Chapter 309 An Invitation

In the face of Yu Mingjun's praise, the director of Qian readily accepted that this warship is his most proud work. At present, not to mention China, even no one in the world can surpass him. Because of this steam engine, he is very confident in this warship. Of course, the application of the steam engine to the warship was also taught by Liu Xia. Without Liu Xia's guidance, the ship he made was also a wooden sailboat.

"If the general is polite, how could such a magnificent steel ship be built without the guidance of the prince? I'm ashamed."

"Now there are still five warships under construction in the shipyard, one of which is 30 feet in size, and the other four are generally 20 feet in size with the warships received by the general. Now the keels of the five warships have been laid, but only two warships are installing steam engines. If all five warships are launched, it is estimated that they will wait until next year.

When Mingjun heard this, he frowned. Before the five warships came out, it meant that he had a warship in his hand. What should he do?

Director Qian seemed to understand Yu Mingjun's worries and smiled and said, "General doesn't have to worry at this moment. Although only one steel ship has been built now, he can collect some wooden sailboats from other places to serve as warships first. Moreover, there are not many pirates here. They also have a large number of wooden ships. The general might as well go ahead and seize it."

Yu Mingjun could only nod helplessly and said, "Director Qian said that. I plan to do the same. I just hope that Director Qian can complete the construction of the warship as soon as possible!"

"It must be." Director Qian said with a smile.

"This warship is equipped with two steel cannons in the front and a steel cannon in the back. Twenty artillery guns were installed on the left and right sides, a total of 40 guns. At the bottom of the cabin is the steam room, which needs to use some people to constantly burn coal to provide power. The middle floor is placed with musket elixir and the crew's dormitory. Each steel armor is two inches thick. Real steel monster, the hegemon in the sea.

"The construction of this warship has almost used up the steel of our steel mill, which is also the reason why the construction of other warships is relatively slow." The iron ship currently built is not an iron ship in the practical sense. Inside the iron ship, a huge wooden ship was first built and wrapped in steel on the outside of the wooden boat.

Director Qian kept explaining to Yu Mingjun the strength of the ship, and asked Yu Mingjun to hear admiration.

Yu Mingjun led the soldiers and walked around the steel giant ship for a long time, so that the soldiers were familiar with the environment of the ship. Then they went to the cockpit. The cockpit was a very important place. This warship was different from ordinary wooden sailboats. It was not driven by sails and oars, but by steam engines to generate power. , thus driving the turbine below, and the turbine rotates to make the ship move forward.

It is difficult for people without technology to control the ship. At present, the steam engine technology is still in the early stage, so it is relatively simple, and there are no complicated instruments. There is no need for particularly high technical content.

In the afternoon, several soldiers brought by Yu Mingjun understood the operation of the ship under the explanation of the engineers of the shipyard, so under the leadership of the engineers, the warship began its first maiden voyage.

Thick smoke rolled out of the high chimney, and slowly the huge ship began to move. But in a moment, the whole ship had moved out of the port and began to sail to the deep sea.

Yu Mingjun stood on the deck of the ship, looking at the endless blue sea in the distance, and the smoke canister with thick smoke behind him, and then looking at the huge wheel covered in steel armor, his heart was heroic.

"If such a steel giant ship collides with an ordinary wooden ship, won't it be able to smash the wooden ship directly?" Thinking of this, Mingjun's eyes lit up, but such a huge ship also has disadvantages. It is too big and clumsy to turn around.

The armored ship wandered around the sea for two or three hours, and finally sailed into the military port of the North Sea Fleet in Jiaozhou. As soon as it entered the military port, they only saw soldiers standing there. They were amazed at the armored ship one by one.

This is the first time they have seen a boat wrapped in iron, and they can move by themselves without sails or wooden oars.

This is the military port. Ordinary people can't get in, otherwise the military port will definitely be full of people watching the bustle.

Aren's cheers from the soldiers, the group on the warship waved their arms and walked down from the deck. All of them are full of smiles.

"General, what's the name of our warship?" A soldier came to Yu Mingjun and asked curiously.

Yu Mingjun was stunned. Just now, he was only happy and really didn't think of a name for the warship. He walked around for a while and said, "It's better to leave the name of this first warship to the prince." So Yu Mingjun immediately asked his own guard to rush to Luoyang. Ask Liu Xia for the name of the warship.

A few days later, the messenger came to Luoyang City and handed the letter to Liu Xia. Liu Xia looked at it, smiled and said, "This huge ship has been built, but it's a pity that I can't leave for Jiaozhou at this moment, otherwise I have to see what this ironclad ship looks like."

"The first warship is called the Zhenyuan Ship! Guard the distance for me, the number is 101. After saying that, Liu Xia wrote the name and number on the paper and sealed it.

"Come on, send this letter to Jiaozhou."

"Yes!"

A personal guard came in, took the envelope and walked down in a hurry.

"It seems that if you want to send such letters and documents to other places, you have to temporarily transfer personnel. It's not good! We have to build a postal system. Thinking of this, Liu Xia shouted to the guards outside, "Come on, come in."

"Go and ask them to come." With that, Liu Xia handed the personal guard a piece of paper with the names of several people written on it.

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However, it is said that since the railway from Luoyang to Yanshi was built and opened to traffic, in the past few days, the train of the Institute of Science and Technology can be seen running back and forth on this railway. From the first train to the two trains today, it goes back and forth from Yanshi and Luoyang. Yes, these are all experimental tests and do not carry idle people.

After a few days, Luo Chengxian finally calmed down, and all the locomotives and railway tracks along the way were checked and qualified. So he began to prepare to welcome Liu Xia to take the train. If Liu Xia takes this train, it will definitely push the train to the peak of public opinion, so that more people can understand the train.

Of course, there are also many people who want to find a way to get on the train and taste it. However, now Liu Xia has not taken the train. How dares Luo Chengxian let them board the train first? The reason why Luo Chengxian and others boarded the train was that they were the development team of the train and had to board the train to test the performance of the train. But ordinary people can't.

Even if they want to board the train, they have to wait until Liu Xia finishes sitting.

So Luo Chengxian refused the request of many officials. Those officials listened to Luo Chengxian's idea and stopped the idea of getting on the train first. These days, Liu Xia is equivalent to the emperor. How dare they cross Liu Xia?

When both trains returned to Luoyang Railway Station, Luo Chengxian asked the soldiers to decorate the train to welcome Liu Xia.

At the same time, the invitation to board the train with Liu Xia was also sent out. According to Luo Chengxian's arrangement, a train was dispatched on the same day, one train with six carriages, and one carriage could seat 100 people, that is to say, about 600 people. Among them, Liu Xia had to be alone in a carriage, and Liu Xia also needed to board the train with the guards to protect his safety. In this way, there are no less than 300 officials who can be invited.

These 300 people cannot be officials alone. It is also necessary to invite representatives of some officers in other armies, representatives of the families of some soldiers who died in the war, and representatives of officials. For future commercial use, Liu Xia also needs to invite some representatives of businessmen. Of course, in the end, Luo Chengxian randomly sent five invitations to the people in Luoyang City.

As soon as these five invitations came out, there was a huge wave in Luoyang City. Suddenly, the value of the invitation doubled, and some people even offered 100 silver coins to buy them, but none of the five people who received the invitations declared that they would sell.

Then on the black market, the price of an invitation continued to soar, and finally it even reached 1,000 silver coins.