Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 800 Innovation of Transportation

The completion of the Northwest Railway across the prairie on the east coast was a milestone in the history of the railways of the Republic of China on the east coast.This 330-kilometer railway not only goes deep into the hinterland of the northwest inland on the east coast, but also adopts a number of latest domestic industrial technological achievements, which makes the quality of the entire railway even higher.

The railway transportation technology has been innovated, and the shipping technology that currently occupies the vast majority of the east coast's transportation capacity cannot be left behind.In the modern special shipyard, which has always been leading the new trend of shipbuilding technology on the east coast, a brand new large ship has just gone through sea trials and has returned to the shipyard for inspection.

It is worth mentioning that this ship is the first all-steam-powered ship in the history of the Eastern Republic. It was launched in November last year. The whole ship has a length of 11 meters, a width of 72.3 meters, a cabin depth of 10.4 meters, and a draft of 6 meters. The standard displacement is about 4.7 tons.On this steamship named "Tahiti", a total of four small boilers and two cylinders (re-expansion type, actually 1300 cylinders) were installed to form two re-expansion reciprocating steam engines. It reached about 4 horsepower, driving two propeller propellers.According to the speed estimation during the sea trial, the speed in still water can reach about 370-6 knots, which is another historical record on the east coast.

On the "Tahiti", Viviani, the chief designer of the Modern Special Shipyard, adopted the design of the double-expansion steam engine for the first time, which greatly improved the efficiency of steam utilization.In fact, in the early era of "low-pressure steam engine" (relatively speaking, compared to the middle and early 19th century, it was considered high pressure), the advantages of the compound expansion steam engine were not very obvious. After the production and ferromanganese smelting were successful, the steam engine technology on the East Coast ushered in another innovation.

The application of new materials allows the steam engine to use greater air pressure to obtain higher output power.In the past, if people on the east coast wanted to manufacture a high-horsepower steam engine, the only way was to increase the volume and weight of the steam engine, increase the coal consumption, and then increase the overall output power of the steam engine.But in fact, the "thrust-to-weight ratio" of the steam engine has not increased, that is, the cylinder pressure per unit area has not increased, and of course the speed of the steam engine has not increased. Therefore, whether it is marine power or land power, the improvement of its efficiency is limited.

But everything is different now. The steam power system on the east coast is no longer what it used to be. The appearance of the ferromanganese cylinder has greatly increased the pressure that the cylinder wall can withstand, and the output power per side area has been greatly enhanced. Since then, it has entered the so-called In the era of "high-pressure steam engine", the design of compound expansion steam engine with higher steam utilization efficiency has also been put on everyone's agenda.

In the construction of the "Tahiti" this time, all the cylinders are all ferromanganese cylinders, and the compound expansion reciprocating steam engine not only has far more horsepower than before, but even the speed is not comparable to that of the past, which caused the actual indicated power of the steam engine system a sharp increase.Reflected on the ship, it uses a larger cast iron propeller than before, and the speed is also greatly increased. Therefore, without the help of sails and ocean currents, it is still possible to drive a ship with a standard displacement of 1300 tons at about 6-7 knots in still water. driving at a constant speed.This is indeed a qualitative leap in the history of shipbuilding on the east coast.What's more, with so many boilers, cylinders, and propellers (2 sets) on board, even if one of them fails and stops working, the ship will not completely lose power and encounter danger.

In addition to ferromanganese cylinders, the East Coasters also applied a lot of new things to their new ships.For example, with the application of new materials, the basic industries on the east coast have now achieved a leap-forward improvement. The service life of bearings, connecting rods, cylinders, gears, flywheels and other components has been greatly enhanced, and the accuracy has also been greatly improved; in addition , with the use of a small amount of manganese steel produced through crucible trials, manganese steel cutter heads began to enter various machining industries on the east coast in large quantities. The use of these cutter heads has also effectively improved the processing accuracy of various parts. It means a lot.After these things are used together, the overall improvement of the machine is huge. In other words, the reliability of the equipment is improved, and the mean time between failures is extended, which is undoubtedly crucial for all steam-powered ships.

After the overhaul of the "Tahiti" is completed, it will be led by Zhang Jinhua, a veteran explorer on the east coast, around Cape Horn in the south of Tierra del Fuego, to the port of Araucan, and the three immigration transport ships that are still undergoing major repairs there. confluence.Then the four ships will carry a small number of people and a large amount of supplies, go northward along the Humboldt cold current, quietly arrive at the Galapagos Islands, and go ashore to replenish some fresh water.After all this is done, the four ships will follow Zhang Jinhua's "Tahiti", sail along the southern equatorial warm current in the southeast trade wind belt, and reach the island of Tahiti, which people from the east coast have arrived before.

The few people from the east coast following the boat will carry weapons and land on the island, and then try to cut down trees, dig earth and burn bricks, grow food, and strive to repair and maintain the ships passing here in the future, and at least provide some fresh vegetables and food. freshwater.In the plans of the Ministry of Immigration and the Ministry of the Navy, Tahiti Island is a very important node in the South Pacific immigration route. In the future, a large number of ships will stop here for supplies, and its strategic position is very important.

After all, the Galapagos Islands are not in the hands of the people on the east coast now, and no facilities can be built on them. Therefore, this vital supply and maintenance base can only be moved to the island of Tahiti.Ocean-going ships, especially "quasi-clipper ships" with a high aspect ratio such as the east coast immigration ship, if no maintenance is done after sailing for a period of time, the chances of damage to the hull and resulting in shipwreck will greatly increase.In today's South Pacific circular immigration route, only Australia's Jinshan Port and Chile's Araucan Port have the ability to repair and maintain ships, and they are all concentrated in the southern part. Therefore, a maintenance and supply base is still needed to be built in the north for mid-way maintenance of ships. After choosing and choosing, Tahiti Island was selected in this way.This island is located in the center of the southeast trade wind belt, and it is almost in the middle of the entire immigration route. It is very suitable to be used as a maintenance and supply base.

However, finding an island like Tahiti in the vast sea is not an easy task.Even if you know the longitude, latitude and general shape of the island in advance, it is still not easy. After all, latitude is easy to measure, but longitude is difficult.At present, people on the east coast mainly rely on the large number of mechanical watches brought before crossing to time the sea, and then convert the longitude.But this is not always a safe thing. What if these watches are damaged?Therefore, it is extremely important to find a way to "copy" these mechanical watches that are far ahead of the times in technology and principle.

Haidiao Watch Factory, a joint venture between Mo Ming and Torricelli, has started the research and development of marine astronomical clocks many years ago, and has invested heavily in recruiting talents for this purpose.At present, the factory has more than 40 skilled craftsmen recruited from Europe and Ming Dynasty. Using the mechanical watches brought by the public as a reference, they designed a high-precision wristwatch made by hand (machine production cannot meet the precision requirements). The astronomical clock used for navigation has been tested to be very accurate and fully meets the requirements for use.Of course, the size of this astronomical clock is extremely complex and huge, and it is completely incomparable with the sophisticated mechanical watches of the time travel.But after all, this is the first nautical astronomical clock produced by the East Coast Republic itself. In the future, the many mechanical watches brought by the traveler will be able to retire. A progress that cannot be ignored.

In addition to producing the eye-catching all-steam-powered ship "Tahiti", the modern factory has also been running at full capacity in the past year or so, producing a large number of small river steamers, dredgers, whaling ships, cod boats, etc. Fishing ships, ocean-going squid fishing ships, processing ships, refrigerated ships (distillate/ether refrigeration), lighthouse ships and other types of ships.

In particular, the classic 72-ton inland/offshore general-purpose steamship - with a large load, shallow draft, and fast speed, is deeply loved by users. At a time when economic construction is entering a climax and logistics and transportation are under great pressure, It has almost undertaken more than 40% of the material transportation tasks on the east coast.The Hyundai factory produced more than 127 of these small boats throughout last year, making the number of small inland steamboats in the establishment of the East Coast Republic Inland Water Transport Company rapidly increase to [-], which greatly eased the pressure on logistics and transportation and strongly supported economic construction.In order to keep up with the increase in demand for sailors after the large number of ships, the people on the east coast also resorted to frequent tricks. In addition to recruiting a large number of European and Ming sailors, their own training has never fallen behind.At present, the number of sailors on almost every civilian ship on the east coast is over-allocated. The purpose is to cultivate more reserve talents for future contingencies.

In addition, the second type of boats with a large increase in number are probably all kinds of fishing boats, thanks to the consistent large demand for seafood by people on the east coast.Local cheap cod, squid, calamari, and whale are all important parts of the food consumption of residents on the east coast. These demands have put great pressure on the South China Sea Fishery Company, so shipbuilding orders are also flying to the east coast like a snowflake The three major domestic shipyards, and even the small-scale private Xinxing Shipyard have received a lot of orders and passed through a difficult time when the factory was first built.

In addition to these two, a large number of refrigerated ships ordered by the Southern Railway Company also occupied a large number of slipways of the four shipyards.These ships have been put into use one after another, so that various commodities from the southern cone, Chile, and Peru can be transported to the ports on the east coast in a refrigerated state, and the value has greatly increased.For example, various fishery products (produced in Peruvian fishing grounds), tropical fruits, tallow, frozen meat, etc. along the coast of Chile and Peru have created considerable profits for the Southern Railway Company.

On February 1650, 2, the "Tahiti" was overhauled, and then loaded a group of people and a large amount of supplies, slowly left the dock and sailed towards the port of Araucan.After they left, a naval formation composed of several professional warships also quietly left the Zhenhai Port Naval Base and headed north.

(End of this chapter)