Chapter 620 Night Battle Unparalleled 2

Dalian.

In the harsh sound of brakes in the morning, Commander Long jumped off the jeep and jumped out of the car with an unhappy face and walked to the depths of the shipyard.

The rumble machine sound opened a busy day in this emerging city. Because this is the emperor's hometown and the first stop after he returned from wandering for many years, many Chinese people regard this place as the land of Longxing. In addition, the Naval Academy, Ocean University and other institutions are also built here, so there are a large number of young people every year. People come here to study and work, so that the population of this largest seaport city in the north has quickly exceeded one million.

The population has promoted the rise of industry and commerce. As the maritime industry begins to expand at an unprecedented rate, its unique geographical advantages make it a necessary place to enter and exit the north of Xinhua.

With the beginning of the war, it became more and more busy. From the initial chaos to now, each perform its duties in an orderly manner, like a clock with a clockwork.

Its most representative surnames are the aircraft factories and shipyards that have been renovated and expanded from the original airship factory.

Dalian Aircraft Manufacturing Plant does not produce the whole machine, but specializes in manufacturing wings and tail rudders. Now it can provide 1,000 sets of wings and rudder accessories to the final assembly plant in Fengtian every year, and then assemble it to become a qualified military aircraft.

There are many factories like this across the country, such as wing-making, internal equipment, wheels, fuel tanks, etc., and then transported to the five major assembly plants by train to assemble, forming a flowing industrial chain.

Although the scale of these factories is not large, some of them even have only a hundred workers, but these dense small factories all over the country can now provide more than 400 various aircraft to front-line soldiers every month. As the workers become more and more proficient, this number is still soaring.

So both the Ministry of Equipment and the Ministry of Industry once proudly patted their chests and boasted that as long as they were given another year, the annual output of 8,000 aircraft was as simple as filling sausages.

However, compared with the shipyard, the output of aircraft cannons is really small. Every day, it carries all kinds of large-scale cargo ships in and out of the shipyard, and builds a larger industrial chain.

10 boiler factories, 8 steam turbine factories, more than 60 smelters, forging plants, and more than 600 other parts factories are distributed in 19 provinces across the country. Then a huge shipbuilding line has been built through railway and sea transportation. From today, these forces will come together to build only one ship.

Chinese wheel!

Five strange-looking, even ugly large cargo ships lay quietly in the bay, and the flashing arcs on the deck from time to time told everyone that the work was still going on.

"Tang Xiao, Zichen, is this the Chinese wheel? Why is it so ugly? If the construction time is so short, will there be a problem?!" Long Guozhang frowned and looked at the five strange and ugly cargo ships. He was neither excited nor at ease.

What's excited is that this 10,000-ton wheel, named China Wheel, adopts the flowing and standardized process that has been promoted many years ago, and has brought this process to the extreme. The design department has also made a lot of optimizations, removing all unnecessary internal structures and decorations, simplifying the industry, shortening the process, and putting it completely The riveting process is abandoned, all electric welding is used, and steam turbines and boilers are used on the cargo ship for the first time, so that this 10,000-ton wheel only takes 150 days from laying the keel to completion.

At that time, after this data was submitted, everyone thought it was impossible. Long Guozhang even thought that they were crazy. You know, the time to build a 10,000-ton ship was about the same as that of a Weiqing-class destroyer. Xinhua took about 280 days, but now it has been directly shortened by half, and The occupation time of the dock has been shortened from 4 months to 50 days.

What does this mean?

It means that Xinhua has a total of 120 docks in China that can build 10,000 tons of ships. Except for military and other uses, the rest are used to build such ships, that is, nearly 500 Chinese ships can be launched in a year!

No one believes that it will take about 240 days for the strongest United States to build a 10,000-ton ship. Only Li Mo and the designer in the whole country firmly believe that it can be built in 150 days, and it can also ensure that it can meet the requirements of navigation under Level 4 sea conditions. Even McKinson said that if he hadn't considered skilled workers. Due to factors such as practice and quantity, the construction speed can be reduced by half.

Crazy!

Long Guozhang sprayed with him at that time. Finally, he saw that his son married his daughter, so he did not fight with his in-laws in the new garden. However, the two also made a bet, that is, to make a batch to try. If it could not be completed, McKinson said that he would marry his second daughter to the Long family.

Li Mo smiled and asked Chen Ping to allocate ten ships for trial construction of ten ships from the order of naval transport ships.

"In 143 days, the first three ships, all of which have passed the sea test and met the design requirements." Tang Xiao laughed while talking, because it was said that if Commander Long lost, he needed to pay a year's salary to invite McKinson and all the designers of the ship design department to have a big meal.

"Isn't it wrong?"

"No, all the construction records from the first day of laying the keel to today are on it." Huang Zichen also smiled and stuffed all the construction records to Long Guozhang. With a year's salary, Long Da's stingy door was finally about to bleed.

The cunning corners of the mouths of the two made Long Guozhang's face turn green. Unexpectedly, he was short of chess. No wonder the eyes of the emperor were wrong at that time. He dared to be cheated!

However, on the other hand, it is really cost-effective to get such a 10,000-ton ship that can be built in only 143 days with a year's salary. At present, the biggest problem bothering Xinhua is logistics transportation.

There is manpower, resources, and there is no shortage of factory workers. The only thing is logistics transportation! Except for the pure railway in the northwest, from Alaska to Panama, from Luzon to Australia, and from Singapore to the Persian Gulf, all of which are long-distance transportation routes. All fronts need to cross the ocean, and having a strong maritime transportation capacity is the most urgent need.

Now that there is the China Wheel, it only takes more than a year to really look forward to landing in the United States.

"Ha ha, Commander Long, don't worry, the emperor has urged the Prime Minister's office. The first order of 2,000 ships has been placed at various shipyards a month ago. You can't keep your annual salary."

"Punnie."

"Xiao Ma, drive, let's go to Huludao!"

In the laughter of everyone, Long Guozhang just got into the jeep and was ready to go to Huludao and pinch McKinson again. By the way, he cashed the gambling money, but before the car started, he was stopped by the accompanying guards.

"Commander, Chief of Staff Cheng called and asked you to return to the military headquarters immediately, saying that it was urgent!"

"A hundred thousand in a hurry?" Long Guozhang raised his eyebrows. He knew that Cheng Biguang was calm, careful and enthusiastic, and he was rarely anxious when he encountered things, so it was absolutely a big deal for him to say this.

After returning to the headquarters, Long Guozhang knew that the matter was very serious.

A fleet that had just set sail from Chile and transported 27,600 tons of copper ingots was attacked, and the four escorted guard class was also attacked. Two of them sank, and two of them narrowly escaped to the port of Guayaquil. One of them was still very seriously damaged and was basically scrapped.

This is a serious matter. The Cologne Islands have just been taken, and Peru and Ecuador have just joined the alliance as partners. The South American route has been reopened for less than half a month. At this time, it was suddenly attacked, which is undoubtedly a slap in the face of the Xinhua Navy!

"Submarine or surface ship? Do you know the identity of the attacker?

"The attack took place at night. It can be confirmed that it was a surface ship, but it was too dark to see the specific type of warship. However, the surviving captain said that there were at least two battleships. The main gun should be a 380mm heavy gun with a speed of at least 26 knots, and several of the cruisers were very fast, as if they had just arrived. The Bristol-class light cruiser in Australia.

"Battleship? 380mm heavy gun?!"

Long Guozhang was also shocked. Finally, he knew why the attack of a fleet made Cheng Biguang react so much, and why he also knew why the four destroyers were killed and two wounded. For the capital ship that can fire from 20,000 meters away and reach a speed of 26 knots, even if the destroyer can find the other party, it is no different from the target. Moreover, the other side is protected by the British new Bristol-class light cruiser.

"Can you verify your identity and know that it's the two battleships?"

Cheng Biguang shook his head: "I have talked to the Intelligence Department and the Military Intelligence Bureau on the phone. They said that they have not found any mobilization of battleships equipped with 380mm main guns recently. They confirmed once three days ago that there was no sign of leaving, but they have gone to review it again."

"That's weird."

Long Guozhang frowned. He believed that it was not so easy for the Intelligence Department and the Military Intelligence Bureau to mobilize battleships to hide them from others. What's more, there are only a few warships installed in the Allied countries of 380 mm (15 inches), which are rare in number. They are already listed as targets of high concern, and the intelligence department has to verify every three days. Repeat the news that these big guys are there.

"Where did these two capital ships come from? Did the captain of the destroyer identify it wrong? Long Guozhang shook his head. His captain knew very well that distinguishing the type of naval gun by his ears is a basic subject. The largest caliber in Australia's Allied Fleet is the 305mm gun. The sound of this kind of shell roaring is different from 380mm, which can be distinguished by ordinary people with a little training.

Three days ago, it was confirmed that A and other targets were there, and it was impossible to fly to Australia in three days. So what kind of warships are these two?

"Report, the Creutz base telegraph, at 11 o'clock last night, seven cruisers suddenly attacked my patrol ship on the outskirts of Gilbert Island, causing minor injuries to one of my Weiqing-class destroyers. The two enemy cruisers were hit by fire and immediately withdrew from the battlefield without entanglement."

"Report, at 12 o'clock last night, my transport fleet to Nauru was attacked, and the escort battleship Jilin was shelled. Captain Liu reported that there were at least two new battleships in the enemy fleet, but because the specific model could not be distinguished in the dark, and the enemy ship left without entanglement after the Jilin opened fire."

"Ha ha, ha ha!"

"Good, bang!" After a few laughter, Long Guozhang suddenly patted the table, and his eyes flashed: "Night battle, good, good tactics, then let's have fun!"

(to be continued)