Flying over the Tianshan Mountains by airship in winter is a task that seems almost impossible to accomplish. The temperature in the Tianshan Mountains in winter can be as low as minus 30 or 40 degrees, and there are strong winds seven out of ten days!
Due to the complex terrain in the mountains, there is a lot of air turbulence. Sometimes a gust of wind will turn into small vortices when blocked by cliffs, and all of this is extremely dangerous for airship navigation.
Doro and Guan Lu were silent for a moment. "Commander, it's not that we are unwilling to accept the order, nor are we afraid of death, but we must ask the pilot of the airship for this task!"
"Those people are all trained by the Chinese and understand their power. We are not afraid of death, but we are afraid of failing the mission and ruining the commander-in-chief's strategy!"
After all, Zuo Zongtang was not very technical. He subconsciously thought that these two people were greedy for life and afraid of death. Indeed, many people in that era were like this. They were not afraid of dying in battle, but they were afraid of dying in unknown things.
"Well, it should, it should! Then invite the captain of the airship. I also want to hear what's going on!"
Doro and Guan Lu looked at each other and had no choice but to act according to the commander's request. After a while, the young airship captain and two technicians came over.
"I've seen the commander..." The three airship commanders gave Zuo Zongtang a Chinese military salute. Now everyone present knew their identities. On the surface, they looked like ordinary airship commanders, but their true identities were different from those of Zuo Zongtang. The Chinese military is inseparable.
"I called you here because I want to ask whether this airship can cross the Tianshan Mountains in winter?"
The three of them looked at each other and the leading captain said, "Commander Qi, the principle of airship flight is actually very simple. It is nothing more than the hot air balloon providing upward lift and the propeller providing thrust... These two forces control the airship to travel through the atmosphere!"
"Theoretically, there is no weather that makes flying impossible. Even in violent storms, if you can provide power greater than the surrounding airflow, you will be safe!"
"Ah? Can you drive in a violent storm?" Zuo Zongtang sat up straight.
"Yes, the principle is similar to that of sailing on the sea. Everyone in the world thinks that when a storm comes, a ship will escape death, but I, the Chinese, have done many experiments..."
"When your ship is large enough and powerful enough, ordinary storms are powerless! For example, the Zhiyuan has encountered many storms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and has been unharmed!"
"So, there is no problem for the airship to cross the Tianshan Mountains?" the generals present asked.
"I don't know! Because we have never flown here before, we don't understand the airflow here at all... More importantly, the winter is too cold. In order to maintain the welfare and thrust of the airship, we need more thermally efficient fuel! "
"I'm afraid it's not possible to burn coal right now! We need coke!"
Just as charcoal is a deeply processed product of wood, coke is actually a deeply processed product of coal!
High-quality coal is pre-combusted and coked, burning away most of the impurities in it, leaving behind coke with countless hollow gaps. This fuel can provide higher temperatures and is lighter in weight!
In ancient China, the technology of coke ironmaking existed in the Song Dynasty. However, by the Qing Dynasty, science and technology had seriously regressed, and the coke was only used as fuel for some blacksmiths to build high-quality weapons. Large-scale use was a technology passed down from foreigners!
Zuo Zongtang was no stranger to Coke. Just when he was about to pat his chest, the captain made another condition: "Well... I'm afraid Coke is not strong enough. Can you get us some better fuel?"
"Kerosene! We need more kerosene. Let's get a ton first. I'm afraid it won't be enough..."
You need coke and kerosene. These are not very valuable things, but they are very scarce in the army! First of all, Zuo Zongtang's army has basically adopted foreign weapons. They rarely use cold weapons, so the blacksmiths don't bring many.
The coke needs to be burned temporarily, but fortunately the technique is not difficult!
But where to get this kerosene? The main use of kerosene in this era was lighting, and the army had many candles to replace it, so there was very little kerosene.
"This... I can ask the munitions people to collect as much as possible for you, but I can't guarantee there will be too many!"
When Guan Lu heard this, he quickly stood up, "Commander... you can go to the Western Region Investment Bank for help! Fan Jin is in Dihua, what are you afraid of with him?"
Oops, now we have solved the problem. The commander nodded, "I'm really busy. I'm guarding the God of Wealth and I'm asking for food... Wait for me to write a note, and you can take it to Fan Jin to find a solution!"
"What else do you need? Let's talk about it all..."
The captain thought for a while, "Right now, the nighttime temperature here in Dihua has dropped to more than ten degrees below zero. I'm afraid it's even thirty degrees below zero on the Tianshan Mountains... And what about the altitude of a thousand meters? It's more than forty degrees below zero. There must be one!”
"Please give us some of the best furs and the best thermal insulation materials, the more the better..."
"Yes!" Zuo Zongtang slapped the table, "Donate my fox fur cloak, and all the generals sitting here, donate all the precious furs you have at the bottom of the box!"
"We can't let the hero freeze to death on the way! Hahaha..."
Seeing this, Duoluo and Guan Lu knew that they had nothing to say, so they clasped their fists and saluted, "Please rest assured, Commander, if you don't succeed, you will be benevolent! Either Ning Yuancheng will see you, or your bones will be scattered on Tianshan Mountain!"
After the meeting, the Dihua army immediately became busy. Three temporary brick kilns were set up outside the city and began to emit black smoke. Carloads of coal were sent in. They were semi-burned at high temperatures and then sealed with sand to extinguish the fire. Five experiments were scrapped. Six tons of coal are needed to produce qualified coke!
The head of the Western Region Investment Bank was Fan Jin, the nephew of the Fan family. He ordered the caravan to collect kerosene from the rear, and even used a large number of candles to exchange for kerosene from other companies!
Gather sand to form a tower, accumulate a little to make a lot! Even a lot of kerosene was poured from local people's oil lamps and pooled together into barrels of fuel.
The supply army began to move westward. The Zeppelin airship, which had been dismantled into standard parts, was driven by hundreds of horses and more than 70 horse carriages and slowly headed towards Jinghe River, where was the nearest suitable take-off location to Ningyuan in a straight line.
Along the way, the herdsmen didn't know what was happening. They couldn't understand why the Han people were marching in such a cold winter!
It is now the twelfth lunar month, the Han people are celebrating the New Year, and these ethnic minorities are also on their winter break. Do the Han people want to fight during this solar term?
What they couldn't understand even more was that there was a special cart at the head, with eight strong horses pulling an extra-long and extra-wide carriage, and it was protected by hundreds of soldiers!
This large vehicle has neatly stacked composite airbags that purify the air. From a distance, it looks like the Han people slaughtered some legendary beast and skinned it!
There are also the dismantled components of the pods, various metal and wooden parts, which are widely tied on the cart, grinning like the ancient skeletons of terrifying beasts with clean flesh and blood!
What shocked the herdsmen even more was that there were carts of supplies covered with canvas behind them, some of which had black cinders falling down, and some of which exuded the pungent smell of oil smoke.
In less than ten days, word spread throughout the Western Region, "Have you heard? The Han people killed a demonic dragon!"
"I saw it with my own eyes. The demon dragon's skin was peeled off..."
