In the late Ming Dynasty, rising from the grassland

Chapter 323 Five future warships

After traveling all the way, Lin Rui and his concubines walked for five days for the remaining 150 miles or so before arriving at Dagokou.

At this time, Dagukou was simply a huge construction site.

Among them are large-scale civilian docks, warehouses, rail stations, military docks, shipyards, sailor barracks, and a naval academy.

There are a hundred thousand craftsmen and civilians of all kinds, and they are very busy.

Although the military docks, sailor barracks and other facilities have not yet been fully completed, the Beiyang Fleet has moved from Dengzhou.

After some reorganization and expansion, the former Dengzhou Navy has taken on a completely new look. The sailors and officers are no longer as lazy as before. Hundreds of large and small warships have also been repaired, and the warships have also been equipped with new red cannons. and Fran cannon.

The people are still the same old people as before, and the ships are also old ships. These people and ships were just a pile of mud in the Ming Dynasty, but in the hands of the Hua Dynasty, they were like reborn, at least they were able to fight.

Among these hundreds of warships, the largest one is only about a thousand tons, ten feet long and two feet wide. It can be equipped with six red cannons and twenty thousand-pound furlong cannons on the deck and second-floor cabin respectively. The more than ten medium-sized warships under the command can only be equipped with four red cannons and ten thousand-pound machine guns.

Most of the dozens of other small warships are only four to five feet long and more than one foot wide. They simply cannot be called warships.

Not to mention the red-coat cannons, even the [-]-kilogram furlong machine guns were a bit heavy, so they were each equipped with only five or six [-]-kilogram furlong machine cannons.

In fact, these small boats do not have the capability of naval warfare at all, and are mainly used for close combat.

Although he was prepared in his heart, Lin Rui was still disappointed after observing the strength of the Beiyang Fleet.

There are hundreds of warships. In his opinion, the only one that can truly be called a warship is the largest flagship. Even this one can barely meet his requirements, with a displacement of four to five hundred meters compared to the Europeans. Compared with the large wooden ship with a tonnage of [-] tons, it pales into insignificance.

Compared with the legendary 33-foot-long treasure ship, it is even more like a candlelight and a bright moon. Unfortunately, the construction drawings of the treasure ship and Zheng He's navigation information have long been burned to the ground. The Ministry of Industry is now looking for even the ashes. Not here.

Even the specific dimensions of the treasure ship were not recorded. Lin Rui still found relevant records and some information about the treasure ship in the inner court archives.

But that little information is not enough to completely copy the treasure ship.

Of course, Lin Rui never thought of directly copying the treasure ship, because the treasure ship was bigger, but the speed was too slow, and there were many unreasonable things in the design.

The treasure ships of those days could indeed dominate the oceans due to their size, but they no longer had any advantage against today's Western warships.

Therefore, the new warships currently being designed by the Ship Design Department of Baigongjian were redesigned based on Lin Rui's suggestions and combining the advantages of Chinese and Western warships.

First of all, in terms of hull structure, it completely abandoned the traditional flat-bottomed square shape, but drew on the pointed bottom and streamlined hull of European warships, and then added the era-changing scissor-shaped bow design.

This technology could not be truly invented until the [-]th century. It could greatly reduce the resistance of the ship's bow and increase the speed of the warship.

Secondly, on the sail, the main sail still uses the traditional Chinese hard sail. The advantage is that it is simple to operate and requires fewer people. However, the disadvantage is also very obvious. The wind-receiving area is small. Therefore, for the jib sail, new warships will use European style soft sail.

Finally, there is the size ratio. Since the wooden sailboat hull is very high, in order to maintain stability and not be blown over by strong winds, Chinese warships generally have an aspect ratio of four to one, which makes them look very bloated. European warships are better. But most of them remain at five to one, which is still far from the golden ratio of seven to one in modern warships.

Therefore, the speed of today's wooden sails is very slow. Chinese warships can reach the sky with five or six knots downwind. European warships are better, but they cannot exceed ten knots. One of the reasons is that the aspect ratio is too low.

Of course, Lin Rui also knew that under the conditions of wooden sails, it was impossible to build a seven-to-one warship. Otherwise, slightly larger waves and storms would overturn the ship, and it would not have ocean-going capabilities at all.

Therefore, the new warships are designed in categories. According to Lin Rui's requirements, Daxia's warships will be divided into five types in the future.

The first type is a cruiser with an aspect ratio close to 5:1. It is expected to have a displacement of six to eight hundred tons, a length of 25 feet, a width of 6 feet, a deck height of 6 feet, and a mainmast height of 20 feet, including the bottom warehouse. For four floors.This type of warship will be used as the flagship of the three major fleets, and will all be equipped with red cannons weighing between [-] kilograms and [-] kilograms, specifically used for long-range strikes and land strikes.

The second type is a destroyer, 18 feet long, 4 feet wide, with a main mast height of 15 feet. It has three floors including the bottom warehouse, and is expected to have a displacement of three to four hundred tons.

It will be equipped with a 3000-pound red cannon and a [-]-pound French rapid-fire cannon. It can fight at a distance or at close range, and is faster than a cruiser.

The above two types of warships will be used as firepower output ships and will not be built on a large scale. Dahua's real main ship in the future will be the third type of frigate.

The length of the ship is 15 feet and the width is 3 feet. The length-to-width ratio will truly reach 5:1. The displacement will be about 200 tons. It will be fully equipped with [-]-jin to [-]-jin-class Furlong rapid-fire guns, which will be used to fight against the enemy. Warships engage in bombardment at close range, so the advantages of this ship are its fast speed, fast firepower output, and flexible steering.

It will also be the warship with the most equipment in the Dahua fleet in the future.

The fourth type is the messenger ship, which will have a displacement of about 80 tons, a length of ten feet, and a width of five meters. Its main advantage is its high speed. It is only equipped with thousand-pound French cannons and is mainly used to transmit messages over long distances at sea.

The fifth type is a supply ship, which is twenty feet long and five feet wide, with an aspect ratio of 4:1. It is expected to have a displacement of about 400 tons and will be equipped with a small number of French cannons for self-defense.

The main function is to carry supplies and troops for landing operations, as well as small boats needed for beach landings.

Similarly, the ship will also be used as an armed merchant ship in the future and be sold to merchants in large quantities for use in ocean trade.

As long as the above five warships can be produced and achieve the expected results, they can basically meet Dahua's maritime needs for the next few decades.

Before the steam engine was built, Lin Rui did not want to build a larger wooden sailboat.

It’s not that it can’t be made, but it’s simply unnecessary and not cost-effective.

Otherwise, with the skills, financial and manpower of Chinese carpenters, if he dared to think, he would probably be able to build a wooden ship with a displacement of tens of thousands of tons.

After all, with the conditions and technology in the early Ming Dynasty, one could easily build a treasure ship hundreds of meters long, and now it is even more difficult.

Because although the treasure ship was lost, and the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty has not made any progress in the past 200 years, it does not mean that shipbuilding will no longer be possible, and all skills will be lost.

It's just that the imperial court has always banned the sea, and there has been no large-scale development of the navy. Merchants did not dare to build commercial ships too big.

Otherwise, the shipbuilding masters from the South in the Ship Design Department would not have built the 200-ton frigate model in just half a year. Now they have started a one-to-one construction experiment in Tianjin. Ship.

Within two years at most, the final shape will be ready for mass construction by shipyards in Northeast China. The design demonstration work for the other four warships is also in full swing.

There is no way, this is the advantage of China. Whatever the emperor decides to do, as long as he makes a request, countless people will work hard to handle it.

That efficiency is simply not comparable to that of Europe today.

Although he was very disappointed with the strength of the Beiyang Fleet, after inspecting the progress of various construction sites, Lin Rui still led a group of concubines to board the largest flagship, preparing to take a lap on the nearby sea. , let the girls look at the sea and then go back.

After all, this kind of opportunity is really rare. Not to mention the two prairie girls Hailanzhu and Habeier, even Zhang Yan and the little princess have never seen the sea or a sea ship.

So when all the girls boarded the big ship and looked at the endless sea, they were all very excited and excited.

(End of this chapter)