Zhu Jingyuan is still quite concerned about the waterway repair project of the oil lake.

The impact of this engineering team on the local environment is secondary, and the dredging project of the oil lake outlet channel is not a particularly important project in Xintianfu, at least it is not comparable to the Yinzhou Canal.

But Zhu Jingyuan had a new idea about this oil lake.

Zhu Jingyuan plans to build a naval museum in the future to store the decommissioned and preserved ships and equipment of the navy.

The oil lake is one of the prime candidates for this museum.

The biggest advantage of the oil lake is that it can be directly connected to the sea, and it can theoretically be regarded as a water lake.

The salt content of the oil lake is not high in the first place, and it will continue to decline after the restoration of the waterway.

Salt water corrosion is one of the important factors affecting the life of warships, and the life span of river vessels is usually higher than that of sea vessels.

The warships retained by Zhu Jingyuan in his previous life from all over the world are usually stored in inland rivers.

Ships placed in coastal cities will have shorter maintenance intervals and higher costs than ships parked in inland rivers.

In the future, the channel of the oil lake will be dredged to a depth of 16 meters, which is enough for more than 100,000 tons of warships to drive directly into it.

At the same time, compared with normal inland rivers, the area inside the oil lake can be said to be very large.

It is more than 180 kilometers long from north to south and 110 kilometers wide from east to west.

What's more, the depth of the lake is more than twenty meters in most areas.

The main fleet of the Ming Dynasty can conduct actual combat exercises in the lake.

If a naval museum is built here, then the decommissioned battleships will have the opportunity to run in the lake.

It also does not increase maintenance costs due to seawater erosion, and does not affect the storage time too significantly.

It allows ships in need to remain in approximate service for a longer period of time.

When needed, it can be pulled out directly and re-served.

The other two candidates are Nantong or Suzhou in the estuary of the Yangtze River, and the other is the Great Lakes of North Yinzhou.

The advantages of the Yangtze River estuary are obvious, located in the most prosperous area of Daming, and the passenger flow is relatively easy to guarantee.

However, the waterway of the Yangtze River Estuary is very busy, and at the same time, the Yangtze River Estuary is only a river after all, and those warships that have become museums cannot run here casually, and they will have to soak in salt water when they go to sea.

The advantages of the Great Lakes of North Yinzhou are also obvious, they are all pure water lakes, and the internal area is more extensive.

The total area of the water area is 245,000 square kilometers, which is equivalent to two political envoys in the eastern part of the Ming Dynasty and more than ten times the area of the oil lake.

However, the Great Lakes are far from the open sea, and the difference between the outermost Lake Ontario and the four inner lakes is more than 100 meters, requiring additional canals and locks to pass through.

To get tens of thousands or even 100,000 tons of warships into the Great Lakes, the cost of dredging shipping channels and building canals would be very high.

While this level of waterway repair is very beneficial for development around the Great Lakes, it is not required for inland waterway navigation.

The oil lake is a compromise option, and the cost of construction and maintenance is relatively manageable.

The length of the oil lake's sea channel that needs to be dredged is about 100 kilometers.

The key point is that there is a need for large-scale oil transportation here, and dredging of the waterway is a must.

In the future, the tonnage growth of oil tankers will also exceed that of warships, and sending warships into the oil lake is a complete hitchhike.

Therefore, Zhu Jingyuan has basically delineated the oil lake, and if nothing else, it will gradually start planning and construction in the next few years.

As for Zhu Dijin and Wang Jinpeng's reports, Zhu Jingyuan directly approved them after reading them.

Zhu Jingyuan's original plan was to pay a small amount of wages and have the new Tianfu supply grain.

Now the entire canal project has been directly achieved to a state of self-sufficiency.

Zhu Jingyuan also understands that this state cannot be maintained for a long time, and it is a natural choice to gradually pay wages in the future.

However, Zhu Jingyuan gave a suggestion that wages should not be paid monthly, but on an annual basis, or even when the workers leave.

Time passed, and in October of the fourth year of Ankang, Zhu Jingyuan received two more important news.

The construction of an experimental two-ton electroslag remelting furnace was completed, and attempts to manufacture small and medium-caliber artillery guns from electroslag remelting steel began.

Another month later, the first batch of experimental cannons using both electroslag remelted steel, hydraulic single-body tube self-tightening technology, and bore chrome plating technology were built by the arsenal of Xintianfu.

Of course, it is only a cannon in the state of a laboratory, which can only be used for research and verification

A two-ton electroslag ingot is basically capable of producing most guns between eighty and one hundred and twenty millimeters.

This weight and caliber covers a very wide range.

From secondary and anti-aircraft guns for battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, to high-level dual-purpose guns for destroyers and frigates.

From tank guns and anti-tank guns, to self-propelled guns and anti-aircraft guns.

The weight is basically between one ton and two tons.

The upgrade of artillery technology is the most obvious and intuitive way to improve combat capability.

Both electronic computers and atomic weapons are things of the distant future.

Even turbojet engines take a long time to develop and implement.

But the increase in artillery performance is very simple and crude.

The performance of the gun is directly affected by the quality of the steel of the barrel.

The electroslag remelting of the cannon steel increases the power of the gun, as well as the weight reduction, and the effect is immediate.

The two technologies of electroslag remelting and self-tightening of body tube are the most important technologies at present.

Zhu Jingyuan joined his grandfather Zhu Zhongliang and went to the shooting range to watch the artillery test.

Zhu Zhongliang sat in the middle of the viewing platform, looked at the predictions provided by the craftsmen, and soon widened his eyes:

"The weight of a 120-mm gun was directly reduced to the level of the original 100-mm gun.

"The muzzle velocity of the muzzle has soared from seven or eight hundred meters per second to more than one thousand meters per second.

"The most incredible thing is that the barrel life has doubled while the weight has been reduced and the power has increased.

"How can this prediction be true?"

Zhu Jingyuan smiled and nodded:

"If our theory is not wrong, the reality is what you see, grandpa.

And this result is the benefit of basic technology upgrades, which can make the existing equipment achieve leapfrog improvement.

"For the three artillery guns that are about to be tested today, if the muzzle velocity of the guns is reduced to the original level of seven or eight hundred, the life of the guns under the same standard may exceed 5,000 rounds."

Zhu Zhongliang couldn't help but sigh instinctively:

"This technology is really too strong, light tanks can carry 80 mm guns, medium tanks can carry 100 mm guns. Compared with the previous one, it has directly improved the ...... of a whole stage"

Zhu Jingyuan and Zhu Zhongliang were chatting on the management desk, and the tests to be tested below were finally ready.

After Zhu Jingyuan gave the order to start the test, the artillery that had been prepared for a long time immediately began to be loaded and test-fired.

The end result is not too different from the report submitted by the craftsmen.

Electroslag remelting, self-tightening of the body tube, and chrome plating of the inner chamber, these three technologies have directly raised the performance of Daming's artillery to a higher level.

However, what Zhu Jingyuan is thinking about now is when these guys will produce energy and when they will be used on battleships.

How quickly the tonnage of the electroslag furnace will be increased, and when will the battleship's 420-mm naval guns be completed.