Five days passed quickly.

The trade route between the Sword Bearer's territory and Longwan Village has been running at high load, with transport ships constantly transporting weapons and equipment and various supplies to the Sang Lai Country, and the transport wagons and teak sold by the Sang Lai Kingdom have also continued to transport back to the territory, and both sides have obtained much-needed supplies from the trade.

With the support of Lu Cheng's continuous blood transfusion, Skull Castle was also promoted to a level 1 village yesterday, and of course, at this time, the sword bearer was also successfully promoted to a level 3 village due to the prosperity of a large number of trades, and the population limit was also raised to 14,000 people.

With the completion and operation of the Skull Fort Wharf, the shipping route between the sword holder and the Skull Fort was officially opened, and the blood transfusion was strengthened, and under the repeated urging of Leah, the large dry dock and supporting facilities in the Skull Fort Military District were also officially started, of course, the gap in funds is still very huge, although the gold produced by Skull Fort is very valuable, but Sang Laiguo does not need it, so it also needs to find other channels for sales.

After learning that they needed to send someone to help build the Galen-class battleship, Sang Laiguo secretly sent a senior naval captain to a transport ship of Lu Cheng, and safely arrived at Lu Cheng's territory without the help of this senior captain, Alice's Galen-class battleship improvement plan is advancing rapidly, and it is expected that the next batch will be able to adopt the improved plan.

At this moment, Lu Cheng and all the senior members of the territory were standing on the dock next to the north dock, watching a Calais-class battleship that was several circles larger than ordinary transport ships enter the water.

The workers of the shipyard first removed all the construction supports, and then after removing all the fixed pillars, the ship began to slowly slide into the sea along the track of the slipway, because the butt was facing the sea when it was built, so the stern entered the water first, and after a huge wave, the lead ship of the Calais-class battleship successfully entered the water, and the transport ship that built around the slipway quickly surrounded it, and dragged the battleship to the dock, and dozens of seafarers climbed up and down and were busy for a while to tie all the cables of the battleship to the mooring posts of the dock.

"Ahhh Leah pointed to the pier that the seafarers had built.

For safety reasons, the cannon will not be installed before the battleship is launched, so only the reserved gun holes are left on the entire weapon deck, and the cannon will be installed in place after the ship is launched.

Compared with the ships used for transportation, the cabins of the battleship are set up very much, so they are much stronger in terms of strike resistance and sinking resistance, and the weapons compartment is on the second deck, and each side of the ship can be equipped with 8 100mm guns, and there are 4 60mm mortars in the bow and stern of the upper deck, and the attack capability is still relatively powerful.

Ian: "My lord, the guns of the two warships have been manufactured, and the installation work will begin immediately. ”

There was another Calais-class battleship in the South Dockyard that was also launched at about the same time, and for the first time the territory had a battleship, and it was still two.

Lu Cheng found Alice and asked, "Alice, since the Galen-class battleship can be upgraded and improved, can the Calais-class also be upgraded and improved?" ”

Alice had thought about this question for a long time, so she replied very simply: "You can upgrade, but if we have a Galen-class battleship, it is not cost-effective to upgrade the Calais class, because the upgraded Calais class is not as good as the original version of the Galen class, and the cost of upgrading the Calais class is not much cheaper than the original version of the Galen class, so I suggest that the Calais class does not need to be improved." ”

I see, Lu Cheng bowed slightly to show that he understood.

The cost of each Calais class is about 8000 gold coins, which is only half of the cost of the Galen class, but the main guns carried by the 2 Calais-class warships have reached 32, which is half more than the 20 guns of the 1 Galais-class, although the power is different, but the number of guns in the operation is also a very important indicator, and the Calais class only needs a junior captain who can train in batches, which is very suitable for large-scale construction as a low-grade matching ship of the Galen-class, referred to as cannon fodder.

Therefore, Lu Cheng ordered to continue to build Calais-class warships in the two docks in the north and south, and before a large number of mid-level captains were trained, the Calais-class would serve as the mainstay of the navy.

A day later, under the overtime work of a group of installation teams led by Ian, all the weapons on the Calais-class battleship were installed in place, and the crew of 188 people was all on board to familiarize themselves with their battleship, and the Calais-class battleship could carry 120 tons, that is, 4800 groups of materials, in addition to the necessary weapons, ammunition and supplies, for the next expedition, Lu Cheng arranged a 100-person elite militia to board the ship.

"My lord, the battleship has been prepared, please instruct." Captain Lu Nan respectfully asked Lu Cheng for instructions.

Lu Cheng nodded: "Set sail, first go to the open sea to experiment with weapons and equipment." ”

"Yes! Set sail! Reel in the cable, mainsail quarter, course XXX, watch the current! ”

Lu Nan was one of the first trained captains in the territory, and after running many trade routes in the Sang Lai Kingdom, he grew very rapidly, and after comparing the speed at which several captains gained experience, it was expected that he would be the first person to be promoted to a mid-level captain, so Lu Cheng chose him as the captain of the first Calais-class battleship.

The sail ship out of the port is a tedious job, because of the wind direction, wind force and current, the operation of the warship is more difficult, after a slight bump on the dock many times before leaving the dock and heading towards the open sea, whether it is the captain or the crew, it also needs continuous training to better play the performance of the warship.

There are also changes in the season and weather in the game, at this time the sea is relatively calm, and the wind speed is relatively slow, Lu Nan has put down all the sails, the speed is still not high, and he can faintly see the coastline in the distance after driving slowly for nearly half an hour.

"It's almost the distance, Lu Nan, let's conduct a weapon experiment." Lu Cheng looked back and commanded.

"Yes!" The leader of Lu Nanjaw ordered, "Give a level 1 battle order!" The observer pays attention to the sea situation, the helmsman locks the course XXX, opens the starboard gun door, and the fire organ gives the command to reload! ”

"Observers report good visibility on the sea, no other vessels in visual range!"

"Helmsman report: locked course XXX, speed 5 knots, normal steering."

"The starboard observer reports: the starboard gun door is opened one by one, and the gun door is opened, and there is no abnormality."

"Fire organ report: all 8 guns on the starboard side have been loaded, please indicate the target!"

......

With Lu Nan's instructions, the whole battleship was busy, the sail crew on the upper deck was busy retracting the canvas, the helmsman was constantly adjusting the rudder position with the wind and water flow to maintain the course, and the busiest was the weapon deck below the upper deck, each gun was controlled by several crew members, and the firing procedure of the breech gun was extremely complicated, first it was necessary to clean the gun chamber with a special cleaning rod, and then load the cartridge and projectile in turn.

And all this needs to be done on a rocking ship, because of the lack of skill, many cannons have some small accidents in the loading process, such as not locking the cannon properly and causing the cannon to slide back and forth, such as the gunpowder bag and cannonball are reversed, such as the cannonball just stuffed in and then slips out, such as the fuse dead piston can't get in, and so on.

However, with some remedial efforts and the support of the port gun crew, all 8 guns were reloaded after a period of scrambling.

"Free firing at 5-second intervals!"

Lu Nan looked at Lu Cheng embarrassedly, it took a full ten minutes from the time the battle order was issued to the time when the artillery was all ready, if the enemy had already fired 2 rounds of shells on the battlefield.

Rumble~

Rumble~

......

With a nearer roar and billowing black smoke, eight guns lined up fired one after another.

"Observers reported that the shells landed at a distance of 1.8 km from starboard, and the shells were visually dispersed at a range of 600 meters."

An observer standing at the top of the mainmast reported.

The firing range of the 100mm cannon is a little shorter, and the dispersion of the shells is also extremely touching, but there are not many long-range shelling in this era, after all, everyone is at the level of half a catty and eight taels, and the hit depends on faith.

"Order the mortar group to fire freely to starboard!"

Rumble~

Rumble~

......

A total of 4 60mm mortars, arranged in the bow and stern, were also fired sequentially.

The mortar is only an auxiliary weapon of the Calais class, with a range of only about 500 meters, and the shells are all light, so they are far inferior to the main artillery in terms of range and power.

Lu Cheng nodded after watching the entire training process, he had expected such a result, each profession has a level, if a recruit can be the same as a veteran, what else does he need to do, although the training process this time is more embarrassing, but fortunately, each crew member has gained a certain amount of experience, as long as they continue to strengthen their training.

"Lu Nan, take advantage of the fact that we are at sea to arrange more training, don't worry about the consumption of training."

Lu Cheng patted Lu Nan's shoulder and said.

Lu Nan blushed a little and said, "Live up to the trust of the adults, I will train the crew well." ”

Players in the game want to expand their horizons must send troops to reconnoiter the map, Lu Cheng is currently just a part of the map of the island, and the nearby sea areas are still less known, although some information has been exchanged with Sang Lai country, but because Sang Lai country pays more attention to the sea areas in the west, and does not know much about the sea areas in the east direction, so the first step after Lu Cheng built the warship is to reconnoiter the situation in the eastern seas.

Messages from Otis and the bandit captives indicate that the territory may be invaded by pirates in the future, and that it is necessary to scout the terrain in advance just in case.

In fact, Lu Cheng is also more concerned about the group of pirates who helped the Kandi Kingdom, if these pirates also belong to the pirate king, then they may turn around at any time, and the artillery currently being urgently produced in the territory is enough for all warships, and the construction of coastal artillery positions is also imminent, after all, no matter how strong the army is, it is not the opponent of the navy.