Chapter 227: The *Youguang*

"So this is basically a 17th-century 'all light artillery' ship?" The fair-skinned, pudgy Wang Xiaohui stood at the bow of the *Youguang*, watching the Napoleon cannon being slowly hoisted down by steel cables. He couldn't help but click his tongue a few times, shaking his head as a sly grin spread across his face.

"Give it a rest. What does an Army man like you know about this?" Mu Longcheng, the captain of the *Youguang* in his crisp white uniform, shot him a sidelong glance.

"Hey now, I'm currently the Chief of Staff of the Joint Command, a sea-land compatible type. I count as a member of the Navy too, alright?" Wang Xiaohui was immediately displeased.

"A two-way plug." Mu Longcheng muttered under his breath.

... Wang Xiaohui had, of course, previously been a member of the Army, but his theoretical knowledge of maritime affairs was equally considerable — an armchair sailing enthusiast. Later, because the transport fleet running to Hangzhou was short-handed, he temporarily filled in a few times. Going back and forth like this, the guy actually managed to earn a reputation for "relatively high overall competence" in the eyes of those in the Great Office.

And then, in a muddled haze, he became the Chief of Staff of the newly established Joint Operations Command, responsible for drafting the operational plan for the upcoming Fujian Coastal Pirate Suppression Campaign...

As for the most critical armament task at hand, the fitting-out of the *Youguang* began the very moment the typhoon passed. This was done not only out of practical pressure — the faster the fitting-out was completed, the more time the Navy would have to familiarize themselves with it. The other reason was somewhat somber: Old Brother Chen Youguang had died from worrying over the fitting-out work, so this job had to be finished quickly to comfort the departed.

Construction of the *Youguang* had actually begun over four months ago. But because the *Youguang* was essentially a proof-of-concept vessel, certain theoretical disagreements had persisted, leading to delays in the construction schedule. While those Type 28 "destroyers" were already clashing head-on with Zheng Zhilong on the sea, the *Youguang* was still sitting idle in the dock.

Ultimately, all disagreements vanished like smoke after the destroyers brought back firsthand combat data from the Cormorant Sea Battle.

Based on the battle conditions at the time and post-action measurements, a Napoleon 12-pounder processed with later-generation industrial equipment was fully capable of breaching the deck planks of a blessing ship at a distance of 1,000 meters and penetrating an enemy ship within 500 meters.

In other words, the facts proved that even Zheng Zhilong's flagship was still an old-style blessing ship structure, lacking ribs and having only a single layer of hull planks: as long as the angle was right, an iron ball on a curved trajectory could guarantee penetration of the deck and bottom planks within 500 meters, causing the ship to take on water. This effect was also valid within 1,000 meters, just with a slightly lower probability.

Real combat is the best way to test a theory. Now that the answer had been revealed, the final decision on the *Youguang*'s main gun configuration was settled: there was no need to install a small number of larger-caliber naval guns; just arrange as many 12-pounders as possible.

The *Youguang* was a 400-ton motor sailboat gunboat. The original intent for building this class of vessel was to deal with the Chinese-style pirates led by Zheng Zhilong. The main reason this ship had remained unfitted for so long was largely due to the ongoing controversy over its gun layout: a debate between all Napoleon 12-pounders versus larger-caliber cannons.

Now, the controversy was finally over: the "all light artillery" faction had won the final victory.

The British battleship HMS *Dreadnought*, launched in February 1906, was the first truly modern battleship: it was the first capital ship to be fitted with a steam turbine, achieving an astonishing speed of 21 knots.

However, that was not the most important thing. The most important thing was: aside from some small-caliber rapid-fire guns for dealing with torpedo boats, the *Dreadnought* was equipped with only ten 12-inch main guns and had absolutely no medium-caliber artillery.

This gave the *Dreadnought* one and a half times the long-range, large-caliber firepower of other battleships; its gun fire-control director ensured these large-caliber guns still had a high hit rate at maximum range.

It was precisely this unique "all heavy armor artillery" layout that gave the *Dreadnought* its epoch-making significance, making it the byword for the 150 modern battleships built globally thereafter.

And the "all light artillery" layout, pretentiously proposed by certain Transmigrators, was in a sense also borrowing from the *Dreadnought*'s design philosophy: all deck space was reserved for Napoleon 12-pounders, with no secondary guns of other calibers arranged... all close-range secondary gun work was to be handled by firearms.

This gun layout could maximize the Transmigrators' advantages in firepower, sighting, and rate of fire. But this layout also had a flaw: the *Youguang*'s hypothetical enemies could only be the Chinese-style pirates sailing blessing ships and Guangdong ships; it would be unable to bite through European ships.

The *Youguang* was 44 meters long and 7.5 meters wide. Its hull form was not much different from the previous clipper-bowed, streamlined destroyers, except the tonnage was enlarged to 400 tons. A warship of the *Youguang*'s caliber would only be considered a 4th-rate vessel in Europe; its tonnage was too small.

The 17th century was the height of the Age of Discovery, and Europeans had already left other peoples far behind in the field of shipbuilding. Any European-style ship that could cross the ocean to reach East Asia, even a purely merchant vessel, was far superior in hull structure to the single-planked Chinese-style ships: without thick hull shells and ribs, the navigators would have long ago become fish food in the storms.

And in the old nests of these Europeans, powerful warships were appearing on the sea surface in an endless stream. Even in the Invincible Armada's great sea battle 30 years prior, the English and Spanish fleets, led by ships like the *Triumph* and the *San Juan*, already possessed multiple 1,000-ton galleon-type warships. The thick oak hull shells and ribs of these warships were even less likely to be easily pierced by the 12-pounder cannons on the *Youguang*.

Thus, while finalizing its gun layout, the *Youguang* also clearly defined its own class: only fight pirates.

After the gun layout was confirmed, the fitting-out work officially began.

Ship fitting-out in this era was different from later generations. Those battleships of later eras often took half a year to fit out — gun mounts weighing hundreds of tons and 15-inch cannons were not so easy to install.

But the *Youguang*'s fitting-out, at the very most, took only 5 days.

The fitting-out was very simple: first, a coal gas power system was installed in the engine room at the stern. Since the *Youguang*'s displacement was only 400 tons, there was no need here to launch the hull first and then install the engine.

The shipyard's method was to hoist the equipment directly onto the ship frame.

After the coal gas furnace, engine, propeller, and a boiler were all hoisted into the stern compartment, the engineers led by Qiao Zhengtai spent two days getting this compact turbine system fully operational.

After the test run was complete, the ship was launched. The next step was to hoist the Napoleon cannons into their already-designed gun positions.

A total of 10 gun positions were set up on the *Youguang*'s deck.

The gun positions were all concentrated along the ship's centerline, divided by the deckhouse amidships, with 5 guns forward and 5 aft. The gun positions featured a 360-degree rotating base design, with retractable awnings overhead.

To save deck space to the maximum extent, the *Youguang*'s gun positions did not install the large-footprint circular slide rails this time, but replaced them with gun wells.

The gun well was located directly beneath the gun position, composed of a steel-reinforced frame and a slide rail system. When the cannon overhead fired, the massive recoil force would be transmitted down along the steel cables and slide rail system. At this moment, the resistance irons placed between the slide rails would be forcibly lifted like an elevator to absorb the cannon's recoil.

The gun well was an extremely advanced system; it could completely offset the recoil of a naval gun, eliminating the need for the gun crew to readjust the gun position during rapid fire: circular slide rails could not achieve this.

Moreover, the existence of the gun well also reduced the number of gun crew members. Generally speaking, a standard land-based Napoleon cannon crew should consist of 6 to 8 people.

The reason for the high number was weight: whether marching, deploying, or firing, the gun crew needed to cooperate at all times to move the cannon's heavy trail spike and move back and forth to the ammunition cart behind them.

But now, with this system, the gun crew on the *Youguang* instantly became a 3+1 combination. Three people on deck were responsible for a series of simplified firing procedures, while the member in the gun well was responsible for replacing and sending ammunition up overhead.

In short, by solving the recoil problem, the deck could become clean and orderly. All gun positions, under the command of the walkie-talkie and loudspeaker in the command tower, could not only fire in salvoes but could also be divided into two groups to fire at different targets.

Under these circumstances, it would be difficult for any enemy Chinese-style ship to break into within three hundred meters of the *Youguang*... unless the enemy ships were very numerous. However, speed was never an issue for the Crossing Faction's ships, not to mention they had the heaven-defying propeller to solve the headwind problem, so the enemy could not form an encirclement formation.

As the price for maximizing the number of cannons, the *Youguang* also had a weakness: its masts. The ship only had a mainmast and foremast of average height, with no mizzenmast. This design indicated that the *Youguang* was a motor sailboat that placed considerable importance on fuel, with the utilization rates of its engine and sails being almost equal.

One must know that the previous destroyers did not need to use their propellers most of the time. The *Youguang* was different: the large amount of equipment and fuel in the lower hold, the armament on the deck, plus the reduced masts, meant the *Youguang*'s cruising speed downwind could only maintain about 8 knots, and if the engine was running, the ship's maximum speed could only reach 14 knots.

Of course, this speed was more than adequate; as the saying goes, this is the 17th century.

Including the electronic instruments in the command tower, the machine gun nest, and the motor system assisting the raising and lowering of the sails, all of the *Youguang*'s fitting-out work, under the non-stop 24-hour efforts of a large number of shipyard workers, was completely finished in just 5 days.

Now, time was very plentiful: after the Navy took over the new ship, they would have at least 10 to 20 days for integration and training. And people like Wang Xiaohui could also set aside their worries and formally design the plan to exterminate the pirates, using the *Youguang* as the core flagship.