Chapter 178: Preparations for War

The refit of the *Rui'an* is now nearing its end: work like reinforcing the hull, adjusting the compartments, and installing the electronic instruments is already complete — only the power system remains.

Traditional blessing ships, sand ships, and the like rarely use ribs. The shipwrights developed these hull forms with cargo in mind from the start; the blessing ship's primary function was carrying freight along the mainland's coastal areas.

The designers never expected a blessing ship to cross the Pacific in a storm, nor did they consider fitting the bulkheads with dense rows of ribs for firing broadsides — you can tell just by looking at the V-shaped bottom. To fire broadsides from the side, the hull must be U-shaped, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and the lower hold must be packed with ballast to drop the whole ship's center of gravity below the waterline, like a roly-poly toy.

Since it was only for coastal freight, and one could always run for shore to shelter from a storm, omitting the expensive step of adding ribs was a very sensible decision. In practice, the structural strength of the existing blessing ship design proved more than adequate for centuries of private maritime trade.

The *Rui'an*, however — the one being refitted by the Transmigrators — is different.

For a blessing ship assigned to special missions, a single thin layer of outer planking is definitely not enough. Even when the power system is running, leaks could develop, not to mention the various unpredictable battles this ship might face in the future.

So the *Rui'an*'s structure was comprehensively reinforced.

After adding all kinds of bracing, stiffeners, and replacing planks with top-grade timber, the *Rui'an* ultimately paid for its sturdiness with a 20% reduction in cargo capacity. There was no helping it — the hull form was long fixed, and it was impossible to retrofit ribs onto the keel, so this was the only way.

With the sturdiness issue resolved, the communications side was actually the simplest: placing the telegraph, radio set, and radar screen in the stern cabin, and installing the antenna and radome on the mizzenmast — these were all routine procedures, handled with ease.

Like every other ship that has been refitted, the most difficult part of the *Rui'an*'s conversion — this blessing ship — was always going to be the power system.

In the early days, the power system for sand ships, represented by the *Dog Eye*, was a diesel outboard motor mounted on the stern.

Outboard motors have many advantages: plug-and-play, discreet, safe, efficient — no need to install a complex power system inside the cabin, no need to worry about sealing, leaks, and all those headaches. An outboard motor only needs a single external slide rail mounted on the stern, and that's it.

But one drawback outweighs ten advantages: outboard motors need diesel, and diesel, and more diesel.

Although the transport fleet's diesel consumption was very low — usually only used under special circumstances — as the fleet steadily grew, diesel consumption was in a state of constant increase. The comrades finally couldn't take it anymore: damn, this is a bottomless pit!

By this point, even though the Great Office had already ordered the early formation of a petroleum exploration team, the outboard motors were still temporarily decommissioned entirely, under the intense outcry from multiple departments.

Nowadays, the power systems on all pilot ships and special vessels like the *Chengfeng* have been converted to wood-gas propeller power.

This one is a real pain.

Wood-gas power: slow to start, low power output, and the whole system is considerably more complex than an outboard motor. From the gasification furnace to the various connectors, gas delivery pipes, the dedicated coal gas engine, and then the main shaft and propeller — getting this whole series of projects done left the industrial folks in the Kiln District grumbling just as much.

First, operating and maintaining this system is a huge headache: the Kiln District had painstakingly trained a number of workers, and now the fleet was going to siphon off a portion of them.

Second, the Kiln District's current capability to produce its own parts is still very low. For the several systems mentioned above, apart from a few crude cast-iron gasification furnaces, the remaining components — including spare parts like lubricating oil and metal sealing rings — still all have to be imported.

Kill a thousand enemies, lose eight hundred of your own. It seems to have stopped the bottomless-pit consumption of imported diesel, but the one-time capital investment required is enough to make the old and young masters choke.

The only thing that might offer some consolation is probably the size of the coal gas system.

The entire system's footprint is very small; it doesn't need a massive boiler and purified water system installed like a steam engine does. Granted, coal gas power lacks output, but the Transmigrators don't need a blessing ship to race along at 20 knots like a battleship. Under comparable conditions, as long as it's 2–3 knots faster than the natives' vessels, the Navy is already quite satisfied.

The *Rui'an* refit team, led by Qiao Zhengtai, ultimately installed all the equipment and completed a successful trial run before the deadline arrived.

The Intelligence Bureau's "envoy mission" personnel took over the *Rui'an* the very next day. "Cao Zong," wearing a false topknot, promptly boarded the ship. After cruising around the waters off Dayuan, he found the vessel in good condition: with wood-gas power at full, the blessing ship could reach a high speed of 4 knots with sails furled — that was more than enough.

The envoy mission quickly finished its preparations and then set out for Fuzhou to secretly meet with Lao Xiong.

And the Transmigrators entrenched on Dayuan Island, because of this, began adjusting their policies to prepare for the war that would soon arrive.

Since they had to prepare for war, the first thing that had to be opened up was the firearms ban.

It's embarrassing to say, but a certain explosive-obsessed faction, after occupying Dayuan for so long, has to this day failed to produce a single gun or a single cannon to defend its own home.

All along, the Transmigrators' method of fighting, besides using later-generation weapons and ammunition to destroy the enemy, has been to hand out some knives, axes, and spears to their underlings and send them into melee combat.

Advanced and backward mixed together, with no transition whatsoever in between — the style was utterly bizarre. Yet this certain faction has muddled through to the present day without the slightest sense of incongruity.

Now, the lords of the court could finally hold it together no longer.

That rotten slogan — "All resources should be prioritized for developing basic industry" — in the face of the increasingly dire situation, can no longer be shouted!

Just three days after Comrade Chen Huoding arrived at Dayuan, the Great Office issued a formal document: the Kiln Area Base, effective immediately, would establish a dedicated weapons workshop for producing self-made guns and cannons.

There was no time to mock the brainless style of the court lords scrambling for a knife only when battle looms. Overnight, the weapons sub-forum on the forum exploded with activity. All kinds of data flooded the screen — from bronze cannons to barreled artillery, from Brown Bess to the Type 28. The backers behind every kind of weapon all jumped out now, hoarse-voiced, stumping for the killing tool they believed best, amidst a chaos of countless debates, insults, and mockery.

And so the weapons expert made his entrance. The Transmigrators' sole gunsmith, Comrade Ma Zekai, who had already been appointed General Manager of the newly opened State Weapons Company, formally announced: a meeting tomorrow.

What kind of meeting? A gun fixation conference.

As for cannons?

We'll talk about that later.

7?: or search 《Search》 (remember to remove the "/" when searching, or you won't find it), here you'll find a sister to help you find books and chat with you!