After solving the matter of his cheap daughter-in-law and father-in-law, Young Master Li's depressed mood also improved a lot, but before he could smell the silk handkerchief, he received a big bad news from Duan Fei's hand, and a piece of news that was not good news.

The slightly better news is that the Argentine political axe preliminarily agreed to transfer the two battleships that had just arrived to Hawaii, but quoted a sky-high price of 1.3 million pounds each! It seems that 30 million pounds is too tempting! Even a country like Argentina wants to take a bite!

As for the bad news, all known powers have officially rejected Honolulu's request for a ship, except for Germany, which has not yet responded. The British even simply refused the request to upgrade the main guns of the two Arctic battleships with the latest L40 main guns, and not only that, but also withdrew all the technicians stationed on Oahu ahead of schedule.

Although Germany has not yet expressed its position, all the main forces of the Pacific Fleet are British-made warships, and if German-made warships are purchased at this moment, the logistical pressure will increase exponentially, which is obviously very uneconomical compared to the logistics department on Oahu that is still very weak at the moment.

The two pieces of news made Young Master Li's face turn from cloudy to cloudy in an instant, and without saying a word, he took Du Dazhuang and Duan Fei and rushed to the Hawaii shipyard in a special car.

"That experimental warship has taken shape!"

Young Master Li rang Fubo's words in his ears and stepped on the accelerator hard, but even with all his strength, it was impossible for the fifteen-horsepower engine to let him enjoy the feeling of speed.

Nowadays, the area of the Hawaii shipyard has expanded a lot, and the factory area has almost filled the entire southwest arm of Pearl Harbor, and even on the long and narrow peninsula in the center of Pearl Harbor, there are also a large number of warehouses and factories.

When Young Master Li drove through the gates with the two of them, and after strict inspection by the security guards, he finally saw the experimental ship that pinned all his hopes on him.

The corners of his mouth quickly fell.

"This is the warship that cost the young master 400,000 pounds!" Li Mo pointed to the noses of McKinson and Tang Xiao who came to hear the news, stomped his feet and roared loudly and reprimanded!

Four hundred thousand! Don't want to go beyond the determination level, at least you should have a look! But look at the ship in front of you, although the displacement has reached the design index, and the maximum displacement is more than 4,000 tons when fully loaded, the superstructure is still disorganized, and it looks like a cruiser built in Europe at the moment! If it's at this level of design, why does the young master still spend this unjust money? Just buy one for 200,000 pounds and come back for refitting?!

Young Master Li pointed from head to tail, from top to bottom, scolding and scolding.

Let's take a look at the most important firepower first, it!

It doesn't matter if you didn't come up with a double-linked 203-mm main gun, didn't the young master invite Pierre, the Italian engineer who just proposed a triple? If you get a triple 152mm gun, you will die, why do you still choose this old single-barreled L35 305mm main gun! What is the difference between this and the three shallow-water heavy artillery mosquito ships Matsushima, Hashidate, and Itsukushima, which he made out in order to deal with the two ships in Dingzhen and were all captured by himself?

The experimental ship is used for experiments! Not a decoration!

Forget it, this is also endured! But you won't have a single-barreled 305 gun in the front, and a double-barreled 152-mm gun in the back! The four secondary gun emplacements on the front and rear bridges are also 152 mm guns! What is it called? Afraid of being top-heavy? Then aren't you afraid of being top-heavy? It's called nondescript!

The young master said that the caliber of the artillery should be unified as much as possible, but that is the main gun! What does it mean that the main gun does not understand? The biggest door on the ship!

And you are all on 152mm guns, and you don't even have small-caliber rapid-fire firepower, bastard! If you are attacked by someone else's torpedo, do you want the soldiers to use 152mm guns to shoot torpedoes? Even if the current torpedo speed is slow, it is much faster than the rate of fire of a 152mm gun!

Young Master Li first raised Tang Xiao's ear and shouted, there is no way, he is the minister of the equipment department, and the artillery belongs to his jurisdiction, so naturally it is difficult to escape his responsibility. However, Tang Xiao also couldn't say it, not to mention whether it was reasonable for a 4,000-ton warship to install a double-mounted 203 mm gun, even the 203 mm gun with extremely poor quality that had just been built at this moment could not meet the requirements of Master Li, so he had to stand up to the spittle flying in the sky and tell the reason.

It turned out that a year ago, although the British promised to use all the naval gun technology below 203 mm in exchange for the new boiler technology in the hands of Master Li, when they handed over the information, they deliberately made a lot of confusion, and also deliberately deleted some of the key links, plus the forging and cutting capabilities on their side are still relatively weak, so so far the artillery factory of the equipment department can only make their own 152 mm caliber naval guns, as for the urgently needed larger caliber naval guns, even if they have come up with sample guns, but the quality is really not flattering.

Li Mo didn't know that the British had actually done anything, and now they had withdrawn all the experts in this area, which made Tang Xiao even more overstretched here.

In this case, Young Master Li couldn't say anything about the most critical artillery, but when he saw the three tall chimneys, the anger that had just been calmed rose again.

Boiler and steam turbine technology is not only the strength of Master Li, but also one of the technologies with the highest density of Oahu engines.

Look at those three ugly chimneys! Young Master Li is angry and won't fight anywhere!

The young master has invested a lot of money and asked the power laboratory to build four Loongson No. 1 water-tube rotary oil-fired boilers that are still in the test state for you! In addition, forced ventilation technology has been introduced from the UK at a high price, but for such a small boat, you actually have to install three chimneys, do you think the deck area is too large? Or simply lazy and not calculating!

"Boss, you can't slander me like that!" Seeing Li Mo pointing to the three big chimneys and going crazy, McKinson couldn't hold it back, and rushed forward and said.

Well? There's still a little bit of fire! Young Master Li stopped his mouth, stared at McKinson left and right, and made him numb and swallowed his saliva wildly, before he said: "Four Loongson Type 1 oil-fired boilers, and also use British forced ventilation technology, no matter how you calculate, you don't need three chimneys, and talk about the results of your efforts?" Do you think the young master's money is easy to cheat! ”

"I thought you were a genius, but now it seems like that's just that!" Young Master Li said excitedly.

McKinson was furious, he hated it most when others doubted his ability in the design of warships, if there was another person standing in front of him at this time, I was afraid that he would directly activate the turret to bombard the other party. But in the face of Li Mo, he softened! Not respect, not fear, but these words spoke to the bottom of his heart.

In fact, he also calculated the ventilation volume at that time, and actually calculated that after using an oil-fired boiler, only two chimneys would be enough at most, which could also greatly save deck space, but he heard other designers say that it should be safe, because the oil-fired boiler is used for the first time, and no one dares to guarantee whether it can reach the theoretical value, not to mention that this is also the first time he undertakes the design of a warship, and he is inevitably apprehensive.

In the end, he had to compromise and modify the design drawings and install three chimneys, but he didn't expect to be caught by Master Li, but he didn't do anything wrong, after all, this is a test ship, everything is new, and he doesn't know that Master Li is a traverser who can control the development of ships in the next hundred years.

What's more, he didn't know that Young Master Li was still a top expert in boilers and steam turbines, and there was no one who surpassed him in this era, so it was already leisurely, if it weren't for the current manufacturing process that limited the dream, according to Master Li's radical approach, it would be enough to expand the diameter of the existing chimney and install one.

But when McKinson said this, not only was he not forgiven! But he was even attacked by the spit of Master Li! "You idiot! Do you know what a chief designer is? Who is the chief designer? If the young master pursues safety, do you want to do it? Won't the young master poach people from British, French, and German shipyards with high salaries?! 100,000 pounds is not enough? A million pounds is enough to get a few safe ones! ”

Hearing Li Mo's reprimand, McKinson was embarrassed, and his eyes were red and he pointed to the sky and said that he must start again!

In the face of Young Master Li's growing anger, Tang Xiao and McKinson felt that their scalps were numb, but there was no way, who made one of them the head of the equipment department and the other the chief designer of the ship, so they could only mourn and follow the same trend, following behind Young Master Li who was inspecting the new ship, his face looked like a donkey.

Demolished! It's all demolished! Change to a yacht!

Standing at the bow of the ship at the end, Master Li completely broke out!

Changing yachts?

Tang Xiao and McKinson had black lines on their foreheads, and they looked sad and weeping, this is an experimental ship, of course it is used for testing, not to mention that there are still many technologies in the shipyard that have not been thoroughly understood, this is shipbuilding, and it is not making dumplings, how can you become fat in one bite?

Standing on the bow of the ship, which had been slightly tilted and had a bit of an Atlantic-type look, Li Mo sighed helplessly, why could others get an airplane cannon after crossing the hula in a few clicks, but it was so difficult to get to himself!

Just as Li Mo sighed, Chen Ping and Long Guozhang had already quietly climbed up to the deck from the gangway.

After the last naval battle, each ship had some losses, especially the barrels of the guns, which needed to be replaced, so the two were taking a large number of naval personnel to discuss specific maintenance plans with the shipbuilder.

In fact, from the point of view of the two of them, in addition to the single-mounted 305 mm gun in the bow is debatable, other local shipyards have done a good job, first of all, the shape, the bow adopts the floating Atlantic-type bow proposed by Master Li, which is much better than the original, and judging from the experimental data, it is of great help to improve the speed.

The design of high freeboard and high bridge building, in addition to being more suitable for the sea area with large surges, also makes the field of view of the command tower farther and wider, and the aspect ratio of the hull has also been optimized, making the warship look a lot thinner, which is very conducive to high-speed navigation.

As for the interior of the hull, the eyes of the two are even more starry, and the new Loongson No. 1 waterpipe rotary oil-fired boiler replaces the coal-fired boiler, which is not only much smaller in size, but also has higher thermal efficiency, and only needs six units to achieve the power that originally required ten coal-fired boilers. The huge steam engine was replaced by a home-grown steam turbine, although it had not yet passed the test and finalized it, but the potential shown in both the volume and the ground test was enough to make them excited, and it was already a remarkable achievement in the era when most countries were still using the triple expansion reciprocating steam engine!

The reduction of boilers and the use of new steam turbines have increased the usable volume of the ship's interior, which can carry more ammunition, fuel, and more fresh water and supplies, which not only improves the endurance of the battleship, but also allows more weight to be used on armor.

Of course, all of this will have to wait for the ship to be launched and tested to know whether these new technologies meet the requirements, but even if the intended goal is not completed, this can be regarded as the pride of the Hawaiian shipyard, after all, from cutting the first marine steel plate to building warships now, the Hawaii shipyard only took three years to complete the road predicted by Britain and the United States and other countries to take seven or eight years.

So the two of them are still very concerned about this test ship, as for why the eldest young master Li Mo suddenly went crazy, in fact, they all know that it is because of the suffocating pressure brought about by his huge naval plan, although he has not said anything during this time, but is enthusiastic to build the world's largest automobile factory and oil refinery, but in fact, everyone knows that the young master is still a little worried about the big war in a few years.

In particular, after the complete failure of the efforts to purchase warships, the confidence of the Pacific Fleet was even reduced, and now he was naturally furious when he saw this test ship that was not yet perfect.

In desperation that the 203-mm guns did not make a breakthrough, the single 305-mm main gun in the bow of the ship was first removed, and the front and rear double-mounted 152-mm layout was adopted, and at the same time, the development of the triple main gun was immediately launched, and the secondary guns in the four ear stands were changed to four single-barreled 152-mm guns. In this way, you can take the lead in unifying the caliber, and in addition, four twin 37-mm guns of the Pacific Army can be installed, and as for the chimney, one will be immediately dismantled!

After putting forward suggestions for improvement, Master Li also gave a death order, all modifications and outfitting must be completed within three months, enter the launching test stage, and those who can't complete it will be confined!

In the face of Master Li's rectification requirements, McKinson gathered all the designers overnight, and this time he completely abandoned all conservatives! It only took three days to complete the entire refit program, and Tang Xiao immediately mobilized 2,000 shipwrights from other docks, and also included this test ship in the top priority support plan.

Of course, after Young Master Li returned home, the first thing he did was to lock himself in the study, no matter what, he had to immediately mount a new type of warship, and it was better to work hard than to sit and wait for death.

Sitting at the table, Li Mo pondered the steel giants in his memory, and tried to screen the warships that met the current construction capacity of the Hawaii shipyard, and the ones that were too small were naturally the first to be excluded, and the largest ones could only drool at the moment.

Then the rest are some medium-sized warships, but due to the technical defects in the main guns, it is difficult to build a large number of warships, and even if they are forcibly built, they will be greatly delayed because of the problems of the main guns.

"Pick one that can be built right now, and that still has to be in line with current reality?" It's a pity that before Young Master Li could choose a suitable warship from the memories of later generations, Duan Fei, who was full of seriousness, knocked on the door of the study again.

"Young master, the British emergency telegram, the Armstrong shipyard, under the authorization of the British political axe, has delayed the construction of our two battleships!"

Click!

The pen in Li Mo's hand was broken again......

(To be continued)