Zhang Zhongjun turned his gaze to the leader of Xiao Li, and the leader of Xiao Li nodded excitedly and said: "My lord, the deepest part of the Nanlin River is more than 8 meters! The depth of the place where we put the row is up to 5 meters!" The people on Zhang Zhongjun's side were all excited, because with this paddle steamer, they could go back to Nanlin Town directly, and the time would be several times shorter than taking the land route!

Zhang Zhongjun immediately stared at Luo Zhengrong with hot eyes: "Lord Luo, please introduce me to buy a paddle steamer with a draft depth of 3 meters!"

"Haha, no problem, although the cheapest of the paddle steamers cost more than five thousand taels of silver, but you can definitely afford it, my old Luo will definitely introduce you to the best shipyard, this is a trivial matter, now let's go and have a few drinks is a big deal!" Luo Zhengrong laughed.

Luo Zhengrong's words made Zhang Zhongjun understand why no one in Nanlin Town bought such a paddle steamer, for those businessmen, spending more than 5,000 taels of silver is to let the people who released the platoon rush back ten or twenty days in advance, and it is not much use in addition, and the ship that can go to Nanlin Town is definitely not much bigger, and it can't carry much cargo, so why waste this money? Isn't it saving money to directly recruit a group of people to continue to release the platoon?

Zhang Zhongjun does not have a businessman's mentality, he thinks that time is more important than money, as long as the paddle steamer needs not many people, he is ready to buy a few and bring it back.

In addition, looking at the prosperity of this Magong Town, the probability of obtaining treasures is much higher than in Heyuan Mansion, and in this Magong Town, it must be indispensable to rely on Luo Zhengrong, the local snake, to help, so Zhang Zhongjun is also ready to let go and drink Luo Zhengrong well!

After a night of carnival, they got up early the next day, and under the guidance of Luo Zhengrong, the group excitedly went to a shipyard by the sea in Magong Town.

After a polite exchange with the steward of this shipyard called Magong Shipyard, that is, the official shipyard, he was led to the dockyard to select the ship.

Facing the dense ships, Zhang Zhongjun's eyes lit up directly, and he pointed to one of the ships with a look of surprise and asked, "Steward Bian, is that a car and a ship?"

Hearing this, everyone stared at it, and sure enough, they saw a big ship with a strange shape. Because it is not in the water, but on a wooden frame, you can clearly see that there are four more rowing wheels on the side of the hull that are mostly covered by the hull.

"Master Zhang really understands boats, it is indeed a car and a boat, and there are four water wheels on both sides, in fact, it is just to replace the two big water wheels of the paddle steamer with eight small water wheels. Compared to paddle steamers, the speed of the car and ship is much faster. But this vehicle and ship belonged to warships, and could not be sold without the permission issued by the navy. Steward Bian said with a smile, not saying the price at all.

Zhang Zhongjun immediately hung his head, if it was other requirements, Zhang Zhongjun could also use his identity as an inspector to get a car and boat for the reason of patrolling the river bandits. But this must have the permission of the water army, then it will be no fun.

Because the navy system is different from the city guard army system that is available in all provinces and counties, only coastal cities have navy officials, and Ha Yuan province is in Quang Nam province, but it is a standard land city, and there is no collusion with the navy at all. If you want to get a car and a boat, you don't know when you will have the opportunity.

Of course, it was also because the boat was too big to drive on the inland river, so Zhang Zhongjun would give up easily.

Zhang Zhongjun, who was a little depressed, was led to a dock by Supervisor Bian, and the paddle steamer he saw on the dock before was divided into three types: large, medium and small.

"This is a paddle steamer built by our shipyard, the largest one is 20 zhang long, 3 zhang wide, three poles and nine sails, can hold 6,000 stones, because the two paddle wheels are relatively large, so they can only run at a depth of 5 meters. There are a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 50 people stepping on the wheel, and ideally, the maximum speed of the headwind can reach 20 miles per hour. And in the ideal state of smooth wind, the sail and the wheel can be activated, and each hour can reach up to 60 miles!"

Peng Quanwu, who was on the side, immediately shouted in surprise: "Doesn't this mean that it only takes five days for us to go back?!"

"Ideally, a person in a shift can step on the wheel with all his strength for an hour, which is amazing!" Zhang Zhongjun said angrily.

"As long as there are 50 wheel-steppers, it can reach 200 miles in an hour when the wind and water are against the wind. We've experimented with it. Steward Bian smiled.

Hearing this, the corners of everyone's eyes trembled, damn, 50? That is, let fifty nine-rank officials go to be wheel-steppers?! The emperor doesn't have this treatment when he goes out on patrol, right?!

Everyone thought this was a fart, no one cared, and the steward Bian also continued to introduce: "The medium paddle steamer is 15 zhang long, 2 zhang wide, two poles and six sails, can be loaded with 3,000 stones, needs a water depth of 3 meters, and has a minimum of 10 people and a maximum of 30 people who step on the wheel." ”

"The small paddle steamer is 9 zhang long, one zhang wide, one pole and three sails, can be loaded with 1,000 stones, needs a water depth of 3 meters, and has a minimum of 10 people and a maximum of 20 people. ”

The people on Zhang Zhongjun's side knew that their adults bought the boat to return to Nanlin Town directly by water, so they all looked around the smallest paddle steamer.

After taking a look, Zhang Zhongjun and a few head catchers, patrol dings, and Peng Quanwu all looked satisfied, but it was Xiao Li's leaders who frowned on the personnel who released the platoon.

Zhang Zhongjun naturally noticed this, and couldn't help asking, "Boss Li, what's wrong?"

The leader of Xiao Li immediately arched his hand and said: "My lord, this ship is a little longer, and some bends can't pass through the nine-zhang long ship." ”

Zhang Zhongjun just said: "But the wooden raft is ......" and woke up to the fact that the overall length of the wooden raft is definitely more than nine zhang, and even reaches the point of 100 zhang.

But the wooden rows are all one section of a piece of wood, dozens of rows of trees, and then they are linked together in rows and sections.

Therefore, some rapids bends only need to pass through rows and sections of timber to pass through hundreds of zhang wooden rows, but a nine-zhang long, that is, 27-meter-long boat, it is impossible to bypass such a bend.

Bian knew what was going on as soon as he heard it, this was a business near the inland river, and laughed at them in his heart for not knowing how to buy a paddle steamer that could only walk on the big river, but his face was full of consideration for the other party and said: "It turns out that the river is not big enough, it doesn't matter, we have a sand boat here that is specially suitable for various small river trails, the draft depth is shallow to the depth of one meter of water, and because it is a flat-bottomed boat, it is not afraid of running aground at all, and the carrying capacity is also very good, as long as there is a good sail operator, the speed of going against the water is also very fast!" And when there is no wind, you can also use slurry!"

Of course, everyone has seen the sand boats, but when they think of the small hull and the large sails, they don't like it very much, because the sand boats will definitely be pulled by the branches on both sides of the river when they go through the Nanlin River. And this is also because there are only small fishing boats in the Maonanlin River.