", only 100,000 pounds? It's too pit! ”

Young Master Li wrapped his arms, several splints were firmly fixed on his arms, wrapped with thick cotton yarn, and a suspender belt was wrapped around his neck to firmly fix his left hand.

Chen Ping and Tang Shaoyi, who were accompanying him, couldn't cry or laugh, they were accustomed to Master Li's style of taking a few bites when he had nothing to do, not to mention that this time he was still reasonable, if it weren't for the fact that the heavy snow in the north was not conducive to military action at this moment, if it weren't for the lack of preparations, they believed that Young Master Li would definitely let Ji Weishan kill Ji Weishan into Tokyo Bay for the sake of that knife on his arm!

£100,000 in medical bills! I really don't know how Emperor Moto raised this money, could it be that he really sold the princess's daughter?

Behind him, the three girls who accompanied the care also covered their small mouths and smiled, if they weren't afraid of losing their manners in front of others, it is estimated that they would not be able to close their mouths earlier.

However, what makes everyone strange is that Master Li did not honestly go back to Honolulu to recuperate, but suddenly changed his route and took everyone to the Ogasawara Islands located between Hawaii and Saimoto, this archipelago composed of more than 30 islands was bought by him at private expense, and has become a veritable private garden, except for a few islands of Iwo Jima that are used for regular military training in the Pacific military, all others are forbidden to outsiders to enter and exit, and the navy has also specially sent more than a dozen patrol boats to protect this island from outside interference at night.

Coupled with the fact that this island located in the depths of the Pacific Ocean was not concerned by the foreign powers in the first place, the aborigines were either driven back to their original place or sent to the construction corps, coupled with the strict blockade policy and the lack of resources, the entire archipelago seemed to be closed, and even the fishermen rarely came here, so it seemed to become a paradise, and even the staff rarely knew what was going on here.

Father Island, the largest island in the archipelago has now been renamed Qiaoyue Island, and the second largest mother island has also been renamed Xian Wife Island by Young Master Li, as for the origin of the name, Tang Shaoyi listened to Chen Ping's introduction, coughed a few times to cover the sneering smile on the corner of his mouth.

The aboriginal expulsion does not mean that the archipelago is deserted, but rather that it has become more vibrant, as Limer has moved some classified experimental factories here, such as the flight test center, which is classified as highly secret.

The previous flight test center was located on Niihau Island, although Niihau Island was also closed, but after all, it was too close to Honolulu, and as Pearl Harbor shipping became more and more busy, it was not sure that it would be seen by others, so it was relocated here.

The reason why Li Mo was willing to postpone the start of the war until April was that in addition to the fact that the final work of the Jinghai-class would take a little time, the other half was also to set up a comprehensive flight test on the island.

After coming to the experimental factory located in the center of the island, let alone the three girls, even Tang Shaoyi's eyes widened, only to see that on the wide grass, there were ten giant ** white balloons nearly 100 meters long tied side by side, looking at these behemoths suddenly appeared in front of them, everyone felt a shock.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, airships were nothing new, but for the first time in human history, such a huge airship appeared.

Chen Ping also saw the airship docked in the distance, to be honest, when the young master ordered the formation of the airship research team, he was still a little hesitant, especially when he heard that the construction of a helium refining plant costs no less than one million dollars, and helium refining is also very difficult, if all helium is used, then the price of each airship will be equivalent to a light cruiser!

So even Li Mo retreated and had to continue to use hydrogen to fill, but electricity is needed to separate hydrogen, so he deliberately built a small power plant here, which is not insignificant.

Although the cost of each weapon will be evenly divided into the development funds, and the cost will be reduced a lot as the purchase volume increases, but the airship is almost impossible, because this is a transitional product, and what Li Mo wants most is an airplane, but in 1896, the plane was still in the theoretical drawings, and with the limitation of the engine, he had to rely on these big guys for the time being.

Even if the final effort was made to reduce the cost, if the experiment and factory construction expenses were included, it would also cost 20,000 pounds per ship, if it were not for Li Mo's final arbitrariness, stubbornness must build an airship, and pay for the research and development and construction costs himself, perhaps this plan would have been cut by Li Enfu, who lacked funds.

It is precisely because of Young Master Li's decision that today's ninety-three meters long and twenty-five meters wide big guy was born.

However, there is one thing that Chen Ping still has some doubts, this kind of thing can really play a key role in this war, as the young master said? Even if it can carry six tons of cargo, it can carry more than a hundred heavily armed soldiers at most, and what can more than a hundred people do in a large-scale battle? Do you want to get a hundred? Then I'm afraid it's better to build a few battleships! Besides, since the young master came here today to check the progress, he obviously wants to use the airship in the upcoming war against each other, what can this thing be for?

Li Mo blinked, ignored Chen Ping's doubts, and under the leadership of Xie Zhantai, the person in charge of the airship laboratory, he visited the experimental factory, which was not very large.

Xie Zhantai was full of red light, as the person in charge of the airship laboratory, his biggest wish now was not to go to heaven, but when to put these secretly built airships into use.

In the factory, several huge wooden skeletons have appeared, as a traverser, Young Master Li naturally can't use the European soft hull at the moment, but the full hard-shell hull is limited by materials, so he made this semi-hard airship.

In addition to the wooden frame, a large number of longitudinal and transverse cables are laid between the frames to enhance the structural strength of the hull, and when the skeleton is completed, the padded airbags are added.

A full 36 reading force airbags can make the airship have a total buoyancy of more than 35 tons, and the loading can also reach 6 tons, and the reading force airbags can also be like the ship's compartment, greatly reducing the danger of the airbag being punctured, making the flight safer.

Once this is done, the skeleton begins to be skinned, the outer skin is made of specially treated tarpaulin, the stitches must also be sealed, and when all the skin is finished, a thick layer of gum must be brushed to prevent burning when encountering cumulonimbus clouds.

Young Master Li naturally couldn't repeat the tragedy of the Hindenburg being wet by rain and encountering electric currents that caused fireworks, so he also required the entire hull to be electrostatically treated, and each airbag also needed to be sealed. But even so, Li Mo knew that unless helium was used, these airships would still be a big incendiary bomb, and all he could do was to find a way to ensure safety as much as possible.

The pod is also made of wood, and two gasoline engines are suspended on the left and right sides, which, together with the rudders and two-bladed propellers, can increase the speed of the airship to two hundred kilometers per hour, and can fly a thousand kilometers continuously when using the internal fuel tanks.

Li Mo listened excitedly to Xie Zhantai's introduction, and had already forgotten everything about not digging Zeppelin, although that guy is also engaged in semi-rigid airships now, but at least it will be 1900, and it will take a few years to put it into use, and at that time, the young master is afraid that even the plane will go to the sky!

Judging from the progress, the airship factory that is now on track can build two airships per month, so by April 30, there will be at least ten more ships here, plus the ten ships that have been completed outside, it should be enough to put into a large-scale operation.

However, the problem is that the Ogasawara Islands are too far away from the mainland of the city, and they have to find a closer base for the airship.

When Young Master Li touched his chin and pondered how to find a forward base for the airship, in the middle of the grass in the distance, an airship that had not been out of the field for a long time began to test, after the propeller made a buzzing sound, Xue Muhua, the captain of the airship team, led several crew members to excitedly drill into the pod under the young master's gaze, as the ground staff raised a small red flag, the eight cables that tied the airship were untied, and the airship began to rise slowly in everyone's sight.

However, because it was a test flight, and in order to allow the young master and the chief of staff to see clearly, the airship did not climb to a very high level, only kept about two hundred meters above the ground, and began to maneuver left and right to test its flight ability.

As the airship suddenly obscured the sun, casting a huge shadow on the ground, Young Master Li suddenly became arrogant, maybe it won't be a few years, and it will be more than just an airship flying in the sky!

"Young master, give me a name." Hearing that Xie Zhantai said that this kind of airship has not been officially named, Tang Shaoyi hurriedly proposed.

"Uh-huh......." Young Master Li looked at the round airship above his head, which was testing the rudder flickering left and right, and his eyes suddenly lit up: "Just call." ”

Chen Ping rubbed his hands and looked at the huge flying airship, hoping that it would be a good name like Jinghai.

Tang Shaoyi pricked up her ears and wanted to see how much goods the young master had in his stomach.

Xie Zhantai's eyes lit up, and the airship finally had a name!

"It's called a hippopotamus, a hippopotamus-class airship!" Young Master Li's intact right hand snapped his fingers, and he set this good name that must be remembered for ten years!

"Hippopotamus ......." The suggestor, Tang Shaoyi's eyes turned white, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Why is this name so weird? Besides, what is a hippopotamus?

"I don't know." Xie Zhantai shook his head in confusion, and the three girls next to him frowned even more and pondered the origin of the name, only Chen Ping, who had heard about an animal called hippopotamus in Africa when he was in the UK, had stars in his eyes, and sighed secretly: "It's worthy of the young master, I actually started to pay attention to Africa!" ”――

Located on the west side of Qiaoyue Island, less than two kilometers away from the airship test test test site, by the window of a large bungalow, nearly dozens of technicians passed binoculars to each other, watching the young master and the chief of staff in the lens communicate and walk down from the airship that had just landed, and the three young grandmothers got into the pod one by one excitedly, and they couldn't help but be a little disappointed.

Although this place is also called the "Flight Laboratory", and the young master has been here for most of the past few days since he came to the island, it seems a little quiet compared to the busyness and excitement of the airship laboratory next door.

Next to the bungalow, there is a small warehouse-like factory, which is full of all kinds of machinery and materials, and at first glance it looks like a processing workshop of a machine factory.

In the workshop at this moment, the sound of motor rotation is still endless, since Young Master Li moved the flight test room here, Qiaoyue Island is also second only to Oahu Island with a steam engine power plant, even earlier than Ryukyu Oshima, so the machinery here is also driven by electricity.

With Tesla, the leader in electrification, and Master Li's almost stubborn support for the development of the electrical industry in the eyes of others, and throwing a lot of money, Honolulu's pace in electrification has gradually begun to lead this era.

A large number of power plants using steam turbines began to be built and put into operation, and all kinds of small electrical machinery have also emerged, and even the three northeastern provinces that have just been incorporated are the second major projects after the road to start construction.

Of course, Master Li's stubbornness is not only for the electrical industry, if the support for the airship has made many people staggered, then the support for this flight test room next to the airship laboratory is inexplicable.

Although airships are not new in Europe, many people already know about airships at this time, and there are even a few who are earlier than Honolulu, so the young master does not have much opposition to airships.

And the flight test room is completely incomprehensible, according to the young master, he wants to make a thing that can fly with wings by mechanical power, God, mechanical power? Flying with wings? Is it possible to get an iron bird out?

Even when the funds of the Government Council were at their tightest, Master Li still did not hesitate to subsidize the flight test room that still did not know what to do, although Li Enfu and others had seen the magic of the young master and seen his "far-sighted, forward-looking" wise vision, but they were still full of worries about the issue of the flight test room.

In fact, Young Master Li himself was also very worried, because he had completely mistaken one thing.

That is, he scavenged dozens of famous aircraft masters from all over the world, and they still have no concept of aircraft design, and some of them have not even considered making such a thing as an airplane.

The reason is that it is 1896, not 1903!

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the era of technological explosion, and many things might have become obsolete when they were produced, and the Wright brothers were just craftsmen in a bicycle shop at this time, and they didn't even think about making airplanes.

Since there are no pathfinders, after these masters came here, there were almost no references, even if Li Mo drew a lot of sketches of the plane and compiled a lot of materials by himself, but he was not an expert in this area, and the things he gave were not only messy, but also many things were too advanced, so there was no reference surname yet.

On top of that, the power almost killed the flight test room, and even though Honolulu now has a gasoline engine that can be used in cars, and the first generation of diesel engines is about to be introduced, it can't be used for flight tests yet, or even useless, due to weight and size!

So the current flight test room is more of a research room than a laboratory, and the grandmasters and the large number of Chinese interns assigned to them are almost all learning the basics, so that the big bungalow is now more like a library, where designers come every day to discuss and study plans about the aircraft.

Topics related to engine downsizing, how to reduce weight, what materials to use, etc., can be discussed here, and then sent to the processing shop below, where samples are made, and finally samples are experimented.

It can be said that the progress here cannot be satisfied with Young Master Li, but he also has no way, scientific research is not something that can be improved by relying on a golden finger, it requires investment, patience, and a little luck.

Adel handed the telescope to the student next to him, walked to the factory in a bit of a distraction, stroked the full-size double-winged wooden shelf in the center of the factory, and sighed.

Although the young master has never said anything, and often transmits some of his experience to himself through telegrams, and in the past few days, he has discussed the difficulties in aircraft design with everyone, but the success of the airship has brought invisible pressure to these designers, because in their opinion, the airship and the airplane are the same aircraft, and the success of the airship indicates that if the flight laboratory cannot speed up, it may face downsizing or even reduction.

So today, when the news that the young master was going to take a test ride on the airship came, everyone was a little discouraged, and while working, they didn't look at the airship floating in the sky outside, and their mouths were full of taste.

Just when everyone was a little depressed, the factory door was suddenly pushed open, and Du Dazhuang suddenly took a check and walked in front of Adel in the stunned eyes of everyone.

"Misterdu, you're ......." Adel naturally recognized the chief guard of Young Master Li, so he quickly stood up, and asked in astonishment while looking at the check in the other party's hand.

"Mr. Adel, the young master is going back to Honolulu, this is what he asked me to hand over to you, he said that although he has been in trouble recently, and the technology is not very mature, I hope you all don't give up." Although Du Dazhuang didn't understand these things, he still repeated Li Mo's care as it was: "The young master also said that an airship is an airship, and an airplane is an airplane, and he believes that time will prove that the plane is the master of the sky, and he hopes that you will make persistent efforts, and let me send 100,000 pounds as the next stage of research funds, and this time I will return to Honolulu and immediately invite Mr. Tesla and Diesel to cooperate with you, hoping to solve the problems encountered in engine design as soon as possible, and let the plane go to the sky as soon as possible!" ”

100,000 pounds!

Looking at the check handed over by Du Dazhuang, dozens of designers in the interior widened their eyes, they didn't expect that the young master not only did not snub them because of the success of the airship, but also increased the investment!

For these designers, who have been researching for a year and have achieved preliminary results, in addition to the good treatment given by Young Master Li, it has become the dream of everyone here to be able to build the world's first aircraft to fly with mechanical power!

For the sake of this dream, they are even willing to give up a lot of things, so when they heard Du Dazhuang's words, many people were so excited that they almost jumped up, and Adel was even more excited and his face was red, patting his chest and pulling Du Dazhuang to ask him to tell the young master that he would definitely let Master Li see the plane in the sky within two years!

Two years!

Li Mo stood on the deck, looking at the dark clouds gradually rising in the sky, hooked the corners of his mouth and smiled: "Yuanshou, inform Liu Hengzhen, Sun Jiugong, you can start!" ”

(To be continued)