After staying at the Jinzhou Wei Shipyard for three days, Zhu Zhongliang boarded the battleship Dreadnought, which was finally ready.

The battleship Dreadnought and the aircraft carrier Dinghai are both technology-proven battleships.

Verify the feasibility of this design direction for a full-main-gun battleship and a through-deck battleship equipped with an aircraft carrier.

The initial design guiding ideology was to complete it as quickly as possible.

The hulls are adjusted from the original battleship and armored cruiser hulls respectively.

The initial nominal design time was only one month, and it was impossible to complete all detailed designs.

In fact, they complete the final design while building.

The power system attached to the prototype ship is a large water tube boiler equipped with coal-fired and oil-fired mixed-fired water tubes as standard for Ming Dynasty naval ships, combined with a three-expansion steam engine.

Six months after the hull construction started, the design team officially decided to cancel the coal-fired boiler and replace it with a pure fuel-fired small water tube boiler, paired with a steam turbine to drive the warship.

The two ships Fearless and Dinghai avoided the fate of becoming the last coal-fired warships of the Ming Dynasty at the last moment.

Dinghai thus avoided the fate of becoming the only coal-fired aircraft carrier...

However, the hulls of both ships were already built at that time, and it was impossible to go back and make major modifications.

Therefore, the line shape of the hull is still the original form, but a bulbous bow is added at the front of the hull.

Even if the Intrepid is replaced with a pure oil-fired boiler and a steam turbine, the maximum speed can only reach 23 knots.

And the fuel consumption rate at 23 knots is not very good.

However, at the original design speed, which is about 20 knots, the turbine efficiency is very high.

According to the power consumption results of the test, if the Intrepid maintains a speed of twenty knots, it should be able to continue cruising for twelve thousand kilometers.

If the speed is reduced to fifteen knots, it can continue to sail for more than 20,000 kilometers.

In addition, the hull is still based on the template of an old battleship. The hull itself is very wide, so it sails very smoothly.

After replacing the oil-fired boiler, there is no more soot flying everywhere, and the hull is much cleaner.

Judging from the current overall results, this ship seems to be very suitable for medium-speed ocean-going special vehicles.

Under the guidance of a group of guards, Zhu Zhongliang looked around several key cabins of the Fearless and finally came to the conference room.

Zhu Zhongliang sat on the main seat of the conference room, looking at the spacious space and elegant decoration around him, he nodded with great satisfaction and said:

“I thought it was outrageous at the time, but now it seems that this ship is very good. I don’t think there is any need to consider commercial use after decommissioning.

"It will be a good choice for traveling directly as an official of the Ming Dynasty, or even for the emperor and the emperor of the Ming Dynasty."

The Supreme Empress sat next to Zhu Zhongliang and nodded with a smile and said:

"It's indeed good. Ordinary battleships are not suitable for travel at all. A battleship of this design is much better, but compared to a normal passenger ship room, it still feels a bit cold..."

Zhu Zhongliang pointed directly around:

"It's cool, that's right. Although this ship is decorated like a hotel, the engineering standards are obviously that of a warship.

"You can see that the seats are mainly made of metal, and there are no wood or silk decorations on the corners.

“Because those things are so easy to hit, if they are shot on the battlefield, it will increase the damage control pressure.

"If someone really designed a warship into a passenger ship, the designer would have gone to the Xianbei wasteland to dig potatoes."

The surrounding officers and craftsmen responsible for participating in testing and recording all laughed out loud when they heard this.

After Zhu Zhongliang paused, he looked at the officers and craftsmen around him and said:

"It's not that the soldiers can't have a better living environment, but the basic safety of a warship must be guaranteed.

“Equipment that can add more living space and make people’s lives more comfortable without compromising safety.

"For example, Jingyuan invented an air temperature adjustment device, and the Ministry of Industry is continuing to optimize and debug it.

"When it matures in the future, it can be installed on warships, so that soldiers do not have to fight in high temperatures of dozens of degrees in the summer."

Zhu Zhongliang sat in the cabin for a while, and after resting, he got up again and came to the deck.

Zhu Zhongliang looked at the turret of the Fearless where he was, thinking about the current situation in his mind.

According to the latest information from the West Factory, the British, French, and even Spain are also building similar warships.

The fastest one has now been launched, and the British even directly adopted a backpack turret.

These battleship design directions should be the result of summarizing the naval battle experience in the world wars.

This result is also the reason why Zhu Zhongliang is willing to drive the Fearless.

There is no longer any need for the Dauntless to keep secrets and hide.

However, Zhu Zhongliang looked back at the two fearless hulls on the dock of the shipyard.

The difference between the Dauntless and the Dauntless is very obvious.

The difference in tonnage is 15,000 tons, and the difference in length is more than 50 meters. The difference in shape is even more obvious.

The warships designed and built by the three countries in Thailand and Spain are either similar in size to the Dreadnought, or smaller than the Dreadnought.

Coupled with the Dauntless's advantages in artillery shells and power systems, the Dauntless is also the strongest among these new ships.

But the Dauntless, the world's most powerful battleship, obviously has less than a year left.

The future is a mass-produced 40,000-ton fearless battleship and a Zhenhai-type 40,000-ton aircraft carrier.

While Zhu Zhongliang was thinking about it, his fleet had already set sail.

A large main fleet, including the aircraft carrier Dinghai, escorted Zhu Zhongliang's Fearless southward.

The fleet maintained a speed of twenty knots, sailed at sea for a day and a night, and arrived at the Jiangnan Shipyard at noon the next day.

Zhu Zhongliang took his wife ashore and participated in the launching ceremony of two new aircraft carriers.

Two 40,000-ton target aircraft carriers. The first ship was originally named Zhenhai, so it is now collectively called the Zhenhai type.

Two aircraft carriers were built in the same batch, and the second aircraft carrier was not named initially.

Zhu Zhongliang also chose the name "Jinghai" according to the name format of the two aircraft carriers Dinghai and Zhenhai mentioned above.

The construction period of World War II fleet aircraft carriers was usually shorter than that of main battleships because the aircraft carrier hull structure was simpler.

From the main and secondary guns and mechanical structure to the amount of armor and equipment, the number required for an aircraft carrier is significantly less than that of a battleship.

However, that was only after the shipyard became proficient in building aircraft carriers. Now the shipyards in Ming Dynasty have very little experience in building aircraft carriers.

Before the two 40,000-ton aircraft carriers in Zhenhai and Jinghai, the Ming Dynasty had only built one simple aircraft carrier, the Dinghai.

In addition, the Zhenhai-type aircraft carrier designed by Zhu Jingyuan is not a pure all-through-deck fleet aircraft carrier of World War II.

Apart from the fact that she does not have a beveled deck and a large catapult, her structure is not much different from a modern aircraft carrier.

The elevators are all outside the freeboard on the left side of the deck, and the flight deck in the middle is a complete piece.

The construction targets proposed by Zhu Jingyuan were also based on battleships, rather than historical cruiser standards.

Therefore, the Zhenhai and Jinghai ships and the two battleships were basically launched at the same time.

However, after the aircraft carrier is launched, the amount of later "decoration" work will be smaller than that of the battleship, and the two aircraft carriers should be put into service earlier.

In this way, at the end of October of the second year of Ankang, Ming Dynasty successively launched four 40,000-ton warships.

And it can be expected that after the spring of next year, four 40,000-ton warships will be started at the same time again.

After that, there will be four ships every year until all the existing pre-dreadnoughts and armored cruisers are replaced, and then future plans will be considered.

When Zhu Zhongliang was chatting with the boss of Jiangnan Shipyard, he also revealed the news that there would be orders for new battleships next year.

Let the other party reserve two 40,000-ton vessels in advance so that they are not all occupied by civilian ships and cannot be moved away.

Then Zhu Zhongliang boarded the ship again and officially set sail with the fleet towards Mozhou.

Zhu Zhongliang, the Supreme Emperor, was going to visit Mozhou. Of course, he could not do it secretly. He must first notify Zhu Jingyuan.

When Zhu Jingyuan received the news, he felt like question marks were popping up in his head.

What is this old man doing here at this time?

The Supreme Emperor basically doesn't care about anything. Did he come to Mozhou just to chat with him?

However, although he was puzzled, Zhu Jingyuan had to take action immediately and took Lin Zexu and Niu Jian to prepare for the reception.

First, we have to arrange a place for the old man to live.

Fortunately, during the construction process over the past year or so, Lin Zexu considered the possibility of special high-level visits.

While building workers' dormitories and workshops, a small but well-organized manor was also specially planned.

It is located on a small peninsula in the middle of Mengxian Island, named Bishui Garden.

Bishui Garden is far away from the surrounding residential buildings. It is a relatively independent area and even has its own small pier.

Therefore, like Xiyi Fort, it can be independently fortified with high intensity.

The construction project has basically ended this summer, and now the decoration project has just come to an end.

The original plan was to activate it before Zhu Jingyuan left.
To be continued...