Chapter 37: The Clue of the Hard Sail

As early as the transformation of military ships, the wave-resistant design of Gangzi's ship did not increase the speed of the brig as much as the speed of the dhow.

Now the wave-resistant design has limited improvement in the speed of the Daifuku ship, and Gangzi has determined his own judgment, that is, the larger the volume and weight of the ship, the better the wave resistance of the ship itself, and the smaller the effect of the wave-resistant design on the speed of the hull.

It is no wonder that Britain has so many ship design masters, but there are no major achievements in the wave resistance of ships. That's because the masters are all studying the first, second and third class warships, and the size and weight of these big ships have already provided them with good wave resistance, and it is difficult for the masters of these ships to give birth to the feeling of the hull to resist the waves. Other ship designers, firstly, have limited skills, and secondly, they do not put too much effort into the dhow, which is a hull that is greatly affected by wind and waves.

Gangzi's complete ship wave resistance technology obtained from the Black Pearl made him finally unable to carry out this kind of technological transformation that bordered on cheating after he achieved the success of the high-speed dhow battleship and the Dahan V-class battleship.

The transformation of the Daifuku ship caused Gangzi to encounter a bottleneck, and if it was through conventional means, with the level of his senior ship designer, I am afraid that it would not be possible to do the transformation of the hard-sail battleship that the master ship designer could not complete.

Gangzi, who had written a little about Jiang Lang's talents, had to redevote himself to the vast information of the hard sailing ship. However, the materials collected by Cui Shi are too complicated, and it takes a lot of manpower to identify the authenticity, not to mention what he may want to know.

In comparison, the books sent by Wei Yu are much more real. It's just that most of the books in it are books on navigation and naval warfare, and some of them are coastal customs and logbooks, and there are no books on ship construction in it.

The fundamental reason for the lack of ship design books for hard sailing ships is that the inheritance of hard sailing ship construction is all passed down by word of mouth from master and apprentice, and there are no manuscripts for popularization, which means that the design of hard sailing ships has gained great secrecy. It's also called more likely to be lost. In addition, Gangzi judged that all the previous hard-sail warships should be modified ships, and if it is a general-purpose warship, the hull design needs to be certified by the Ship Design Association, so that it is a public design, and there is no problem of loss.

Just like Gangzi's high-speed dhow, if no one studies the wave-resistant design of the dhow, the high-speed dhow is exclusively owned by Gangzi, and if Gangzi doesn't play this game in the future, the high-speed dhow will be lost.

Since the previous hard-sail battleships were all modified ships. The reason for this may be the secrecy of the design, but the other possibility is that the modified materials are special, and the ships modified with special materials cannot be certified as general-purpose vessels.

In the past, Gangzi always tried to find a way to design the hull, but the fundamental problem affecting the speed of the Daifuku ship was the lack of power, and the transformation of the hull alone seemed to be unworkable.

Gangzi flipped through a lot of information and soon noticed a detail.

Wei Yu has always dealt with the sea since his ancestors, many of them are captains of warships, and there is even a general named Wei Liangguan Zhihuwei who commands a giant treasure ship. It is in the documents left behind by this general Huwei. Gangzi discovers that he has repeatedly traveled deep into the Pacific Ocean to deliver goods to a place called Ash Island.

It's a giant treasure ship! The things that are transported in giant treasure ships are either precious or require extreme secrecy. However, seeing that Wei Liang often goes to Jizhi Island, and returns with a full load every time, presumably this cargo should not be considered too precious. It's just that Wei Liang didn't say a word about what goods were transported. It makes this cargo even more mysterious.

In addition, Wei Liang's logbook has always been very detailed, but when it came to the delivery of this kind of cargo, his navigation record did not appear since he passed through the Ryukyu Islands, and it seems that the location of this material was also kept strictly secret.

What the hell is Wei Liang transporting?

I was helpless against the Daifuku ship. Gangzi, who wanted to find something to do, studied Wei Liang's logbook a few times again, and these materials were so secret that they should be a specialty of Ash Island, and they were of great use to the previous dynasty and needed to use a giant treasure ship to transport them. Then it will definitely be worth a lot of money.

Brother just likes gold coins.

In order to enjoy the fun of making money, Gangzi reappeared as he checked more carefully. First, judging from the fact that the time of the round trip to and from the Ryukyu Islands in the Eria navigation record is about the same, it can be judged that the materials hit by the giant treasure ship should be large in size but extremely light in weight; Every time Wei Liang came back with this batch of materials, he had to go to Donglai Shipyard to unload the goods, and then enter the berth of the military port, which is likely to be related to shipbuilding.

The most important thing is that Gangzi found a bookmark in one of Wei Liang's logbooks.

Look at the texture of the material should be bamboo, but the whole body of fire red is extremely rare, Gangzi showed this bookmark to Cui Shi, the well-informed Cui Shi can't say what kind of bamboo will grow into such a color. And what attracts Gangzi is not the color of this bamboo, but its weight and hardness. The paper-thin bamboo bookmark is weightless in your hand, and it is as hard as a piece of iron.

This is simply the best material for making a large hard sail!

For this reason, Gangzi deliberately went to Chang'an, the imperial city of the Han Dynasty, and was able to enter the Hanlin Academy by virtue of the identity of the Admiral of the Jimo Navy, and then opened the way with the handicrafts of the elves, and saw the Dr. of the Hanlin Academy with a green light all the way.

The doctor, whose beard has been completely white, squinted at his presbyopia, and looked at it carefully: "This thing is called firewood, likes red and high temperatures, grows mostly around volcanoes that are in a state of eruption all year round, is not afraid of fire, is not afraid of water invasion, is as strong as steel, light into the feathers, often play can raise kidney fire, there are a lot of things in the front of the court, the old people use it as a crutch, light and convenient and have the effect of health preservation." It's just that the origin of this bamboo is not known now, and it is difficult to see it again. ”

The doctor of the Hanlin Academy didn't know the origin of this bamboo, so it would be difficult to find, and Gangzi continued to ask: "Does the doctor know how tall this thing can grow?" Can it be used to make sails for fortune ships? ”

The doctor thought for a moment and said, "As for how tall the bamboo can grow, it's not clear, there weren't too many books about the bamboo left in the previous dynasty, as for making sails?" A few years ago, someone found a batch of branches and leaves of fireflies in a former abandoned naval shipyard warehouse, although most of them have decayed for a long time, but the remnants were made into small objects by the man and sold around to make a fortune, so it can be seen that the firecracks must have been used in the construction of ships, as for whether they were used to make sails there is nothing to verify. ”

Although I didn't ask about the specific origin of the bamboo, I learned about the environment in which the bamboo grows, and it was already a big harvest. Presented with a wood-carved pen holder produced by the elf, Gangzi was enthusiastically held by the old doctor and left the Hanlin Academy.

At this point, Gangzi has been eighty percent sure that the secret material that Wei Liang transported into the Pacific Ocean is firecrackers.

There are no volcanoes in Dahan that erupt all the time, but this kind of landform is common in the sea, and there are a large number of such volcanoes in the Applegas Islands, and there must be many such landforms in the Pacific Ocean. The previous dynasty must have mastered the place where a large number of firecrackers grow, so there were a large number of hard-sailed warships, and a large number of firecrackers and leaves would also flow to the people.

The Great War at the end of the former dynasty resulted in the loss of the location of the Ash Island, an important timber source for the manufacture of hard-sailed warships, and the loss of the design of the battleship, resulting in the fact that today's Han can only re-learn the manufacture of soft-sail warships.

If Gangzi wants to call the hard-sail battleship to re-enter the ocean, he must find the firewood.

Therefore, the Jimo fleet entered the Pacific Ocean collectively for the first time, and Gangzi's purpose was very clear.

According to the course route and sailing time recorded by Wei Liang before transporting the firecrackers into the Pacific Ocean, Gangzi calculated the sailing speed of Wei Liang driving the giant treasure ship with no load and full load, and calculated the position that Wei Liang could reach according to the time when Wei Liang's navigation record was missing, and drew a long arc on the chart of the Pacific Ocean. The area of frequent human activity was removed, and then the possible location of the ash island was determined by correcting the possible time of Wei Liang's stay on the ash island and the effect of wind and waves on the speed of the ship.

Looking at the large sea area circled on the chart, comparing the area of the Pacific Ocean, it is really a huge project to find the ash island.

However, this time Gangzi was not looking for the undead ship on the Emerald Ocean, he was alone in a boat at that time, and this time he brought a fleet of whole ships.

"The sea area that the various fleets are responsible for exploring, I think you all know that our primary purpose in entering the Pacific Ocean this time is to find the ash island, which is characterized by an eruptive volcanic island, and there are fiery red bamboos on the island, so that your subordinates will keep their eyes open. For the quest to find Ash Island, I have given a quest to all the players at sea in the ASEAN, and the reward is a brig. And the reward within our fleet is the command of a three-masted battleship. ”

Hearing that the internal reward of the fleet is the command of a three-masted battleship, all the people can't sit still, and now the commanders of the four three-masted battleships inside the fleet are all NPCs, and this will be the captain of the first player three-masted battleship in the Jimo fleet.

This is not only the attraction of the combat effectiveness of a three-masted battleship to players, but also the players of the Jimo fleet have felt the status of the Jimo fleet in the navies of the Han Dynasty through the Hangzhou military parade. The captain of the NPC three-masted battleship is an NPC after all, but the captain of the player three-masted battleship is different, the first three-masted battleship player captain of the Jimo fleet, in the eyes of outsiders, is the first person under the gangzi.

This represents honor as well as power. (To be continued......)