The expedition fleet led by Li Yi set out from Hekou Fort on February 1, 1642, and it was already November 20 when it returned to the country. The entire operation lasted 9 months and 20 days. They not only successfully demonstrated the feasibility of this route, but also set up a relay point in the southwest and southeast corners of the Australian continent, and finally successfully established a fairly acceptable stronghold in the Far East.

After carefully reading the series of documents and materials such as navigation logs, adventure diaries, work reports, etc., both the staff of the Navy Department and the bureaucrats of the Executive Committee sighed that the experiences of these guys could have been written into a novel. If the plan had not been carried out in a low-key manner and to take care of the emotions of some local old citizens, especially those of the Livornians and the French, the Executive Committee would have been preparing to hold a celebration meeting for Li Yi and his group.

However, although the celebration meeting was not completed, the internal reference of Pravda had slaughtered two pages in a very large volume, making almost all travelers aware of the actions of Li Yi and others. At this point, Li Yi's reputation suddenly rose among travelers, catching up with the top three Lu, Wang and Guo, currently in the navy.

While the Executive Committee was discussing the details of the next set of action plans, Li Yi had already returned to his private manor on the shore of Luoqia Lake in the south, and had a leisurely vacation with his family.

"Brother Li, you are very popular this time. I am very envious of my brothers. Grass is an epic voyage." The newly-established Navy Lieutenant Sang Kai sat on a red sandalwood chair and turned to Li Yi and smiled. He also bought land on the shore of Luoqia Lake and built his own manor-style villa. He usually had many contacts with Li Yi and his family. He had a good relationship. Therefore, the two families got together on this vacation.

Li Yi's wife came from a businessman family in Florence. This was introduced by Julian of the Pasquiel family. It is said that she has some connection with the Pasquiel family. They have had four children over the years: three sons and one daughter, the youngest one is only over three years old. In the past two days, the youngest son seemed to have a cold, so he stayed at home to recuperate. Li Yi even specially invited a doctor from the Ming Dynasty to stay at home to take care of his young son. This is not Li Yi's big trouble, but the current medical level in the East Coast Republic is too low, and he can basically only be with him if he gets sick. Because there is no medicine and he doesn't know how to make medicine, a few doctors who travel through the crowd feel that it is hard to cook without rice.

Therefore, some doctors who came from the Ming Dynasty became popular. Not only were they given extremely high treatment, the Ministry of Health even organized them to write textbooks and vigorously promote traditional Chinese medicine teaching in China. Of course, Western medicine cannot be neglected. Since the start of the chemical industry and the mass production of concentrated sulfuric acid, the travelers have tried to produce a large amount of hydrochloric acid. They have gradually begun in-depth research on organic chemistry, especially the research in the pharmaceutical industry is the top priority. However, for now, the chemical pharmaceutical industry has not made any progress. The Northern Pharmaceutical Factory located in Jishu Township, Ping'an County has only produced inorganic drugs such as sodium sulfate and ferrous sulfide, which have come to fool people, which has greatly disappointed the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Health.

Li Yi's eldest son, Li Zemin, is nine years old this year. He was just sent to the 41st class of Corps Fort last year for study. Today, he was able to come back after asking the instructor for leave. At a young age, he was wearing a dark green military uniform, a big cap, small leather boots, and a tight armed belt around his waist. He looked a bit extraordinary.

However, Li Yi's wife was a little angry about this. She insisted that her son was a nobleman and should not be struggling in the same playground or in a puddle with the sons of the farmers. He should learn knowledge such as etiquette, socialization, poetry and literature, and should not be like a rude military man, making him dirty all day long and making some small wounds on his body, which makes him feel heart-wrenching pain every time he sees him.

"I am from a peasant family. If aristocrats don't study or work hard, they will be worse than farmers. Children endure more hardships since childhood. When they grow up, they will understand that this is a wealth for them." Li Yi sneered at this. Although he looks gentle, he is still a militarist at heart. He is very disgusted with those who play with verbal tricks all day long and claim to be superior. Therefore, he sent his two sons, one nine-year-old and one eight-year-old, into the Corps Fort, allowing them to learn to be down-to-earth from an early age, and not to indulge in wealth and power, and thus lose their true hearts.

"Dear, Zemin is the eldest son, and he should learn how to run the family business." Li Yi's wife Samantha said worriedly, "We need professional knowledge to manage our farm in Luoqiang Port, the grape plantation and winery in Xiangshan Fort, the furniture factory in Henan Township, the sisal plantation in Xinhuaxia and a shop in Florence. You have sent our two sons to the Corps Fort, and it is inappropriate to refuse to let them learn the knowledge and etiquette needed by the upper class. I heard that Bai Siwen's sons are able to publish poetry in school journals and treat people well. The ladies like to stay with him very much."

"You woman doesn't understand." Li Yi waved his hand impatiently and said, "You know too little and don't understand the essence of this society. You will understand it in the future. Look at Wang Qinian, Lu Ming, Wang Tiechong, and Zhu Liang, Xie Hansan and others from the Army. Which of them did not send their children to the Corps Fort? If you are really worried, you can teach Zehai carefully. He is only three and a half years old, and the family industry will be left to him in the future."

Samantha sighed, knowing that she could not convince her husband. Fortunately, her husband did not send his youngest son to the Guards Corps, the executive committee known as the "Corporate Prison", and she had plenty of time to educate him into an elegant gentleman.

In fact, Li Yi's behavior is not uncommon among the time travelers today, especially those military families who sent one or two of their children to the Corps Fort. In this way, in a few generations, a military aristocratic group with these generations of descendants of the time and space who participated in the army and their followers in this time will take shape, and this group will surely profoundly influence the political trend and foreign policy of the East Coast Republic of China.

Sankai's wife Fontana came over and took Samantha's arm. Two women from Italy, who were also from Italy, took their children to the grass by the lake to prepare food, and let the two men stay there and chat freely.

"Xiao Sang, you kid move fast enough." Li Yi sat on the chair, crossed his legs, pointed Sang Kai with his finger, and said, "You just came out of this modern factory with a propeller propeller ship, and you were staring at it. The day before yesterday, I saw the appointment letter for you in the Navy Department. I was still very strange. Didn't you be an adjutant on Lu Ming's ship? How did you transfer it to a "Lehai" to be a captain? After a closer look, I'll take it. No wonder, it turns out that this "Lehai" is also a multi-functional expedition ship. But how did they solve the underwater seal of their propeller shaft? Reliable or not? Will the ship leak water?"

In fact, the Shanghai Army had long wanted to equip the ships with propeller propellers. However, the modern special ship factory had been unable to solve the problem of underwater sealing and oil leakage of the stern shaft tube. All such ships have not been produced for a long time, but have successively produced two paddle-wheel test ships to verify their performance. However, the Navy and Hyundai Plant have never given up on research on propeller propellers because their reliability is much better than paddle-wheel ships.

This time, after collective discussion and repeated experiments, a group of engineers from the modern factory finally tried to produce an underwater seal of the propeller tail shaft pipe. The seal is divided into three parts: a sealing cavity, a sleeve and a shaft. The sleeve is made of bronze, the shaft is ordinary carbon steel, and the propeller is made of cast iron.

The material of the sleeve that everyone thought of was iron pear wood produced in Central America. However, considering that we had to travel thousands of miles to buy this precious tree from the Spanish, we decided to try a bronze sleeve with good thermal conductivity. If it really doesn't work, then replace it with the iron pear wood sleeve. The sleeve has good thermal conductivity and is very wear-resistant, and can perfectly assume the function of the sleeve. In order to reduce the friction between the shaft and the sleeve, we also sintered a layer of graphite bronze on the surface of the shaft (8% graphite, 6% tin, and 10% lead) to reduce the friction coefficient between the two, and also play a good sealing role.

Oil lubrication is used between the shaft sleeve and the shaft. In order to prevent the leakage of lubricating oil, engineers from the modern factory worked together to process some oil-blocking threads from the outer surface of the shaft. Because when the oil is attached to the smooth shaft, it is easy to be thrown out because the shaft rotates. The faster the shaft rotates, the faster the oil leakage speed. However, when there are threads on the outer surface of the shaft, when the shaft rotates, the lubricating oil that wants to leak will be blocked by the threads, thus staying in the sealing cavity. Of course, we also designed double safety, that is, several spring sealing rings are installed at the front end of the sealing cavity, which not only prevents the lubricating oil from leaking, but also blocks the entry of seawater. It can be said that it kills two birds with one stone.

However, some people have suggested that there is no lubricating oil, but adding many graphite rings between the shaft sleeve and the paddle shaft can not only play a lubricating role, but also play a good sealing role. Because of the characteristics of graphite, it is a substance with self-lubricating effect, and it is also a very ideal sealing material, which can still be applied at high temperature, high pressure and high speed. In this design, the graphite ring actually plays a role as a sliding bearing and sealing material, and some modern aircraft engines use this lubrication method.
Chapter completed!