Chapter 42: The Marauders

Big Boss Yang didn't take over his territory now, in which case he would have been crushed by the esteemed Sheikh, who returned to London with all his formalities and dressed in Pashaluk's gown, like a kindergarten kid showing off his new toys.

A large white cloth wrapped around his head, with a bird feather inserted on it, a white coat painted with gold and silver, a golden belt around his waist, a small golden scimitar across his navel, a scepter with two handfuls of horsehair in one hand, and a veiled Ottoman girl in the other, made his friends who came up to greet him on the dock drop their jaws.

In the next few days, Yang Feng Pasha dressed in his full suit, with the little slave girl rewarded to him by His Majesty the Ottoman Emperor, and swaggered in London for a while, making the news of his appointment as Governor of Kuwait known to all Europe, his goal was to make the common people of Europe form a deep-rooted impression of this, and the respected scientist, writer, entrepreneur, and medical scientist Mr. Yang Feng, had been appointed as a Pasha by the Ottoman Emperor, and was rewarded with his own domain.

In this way, if you rob Kuwait in the future, it will become a matter of safeguarding your own legitimate rights and interests in public opinion, and your own territory will be encroached upon by another tribe, and you must not beat him, anyway, ordinary people will definitely not know what is wrong with it.

After showing off enough, it's time to get down to business, first of all, his cruiser was completed, this armored cruiser comparable to an unprotected cruiser, according to his requirements, did not engage in any delivery ceremony or anything, even the sea trials were selected to be carried out in the uninhabited open sea, 15,000 horsepower drove 3,100 tons of displacement, easily broke through 27 knots on the open sea, and after strong pressure ventilation, the power soared to more than 20,000 horsepower, and the speed was close to 30 knots, and even the Nautilus next to it was able to catch up.

This speed made Yang Feng very satisfied, he had already calculated that even after adding the alloy armor and the 130 cannon, the total displacement would not exceed 4,000 tons, so that the speed would be enough to surpass Yoshino.

After the cruiser completed the sea trials, it didn't even go back to the Armstrong shipyard, but sailed directly to Gothenburg, and then it will be equipped with external waterline armor and Zhongyang armor, as for the dome armor inside, this is actually not a big deal, in order to reduce the weight, he is not ready to add, anyway, there is external waterline armor, at this time, there can be no vertical attack falling from the top of the head, and the line of defense inside the stomach does not make much sense.

Because he was very dissatisfied with the performance of Armstrong's 152 rapid-fire gun, Yang Feng later canceled his front and rear twin main guns, but like the side guns, they all reserved rotating gun positions, so they also needed to add a 130 cannon next, as for the turret, you can add it yourself after this is done, so that in fact, this cruiser will all use the same caliber main gun, two front and rear, five single-mounted guns on the side side, using a semi-open turret, a total of fourteen 130 cannons, as for the secondary gun, it is naturally a double three-seven anti-aircraft gun, This modern artillery, after using shells made in this era, still has a range of more than seven kilometers, which is practically comparable to the main guns of battleships, and no more, six on this cruiser is enough, and a semi-open turret is also used.

After sending his cruiser away, Yang Feng then went to visit the three 500-ton diesel destroyers under construction, two of the three belong to the Yang shipyard, and at the same time as the construction of Yang Feng's own design began, the other two high-speed destroyers designed by Yang Feng also started construction in Sweden, and his two were completely built according to the shape of World War II, and began to apply a large number of welding technology, if the two ships of the Armstrong shipyard can exceed 35 knots, then it is estimated that those two will exceed 38 knots.

After visiting the destroyer, he then presented Armstrong with a problem, he had to ask the Armstrong shipyard to build him six new merchant ships, flat-bottomed merchant ships, within a year and a half, and the speed could not be less than 20 knots.

"This is impossible Mr. Yang, a 3,000-ton inland river flat-bottomed boat, even with two diesel engines, it is absolutely impossible to exceed fifteen knots." Woolf tried hard to persuade the guy to dispel his crazy thoughts.

"Then add three, more than 20,000 horsepower should be enough, right?" Yang Feng said dissatisfied.

"That's possible, but there will be a lot of trouble for this kind of merchant ship to sail at such speeds, and there has never been a flat-bottomed ship of more than fifteen knots, and even we don't know what will go wrong." Woolf said.

"In that case, I'll provide the drawings, and you just need to build according to the drawings." Yang Feng thought for a while and said, he still has a full set of ocean-going landing ship design drawings in his computer, it is really not good to cheap these guys, it was still prepared for landing on Jiuzhou Island, but the size is not so big, it is also two 7,000-horsepower diesel engines, but the total tonnage is a little more than 2,000, and the speed can only reach eighteen knots.

Since he said so, then Woolf has nothing to say, now Yang Feng has to serve well, he can do whatever he wants, if the three destroyers that are about to be launched can really reach a high speed of thirty-five knots, then this Chinese will become the target of all powers, countless shipyards will compete to find him to cooperate, Armstrong shipyard wants not to lose the future, then it must tie itself and Yang Power Systems together.

However, the drawings that Yang Feng got back still made Woolf startled, he was not a fool, this thing was not a merchant ship at first glance, this was obviously a large troop carrier used in inland waterways, combined with Yang Feng's requirements for ocean voyages, it was not difficult to guess the purpose of these six ships.

In particular, the special design of the pressurized water tank on the ship is even more weird.

"This is a merchant ship, and I say a merchant ship it is a merchant ship." Yang Feng said in an unquestionable tone.

Well, he said that a merchant ship is a merchant ship. Woolf smiled and nodded, even why the merchant ship had to reserve four gun positions, and the interior was divided into three decks, and there was a large openable springboard at the front end, so he didn't need to ask more, anyway, this kind of ship construction is not difficult, it is nothing more than a large iron cabinet with a power system, although the construction period of a year and a half is a little tighter, but it is not a big deal for Armstrong.

After the landing ship was determined, Yang Feng set off for Sweden, because the Nautilus was needed to transport armor plates, so this time he drove alone, and after arriving in Gothenburg, he loaded hundreds of tons of steel plates at night before entering the port, these steel plates were pre-cut, and they could be riveted directly after arriving here, but even so, it also tossed his shipyard workers too lightly, too hard, and there was not even a drill bit that could be drilled into, Yang Feng had to give them a special tungsten alloy drill bit.

At the same time as the steel plates were installed, the artillery also began to be installed, and the whole project took two full months to complete under his personal auspices, everything was loaded, even the two yellow dragons in the bow were loaded, and the armored cruiser finally sailed to the sea in a complete state, the displacement soared to 3,800 tons, and the speed was reduced to 24 knots at the fastest under normal circumstances, and a little more than 27 knots after strong pressure ventilation, which can be said to be enough.

In addition to the speed but also tested the artillery, after the use of shells made by Bofors, the maximum range of the 130 cannon dropped to 15 kilometers, although the drop was great, but in this era it was still invincible, in fact, it was to get World War II, this caliber, this range is also very good, because of the arrangement of a large number of side guns, so that when the side of the gun, nine guns can be used at a time, plus the rate of fire and range advantages, it is enough to abuse Yoshino and Naniwa.

Satisfied Boss Yang once again named the cruiser with his most vulgar name, and the three Marauders in Chinese characters made of pure gold were firmly embedded in the hull.

Just when the cruiser was refitted, Miss Seven-Five and the torpedo of Bofors were finally completed, of course, this kind of completion was not really completed, because some parts had to be supplied with beautiful heads, especially steam gas torpedoes, almost more than a third of which had to rely on beautiful heads.

The Bofors version of Miss Seventy-Five, the firing range can already reach seven kilometers, and the rate of fire can reach fifteen rounds per minute, this number is very terrifying, several times faster than the best Krupp 75 Elements Battalion gun now, and the firing range is also farther than it, but the weight is almost the same, it can be said that it is simply an epoch-making miracle, and the success of this artillery has almost plunged the engineers of Bofors into a carnival.

In the past, selling pistols and rifles could only be said to have made Bofors a good business, but with this artillery, it can almost be said that it has become the king of the arms industry.

As for the steam gas torpedo, this one can almost be said to be jaw-dropping, operated by Boss Yang himself, a torpedo fired from the torpedo tube mounted on the deck of the Nautilus, accurately hit the Marauder that was sailing at high speed four kilometers away, of course, this torpedo was uncharged.

Everyone was stupid at this moment, such a range, such a speed, such a hit rate, all of them can be called anti-heaven, you can imagine what a huge impact the appearance of this torpedo will have on naval warfare, of course, the most important thing is what a huge fortune it will bring to the Bofors company, as for poor Mr. William White, it is estimated that he will go bankrupt.

This result had already been expected by Yang Feng, so he didn't show much excitement, in fact, this thing was now looking at the east with greedy eyes, and as soon as he was ready, it was time for him to fulfill the sacred duty entrusted to him by His Majesty the Ottoman Emperor.

Go with a cannon to fulfill.