1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 376 Bold
Tingtao Park in San Francisco, California, December 1853.

It's almost Christmas time in the West.

At the state assembly at the end of the year, Liang Yao proposed a bill to designate Christmas, Spring Festival, and the State Building Day on April 4 as California's statutory holidays, which was quickly passed.

At the same time, Liang Yao also urged the Ministry of Finance to provide the financial report for 1853 as soon as possible, and the Bureau of Statistics to provide the output of coal, steel, pig iron, crude oil and kerosene in Los Angeles, and the most important population data in 1853.

After the meeting, Liang Yao returned to Tingtao Garden through the festive streets.

Carnegie walked out of the telegraph room and handed Liang Yao a letter from Shanghai and a telegram from New York to Liang Yao.

The letter sent from Shanghai was sent to him by Liang Shaoqiong, and Liang Yao could feel Liang Shaoqiong's joy in the letter.

Liang Shaoqiong was more competitive than he had imagined. With the great victory in Yangzhou, Yueyong had already proved himself and became one of the few usable military forces in the Qing Dynasty.

The telegram from New York was about the Battle of Sinop, a naval battle in Sinop Bay between the Russian Imperial Black Sea Fleet and the Turkish Squadron for supremacy in the Black Sea.

It is also the last duel between sailing warships in human history, and it is the last curtain call performance of sailing warships.

There is no doubt that the victor of this war is the Russian Empire. After this war, Russia gained sea control before the British and French warships entered the Black Sea.

At this time, Russia was also building steam warships, but because Nicholas I misjudged the form, he believed that Britain would stand on this side and become an ally of the Russian Empire rather than an enemy.

After the Russian Empire declared war on Turkey, Britain immediately announced an embargo on Russia.

The materials embargoed by the United Kingdom to Russia include steam engines specially customized by Russia for cutting-edge steam ships.

As a result, the steamships under construction in Russia could not continue to be built, and during the entire war, they could only continue to use wooden sailing warships that were different from those of Britain and France.

Of course, the Sinop naval battle was called the Sinop massacre on the British and French sides.

This is the groundwork for Britain and France to send troops to Crimea.

Since Britain and France will soon directly send troops to join the war, then next year, that is, in 1854, Liang Yao can start to solve the problem of purchasing land in Mexico.

However, before solving the problem of purchasing land in Mexico, Liang Yao needs to solve the problem of plantations in East Borneo.After all, Britain and France are only preparing to send troops to the Near East at this time, and have not really sent troops directly to the Near East.

"Boss, the dark ship in the shipyard has been installed with the latest Sacramento rapid-fire gun provided by the Sacramento Armory. The ribbon will be cut at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. Your Excellency Jeremiah asked me to ask if you will attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony and name the new ship?" Kanai Ask Liang Yao for instructions.

The Sacramento rapid-fire gun is the Armstrong gun developed and improved by the Sacramento Armory through reverse engineering. The official name is the Sacramento gun, but because of its amazing rate of fire, many people also like to call it the Sacramento rapid-fire gun.

"Go, I'll go in person." Liang Yao said.

This is the first warship with ocean-going capabilities shot and manufactured by the technicians of the San Francisco Shipyard under his instructions. It is a milestone for California's shipbuilding industry. Why should he not go?
He has high expectations for this type of warship, and has been waiting for this day for a long time.

If this ship is seaworthy, not only will he have 4 warships that can compete with the Dutch East India Company in the waters of Southeast Asia, but more importantly, the San Francisco Shipyard has the ability to build warships independently, In the future, Liang Yao would no longer need to spend money to buy warships from other countries.

At 8 o'clock the next morning, Liang Yao arrived at the San Francisco shipyard early. The refitted dark steamer had already been launched and was moored quietly on the calm sea outside the shipyard.

"This is a very bold masterpiece. This ship has not been named yet. Since your Excellency is here, please give this ship a name."

Seeing Liang Yao coming, Jeremiah, the director of the San Francisco Shipyard and the shipbuilding expert responsible for designing and supervising the construction of this dark ship, stepped forward to greet Liang Yao.

Jeremiah was originally an American shipbuilder and came to San Francisco with Vanderbilt in 1850 for a business investigation.

Immediately, together with Liang Yao, he founded the San Francisco Shipyard, a military-civilian shipyard that manufactures both civilian ships and military ships.

The San Francisco Shipyard is jointly held by the two, but Liang Yao holds the majority of the shares. The San Francisco Shipyard holds 50% of the shares held by Liang Yao, 26% of the shares are held by Jeremiah, and the rest shares are held by others.

"Since this is a very bold masterpiece, let's call it Boldness." Liang Yao looked at the thousand-ton warship with his hands behind his back and exclaimed, "It's so beautiful."

In the middle of the 19th century, although steam warships had already been installed in various countries, the warships and passenger ships of this period basically kept sails and used hybrid steam and wind power for navigation.

The British were the first to abandon sails, because Britain had ports all over the world, and the British warships did not have to worry about the problem of supplementing coal. They could abandon sails and use steam as power to drive warships.

Another thing is that the British steam turbines are more advanced and reliable, and they have better quality coal, which is why the British dare to give up sailing.

Out of a compromise with reality, Boldness still kept the sails as emergency power.

Although Liang Yao currently owns Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Nagasaki Port in Japan, and Xiangshan Port in Guangdong, three overseas ports can supplement coal burning, and Liang Yao's main activity area is also around the sea areas and shipping routes near these ports.

However, the prototype ship of Boldness had an accident in which the propeller hit a rock and was damaged when it was first seaworthy, and lost power and could not move.

In addition, other steamships also had accidents where large waves were directly involved in the chimney, the seawater flooded the boiler, and even directly interrupted the chimney.

Therefore, after dragging the Boldness back to the port, Jeremiah and others honestly reinstalled the sails on the Boldness as a backup power after redesigning and manufacturing a new propeller.

After all, the Boldness is not a big ship. Once there is a big storm at sea, there is a relatively high probability that seawater will be drawn into the chimney and soak the boiler.

The bold ship is 65 meters long, 8.50 meters wide, and has a draft of 4.15 meters. After reinstalling sails and weapons, the standard displacement exceeds 1000 tons, reaching 1080 tons. The entire ship has 120 people.

The power system of the ship is 2 reciprocating steam main engines, 4 round coal-fired boilers, and single-shaft propulsion.

Without sails, the maximum speed can reach 15 knots, the endurance is 4400 nautical miles/8 knots, the standard coal loading capacity of the coal bunker is 220 tons, and the maximum coal loading capacity is 280 tons.

The main weapons are two 205mm (about 8 inches) 26-caliber Sacramento guns on the central axis of the ship, one of which is located at the bow and the other at the stern.

The two main guns are fixed on a rotating platform with 25mm armor. The rotating platform can rotate 360°, the highest shooting elevation angle is 13°, the weight of the shell is 48kg, and the range can reach 3400m.

Secondary armament is the 100 mm (4 in) Sacramento guns located on either side of the ship's sides.

The 100mm secondary gun is also mounted on a swivel table with 10mm protective armor. The swivel table can be rotated 135°. There are eight secondary guns, four on each side.

In the era when side-gun battleships are still popular, such a weapon layout design is undoubtedly very bold.

It was only after the Sacramento Cannon was successfully imitated that Liang Yao dared to do this.

Although there are fewer guns on the battleship, the Sacramento guns have an extremely fast rate of fire and high accuracy, which can fully make up for the lack of naval guns.

The naval guns are arranged on the turntable, and can be fired directly by turning the turntable when the ship is not maneuvering.

These advantages are not available on shipside artillery battleships. The main feature of the shipside artillery layout is that the naval guns are arranged horizontally on the gunports or open decks on the freeboard walls on both sides of the ship, and the muzzles point to the same direction as The longitudinal direction of the battleship is vertical.

Therefore, if you want to shoot accurately, you must maneuver the ship to a certain position so that the naval guns on the ship can have a shooting angle.

The battleships in the age of sails are the most classic layout of side-by-side guns, and this design has been used in the era of sails and steam hybrid battleships.

The disadvantage of this design is obvious, and that is the lack of firepower at the bow and stern.

After all, the bow and stern are limited by the small space and cannot place multiple artillery pieces.

Therefore, how to solve the lack of firepower at the bow and stern has always been a big problem for designers.

The Roland that Liang Yao bought from Tromeland is a side-cannon battleship. The Frenchman's solution to this problem is simple and extreme. Since the bow and stern can't install many guns, I will install one The door is big.

The Roland therefore carried a 10-inch gun in the bow and an 8-inch gun in the stern.

In general, apart from the smaller tonnage, which is not an ironclad ship, but a wooden shell covered with cast iron, Liang Yao is still very satisfied with the other parameters of the Bold.

The maximum voyage can also meet the requirements from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to Nagasaki, Japan, and sails are used as auxiliary power.

With the Sacramento Cannon as a big killer, the battleship's combat effectiveness has directly improved to a higher level.

As for the ironclad ship, let’s explore the next ship type slowly. The shipbuilding industry needs to accumulate, and you can’t become a fat man with just one bite.

The advanced shipbuilding technology of the United States has basically been used this time.

"The layout of this naval gun is indeed bold." Fremont said belatedly.

He was from the Army Engineering Corps, and Fremont didn't know much about the Navy's warships.

He was amazed by this unique naval gun layout.

Fremont went to the Sacramento Arsenal to play with the Sacramento Cannon, and he spoke highly of the Sacramento Cannon.

It is considered the most advanced artillery in the world at present, its rate of fire, accuracy and even range are unmatched.

The Daring is loaded with Sacramento guns, not ordinary artillery, so Fremont does not think that too few naval guns will be the shortcoming of the Daring.

"How much does it cost?" Liang Yao asked Jeremiah the cost of the ship.

"Including the weapon system, it's $37, a price to bid farewell to the US Navy Department order." Jeremiah spread his hands and said.

The cost of 37 US dollars is indeed very high. You must know that the 214-ton cruiser Roland that Liang Yao obtained from the French was only 41 million francs, equivalent to [-] US dollars.

Don't even think about the order from the Ministry of the Navy for this price.

With the urine nature of the American Congress, unless a war breaks out or is humiliated by foreign countries, it will not spend huge sums of money to purchase warships.

For example, during the Civil War, both the North and the South built and purchased a large number of warships. The naval forces on both sides once reached more than 5 people, with 700 warships and 60 small inland river ironclad ships.It has become the second largest navy in the world after the British Navy. Of course, this is the combined naval power of the North and the South.

But after the end of the Civil War in 1865, the federal government's finances dried up, and the United States, which owed a lot of debt, began to tighten its belt. In order to save money, it began large-scale disarmament and carried out a full range of strategic contraction. The saved financial resources were invested in Post-war reconstruction work in progress.

The period from 1865 to 1885 was a period of strategic contraction for the United States, and it was also a period when the American army had to endure.

Take the Navy, for example.

In 1880, there were only 48 warships left in the U.S. Navy, most of which were old antiques left over from the Civil War.

During the ten-year war in Cuba (1868-1878), the United States and the United Kingdom secretly funded the Cuban rebels in order to overthrow Spain’s rule over Cuba, and sent Cuban Americans back to Cuba to participate in the uprising. They wanted to establish a pro-American Cuban government Xu Er Picture it.

The matter was finally discovered by the Spanish colonial government, and the Spanish colonial authorities were also very tough. The Americans, British and Cuban Americans who participated in the matter were executed in the name of pirates.

The United Kingdom launched gunboat diplomacy in this regard, forcing Spain to pay an apology and send back the British who had not been executed.

But when it was the turn of the United States, the Spanish authorities not only did not apologize, but also reprimanded the American ambassador. Even the compensation was sloppy and delayed again and again.This made the United States feel a great shame.

Of course, being humiliated by Spain is not the most shameful thing. After all, although Spain has been in the sunset for hundreds of years, it is still a power at the tail end of the crane.

America's greatest humiliation came in the Panama Crisis of 1885.

After the Panama crisis, the United States sent the wooden cruiser "USS Shenandoah" to interfere in Panama's internal affairs. The Chilean authorities were deeply disturbed and sent the Chilean navy's domed cruiser "Esmeralda" to Panama to prevent the US from interfering. Internal Affairs of Panama.

The Esmeralda is an enlarged version of the Chaoyong of the Beiyang Navy. This warship was bought by Japan during the Sino-Japanese War and renamed the Izumi. The target is the Zhiyuan of the Beiyang Navy. tons of domed cruisers.

As soon as the Esmeralda arrived in Panama, the U.S. Navy, which knew it was invincible, immediately withdrew its tail to the country in disgrace. This move caused an uproar in the United States.

It was okay to be humiliated by Spain before, but now a small South American country dares to humiliate the dignified United States.

This is unacceptable to the proud Americans of the Americas who believed that the Americas were Americans in the Monroe era. The whole of the United States strongly demanded the rearmament, at least the rearmament of the navy.

Thereafter, the U.S. Navy undertook a naval revival movement in the 1880s and 1890s under then-Secretary of the Navy Hunter.

And at the end of the 19th century, he took revenge on Spain and provoked the Spanish-American War.

But it doesn't matter, Liang Yao's target customer is himself, not the US Navy Department, he wished the Navy Department would not want his warships.

Now the Admiralty likes to buy it or not, and I will not sell it to you if I ask you to sell it to you.

(End of this chapter)