The area on the north bank of Suzhou River in Songjiang Prefecture is the Hongkou Industrial Zone under Shanghai County.
This place is not simple. Although it is not big, it is the most powerful and largest important industrial zone in Songjiang Prefecture. It gathers the headquarters or offices and factories of many well-known large companies in the empire.
A series of important factories such as Songjiang Naval Shipyard, Shanghai Arsenal, Songjiang Iron and Steel Plant, Jiangnan Machinery Company, Lee Machine Tool Company under Lee Steel, and the Shanghai production base of Suqin Textile Company are all located here.
In addition to many large enterprises, the most important thing is that there will be a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises here.
Unlike many large industrial zones in China that only have large corporate factories, several industrial zones under Songjiang Prefecture, such as Hongkou Industrial Zone, Huangpu Industrial Zone, and Huating Industrial Zone, not only have a large number of large enterprises, but also a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Taking advantage of the convenient water transportation, various industrial raw materials and financial funds from all over the country can be gathered here. At the same time, various produced goods can be transported and sold through river transportation.
Such convenient transportation conditions gave Songjiang Prefecture a geographical advantage in the early development of the Chu Empire. Not only did official capital set up a large number of enterprises here, but private capital also invested heavily in construction projects here.
These investments have further attracted a large number of migrant workers and various professional and technical talents, thus promoting various tertiary industries.
Today, in the 27th year of Chengshun, Songjiang Prefecture has become the most economically powerful state capital in the Chu Empire, ranking first in all aspects of data.
The largest ship tonnage in the Da Chu Empire was produced here, and more than half of the warship tonnage in the Da Chu Empire was produced here.
It also produced a quarter of the cloth products in the Chu Empire, a third of the raw silk in the Chu Empire, and numerous various industrial industries.
The total economic volume is larger than Yingtianfu and Hantianfu combined... The population is also very large. It seems to be a small place, but this poor place has a population of more than three million, which is larger than Portugal and the Netherlands. The total population of the European colonial powers was even greater.
The people also lead the list in terms of income. According to the Songjiang Prefecture's own statistical survey in the 26th year of Chengshun, the average annual income of local ordinary workers can reach 75 Chu yuan, while the income of skilled workers is even higher, such as in steel plants and shipbuilding industries. For the skilled workers here, their annual income can reach hundreds of Chu Yuan or even two hundred Chu Yuan.
The income level of local people, well, mainly low-income groups, is significantly ahead of other state capitals in the Great Chu Empire.
These are all due to the extremely developed local industrial and commercial economic system.
The excellent local industrial and commercial conditions are also an important reason why the Navy and the Ministry of Industry established the Naval Steam Engine Factory in the local Hongkou Industrial Zone.
If it is established locally, it will be easier to recruit various high-tech talents. At the same time, it is right next to the most important supplier of the navy, namely Songjiang Naval Shipyard. After the steam engine is assembled, it can be directly transported and installed nearby, without having to travel all the way. toss.
At the same time, because Songjiang Prefecture is located at the middle node of the three major steam engine manufacturers, it can more conveniently accept parts produced by Tianjin Machinery Company, Guangzhou Machinery Company, and Dangtu Machinery Company, reducing transportation costs.
Due to various conditions, the Ministry of Navy and the Ministry of Industry established the Naval Steam Engine Factory, an assembly factory, in Songjiang Prefecture.
Of course, neither the Ministry of Industry nor the Navy can build a steam engine factory from scratch. Even if the steam engine factory is just an assembly factory and has no production capacity of parts of its own, it is still not that easy to do. It also requires a large number of various large-scale machinery and equipment,
Don't think that assembling a steam engine is easy, in fact it is also very difficult...especially the steam engines needed by the navy, which are all large ship-based steam engines, with power ranging from several thousand or even tens of thousands of horsepower. These large steam engines are light It's not easy to assemble.
Therefore, the newly established Naval Steam Engine Factory was actually the predecessor of the United Steam Engine Factory.
This joint steam engine factory was actually established in the 21st year of Chengshun and was jointly invested by Guangzhou Machinery Company and major shipyards.
At that time, because Guangzhou Shipyard relied on the priority supply contract, it directly monopolized the production capacity of Guangzhou Machinery Company's shipboard high-pressure steam engines for three years. At that time, Tianjin Machinery Company and Dangtu Machinery Company could not produce high-pressure steam engines for a while.
Other shipyards wanted to obtain high-pressure steam engines to produce their ships. At the same time, Guangzhou Machinery Company's own production capacity was not high at the time, and it also wanted to occupy as many markets as possible. The two parties hit it off and immediately established this joint steam engine factory.
However, when it was established that year, although this joint company had production capabilities, its technology source was Guangzhou Machinery Company. To a certain extent, this joint steam engine factory was actually a very simple processing plant and did not have technology research and development capabilities of its own.
It was pretty good in the first few years after its establishment, and it made a lot of money for all investors.
However, as Tianjin Machinery Company and Dangtu Machinery Company successively solved the technical problems of high-pressure steam engines and bypassed the patent barriers of Guangzhou Machinery Company, the high-pressure steam engine market suddenly transformed into fierce competition among the three major steam engine manufacturers.
At the same time, the more important point is that Guangzhou Machinery Company's own production capacity has increased, and the priority contract with Guangzhou Shipyard has also ended. Under such circumstances, it is naturally impossible for Guangzhou Machinery Company to distribute the profits of the steam engine to those shipyards. One serving.
In the face of internal discord among investors, fierce external competition, and the Guangzhou Machinery Company's suspension of technical support, the United Steam Engine Factory could no longer produce more advanced high-pressure steam engines, so it declined.
The ambitious Lee Iron Company took the opportunity to acquire the factory at a low price, trying to use chickens to lay eggs and thus enter the high-pressure steam engine market.
Lee's Steel Company previously announced its entry into the field of high-pressure steam engines, established a research and development team for research and development, and subsequently acquired the United Steam Engine Factory.
From this point of view, there is a research and development team and a production base, but in fact they are not the same...
After actually entering this market, Li's Iron found that the technical barriers to the high-pressure steam engine industry were too high... Li's Iron Company recruited and organized more than 500 R&D personnel to carry out technical research.
At the beginning, they were very confident, thinking that they had money, so they spent a lot of money, and a research and development team composed of more than 500 top scientific researchers could build a high-pressure steam engine.
However, as the R&D plans are being carried out one after another, the senior officials of Lee Iron and Steel Company feel their scalps numb as they look at the technologies that need to be developed one after another, and the massive amount of R&D experience that continues to increase every month...
They found that if they wanted to build a high-pressure steam engine, everything from the cylinder to the boiler to the transmission system and even connecting pipes had to be re-developed to avoid infringement, because now almost every part and every process in the high-pressure steam engine is The patents of the three major steam engine manufacturers... there are thousands of technical patents that need to be bypassed.
This is still talking about the most basic high-pressure steam engine, not counting some of the core technologies recently developed by the three major steam engine manufacturers, such as multi-expansion technology and water tube boilers. This means that the patent barriers that need to be overcome are still increasing.
If you want to develop a high-pressure steam engine with market competitiveness, the research and development experience required will be astronomical, and the time required will also be very long.
Because what they want to do is not actually develop high-pressure steam engines, but they need to bypass other companies' patent barriers.
As for a simple high-pressure steam engine, Guangzhou Machinery Company developed this thing many years ago. Everyone knows the principle. Machinery factories with stronger technical capabilities can directly process and produce a relatively primitive high-pressure steam engine for you.
But this is useless because it will infringe the patent and cannot be put into the market for commercial use.
If Lee Iron Company wants to enter the high-pressure steam engine market, what it has to do is to bypass the patent barriers of the three major steam engine manufacturers and find a new set of technical routes.
To put it simply, if people use Plan A to build a steam engine, you cannot use Plan A and can only find other methods... And what needs to be bypassed is not one set of technical solutions, but three sets of technical solutions... The three major steam engine manufacturers each have their own Respective technical solutions and patent barriers.
The most disgusting thing is that the three major steam engine manufacturers sometimes come up with some other new solutions. Some of these new solutions are used by themselves, but some of them are not so good. Although they don't use them themselves, they still apply for technology patents... because It means blocking the way for those who come after you.
This is disgusting...
As a latecomer, Lee Iron and Steel Company needs to bypass not one set of technical solutions, but dozens of them. There are even dozens of technical solutions that need to be bypassed in terms of individual details... The three major steam engine manufacturers have The roads are blocked.
Faced with such strict patent barriers, although Lee Iron & Steel Company invested heavily in the field of high-pressure steam engines, it has been unable to achieve major technological breakthroughs.
When Guangzhou Machinery Company's patent authorization for high-pressure steam engines expired, although they had factories, they could no longer produce and sell even backward high-pressure steam engines...
After self-research failed and it was difficult to obtain patent authorization from the three major steam engine manufacturers, Lee's Iron Company completely lost its confidence in entering the field of high-pressure steam engines...
The field of high-pressure steam engines is an industry with the highest technical threshold and the most serious patent barriers in the Chu Empire. If Li Iron Company wants to get in, this is not even something that can be done with money.
Lee's Iron Company began to sell this factory half a year ago. Although it has no technology, it has a factory building, a large number of machinery and equipment, and a large number of skilled workers. It is worth some money.
In the end, this factory was valued by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of the Navy... and was acquired as a steam engine assembly factory exclusively for the Navy.
Anyway, the Navy Steam Engine Factory has technology authorization and does not intend to develop it on its own. It only needs the production and assembly capabilities of large steam engines. Therefore, the United Steam Engine Factory is of little use to Lee Steel, but as a factory that previously mainly produced civilian shipboard steam engines , but it is enough for the navy.
When the acquisition was confirmed and the senior executives of Lee's Steel Company evacuated the United Steam Engine Factory, their faces were full of reluctance and helplessness.
Lee's Iron and Steel Company, which had been developing smoothly for more than 20 years, suffered a setback for the first time, and it was a huge one.
Over the past six or seven years, more than one million dollars have been invested in the field of high-pressure steam engines, but not a single cent has been made.
Although such a major investment failure will not cause serious damage to the Lee Iron and Steel Company, which is a large and powerful company, it will have to wait for several years.
After calming down and thinking about it, Lee's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. made up its mind that in the future, it would not follow others and play in its own areas of advantage.
For example, shipbuilding, machine tools, and general mechanical equipment are still their forte. They plan to continue to grow bigger and stronger in these fields, especially the currently booming shipbuilding industry. They plan to invest heavily in preparing to build the first 10,000-ton dry ship in the country. dock.
Lee's defeat in the high-pressure steam engine field did not affect the development of the domestic high-pressure steam engine field. After all, the fierce competition among the three major domestic steam engine manufacturers is itself the best driving force for the development of high-pressure steam engines.
In order to seize the market, each of them has invested heavily in research and development and production.
These research and development results can eventually be transferred to the Naval Steam Engine Factory.
According to the agreement between the Navy and the three major steam engine manufacturers, the Navy is able to order their latest and various patented products and then assemble them into shipboard steam engines exclusively for use by naval warships.
After the Naval Steam Engine Factory was established, its first project was to integrate the existing exclusive patented products of the three major steam engines to create a large-scale military shipboard steam engine, which was planned to be used on the second ship of the Hantian-class battleship under construction. That is, on the Yingtian number.
However, the Yingtian's design has been changed. From the guns to the power and even the hull design, it is actually completely different from the Hantian. Therefore, it is not appropriate to continue to be classified as a Hantian-class battleship. It is already a new type of battleship. .
In addition to providing power for subsequent new battleships, it is also planned to provide power for other new warships, such as the follow-up ship of the Toyoju-class cruiser, to be precise, the improved Jinzhou-class cruiser of the Pusan cruiser.
The Jinzhou-class cruiser is an improvement based on the Pusan cruiser. Although the Pusan cruiser is also equipped with front-mounted rifled guns, when this warship was previously designed, it was only planned to be equipped with smoothbore guns.
The specific use and combat of rifled guns are quite different from smoothbore guns.
Therefore, the Navy improved and designed the Jinzhou-class cruiser based on the changes in this situation, coupled with advances in power and other hull technologies.
Its tonnage has been further expanded to 2,800 tons. It is planned to be equipped with multiple 150mm front-loading rifled guns as the main gun and multiple 75mm naval guns as the secondary battery.
For its power, it will use products assembled in the brand new naval steam engine factory, so the speed will be greatly improved, allowing this class of ships to reach a speed of fourteen knots.
Because the steam engine technology is more advanced, it occupies a smaller volume and weight space. At the same time, because the Navy pays more attention to endurance and seaworthiness, it does not hesitate to reduce firepower. This also allows this class of ships to obtain greater coal and Danshui carrying capacity. space.
This class of ship can travel at a speed of eight knots under pure steam power, and its endurance can reach three thousand nautical miles.
This will be the first warship in the Chu Empire Navy that can truly sail across the oceans with steam engines, which is of great significance.
Without adding coal, starting from Wusong Naval Base, it can cover the entire northern coastal waters, namely the Sea of Okhotsk, and even reach the Bering Sea.
Starting from the north of Fuso and taking the North Pacific route, you only need to add coal and water at the supply port in the Aleutian Islands, and then you can cross the Pacific and reach Seattle in North America.
Taking the Central Pacific route, you only need to resupply at Midway Island and Sandalwood Islands, and then you can also cross the Pacific to reach the Port of San Francisco in North America.
Starting from the Hong Kong Naval Base, it can cover the entire South China Sea southwards.
Starting from Singapore, a large naval base in Southeast Asia, you can directly cross the Indian Ocean and arrive at the Port of Colombo on the Island of Ceylon. Using Colombo as a logistics base, it can cover the entire Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Gulf, as well as most of the southern Indian Ocean.
You can reach North Africa and even Madagascar to the west, and you can reach Singapore or Australia to the east.
Such a huge range of pure steam engine power is enough for this Jinzhou-class cruiser to ignore monsoons and ocean currents, greatly expanding the range and time of activities.
This is the basis for the Chu Empire's navy to truly dominate the ocean. Otherwise, it can only sail along the coasts as before, even crossing the Atlantic Ocean, for fear of entering the windless zone...
In order to ensure sufficient endurance, this is why although the tonnage of the Jinzhou-class cruiser has been expanded, the number of naval guns equipped is not as strong as that of the Busan cruiser.
As for battleships, all aspects such as fire protection, power, etc. need to occupy weight and space. On the one hand, it is strong, and on the other hand, it will naturally be weak.
In addition to the new Jinzhou-class cruisers, new frigates will also use new steam engines.
This new frigate is actually an enlarged version of the Longchuan-class frigate!
Although the Longchuan-class frigate already has a full-load displacement of more than 800 tons, during actual operations, especially during the Indian Campaign, the Navy found that the tonnage of this frigate was still too small when sailing and fighting in the ocean, so that it was very Not to mention the bumps, the rolling was so severe that the artillery hit rate was very low.
At the same time, a steam engine must be installed in the tonnage of more than 800 tons, but it cannot carry too much coal and Danshui, so the range of the steam engine is really poor, only a few hundred kilometers.
For this reason, the Navy quickly suspended the subsequent production of this class of ships and directly improved the design!
The improvement goal is very clear, that is, to increase ocean seaworthiness and cruising distance, for which speed and firepower can be sacrificed.
The improved frigate is called the Changshu-class frigate... It is said to be a frigate, but the actual tonnage has exceeded 1,000 tons, reaching 1,200 tons... In Europe at the same time, those were all The tonnage of the battleship.
The expansion of tonnage truly gave the frigate type of ship excellent ocean navigation and combat capabilities to meet the needs of the Dachu Empire's navy in the new era.
What are the needs of the new era?
That is ocean navigation and combat.
In the early days of the establishment of the Dachu Empire's navy, the operational waters were basically along the coast, and later expanded to the South China Sea. However, for a long time, the Dachu Empire's navy actually operated along the coast, and there were many naval bases nearby.
Until the Indian Strategy, the Dachu Empire's navy actually did not have high demands for ocean navigation and combat capabilities, which also affected later ship designs.
The early steamship designs of the Dachu Empire basically did not consider the cruising range of pure steam engines, and basically focused on simply increasing the speed.
However, after the Indian strategy was implemented, the Chu Empire's navy had to cross the Indian Ocean at every turn, and the maneuvering distance could easily be thousands of kilometers. In this way, those frigates of several hundred tons were no longer useful, and as large warships became larger, their sails were not enough. used.
Therefore, starting from this year, when the Navy designs warships, it has to pay attention to the pure steam engine power range of the warships.
In order to meet this requirement, it has become inevitable to increase the tonnage of the ship's hull and increase the amount of coal and water.
The improved design of the Changshu-class frigate will become the standard frigate mass-produced by the Dachu Imperial Navy in the following years, and will allow the frigates in the Dachu Imperial Navy to truly have the ability to sail and fight on oceans for the first time.
As battleships become larger and the construction cost of large-tonnage battleships increases significantly, the main battleships of the Chu Empire Navy in the future will still be composed of cruisers and frigates. As for battleships... the cost is high, and the most critical thing is excess combat power. , the Da Chu Empire Navy has slowed down the pace of building large-tonnage battleships.
After all, when you can use a frigate of about 1,000 tons to defeat the indigenous sail warships on the opposite side, you don't need steel battleships of 8,900 tons or even tens of thousands of tons.
Therefore, the Navy's shipbuilding focus in the next few years is actually not the battleships with an expected full load displacement of eight or nine thousand tons, but the cruisers of two to three thousand tons and the frigates of one thousand tons.
At the same time, the number of small warships of hundreds of tons will also be reduced. The main reason is that these small warships are not suitable for ocean navigation and combat, and it is useless to build too many.
In the future, only some small warships will be retained in the offshore and inland river fleets, but they will not be frigates, but offshore patrol ships and inland river gunboats, which are mainly used for offshore and inland river patrols in overseas areas, and land support artillery missions.
Looking at the shipbuilding direction of the Da Chu Empire Navy, especially focusing on ocean seaworthiness and endurance, it can basically be seen that the overall strategy of the Da Chu Empire Navy has changed. From the previous regional defensive navy Toward a global ocean-going offensive navy.
It also means that the Chu Empire is no longer limited to the colonial expansion in the nearby Southeast Asia region, but has set its goals for colonial expansion in India, West Asia, Africa and the Americas, and even the global region.
The day when the Chu Empire launched global colonial expansion was approaching.
Against such a backdrop, an exploration fleet of the Great Chu Empire navy that left Mumbai, India, also crossed the waters of North Africa and headed towards the southern part of the east coast of Africa!
They want to explore the sea conditions in the south and south of the East China Sea in Africa, and make preliminary preparations for the subsequent establishment of colonial strongholds in Africa, and even the eventual occupation of South Africa.
