On October 18, 1692, Qingdao Port, the new factory area of ​​Dayuhe Naval Shipyard.

A huge keel has been laid in place, and a large group of technicians from Dayuhe Factory are undergoing final renovation. This keel is made of steel keel. Because of its amazing length, it is not forged in the Black Mountain Industrial Company like other steel keels. Instead, a professional technician was drawn by the company to arrive at the Dayuhe Factory, and then use the existing equipment here to melt, forge, and then lay it into the dock.

The equipment of the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard is relatively advanced. Its new factory area in Qingdao Port has its own smelting furnace that can cast marine keels. In order to improve the strength of the keels, they also ordered the latest model of the "Iron Smasher" series of hydraulic presses from Heishan Industrial Company to forge and press mold the cast keels, which cost a lot of money.

Fortunately, the Ministry of Transportation also knew the importance of the Dayuhe Factory's mission. They allocated 200,000 yuan special funds to support the Dayuhe Factory in purchasing various equipment nationwide, including hydraulic presses, high-precision machine tools, etc. The Navy is not behind. Although their military expenditure is tight, they have prepared 200,000 yuan at the beginning of this fiscal year and invested them all in the Dayuhe Factory. However, this was not a waste of money, but as the advance construction fund for the "Bianliang" ironclad ship, which is equivalent to the advance payment that was made before the construction was officially started, which can also be regarded as a disguised support.

Yes, now we all know. What was built on the ship platform of Dayuhe Factory was not something else, but the long-rumored iron-clad ship "Bianliang", a big guy with a tonnage of nearly 4,000 tons. In terms of tonnage alone, this warship can beat up a number of small warships from countries around the world. After all, even England, France and Spain at this time, they had just begun to study how to produce large warships of more than 2,000 tons, and were also worried about the ship's materials and had to go to the New World to find a way.

Within 3,000 tons, it is basically the limit of wooden boats. If it is too large, it will be more than two levels of difficulty. First, it is difficult to find the kind of wood that is straight and transparent and has the right strength in nature. Even if it is found, the length may not be enough and it cannot be built. Second, the problem of structural strength is even more unsolvable. After all, the strength of wood cannot be compared with steel. When a large ship sails in the sea, the force that each part is subjected to is very large. If the strength is not good, the ship structure is easily damaged and even falls apart on the spot in bad weather.

These two difficulties basically mean that the displacement of more than 2,000 tons is the limit of wooden boats. No matter how big it is, it is neither safe nor economical (the maintenance cost is too high), and it is better to use steel! The people of the East Coast have long recognized this, so even though they had the technology to build large wooden boats of 2,500 tons to 3,000 tons, they did not try it. They would rather build medium-sized wooden boats of more than 1,000 tons. This size of ships is the most economical and reasonable on the East Coast, where the wood resources are extremely rich. If the ships are on the steam power system, the operators will also drop by a few%, which is basically the favorite model of major ship transport companies.

However, with the change of the guiding ideology of maritime transportation by the Ministry of Transport, the East Coast shipbuilding industry, which has a strong planned economy, has received a new task, which is to build larger tonnage ships to adapt to maritime transportation under the new situation. In fact, not only the Ministry of Transport, but also the Executive Committee’s official had similar instructions. Shao Yaoguang, Chairman of the Executive Committee, inspected several state-owned shipyards three times a year, requiring them not to think about lying on the credit book and "build small boats until the end of the day", but to speed up the research and development of large ships and put them into practical use as soon as possible.

There is no way. Although the captains sold part of their shares to private individuals, they were still state-controlled and could only allocate funds for development. As an old state-owned shipyard, the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard has a heavier task because it is mainly responsible for the development of the "Bianliang" class iron armored warship, and the technical content is quite considerable. Each of them is a new thing for them, and there is no rules to follow, so they can only explore it slowly.

The East Coast people have basically determined the above-mentioned policy of Brazilian suma as the hull. This wood has high hardness and strong flexibility, and has always been the first choice for naval battleships, and this time is naturally no exception. Before the Dayuhe Factory built the "Bianliang", it had collected a large number of such ships and selected them from the best to ensure reliable quality.

Armor is the top priority of the "Bianliang". According to the requirements of the navy, the "Bianliang" equipped with iron armor must have the ability to approach and shoot enemy turrets, which surprised everyone. You should know that it is one thing to fight against enemy ships at sea, and it is another thing to fight against turrets. The warships are limited to tonnage, size, mobility and rate of fire. The power of the artillery cannot be increased without limit, but the turrets are different! Because they are fixed on land, as long as the enemy is willing and able to overcome costs, technology and other factors, the power of the artillery can become very large, and it is large enough to deal severe damage to enemy warships sailing on the sea with one shot!

The navy made such a request, which simply did not give people a way out! Navy guns approached and bombarded, destroying enemy's fortifications, and then what? Will the army be convenient for landing? Please, our country's army is limited, and it is likely that the division will not work for an expedition. Why are you doing such a high standard? Unfortunately, the navy's people just didn't let go and were unwilling to lower the standards. In the end of the lawsuit, the superiors actually supported the navy, which hurt the cadres and staff of the Dayuhe Factory very much.

In the end, there was no way, so they could only bite the bullet! The Dayuhe Factory urgently contacted the Qingdao Port Fortress, and then sent people to dismantle several powerful coastal defense heavy artillery, go to the land to do experiments, and test the iron armor one by one to see how destructive it is! For this reason, the engineers of the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium also stationed in the shipyard, installed the forged iron armor on a special test bench, and then received solid iron egg bombardment from the coastal defense heavy artillery at different distances such as 1,000 meters, 500 meters, 300 meters, 200 meters, to see if the iron armor can meet the requirements.

The initial test results were very bad. Fortunately, the iron armor was not damaged too significantly, but when it was close, there were many problems! Not only did the iron armor often break and collapse, but even the teak liner behind the iron armor was often damaged, and the hull structure was damaged to a certain extent, which made the engineers of the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium so anxious that several bubbles appeared on their mouths.

They kept sending the latest bad test results back to the factory by telegram. The factory also under tremendous pressure for this and repeatedly dispatched backbone technicians to study the formula and manufacturing process of new high-intensity iron armor. Then they took the urgently produced iron armor to Qingdao Port on a train and repeated the last test.

Such experiments are undoubtedly extremely costly! But there is no way. Now this has risen to a political task. Not only are the navy's people staring at it, but even the executive committee officials often ask about it, which has caused the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium to stop many other projects and concentrate on the development of high-intensity military iron armor.

Last month, the latest iron armor produced by the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium finally withstood the multiple direct bombardment of the 24-pound naval gun 300 meters away. Although the Navy was still a little dissatisfied, they also understood that when things reached this point, everyone tried their best and forced the higher iron armor to be forced to exceed the R&D costs, but there is also a huge technical difficulty in materials science. It has never been a discipline that can be achieved overnight. It requires a lot of time and funds. Therefore, they barely accepted that this kind of iron armor called "No. 48" (meaning the 48th batch of military iron armor produced) can be used on the "Bianliang" iron armor ship.

Similar to the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium, the Heishan Industrial Company, which has a steam power part of the complex warship, was once torn to pieces. The "Popeye-22" steam engine they specially developed for the "Bianliang" was directly rejected by the Navy, because the thermal efficiency was not high enough and the coal consumption was too strong. The navy's military representatives directly said that the Heishan Industrial Company designed "no carelessly". Because the "Bianliang" ironclad ship is a double-layer hull and uses a lot of steel (including military ironclads, turrets, etc.), the hull weighs a lot, so the coal bin will not be too large. If the thermal efficiency of the steam engine is not high enough and the coal consumption is too strong, this is a challenge to the endurance of the ship.

It has to be said that the Navy people make sense. Over the years, the power of various marine steam engines they produced was enough, but most of them were simple and extensive horsepower piles, and there was room for improvement in thermal efficiency. There was no way, the boss of Heishan Industrial Company made a decision, gave up the original design plan, and redesigned a dedicated steam power system for the "Bianliang", which was the "Jiaolong-1" steam propulsion system they later launched.

This new power system has been designed and is being manufactured in the workshop of Montenegro Industrial Company. Once the manufacturing is completed, they will install it on a large cargo ship that is about to be retired and invite naval representatives to board the ship to evaluate its performance. There is no doubt that new things will definitely encounter various troubles when they first come out, and the trial production of the "Jiaolong-1" will not be smooth, but as long as the direction is right, it will only be a matter of time before it comes.

If Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium and Heishan Industrial Company are in big trouble, then life will be better for the Northern Arsenal with a large amount of technical reserves. They are responsible for the artillery system on the ironclad ship of the Bianliang. According to the requirements, the Bianliang will not be equipped with too many artillery, but its naval guns, which are heavily protected by armored artillery, must be able to fire conical shells to create greater trouble for enemy ships.

This requirement is not a problem for the northern arsenal. They have long developed this kind of naval gun with a long range and high accuracy, and have passed the Navy's acceptance perfectly. They even went further and developed a shell equipped with a bomb fuse. When this shell landed on the deck of the enemy ship, it would explode directly, which would severely destroy its hull structure and quickly lose its combat effectiveness. The Navy's people are very interested in this and have now allocated funds to ask them to improve it, increase its power, and reduce costs for large-scale use in the future.

There are many other units involved in the design and production of the "Bianliang" ironclad ship, such as the Modern Special Ship Factory, Ping An Coal-Steel Consortium, Dayuhe Arsenal, East Coast Precision Instrument Company, etc. Almost every company has received one or more technical research and development tasks. It can be said that the development and production of the "Bianliang" ironclad ship is a large-scale scientific and technological research activity that all employees of the East Coast heavy industrial enterprises participate. No matter what the warship will look like in the future, at least it will have a huge positive impact on the progress of East Coast industrial technology.
Chapter completed!