The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 532 Super Weapon
Changsheng Island.

In November last year, Ding Yi got the blueprint of the third-class sailing battleship, potatoes, and sweet potatoes in Dayuan, and immediately asked Ruan Siqing to send it back to Lushun first. Along with Ruan Siqing, they also captured the Dutch third-class sailing battleship Tainan.

Ruan Siqing returned to Lushun in December, and Li Zhi from Lushun immediately gathered the best craftsmen from Changsheng Island Shipyard and Lushun Shipyard to study the blueprints and Tainan together.

The blueprints are all in Dutch. Luckily, Ruan Siqing has learned Dutch for half a year, and then brought back the Dutch craftsmen of the senior staff, the Dutch navy officers, and the craftsmen studied day and night. They almost wanted to dismantle the Tainan. Facing the blueprints, Looking at the Tainan, and according to Ding Yi's request, he kept improving the original drawings.

When Li Zhi started, he first transferred and prepared a large amount of oak.

Because the battleships in Europe at the same time were basically made of oak and teak, [-]% of what Ding Yi got from North Korea now was oak and teak, and there was also a small amount of iron birch, a special product of North Korea.

However, the Dutch craftsman Kluf from Dayuan saw it and said that although he was only responsible for repairing warships in Dayuan, he also knew that your oak wood is not enough time. It takes thousands of trees to make a three-tier sailing battleship, and some trunks It also needs to have a certain curvature; the cut wood cannot be used immediately after processing, and needs to be thoroughly dried for a long time (more than five years), otherwise the new wood has a high water content, and the boat made will corrode and leak within a few years.

He also said that this is the first trial build for you, and I suggest using other wood, so as not to waste it.

Although other woods may not last long, they can be used for at least a year or two.

Li Zhi discovered that in the early stage, all the pine and cypress trees were stockpiled here, which were all used for shipbuilding by the Ming army, and were suitable for offshore and lake use. Later, Ding Yi began to stock up on oak teak.

So he followed Kruf's suggestion, gave up oak and teak, and chose old wood that had been dried for five or six years, which was also the first batch that Ding Yi hoarded.

After various preparations, the craftsmen officially started construction in mid-January.

Because the keel of a battleship needs to be strong and corrosion-resistant, Li Zhi suggested using iron birch. This kind of wood is only found in five places in Jilin, Liaodong, North Korea, Japan, and old Russia in the world. It grows at an altitude of about 700 meters. mountain.The wood hardness of iron birch is three times harder than oak and twice as hard as ordinary steel. It is the hardest wood in the world. People use it as a substitute for metal and call it the king of wood.

The clam wood that Ding Yi originally used to make the lathe is not as good as the iron birch.

Knowing that there is iron birch in North Korea, and clam wood needs to be shipped from Guangxi and Guangdong, which is expensive, Ding Yi has now switched to iron birch to make lathes instead of clam wood.

On the side of Lushun, like the mountainous area in the north of Jinzhou, there were also iron birch trees on the mountain where Abatai attacked and walked, but Ding Yi didn’t send anyone to cut it. It was too high and it was difficult to transport it down the mountain. Shipping over, saving money, time and effort.

When Cruff saw the shipbuilding on Lushun's side, he was shocked.

Because at the same time, a third-class battleship was built in Europe. There may only be a dozen or twenty craftsmen, and dozens or hundreds of workers, and then slowly, it will take two to three years, or even longer to build it. .

Even in the eighteenth century, it sometimes took ten years to build a first-class battleship.

On Changsheng Island, more than 100 shipwrights entered the venue at the same time, and there were more than 1000 workers, 2000 civilian husbands, and nearly [-] people working in full swing.

The preparations here are more adequate, the division of labor is clear, and the civilian husband pulls and transports the timber, puts it in place, pulls and transports steel nails, components, tools, sails, and everything else needed for shipbuilding.

Workers process wood and make components, while artisans are responsible for the overall design and construction and the creation of important key components.The unused ones continued to be transported away by civilian husbands. The entire shipyard was in order, and there was no panic in the busy work.

When Ding Yi arrived in early September, the third-tier battleship Changsheng No. [-] had been completed for a little while.

According to the order of the drawings, the keel and ribs are built first. There are 64 horizontal and vertical ribs in Changsheng-[-] to form the hull frame.

Originally, according to the European standards of the same period, after the frame is completed, it needs to be left for more than three months to allow the wood to connect more tightly under the action of gravity.

But Ding Yi's side is a trial build, and he didn't plan to use the ship for many years, so after seven days of rest, he continued to work.

The curved longitudinal ribs of the bottom are then installed, followed by the placement of the beams that support the deck.

On the lower artillery deck, which bears the heaviest artillery, the beam spacing is 0.69-1.5 meters; while the beam spacing of the upper artillery deck, which bears the lighter load, is 1.7-1.76 meters.The beams of the lower artillery deck are about 1.78 meters thick, and the upper artillery deck is even thinner.Because the horizontal span of the deck is large, only the beams are not enough. Corbel beams and supporting columns at both ends are also required, and columns are also installed in the middle of the beams.Originally, battleships before the 19th century mostly used wooden load-bearing components, but later they gradually became iron.

But Ding Yi had long suggested using steel, so on Lushun's side, all the load-bearing components of the ship were changed from wood to steel.

After using steel load-bearing components, the hull will be stronger, and it can also be made larger and carry heavier artillery.

After the 19th century, the iron components in the ship gradually increased, and finally formed an iron-ribbed wooden shell ship with a pure iron frame and a wooden shell.

Now Ding Yi will not use pure iron frame and wooden casing for the time being because of steel production and technical level.

Because Ding Yi didn't understand it himself, he was afraid that it would sink into the water directly, so he didn't propose this aspect.

But the iron components he proposed had already appeared 200 years in advance, which allowed his third-tier battleships to carry heavier artillery and have a stronger hull.

In the next step, to install the hull planks, you need to nail the wooden nails with a hammer, and then use a saw to saw off the excess of the wooden nails.The planks are made of teak, coated with resinous oil to prevent corrosion and termites.

There is also the treatment of the deck. For example, the deck made of oak needs to be caulked. First, soak the hemp silk with tar to plug the gap, and then pour hot tar into the gap of the wooden board. After solidification, it can be plugged.

There is also the copper clad process on the bottom of the ship, because after the ship has been out to sea for a period of time, various marine organisms will adhere to the bottom of the ship, resulting in rough bottom and greatly increased resistance.Therefore, docking and scraping the bottom of the ship is something that many sea-going ships have to go through.

When Ding Yi came to see it, the craftsmen and workers were installing the planks of the hull and the lower deck.

There are also craftsmen pre-drawing with charcoal to reserve the position of the artillery.

A large number of Dongjiang town officers who came with Ding Yi, except Ruan Siqing who is from the navy, the rest are basically from the infantry battalions.

This was the first time they had seen such a large battleship, and many of them gasped.

"Damn, how much money does it cost to build such a big ship?" Zhang Jing exclaimed.

"Then are the holes all blastholes?" Someone also asked in surprise.

This will allow you to see the positions of the gun ports on the lower floor, which will be vacated in advance when sealing the boards. On the left floor alone, they can see fifteen holes, which means that there are at least fifteen guns on the first floor below.

Ding Yi laughed, seeing that the infantry generals looked a little shocked, and he was also very happy to make you proud.

When he first arrived in Lushun, Ding Yi relied on infantry to conquer the world. These infantry generals all had their eyes above the top, thinking that they were invincible because they were not good enough.

Later, as Ding Yi fought against Japan, North Korea, and big officials, they finally realized that it would be impossible without a navy.

Especially in the battle against Japan, if the navy had not defeated the Japanese navy, their infantry in Japan would have been wiped out.

But even so, in the eyes of the battalion generals, Ding Yi spent a lot of money on naval warships on a large scale, which was a bit wasteful, because they always felt that it was up to them to conquer the world.

Therefore, in Ding Yi's Dongjiang Town, Zhang Jing, Mao Xin, Xiao Yongqiu and other battalion leaders all felt that they were superior to Xu Erxian, Xi Laojing, Song Fei and others in the navy.

Ding Yi said to Li Zhi: "Li Zhi, introduce to these bumpkins our super weapon that will conquer the world in the future."

Li Zhi grinned and said slowly.

(End of this chapter)