"Divid the cake? Can the French share the colony without doing anything?" Bai Jingyu asked carefully.

"Of course, because I also need the French to do things that 'get things done without being enough to be able to do anything'." Li Junwei explained mysteriously.

As a friend of Li Junwei's youth, Bai Jingyu still knows Li Junwei a little bit. He knew that in the heart of His Royal Highness Yu, taking advantage of the loss or taking advantage of the small profits, and he just focused on the present moment. He would rather suffer some losses than take the initiative in his work, and this is even more so in national strategy.

In the Atlantic Ocean, the Iron Armored Mobile Detachment of the Expeditionary Fleet.

"Twenty-seven degrees on the port side, one grenade." Zhao Longcheng issued an order to the gun captain of the Eagle armored cruiser.

The gun cannon stared wide: "General, that's the direction of the frigate."

"Just aim at the head of the Iron Wall ship for 100 meters, otherwise these bastards would never abide by my formation orders..." Zhao Longcheng said viciously with the sword-scabbage scabbard of the gunman's chest.

In the turret, all the gunmen were stunned. Although the gunman was forced, he was forced to go to the military court because he accidentally injured his friend and wanted to go to the military court. The man looked like he was thirty years old, wearing a straight windbreaker, but he was not dressed in a navy, and his hair was meticulously combed. He was writing and drawing on the board with two assistants. He raised his head when he heard Zhao Longcheng's order. When he saw the gunman asking him, he shook his head gently: "Do what he said."

The man is named Pan Mingqi, the chief technical consultant of the Expeditionary Fleet. He and Zhao Longcheng are also old acquaintances. Ten years ago, Pan Mingqi was a mechanical engineer at Qingdao Shipyard. At that time, the Imperial Navy installed small steam-powered servo and anchor machines on naval ships. Pan Mingqi was responsible for this matter. Zhao Longcheng was the commander of a cruise fleet of the Beiyang Fleet at that time. During the fleet transformation, he was the director of the chief. The two colleagues for two years formed a deep friendship. Zhao Longcheng was impressed by Pan Mingqi's knowledge and seriousness, and Pan Mingqi......

Pan Mingqi knew that Zhao Longcheng was a fearless hero. As a general, he was rude in his work, especially when he was to his subordinates. He would use his sword to hit people with leather boots, and even perform flogging himself. Not to mention using rifled cannons now, even in the era of smoothbore cannons, he was also the kind of ruthless person who dared to use shells to warn his ships under his command.

With the command of the gun and cannon, the bow turret immediately rotated under the guidance of a steam donkey. There are two 25-diameter 305mm front-mounted rifled guns in this turret. Because the barrel is relatively long and has completely extended out of the turret, it can only be turned to a specific angle to load the shells.

After the angle adjustment was completed, the artillery on the left lowered the muzzle and laid it outside the turret. The loader under the open deck pushed the thirteen-pound launching medicine bag and more than 200-kilogram grenade into the barrel. The turret rotated to adjust the firing angle. The gunboat thoughtfully opened the cover on the top of the turret. Everyone covered their ears, but they still could not stop the deafening sound of cannons from reaching their ears. The shells were shot out, and black smoke covered most of the hull. The shells shot straight towards the head of the frigate detachment. Huge splashes were blown in front of the pilot ship Tiebi, and the falling sea water splashed half of the bow of the Tiebi.........

"It's so fucking spectacular!" Zhao Longcheng laughed.

Pan Mingqi was calm, but he coughed by the smoke of gunpowder: "General Zhao, if you want to issue an order in the flag language, you should go to the Navigation Bridge, which is spacious......."

"Old Pan, you have brought me something good. I'll deal with it first. Let's have a good chat later." Zhao Longcheng patted Pan Mingqi on the shoulder and left with a smile.

Zhao Longcheng, who walked out of the Eagle turret, climbed the high-altitude nautical bridge. The view here is the most spacious and you can clearly see the whole picture of the fleet. Unlike the steam-powered merchant ships used steam-powered merchant ships to fill in the iron armored mobile fleet three months ago, there are many more ships in the mobile detachment now, and there are eight ships that can be called iron armored ships. Of course, last year, the Imperial Navy re-designated naming rules and used a different naming of the iron armored ships from the era of sail battleships. The small-tonnage battleships of the Iron Wall-class are called frigates, while the Eagle-class has a displacement of more than 5,000 tons, called armored cruisers.

Only the Eagle, which is now undertaking the experimental mission, is different. This warship with two twin turrets and 305mm heavy artillery as its main gun. Although it is called a first-class armored ship, it is more suitable to be called a battleship.

The Eagle, Falcon, the Ultimate, and the Harrier formed the cruiser fleet, the Iron Wall, the Jintang, the Iron Horse, and the Copper Wall formed the frigate. In addition, there were four armed steam merchant ships, Yuanliheng. This was the whole of the mobile detachment and the forefront of this expedition to America. At this moment, there was no wind on the sea, and thick chimneys erupted thick smoke, making the fleet still advance at an economic speed of eight knots.

The training of the newly formed mobile detachment was not ideal, and Zhao Longcheng could only let the fleet move forward while training.

"Sir, there was a problem with the rudder angle indicator of the Tiebi. She replaced the latest balance rudder at Xibin Shipyard, but the rudder angle indicator was not adjusted, so there was a mistake." Su Jing, who was on the boat to the Eagle, reported to Zhao Longcheng.

Zhao Longcheng asked: "How is the effect of balancing rudders?"

"......Oh, it's not so good. The steam power forwarding effect is very good now, but once sail power is used, it's much worse. Fortunately, we sail in the ocean and don't need to turn..." Su Jing said, but his eyes couldn't help but look at the turret cruiser under his feet. As a fanatic of the ironclad ship, he had long dreamed of such warships. Although he had not seen it in the Cape Verde Islands, this was the first time Su Jing stood on this ship.

Zhao Longcheng did not express his dissatisfaction with Su Jing's surprise. As a navy, his favorite thing is the big ship and giant cannon. Who can withstand the temptation of the Eagle?

"Sir, I heard that the Eagle only has the acting captain, and I am willing to ask for the transfer." Su Jing couldn't help but say.

Zhao Longcheng has always been very satisfied with Su Jing, especially this guy made great contributions in the Battle of Ireland, but Zhao Longcheng still said: "You'd better not think about it. This ship was just a temporary fleet. The acting captain is Dr. Pan Mingqi. This is just a turret experimental ship. Don't you know?"

"Of course I know, as a navy, who would not know the name of Dr. Pan Mingqi, the chief designer of the Taixi, the chief engineer of the Navy Shipbuilding Committee, a man who quarreled with His Majesty the Supreme Emperor but was given a title, and a guy who refused the title." Su Jing said a series of titles of Pan Mingqi, and then his face changed slightly, saying: "If it weren't for him, maybe we would have a 10,000-ton iron armored battleship!"

"Okay, don't say it anymore. Sooner or later, this mobile detachment will be handed over to you, and you can visit this warship to the fullest." Zhao Longcheng immediately reminded him when he saw Pan Mingqi walking onto the navigation bridge.

Su Jing was unwilling to accept it, but no one could tell whether Pan Mingqi should be responsible for it, but who would be willing to believe that he was not responsible? After all, the person who argued with him was the Supreme Emperor of the Empire, a man who no one dared to blame and was regarded as a god.

Pan Mingqi was born in a civilian family. His father was only an ordinary working class in Zhejiang and worked in a shipyard. However, Pan Mingqi was smart since childhood and showed a strong interest in machinery since childhood. He graduated from the Imperial National University at the age of 22. He has been engaged in industries related to ship design and mechanical power. His first success was in the 20th year of the Empire. At the third Ship Power Competition held by Emperor Li Mingxun, Pan Mingqi personally designed a steam-powered ship using propellers that used propellers to win the championships in racing, rally and efficiency. Later, he entered the Nanyang Power Institute and cooperated with the United Shipyard to participate in several steam-powered ships, and participated in the design of cheetah-class and iron-wall-class iron-clad ships.

Pan Mingqi's famous work is the Taixi cruise ship. This cruise ship is more than 200 meters long and 36 meters wide, with a draft of more than 9 and a half meters. It is propelled by two sets of paddle wheels and a set of propellers. It has six masts with full load displacement of more than 25,000 tons. This cruise ship was launched in the early 27th year of the empire, shocking the whole world and is called the world industrial miracle by the empire.

The large tonnage design of the Taisie has both objective market factors and subjective political factors. The original design tonnage of this cruise ship was about 15,000 tons, and was specially used for the route from Shenjing to the Americas, and was specially used for immigration. Its requirement is to transport 2,500 immigrants to the Americas at one time, and use steam power throughout the journey.

Because the empire had financial subsidies for immigration to the Americas, women under the age of 40 could get free second-class tickets for themselves and their two families. The cruise itself required more than 180 workers to shovel coal, which was equivalent to free tickets. Therefore, large-tonnage cruise ships have a profit margin. Before the Taisie, United Shipyard had built a cruise ship with a displacement of 7,000 tons to serve the Pacific route.

However, after the initial stage of the Tessie, just at the end of the 24th year of the Empire, the construction of the Suez Railway had started. The Suez plan was carried out from the Suez irrigation canal, the Suez Highway, the Suez Railway, and the Suez Canal. According to the first phase of the construction period, the Suez Canal should start the preliminary demonstration when the railway is built.

Because the Ottoman Empire was one of the investors, in order to control investment costs and to limit the strategic challenges brought by the Suez Canal, the Ottoman side required that the Suez Canal water depth should not exceed nine meters. The Empire proposed that the Suez Canal water depth should be twelve meters to meet the needs of use. The Ottoman representative directly proposed that the nine-meter water depth is enough for all known merchant ships and warships to pass. Unless the empire built a ship that could not pass through the Suez Canal, it could only be built at a depth of nine meters. Just so, the Taisie draft at the argumentation stage exceeded eight meters, and considering safety, it was impossible to pass the planned Suez Canal.

But considering the arrogance and decisiveness of the Ottomans, in order to avoid the appearance of the Tysey, the Ottoman only raised the water depth to ten meters, the Imperial government asked the United Shipyard whether it could build a ship with a greater draft, so the Tysey was born.

The young and energetic Pan Mingqi took on this important task and finally gave birth to the Taixi. In actual operation, Pan Mingqi also used some small means. Before entering the Port of Suez, the Taixi was parked at the Port of Aden and filled with coal and cargo, reaching the maximum draft. When arriving at the Port of Suez, Pan Mingqi ordered the coal loading position to adjust the loading position so that its center of gravity was slightly behind.

The reason why the Tessie adopts the power design of two paddle wheels plus a single propeller is that in addition to ensuring safety and low failure rate, it also requires a larger water depth for draft depth indicators. After the center of gravity is backward, the propeller is lower from the water surface. After measurements by Ottoman officials, they found that the Tessie's propeller is more than 1.4 meters away from the water line. This depth, even the twelve meters required by the empire, cannot guarantee its safety through the Suez Canal.

With the success of the Tysi, the young Pan Mingqi served as the chief designer of the Naval Shipbuilding Committee, specializing in the design and demonstration of ironclad ships. However, Pan Mingqi, who came from a noble family, lived a very unpleasant life during his one-year term and encountered many challenges. In ship design, he was a scientific experimental school, advocated using more advanced scientific experimental facilities and testing methods to demonstrate ship data, but this was incompatible with the experienced designers of the Navy Design Department. This is not a different concept. If the ship is designed according to the rules set by Pan Mingqi, those designers without professional knowledge will be unemployed.

Another challenge for Pan Mingqi was that the Imperial Supreme Emperor Li Mingxun. After the Iron-Block Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class Iron-Class I
Chapter completed!