industrial lord

Chapter 653 Preparations
Nowadays, the groups with the most influence in the Principality of Wessen are scholars, engineers, and technicians, while businessmen are slightly behind.

If a person has a doctorate, a senior engineer title or an orange technician certificate, his honor in society is no less than that of a baron.

Now that Grand Duke Wesson has gone crazy, this group of people have gone crazy too.

The large conference room of the Wei Senzhou government was packed, and a banner on the wall read "Cornflower-class general-purpose ship design finalization conference and construction mobilization conference and shipbuilding committee establishment conference."

On the rostrum, the top leaders of the Cornflower-class Shipbuilding Committee are extremely powerful. Psyche is the chairman, and among the vice chairmen, Captain Lulu represents the user, Governor Omette of Wessen State is responsible for coordinating internal industrial affairs of Wessen State, Vice President Manuel of Wessenburg University is responsible for coordinating various research institutions, Administrative Minister Frick is responsible for coordinating relevant departments of the Principality and logistical support, and Bruce, director of the Springfield Arsenal, is responsible for coordinating weapons matters.

Today, Psyche, wearing a dark blue blacksmith's uniform, said loudly on the podium: "Our goal is to build two Cornflower-class armed merchant ships at the same time within six months."

"In the next work, we must work backwards on the schedule, advance the work in a checklist, carefully and accurately promote the pace of construction, and go all out to win the '180-day battle'!"

No one present could see that in order to optimize the existing immature design, she worked non-stop for six days and nights in the design room of the shipyard, and worked for three days and three nights in the production department.

She didn't waste any more time and had the plans distributed to each factory and department, and discussed, raised and resolved issues on the spot.

The name of the Cornflower-class general-purpose ship comes from a vote at the shipyard. The ship has a displacement of 600 tons, is 60 meters long, is equipped with four 4-horsepower low-speed steam engines, has a steel keel and a wooden hull, and can be converted into a passenger ship, cargo ship, warship and armed merchant ship. The designed speed is between 150 and 16 kilometers per hour.

Because of the long-distance voyage without supplies, the number of engines was increased to reduce the chance of simultaneous damage, and the volume of the supply warehouse was increased to carry more supplies, so the tonnage increased from the originally planned 500 tons to 600 tons, which resulted in the engine horsepower being increased.

Psyche took personal action, calculating and designing the overall structure in the shortest possible time, then breaking down the construction process and scheduling the construction period. For parts where technology was still lacking, relevant departments were arranged to study and develop alternative solutions.

The plan was for six months, but minus one month of sea trials, the actual construction time was only five months.

If we had a year, many problems would not exist, but now we are in a hurry, the question of how to speed up our work arises.

The shipyard director, Bokner, first put forward the request: "We need to add at least 20 welding technicians to take turns to weld the keel. If there are 30 to 40 people, the time can be shortened by 20%."

Manuel immediately said: "I will recruit qualified young people from the school. If the shipyard can agree to give priority to those with good performance, I think I can recruit more."

Welding technicians are all fire magicians. Excellent technicians are paid well and are the backbone that factories are unlikely to let go of. It is best to recruit them from schools.

If you can work in a shipyard with high income, there will definitely be a lot of people applying for the job.

"This type of ship will be mass-produced in the future, and we will need a lot of welders, which is no problem," said Bokner.

"The second problem is ship timber. Due to the impact of the Northern War, the number of merchant ships from the Dark Land has decreased, and the supply of timber is somewhat tight."

Ordinary boats can use ordinary wooden boards, but this is the boat Frederick is going to take, and no one dares to bring it, so they have to use the best ones.

It was Lilu who solved this problem: "Please give me the list, and I will arrange for the Dawn Chamber of Commerce to expedite the purchase."

Bokner immediately took out a list from his briefcase and asked the staff to hand it over. He then said, "We don't have enough high-power riveting machines to fix the ship's plates. We also need a batch of short-range walkie-talkies to coordinate the riveting work." Omet replied, "I will arrange for the factory to work overtime."

These are the problems that the shipyard urgently needs to solve, and we will follow up on any problems encountered in future work.

The second issue is transportation between several factories. Large parts such as keels, steam engines, and axles need to be transported by train, and whether the Ministry of Railways should arrange special trains is an issue.

Especially for smelters and forges, the refined metal ingots have to be transported to the forge to be forged into keels and other components. The two places are not far apart and are connected by railways, but they do not have their own trains. In the past, they had to temporarily ask the railway department for transportation.

Frick said: "I will coordinate with the Ministry of Railways to have several freight trains used exclusively for this campaign, with the highest level of traffic. Factories must also make good transportation plans to improve efficiency."

The representative of the Ministry of Railways who attended the meeting said that a special committee will be set up to liaise with the factories.

Problems were raised one after another and solved one by one.

No media interviews were arranged for this conference, nor was the event proactively mentioned to the media.

But many people found that the relevant factories suddenly became busy. The atmosphere in shipyards, smelters, forging plants, heavy machinery plants, glass factories, screw factories, hemp rope factories, etc. became extremely tense. Many people kept muttering how many days were left, and even ate quickly and went to the workshop after finishing their meals.

The shipyard built a model of the same size using wooden frames and canvas. Lilu led the sailors to simulate daily work and situations encountered at sea, and adjusted the positions of cabins and some commonly used equipment without changing the main structure.

The circumstances of this trip were somewhat special. In addition to the sailors, the ship also needed to bring troops, doctors, priests, cargo, weapons and ammunition, and a large amount of food, so the cabin was relatively compact.

Because there are many non-sailors traveling, in order to relieve the fatigue of long sea voyages, an entertainment room is also set up on the ship, with a ping-pong table, an iron chess board and magnet chess pieces.

In the end, the ship had to make some temporary changes to its design, with an extra mast added so that it could sail with sails when necessary.

Frederick had to move with the ship. If all eight steam engines on the two ships broke down, they would be doomed. No one dared to bet that this would not happen. The staff of the headquarters even made a plan to walk back, and sails became necessary.

Because of this, spies from various countries who smelled something thought that the shipyard was going to build traditional sailing ships and did not pay much attention.

Some people believe that many factories in the Principality of Wessen suddenly worked overtime to produce military equipment in order to expand the military.

A feather pen military strategist even wrote an article in the newspaper, arguing that the current Wesson Army’s troops are insufficient in number to deal with various threats, so it is likely that a Bohemian division will be established in the form of foreign legions and mercenaries.

More spies rushed to the city of Boheim to find out why Grand Duke Wessen invested so heavily in the Bohemian region.

Someone found out that Grand Duke Wesson has been frowning a lot recently.

(End of this chapter)