Three days later, a strange ship finally arrived at the dock of Jiuyuan City.
This ship is different from any other ship in the Ming Dynasty. Because it is a short, fat and strange ship with a shallow draft. In order to increase the surface area and expand the buoyancy, its width is particularly large, and its length is almost 2.5:1.
Yang Fan's idea came from the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. On the Chuanjiang River in Sichuan, there were many specially designed shallow-water heavy artillery ships of the great powers. Because of the shallow draft, they could go up the Shuojiang River during the dry season and reach the upper reaches of Chongqing.
There are relatively few weapons on the ship, mainly one or two heavy cannons, and the rest are some machine guns.
Heavy artillery can deal with fortresses, machine guns can deal with infantry and cavalry.
Because the boat is small, it can turn around in the inland river. If it can't turn around, just reverse and go back.
Although the speed is not fast, it is still no problem to go upstream. In order to reduce the hull size, a small steam engine burning kerosene is used. At a speed of 7 knots against the current, the range can reach 2,800 kilometers.
The steam engine of this ship was placed at the stern. In order to counterweight, a circular open-air open turret was designed on the bow of the ship, and a 36-pound naval cast steel long gun was installed.
Use manpower to shake the gear set and rotate the direction and pitch angle of the gun mount.
This heavy gun was specially developed for ships. It will be used to replace all naval guns of various calibers currently equipped by the navy. In the future, Yang Fan's ships will all be unified into this kind of gun. In addition to many artillery guns with inconsistent calibers,
It makes no sense to increase the burden of maintenance.
Artillery battles in this era are meaningless if they cannot penetrate enemy ships. Yang Fan does not intend to take the path of winning by numbers like the Western sail battleships. Instead, he uses large-caliber, pointed cylindrical warheads, which are more conducive to armor penetration. 203 mm
diameter can also be filled with explosives.
The caliber ratio of this gun reaches an astonishing 32 times the caliber. It weighs five tons. It has a maximum range of 2,500 meters and an effective range of 1,500 meters. This naval gun is the last front-loading smoothbore gun.
The next wave of equipment will be breech-loading rifled guns.
At present, the all-metal warhead, cartridge, primer, and fuze have all passed the inspection. The rifling machine tool has also been put into production. It is an imitation of the American rifling machine in the 19th century.
Breech-loading guns no longer have too many technical problems. If they do, they can only use black powder as the propellant, which has a relatively short range. When the collodion film matures, it can be replaced with smokeless gunpowder.
The front part is open-air and can rotate, and the rear part is an open turret with a semicircular steel gun shield. The stern is the power cabin. The bridge is placed in the middle. On the platforms on both sides of the upper part of the bridge, there are
A Gatling machine gun is installed.
This time it was Huang Hao who brought the ship. He had handed over his errands and completed the counter-insurgency work. Xinghe Tuanlian also returned to his station. The emperor rewarded him for his merits, and Huang Hao was awarded the rank of general.
However, people in Yang Fan's system were not very fond of officials in the imperial court.
What they care about is the military rank given by the master, because these military ranks represent different levels of treatment. Apart from having a nice name, the imperial generals do not have many benefits. Military pay has not been paid for a year.
Huang Hao, Director of the Transportation Department, was promoted to the rank of Army Aviation Major General. This is a new branch of the army. It belongs to the Army and is called the Army Inland Navigation Fleet. It mainly fights on inland rivers.
Huang Hao handed over the chief of transportation department and became the commander-in-chief of the newly established Army Aviation Command.
"You kid, you usually do transportation and logistics quietly. I really made a mistake. I didn't expect that you are also good at fighting." Yang Fan patted his shoulder and said.
Huang Hao was a little embarrassed. In fact, in terms of fighting, he was much better than him. It was really the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who were so bad that it showed him. No, he re-enlisted in the army.
"Sir, after all, I also graduated from the crash course at the Wushu Hall. Although I have been working in transportation, I have not left behind my professionalism."
"Okay, I will leave it to you in the future. Go back and prepare. We will take action tonight." Yang Fan said.
"Here!" Huang Hao stood at attention and saluted Yang Fan in a standard military posture.
Yang Fan gave him a military salute in return.
This boy, this shows that he has always been a soldier and has never forgotten his identity.
That night, after dark, the dock was brightly lit, and an ugly steamboat was lighting up a fire to heat hot water and increase steam pressure.
Yang Fan took Zhang Wudian and others onto the bridge bridge of the ship.
Zhang Wudian was originally a second-ranked Jinshi, a pure scholar. Although he had been leading troops for half his life, he was over seventy after all, and his physical strength was not as good as that of young people, and he could no longer wield a sword or a gun in battle.
So when I came out this time, I brought my daughter-in-law and granddaughter, who have the highest martial arts value in the family.
As soon as she got on the boat, Zhang Fengyi was immediately disappointed. It was completely different from the spacious space, luxurious decoration, and neat appearance of the clipper boats she had seen before.
This ship is designed to be very narrow. The stairs are steep and narrow, and the interior space is also very narrow. The ceiling is also low, and there are steel pipes everywhere. If you are not careful, you will hit your head.
Hammocks are used in sleeping areas and have to be put away in the morning.
There is no restaurant like that on a sea-going ship, so you probably have to take turns eating and squat on the deck to eat. It's okay if it doesn't rain, but if it snows and rains, you won't be able to eat at all.
The only relatively spacious place is the bridge's pilothouse. It's more than ten square meters. It's located in a higher position and has a good view.
Zhang Wudi didn't dislike it at all. He went to the engine room with great interest, then to the turret, and then to the cab to look at the steering wheel.
"There has been great progress. The steam engines are getting smaller and smaller. I don't know what the power is like." Zhang Wudian sighed.
"Mr. Zhang, the power has been doubled. Now each unit has 800 horsepower. This ship has two steam engines. Once one of the steam engines breaks down, the other one can continue to drive back and return for repair. But the cost is not cheap. Because
For fear of corrosion, the performance of our engine oil and lubricating oil is not very good, and we use a large number of copper components, which increases the cost. We also have this problem on seagoing ships."
Zhang Wudian asked: "Is it more expensive to burn fuel oil than coal?"
Huang Hao said: "Yes, it is a lot more expensive. But the fuel has a high combustion value. It carries both coal and oil, and the fuel life is twice as long as coal. We sometimes burn coal and fuel together."
Although fuel oil and asphalt are the final products of crude oil cracking under current technology, their prices are still higher than coal. Because there is no shortage of coal in Mongolia and Shanxi. Many coals are open-pit mines, which are easy to mine and very cheap.
The cabin was very dirty, and Zhang Wudian was also covered in oil. Zhang Fengyi's face was even stained black and white. I don't know where she touched her hand, and then she accidentally got it on her face.
"Brother Yang, this ship is too small. The driver's cab and the gun position in front are relatively spacious." Zhang Fengyi has never seen such a narrow environment.
Yang Fan said with a smile: "I have no choice but to design it as narrow as possible. This is because this is a ship for fighting in inland rivers. It is too big to turn around in a narrow river."
At this time, Zhang Fengyi discovered that there were four barges towed by the steam battleship behind them. They were covered with bundles of things wrapped in cotton cloth and carrying a bamboo pole.
Brother Yang, what are you doing with these things like the candied haws of straw? Are you going to the straw boat to borrow arrows tonight?
"Brother Yang, what are those and what are they used for?"
"Those are the first batch of Kangolev rockets sent. We will use them to set Linhe City on fire tonight."