New World 1620

Saturday, March 1621, 5, was sunny.

Snow-white seabirds are flying around the pier in the industrial area of ​​Brooklyn in circles, and the faint blood floating over the river port has attracted the urgent curiosity of these carnivorous birds.

In the turquoise water bay, the sailboat with most of its sails is slowly approaching the pier, and the Mermaid, which has been transformed from a Dutch merchant ship into a Manhattan community whaling ship, returns with a full load.The sailors waved their arms with a smile, but there were significantly fewer people on the shore today.

Most of the people waiting for the unloading of the Mermaid were Indian hired workers, in addition to a few Dutch sailors who had never left the port with the ship.This made Monty, the acting captain of the Netherlands who had enjoyed several cheers and receptions, a little disappointed.

Since following the hint of the "U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials" and decisively choosing to seek refuge more than a month ago, the former bosun of the Mermaid has become the acting captain of the ship, taking his son Ruyter out to sea all day long. whale.

In the 17th century, the whale resources along the coast of North America were extremely rich, and they could be caught within a day or two of leaving the port.A large amount of whale meat, whale oil, and whale bones quickly enriched the food trays of Manhattan communities and even the raw material warehouses of the Ministry of Industry.Thanks to the Dutch sailors' traditional whaling and skilled processing skills, most of the whaling processing can be completed on board, which makes the engineers of the two knives in the Brooklyn industrial area very happy.

But today, no one seems to be interested in the more than ten tons of whale products being unloaded by the Mermaid. The unloading dock of the entire industrial area looks deserted, which makes Monty feel a little bit wrong.

"Captain Monty!" A familiar voice came from behind. It was the "Lieutenant of the United States Maritime Guard" Sun Yang who was on board the ship, a young man who had never said a word during his interrogation.

"Mr. Lieutenant, is today a special holiday for the people of your country?" Monty held back for a long time before asking cautiously in English with a blushing face.He had never been able to understand why these American officers always used that remote and ugly English.

"No, Mr. Captain, today is May 5th, it's just a weekend." Sun Yang was also a little surprised why a familiar Manhattan resident suddenly disappeared from the usually bustling industrial pier, but he seemed to think of something, and immediately put on a serious expression , "Mr. Monty, I suggest that you should speed up your Chinese learning. I don't want officials from the Department of Homeland Security to ask about your situation..."

"Look, Dad, there!" Reuter, who was still in the rebellious youth, suddenly stretched out his arms, pointing to the Brooklyn Shipyard harbor area in the distance, "There are a lot of people! It seems that the beautiful warship I saw before is about to Into the water!"

The future Dutch admiral in history and today's little sailor of the Mermaid raised his heels, shouting impatiently, his eyes shining with fiery light.

oh? !That warship with a triangular and sharp bow?Monty was also taken aback for a moment, but he immediately understood, and made a respectful courtesy to the naval officer beside him who was surprised: "Mr. Lieutenant, can I visit the launch of your country's latest warship? You know... Michelle has loved warships since she was young. Battleship..."

"Hehe, no problem! Ruyter is more qualified than other children to see it!" Sun Yang smiled meaningfully, and led the Dutch father and son towards the northeast.

……

……

The No. [-] slipway of the Brooklyn Shipyard was crowded with people, and Zheng Quan, the military safety committee member of the committee, was standing beside Shi Yige, the person in charge of the shipyard, and You Qi, the ship design engineer, with a red face.

At this stage, the young Maritime Garrison officers, who are almost laymen in the handling of sailboats, pointed at the snow-white hull, which is almost 70 meters long and nearly 11 meters wide, with a beautiful clipper bow and streamlined hull structure.

And not far away, on the No. 800 berth completed at the end of last month, the keel of an [-]-ton clipper sailboat of the same type has also been laid.

"Oh... I can imagine how beautiful it will be when it's masted and sailed! No shipyard in Amsterdam could have designed such a beautiful work of art..."

Verus, the former Dutch captain of the Mermaid, is still a European mechanic in the shipyard, but he still stands on the side of the berth as a representative of the boatman, talking to the former bosun Monty and his son who are also surprised. And talk.

"Uh...Mr. Verus, but don't you think it's too short?" Monty was a little embarrassed to show up in front of his former boss.For the safety of his son, he resolutely "rebelled", making him always think that he is a "traitor" on the Mermaid.

"Well, it seems that there is only one gun deck? I'm curious how it can be used as a battleship... without any gun doors, is it going to hit it with its beautiful pointed nose?" Looking sideways, it has been captured by the United States. Fatty Verus, a former subordinate who was heavily used by the government, actually stared at him with a playful smile: "Monty, you seem to be very nervous... To be honest, you are lucky, I am only one day behind you, and I just I can work here..."

Looking at his former boss in astonishment, Monty suddenly realized that his worries seemed unfounded. None of his colleagues on the Mermaid and St. Nicholas seemed to be living worse than him. Could it be that they also "betrayed the revolution"?

Just when Monty was feeling uneasy, a middle-aged man in the auditorium not far away stood up, with a bright smile like a young man on his ruddy face.

"...Today is an important day. First of all, I would like to thank all the leaders and employees of the shipyard for their tireless efforts to complete an almost impossible task. In just 45 days, the main body of our first sailing warship Construction is complete, with the hard work of over 200 skilled workers and friends of Delaware..."

Qi Jianjun shook his head and recited his congratulations, while the young people on the side all looked a little anxious.

"... Now, we invite Comrade Liu Mingjun, the chairman of the community committee, to be our first ship..." As he spoke, Qi Jianjun turned his head and asked a certain maritime garrison officer next to him gently, and then quickly answered, "The first A sailing corvette, the USS Enterprise, officiates at the launch!"

"Enterprise number?" Sun Yang at the back of the crowd almost lost his footing, and then looked at the boss at the front of the crowd—Military Safety Commissioner Zheng Quan, and seemed to find that his expression did not change and his heart was calm.

It seems that bad tastes are everywhere.Sun Yang cursed in his heart.

Instead of imported champagne, a bottle of corn wine hit the red and green bow of the Enterprise, and shattered glass fragments and golden wine splashed everywhere.Such a nondescript launching ceremony made You Qi clenched his fist and pressed his mouth to cough lightly on the spot.

As the Indian hired workers removed the timbers on the berth one by one, the huge hull of the Enterprise began to slide slowly, and then entered the waterway connecting the berth.

In the next two months, the light cruiser Enterprise will carry out the next mast, superstructure, details of the ship's internal structure, and outfitting of weapons and equipment.To conduct the first sea trial, it will have to wait until at least July.

At the farthest corner of the cheering crowd, two men wearing ordinary labor insurance uniforms and marine garrison officer uniforms were whispering.

"Mr. Lin, please give me an assurance. When will the guns be loaded? With such a narrow clipper hull, it is obviously not feasible to use a Napoleon 12-pound broadside gun! Moreover, the configuration of the four naval guns is simply outrageous. In this era, even Merchant ships can't even deal with it!" Wang Tiehammer forgot about the warships in the distance, and his heart was surging, but he also knew that the current Enterprise was far from a real warship, and the most important thing was that he hadn't found a suitable naval gun arming solution.

In order to get familiar with the handling of sailing ships, Wang Tiehammer almost spent a lot of time on the former Mayflower and Mermaid. Can pronounce his name in Chinese.

But even so, Wang Tiehammer can only be regarded as a half-toned 17th century ordinary apprentice sailor.If he really wants to command the Enterprise to go to sea, he must be equipped with experienced European first mates and bosun.

"What are you in a hurry for?" Lin Youde rolled his eyes at the other party, took out a file folder from under his armpit, and handed it to Wang Tiehammer, the future first captain of the Enterprise.

A peculiar naval gun was drawn by hand on the paper, and the inner diameter of the muzzle was actually hexagonal!Wang Tiehammer, who was familiar with relevant naval historical materials, gradually came up with a piece of history in his mind.

"Wisworth hexagonal gun?!" Wang Tiehammer looked at the chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry beside him in surprise.He was puzzled by such a historical oddity between smoothbore and real rifled guns.In history, the gunboat Yangwu of the Qing Dynasty used such European naval guns.

"Hmm! That's right, that's it. At present, we don't have a truly reliable rifle barrel processing technology, but in order to meet your dual requirements for long-distance artillery combat and accuracy, we can only choose such a hexagonal gunship. Cannon. If possible, I will try to change it to rear loading.” Lin Youde scratched the back of his head, pointing at the parameters written on the side of the paper like a child, “The caliber is 90 mm, and with the gun mount and shield, the whole gun weighs 3.8 tons , a 7-man artillery crew, using 18 pounds, that is, about 8 kilograms of round-headed cylindrical wrought iron high-explosive shells, containing 1.5 kilograms of nitro explosives, and the fuze device adopts a simple..."

Speaking of this, in Lin Youde's mind, some hard workers from the Ministry of Chemical Industry used the early lead chamber method to produce sulfuric acid before the more advanced tower method production equipment was available.

"Nitro explosive!" Wang Tiechui almost jumped up when he heard it.

"Hey, the cost is expensive, so it can only be considered as a trial production." Lin Youde spread his hands with a bitter face, "I gritted my teeth and produced the last batch of cannons, but it's not a big problem. To put it bluntly, it is not much more advanced than the current European bumpkins. If they want to be serious with you, at least 20 Spanish silver dollars are used for shells, and now only a small amount is trial-produced for fuze safety tests. I still suggest that you configure more solid shells. A little...or I can get you some black powder shells, the kind that will never be mixed with sand!"

Staring blankly at the chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry who was pretending to complain to him, Wang Tiehammer suddenly had a desolate experience of being in charge of a certain Beiyang navy.

Patting the shoulder of the future captain of the Enterprise, Lin Youde walked away humming a little tune.

……

……

The bustle of the Brooklyn Shipyard has not yet died down. In the office building where the Manhattan Community Committee is located, a more spectacular "Industrial and Technology Development Demonstration Conference" is going on.

The judges of the demonstration meeting are the heads or technical chief engineers of various production departments. In view of the important program such as the launch of the enterprise account, Jiang Zhaolong, the person in charge of the Ministry of Industry, presided over the demonstration meeting.

"Next!" Jiang Zhaolong drove away another whimsical young artist, and shouted out the door at the top of his voice.

A well-mannered young man walked in with wide-rimmed glasses and an arrogant expression, and pasted a large pair of "mural" paper on the wooden board opposite the judges' seat.

"This is the spinning jenny I restored from my laptop! It has made many innovations and improvements, and its prototype is Britain in the 18th century..." The excited expressions of the young literary and art youths cannot be overstated, as if a great industrial revolution is about to begin Born in his hands.

"Stop! All the judges here know the history knowledge! You have put a lot of thought into your textile technology and industrial planning, but...it's not feasible!" Without waiting for the other judges to express their views, Jiang Zhaolong tapped a pencil on the table and sentenced him to death. .

"Mr. Jiang, why do you say that my plan is not good? Do you know what this means? It is a great increase in productivity!"

The young man froze for a moment, adjusted his glasses, and seemed to express a kind of regret for the other party's unbelievable attitude.

"How many spinning machines are needed to form the industrial scale you mentioned? How many raw materials are needed? How many skilled workers are needed? How much supporting power is needed?" Jiang Zhaolong wiped his forehead with a haggard face, "Xiao Zhao, I know you and those people The female workers in the garment factory in the tour group have a good relationship, but in our current situation, limited manpower and industrial equipment manufacturing must be placed in more important industries. We can still import all kinds of textile fabrics from Europe. If you want to establish A garment processing division serving the community, then we can consider that."

After finishing speaking, Jiang Zhaolong smiled apologetically at the judges who had not expressed their views, and made a gesture of invitation.

"Bureaucracy! I don't understand science!" The young man blushed and strode out of the meeting room, tearing down his hard work.

"This... this little Zhao, it doesn't hurt his back to talk standing up!" Everyone in the room laughed, and Jiang Zhaolong couldn't laugh or cry for a while.

Another young man came in, and it seemed that the content of hanging silk was much greater than that of Wenqing.

"Hey, judges, what I want to recommend today is the result of my research." The young man hung his drawing on the wooden board and coughed, "I found that in the past few months, the community obtained from the wharf ruins A lot of scrapped electronic devices, and more electronic equipment on scrapped cars and boats, and even small electronic products that have run out of power and become scraps in everyone's hands."

"Oh? How do you know that we have organized and stored all these?" Not only Jiang Zhaolong, but even the female committee members who were guest judges also listened carefully.

In this Manhattan community that has almost bid farewell to the electric culture, people's desire to return to the electric age is increasing day by day. Once they hear the word electric, except for those diesel motors in the factory, there are colorful tick-tock pictures and sounds all the time. Thinking about it.

"I and a few friends who like electronic products plan to set up a small department, which is to collect all the electronic components we can find, including coils and various tools, and then modify and design several useful electronic products, such as this..." Youth I clicked on the blueprint, and shook my head triumphantly, "Wired transmitter! And this, more advanced, short-wave radio! And this, a mechanical phonograph..."

"Wait! You said you are sure of all this?" Jiang Zhaolong slammed the table and stood up.

In the eyes of several bigwigs in the Ministry of Industry, there may be no time to take care of these "non-technical" things or non-important products, so they will not be distracted until the real large-scale urgent demand comes out.However, as a member of the community committee, Jiang Zhaolong had to consider the significance of these technical products from other aspects.

"We have sorted out the things we have found so far. As long as the key parts are reliable, it should not be a big problem. If there is something really missing, as long as the material problem is solved, the difficulty of processing by the Ministry of Industry is not very high. I used to be a handmade electronic Enthusiast, the craftsmanship is so-so..." The young man of Diaosi stood in front of the judges with his head held high, with a confident smile on his face.

"Okay, pass!"

"Well, I agree too!"

A few hands were raised, and the judges and the Diaosi youth reached a win-win situation.

Subsequent deliberations, including several extremely critical but time-consuming and labor-intensive technical proposals that no one took the initiative to take over, surprised Jiang Zhaolong and other judges. It seems that there are still many people with ideas in the Manhattan community.