Chapter 26: Moon Crescent Island

The old man circled the truck with great interest, even sticking his head into the cab to observe, then kept exclaiming, "That's the exact scent, hasn't changed a bit," and only after a long while did he remember to ask the three of them their purpose.

After hearing the explanation, the old man pointed to a building and said:

"It's that one, Room 302. You're looking for Old Cao, right? Their whole family loves reading; you've truly found the right people."

"Thank you, uncle!"

Wu Lao Er and Tang Yi went upstairs to find the person, while the old man stayed by the truck, stroking the army-green paint and recalling his youth of dashing left and right under the sunset to dodge bombers.

……

"The Great Naval Battle"

"Past Events on Coral Island"

"Sunset of the Royal Navy"

"Death Transport"

"Me and the Dido Class"

"Most of these materials are memoirs or naval histories written by naval officers from various nations after the war, some are logs written by sailors who served on warships, and there are also accounts written by merchant ship captains who participated in war-related transport operations.

Although very mixed and chaotic, they are indeed extremely precious materials, fully reflecting the trivial details of the Great War period, and are very useful."

Inside the office building of the Gaijin Shipyard, Tang Yi carefully displayed the large pile of books brought back.

Many of the books had very simple covers, some even just plain leather with writing on them, lacking any color-printed covers.

There were also numerous English-language newspaper materials, along with a pile of black-and-white and a few color photographs.

Tang Wen casually picked up one; it showed a destroyer emitting thick smoke after being hit by a shell. Judging by the signature, it seemed to have been photographed by another ship in the same fleet, in the waters near Bala Island.

With a total of nearly thirty books, Tang Yi had spent all five thousand yuan he brought, yet still felt somewhat unsatisfied:

"There was only a high school student in the room at the time, and there were many more valuable books on the bookshelf. Unfortunately... Anyway, the owner of these books must have been a senior naval officer, or even a retired one, which is why he had such a rich collection."

As a ship designer, Tang Yi could easily empathize with the book owner, then shook his head and sighed:

"Unfortunately, I feared his daughter's legs might be broken, so I didn't pick out those particularly precious ones, but these are excellent as well."

Tang Wen didn't feel particularly much about it; instead, he picked up a Malay newspaper dated May '43 and looked at the accompanying illustrations.

There were also doodles by the original owner on it, the content seemingly indicating the position of a fleet.

Looking at the materials, each thicker than the last, Tang Wen said with a headache:

"With so many books, how long will it take to find the nearby sunken ships?"

"Don't worry, it's actually not difficult."

As Tang Yi spoke, his hands were already rummaging through the pile of books:

"Based on the preface and title page, we can judge the approximate time and region; I had already made these distinctions when I was selecting them.

For example, for the waters around Echeng, we mainly look for books related to the Combined Fleet (IJN); they would have records of their own ships or ships they sank, such as... this one."

Tang Yi picked up the book titled "Death Transport" and said while flipping through it:

"This is a memoir by a merchant ship captain serving the Royal Fleet, shuttling Royal Navy personnel back and forth between Malaya and Xiangjiang. The table of contents already mentions the keyword for the sunken ship, which is... Page 71:

'... Shortly after we departed, we encountered a Combined Fleet destroyer. We were ordered to return, and a merchant ship that refused to comply was sunk. Of the three hundred plus people on board, only half were rescued...' See, it's like this.

There are very busy shipping lanes around Guangdong Province. Give me a few days to find the nearest sunken ship to us, and then we can recover enough resources. The resource recovery rate of ships is very high, almost over 95%.

With just 6,750 silver coins, we can build the 'Hashirama' class. We need to figure out how to make money."

"We already have it."

Tang Wen made a silver coin appear at his fingertips, tossed it up, and caught it in his palm.

The system-manufactured silver coins come in many styles; the obverse features a silhouette portrait of a warship, and the reverse bears the name and hull number. All appear randomly, but the weight remains consistent.

The appearance of this magical artifact is far more exquisite than real silver coins; every contour is clear and distinct, and the side of the coin is stamped with the words "GAIJIN Gaijin Shipyard."

Weighing 30 grams, similar to a Yuan Datou, holding it feels more like holding a very exquisite souvenir. Whenever Tang Wen has nothing to do, he conjures one out to fiddle with.

"Before you returned, Zheng Hai sent someone again to buy ships. A deposit of three hundred thousand, four ships—two speedboats to be delivered in two weeks."

Li Chang came specifically to tour the shipyard. Tang Wen detained him for two hours, using the upgraded dry dock to build a 250-horsepower gasoline engine for him to see, which immediately dispelled the other party's last doubts.

The V8 engine was quite powerful. In this era, there were no environmental regulations; the exhaust went straight out without a catalytic converter, making much more noise than Brother Hai's "Yamaha 180," yet the volume remained basically unchanged.

A Tier 1 shipyard can manufacture V8 engines very cheaply, requiring only 30 silver coins. The total cost for the hull and four engines is just 150 silver coins.

Tang Wen and Li Chang negotiated the price down to six hundred thousand for four ships. The unit price of 150,000 is merely 3,246 silver coins, a completely explosive profit.

The three hundred thousand deposit is already 6,493 silver coins. After deducting costs, there's still 5,900 silver. Adding the money from selling the diesel engines, the silver coins Tang Wen currently holds exceed 8,000, which is already enough for the processing fees of the 'Hashirama' class.

Once we obtain one thousand tons of steel and wait 27 days, a gunboat will be ready!

The current shipyard dry dock can accommodate vessels up to 100 meters in waterline length and 10 meters in width; shipbuilding resources are very abundant.

For small items like the "Tax-Free No. 1," the construction cycle has been shortened from 20 days to 3 days, and it is possible to build 10 simultaneously. Four such ships are nothing.

Compared to a Tier 0 shipyard, a Tier 1 shipyard achieves over a 50% reduction in both cost and construction time when building small vessels, making the profit margin on small ships extremely exaggerated.

Tang Wen even wanted to expand the "Da Fei" business; if everyone along the coast used these things, he wouldn't need to struggle to find sunken ships and could simply build ships out of thin air.

Hearing the good news that the funding issue was resolved, Tang Yi was even more excited than Tang Wen: Finally, there is hope to build a proper ship!

Tang Yi immediately summoned the other two researchers; even Tang Wen couldn't escape being conscripted, and they immediately began searching the materials for clues.

Although there were over twenty books, filtering the effective content didn't require reading every single word in detail; each of the four people only needed to be responsible for six or seven books.

Seeing Tang Yi's decisive manner, Tang Wen could only prepare instant noodles and soda in advance, then start flipping through the materials following Tang Yi's method.

The room soon contained only the rustling sound of turning pages, with occasional short exchanges.

Compared to the three professionals, Tang Wen was basically just skimming; the books contained many technical terms and places he had never heard of, requiring him to constantly check maps to locate specific spots.

Under the incandescent light, Tang Wen flipped through books for over two hours without finding a single clue, and instead began to feel sleepy repeatedly.

Seeing the other three still fighting on, he pushed the door open alone to go out and stretch.

Just then, one of the researchers called out:

"Where is Moon Crescent Island? This passage mentions Echeng; it should be in the surrounding area, right?"

Tang Wen hurriedly turned back, and four heads looked at the text above together:

"... On the morning of April 15, the flooding problem on the 'Oak' was too severe. Captain Varni originally wanted to try grounding it on Crescent Island, but in the end, it sank less than 10 nautical miles away.

Fortunately, we rescued everyone. The 'Oak' rotated slowly as it sank. This is the fifth cargo ship I have seen sink since I began my service. Fortunately, the Allies have countless Liberty Ships; we will achieve victory."

"This is from the escort log of the 'HMS Napier,' a destroyer lent by Britain to Australia and New Zealand during World War II. Their mission this time was to transport supplies to the continent, and one of the ships malfunctioned and sank.

It mentions a 'Liberty Ship,' a cargo vessel built by Americans during World War II, with a deadweight of at least 7,000 tons!"

The researcher was somewhat excited. After hearing this, Tang Yi immediately spread out the huge paper map and searched the waters near Goose City under the light, but could not find Crescent Island.

Tang Wen, however, seemed to think of something. After pondering for a long time, he suddenly slapped his forehead:

"Crescent Island. I heard the village chief mention it; it's in the Pratas Islands!"

At this, Tang Yi immediately locked onto the location of the Pratas Islands, measured it with his hand, and immediately reached a conclusion:

"The straight-line distance from us is just over 100 nautical miles. It's too close!"