After these days of grinding with ears and temples, the relationship between the Xia family sisters and Fang Xiaoyu has become very close, and when she was leaving, Xia Tingyun still made a fuss about accompanying Fang Xiaoyu to travel to the Western Continent. Fang Xiaoyu was so good at talking that he made countless wishes before he got out.

When Fang Xiaoyu rode on his horse, he was really relieved. Fang Xiaoyu slowly rode forward, and suddenly a rider quickly rushed away from him, Fang Xiaoyu looked at it and found that the person who came was a blonde woman, she was wearing a beautiful riding suit, with a wide-brimmed hat, two revolvers and a thin sword pinned to her waist, and when she walked into Fang Xiaoyu, she found that it was Elena.

Elena raised her head, looked at Fang Xiaoyu and smiled slightly, "I'm sorry, something has delayed on the road." The smile on Elena's beautiful face made Fang Xiaoyu stunned, he quickly lowered his head, and the female elf of the secret path was indeed the existence of the country and the people. After calming down a little, Fang Xiaoyu raised his head and said, "It's okay, we have plenty of time, we can slowly travel and walk." ”

On this trip, Fang Xiaoyu can be regarded as having invested enough. Not only did he bring a hundred Iron Blood Guards, but also Liu Junxi, who had just returned, Wu Yu and some of his men from the trading house also accompanied him, and he also asked people to transport 100 tons of orchid sugar and 50 tons of glass beads to Quanzhou Port in Quanzhou Prefecture, Jiuhua County, in advance, planning to bring a batch of goods to the Western Continent to open up the market.

Fang Xiaoyu, who was already accustomed to riding a horse, traveled all the way to the mountains and rivers, and with Elena, a big beauty, by his side, Fang Xiaoyu had the most leisurely days, playing in the mountains and rivers all the way, and the team stopped and stopped, and it took a whole month to arrive at Quanzhou Port.

As soon as he arrived at Quanzhou Port, Fang Xiaoyu was shocked by the liveliness and scale here. Quanzhou Port is different from the cities in the mainland, it is full of brick houses, the streets and alleys are full of busy people, and the huge port made entirely of stone is divided into two parts, one part is the military port, which is located in a place surrounded by mountains and can not be easily seen by ordinary people.

The other part is the commercial port, which is full of ships that are unloading, crowded sailors and dock workers everywhere, unloading cargo ships one after another, and its liveliness is far from being comparable to those commercial streets in the capital, but Fang Xiaoyu found that most of the merchant ships here are sailing ships, and he estimated that the largest ship is about a thousand tons of displacement.

Fang Xiaoyu's goods had already arrived, but he still had to hire a ship to carry the goods and prepare food and water, which would take a few days, so Fang Xiaoyu had to stay first. There was nothing to do, Fang Xiaoyu took Elena to the city, with a master like Elena to protect him, Liu Junxi was also more relieved, and he was not sending other guards.

Fang Xiaoyu walked on the street with such a beautiful woman as Elena, and felt indescribably comfortable. It's a pity that Elena strictly plays the role of a bodyguard. She was looking around at the situation all the time, her whole body was tense like a leopard about to jump out, and her face was also covered with a layer of frost, and she couldn't see any smile, which made Fang Xiaoyu's interest in shopping with beauty reduced a lot.

While Fang Xiaoyu and the two were wandering around, a young man wearing the military uniform of a second lieutenant of the Lanfang Empire came over, and when he saw Fang Xiaoyu wearing civilian clothes, he tried to ask, "Is this Colonel Fang Xiaoyu?" Fang Xiaoyu nodded: "Yes, I am." The second lieutenant immediately saluted, "Hello, sir. I was ordered to pick you up. ”

"Pick me up?" Fang Xiaoyu was a little strange, he didn't have any acquaintances here, how could someone come to pick him up. Fang Xiaoyu asked, "Who sent you?" The second lieutenant said, "Marshal Xiahou sent me, and he is waiting for you at the military port." ”

After listening to what the second lieutenant said about Marshal Xiahou, of course Fang Xiaoyu would not think that it was Field Marshal Xiahou Feng, at this time, Xiahou Feng was still far away in the capital, and it was impossible to leave casually, and if Xiahou Feng had something, he would definitely let his adjutant come, and would not find a stranger wearing a navy uniform. Judging the answer in this way, the person who is looking for him must be Xiahou Min, the commander of the Lanfang Empire's navy, who is the two major military pillars of the Xiahou family with Xiahou Feng.

Since it was summoned by the marshal, even if the military branches were different and they did not belong to each other, Fang Xiaoyu did not dare to slack off, he waved his hand and said, "Lead the way ahead." Fang Xiaoyu and the second lieutenant got into an accompanying carriage together.

The military port is not far from the port of Quanzhou, bypassing a hill, and the large-scale military port is displayed in front of you, which is one of several important military ports on the eastern coast of the Lanfang Empire, and is also the home port of the first naval fleet of the Lanfang Empire. At this time, there were large and small warships moored in the port, and Fang Xiaoyu had hundreds of them.

The carriage drove along the road near the dock to the headquarters station, and when it was about to reach the headquarters, Fang Xiaoyu was suddenly attracted by a warship docked not far away, and he quickly said to the coachman: "Stop first." The coachman stopped as he said, Fang Xiaoyu jumped out of the carriage and walked towards the warship, and Elena also got out of the carriage and followed closely behind him.

Walking closer, Fang Xiaoyu saw the whole picture of this warship. This is an ironclad ship with a waist gun room design, the displacement should be about fifteen hundred tons, there are no paddlewheels on either side of the hull, and the ship should be propeller-pushed.

Fang Xiaoyu said to the second lieutenant, "Can I get on this ship and have a look?" Before the second lieutenant could answer, a soft voice said, "I didn't expect that Colonel Fang Xiaoyu, a new star in the army, was actually interested in the navy?" Fang Xiaoyu turned his head and found a very elegant officer about forty years old standing behind him.

When the little man saw the coming, he immediately saluted and said, "Report to the marshal, Colonel Fang Xiaoyu has arrived." Marshal Xiahou Min waved his hand to let the second lieutenant retreat, and then smiled at Fang Xiaoyu: "My fourth brother has always admired you very much, and I think you are a rare talent, so I heard that you are coming, so I sent someone to invite you." ”

Fang Xiaoyu said: "Where is the marshal, I should have come to visit the marshal first, but I just arrived today, and there are still many things to pack, I planned to come again tomorrow, but I didn't expect the marshal to send someone first." Xiahou Min smiled and said: "You and I belong to the navy and the army, there is no distinction between superiors and subordinates, and there is no need to be so polite, if you want to visit my flagship, I will accompany you." ”

After speaking, he glanced at Elena behind Fang Xiaoyu and asked, "This is ......" Fang Xiaoyu smiled: "This is my personal bodyguard, Elena." Xiahou Min glanced at the two revolvers that Elena was carrying around her waist like a western cowboy, and said playfully: "This name is not very common in the Eastern Continent, since it is your bodyguard, let's come in together." ”

While walking into the ironclad ship Xiahou Min, he introduced: "You really have vision, and you fell in love with my flagship as soon as you came." The ship, called Quanzhou, was built at the Armstrong shipyard in the Sahr Empire and entered service just last month. However, what we bought was not a new ship, it was the main warship of the Royal Navy of the Saar Empire in service, so it was relatively cheap, and it only cost three million yuan. ”

Fang Xiaoyu touched the bulkhead and said, "The wooden hull is covered with steel plates, and the thickness of the steel plates should not exceed fifteen millimeters." Xiahou Min nodded: "Yes, it's a fifteen-millimeter steel plate, I didn't expect you to be so good." "In fact, Fang Xiaoyu let Xiaofeng start a detailed scan from the first time he got on the ship, these data were scanned by Xiaofeng, and the most surprising thing for Fang Xiaoyu was that this ship used a reciprocating steam engine, and direct scanning could allow Fang Xiaoyu to understand the structure of this steam engine very intuitively, saving a lot of research points and time.

The three of them walked up to the deck side by side, Fang Xiaoyu looked at the gun room and said, "The caliber of these guns is not small, but the rate of fire should not be fast." Xiahou Min said: "Yes, the two main guns of this ship are 254 mm caliber, and there are also four 125 mm guns and two 57 mm guns, these guns are all rear-loading guns imported from the Western Continent, which are much more advanced than the front-loading guns used by our army." In addition, we have four machine guns, which can be very exciting. ”

"Cannons? Could it be a machine gun? Fang Xiaoyu was secretly shocked in his heart, he had just paid attention to the steam engine, and he didn't care about the weapon, at this time he inquired before he breathed a sigh of relief, it was a hand-cranked mechanical machine gun, the rate of fire should not exceed two hundred rounds per minute, and it was extremely bulky, it was okay for the navy, if it was used by the army, it was not much easier to carry it than with artillery.

Fang Xiaoyu asked, "Marshal Xiahou, how many such ironclad ships do we have in the navy of the Lanfang Empire?" "How many?" Marshal Xiahou Min said: "The military expenditure of our navy is not much, that is, about 13 million a year, but our navy has 40,000 people to eat and live, and there are more than 500 warships that need to be maintained, and there is not much money left every year. ”

A word to readers:

Two shifts today