The Shaoxing is the first ship of the 1,000-ton steam dark wheel warship ordered by the Navy, which was launched in the second half of last year and completed outfitting at the end of the year.

The reason why the first ship is named after Shaoxing is naturally simple, because Lin Zhe's hometown is in Yuyao County, Shaoxing, and in traditional terms, Shaoxing is the land of Longxing.

Since the Shaoxing was the first self-built 1,000-ton warship, it was relatively conservative in all parameters, with a total length of 210 feet, a width of 27 feet, a displacement of 1,080 tons, and two steam engines imported from France, which could provide a total of 1,000 and 20 horsepower.

However, in the sea trial, it was found that the speed of pure steam power was too slow, and the maximum speed when there was no wind was only nine knots, and the range of pure steam power was also very short, and as a comparison, foreign countries, especially the British steam sail hybrid cruisers of about 1,000 tons will use steam sail hybrid, if the sail is used and it is still downwind, the speed can easily exceed 12 knots, or even reach more than 15 knots.

Therefore, after some struggle, the navy re-equipped the already built Shaoxing with sails, so that at least it will not be worse than foreign warships of the same class in terms of speed.

The follow-up ships also gave up the plan of pure steam power and reverted to the traditional layout of sail-steam hybrid, which was also a failed attempt by the Chinese army to fully adopt a pure steam-powered fleet.

In terms of armament, due to the beginning of the Shaoxing service, the output of rear-loading rifled guns of the Linde Machinery Factory was still relatively small. At first, it was outfitted with a front-loading smoothbore gun, but with the Linde Machine Factory's rear-loading rifled guns began to be mass-produced on a small scale. It was directly switched to a breech-loading rifled gun, the main gun of which was a 1857 180 mm naval gun located on the foredeck. There were also four 120-mm secondary guns located on both sides.

This battleship is also the first professional warship designed and built by the Chinese Navy, except for the steam engine used is still imported, the other hulls, naval guns and sails are all self-built.

At present, two ships of this class are already in service, one is still being outfitted, and three more are under construction.

Originally, the Shaoxing-class warships were designed as pure ocean-going warships, and their relatively deep draft was not suitable for navigation on the Yangtze River, but since the military conflict between Britain and France and the Chinese Empire, the Chinese Navy has fully retreated to the Yangtze River, and its warships are still active outside the Min River except for two gunboats. The rest have all retreated into the Yangtze River, and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, that is, the Yangtze River basin from Nanjing to Shanghai, have a good water depth, and those thousands of tons of warships can sail in it, and the 1,000-ton Shaoxing will naturally be able to move smoothly.

The Shaoxing went all the way south, and because it was going downstream, the speed was quite fast, and it didn't take more than a day for Lin Zhe and others to sail into the naval base in Jiangyin.

Although Jiangyin is not a deep-water coastal port, it has been built by the navy since the construction of forts in Jiangyin to control the Yangtze River waterway and control Gyeonggi. It was to build a wharf along the river upstream of the Jiangyin Fort to temporarily moor naval warships.

At present, the warships of the navy have basically been withdrawn to the Yangtze River, and except for some of them in Shanghai and Nanjing, the remaining medium and large warships are basically in Jiangyin.

Haven't entered the port yet. Lin Zhe, who was standing on the deck, saw a whole row of warships moored at the wharf along the river, and Lin Dabiao, the chief of the Admiralty on the side, also explained to Lin Zhe in time:

"Although the terrain does not allow the port to be opened, the scale of our army is still too small. The current port is smaller, but it is enough to moor our warships!

The row of battleships in front is the most widely used Xingwu-class gunboat in our army and has performed well in many battles. The two warships behind them were the Zhenhu and Zhensu, large inland river gunboats that our army had vigorously built and commissioned in the previous two years. ”

Looking in the direction that Lin Dabiao pointed out, Lin Zhe saw the upstream position of the dock. There are five or six small gunboats moored, and Lin Zhe is no stranger to this kind of Xingwu-class gunboat, knowing that although this kind of gunboat is small in size and not very strong in firepower, it is the main gunboat of the Chinese Navy at present, and it is widely active in the Yangtze River, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Huai River, and other major inland river systems, and has favorably supported the army's operations.

As for those river gunboats, they also know that they were built in the expansion of the Chinese Navy a few years ago, but although the ship size is much larger, because it weighs four or five hundred tons and has a deep draft, many small and medium-sized inland rivers cannot be visited, and they are not suitable for ocean navigation, so they can only sail along the coast or in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which have sufficient water depth, and in terms of function, it is actually inferior to the Xingwu-class small gunboat of 80 tons.

Looking at the entire wharf, I saw that the wharf by the river was densely packed with many ships, including warships of hundreds or even thousands of tons, and there were also pure sails of hundreds of tons, or transport ships with power such as steam sails mixed with paddle wheels, and there were also many small sampans of dozens of tons or even only a few tons.

About a kilometer below the pier, you can see that the hill by the river has completely changed.

The original trees and the like were all gone, and a tall fortress building appeared, even if it was a little far away, but you could vaguely see the looming large-caliber artillery figure on the side of the river.

After the Shaoxing was stable at the wharf, Lin Zhe did not let the military and political officials on the shore wait for too long, but after the accompanying subordinates were ready, he got off the boat in the crowd of everyone.

When Lin Zhe, who was wearing a military uniform and a woolen jacket, stepped off the boat, several military and political dignitaries on the shore also greeted him in time, led by a man and a military, the military general was naturally Shi Qingxuan, the commander of the Sixth Army stationed in Jiangyin, and the civilian official was Xue Huan, the governor of Jiangsu.

Shi Qingxuan of these two people is wearing a general's winter dress, wearing a golden spike command knife, wearing the rank of lieutenant general plus the ribbon accessories of the dress, etc., which looks incomparably long, but Xue Huan is much more concise.

This is not a showmanship that Xue Huan doesn't want to wear, but the design of this Chinese costume is originally based on simplicity, and in addition to the nobles with knighthoods, they can add medals and accessories on the clothes. Ordinary civil officials were unadorned all over their bodies, with pure black Chinese clothes and a pair of leather shoes that were also black. This is the whole body of the high-ranking officials of the Chinese army.

It's not like those foreigners, and they will wear a top hat. Take a staff of civilization and a small handkerchief on your chest......

"Ministers welcome the emperor!" As he spoke, the men began to bow and salute.

"Well, you Aiqing have worked hard!" said so, but he only nodded slightly, and he didn't even raise his hand, let alone run up and say that you were too polite.

Lin Zhe's demeanor did not disagree with many people, in their opinion, Lin Zhe's appearance is the attitude that an emperor should have.

Xue Huan also stepped forward at this time and said, "Your Majesty." The car and the palace are ready! ”

Lin Zhe obviously didn't put his interest in the palace or the carriage, he came all the way to Jiangyin and didn't come for a vacation, he came to inspect the army and inspect the Jiangyin Fort, so he only listened to him: "It's still early, don't worry, let's go see the fort first!" ”

Although Xue Huan was a little surprised to hear Lin Zhe say this, he had also followed Lin Zhe for several years and had some understanding of Lin Zhe's temper. This emperor is not a mediocre monarch who eats and waits for death in peacetime, but a person who has built a huge empire from scratch and has built a huge empire empty-handed, and it is expected that he will inspect the fort as soon as he arrives in Jiangyin.

But he didn't speak. Because although Xue Huan is responsible for the palace and other affairs, things such as the fort and the review of the army are the responsibility of the military, and he has no right to take care of it.

Immediately, Shi Qingxuan stepped forward and said, "Obey Your Majesty's will!" ”

Immediately, he took two steps back. whispered a few words to a colonel beside him, and then the colonel trotted out. It didn't take long to see the soldiers who greeted them on the periphery already starting one after another, and they were about to set off in advance to open the way.

And Lin Zhe also got into the prepared four-wheeled carriage at this time. The rest of the generals all rode their own horses to follow, those civil officials who boasted that they could also follow on horseback, and some older or non-horse-riding people would not follow on foot stupidly, and they also got into a few carriages behind, and a few people crowded into a carriage to accompany them.

On both sides of the avenue, there is a soldier standing guard at intervals of several meters, which is not to ensure safety or anything like that, because the military has already driven away all the people nearby, and now the Jiangyin Fortress and the Navy Pier are a pure military camp, and there are no ordinary people, and the reason why they line up is because of the etiquette and rules.

You must know that the officials of the Ministry of Education sent officials to formulate relevant etiquette specifications before Lin Zhe traveled, including what color Lin Zhe was in in the carriage, what the interior was, how many horses were needed to pull it, what color these horses had to be, and then how many people should be greeted along the way, what specifications the temporary palace was, and the specifications on the diet were all detailed regulations, and they could not be messed around.

As the Chinese Empire has been established for a longer and longer time, these superficial procedural things have also made these officials more and more concerned, and the officials in charge of etiquette affairs in the Ministry of Education care more about these things than Lin Zhe.

As for why this situation occurs, it is mainly influenced by traditional thinking, which can be described in six words, that is, 'respect the ancient system, still the classics', and strive to be impeccable in the etiquette of the Chinese Empire and the emperor Lin Zhe.

A lot of things don't mean that you can throw away if you don't want them, and a lot of things don't mean that you can get them if you want them, for example, last year, Lin Zhena's nine concubines, why wasn't it six or eight, not ten or twenty, it had to be nine, and even before the concubine, even the titles of the nine concubines had been formulated, just because the nine concubine system was an ancient system, "The Book of Rites? The record of "Dusk Yi" is the nine concubines, not the eight concubines and ten concubines.

Another example is the Imperial Palace, although the Imperial Palace was designed by Lin Zhe himself, the overall design style of the Chinese Palace is based on the contemporary popular Western Baroque and Rococo style, and there is also the traditional Jiangnan garden style in China.

But in the naming and some other details can still see a strong tradition, the most obvious is the Xinhua Hall in front of the Huabiao, Huabiao is the traditional palace decoration, the classic symbol of imperial power, and then the name of the gatehouse of the main gate is not anything else, it has to be the three words of the Chinese Gate, because this is also the tradition, the country name is the name of the main gate of the palace.

Accompanied by many military and political dignitaries, Lin Zhe had just arrived in Jiangyin, and he boarded the Jiangyin Fortress, which had just completed the main building. (To be continued......)