Off the coast of Japan in the Pacific Ocean, a Liberty Wind-class frigate and two transport ships are gradually approaching the coast. www.biquge.info On the deck of the large transport ship, the commander of the 1st German Regiment, Von Tansen, said to Blucher on his side: "Mr. Commander, in fact, you should have a good rest, there is still a lot of time for you to fight in the future." ”

Less than a week after arriving on the island of Nanguvi, Blucher volunteered to board the expedition ship of the 1st German Regiment, his identity was not a commanding staff, but mainly to observe, Blücher, who had been silent for too long, was eager to return to the battlefield, and he also wanted to use this opportunity to understand the true strength of the Tang Army, although it was only German mercenaries.

"It's okay, Captain Tanson, please let me get this opportunity to learn."

Feng Tansen sighed: "In fact, when we fought in North America, I firmly believed that our Hessian soldiers were the best fighters, but the Tang Army taught us a lesson, and we experienced a completely different war. It wasn't until I joined the Foreign Legion and began to train troops in the way of the Don Army that I deeply understood the gap between the European army and the advanced Tang army. ”

Blücher pointed to the huge transport ships at sea and said, "What about the military gap?" Look at these big ships, the Europeans are still immersed in the era of sail battleships, while the Tang people can already build ships of thousands or even tens of thousands of tons, which is the best embodiment of national strength. ”

At this time, Blucher felt that he had made a right choice to serve the Tang Dynasty, thus becoming a member of a strong country, rather than being in a weak state and only enduring humiliation and defeat. Only when a strong country and a strong army can soldiers fully strive for their own glory and military exploits.

Blucher saw only the huge transport ship. In fact, even Von Tansen didn't know. The 10,000-ton transport ship they were on. It took only 175 days for the Datang West Coast Shipyard to launch and build. The West Coast Shipyard is now the largest private shipyard in Datang, and its owner and manager, Zhang Jin, is a shipbuilder and a skilled businessman. At the beginning of last year, Zhang Jin referred to the United States' World War II-era freeship and used the computer resources and mapping software of the crossing to design this 10,000-ton general-purpose transport ship called "Island and Reef Class".

The reef class uses a large number of prefabricated parts and uses the sectional shipbuilding method. The process of combining the machined steel plates or sections into components such as plates, T-sections, rib frames or bow and stern posts is carried out on the welding platform in the workshop. The components are then grouped into planar, surface, or stereo segments. such as bulkheads, ship bottoms, broadside and superstructures; Or combined into a circular three-dimensional segment formed by cross-cutting the main hull in the direction of the captain, which is called the general section, such as the bow general section, the stern general section, etc. Finally, the hull parts, sections, and general sections are finally welded into the hull on the slipway (or dock).

It can be said that this method requires a lot of calculations and design in shipbuilding, and it is very difficult to do it without a computer alone. However, the West Coast shipyard has adopted a simplistic, standardized and modular approach to simplify the entire process to the extreme, which can be described as industrial streamlining in shipbuilding. Not only that, but a large number of small closure sections were subcontracted to other factories and small shipyards. Finally, the West Coast shipyard will assemble it and build it into an island-class transport ship.

And that's just the speed at which the first ship of the reef class was built. Zhang Jin is very confident that after speeding up the business turnover and familiarization, he will be able to let the West Coast shipyard start construction of four Daojiao-class ships at the same time, and ensure that the construction period of each ship is 100 days. You must know that the actual load of the 10,000-ton island and reef class is more than 6,500 tons, and the four cargo holds can carry 150 trucks (or 260 lightning fast horses, or 100 Type 77 half-track vehicles), 1,200 tons of light weapons and ammunition, and 500-600 tons of supplies, which is almost the entire basic equipment and supplies of the entire Datang Army Infantry Brigade.

In addition to military use, the reef class can also be used as a civilian bulk carrier for trade. After a certain modification, the cargo hold can be changed into a simple cabin to accommodate immigrants, and it has become a migrant ship. Therefore, the reef class has a wide range of uses and has a promising future. Of course, the only restriction on the reef class is that most ports now do not have berths that can accommodate 10,000-ton ships, and there is a lack of heavy port machinery to load and unload their cargo.

Therefore, feeling the threat brought by the booming West Coast shipyard, Long Beach Shipyard, as a state-owned shipyard, rose up to catch up, and designed a 3,000-ton ocean-class cargo ship with the same sectional shipbuilding method and highly modular flow operation in response to the actual needs. This type of vessel requires a draft of less than five meters when fully loaded, as well as excellent ocean-going seaworthiness. Different from the island and reef class, the marine class does not use coal as fuel, but uses diesel, and its power is also the first practical marine diesel engine in China. The maximum economic speed can reach 15 knots, which is faster than the 12 knots economy speed of the reef class. And in order to solve the poor loading and unloading capacity of some ports, the Long Beach Shipyard also designed a set of temporary loading and unloading auxiliary equipment. The system draws on the method of dry cargo replenishment of the navy's lateral ropeway in another plane, and the proposed tower is built on the shore to slide the cargo to the cargo platform with a pulley ropeway, and then it is loaded and unloaded by manpower. Obviously, although this system is simple, it is much more efficient than moving goods from a ship by a person.

Another key point is that the Long Beach shipyard, which has more resources, has succeeded in reducing the construction period of the marine class to a terrible level of 40 days.

Although there are a large number of ships brought by the crossing in China, most of them have a low level of technology, especially the ships with a small tonnage of 3,000 tons and below, and many ships have basically expired their life spans, and breakdowns occur frequently, which prompts domestic shipping companies and the military to hope to replace a number of ships in poor condition.

Taking advantage of the needs of the war, the emergence of islands, reefs and oceans has greatly excited the country. Although the island-reef class will encounter ports that cannot be berthed in actual use, with the continuous improvement of port construction, the demand for island-reef class will also increase. After the launch of the Ocean-class self-ceasing ship "Pearl of the Seas" and delivery to shipping lines, shipping companies have placed orders for 13 ships to increase capacity and replace aging ships. And the number of orders is constantly growing.

The West Coast shipyard has received orders for four island-class ships, the first two of which have already been delivered, and one is now being used by the German First Regiment, called the Red Melon. As the name suggests, the island and reef class is based on the nomenclature of the island and reef. The first two were orders placed by the military for the transportation of large quantities of military supplies. The latter two orders were called for the conversion of the migrant ships, which would have more living space, such as temporary additional toilets. Simple plywood partitions were used as partitions for immigrants to live in, and these partitions were also removable. As a result, when heading to the Qing Dynasty, the ship would remove the partition and turn it back into the cargo hold to load some cargo for sale. On the way back, it will be rearranged for the immigrants to live in. In the living partition, there is nothing but a foldable iron frame bed. Even in order to fix the iron frame bed, the West Coast shipyard was required to punch holes in the ground of the cabin, and there were four holes in the folding iron frame bed, which just matched the holes in the ground, and then screwed in with a cap screw to fix the iron frame bed.

Naturally, the comfort of this kind of migrant ship cannot be compared with that of a special passenger ship, and the conditions can even be said to be difficult. However, a reef-class modification ship can transport 3,000 migrants, which is of course the result of reducing living conditions as much as possible. Fortunately, the ship still allows the migrants to move around, get to the deck to breathe fresh air, and have plenty of food and fresh water. It's not a good journey, but at least it doesn't have a high mortality rate like the ships that sell piglets from China to North America on the other side.

More than half of the 1st German Regiment was now on the transport ship Chigua, which had converted two cargo holds into passenger cabins so that the soldiers could live on it. The other two cargo holds were held to carry weapons of war and provisions. The other small freighter was not of the ocean class, but a ship brought by the crosser, with a tonnage of more than 3,000 tons, and some soldiers and equipment were also fed on it.

Not long ago, a bill was passed in China, officially issuing S1 and other standard weapons to German mercenaries. This also made the combat effectiveness of the German mercenaries greatly improved, and Von Tansen was very happy about it. In the past, the Tang army was equipped with a set of things, while the foreign brigade was only equipped with inferior goods used by the Tang people for foreign trade and sending Europeans, which made Feng Tansen feel very unbalanced. Now that the German mercenaries are equipped with the same weapons as the Tang Army, he naturally rejoices.

In fact, the Ministry of Defense also made such a decision after a long time of investigation and thought that the loyalty of the remaining German First Regiment to the organization could be trusted.

"An important source of finance for the Sendai Domain is their maritime trade, so this means that the Sendai Domain has a lot of fishing boats, but their naval strength is almost none, and we will force a landing in the port under the cover of the navy, and then start a war against the Sendai Domain." Von Tansen explained this to Blucher.

Blucher still hasn't figured out much about what kind of political system Japan is, he only vaguely knows that not long ago, Japanese envoys came to Sapporo to threaten Datang, so Datang took tough retaliatory actions, and the attack on Sendai was one of them. This countermeasure was undoubtedly to the tastes of the Germans, and Blucher did not see any problem with it.

Of course, he didn't know that the Sendai Domain was just an outward daimyo of the Shogunate, and the attack on the Sendai Domain did have a deterrent to the Shogunate, but in fact, in the mind of a certain commander-in-chief of the theater, attacking or even occupying the Sendai Domain was another beginning of the Tang Dynasty's control of Japan. (To be continued.) )