Section 198 Bopu Shipyard

In the end, the resumption of the 854 renovation project was approved, and the Executive Committee agreed to immediately start construction of one Project 1630 cruiser, four 500 hp steam tugs, 12 200-ton barges and six 500-ton ships of sail steam hún.

In addition, according to the suggestion of Wendesi, the series production of Type II jib patrol boats continued. Turn a mast into a double mas. At least 2 ships per month.

This shipbuilding Jihua became the first great leap forward of Lingao shipbuilding. Prior to this, Lingao's shipbuilding industry had only built light ships with a tonnage of around 200 tons. However, through the large-scale construction of dhow/brig patrol boats in the previous phase, Bopu Shipyard has accumulated considerable experience in shipbuilding.

In the five years of Jihua, the Planning Institute has a detailed plan for the shipbuilding itself. According to Ma Qianzhu and Wu De's thinking, large-scale shipbuilding began in the year before the end of the first five years, and according to the timetable, in this year, it was only in this year that the people would fully occupy Hainan and expand overseas.

Fortunately, the Planning Commission and later the Planning Institute still had an understanding that the shipbuilding industry was an industry that had been invested for a long time, and the construction of the Bopu Shipyard began from the first year of the five-year Jihua. The shipyard has been greatly strengthened with a large number of shipbuilders and supplies captured from Baitu Village. The shipyard started by rebuilding the ship, and then succeeded in copying the "America", completing the first step of building a Western-style sailing ship.

Due to the lack of large-scale keel materials, the shipyard began to unswervingly take the road of iron bones after the launch of the "Zhenhai", which imitated the "Americas". Although there was some controversy between the two jishu routes as to whether to make the leap to the iron shell or the transition to the wooden shell. During this period, there was also a motion for the large-scale construction of cement ships.

The main reason for the eventual adoption of wooden-hulled ships was that the industrial base of the crossing group was still too weak. According to the navy's work in the pool, the hulls made of forged iron corrode very quickly in the seawater, and the chemical industry in Lingao could not make paint that could be used to protect the hulls of ships. In the 19th century, the solution was to wrap a layer of planks over the bottom of an iron-hulled ship, which was too labor-intensive. Although iron-hulled ships have many advantages in manufacturing and using that cannot be achieved by wood-hulled ships, this unsolvable practical problem eventually makes wood-hulled ships the mainstream of shipbuilding.

As for the cement ship, it is also supported by many people. As a cheap water transport tool, cement ships do have their advantages, its advantages are that the materials are cheap and easy to obtain, and there is almost no need for any special mén shipbuilding jishu, construction workers can be manufactured with a little training, and there is no need for complex ship material processing: steel bars, steel wire mesh can be easily manufactured skeletons, and a few masons can cast cement, and a few days can be completed.

The first cement ship on Shijie was built in 1848 by the Frenchman J. L. Lamb Bōt. The tonnage of early cement ships is xiǎo, the process is simple, and the self-weight is heavy. Generally, it is only used for the transportation of xiǎo tonnage goods on inland waterways. During the two Shijie wars, due to the lack of steel, there were two high cháo for the construction of reinforced hún concrete.

Since 1958, China has built a large number of reinforced concrete ships and steel wire mesh cement ships, which are widely used as barges, inland river and coastal medium xiǎo motor cargo ships and inland river barges, agricultural vessels and fishing vessels. China's cement ship holdings reach millions of tons, ranking first among Shijie countries. In the 60s, the United States, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and other countries began to trial production of steel wire mesh cement ships. Because the cement ship is heavy, the cargo ratio is too large, and the fuel consumption is too large, its economy has never been able to meet the standard, so it has not been used on a large scale. China once built a cargo ship in the 70s, after which the first cargo voyage was completed, the voyage ended forever and was abandoned on the shore

But according to the advocacy of the cement ship party led by Skade, the cement ship is more resistant to collision than the wooden ship. Seaworthiness xìng is comparable to that of a wooden ship, surpassing that of a steel-hulled ship. It's also easy to patch. No rust, no rot, long life. It is the best emergency shipbuilding solution for traversers.

Skaide, the chief of staff of the Ministry of Colonies and Trade, was so enthusiastic about cement ships that he constantly preached in his spare time about how "great" cement ships were in the crossing business. He not only advocated the advantages of cement ships at the working meetings of the Executive Committee, but also often went to the shipyard to talk about the problem of cement ships, and made several indigenous technicians of the shipyard stunned, and pestered the veterans of the shipyard and the navy to wonder what was going on with "building a shipbuilding like a house". Li Di was so annoyed that he simply ordered the sentries not to allow Skade to enter the shipyard again. And declared the cement ship a "heresy".

Li Di hated cement ships because they did not match the glorious image of the navy. But Skade did not give up, and specially handed Jiāo to the Planning Institute two so-called standardized ships that he had personally designed - conducive to mass production. One is a 250-ton sloop oar-cement ship as an over, and the other is an 800-ton steam cement ship.

Cement boat shallow eating horizontal bottom boat type. Install sails and use Chinese-style sails to simplify maintenance and reduce manpower consumption.

In terms of firepower, one or two standard recital rotary gun carriages are designed, and the barrel can be equipped with 20-60 pounder smoothbore guns or 70mm-130mm rifled guns. Xiǎo cement ships are pre-equipped with 1 gun emplacement, which is not used in peacetime, and large cement ships are pre-equipped with 3-4 gun emplacements, which are only equipped with 1-2 mén guns in peacetime, and are fully equipped in wartime.

Reserved deck positions on the ship, which can be loaded with 12-20 pounder guns, xiǎo type rifled guns in wartime, and 8-12mén light guns on large ships. xiǎo boats can be loaded with 4 mén.

In the conference room, Skader enthusiastically showed Wu De the design drawings he had drawn, explaining the idea of manufacturing and use.

"If we had a fleet of 100 ships and half of them mobilized in wartime, we would have 500 mén guns and dozens of typewriters, and the firepower would be more than the British fleet at the time of the Raven War. When we have built a dozen or so ones, we will first find an opportunity to openly conduct a joint exercise to deter the Canton government and the Portuguese, and let them know that we can kill any walled city and fleet on the Pearl River in an instant with cargo ships! Skade was foaming at the mouth, and Wude was getting impatient. He was from a naval background, and he had no interest in a ship like a cement ship, which was not a ship at all.

“…… We first designed and built the first ship in Lingao, and then moved the cast-in-place and final assembly parts to Xiangshanao, and Lingao provided the raw materials. When we control the coal mines in the Xijiang Basin, we can move the cement plant to Xiangshanao, and when we control the high-grade iron ore in Zhaoqing, we can build a steel mill, and then we can build iron ships in the future......"

"I've never seen a concrete boat floating on the sea," said Oude. He intends to use this as a motion to directly shoot the cement ship, "Besides, I remember that the cement ship is not resistant to collisions, and there are guns installed on it?" Won't a cannon crack the hull of the ship? Also anti-artillery! When I was xiǎo, the cement boat in my hometown did not sit less, and I was afraid of collision. ”

"Actually, there are some of them." Skede hastened to cite the example that France and China have built 1,000-ton cement sea ships, which shows that this is not impossible. He went on to say that the construction period of wooden ships is too long, and the wood used for shipbuilding must be made of hardwood, which will rot quickly after three or five years of natural air drying, and the bottom of the ship is covered with copper and there is not so much copper.

As for the problem of firing artillery and anti-artillery, the hún concrete shell should be more impact-resistant than wood, the wood has no lateral strength, the steel bar is grid-shaped, and it can be repaired if it is cracked......

Wu De listened to the theory of "cement ship superiority" composed of the information he didn't know where to find and the conjecture he collected, and then he spoke: "What if the cement ship was really so superior, and Weishenme was later eliminated?" ”

"No matter how superior it is, it can't be better than a ship of steel." "But it's certainly superior to a wooden boat." ”

However, this is not the case. Wu De consulted a number of veterans of the shipbuilding Jishu, and almost all of them came to the conclusion that "cement ships are not worth developing".

The impact resistance of cement ships is very poor, whether it is steel or barbed wire. The crack resistance of the cement ship with the skeleton of the barbed wire is slightly higher than that of the reinforced concrete ship, but it is not revolutionary -- so the impact resistance of the barbed wire cement ship is untenable compared with the impact of the wooden ship.

The large-scale use of barbed wire in cement ship manufacturing mainly reduces the cost, rather than increasing the energy of the company. Cement ships have a usable volume of xiǎo, a huge self-weight problem - this problem is almost unsolvable. Self-weight means high fuel consumption and low cargo capacity. Therefore, cement ships are suitable for engineering ships and barges with low self-weight requirements, fixed berths or less movement, or substitutes when steel is scarce.

In addition, the quantity of steel and cement cannot be compared with the relatively abundant forest resources in this time and space. However, the barbed wire and cement produced by Lingao industry are still quite inferior in quality.

In the end, the Planning Institute shot all the motions for the construction of cement ships, and directly included the cement ship Jishu in the "elimination project......

Under the sunset in the first half of the 17th century, two people sit on a stone on the top of a xiǎo mountain. The pistol hung loosely beside him, and in front of him was a plastic sheet, on which was a box stuffed with bottles of kvass, Lingao's latest beer and ice cubes, and a few pieces of cow ròu.

Several plainclothes officers of the Political Security Bureau were watching vigilantly, and one person was roasting a sheep tuǐ and grilled fish a little farther away. At the foot of the mountain is a construction site, which occupies an area that is not inferior even to a modern shipyard in another time and space. Hulls of various sizes, both under repair and under construction, line the riverbank, and occasionally you can see shiny rails and steam. The rattling of the steam crane as it rotates and lifts, and the screeching of the whistle from time to time reminds the workers to pay attention to safety.

Busy crowd wearing different faces sè rattan hats. The fly in the ointment is that although there is a certain distance, you can still smell some unpleasant smells. The smell of wood tar and coal tar is always lingering, not to mention the steam engine boilers that spew black smoke day and night.

The shipyard occupies much more land than most of Lingao's industrial projects. Since the first year of the five-year period, the Planning Commission and the Planning Institute have carried out expansion and technical renovation projects for the shipyard every year. A sizable shipyard has been formed here. The mangrove forests in the Bopu estuary area have been cut down, and large swathes of the estuary land belong to shipyards.

The shipyard has successively built a thousand-ton dry dock, a large steam crane, and a number of 100-ton slipways. For Project 854, a large forging machine was also installed in the forging workshop to forge keels, ship ribs and iron plates.

Other supporting workshops have also been built: a large wood fumigation kiln has been built here by the Timber Consortium, which is responsible for processing the timber used for shipbuilding. The "xiǎo" wood used in the shell of the ship can be processed in a drying kiln for about 3 days, and the effect equivalent to half a year of natural yīn drying can be completed, and as for the keel and rib materials, it can also be processed in half a month. However, since the introduction of the guidelines for iron-boned timber husks, the supply of large timber has been relatively lightened - high-quality timber that can be used as keels and masts was already rare and very expensive along the southern coast of China at that time.

The woodworking workshop, which uses a full set of large-scale woodworking equipment made by Lingao Machinery Factory, has just been completed. The equipment inside stunned the indigenous mechanics of the shipyard who were accustomed to seeing "Australian miracles". This huge workshop is used for the processing of special plates for shipbuilding. Large pieces of wood processed through fumigation kilns, carpentry circular saws and row saws driven by steam engines, can be solved in a few minutes, dozens of workers can solve a large number of marine planks and masts in a day. The incision is smooth and neat, and there is hardly any place for làng fees. A few days later, they saw the terrifying power of these machines, and one of the apprentices was not very much sawed off half of his body by a circular saw—less than half a minute from the time he screamed to the time he was dismembered.

Ships of Indian jute used to make ropes were brought in from Goa by Li Huamei, and the jute was mixed with local hemp in a rope workshop and machine-made into huge ropes - although iron anchor chains were easier to use and more resistant to corrosion. However, in order to save iron, the anchor chains of most of the Zhongxiǎo ships in Lingao were still made of hemp rope, which was also used as sail cables.

A large number of pulleys are needed on sailing ships, and the shipyard's dedicated block production hall has five workers and produces them on simple chuángs: 80,000 tackles a year - although the navy and shipyards simply do not consume so many at present. The shell of the block is made of elm, and the hub and shaft are made of the most haode rosewood and green oka wood.

The sails are made of Lingao's own canvas. Cotton yarn comes from India - Indian merchants, in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Colonial Trade, custom-made cotton yarn of the required specifications to the craftsmen, and then shipped it to Lingao in bags. It is spun into canvas in the textile mill of Lingao. Of course, the Ministry of Colonial Trade did not give up the opportunity to buy canvas directly.

The workshop for sewing the sails is an iron frame shed, covered with reed mats - some roofs are lost during the typhoon season, but the wrought iron trusses are intact and can be repaired quickly. The workshop is the size of half a football field, and dozens of specially trained NV workers use semi-mechanized foot-operated sewing machines to sew sails. However, the sails are roped by hand by NV workers sitting on benches.

The layout and setting of the entire shipyard is broadly based on the settings of the British shipyard in the materials. The shipyard employs more than 800 workers. It is one of the largest enterprises in Lingao.

"With such a big shipyard, why don't you storm ships? Do you want to keep it as a theme park? He smashed the glass marbles off the beer, and took a few gulps with his neck tilted, letting out a sigh of satisfaction.

"It finally tastes better than beer." "It's a typical rice beer, but I'll make do with it." ”

"Ma Du Gong is a dogmatic ......"

"Navy, he doesn't understand." Wen Desi waved his hand, "Shipbuilding, he is even more of a layman." Hmph, if Wu Kuangming hadn't told him that the wood could be fumigated and dried, he would have thought that it would have to be dried naturally for three years. Lingao is a place that will not be better if it is dry for 30 years. ”

Chen Haiyang took a sip of beer, he was reluctant to comment more on Ma Qianzhu's rights and wrongs. Changed the subject.

"Mr. Wen, what do you mean by suggesting more patrol boats?"

"Divide the sea into many areas, use Xiǎo and fast ships to patrol in parts, and when the enemy is found, notify the nearby warships to solve the problem by radio, and then use special transport ships to send supplies and replacement personnel. This is the response to our current lack of resources. ”

"Wolves on the sea."

"Similar, but not exactly. Our aim is not to destroy the enemy as much as possible, but to take absolute control of this ocean. Speaking of which, whether it is Liu Xiang or Zheng Zhilong, sooner or later they will have to do something to us. ”

"If only we could find Liu Xiang's lair and launch a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack." Chen Haiyang said, "Fighting in the harbor, our advantage is not xiǎo." ”

"So we need to build more light patrol boats, which are fast and flexible, and have a passable endurance. Detectives are a good hand. Wen Desi squinted his eyes at the shipyard, "The group of people in the executive committee are blind! I know that I am staring at the little resources in front of me and thinking about how to allocate them in order to be comprehensive, and what resources are not enough to talk about now -- I don't know that there will be an opportunity to make a windfall next year? To make this windfall without a ship, especially a big ship that sails far away! ”

"What opportunity to make a windfall?" Chen Haiyang became interested.

"You'll know when the time comes." Wen Desi didn't want to say more, he was still considering this proposal, of course, there was more than one veteran who had similar considerations to him, especially a group of people from the Great Library, who were actively looking for historical materials. And the success or failure of this operation is directly related to the combat power, transportation capacity and endurance of the navy.

"When I think about it, I'll naturally discuss it with you." "Now, it's not mature. ”