to mention the super-strong battleship" Chen An saw that the chief officer was polite, that was a good thing, and hurriedly warmed up the relationship, and wore thousands of sycophants.

Qin Kai laughed, this old man Chen is really an old oilman in the officialdom, no wonder he can hún in the Nanyang Naval Division, "Please bring it over, it is to discuss the relevant matters of this inspection...... Well...... There is also the tactical arrangement in case of encountering the enemy"

"I respectfully follow Lord Qin's orders, my old Chen has also been a sailor for decades, and this order prohibits this is very clear."

Chen An's statement seemed to be beyond Qin Kai's expectations, after all, he was only the chief officer of this inspection, and he couldn't control the generals of this naval division from the official authority, so he had to find Lao Chen to negotiate this matter before leaving, or if he went to sea and had some internal contradictions, it would be a troublesome matter.

"Very good Chen Guan, I planned it this way......" Qin Kai took out a chart, they went to the South China Sea, one is to inspect the South Sea, and the other is to respond to the first bō Liu Shen fleet, but in this vast sea, to find a fleet with 5 ships but no more than 6,000 tonnage, it is a difficult job.

Even if there are aircraft, radars, and satellites in later generations, it is still difficult to find a ship at sea, not to mention that today, when there are no advanced communication facilities, the only radio bōfa shè device in this era, is still in the Mawei Artillery Bureau at this time, and the radio genius Zhang Siqi excavated by Qin Kai is leading a group of people to tinker day and night, but the current range of this thing is limited to Qin Kai's small courtyard...... And the great scientist of the German Empire, Heinrich? Rudolph? Hertz, now for electromagnetic bō is still in the hypothetical hypothesis of Cheng dù.

Qin Kai sometimes has a bad taste, thinking about whether to take off the prestige of this old man, if that is the case, everyone will shout when communicating in the later era, "Now the communication frequency is 2500 Qin", instead of 2500 Hz. However, out of respect for the great men of science, this evil idea has not been put into practice so far.

After Chen An entered the command room, Chen Mo naturally stood outside, he had attended a military school in the United Kingdom, so he naturally had some knowledge of military appearance, the training camp soldiers on this battleship were obviously real soldiers, and a discerning person would know that these soldiers were long-trained veterans as soon as they saw this posture

It's just that he heard his uncle Chen An say that the training camp has only been formed for more than half a year, and the soldier on the other side is obviously a new recruit in terms of age, but this military appearance is really good.

"Brother Xiǎo, you're new to the ship," Chen Mo asked the sentry beside him first

Chen Mona also has the body of a military attaché, and when the soldier saw the commander's question, he hurriedly turned to the side and saluted a military salute similar to that of the West, "Report to my lord, I was transferred to the 501 ship two months ago, and I trained in the security regiment for half a year before."

The security regiment, Chen Mo knows this, that is, the Xiang Yong who guards the Mawei Ship Administration Artillery Bureau can actually train such mō-like soldiers in half a year, just looking at this training, it is much sharper than the sailors who are busy running transportation for the commander all day long, which makes him very surprised, "Brother Xiǎo, your surname, what do you practice in the security regiment?" Look at Brother xiǎo, you're practicing well."

"......" The soldier was in a cold sweat, "My lord, my name is Song Hu, you are too polite, how can I practice well, this year's security regiment assessment, I am only a first-class military discipline, shè attack, 10-kilometer rapid march, bomb throwing, literacy did not get the first class, our regiment has more than 50 first-class members"

Hearing this, he was sweating and became Chen Mo At this time, as soon as the command room cabin was opened, Xu Shoushan came out of it, looked Chen Mo up and down, and said with a smile, "You are Chen Mingyuan, the nephew of Chen Lao Guandao, I am Xu Shoushan, and I am familiar with Lao Chen Guandao."

Chen Mo hurriedly replied with a military salute, and replied loudly: "Xiaguan Chen Mo, I have seen Xu Guandao"

"Not bad" Xu Shoushan was quite satisfied with Chen Mo's appearance, he was originally a bold person, and with Chen An's relationship, he was also quite close to Chen Mo, "Chen Laoguan said that you studied at the military school in Taixi England, let me take you to visit the battleship, come on"

Hearing that his uncle had given him a big leave, Chen Mo was also very happy, and hurriedly returned a military salute, and followed Xu Shoushan off the bridge.

"Mingyuan, how many years have you been in England?"

"Where did I go to business with my father for five years?"

"Oh, why didn't you go back to China and not do business? If you are doing business in the industry, it is not difficult to find a good job in the artillery bureau, why bother to come to the battleship to find a life, our Lord Qin is a business genius," Xu Shoushan said half-jokingly.

"Lord Xu, this business can only be rich and rich, I have seen too much injustice in Taixi, we Chinese are the yellow monkeys who are looked down on over there, they talk about the East, they all say the same thing, the land is big, the money is stupid, and the armament is lax, so I made up my mind, and I have to join the navy to compete with the Taixi generation" Speaking of this, Chen Mo could see that he was quite emotional.

"Sure enough, I am an aspiring man in China, Lord Qin has been saying on weekdays that this sailor is by no means a day's work, so there are too many things for my generation to work on" Xu Shoushan high-fived and smiled, "Mingyuan, come, take you to see our first Chinese battleship",

After half a day, countless new ideas hit Chen Mo's nerves, making him feel as if he had come to another world, standing in front of the huge double-linked 10-inch cannon, Chen Mo suddenly found that the caliber of this cannon far exceeded the main cannon on the Tai'an warship, and he gave himself a slender feeling before, that was because this cannon was really much longer than ordinary cannons.

"This is a 254mm, 35 times diameter breech naval gun designed and manufactured by our Horsetail Artillery Bureau, and in our artillery test, we used 480 pound (220 kg) shells to easily penetrate 300mm of steel composite armor at a distance of 5,000 meters, let alone wrought iron armor."

Chen Mo didn't understand these new terms, "Lord Xu, are these wrought iron armor and composite steel armor used on English warships?" Could it be that the armor used on this battleship is even better than theirs? ”

In fact, Xu Shoushan is somewhat ignorant, after all, he doesn't have time to understand these technological problems, but the first process of armor, he is indeed very clear, the key parts on the 501 ship, such as the command room, have been replaced with steel composite armor, and the artillery tower installed later is also steel composite armor.

And the battleship under construction in the dock, I heard from the superintendent, it is a battleship designed completely according to the future naval battle, all of which are the most advanced CT31 and CT32 steel armor, and it is said that the protection is more than 30% higher than the steel composite armor on the 501 ship, and he can only explain a little, anyway, our current armor is also first-class in Taixi's battleship

Then the ten mén newly installed 120mm speed shè guns on the side of the ship shocked Chen Mo for a while, you know, this caliber is close to the secondary guns on the Ji'an ship, the auxiliary guns of the Ji'an ship are 2 minutes a cannon, but listening to Xu Shoushan's introduction, the maximum shè speed reaches 20 guns a minute, this efficiency, even in a combat situation, there is at least 10 guns, this is a speed that changes T.

The two talked while walking, and Chen Mo's unique views on military affairs also made Xu Shoushan quite appreciative, after all, his study of modern military theories only officially began after the training camp, and the two talked quite speculatively.

Xu Shoushang also took out a copper-shelled cannonball very enthusiastically to show him, this workmanship jīng liang, shining streamer cannonball compared to the old-fashioned huā shell used by the Nanyang sailors, it is simply a work of art. On the side of the turret, Xu Shoushan did not let him in to take a look, saying that the soldiers were conducting daily training.

Standing on the staircase next to him, he did see that the twin guns in the first gun position were rotating rapidly, and this seemingly bulky cannon could completely turn from the left side of the ship to the other side in just half a minute, and the elevation angle of the gun was also constantly changing, but it did not really make a real shot, which made him feel a little regretful.

Qin Kai and Chen An's deliberations were almost discussed, according to Qin Kai's arrangement, the Ji'an ship was responsible for the guard on both sides of the fleet and the patrol posts in the advance, if there was an emergency, first reported to the flagship, only responsible for the response, not responsible for the main attack, his duty was to protect the merchant ships behind.

As for the route of the cruise, Qin Kai carefully considered it on the chart for a long time, and also consulted Lu Han and Xu Shoushan, and they all thought that Liu Shen's fleet must be sailing along the mainland coastline, because the Nanyang Navy Division was not familiar with the route over there. Therefore, Qin Kai made a plan to follow the voyage closely, so that he could meet Liu Shen's fleet near a certain point.

The maximum speed of the Ji'an ship is only 11 knots, and the cruising speed is only 8 knots, so it is no wonder that the task assigned by Qin Kai is only not much faster than those merchant ships. When Xu Shoushan came back, Chen An said goodbye to Qin Kai and returned to the warship, and with the flag of raising the anchor on the 501 ship, the fleet slowly set sail

For this nephew recommended by Chen An, Qin Kai didn't care at first, it didn't matter if he took over, he had to be put to the bottom to practice well when he came, so that he could be useful, but after listening to Xu Shoushan's introduction, he was a little surprised, this old Chen family still has some high-quality genetic factors This Chen Mo is not only quite good at military affairs, it seems that he is an object that can be wooed, let's take a look at his appearance in this inspection operation first

Zhou Ruidong has been a little annoyed recently, since the Dai villagers in the nearby Shishan Pass have all poured in, so that he has made a breakthrough in mobilizing the mountain people in the nearby mountains, and in just one month, 18 villages have joined the "Chinese National Mutual Masonic Association," and the pig iron products and gifts of xiǎo hardware he brought have also been squandered.