The people also benefited, in the past, when it rained to go out, everyone was reluctant to wear cloth shoes to go out, because as long as they went out, the cloth shoes would inevitably be soaked in water, not to mention that people's feet were uncomfortable, and it also affected the service life of cloth shoes.

Now Hongmen has begun to produce some rubber shoes when there is a surplus of materials, and the shoes made of rubber do not have to worry about the shoes being wet by the rain, and the soles of the feet are still dry.

At the same time, the raincoat made of rubber is very different from the hat and coat used in daily life.

In daily use, although its shock resistance and friction have been greatly improved, but to be honest, it is used on the rollers of artillery, and its play space is not as huge as Li Tianyang imagined.

The only pity is that although Hongmen has placed additional orders to the Portuguese, the Portuguese also purchased rubber products from his big brother, the Spaniards in Luzon, and the Spanish merchant ships that traveled between Luzon and the Americas for about a year and a half were certainly not enough to meet the needs of Hongmen.

Not to mention, in the case of Hongmen's increased efforts to purchase rubber, the Spaniards and Portuguese are not fools, and naturally they will inevitably intercept a part of natural rubber privately to study why they can win the favor of Hongmen, and whether it has an important role that they do not know.

Therefore, it is better to seek others than to seek oneself, and on the one hand, Hongmen naturally increased its efforts to purchase natural rubber from the Portuguese, while Hongmen stepped up its efforts to develop its own ocean-going deep-sea merchant ships.

On 11 August, Li Tianyang rushed back to Bengang, and this time he came not for anything else, but to attend the launching ceremony of Hongmen's first Western-style 2,000-material ship.

As the shipyards grew larger, the shipyards, which had been closely hidden in the depths of Bengang Creek, have now moved to the shoreline of Bengang.

There is no way, the reason why Bengang extended more than ten miles from the mouth of the sea to the interior was because it was weak at that time; Now that Hongmen is the dominant family in the South China Sea, no one dares to easily oppose Hongmen, so for the sake of development, it is also a logical thing for Bengang to show the public eye.

The units of measurement in China have always been very confusing, for example, when taxes were levied, the units used to weigh grain, dou and shi, because of the different types of grain weighed, there were differences in weight.

Because buckets and stones are measured in volume, grains like corn and sorghum will actually weigh much less than grains like wheat and millet because of the larger grains.

This is also the reason why later generations have had various estimation problems with the stone as a unit of measurement.

The unit of measurement of the material used in the locking of shipbuilding is also based on volume, because of the influence of the production process or the thickness of the material, the carrying capacity of the manufactured sea ship is very different.

Therefore, in Hongmen, which has always attached importance to the discipline of mathematics, it has long abandoned the unit of measurement of materials, but imitated the unit of measurement of later generations, taking 2,000 catties as a ton, and using tons as a measure of the carrying weight of a sea ship.

Of course, because in the current era, the weight of one pound is more than that of later generations, so the carrying capacity of this sea ship in Hongmen Launching Capital today has been carefully calculated by the members of the R&D Institute, which is roughly about 400 tons, and when converted into the measurement method of later generations, it is almost 500 tons.

It is a sea ship that is somewhat different from the Portuguese Clarke's sailboat, but there are many similarities. Over the years, under the leadership of Yang Zhi, the shipyard has never stopped studying the manufacturing process of Western sea vessels.

The Dutch shipwrecks and several captured Dutch warships that were fished from the sea a few years ago also gave Yang Zhi a lot of inspiration and reference.

The Dutch can be called "sea coachmen" for a reason, at least in their shipbuilding technology, there are completely different places from the Portuguese, and even some principles and techniques are more reasonable and advanced.

In addition, Li Tianyang and their sneak attack on Magong Island that year, captured a lot of Dutch craftsmen, including several shipbuilders, Li Tianyang Li Dai Taozhuang, under the pretext of fake death, did not return them to the Dutch Java Governor Cohen, but raised them in the Bengang Shipyard, which also gave Yang Zhi a lot of help.

The newly designed sea ship, combining the advantages of the Portuguese Clark galleon and the Dutch sailing ship, and has the technology of the watertight compartment of the Oriental sea ship, can be said to be the crystallization of Eastern and Western skills.

"There is no flooding in the inner cabin!"

"No tilt on the deck!"

"The waterline is within the estimated range!"

After a series of measurements and calculations, one by one affirmative voices came back to Yang Zhi and Li Tianyang's ears, making them unexpectedly bring bright smiles on their faces.

"Raise the sails, raise the anchor!" Li Tianyang gave the order for the first voyage of the sea ship to Yang Zhi, for Yang Zhi, who single-handedly developed this 400-ton giant ship belonging to Hongmen, at this moment only he was qualified to give this order, and Li Tianyang himself was not worthy.

On the three masts as high as six feet, more than a dozen soft sails and hard sails were stretched out in an orderly manner under the operation of skilled Hongmen sailors, and several sails were also stretched out in the bow and flanks.

Under the blowing of the sea breeze, the huge ship gradually increased its speed from the initial station, and then gradually cut through the sea like a feathered arrow, and drove towards the distant sea level, bringing up two melodious white waves.

"At this time, the wind is downwind, and the speed is estimated to reach about 30 miles per hour, which is equivalent to the 'Yang Fan' sea vessel, and the speed of the ship has basically reached the expectation!" The team member who measured and calculated next to him reported an exciting news again.

This news also means that this new giant ship can not only be used as an important sea ship for Hongmen's ocean-going trade in the future, but also can be used as a bigger killer weapon for Hongmen in the future, which can be compared with the first-class battleships of the West.

As long as in the following time, some techniques for this new type of sea ship are slightly improved, its armor thickness is strengthened, its sail utilization is enhanced, the speed of the ship is increased, and the upper and lower deck compartments are cooperated, and the gun emplacements are reasonably designed, then it is not impossible to compete with the first-class battleships of the West.

(End of chapter)