Chapter 410: Zhenman

The "Zhenman" iron-ribbed, wood-hulled motor gunboat was, strictly speaking, the product of a Great Leap Forward.

As early as the beginning of the year, the Navy had begun a series of verification tests in order to build its future main battleships.

The newest Youguang-class gunboat, the "Monitor," was first modified, fitted with an 18-pounder naval long gun to test the destructive effects of heavy cannons on Western-style warships.

For this purpose, the Navy even spent money to buy a second-hand armed merchant ship from the Dutch and added a 20-centimeter-thick oak hull to simulate a Western main warship from the Age of Sail.

The results of the first test were unsatisfactory.

It turned out that even the 18-pounder naval long gun, produced with advanced metallurgical processes from later generations, was somewhat inadequate when facing a "hot dog sandwich"—a Western main battleship with two layers of thick oak hull planking sandwiching a dense layer of ship ribs.

After all, the penetrating power of an iron ball is only so much, and the cannonball's kinetic energy dissipates very quickly after leaving the barrel.

The final test results showed that within the Navy's ideal bombardment distance of 2000 meters, the effective penetration rate was not high, only 60%; it was only when the distance between the test subjects was closed to 1000 meters, or even 800 meters, that the 18-pounder could effectively penetrate the opposing ship's hull.

This result was unacceptable to the Navy.

Because the Imperial Navy is currently on a quality-over-quantity path, in foreseeable future conflicts, a single main battleship is very likely to face a siege by a superior number of Western warships; in such a situation, the importance of firepower is greatly amplified: the battleship must be able to quickly render the enemy combat-ineffective.

Although historically in East Asia, the colonizers did not deploy first-rate battleships like the "Sovereign of the Seas" or "HMS Victory," now that there is a huge variable—the Transmigrators—no one can guarantee the future course of history.

Therefore, the Navy must prepare for the worst-case enemy scenario, factoring in the highest possible combat power the enemy could achieve from the very beginning.

Consequently, the 18-pounder plan was ultimately scrapped, and the 24-pounder made its dazzling debut.

After paying a huge penalty in total weight, the new warship's weapon system finally satisfied the Navy: within 2000 meters, the 24-pounder naval long gun could penetrate any sailing ship in this plane of existence.

Once the most critical weapon system was finalized, the "Navy 1629 Verification-Type Main Battleship Project" officially commenced.

Because the wind direction at the beginning of the year was unfavorable, the military was told to be patient, so the Navy reluctantly abandoned the "walk, run, sprint" blueprint of multiple verification ships and poured all its limited resources into this single verification ship.

This led to the originally designed 800-ton verification ship being stretched; overnight, it underwent a Great Leap Forward and was forcibly increased to 1200 tons.

This figure still posed some challenges for a Navy that had always operated combat vessels under 500 tons.

The difficulty did not lie in sailing, but in design.

Regarding sailing and ship handling, the current Navy was already very familiar with operating sailing ships and motor sailboats; they had ample experience and manpower in this area, so a scaled-up motor sailboat was not a problem.

The real difficulty lay in the design.

If they had proceeded according to the original 800-ton plan, the few Transmigrators at the shipyard were confident they could stretch the Youguang-class, copying the blueprint and handling the new ship's design themselves.

But when the new ship was suddenly scaled up to 1200 tons overnight and the cannons changed to 24-pounders, those few at the shipyard chickened out; they knew that once any machine is scaled up to a certain degree, all sorts of problems inevitably arise, and this was not something a few non-professional designers could handle.

In the end, they resorted to the old method: the Navy handed the new ship's various parameter requirements to the Cao Emperor, who then went back to later generations to find a design company, first designing it, then using large-scale computer simulations to find problems in sea conditions, and finally producing the blueprints.

So what the Navy ultimately received was a hard drive.

After starting construction based on the terabytes of blueprints on that hard drive, the Navy waited a full eight-plus months before this verification ship, planned to be named "Zhenman," could finally begin its sea trials.

And this point in time was already the critical juncture when Cao Jiangjun had returned from Guangdong and was preparing for the King's Rescue and Barbarian Pacification, so the Zhenman's sea trial schedule was arranged very tightly, and it ultimately just barely made it in time for this mission to Shanghai Port.

As the core force for maintaining the Empire's hegemony for a period to come, the Zhenman received a brief naming ceremony before its first official voyage; the Imperial Emperor, Cao Chuan, personally visited the Zhenman and delivered an impassioned speech at its bow.

And the Zhenman did not disappoint the Transmigrators; whether in its majestic appearance or its formidable combat power, this warship met the public's "social expectations" and became a new-generation instrument of national might.

Since the 17th century requires no consideration for low visibility, stealth, or radar evasion, the appearance of both land officers and sea warships in this era is extremely ostentatious, so as to be seen by one's own side on a chaotic battlefield.

The Zhenman was no exception: its blue and gold hull paint, paired with pristine white three-masted sails, not only made the ship's aesthetic appeal off the charts but also gave it extremely high recognizability; once seen, no one could forget such a long, sleek, and beautiful warship.

Speaking of sleekness, a design from later generations would naturally not shape the Transmigrators' warship into the stubby, low length-to-beam ratio form of the 17th century.

In fact, including the small escort ships, the Transmigrators' warships have always followed a high length-to-beam ratio approach—superior design and advanced hull structure ensure that the ship's rolling is kept within permissible limits.

The Zhenman's standard displacement is 1200 tons, with a full-load displacement of 1680 tons; this data already surpasses the contemporary British ship, the Sovereign of the Seas battleship.

Although the Sovereign weighs 1683 tons, seemingly a bit heavier than the Zhenman, due to its own structural weight, the Sovereign's effective internal volume is actually far less than the Zhenman's.

One must know that wood's load-bearing capacity and yield strength are far inferior to steel; a seemingly "thin-skinned, large-filled" steel warship is far superior to a seemingly thick wooden ship in both structural strength and cargo volume.

For a sailing battleship like the Sovereign, the total thickness of its double-layered hull is usually around 40 to 46 centimeters; this figure, plus the ship ribs, actually exceeds half a meter in thickness.

Such a thick wooden outer shell, combined with the need to use timber for all other parts of the hull, makes the ship's own weight far exceed that of a steel warship of the same volume, making it appear very clumsy and unwieldy while sailing, with very low maneuverability.

A motor-sail warship like the Zhenman, however, due to its extensive use of steel in its internal structure, is not only more robust but also has a significantly increased effective volume.

Another difference between the Zhenman and a sailing battleship is that this ship has only two gun decks.

Typically, large sailing battleships have three gun decks.

To lower the center of gravity, the largest caliber cannons are placed on the lower gun deck, and lighter cannons on the upper deck; this situation leads to a common flaw of sailing warships: when the sea swell is high, the lower deck gunports cannot be opened, or seawater will backflow into the gun muzzles.

The Zhenman, however, adhering to its consistent "all-heavy-cannon philosophy," dispensed with all light cannons, equipping the entire ship with only 40 24-pounder long-barreled heavy cannons.

Thus, with the coal and engines in the bottom hold conveniently maintaining the center of gravity, the Zhenman was designed with only two gun decks, and the problem of seawater backflow is non-existent.

Regarding firepower, 40 cannons may seem few in number, far less than the Sovereign's exaggerated 104, but combat efficiency is far higher than the latter's.

Firstly, because the task of close-range shooting (if any) is delegated to firearms, escort ships, and the rarely used heavy machine guns, the number of 24-pounder heavy cannons on the Zhenman actually exceeds that of a sailing battleship.

It is now the 17th century; Western naval cannons exceeding 24 pounds are all short-barreled mortars with very short range, posing no threat whatsoever to the Zhenman with its 2000-meter range.

Secondly, aided by advanced metallurgical technology and mechanical loading devices, these 40 long-barreled heavy cannons can deliver sustained, accurate broadsides, with a destructive effect that primitive cannons simply cannot match.

There is another point: the 40 cannons on the Zhenman can fire from both the port and starboard sides simultaneously.

On a traditional sailing warship, the gun positions are divided by two—half arranged on each side; this works in a large-scale naval melee: firing left and right, since enemies are on all sides anyway.

However, most of the time, a gunboat only fires from one side's gunports; if prolonged bombardment of a land target is needed, a sailing warship sometimes even has to circle in place to bring the other side's cannons to bear, ensuring firing safety and preventing barrel bursts.

Thus, for a ship like the Sovereign with its 100 cannons, it actually has only 50 per broadside; counting the various light cannons, the total weight of a single broadside is far lower than the Zhenman's.

Because the Zhenman has an advanced slide rail system, coupled with increased compartment space from advanced structure and materials, these 40 cannons can be easily shuttled back and forth between the port and starboard sides in under a minute.

In short, the advantages brought by technology are all-encompassing; whether in hull form, weaponry, protection, or power, the Zhenman far surpasses the 17th-century galleon, even exceeding the motor-sail gunboats of the late Qing Dynasty in some aspects—aside from needing to "import" some power components, the beautiful Zhenman is indeed a perfect "ideal-type warship."

On this mission to Shanghai Port, the Fleet of the North, with the Zhenman as its flagship, set out on December 5th—the same day the Embroidered Uniform Guard Hundred-Household Officer Ma sacrificed himself.

Prior to this, the "King's Rescue Transport Fleet," composed of 10 New Lock Ships, had already departed five days earlier.

After practicing various military subjects along the way, the warship formation successfully rendezvoused with the transport formation outside Shanghai Port on the night of the seventh day after departure.

Then, at the moment the sun rose the next morning, the few gunboats in the fleet responsible for carrying a battalion of infantry had already begun entering the port, preparing to disembark the soldiers and reason with Mobile Corps Commander Wang, who was besieging the port.

So when Mobile Corps Commander Wang saw that gigantic blue-and-gold vessel at the Yangtze River Estuary, he actually missed the more critical information... on the docks, some tiny black dots were multiplying.