A large military depot and distribution center for materials can be set up in Foshan Town. He thought that by taking advantage of its geographical advantages, it could not only purchase military supplies on a large scale: rice, grains, livestock, fruits, cloth... but also make supplies convenient.
distributed.
His mind works very fast. Part of the purchased materials can be processed directly in Foshan, and the other part can be transferred to Hong Kong for processing. The rice purchased will be pounded into brown rice in the grain mill of the military station for storage, and will be pounded again before supplying to the troops.
Distributed as polished rice. According to the nutritional theory proposed by Chen Sigen, Fu Bojun no longer eats brown rice. The reason is that brown rice requires more time to cook, which wastes fuel, and brown rice is difficult to digest and requires more chewing to fully
Absorption. It is obviously impossible to have too long to cook and eat on the battlefield.
In addition to grain, vegetables can also be purchased and processed locally in Foshan, and processed into dried vegetables and pickles to supply the troops. If the transportation time does not exceed 72 hours, fresh vegetables can simply be transported directly to the frontline troops.
As for meat, poultry eggs and even candies, Hong Huangnan has the idea of using local raw materials to make them. Especially for meat, with the fast and convenient water supply system, there is no need to even consider pickled foods. He can use
He is good at gourmet food and makes some dishes with long shelf life to serve to the soldiers on the front line.
After drawing the schematic diagram, Hong Huangnan returned to his desk. The five-minute chicken had begun to emit an attractive aroma. He took a sip of the tea brought by the secretary and opened the folder just delivered. Inside was the Senate
Line drawing of several inland river vessels newly designed and built by the shipbuilding industry for Guangdong Raiders.
Guangdong itself has no shortage of inland river boats. Just on the river from Guangzhou to the Pearl River Estuary, there are at least three to four thousand inland river and mixed river and sea boats parked all year round. Excluding fishing boats, flower boats and other small boats, most of them can be used.
It is used to load cargo and carry people. Although the cargo capacity is not large, the draft of the ship is shallow enough, which can basically meet the needs of navigation on the main branches and tributaries of the Dongjiang, Xijiang and Beijiang. There are also many local coastal merchant ships, and the direct requisition fee
Not much.
But Hong Huangnan was not very satisfied with these ships: these ships were all sailing ships, and the cargo holds were not suitable for the various standard packaging boxes widely used by the joint logistics department. Although a large number of these ships were temporarily needed for transportation, they were still
It is necessary to establish a backbone transport fleet of its own.
In Hong Huangnan's consideration, these specialized ships should not only be motorized, but also have a certain degree of protection. In particular, they must defend against arson attacks on the river banks. There are lessons learned from this: in the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary,
, the navy made extensive use of various captured wooden ships. Ship losses in the battle were mainly caused by the enemy's arson weapons. Therefore, sails were not considered for these ships.
He initially focused on existing naval vessels, especially motorized three-engine boats. These small boats have shallow drafts and are equipped with small steam engines, making them ideal shallow-water vessels. In addition, the Type 621 paddle-wheel tugboat is also very
Suitable river vessels. Intelligence personnel reported that the Type 621 can sail to Wuzhou without any difficulty. It can even sail further upstream to Nanning.
Using the Type 621 tugboat to tow barges can transport a large number of materials and personnel. The "water supply column" in Hong Huangnan's mind is roughly based on this. But this is not enough.
For the main channel of Sanjiang, the "supply column" of the 621 ship can generally flow unobstructed. However, in some areas of the upper reaches and many tributaries, the 621 ship is too big. Therefore, a "small steamer" with a shallower draft is needed.
"To perform transportation and towing work. This type of small steamboat was still active on many rivers in China until the 1980s.
In addition to transporting ships, small inland river gunboats must also be equipped in order to protect shipping safety, eliminate water bandits, provide fire support for landing troops during operations, and deter coastal villages.
These requirements were mixed together and became a topic for the shipyard veterans. In view of Shi Jiantao's initiative, he was specifically responsible for the project. As for the designer, Zhong Ziheng, the only chief designer of the "Central Ship Design Institute", was naturally responsible.
.
After coordination between the General Administration of Military Affairs and the Planning Institute, the design work of the ship was carried out in Lingao, and the construction of the entire ship was arranged in Hong Kong. Naturally, engines, artillery and the like still had to be shipped from Lingao.
The first page of drawings that Hong Huangnan opened was the "inner" type of 621. The so-called "inner" means that it is specially used for navigation on inland rivers. This was completed by Zhong Ziheng with a small amount of changes on the prototype of 621. The main change was to replace
A smaller engine was installed to save the cabin volume and reduce the coal bunker reserve. The paddle wheel was changed to a stern wheel to adapt to shallower rivers.
However, the 621 itself is designed based on large-depth waterways such as the coastal and Pearl River waterways, and the line shape has not been specially optimized for shallow draft. Although the ship's draft has been reduced by modifying smaller engines and other measures, its seaworthy range is already
It was relatively limited. Hong Huangnan looked at the indicators. It was probably only the Xijiang River that was unobstructed, and there was no pressure all the way to Wuzhou.
The next second line diagram is of an iron-framed and wooden-hulled river gunboat. According to the 500-ton dividing line, its standard displacement of 260 tons can only be regarded as a boat.
This is a river gunboat "carefully designed" by Zhong Ziheng. The specific blueprint is the river gunboats that the great powers sailed on the Yangtze River in the 1920s and 1930s. Because these gunboats have the dual requirements of "riot control" and "deterrence", they are often equipped with
Larger-caliber artillery and a considerable number of light rapid-fire weapons. The speed is faster than the wooden boats on the river. Due to the consideration of crossing the Three Gorges and entering the interior of Sichuan during the dry season, the draft is generally very shallow.
This technical requirement coincides with the General Staff's river operations in Guangdong. Therefore, this river gunboat code-named 798 was designed by Zhong Ziheng to implement this requirement. The main dimensions are 54.86 meters long, 8. meters wide, and 0.79 meters draft. It is equipped with two
It has a reciprocating 500-horsepower steam engine and two coal-fired boilers. It has a crew of 56 and can carry a platoon of troops if necessary. The Type 798 does not consider navigation capabilities at all, and adopts a shallow-draft inland river ship type with an extremely low trunk line.
Due to the limited space in the hull, the Type 798 has the common characteristics of this type of river gunboat: a long and large superstructure. Coupled with the tall double chimneys and the huge 130mm front-mounted rifled gun profile, the entire ship appears top-heavy.
However, it also benefits from this design, which allows it to pass through most of the waterways of the three rivers in the East, West, and North and a considerable number of tributaries. With its "towering" body and "big cannon", it can appear on any section of the river and pose a threat to surrounding local forces.
The deterrent must be extremely strong. When necessary, it can also be used to deliver armies and transport supplies. Although the hull is made of iron-framed wood, the cabins mainly exposed on the waterline are all equipped with hot-rolled thin steel plates as armor.
, except for the Hongyi cannon, it is completely immune to most firearms of the Ming army at close range.
Hong Huangnan was very satisfied with this river gunboat, but due to his understanding of the stingy character of the Planning Institute, he was skeptical that the Planning Institute would finally agree to build a few special river gunboats, the Type 798 gunboat. Of course, he personally supported it very much.
Compared with the thousand-pound siege guns boasted by many senators, the effectiveness of this new type of weapon is more convincing than the river gunboats anchored in Baietan.
As if to contrast with the river gunboats, next is a small inland river gunboat that the Planning Institute will obviously like very much. It is based on the 25-ton inland river gunboat that the Japanese army once widely used in China. The seaworthiness of this gunboat is almost unlimited.
During the Anti-Japanese War, it could be seen everywhere from small riversides in the south of the Yangtze River to rivers in Guangdong. Needless to say, on the Yangtze River, the People's Liberation Army also used it to go out to sea to support the battle to liberate offshore islands. The remaining hulls have been used as ships along the Yangtze River.
Handy ships were used until the 1990s.
The problem is that this kind of small boat uses an internal combustion engine, and its industrial capabilities are still relatively weak in this area. The design plan is to use an enlarged copy of a compact 12-horsepower steam engine designed and manufactured by American steam engine enthusiasts brought by Li Di.
It is an 18-horsepower steam engine. The natural speed and endurance are greatly affected. The whole ship specifications are 18.1 meters long, 3.5 meters wide, with a full load displacement of 30 tons, and a naval version of a 70mm 32-year-old brigade gun installed -
―It can be used as an infantry gun by attaching wheels.
"This gunboat is simply too ugly to look at." Hong Huangnan couldn't help but comment.
However ugly it is, it is a very useful boat. The "Water Supply Column" does indeed need such flexible and cheap armed boats to escort it.
Finally, there is the so-called 1024 type inland river steamer. Obviously, designer Zhong did not put much thought into it and directly copied the existing design data. In addition to changing the power to an 18-horsepower small steam engine and adding a coal bunker, it
It is no different from the "small steamers" that were active on China's inland waterways throughout the 20th century. The 1024 model adopts a conventional shallow draft design with a flat bottom and low freeboard. Although it has an unattractive appearance and mediocre performance, it has strong navigation adaptability and is easy and flexible to use.
Hong Huangnan decided to use this kind of ship as a mobile transport force for joint logistics.
"That's almost it. It's best to build a batch of them." Hong Huangnan circled his name and put the documents back into the document basket. He made a rough estimate in his mind of how many ships of various types were needed.
However, he was a little worried, because it was already early autumn, and there were only more than three months before the launch of the attack. Who knew how many of these new models of ships would be put into use by then? He had no idea about the efficiency of the Hong Kong shipyards.
As far as I know, there is no progress report to him. (To be continued.)