The Mermaid ran at a speed of 18 knots driven by a 20-horsepower steam-powered engine, which no one could have imagined that the success of this trial voyage would increase Australia's future shipping capacity several times.

At the end of the trial voyage, the entire steam engine restoration team was commended and affirmed by Zhou Aiguo, chairman of the executive committee, and gave them the right to take a special vacation of two weeks, and was rewarded with 10,000 Spanish silver dollars and a villa per person.

In addition to vacations and cash incentives, villas can only be cashed out after they are built, and according to the intellectual property protection law, in order to encourage invention and creativity, the state will give major rewards, in fact, it is not an invention to be precise, but a copy of the original industrial machine.

For everyone, the success of the sea trial is only the first goal, the second target can only be regarded as a real warship if the ship is equipped with cannons, the predecessor of the Mermaid is an armed merchant ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, which is equipped with 6 24-pounder guns, 9 12-pounder guns, 27 barrels of gunpowder, and nearly 60 arquebuses, which can be fully matched with a lightly armed warship.

From the time when the Mermaid was captured, everyone felt that something was wrong when they counted the supplies on the ship, according to this period, the average armed merchant ship was at most equipped with a few trots and a dozen arquebuses, but such a powerful armed ration of the Mermaid was on a merchant ship, which had to make people start to doubt.

Therefore, in the second trade, the executive committee specially issued a task to Liu Yun, to find a way to obtain the information of the mermaid, after a few days of secret investigation, Liu Yun lived up to his expectations and finally obtained some relevant information about the mermaid.

The information in this is almost the same as what Adams had confessed, but there is one crucial piece of information in it, that there was a Dutch East India Company nobleman on board. As for who it was, whether it was a man or a woman, Liu Yun couldn't find out.

Adams went to Australia with such a powerful armament, in fact, it was not entirely just to investigate where the Australians' territory was, but also to shoulder the purpose of sneaking into Australian ports, but their luck was not good, they encountered a storm after sailing, and they were at sea for more than ten days, and in the case of a serious lack of fresh water and food supplies, they finally saw a piece of land but were arrested as soon as they landed.

Of course, all this, the governor of the Dutch East India Company, Van Dimen, did not know, although it had been several months since Adams and others had been sent back, but what he could think of was that Adams and others had definitely encountered a storm shipwreck at sea, and did not expect that they were captured by the old Australia, which can be seen from his reply to the senior management of the Dutch company to the nobleman who disappeared with the ship, and he mentioned in the letter that the ship might disappear in a storm.

The reason why he thinks so is not unfounded, according to his own monitoring and investigation of Australians, he has not found that Australia has always captured prisoners or anything, so he is so sure, but he doesn't know that one day Adams will come up to him, he will do so.

"Hi Mr. Adams, was yesterday's trial an eye-opener for you, did you have a feeling that the Mermaid had been magically run on its own without sails and oarsmen." Wang Annian held the hand of Anna, who had become his wife, and asked Adams, who came to participate in the test of the new artillery of the military industrial group with him, with a smile.

"Oh, Wang, to be honest, I was shocked by your Australian imagination, but the machine was so noisy, and some of it was a bit large, and it took up more than half of the bottom of the whole ship's cabin, and with the addition of those black coals, the whole bottom of the cabin could barely store goods, and in terms of transportation costs, it was very uneconomical."

Compared with the communication with Wang Tiehammer, Adams and Wang Annian were much more relaxed, and they didn't feel the uncomfortable pressure from each other, after all, Wang Tiehammer was a serious veteran before he crossed over, but the latter was not, plus the other party married the Dutch girl Anna, which made him feel that the other party was more cordial, and Wang Annian's Dutch language was very standard.

So when he was with him, he didn't have to slap the horse or anything at all, but said his thoughts without reservation, yesterday's trial voyage did have a great impact on him, but as an old sailor and captain, with decades of experience at sea, he immediately saw the problem, although the mermaid sailed faster, but the reserves of carrying goods were also less, which was definitely not cost-effective.

Adams is not the only one who found the problem, You Nanzhe and Wang Tiehammer also found it after the equipment was installed, but at that time the equipment had been built, and it would take a lot of effort to transform it into a smaller one, and it would take a lot of effort to add that this was just an experiment, so the problem of smaller cargo space was naturally ignored in the past, and it was left to be improved after all the successful sea trials.

"Haha, Adams, I think your worries are probably unnecessary, Chief Engineer Lin of the Ministry of Industry and the traveling workers of the shipyard have already found a solution to this problem, and today's naval gun experiment will also shock you."

"Oh, yes, so what are we waiting for, let's go."

At this time, the weapons test site of the military industrial group, several representatives of the military and representatives of the executive committee have arrived one after another, compared with yesterday's mermaid trial lively, the site of the military industrial team has always been one of the most important places in Manchester City, not only stored a number of electronic equipment that has been sealed since it came through, computers, mobile phones and some materials that are not currently manufactured and written by the memory of the people's minds, there have been two squads of soldiers stationed here for a long time to protect it.

There is actually another meaning for Adams to be brought here, Wang Tiehammer wants to recruit him into the Australian Navy, and as far as the current situation is concerned, the Navy is too short of experienced captains like him.

"Can we start, Commissioner Lin, everyone is here," Yang Guoping glanced at the representatives sent by the Executive Committee today, Lin Youde asked for instructions, for today's weapons test, the chairman of the Executive Committee and most people did not attend, after all, it is better to keep a little secret in the military industry, and there is no need to make such a big move to get more people's attention.

The cannon with a barrel length of nearly two and a half meters had been fixed on a stone seat at this time, and several soldiers selected from the army to test the cannon were already standing on both sides of the cannon.

According to the information of the military industrial group, this cannon is a light gun weighing 12 pounds, and the military industrial group has made some small improvements on the basis of the original smoothbore gun, in addition to lengthening the barrel, in order to shoot accurately, a small part of the muzzle has been made similar to rifled processing, but it is still only a smoothbore cannon cannon, not a rifled gun.

"Load, aim, ignite," an Army soldier commanded, shouting a standard command.

As the shell was fired, a puff of smoke and dust came out of the head of the barrel, and the wooden rake that was 1,600 meters away had already fallen with the shell at this time, and it had disappeared without a trace.

"Yes, the range is long and powerful," Lin Youde took the lead in applauding after speaking, and with a burst of applause, everyone watching also applauded to express their affirmation.

For receiving everyone's applause, everyone in the military industrial group showed a proud smile, and their efforts these days have not been in vain.