Hearing Guan Gong's question, Liu Hou explained: "These craftsmen play a great role, because the hull of the ship has to be tied with a skeleton first, well, a skeleton with steel wire, and then cement concrete is poured on it. So that the hull is strong enough. Without the skeleton made of these steel wires, such a large window would easily break. ”

After listening to Liu Hou's explanation, everyone suddenly realized that as an official of Shu Han, if you are not curious about the magical building material of cement concrete, you are not a normal human being, so almost everyone has a certain understanding of cement.

They also know that when building roads, they use sand and cement to make concrete, but in some places where high strength is required, especially where it is easy to bend, such as bridges, concrete needs to be reinforced with mesh. The concrete with reinforced mesh not only strengthens but also greatly increases the tensile capacity, which is simply an ideal material for bridge plates.

As soon as you hear it, you will understand that the hull of the battleship is very large, far larger than the ordinary bridge plate, such a behemoth, the weight will not be light, if there is no skeleton made of steel or steel wire to share the tension, maybe the ship will be crushed by its own weight before it goes out.

This steel skeleton or steel wire skeleton is actually equivalent to the keel and ribs of a wooden ship, which play a supporting role, without them, the huge body of the battleship would collapse with a bang.

"The skeleton is made of steel woven into a net, and the hull is harder, but the weight of the boat is also increased, and the softness is a little less; Using steel wire as a skeleton can reduce the weight and make the hull less stiff, but when under pressure, it is softer and less easy to break, both of which have their own advantages.

As for whether it is better to make this skeleton of our warships with steel steel or steel wire, I don't know, you can build one of each, compare it, and see which method is better, and use that method when building a large number of them in the future. Liu Hou said again.

Everyone was excited after listening to Liu Hou's words, thinking about the hardness of the cement, thinking about the scene where the hard cement ship smashed all the enemy's wooden warships, and everyone trembled with excitement.

Everyone seems to see the beginning of a new era, and the old era of the former Soochow Navy being the first in the world will end from this moment. In the future, the rivers of the whole country will be full of cement boats of the Han Dynasty, and all the wooden boats of the past will disappear.

But Liu Hou saw more than they did, and his vision had long gone beyond the inland river and reached the ocean. What he saw was that the four oceans were full of ships with the Great Han Dragon flag.

These ships are large and small, both 10,000-ton giant ships and small yachts, these ships can pass unhindered in all oceans, soar freely, see the big Han dragon flag fluttering on the bow of the ship, all the ships of the Yi people must retreat, all the foreigners are prostrate on the ground

"Dominate the seven continents and the four oceans, and start now." Liu Hou clenched his fists with both hands, secretly made up his mind in his heart, he turned his head to Guan Gong and said: "Second uncle, please immediately gather the teachers and students of the Ship Research Institute and experienced shipbuilders, start research immediately, and be sure to build two cement ships as soon as possible." One uses steel wire as a skeleton, and the other uses steel as a skeleton. ”

"Good!" Guan Gong agreed, and the excitement in his heart was no worse than Liu Hou, but his vision was naturally not as long-term as Liu Hou, and his goal was only Dongwu. Before Guan Gong could continue, Zhuge Liang's voice sounded:

"You can only build one first, and you can only build a steel wire skeleton."

"Uh" Liu Hou, who was still ambitious and wanted to dominate the world just now, was poured a basin of cold water on his head, his blood was boiling, he was very excited, and Guan Gong, who wanted to defeat Dongwu and take revenge, was poured cold water, full of interest, feeling that his country was about to prosper, and even the ministers with their own unlimited prospects were also poured a basin of cold water.

"What's the explanation?" Liu Hou asked with annoyance. Anyone who is about to drool when YY is about to drool and is splashed with a basin of cold water on the head will feel very annoyed. This is the same as the feeling that when I was dreaming in spring, I had peeled a beautiful woman like a little white sheep and put it on the bed~, and I was about to lift ~ the gun when I was on the horse, but I was suddenly woken up.

Zhuge Liang ignored the frustration of the emperor and the ministers, and continued: "It's still a matter of production capacity, although now it's only the skeleton made of steel, but the amount of steel consumed by a ship is still huge.

Chen just calculated that if the steel bar is used as the skeleton, a large warship needs to use about xxx catties of steel, and if steel wire is used, it needs to be about yyy catties and cement zzz catties.

Among them, the use of steel wire saves one-third of the amount of steel used compared with the use of steel bar. As the minister said before, our current steel output is only 200,000 catties, and if we want to ensure the production of weapons and ammunition, it is impossible to use too much steel to build ships.

According to Chen's calculations, the steel that can be used at present is only enough to build a cement ship with a steel wire skeleton. In addition, the amount of cement is also used, with the current output of Jingzhou cement plant, the monthly output is only enough to supply the amount of a cement ship. ”

"Okay, let's build a cement ship with a steel wire skeleton first." Liu Hou said weakly. There is no way, he was defeated by Zhuge Liang, of course, he was actually defeated by reality, Zhuge Liang is a scholar, and he can calculate the approximate materials of a cement ship in an instant, but he can't be blamed for this matter, he can only be blamed for reality, and he is blamed for the backward industrial production capacity of Shu Han.

Zhuge Liang didn't seem to want to let Liu Hou go, and continued: "There is one more thing Your Majesty needs to know, that is, almost all of the cement produced by the Jingzhou Cement Plant is used for the construction of the Chi Road between Jingzhou and Xuchang. ”

The so-called expressway is a highway that has only been built in a few castles. Unlike the previous winding official roads, Chi Road is a highway that pulls a straight line directly between the two castles and lays the shortest distance. Along the way, when encountering water and building bridges, opening roads in the mountains, except for some obstacles that are really unavoidable, the general obstacles are overcome as much as possible, and the distance is shortened as much as possible.

Now with cement, with reinforced concrete, it is no longer a dream to build bridges on the big rivers, and with explosives ~ medicine, it is much easier to dig holes in the mountains, so the highways built now are generally much shorter than the original official roads.

Of course, it is not that any terrain can be overcome, after all, the level of science and technology in this era, the power tools are still too backward, like some very large mountains, and the wide and deep rivers like the Yangtze River are still unconquerable for the time being, so they can only take a detour or ferry.