Nelson persuaded his partners to help him complete simulation tests of the new battleship concept.
Thousands of miles away in the capital of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Jingyuan, who should have been focusing on the design of battleships, now went to work on airplanes.
After the morning session that day, Zhu Jingyuan followed Minister Zou Bingtai of the Ministry of Industry to the office compound of the Ministry of Industry.
Zhu Jingyuan originally planned to go directly to the Ship Department and summon the craftsmen of the Ship Department headed by Wang Lai to discuss the protection design of the new warship.
As a result, as soon as he entered the door, he was stopped by Li Rui, the head of the Arms Department.
Standing with Li Rui were several other craftsmen, as well as a middle-aged woman who was dressed simply, maturely and quite elegantly.
Li Rui quickly greeted Zhu Jingyuan and took the initiative to introduce both parties:
"Your Highness, this is the shopkeeper Wang of the Royal Flying Machine Company and several design craftsmen of the company..."
Zhu Jingyuan immediately realized that this was the Wang Zhenyi his mother had mentioned.
At that time, I signed an aircraft patent authorization letter with myself, and also guided my mother to recruit workers and craftsmen, and I will have to deal with them frequently in the future:
"Good morning, Shopkeeper Wang, and all the other engineers. Thank you very much, Shopkeeper Wang, for helping Jiaci and planning the airline affairs these days. I am very grateful.
"Then, you all came to the Ministry of Works today...to see me?"
Wang Zhenyi met Zhu Jingyuan for the first time, but she had heard Liang Yunying talk about him many times, and she was obviously quite conceited about his son.
After seeing the official meeting today, my first impression was very good, and I greeted him with a smile on my face:
"Your Highness is really polite. It's just a simple effort. We are here today to find His Highness.
"His Majesty has been pressing the progress of the aircraft and asked us to cooperate with the Ministry of Industry and His Highness's company to promote the research and development of the aircraft simultaneously.
"Just in time, the Ministry of Industry has remade a complete official test aircraft according to the drawings you provided, and is preparing for test verification today.
"So we hope that His Highness will come with us to watch the actual machine test on site and give suggestions for improvements."
Zhu Jingyuan suddenly realized that it was completely understandable for the old emperor to rush the plane.
It was what I had told him before, that the performance of the aircraft was the key to the aircraft carrier. It would be abnormal for him not to care.
But Zhu Jingyuan still has a little question:
"I understand...but what's going on with the drawings? When did I give you the airplane drawings?"
Li Rui from the Arms Department immediately came out to explain:
"It's like this. When His Highness explained the structure of the aircraft wing to us, didn't he draw a diagram of the shape of an aircraft?
“It has two layers of wings, and the engine is installed in the middle of the fuselage, directly in front of the cockpit, and drives the propeller through a gearbox.
“The rudder is all installed at the tail, and the middle part of the fuselage is completely wrapped with skin to form a box that can carry people and supplies.
"We have built a flying machine of this design today."
Zhu Jingyuan recalled the situation at that time and slowly realized what was going on.
What Li Rui was talking about was the outline of the "Swordfish" attack aircraft that he drew casually at that time.
The Swordfish attack aircraft is a historical carrier-based aircraft of the British Royal Navy. It was designed in 1933 and completed in 1936.
From the perspective of the World War II era, the Swordfish is definitely an outdated aircraft.
As an attack aircraft, it has only 750 horsepower and a flying speed of less than 200 kilometers per hour.
However, it followed the British Navy's aircraft carriers and fought in the Atlantic to the Mediterranean for many years, leaving quite impressive results.
At that time, the latest battleships of France, Germany, and Italy were all hit by torpedoes mounted on Swordfish attack aircraft on their propellers and rudders.
So much so that the Swordfish attack aircraft was nicknamed the "leg-breaking monster" by military fans.
One of the most famous results was that during the siege of the German battleship Bismarck, it hit and destroyed Bismarck's steering gear again.
The Bismarck was unable to sail normally and could only spin continuously on the sea, and was eventually sunk by the British Navy.
However, in this era, the very mature double-wing design of the Swordfish can be regarded as a quite excellent design.
Zhu Jingyuan's education included drawing classes, and the things he drew at that time were relatively standard.
But after all, it was just a random drawing. It was just to introduce the shape of the aircraft, and it was not intended to copy the design of the Swordfish.
Unexpectedly, Li Rui remembered it and regarded that picture as the appearance design drawing of the aircraft. He built an aircraft with a similar appearance based on it.
After Zhu Jingyuan understood what was going on, he became interested:
"I... seem to remember, how could you complete it so quickly? How much power of the engine did you use? How is the performance?"
Li Rui immediately told everything he knew about the situation:
"Because His Majesty was pressing hard, two teams of craftsmen took turns to work on it. It only took four days to basically complete the production, but it was still relatively simple.
"We used the maximum power of 60 horsepower that can be installed, and the specific flight performance has not been tested.
"We are here now just to invite His Highness to come over and witness the experiment together."
Zhu Jingyuan didn't think much about it. He was going to fly the plane and wanted to take a look at this new plane, so he nodded decisively:
"Okay, let's go directly there."
Li Rui immediately called everyone out, got into three four-wheeled carriages prepared in advance, and left the Ministry of Industry and went straight to the aircraft testing site in the west of the city.
After approaching the test site in the west of the city, Zhu Jingyuan immediately discovered that the opera at the scene had changed.
There was no special flight runway in the original yard. The so-called runway at that time was just a few lines drawn in the middle of the yard.
Because it is so close to other warehouses and factories, workers who take a break or go out to eat unconsciously walk into the runway.
A new asphalt road was built on the western edge of the current test site, and a fence was erected next to it.
In this way, irrelevant people will not be able to get in easily.
Now there is a very classic biplane parked at one end of the newly built asphalt road.
Several craftsmen gathered around the aircraft, probably inspecting and debugging it.
Li Rui led everyone over quickly. After a brief introduction and greetings to each other, he directly asked the middle-aged craftsman in charge of maintenance:
"Old Zhao, how are you preparing? Can you start the test?"
The craftsman known as Lao Zhao said a little excitedly:
"Don't worry, Mr. Li. I've checked here three times. No uncontrollable problems have been found so far. I think we can start at any time."
After hearing this, Li Rui subconsciously looked at Zhu Jingyuan, which meant asking for permission to start.
Zhu Jingyuan nodded directly, and then took the initiative to lead the others out of the way and hid outside the rear end of the flight runway.
Li Rui circled the plane and checked the situation personally. Just like the last test, he took the initiative to take over the on-site command:
“Attention everyone, the flight machine test is about to begin, leave the runway immediately——
"The driver is ready, the support team is ready..."
There was no one on the runway this time. "Old Zhao", who served as the test pilot this time, put on his parachute bag and boarded the aircraft that looked much more mature.
However, even though this aircraft looks mature, the starting method is still manual, and you need to use a crank to crank it up.
When the two brothers from the auxiliary team heard Li Rui's instructions, they ran over to the rocker and started shaking it.
Then, the familiar thick smoke spurted out, and the plane's propellers whirred.
Looking at this scene, Zhu Jingyuan's eyes twitched slightly. This thing was no different from starting a tractor.
No, all new tractors have electric ignition.
On the other hand, other craftsmen, as well as Wang Zhenyi, the big shopkeeper, and craftsmen from the Royal Flying Machine Company, all yearned for and admired it.
They obviously didn't think there was anything abnormal about this scene, but were praising the "high end" of the Ministry of Industry's flight machine testing.
All I can say is that as long as your psychological expectations are low enough, everything you look at will feel high-end.
For Zhu Jingyuan, although the last test was rough, it was originally an early verification test, as long as it could fly.
At that time, Zhu Jingyuan's psychological expectations were very low, which was the level of the Wright brothers' flying bicycle.
But this time the test was theoretically a formal test aircraft, Zhu Jingyuan instinctively thought of future test aircraft.
Therefore, Zhu Jingyuan's inner standards have been instinctively set much higher. As a result, after seeing the situation, his inner thoughts now are:
"That's it……"
However, after considering the current actual situation, Zhu Jingyuan gradually adjusted his mentality:
"At this level of technology, we only have four days to prepare, and that's all...
"And as long as a machine gun is installed, it should be enough to scare Xiyi."
