Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 325 Departure of the Expedition Fleet

After more than a year of development, the modern special shipyard has now begun to take shape.At this stage, the factory has several engineers, more than ten technicians, more than 60 craftsmen of various types, and more than 150 apprentices, totaling more than [-] people.Although this scale is not comparable to the two traditional shipyards of Dayuhe Naval Shipyard and Zhenhai Shipyard, it is definitely a heaven and an underground compared to the shabby scale of a dozen people and seven or eight guns when it was first established.

With the further development of domestic industry, higher requirements are put forward for the capacity of inland waterway transport.In particular, the expansion of Changshan Iron Mine, the expansion of Ping'an Coal Mine, and the construction of a large brick kiln factory have been launched one after another. The demand for inland transportation capacity has surged. The more than 72 inland transportation ships currently in service are completely insufficient. Many goods often need to be stacked on the dock for a long time before they can be transported away.In view of this situation, the Ministry of Communications ordered the modern special shipyard to start using parana pine to manufacture the newly designed [-]-ton inland steam carrier. Resources; on the one hand, the United Industrial Credit Bank began to squeeze out a sum of money to lend to modern factories, allowing them to purchase machines and recruit workers.

After expanding its manpower, the Hyundai Special Shipyard began to gradually turn its attention to the domestic inland waterway transportation market with huge demand. Of course, before that, they had to find a way to clean up the "Chopper" multi-purpose expedition ship.Because according to the plan of the Ministry of the Navy, next month (February) the "Chop Wave" and the "Breaking Wave" that have completed maintenance will leave the mainland, go to the New China Colony, and then use it as a base to explore various routes in the Far East. kind of feasibility.

Of course, Hyundai Special Shipyard did not dare to neglect this. It must be known that this is a political task and there is no room for carelessness.Soon, on January 1, the "Chopper" sailed nearly 28 kilometers in Duck Lake, with an average speed of about 5-5.5 knots.This was still without sails. If they had opened all the sails at that time, it would probably take less than a day to sail directly from Hekoubao to Ping'an Town. This speed is far beyond that of ordinary sailboats.

The "Broken Wave" has also undergone some maintenance and transformation in the modern factory this time.The technicians made major changes to the ship's steam engine power system, which further strengthened the airtightness of the cylinder, which means that the output power of the steam engine has been enhanced in disguise.After testing, the modified "Broken Wave" has a speed of about 3.5-4 knots in Duck Lake, which is directly increased by more than 20% compared with the original, which means that the ship's endurance has been further strengthened.

"Is there no steam engine with higher output power in the Second Machinery Factory now?" Li Yi stood on the deck, rubbing his chin with his hand, and asked a little greedily.The full name of the No. 300 Machinery Factory is the No. [-] Machinery Factory. It was established just two or three months ago. It was established from the boiler workshop of the former No. [-] Machinery Factory. The factory director was Li Hongxing, the former deputy director of the No. [-] Machinery Factory and the director of the boiler workshop.As the only professional steam power system supplier in China, the No. [-] Machinery Factory has nearly [-] technicians of all sizes as soon as it was established, and its technical force is extremely strong.

At present, their main research and development tasks are the marine steam engine "Popeye-1" and its subsequent improved models, as well as the high-horsepower steam engine "Barbarian-5" developed for railway locomotives and the "Barbarian-4" for rolling steel. .Except for these few, their work is basically only the integration of existing steam engine models, minor repairs and so on.On the whole, their tasks are not light, but considering that they have trained a large number of technicians, among them are several high school graduates, completing these tasks is not as difficult as imagined .

"Hehe, you are really not greedy enough." Wei Hua turned his head and smiled at Li Yi, and said, "For the time being, there are no more. A steam engine with an output power of more than 30 kilowatts can be used in an era of mixed use of sails to be honest. No, you don’t even look at how big our boat is. Let’s talk about it when there are larger boats in the future. Even if you don’t tell me, the officials and gentlemen from the Ministry of Communications will urge Li Hongxing to mount a horse with more horsepower. It is for the marine steam engine project. If it is not possible, the current 48.3-horsepower steam engine can also be improved. Well, don’t we always say that there is steam leakage in the cylinder? Then we use the re-expansion steam engine, that is, put two The steam engines are connected in series, and the steam in the cylinder of the upper stage leaks into the cylinder of the next stage to continue to push the piston to do work. This reduces a large part of the heat loss caused by the steam leakage, and should increase the output power a lot. However, this Compound-expansion steam engines are generally used on large ships, but your ships are still too small, and a single cylinder is enough."

"What is a re-expansion steam engine? Why haven't I heard of it? Tell me about it." Li Yihao asked shamelessly.

Wei Hua glanced at Li Yi with contempt, and said angrily: "Have you heard of a three-inflated steam engine? That is three cylinders connected together! Of course, two cylinders connected together are called re-expansion steam engines. Yes. Xiao Li, when you have nothing to do, don’t keep getting entangled with those European shabby noble ladies who come here, and be as virtuous as Chang Kaisheng. You have a wife, and you are raising an illegitimate child outside. What kind of words! I think you'd better spend more time studying! It's good for you, really, listen to me."

"Hey." Li Yi smiled sarcastically and didn't speak anymore, but stood on the stern deck and looked at the busy sailors on board.Today, the shortage of sailors is also a major bottleneck restricting the development of China's East Coast Republic's navigation industry. Although the navigation school located on the south bank of Dayu Lake has expanded its enrollment several times, at present it can only provide about 100 graduates each year.For the Ministry of the Navy, these people are all "insiders" and belong to subordinates who can be used with confidence. The officers of the navy generally like to promote them to be non-commissioned officers on board, so as to better implement their will.

Apart from these, the only way is for the United Front Work Department to use some pirate-born officers and soldiers in the East Coast Navy to go to the Caribbean Sea to fool some pirates into voting, but the number is also limited.And as the east coast goes to the Caribbean to recruit down-and-out pirates every year, this trick has become less and less effective over the years, because most of the pirates who want to be good are recruited by the east coast people.Most of the pirates recruited every year went to the navy, while the hundreds of Malay slave sailors who were screened and trained by the Ministry of Communications could only be assigned to the transport ships of the Inland River Transport Company and the South Sea Transport Company.

Li Yi's "Chopper" has a rated crew of 105 people (including gunners), which is the same as the number of "Breaking Waves".At the beginning, it was really a headache to fill up the hundred or so sailors, because this year's demand for sailors in the Navy is really too big.According to the plan of the Ministry of the Navy and the progress of the shipyard, two new warships will enter service in almost two months-the high-speed cruiser "Jingwu" and the escort gunship "Totoaba".Not to mention the "August [-]th" class battleship that Wang Qinian boasted was missing in the "Fourth Fleet" plan. The demand for sailors is increasing, and the normal way of training sailors is completely unable to meet the rapidly growing appetite of the navy.

Therefore, it is conceivable how much effort Li Yi took to get together the number of sailors on the "Chopper".He didn't know how many favors he entrusted to his grandpa and grandma, so he managed to get most of the people on board.Even so, there are still quite a few of the gunners who come from coastal defense artillery, and many of them have never been to sea at all. It seems that it will take a certain amount of time for them to adapt to the rhythm of the sea.Moreover, the "Chopper" is a motor sailing ship with a steam engine on board, which is also a new thing for sailors. They also need time to get familiar with the equipment, learn how to use, maintain and maintain the equipment, all of which take time.

"The cabins of each ship are filled with 400 tons of clean coal, which are placed in the bilge, as ballast stones." Wei Hua said suddenly, "Theoretically, these coals are enough for the 'Chopper' to sail continuously. 3200 hours. Of course, the service life of many equipments may not be so high, which is not enough to support your voyage for such a long time. Well, after this rectification, the coal consumption of the "Broken Wave" has also come down, about 135-140 kg of coal per hour. Look, 400 tons of clean coal is enough for her to sail for about 3000 hours. In addition, there are sails, in short, your endurance seems to be unlimited. In addition, there are fishing trawls and small seawater desalination devices on board. The survivability at sea absolutely surpasses all existing ships on this earth."

"It's almost the limit to install 400 tons of clean coal. It's a pity. Let's wait until we get to Xinhua. They wrote a report a while ago and said they found a high-quality coal mine. I hope they have produced coal by now. Coal The higher the calorific value of combustion, the higher my endurance." Li Yi said with a sigh.

The paper data of "Broken Wave" and "Chopper" are similar. Because of the addition of a lot of steel plates and the use of a large number of high-density hardwoods, its no-load displacement has more than 300 tons.The standard displacement is 730 tons. In fact, this data is not accurate.Because the purpose of the design is to be used as a sea expedition ship, there are a lot of miscellaneous equipment in the ship, such as artillery, ammunition, fresh water, beer, spirits, food, fuel, spare parts and other items are equipped with more items, resulting in its standard displacement. Up to 730 tons.The full-load displacement is only 850 tons, so a ship with 360-400 tons of fuel is the limit.

On February 1642, 2, the expedition ships "Breaking Waves" and "Chopping Waves" sailed out of the Estuary Wharf with a full load, then crossed the Duck Lake into the South Atlantic Ocean, and sailed low-key towards the South African River Port.

(End of this chapter)