"Although the speed of this kind of sea-going ship is fast, I'm afraid it's hard to guarantee safety!" Xu Hao has been at sea for two or three years and has some understanding of the performance of sea-going ships. Even a ship with ten thousand stones in the sea may not be It can ensure safety, but this kind of fast boat with a slim body is very easy to be broken by the waves at first glance.
Zhuge Liang said: "This problem was indeed serious in the past two years. There were frequent accidents of fast ships sinking. However, in the past two years, with the application of steel keels, the safety of such fast ships has been greatly improved. And This kind of sea-going ship is not used for marching operations, but is mainly used as a communication ship, so the safety standards can be relatively lowered."
In recent years, with the great development of the maritime industry, the construction of sea-going ships has become larger and larger, and the requirements for keels have become higher and higher. For sea-going ships with more than 10,000 stones, the keels are basically huge trees that are more than a hundred years old, and they must be straight and Without cracks, you may not be able to find even one piece of this kind of wood among tens of thousands of big trees.
Because it is a rare occasion like this, the price of trees for making keels has skyrocketed, and the wood can be used to make the keels of thousands of stone ships. The value has reached tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Faced with the continuous increase in the price of keel wood, shipyard craftsmen are also trying their best to find other cheap raw materials to channel wood. At this time, they thought of using steel to make keels. Steel far exceeds wood in both strength and toughness. , and in terms of price, compared to keels that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the price of steel keels can be considered extremely low.
Where there is a market, there will naturally be demand. Soon steel plants developed steel keels that were more than ten battles long. During this time, steel keels began to appear in the shipbuilding industry and were a brand new technology.
But at this time, Huang Yueying said: "What kind of fast ship do you want? Junior brother, you can just do it in one step and use a steamship. Steamships are faster, and there is no need for smooth sailing. As long as there is coal, it will not be a problem to sail thousands of miles."
Xu Hao smiled bitterly and said: "Senior sister, you are trying to use me as a guinea pig. The reliability of steamships is too poor, and the journey is also extremely short. This time, junior brother is going to the New World. It takes several thousand miles to sail." What's the use of going to a pier with a short-legged steamer?"
"Not to mention that the steam engine breaks down at every turn. Where can I find a craftsman to repair the steam engine? Even if I bring the craftsman there, there will be no parts for the steam engine!"
The steamships at this time were extremely primitive. It can be said that except for the speed advantage and not having to worry about tailwinds and headwinds, they had no other advantages at all. However, they had a lot of shortcomings: short voyage, low cargo capacity, and harsh conditions inside the cabin. , and it is not reliable, the machine will break down at every turn.
So now, steamships generally run on Daqian inland rivers, mainly the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin. This is a local wharf with a specialized machine repair shop and coal bunkers to replenish fuel, which can completely make up for the shortcomings of steamships. The two parties can be said to be a match made in heaven.
Inland water transportation has always been one of the main transportation forces in Daqian. When the wind and water are flowing smoothly, the transportation fee can be said to be extremely low. Unfortunately, when sailing against the current, trackers are needed to pull the boat. There are probably hundreds of people in Daqian. Thousands of trackers make a living from this trade.
The labor cost of Daqian is high. In recent years, the countries in the South China Sea have been trying to rob the population, which has pushed up the labor cost, so it is difficult to reduce the transportation fee of river transportation. This has always been a headache for businessmen, and The emergence of steamships completely changed this. The powerful horsepower of steam engines can fully support and transport ships upstream.
Therefore, after the emergence of steamships, they were widely used on river ships, but not many were used on seagoing ships. Most of them were used for short-distance sailings at coastal docks. People still trust sailing ships more when sailing on oceans.
And Xu Hao also trusts sailing ships!
Xu Weidao: "These are all trivial matters. We have only explored the coastal areas of the New World. Your main task as the governor is to build docks and improve coastal cities. For the time being, we do not have the conditions to develop the interior of the New World.
But if you control the docks and coastal towns, it will be like a supply line, which can allow Daqian's manpower and material resources to continuously support the New World. Daqian can control the New World through this supply line, so establishing a stable supply line can only This is what you should do these few years."
Xu Weike remembered that the development of the New World took hundreds of years in his timeline. Although Daqian could assimilate these savages, it should have taken less time than in another timeline, but it was also based on hundreds of years. .
Therefore, he believed that there was not much that Xu Hao could do, the main thing was to lay a good foundation for those who came after him.
For Xu Wei, the New World is just the future home for the people of Daqian. It is very difficult for Daqian to rule the New World. The goal of the Pacific Rim Empire seems exciting, but it is difficult to achieve because of the geographical fragmentation. Xu Wei even has doubts about the future of the New World. Everyone expected that in the first one or two hundred years, Daqian continued to develop immigrants and expand its territory in the New World.
However, the historical cycle of the dynasty is between 200 and 300 years. By then, even Daqian is estimated to have entered the end of the dynasty. As long as the local power of Daqian weakens slightly, the people of the New World will definitely be cut off immediately like the Bald Eagle back then. Without the connection with the local area, we can establish ourselves as kings. After all, no one will always want to be a commodity market and a source of raw materials. This will not be changed by human will.
For Xu Wei, as long as the New World is occupied by a large number of people, it will be a profit. As for other colonial sites, he also holds this idea and robs the territory in advance so that latecomers have no territory to rob, so for himself Only when his subordinates went out to divide feudalism and establish a country, he would be so willing to support it.
Of course Xu Hao didn't understand that his father had such long-term thinking. He just thought that his father's strategy was good.
In the next few days, Xu Hao was completely free. He followed his father to the laboratory to see the machines developed by his father, or went to class with the teacher in the university.
However, Zhang Ning was a little busy. When her son went to be a naval officer, she was worried. After all, there were too many emergencies at sea, and no matter how strong the warship was, it could only improve its survivability. For the sake of her son's future, she Only then was Xu Hao willing to take this risk. Going tens of thousands of miles away from the New World now, not only was the risk at sea huge, but the New World was also risky. She didn't even know whether what she did this time was right or wrong. But for the sake of the ruling position, she I can only push Xu Hao to move on.