Valley Emperor

Datang Chaobao also reported that, with the exception of the Jiangnan, the Datang Navy has initially completed the steaming improvement work, and more than half of the capital ships have been retrofitted with steam engines.

The current Datang Navy is fully capable of forming a huge steam fleet for expeditions. At the same time, this huge fleet is not affected by monsoons, wind directions, etc., and can move freely in any sea area around the world and at any time!

Such a huge steam fleet is enough to crush any enemy sea power that dares to resist!

In fact, this time, the Datang Navy also boasted a little in the public opinion propaganda!

Although the Datang Navy has carried out a large-scale steam engine modification project, in fact, so far, more than 50% of the workload has not been completed. On the one hand, the number of ships of the Datang Navy is too large. The output of military ship-based steam engines is limited, and there is only so little output in a year. It is impossible to complete the modification in just two or three years.

Even if we take 10,000 steps back and say that there is no problem with the production capacity of the ship's steam engine, the Navy does not need to worry about tasks such as combat readiness and duty, and it does not need to consider the number of slips, but the Navy does not have so much funding for a brief meeting!

How to change without money?

Ship-based high-power steam engines these days are very expensive!

The power system equipped on the Jiangnan uses four coal-fired boilers, two three-bar steam engines, and two-propeller propulsion. The total output power reaches 700 horsepower, which is more than the original design target of 600 horsepower. A hundred more.

However, although the total power is large, in fact the Navy is still very dissatisfied, because their initial design scheme is to use multiple coal-fired boilers, a single steam engine, and a single propeller propulsion scheme, and the output power should reach 600 horses. .

It is a pity that so far, although the Royal Institute of Technology has completed the research and development of the four-cylinder steam engine, and the technology of the three-cylinder steam engine is very mature, the success of research and development does not mean that it can be produced, and it can be produced. How many three-cylinder engines can be built is also a question.

At present, among the four major steam engine manufacturers in China, only the Naval Steam Engine Factory can mass-produce a high-power three-cylinder steam unit, which has the largest volume and weight, and is also the largest single-machine strategy, with a single-machine 350 horsepower.

As for the other three major manufacturers, their three-cylinder steam engines are not very neat, and the single-engine power is not even 300 horsepower.

However, the Naval Steam Engine Factory also invested heavily, and entrusted a number of domestic machinery and equipment manufacturers to design and build various large-tonnage production equipment for them to produce all kinds of huge parts, these huge The production equipment was not available before. If you want to do it, you have to start it from scratch, which costs a lot.

After these production equipment for naval steam engines are developed, it is estimated that larger three-cylinder steam engines can be produced. It is conservatively estimated that the power of a single engine can directly soar from the current more than 300 horses to more than 1,000 horses.

It is not the theoretical technology of steam engines that restricts the development of Datang's ship-based steam engines. These theoretical technologies have long been played by the Royal Institute of Technology. Now, the main constraints on the development of ship-based steam engines are production equipment.

The production equipment is not good enough, and the steam engine produced is not large enough, so the power will naturally not be large enough.

After all, if you want to increase the power of the steam engine, the easiest way to eliminate the storm is to increase the steam pressure or volume.

It's harder to increase the vapor pressure, and much easier to simply increase the volume.

Jiangnan uses the latest ship-borne steam unit of the Naval Steam Engine Factory, with a total output of 700 horsepower. This power output is enough to allow Jiangnan to sail without sailing.

And then get a huge tactical advantage in battle.

But when outsiders don’t know it, the coal consumption of the Jiangnan is also huge, and because the steam unit it carries is huge, and the hull uses a lot of steel, at the same time it has to retain the sail system and naval guns, which makes the Jiangnan able to There is not much tonnage to carry coal.

The coal it carries is at most just enough to keep the Jiangnan sailing for more than 1,000 kilometers.

More than 1,000 kilometers is only a capital ship for ocean-going operations, which is a very low value, which means that if the sail is purely used, in fact, Jiangnan will not be able to maintain a long continuous combat time.

Of course, the steam ships of the Tang Empire today, except for a very few ships that use pure steam engine power, most of the other steam ships retain sails.

In daily sailing, sails are still the mainstay, and steam power is only used to assist navigation, mainly when entering and leaving the port.

Only when the battle breaks out will the steam engine be the main driving force, allowing the warship to gain higher speeds, independent of the wind direction!

The endurance of pure steam power is poor, which is the fault of the steam battleships of Datang now.

In addition, among the steam warships that the Datang Navy has completed so far, most of them are only equipped with twin-cylinder steam engines, and the power of a single machine generally does not exceed 200 horses.

Only a very small number of them were equipped with three-cylinder steam engines, including only a dozen or so Jiangnan.

This is because in these years, the four major steam engine manufacturers in the empire have been able to mass-produce only two-cylinder steam engines. The mass production of three-cylinder steam engines was completed by the Navy Steam Engine Factory last year, while other manufacturers do not have this capability yet.

Those early steam engines had less power, poor endurance, and many failures and various faults.

Use as auxiliary power in wartime is enough, but if you want to use it as main power, don't count on it.

However, many technical details are naturally not disclosed by the Navy to make the public worried. It is enough that people are willing to listen to it. For some technical details, the Navy needs to know it internally, and there is no need to announce it to the public.

So what people see is that the Datang Navy has a huge steam fleet, and can fight for the empire at any time!

At the same time, the army is not to be outdone. It also said that the army of millions of troops will die for His Majesty at any time. In the small area of ​​Malacca, the army can send a division at will, and it can be taken down in three to five days. The first day Prepare, test firepower on the second day, attack on the third day, finish on the fourth day, and end all battles on the fifth day. This is the Malacca battle plan that the army has advertised to the outside world!

Well, the army is also bragging. If you send a random division, you can take down Malacca in five days, which is too underestimated by the Portuguese.

If the army sent a main infantry division over, it would be possible to take down Malacca, but it would take more than five days. It is estimated that the setting of artillery positions and the preparation of materials would take more than five days.

You must know that the Portuguese are not fools. They have long known the danger of Malacca. In order to prevent the Tang Empire from attacking Malacca for more than ten years, they also spent a lot of effort on the defense of Malacca.

By forcibly recruiting local natives for many years, they built cities and forts in Malacca, and especially learned the bastion defense system of the Tang Empire, and built Malacca into a huge bastion.

If Melaka was just an ordinary colonial port more than ten years ago, now, Malacca is a typical military fortress!

The Portuguese stationed more than 3,000 native troops in Malacca all year round, in addition to more than 5,000 indigenous troops.

It is worth noting that most of these indigenous troops came from various Portuguese colonies such as India or North Africa. After being recruited and trained by the Portuguese, and then equipped with guns and other weapons, their combat effectiveness cannot be judged by the army of ordinary indigenous people. of.

In addition to the 8,000 ground troops, the Portuguese also stationed a huge fleet in Malacca. There were many battleships over 1,000 tons, and there were even more battleships with smaller tonnages.

In the real fight, although it is said that in the face of the almost overwhelming military advantage of the Datang Empire, it is unlikely that the Portuguese will be able to hold Malacca, but no matter what, it will not be impossible for five days.

But by belittling the enemy and elevating oneself, it helps the people build confidence in the military.

When people think that the Portuguese military power is nothing but slag, vulnerable to the imperial military, they will have no worries.

When the final publicity was in progress, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Empire had also completed the task entrusted to them by the Son of Heaven!

When the Malacca shelling incident first broke out, they submitted a protest to the Portuguese for the first time~www.wuxiaspot.com~ and asked the Portuguese to hand over the murderer who provoked the incident and handed over to the Datang Empire to deal with it. At the same time, in order to prevent this kind of It will come later and demand that the Portuguese withdraw all military forces in Malacca, destroy the forts, and demolish the bastion walls!

At the same time, the Portuguese are required to compensate the empire for the loss of the Malacca shelling incident, with a specific amount of 10 million yuan, some of which are for the cost of compensation for ships and goods, some for the military expenses incurred by the Datang Navy for rescue activities, and some for personnel pensions. The expenses also include the indirect expenses incurred by the Datang Empire for this matter.

In short, using various names, we have collected a compensation amount of 10 million yuan!

Finally, the king of Spain was asked to apologize to the Tang Empire in the form of a formal diplomatic document, and to send the crown prince of Spain to Jinling City with the apology letter in person.

In order to prevent similar incidents from happening again, the crown prince of Spain should take Jinling City as a hostage until the current king of Spain dies and returns to the country to inherit the throne, and then sends the crown prince to the Tang Empire as a hostage.

To put it simply, there are four points, indemnity, withdrawal of troops from Malacca, apology from the King of Spain, and the Crown Prince of Spain to Jinling as a pledge.