The fierce competition between the Yangtze River Shipping Company and the Feng Shipping Company in the shipping market has continued to the emerging field of steamships, and it is difficult to say who will win and who will lose in the end.

But what is certain is that by the turn of spring and summer next year, there will definitely be commercial steamships put on the market and operated, so that people can enjoy the convenience of trains and steam ships at the same time.

As for the competition of domestic enterprises, this is naturally a good thing for the entire empire, and only when there is competition can there be motivation, as long as it is not vicious competition, then the officials headed by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises maintain a non-interference attitude.

Otherwise, the Yangtze River Shipping Company would not have been chased by a large number of private shipping companies behind the buttocks!

But then again, if there were no large number of private companies chasing after the buttocks, the Yangtze River Shipping Company would not have developed rapidly in just a few years.

Although it has always been the first in China, but now the scale of the Yangtze River shipping company is not comparable to the time when it was first established, other shipping companies are developing, and the Yangtze River shipping company is actually developing, but the development will be subject to more restrictions.

In the first half of the eighteenth year of Xuanping, the most eye-catching event was undoubtedly the Battle of the Northeast, but since August, trains and ships have attracted the attention of the whole empire.

And it has continued until the nineteenth year of Xuanping!

In February's provincial capital examination and Chengtianfu examination, the questions related to steam engines appeared in the topics of the examination, and what is more interesting is that after entering Xuanping 19 years, many enterprises will more or less mention words such as steam engines, trains, and ships when announcing future development plans.

Some large factories have announced that they will introduce high-pressure steam engines with higher efficiency, more power and lower cost in the future.

Some companies are also successively promoting the entry into high-pressure steam engines, trains, ships and other surrounding industries, but the most conspicuous is the domestic shipping company!

In fact, trains also attract the attention of many people, but unfortunately, the railway industry is monopolized, and the empire does not give private capital the opportunity to enter at all, so many people's eyes can only be transferred to the shipping industry.

Just after the end of the year, the shipping companies can't wait to announce their own steamship plans, all of which are high-profile announcements that they will purchase steamships in the future, so as to enter the field of steamships, but unfortunately, most of these high-profile announced shipping companies are unlikely to get any steamships in two years.

Because it is impossible for them to get a commercial ship-based steam engine in two years!

There are only three domestic manufacturers capable of producing high-pressure steam engines, namely Tianjin Youbang Machinery Company, Zhaoqing Machinery Company, and Navy Steam Engine Factory, and the production capacity of these three carrier-based steam engines needs to be given priority to the supply of the navy, and the remaining capacity can be supplied to the market.

And the remaining production capacity of the Navy Steam Engine Factory was also covered by Feng's Shipping Company!

Other companies that want to get steamships will have to get commercial ship-based steam engines, but unfortunately, they won't be able to get them for at least two years.

Representatives of many shipping companies have traveled to the three major manufacturing plants, and the answers are the same, that is, their production capacity has reached the limit, even if it is to expand production, but there can not be much extra capacity, not to mention that they have also signed a priority supply contract with the Yangtze River Shipping Company and Feng's Shipping Company.

In fact, these three major steam engine manufacturers, because of these supply contracts, are now repentant, if there is no priority supply contract, then under the coaxing of many shipping companies, then it will definitely be able to raise the price a lot, so as to earn more profits.

But alas, the contract has already been signed, so they can only want to expand the production capacity as much as possible, and then execute the damn contract and supply freely to the vast market.

The three major steam engine manufacturers are unreliable!

But those shipping companies are also not willing to lag behind, this is without Zhang Butcher, is it difficult to eat pigs with hair? Impossible!

As a result, several large shipping companies joined forces to acquire a machinery company located in Dangtu, renamed United Power Company, and injected a large amount of money into the company for equipment upgrades, production line improvements, and then found the Royal Institute of Technology to apply for the technical authorization of high-pressure steam engines.

The Royal Institute of Technology naturally welcomes this kind of thing, as a research and development institution, it needs to constantly export technology patents for profit, and then in exchange for funds to support research, so the more popular this high-pressure steam engine is, the better.

United Power Company, formerly known as the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises invested in Dangtu No. 2 Machinery Company, the main business of the machinery company is not actually a steam engine, but to repair steam engines, but because of poor management, and when Tu that small place, there was only one manufacturer of steam engine repair at the beginning, but later it became five or six.

In the end, it was packaged and sold as a whole because of poor management, but unfortunately the investors who accepted it later failed to revitalize the machinery company, and finally it was taken over by several major shipping companies.

The goal of several major shipping companies is naturally not to simply repair steam engines, or even to manufacture low-pressure steam engines, but to directly manufacture shipborne steam engines in one step to avoid the embarrassment of being stuck in power by others.

After changing its name to United Power Company, it obtained a large amount of capital injection and obtained the patent authorization of high-pressure steam engine, and the new United Power Company became the fourth manufacturer in China with high-pressure steam engine patent authorization.

Moreover, they have deep pockets, they don't treat money as money at all, and directly wave checks everywhere to purchase equipment and dig up technicians, which actually makes them open up the situation in a short period of time.

A senior executive of United Power declared in public: "No matter how difficult it is, we have nothing to fear!" ”

There is another sentence he didn't say: even if it is smashed with money, it must be smashed!

They made such a promise to the shareholders above, that is, several major shipping companies, that is, before this winter, they will definitely come up with shipboard steam engines!

Anyway, the Royal Institute of Technology has already given a full set of technical information, United Power Company, like the other three manufacturers, has to do is to build the steam engine according to the drawings, and the other three manufacturers can purchase machinery and equipment, they can also purchase, and they can also dig up the technical personnel they have.

If this can't be put into production for more than half a year, I'm afraid those shipping companies will have to go crazy.

However, even if United Power struggled to catch up, it still couldn't catch up with the pace of Fung Shipping!

In mid-February, Feng's Shipping Company placed an advertisement on the Jiangnan Road page of the Tang Dynasty Newspaper for the first time.

Advertisement for the inaugural voyage of the Far Away!

In advertising, Feng's shipping company is naturally able to blow it!

Not only is this the first officially commercial steamship in China, but also the first mature and reliable steamship, and it is also the largest steamship!

And with some basic data of the Yuanfang, the standard displacement reached 350 tons, the standard inland coastal ship design was adopted, and it was a leapfrog using pure steam power, completely abandoning the sail, saying that the sail is an ancient and backward thing that can be completely thrown into the garbage heap of history.

With steam power, it can reach speeds of up to 15 kilometers per hour!

These data, whether they are true or false, naturally few people know, even within the Feng shipping company, few people know the details of the Yuanfang, the construction of this ship has always been a secret, and the sea trials are only in the trial area of the shipyard, and there is no large-scale public sea trial at all.

As for its power system, outsiders don't know that it uses a more complex parallel unit, to put it bluntly, it combines two sets of steam engines!

Moreover, these two sets of steam engines were not obtained from one place, one of them was purchased from the Royal Institute of Technology, and the other set was purchased from the Navy Steam Factory, which was actually a trial product of the Navy Steam Engine Factory, and even the Navy was afraid of unstable quality, so it was not wanted.

Luckily, both steam engines are actually the same model, with the same specifications, and are both prototypes designed by the Royal Institute of Technology.

Therefore, the Yuanfang uses two coal-fired boilers with the power combination of two parallel bar steam engines, and its maximum power can reach 180 horses.

It can also be seen that only one hundred and eighty horsepower can be obtained by using two sets, but in fact, the development of the current shipborne steam engine is still relatively primitive, and although there is a theoretical breakthrough, it is still relatively difficult to get a high-power steam engine for a while.

After the Feng Shipping Company published the advertisement, the management of the Yangtze River Shipping Company was half angry, because they knew that Feng Shipping also laid out steam ships, and also ordered commercial ship-based steam engines from the steam engine factory under the Navy Shipyard.

But what they didn't expect was that those crazy people of Feng's shipping company would dare to directly take out the prototype for the test and put it into commercial use.

That's a prototype for testing, since it's a prototype for testing, it means that many aspects are actually not perfect, and it will be problematic to use it directly for commercial use.

But Feng's Shipping is so bold that it directly took the prototype into commercial use, and also adopted the scheme of twin units in parallel to obtain enough horsepower.

But none of that matters!

Importantly, on the 26th of February, the Yuanfang officially set sail from Shanghai, carrying more than 100 passengers to Jinling City, and began its maiden voyage, announcing the official entry of the Feng Shipping Company into the era of steamships.

In the eyes of the people of the Yangtze River Shipping Company, the first steamship officially put into use in the Tang Empire, this conspicuous laurel, was stolen by the sneaky bastards of the Feng Shipping Company!

In order to save face, the Yangtze River Shipping Company directly acquired the ownership of the other part of the Lady directly from the Royal Institute of Technology, and then announced that the Lady was officially commercialized and began to implement the route from Jinling City to Shanghai!

On March 1st, the Lady officially set sail in Jinling City, opening its maiden voyage!

The successive maiden voyages of the Yuanfang and the Lady also officially set off the fierce competition between the Yangtze River Shipping Company and the Feng's Shipping Company in the field of steamships, and in this fierce competition, the curtain of the steamship era was completely opened!