"Woo..." A short whistle sounded, and the Qingtang Jun No. 2 dredger slowly sailed into the dock of the modern special ship factory, preparing to undergo routine maintenance.

The shipyard now has five ship platforms, of which one is a semi-finished ship on each ship platform 1-4. The ship platform 5 is a dedicated maintenance platform, which regularly maintains ships that have been working hours or performs emergency repairs for damaged ships.

Qingtang Jun 2 is the second dredger produced by the factory and is currently dredging the Two Lakes Canal. The Two Lakes Canal is the only waterway connecting the Yi River in the south - Milin Lake water system and the Yazi Lake basin water system in the north, and its role is extremely critical. However, the waterway, including the two lakes that communicate, has relatively smooth water flow, and silt is prone to silt, so it must be regularly silted.

The dredging work of the river is coming to an end. The water depth of the central channel has reached more than four meters, which is enough to pass through any ship in China. After the key river channel connecting the two lakes is cleared, the next step is to clear a channel that can navigate large transport ships in the northern Yazi Lake. Due to the special structural relationship of Yazi Lake, the western half of the Yazi Lake is shallow water area, with many reeds and crocodiles and other animals and plants, and can only be navigated by inland steamboats or small gunboats; the water depth in the eastern half has been basically measured with the efforts over the past few years. The water depth in most places is more than 5 meters, but there are still a large number of intermittent shallow water areas, many of which are even only two meters deep, which makes it easy for large ships to strand when sailing, so it needs to be further deepened.

Fortunately, the bottom of this lake is full of silt pebbles, and dredgers produced by modern factories can complete this task. However, considering that there are only two dredgers in China today, one of which (Qingtang Army No. 1) is still dredging the extremely important Yihe waterway. Only Qingtang Army No. 2 can mobilize. This requires dredging until the year of the Monkey and Horse Month to enable large ships to be navigated.

There is also comforting news. Today is September. In more than two months, the third dredger, Qingtang Jun 3, will be completed. At that time, two dredgers can work at the same time, one in the south and one in the north, and the dredging of the waterway will definitely be greatly accelerated. When it comes to dredging, we have to talk about the heavy shipbuilding tasks of modern factories today.

The factory has five existing ships. In addition to the No. 5, which is a special maintenance platform, the other four ships have been producing various types of ships all year round. After each batch of ships is completed, the competition for these ships will become fierce. Given the extreme importance of Far East immigration today, two of them have been fixedly used to build "sprint champion"-level immigration special ships with a displacement of 1,200 tons. The other two ships have to accept the steaming technical transformation tasks of some ships, and special ships such as whaling ships, dredgers, and now the leaders have proposed to build large tugboats and barges, which has made all the employees of the modern factory busy to the horizon.

"The demand for ships is high, and the demand for skilled sailors is even greater." Wei Hua, the director of the Modern Special Ship Factory, stood in front of his office on the second floor in the factory, looking at the busy ship platform outside, and said: "The United Front Work Department recruits pirates in the Caribbean every year, but the number is not as good as one year. This year there are even dozens, which is too few! I think the Spaniards over there should be extremely grateful to us. It was us that the number of 5,000 pirates gathered at the peak of Tortuga Island has successfully dropped to only more than 2,000 within ten years, and various vicious pirate incidents that attack transport ships have also been reduced by 30%. Haha, we have all made us come, and pirates don't want to stay on the island for the rest of their lives and live a drunken life and die!"

At present, the only domestic institution to train sailors, Luoqiang Port, has opened two periods, which can provide about 200 intern sailors to each unit every year. This number seems to be quite large, but compared with the nearly 400 sailors required for the launch of 18-20 ships every year, it can only fill half of the gap. Even with the dozens of pirates from the United Front, a small number of Malay sailors who have passed the long-term inspection, the gap is still as many as 100. As a last resort, the Ministry of Transport can only try to arrange skilled sailors on important ships, and at the same time delegate power to allow those unimportant merchant ship captains to recruit intern sailors themselves.

Therefore, it can be said that the 17 flute-type transport ships sailing on the Atlantic Ocean (affiliated as the South China Sea Transportation Company) in the East Coast of China and the four flute-type transport ships sailing on the Indian Ocean (affiliated as the East African Transportation Company) are filled with a large number of unqualified young sailors. In June this year, a flute-type ship of a South China Sea Transportation Company accidentally sank off the sea outside the East Port, because the sailors' improper operation caused the ship to accidentally hit the reef.

After this tragedy, the Ministry of Transport immediately squeezed out some funds and went to the United Industrial Credit Bank for a riot, asking them to allocate some loans, and then used the money to order a small training ship to the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard. They were preparing to double the enrollment scale of Luoqia Seafarers' Continuing School, and strive to provide 400 regular intern sailors every year. As the enrollment scale increased, the training ship naturally increased accordingly. At present, the school only has a 250-ton "East Coast Eagle" transferred to them by the Navy as a training ship. After the enrollment scale is expanded, it is naturally not enough, and a new ship is urgently needed.

"The sailor problem cannot be solved in a short while." Xiao Bailang, who was sitting in his office smoking a pipe, said, "Now experienced sailors have been arranged to travel to Australia and Far East routes. They even installed their homes in New China and Hei Shui. The rest of the country is naturally all crooked. Don't worry, the problem must be taken slowly. The number of sailors cannot increase in a short while. There must be a process."

"I'm so anxious." Wei Hua smiled, spit out a round smoke ring in his mouth, and turned to Xiao Bailang and said, "I am only responsible for building ships. As for where the sailors who drive the ships come from, it's my business? What should I be anxious about is the Ministry of Transport and the Executive Committee. What I'm fucking about? I only get more than 100 yuan in salary every month, and I'm tired even if I care about so many things!"

"Hehe." Xiao Bailang smiled, "I heard that the country has relaxed the production restrictions on inland steamers and has allowed private capital to gradually enter this industry. I think it is because of the huge market demand? I think your 72-ton inland steamers are built directly on the tidal flats. When they are almost done, they are pulled on the board for power system installation and final installation procedures. The technical content is just that. Ordinary people can build it. I think the workers on your No. 5 board are relatively idle on weekdays. How are they thinking about what they said last time? Are you interested?"

What Xiao Bailang said was very simple, just to find a way to open his own shipyard. For this reason, he had even inspected the terrain and hydrological information near Hekou Township and initially selected a future factory site. What is lacking is personnel and funds, and the funds are easy to solve. He himself and a few like-minded friends have saved over the years, plus some loans from United Industrial Credit Bank, which is almost enough. But the technicians are quite irritable. The domestic illiteracy rate is too high, there are few technical personnel, and they are all concentrated among major state-owned enterprises. The shipyard they want to build is an enterprise with certain technical requirements, and it is not something that can be done by just a few illiterate farmers. After thinking about it, they can only go to major shipyards to poach.

Xiao Bailang has a good personal relationship with Wei Hua, the director of Modern Factory, so he was the first one to come to him. Wei Hua himself was also quite moved by this, but it was a sensitive thing for the time travelers to open a factory by themselves. If they poached the factories that he served as factory directors, Wei Hua was really afraid that he would be put on his head by the crazy men in the military. However, the idea of ​​opening his own shipyard has been lingering in his mind, and he has worked for the country for several years. Although the salary is very high, the East Coast Company pays a lot of dividends every year. He should not be short of money, but this is not a business that belongs to him. It just so happened that Xiao Bailang came to find him to open a factory together, saying that the factory address and funds can be handled, and the agent has been found (state cadres are not allowed to do business directly), and there is only an experienced technician, which made Wei Hua realize that this is indeed a good opportunity.

"Now, the domestic 35-ton old steamboats and 72-ton new steamboats are only more than fifty, and the demand is at least one hundred. Moreover, with the gradual retirement of the 35-ton small boat, the demand in the next few years will be even greater. According to our current ex-factory price, a 1,200 yuan ship has a profit margin of at least 20%. Seeing that the market is so hot, even if it is a little more expensive, it will definitely be in short supply. The market prospect is really excellent." Wei Hua took a deep breath and said: "No, no," said Wei Hua.

Let's wait a little longer, let's talk about it this year. The No. 5 ship is also very busy this year. A few months ago, two "Amur"-class inland river shallow water support gunboats were completed. I just followed the previous batch to the Far East fleet. I will continue to build a few more ships in the second half of the year. There is a hurry to urge other ships there, and I have to maintain other ships. I don't think you should step up to recruit technicians in Europe. Isn't the government always recruiting? You can join us. The Ministry of Transport will pick up the remaining ones and bring them back. What are you afraid of to build some civilian ships?"

The "Amur River"-class inland shallow water gunboat that Wei Hua mentioned was designed and produced by a modern factory. The ship is about 55 meters long, 8.2 meters wide, 0.8 meters draft, and a standard displacement of 250 tons. The power system uses two Popeye-2 improved (70 horsepower) steam engines, two coal-fired boilers, and a speed of 9-10 knots. It is the fastest pure steam-powered ship designed in China, thanks to its strong power (140 horsepower) and the propulsion system design of the twin-axle double scull.

The ship's military equipment is two 8-pound short-barrel howitzers on the bow and eight 4-pound howitzers on both sides, and firepower can only be said to be sloppy. The navy was originally preparing to design a rotating armored turret structure similar to the Coles turret structure. Later, considering that the ship's shallow draft and small tonnage, it abandoned this unrealistic and novel design and changed to a traditional firepower arrangement. This ship is extremely powerful in close-range support operations in the inland rivers, and is fully steam-powered, with fast speed, shallow draft, flexible maneuverability, and strong seaworthiness. It is an ideal inland river accompanying support gunboats. The first batch of modern factory produced two ships, namely the "Amur River" and the "Liaohe River", which have now been heading to the east.
Chapter completed!