"Then if we deliver goods door-to-door, wouldn't it be like a meat bun beating a dog?"
"What's the meaning?"
"There is no return."
Zhu Yiwei was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"You're the one who went around the corner and scolded the giant."
The two talked for a long time. Polu saw that the steam pressure was almost enough. He pulled the lever and started the engine. The pickup truck left the yard and drove on to the road to the shipyard.
"The quality of this batch of customers is not good. There are too few people who are willing to do business honestly. Now that you say this, I am particularly worried that the ship will be robbed by me. How can I do business in the future? This ship is comparable to the cargo it carries.
It’s much harder to make.”
"You don't have to worry too much. Since my teacher introduced the order to you, if they play tricks, my teacher will not be able to get away with it. He will come forward during the actual transaction to ensure that you get paid smoothly."
"That's great. By the way, will your teacher go with the ship?"
"Well, didn't you say that someone is preparing to attack the cargo ship disguised as a pirate? How can you have any manpower to protect the cargo ship? And the cargo has been intercepted. Those bastards may say that my teacher breached the contract. Yes, they will definitely say that.
"
"I just lack the means to fight against high-level combat power. If it is a tentative attack disguised as pirates, as long as a group of Leonardos are not coming, there should be no problem if we don't let them get close."
"So confident? Can a small gunboat handle it?"
"Well, how should I put it, as long as they still have to approach by boat, I don't think there is a problem. And there are no small gunboats now."
"Hmm? Where's the boat?"
"Now the dismantling process has begun on the dock. We have removed everything that can be used, and the unusable ones are ready to be refurbished. After all, this is an inland river ship. There is no seawater desalination and no large water tanks. After the boiler used a lot of seawater in an emergency,
The condition has become very bad. The whole ship needs major repairs. But if we really want to complete the repairs, it is better to just build a new one. But don't worry, the new ship will be completed soon."
"New ship? Construction started not long ago, right? Didn't I just start laying the keel when I went there last time? How come it is so fast? Didn't you say that the drawings were not even finished?"
"I'm in a hurry. I can't wait any longer. Let's work on the finished product first and then produce the drawings. I've already sent all the apprentices from the precision lab to work on site."
The truck drove into the ramp to the shipyard. From here, you can clearly see the spindle-shaped new ship that is still in the shipyard, but the superstructure already looks very tall.
"Is it beautiful?"
"Her? Why do you call a boat that?"
Polu turned into a corner and looked to the side, Zhu Yiwei's profile completely blocked the dock.
"Such a curve is so beautiful. Should I use him to describe it?"
"Can't you just use it honestly?"
"That's not possible. Starting from this ship, all new ships in the future will have their own names."
"With your naming skills, don't you feel guilty for saying this?"
"I'm not worried about the name of the ship. I have at least 500 names in my head."
Zhu Yiwei showed a polite smile. She didn't know how to complain, so she simply turned back and stared at the slender silhouette of the boat. Workers as big as ants on both sides of the boat were busy installing various pieces and pieces on the boat.
"This boat is really not small. It's incredible that it can float. Are you sure it can still sail on its own?"
"It must be possible. And the forward speed should be relatively fast. Personally, I don't like to build a slow iron turtle."
"It is not impossible for Xingdao to build such a large ship, but no one has figured out how to solve the problem of slow maneuvering of the large ship."
"Isn't it possible? With so many mages, no one can come up with a solution?"
"I have thought of many ways, but they are not very easy to use. Most of the time, I still need to rely on natural wind. At the beginning, some people tried to rely on magic power to push the wind. Later, they disliked it because it was too slow. Be careful to use too much force every step of the way - it will become
It turned into a storm and later the mast was blown off."
She couldn't help laughing when she said this.
"The boat actually doesn't matter, but there are crew members on the boat, so it's impossible to really leave them at sea. I had to send a group of people and spent a lot of effort to pull them back to the dock. Since then, Star Island has banned mages from using high-output spells to create
Wind power.”
"But if you can only use low power output, forget it for short-distance sailing. From Star Island to Essodu, it takes 5 days to rely on a sailboat at the nearest port. For a few days, you can only maintain a continuous power output on a rocking ship -
—It’s a boring and painful job that is so torturous that no one wants to do it.”
"Some people have tried using golems to row ships - to be honest, the speed is okay, but the ship is not big. The cost of adding more golems for rowing is horribly high. And the golems are constantly running at high power and consume crystals.
It’s so powerful. Calculations prove that, to a certain extent, the crystals carried are not even enough for the golem to consume itself. The cost of summoning creatures is also very high. So you know why my teacher is interested in the cargo ship you built, right?"
"So why don't you connect the energy gathering tower to the golem?"
"How can it be used in other places after being connected to the energy gathering tower?"
“You’ve installed it all, do you still want to take it down?”
"The cost of the golem is so high, is it really going to last a lifetime?"
The conversation came to a standstill.
It was the first time I heard that a group of mages had delayed solving this problem for so long, which really surprised Bolu, but after listening to the mages' solutions, Bolu understood. This sounds like letting go! A person who really wants to be safe
No one transports it safely!
Thinking about it again, since there is a portal that can provide temporary emergency relief, how much sense of urgency can there be when supplies are bottomed out?
On second thought, it is normal for a guy who can build rockets to be unable to solve sewer blockage.
"This idea of yours... How do you say, use a jet engine to cook? Wait, a golem rowing machine? Speaking of which, I have always wanted to know how the golem is driven by magic."
"Well... this is a little complicated. You should ask your teacher about this question. He is the professional. I can't make a golem, so I can't explain clearly."
While talking, the two people approached the ship from the bow, and the shadow cast by the tilted bow completely covered the two of them. Zhu Yiwei raised her head and looked at this large ship made entirely of steel.
"Look at how big this boat is!"
"Well, this ship is expected to frequently carry people outside the establishment, so it does leave a lot of space. Otherwise, do we really allow guests to sleep on the aisle? Come here, get up from here!"
Polu responded to the greetings of others and pointed to the ladder truck set aside.
The first thing Zhu Yiwei saw when she stepped onto the deck was a trapezoidal, towering box-like bridge.
The bridge is as high as five stories. Going forward from the bridge, there are three stepped decks. Each deck is equipped with a circular turret arranged along the central axis. However, the slender cannon on the turret
Guan caught her attention.
"Is this? The artillery has been changed again? It seems like you haven't seen it before. Have you changed the caliber again?"
"There is no way. The 100-gun production line has not been set up, and the artillery shells cannot keep up. In addition, if the superstructure is too heavy, it will shake very badly."
"Then what kind of artillery is this?"
"55mm high and flat."
57mm sounds too ridiculous, it’s just two millimeters more, and there’s no faith bonus. Anyway, it’s a redo, so I might as well just round it up.
"55mm? That's half the size of a 100mm gun? Does it work?"
"Of course, it's light, it's fast, it returns by a spring, it's easy to build, and it can also use a loader. The most important thing is that it's a rifled gun! There are also new shells to use!"
"What are you talking about? What happened? When was it made?"
Zhu Yiwei was already a little confused.
"The research has been going on for half a year, and it was just successful recently."
Bolu patted the Double 55 without the turret shield:
"Anyway, this is better than the current 100-gun cannon that can only hit steel rods."
"That's fine if you say yes. There are three turrets on the ship?"
Bolu pointed in the direction of the stern:
"There are two more turrets at the back, a total of five turrets."
"All 55? A total of 10 guns on the ship?"
"Of course not. There are April Rains on both sides of the ship. Three on one side and four on the other. The two sides add up to 24 cannons."
"Are you crazy? Why are you piling so many weapons on the ship? There is no way this ship can carry anything, right?"
"This is originally a combat ship. It's not easy to get a ship to transport things, but now the situation is so bad, the ship to carry things must not be robbed? Didn't you just say that someone planned to pretend to be pirates and rob my cargo ship?"
"Okay... okay. I believe what you said now. As long as the enemies have to approach by boat, your... little hedgehog can beat them into the sea. Come on, I want to see how you drive them.
Such a big ship.”
"It's similar to the previous boat, but it's a little bigger."
As they talked, the two walked around a long inverted V-shaped steel plate on the front deck:
"What is this?"
"Waterproof board. Polehit said that the waves coming up from the front deck at sea are very big. I was afraid that seawater would pour into the turret and forward cabin, so I built this."
Zhu Yiwei couldn't help but sigh a little:
"It is really complicated to build such a ship. There are so many details that may seem inconspicuous but are actually very important. You are the expert in building such large machinery."
"It's nothing on the deck, it's more complicated below the deck. There are several decks, power, boilers, seawater desalination, watertight compartments, and a mess of pipes strung together. Just arranging the pipes neatly takes a lot of time.
It took a lot of effort. Come up, the power supply part is being installed in front. Let’s go over from the bridge and take a look.”
The building in the middle of the hull, where the chimney is erected on a normal ship, is now a rectangular building. At the top of this rectangular steel box, there are four sunken shafts. In the center of the four shafts, there is another
Upright chimney.
From the bridge, you can clearly see that the young apprentices of the Precision Institute are working together to install the energy-concentrating panels on the brackets in the circular shaft. The half-installed energy-concentrating panels are reflecting dazzling brilliance in the sun.
Zhu Yiwei felt that it had not been too long since she came to the shipyard, but today she encountered a lot of unfamiliar things: "What are these round pits?"
Bolu just finished his conversation with others and turned around:
"This is an armored energy-gathering well. Well, it's true that the energy-gathering tower is reversed and recessed downwards. It can be used, right? The energy-gathering well is not very deep and does not penetrate the armored deck. There are two energy-gathering wells and a steel plant.
The supply of concentrated energy towers is about the same.”
"Now there are 4 boiler groups at our feet, a total of 8 boilers, arranged in 4 completely separated compartments. There are also 4 steam engines over there to provide power for two large shafts."
"When the ship reaches this size, in order to obtain enough magic power, it is finally impossible to arrange it normally. If we follow the ordinary arrangement method, we would like to cover the entire hull with energy-concentrating panels. How can we do that? We can only do it.
Find a way to fold it.”
"These energy-gathering panels are protected by armor, and each group supplies energy to the corresponding boiler group, so there is no possibility that one of them will break down and completely lose power, as you are worried about."
"In the center of the four energy-gathering wells is a long chimney. Four pipes from the separate boiler room converge here. Although the current steam engines do not have combustion exhaust gases that need to be discharged, the overflowing steam and reduced
Pressure valves always need an outlet, they cannot be allowed to turn the boiler room into a horrible steamer."
Zhu Yiwei felt her head hurt. She now had an intuitive understanding of the complexity of this new system. This was just the less complicated part of the deck as Bolu said. Behind the ship,
How many silent production systems are still hidden?
Just as she was familiar with, the manufacture of artillery was a huge project!
"This is indeed not something that a high-level mage can create just by tapping his head. There are too many systems behind it."
"Well, if there is no steel factory next to the town and we still follow the old and unsystematic approach, how many small furnaces are we going to use to burn so much steel? Not to mention turning the steel into steel plates and pipes.
, turned into gears, and even turned into artillery. However, the current level of automation is still a bit low, and we will have to continue to work later.”
"But if you build such a complicated ship, its combat power may not be able to defeat a high-level mage who specializes in combat!"
Zhu Yiwei cautiously added the attribution of professional fighting. But Bolu looked unconcerned.
"I definitely can't beat it. Why should I compete with a full-time battle mage? I didn't expect to be able to fight against high-level combat power. As long as I can fight against low-level combat power, it's enough. There's no shame in being unable to beat a high-level mage, but if you compare with the enemy
A high-level battle mage may not be able to defeat my ship!"
"It is particularly suitable to deal with things that are of low quality and rely entirely on quantity. It frees up more high-level combat forces from the tedious tasks of clearing the battlefield and blocking the front, so that ordinary people can also help.
Being busy is the meaning of this mechanical existence."
"Are you talking about those bugs? They haven't even successfully defeated Nazwa yet, so they shouldn't be so nervous, right?"
"Nazwa's infantry are much stronger than your Esodu's infantry, right? If they collapse, how can Esodu withstand a wave of impact?"
"We have magic."
It seems that the mages are very confident in their magic. Bolu feels very guilty, but there seems to be a lack of conclusive evidence to directly accuse the insects - the mages are very aware of the high-level combat power of the insects and have seen them.
They looked like they were attacking the Elf Temple and the Nazwa infantry line in groups.
They are already the force that pays the most attention to bugs on the ground. But they still don’t know that the bugs exposed on the ground are just the tip of the iceberg!
"...How many high-level professional battle mages are there?"
"I can't say this number. Anyway, it won't be less than Leonardo's knights."
"So many? It is indeed a huge combat force. But my advantage here is that as long as I am given enough time, resources and manpower, my projection ability can even continue to grow!"
At least you have to be able to arm yourself with enough strength.