On the command bridge of the Lady, Dong Qingjun stood with a serious face, looking at the Yangtze River in front of the cabin, and issued an order from time to time to adjust the navigation and speed.

Although he was only a traditional sailboat captain before, he has already learned the handling of steamships by surprise in the past few days, so this command is also decent!

Ever since his order to set sail has been given, his order has been transmitted to the engine room through a pipe sound system inside the ship.

In the boiler room in front, a number of sturdy workers are shoveling coal into the coal-fired boiler to ensure the temperature of the coal-fired boiler.

Produced in Annan Guangning Coal Mine, after the best quality anthracite is ignited, the huge heat emitted boils the water in the boiler, and constantly increases the pressure of the steam, so that the water becomes extremely high-pressure, and the temperature is extremely high, these high-pressure and high-temperature water vapor enters the cylinder of the steam engine through the specially developed and produced steam transmission pipeline, and pushes the piston to reciprocate, and the linkage rod of the piston is transmitted to the power transmission shaft through the traditional system of the solar planet. Then, after a series of complex transmission and speed change structures, the power is smoothly output to the two huge paddle wheels on both sides of the ship, and the paddle wheels are driven to start rotating.

Although this whole set of shipborne steam engines is still very primitive in Li Xuan's eyes, it is undeniable that it is still the most top-notch technology and proper industrial flower of the Tang Empire and even the contemporary global Luo Li.

And all the parts that make up this set of shipboard steam engine equipment, from the coal-fired boiler, to the pipes, cylinders, transmission systems, transmission systems, and even even two paddle wheels, every subsystem in it, every part, even if it is just a screw, are the most cutting-edge technology crystallization of contemporary times!

Today, this top scientific and technological product in the Tang Empire is sending out surging momentum, pushing the 150-ton lady to move forward!

There is no sail, only the chimney that constantly emits white smoke, the lady, purely relying on the power of the steam engine to move forward, as for the sail system, although it will be used in the future, but during the test, it is only used as a precaution, according to the plan, the lady will rely purely on steam power, and then complete about ten kilometers of sea trials.

Basically, it's just a lap on the Yangtze River!

After all, it's just a test, it won't go too far, even if it takes a long time to test, at most it's just a few more laps, even so, there are several auxiliary ships behind, there are tugboats, there are rescue boats!

On board, more than a dozen Royal Polytechnic researchers with assistants several times their size were stationed in various places on the ship, both the ones responsible for operating the steam engine and the ones responsible for observing and recording the data.

They are recording and reporting the situation!

Xu Quan was looking at the turbine of the huge steam engine in front of him, driving the huge transmission shaft, and at the same time, he was constantly listening to the data fed back by many researchers under his hands.

Judging from the current situation, the situation is still very optimistic, although there were a lot of small problems before the official sailing, but he temporarily took people to solve them one by one, and now there is no problem with the coal-fired boiler, the ventilation problem that appeared before is also solved, and the pipeline that transmits high-pressure steam has also withstood the huge pressure, and there is no bursting.

The transmission shaft, which was deviated from the installation accuracy before, is also normal after minor adjustments.

Looking at the huge shipborne steam engine running smoothly in front of him, he finally breathed a sigh of relief!

Finally, there were no major problems.

And more importantly, in the early stage of this test, some small problems that occurred were basically not related to the steam engine itself, but were all problems with the surrounding systems, or simply installation problems, and the steam engine itself did not appear at all.

Before this test machine was tested on the ship, they had been tested in the laboratory several times, and it had been able to run continuously without failure for several days, and the steam engine itself was no problem, but testing in the laboratory and using it on a ship were naturally completely different concepts.

In the laboratory, the steam engine can be turned on, so you don't have to worry about it so much, but on the ship, you need to drive the paddle wheel to propel the boat, and there are many problems in the design here.

For example, how to avoid vibration problems during installation is a headache for many researchers.

This vibration problem is not only the vibration of the steam engine itself, but also the vibration of the hull, which affects and transmits to each other, which causes great trouble to the steam engine and transmission system that need to be extremely accurate.

This vibration will cause some of the structures to deviate by a few millimeters, then it may cause a major accident!

This series of problems is not found in the laboratory, but during the ship's test, these big and small problems are exposed one after another.

So much so that in the past half a month, he has been staying on the Lady, responsible for the installation and construction of the steam engine, even today, when the trial is approaching, a lot of small problems have been exposed.

Fortunately, these problems were finally solved one by one, and now the steam engine seems to be running smoothly, and he can rest assured.

With such a successful test, he will be able to take people to the navy to solve the problem of warships on steam engines.

On the navy's side, he is now also preparing to take a set of test products from the Royal Institute of Technology first, and do a test or something like that, and this naval warship test project naturally needs him to be responsible.

Who made him the person in charge of the shipboard steam engine project in the steam engine project!

The steam engine project team is a very large R&D organization, Lin Hui is the team leader, responsible for the research and development of all steam engine projects, but his energy is mainly focused on the core structure, and for sub-projects, it is generally handed over to the deputy team leader and team leader below.

Basically, each professor acts as a group leader or group leader, and then leads the R&D staff to lead the development of a subsystem project.

As one of the deputy team leaders, Xu Quan is mainly responsible for the research and development of the shipborne steam engine sub-project.

At the same time, he also brought a few of his junior disciples and more than a dozen proud protégés, all of whom are geniuses who play machinery!

Now seeing the stable operation of the steam engine on the lady, he can finally breathe a sigh of relief, and continue to solve the problem for many days, until the last moment of the sea trial, he is still leading the research and development personnel to solve the final problem, but to put it mildly, finally the lady is moving!

After instructing a junior brother to continue to pay attention and report the abnormality on time, he walked out of the engine room and then went to the bridge, according to his calculations, if there was no accident, there should be no problem with this voyage.

After all, it was only a 20-kilometer sea trial, and the time that lasted was not too long before and after a few hours, and the test of the steam engine itself was almost non-existent, and before it was put on the ship, this steam engine had undergone a trouble-free operation test that lasted for several days.

A few hours of continuous operation will not cause any burden at all, the only thing to worry about is whether there will be problems with the traditional system and the paddle wheel, and some problems caused by the installation.

And these problems, strictly speaking, are not the problems of the steam engine itself, he is only concerned with the ship-based steam engine, as for what matches this ship-based steam engine to the ship, that is the problem of other people.

When he came to the bridge, he asked Dong Qingjun: "What is the current speed?" ”

Dong Qingjun said with excitement on his face: "Now it's sailing downstream, and the speed is about seven kilometers per hour, although it is a little slower, but this is without sails!" ”

"Oh, it looks like the power hasn't been used yet!" Xu Quan said: "According to our previous calculations, when sailing at full power, if it is a sailing down the river like now, it should be able to reach a speed of about ten to twelve kilometers per hour!" ”

Dong Qingjun said: "That's true, now only use medium speed to sail, I will order to mention high-speed sailing later, if your calculations are not wrong, then the speed should be able to reach more than twelve kilometers per hour!" ”

"In that case, what are you waiting for, I can't wait to see it run, don't worry about the steam engine can't withstand it, although this steam engine is a prototype, it has been tested many times in the laboratory, I believe it can withstand the test!" Xu Quan said: "Captain, give the order to sail at high speed!" ”

Dong Qingjun was also extremely excited at this time, only to hear him glance at the people on the bridge, and said loudly: "Sit down and hold steady, Lao Tzu is going to race!" ”

Then he said loudly: "Order, full speed ahead!" ”

After Dong Qingjun's order was transmitted to the wheel room and boiler compartment on the ground floor through the microphone, a number of boiler workers on the boiler room joined in, and many people continued to put the best quality anthracite into the boiler, and the fire in the boiler became more and more intense, and more and more high-pressure steam entered the cylinder through the pipeline, constantly pushing the connecting rods in the cylinder to do reciprocating motion, and then drove the huge flywheel to rotate through the solar planetary system.

At the same time, the crew on the wheel nacelle also controls the transmission, which smoothly outputs power to the propeller shaft, and finally to the paddle wheels on both sides of the hull.

More white smoke came out of the chimney on the Lady, and many people could feel the slight vibration of the ship's hull, and the rumbling of the steam engine was getting louder and louder.

The huge paddle wheels on both sides continued to accelerate and rotate, and then plucked the water on both sides of the lady, setting off two waves, and then pushing the lady to speed up!