Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 348 Returning to Heishui Port ([-])

According to the order of the executive committee, a transport ship of the newly established East Africa Transport Company will also join the fleet of voyages.Facing the orders from the local superiors, the frowning Shi Qinjie had no choice but to agree.Fortunately, the second 650-ton flute-shaped transport ship manufactured by his Xinhua Shipyard has almost been built, otherwise he would not have released it so happily.

The cabin of this newly added transport ship was loaded with a large amount of construction materials such as cement, lime, standard bricks, and refractory bricks, as well as a large number of livestock such as hump cattle and large white pigs, and then the fleet left Xinhua Port without rest. With the southeast wind, it arrived on February 2nd at Tacheng Port, which has been built a little bit now.

Passengers on board were allowed to go ashore for the entire two days.Meanwhile, many slave workers on the wharf of Tacheng Port seized the time to add coal to the four steam-powered multi-purpose expedition ships.Hundreds of slave laborers worked hard for two days and two nights before loading up to [-] tons of clean coal from Tacheng into the cabins of four expedition ships. So far, these four ships are almost fully loaded .

During these two days, Mo Ming and others accidentally encountered five ships from the Sino-Portuguese United Fleet patrolling here.After a brief conversation with Wang Tiechui, they got an important piece of information: the Dutch began to strengthen the construction of their stronghold in Tulare, and migrated many Chinese, Javanese and Indians from the East India to plant pepper , in order to ensure the safety of their own routes.But fortunately, both the Dutch and the people on the east coast have maintained great restraint and have not further aggravated the conflict. However, anyone can see that the relationship between the two parties is very cold, and it can even be said to be bad. The conflict may sooner or later will explode.

After breaking up with Wang Tiechui, on February 2, the fleet, which had expanded to nine ships, left the berthing area of ​​Tacheng Port after replenishing a large amount of fresh water, and headed south to Gushan Port in the southwest corner of Australia.So far, the entire fleet has entered the most critical and dangerous part of the voyage.When entering the waters near 5 degrees south latitude, Liu Dafa, the captain of the expedition ship "Fubo" that sailed for the first time, turned pale. The ship was shaking too much, and the waves were too high.The pumps and scuppers on the ship have all been opened, and the sailors must walk on the deck very carefully to avoid falling into the sea.In such a high-latitude sea area with strong winds and waves, you can't expect any ship to stop to save you, this is simply impossible.

The "Fubo" expedition ship has a full-load displacement of 1150 tons. It uses a bronze bushing stern tube, a 48.3-horsepower single-cylinder steam engine, and a single-propeller propeller.This kind of propeller was scaled up or down for imitation by the engineers of Hyundai Special Shipyard after referring to the propellers of the decommissioned Yunsheng No. [-] and the tugboat.The propeller is made of cast iron and cast with a mold. After casting, it is slightly machined on the machine tool to make it more precise.

In fact, casting and processing propellers is not a difficult task for the East Coast Republic, which already has the most basic industrial processing capabilities. The technology with the highest technical content is the underwater sealing technology of propeller shafts.At present, the expedition ships "Fubo" and "Daohai" both use steel paddle shafts. The difference between the two lies in the shaft sleeves of different materials on the paddle shafts. One is an iron pear wood shaft sleeve, and the other is a Bronze bushing.The purpose of using different bushings is actually for testing, that is, the engineers of Hyundai Special Shipyard want to observe which of the two bushings is better. The main indicators to observe are the degree of wear of the bushing, whether the heat dissipation is good, and whether it is resistant to seawater corrosion. , whether the sealing degree is good, whether there is oil leakage and so on.

Naval officers and soldiers will be responsible for recording various data, and then submit it to the modern factory so that they can finalize the design of the first propeller propeller in China.The two ships were relatively stable during this trip, and the propellers were operating normally.However, before driving in normal seas, that was nothing. Now that it has entered the stormy seas, it can be said that the real test has just begun.

The waves on the sea today have reached a height of more than 4 meters, and the ship is shaking very badly.Mo Ming was wearing a raincoat, clutching the railing of the ship, walking carefully on the deck.The ship not only swayed from side to side, but also bumped up and down very badly.He was a little worried that something would happen to the bronze bushing of the ship's propeller stern tube, because in this bumpy environment, the propeller shaft and the bushing were also subjected to the force of seawater rushing in from all directions.Moreover, the propeller itself also has its own weight, and such frequent axial vibrations may damage the bronze bushing of the stern tube—because the hardness of the bronze material itself is relatively soft, it is not as good as that used on the "Crossing the Sea" Iron pear bushings, so he was rather worried.

The new chief engineer on the ship gestured to him that everything was normal, which made him a little relieved, and it seemed that the problem was not serious.Then test it for a few more days, and then you can turn off the steam engine and raise the sails to sail.After all, the equipment of the steam engine and its transmission system will also wear and tear, and the less time it can be used, the less time it can be used.

The entire convoy was led by the "Chop Wave", followed by the "Crossing the Sea"; and the last ones were the "Breaking Wave" and "Fubo".Among these four ships are three flute-shaped transport ships, an armed transport ship, and a fast cruiser. The entire fleet maintains a speed of 7-8 knots as a whole, traveling eastward at high speed.Maybe God favors this fleet, maybe the navigator on the leading expedition ship "Chopper" has rich experience, in short, they crossed this stormy sea area without any danger, and arrived on March 3. Somewhere on the south coast of mainland Australia.After sending people ashore to measure the latitude and longitude through the length of the noon shadow and the mechanical watch, they took the time to compare the coastline of the area they were in, and finally determined their position.After confirming the location, the entire fleet immediately turned due west, and only sailed for half a day to find Gushan Port, which had already been set as a stronghold.

Nearly half a year has passed since the last time a ship entered the port in Gushan Port.Therefore, after seeing a huge fleet coming from the mainland, the left-behind personnel on the east coast in the port were a little excited.But at present, there are only three very short wooden trestles in Gushan Bay, which can only accommodate six ships at a time.There is no way, the nine ships can only come in batches.

When the Eight Banners warriors who stayed here saw Mo Ming getting off the boat, they burst into cheers one by one.Although the old chief often drove them to fight with other tribes when he was in South Africa, he was generally kind to them. The slaves and supplies seized in the war were always distributed to everyone as fairly as possible, so everyone They all believed him.

Mo Ming waved to them with a smile, and then chatted with hundreds of Hezhe, Oroqen, and Ainu soldiers from the No. 2 Squadron of the Standing Squad who stood aside awkwardly.Only a few of them can speak some simple Chinese, but this does not prevent the two sides from conveying their respective meanings, because Mo Ming quickly ordered people to move some exquisite floral cloths, various wines and shredded tobacco from the boat as rewards for them. , which immediately cheered them up.

There are less than 70 North Korean men and women in the port. These people are the main labor force of this stronghold, and some of the fields opened outside the city are planted by them.At the same time, they are still servants of more than 2 Eight Banners warriors and hundreds of officers and soldiers of the [-]nd Squadron of the Standing Squadron in the stronghold, all because they have not yet obtained official status.Mo Ming casually flipped through the record book handed over by the manager who stayed here—a hundred households of the Eight Banners, which recorded some trivial matters, such as how many acres of wasteland were reclaimed on a certain day, how many acres were sown on a certain day, and how many acres of troops were organized on a certain day. Go patrol the neighborhood, etc.

One of them records that the North Koreans rioted in December last year, killing one Eight Banners warrior, one member who stood up, killing and injuring several people, and then suppressed them, beheading 12 rioters.This made Mo Ming feel a little bit interesting, even those North Koreans with their families would riot?Most likely it was because of the bullying of those Eight Banners warriors that they had no choice but to resist.Mo Ming has led these Eight Banners soldiers for many years and is well aware of some of their virtues. When they were in New China, there were frequent reports of Eight Banners soldiers raping Malay women. This time, such incidents probably aroused the resistance of the Koreans. .

But he didn't intend to delve into it, since he wanted the horse to run, how could he not let it graze?At most, it would be good to warn and beat them, so that they dare not do it again in a short time. After all, if the punishment is too much, the hearts of the soldiers will be chilled.People come across the ocean to open up wasteland for you, and it's a fart to make a small mistake. Shouldn't they be shot?I am not the Soviet political commissar!

The transport ships on the pier were still unloading one by one. Due to the shortage of manpower, even many sailors and army soldiers also participated.They unloaded a large amount of building materials, grain, livestock, agricultural tools, and weapons. The building materials were used to build a brick kiln factory in Gushan Port; the grain was reserved for the immigrants who were coming this year; Livestock such as oxen, South African cattle, llamas, and large white pigs stay here for breeding.

At the same time, some technicians from brick kiln factories, shipyards, and the Ministry of Agriculture will be placed here.In the future, Gushan Port will use them as the backbone to start the construction of brick kiln factories, ship repair shops, and guide the new immigrants in more scientific and advanced planting and grazing techniques.

Passengers on the ship were allowed to go ashore to rest as usual. Since there was a lot of waste and there were not enough wooden houses, everyone could only pull up barbed wire and set up tents along the walled city to live temporarily for two days.After the cargo on each ship has been unloaded and fresh water and vegetables have been replenished, they will set off again to Jinshan Port in the east.

(End of this chapter)