Volume VIII 1151 Zhiyuan Cruise

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The Zhiyuan cruise was held on the seventh day of the first lunar month, and the weather in the Ryukyus was surprisingly good that day, the sky was blue, the waves were thin and steady, and the warm Pacific breeze blowing from the southeast made people want to sing.

The notices of the Prime Minister's Mansion have long been posted all over the streets and alleys, and everyone knows that the protagonist of the story of the Atlantic ghost battleship that circulated on the market years ago is this magical ironclad battleship, the Zhiyuan.

No matter how many surprises Xiao Letian brought to millions of Chinese people, it was not as violent as this one. A lone steel beast rampages across the distant ocean, like a ghost wolf hidden in the night, or like a tiger walking alone in the mountains and forests, crushing an enemy in front of him with unstoppable furious force.

Just one giant ship disturbed the entire Atlantic waterway, and the French side later counted that the tonnage lost by merchant ships alone exceeded 4,500 tons, which was the result of Zhiyuan's own efforts.

The Battle of Dakar was a miracle that the whole of Europe could not believe, a warship bombed the entire port, and finally the flames burned down two-thirds of the city, and the French hoarded more than half a year's tax money in the Dakar area was looted.

To be honest, when that unbelievable news reached Europe, all the intelligence agencies and politicians did not believe this bizarre piece of information, and everyone suspected that it was a conspiracy of the French.

Maybe it was a pretext for the French to go to war, or maybe it was just a pirate attack, and the incompetence of the French garrison burned most of the city.

Some people even maliciously advertised in the newspapers that the so-called bloody battle in Dakar was in fact nothing more than a conspiracy invented and directed by the governor in order to cover up his sin of embezzlement of taxes, and that the so-called mysterious warship may have been disguised by the French navy itself.

All kinds of rumors spread wildly on the European continent, of course, there are winged king Shi Dakai and Fang Guan and others to help the waves, but in any case, the proud Europeans killed and did not believe that the Chinese would have such a powerful warship.

It was this arrogance that gave the Zhiyuan the best chance to break through, until the Battle of Iquique on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean Zhiyuan appeared in the daytime, and that brilliant victory was like a resounding slap in the face of a European gentleman, with a spicy redness and stinging.

It turns out that the qiē is true, it turns out that the information brought by Molière is not a dream at all, and there is really such a magical warship in this world.

However, after the Battle of Iquique, it was impossible to contain the Zhiyuan, and the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century was completely barbaric compared to the Atlantic.

There are few golden waterways, the number of islands on the high seas has not been checked, and trying to block a small warship in the huge sea area is tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack.

After leaving Tahiti, the Zhiyuan swaggered all the way north, passing through Hawaii, Honolulu, Midway, and the Ogasawara Islands...... After carefully investigating the sea conditions in the North Pacific, he drew a beautiful arc on the map and returned directly to the main island of the Ryukyus.

That's why he appeared from the east coast of the main island of the Ryukyus, because he had just re-surveyed the charts of the Ogasawara Islands and buried more than a dozen boundary monuments.

The Zhiyuan carried out seven consecutive days of emergency paint maintenance in the dry dock of the military port, the quality of the paint in that era was far less than that of later generations, and this long road home, the Zhiyuan was mottled with rust everywhere, and a freshly baked small fresh meat battleship was disguised as a killer battleship of the lewd uncle class.

Seven days was not enough time at all, and the engineers and sailors of the military port only repainted the hull outside, and the shellfish oysters under the ship were only scraped briefly, and then the time for the cruise show arrived.

All the sailors wore brand new naval uniforms, blue and white uniforms shook in the warm sea breeze, and their feet were slightly separated and their hands were behind their backs, proudly receiving the cheers and baptism of the Ryukyu people.

When the Zhiyuan had just sailed out of the military port and bypassed Nanshan Beach and entered the bustling western seas, I saw a roar like a tsunami suddenly erupt on the beach and the mountain, "ironclad ship...... It is the Prime Minister's Zhiyuan...... Hooray!"

"Firecrackers, firecrackers......" Nanshan is full of figures from top to bottom, the sound of firecrackers resounded in the sky, the moment it was impossible to distinguish a separate explosion, all the firecrackers sounded together, just like the sound of the tide when the storm came.

"Salute ......" The first officer on deck gave the order, and the javelin-like soldiers saluted the people on the shore, which was replaced by the cheers of the crowd.

"See! That's the pure ironclad battleship, the first in the world! Let our prime minister build it......"

"This is not the kind of battleship with a wooden-hulled hull covered with iron, this battleship is made of steel inside and out, and it is useless to have a single bit of wood......"

"Oh my God, it's made of pure iron, so we can float on the water, why didn't it sink......

"You grandma is stupid! The boat is on the sea, and the buoyancy mainly depends on the structure and style of the hull...... You don't understand, let alone iron, you're a ship made of lead, and it can float as long as it's in shape......"

Everyone in the crowd shouted with their necks pulled, and those who scolded and scolded were not angry, and the joy diluted all the unhappiness in people's hearts, and everyone was as intoxicated as if they had drunk a good wine.

In some of the best viewing locations in Nanshan, VIPs from all over the world have taken out binoculars to carefully observe this mysterious giant ship, especially the military attaches of Western countries stationed in Asia, and they are even more nervous.

Behind them, someone manipulated a camera to record the posture of the Zhiyuan, and someone used a sketchpad to depict the details of key parts of the battleship. Everyone frowned, they were all experts in a short time to notice the strangeness of this battleship.

"The central axis of the main guns is arranged, and the canvas of the lower gun mounts is not tightly covered...... It's definitely a rotating turret, the previous rumors are true, this is really a unique battleship, the designer's idea is too bold......"

"Awesome! We don't dare to try the style, he actually made a real thing and put it into actual combat? This kind of person is either a genius or a madman......

"In the front and rear divisions of the central axis, in order to make up for the defects in the number of guns, he actually made a twin battery? My God, how strong is the keel of this battleship? Once the twin guns are fired in a salvo, the recoil will not be able to shake the battleship apart?"

A connoisseur is a connoisseur, and a cannon covered with canvas allows them to analyze where the weakness is.

"The caliber of the artillery is at least 180 mm...... No, no, no, you look at the shape of the canvas bulge, at least 200 mm or more...... And how can the double diameter be so big? It is impossible to build such a cannon barrel without 100,000 pounds!"

"It's too extravagant, this battleship is too expensive! No wonder the French suffered, no wonder the Battle of Iquique became a massacre, this kind of battleship design idea is different from ours!"