Chapter 2808
"What a good thing! The power of this diesel engine should be much greater than the steam engine installed on the Majesty-class top, right?" Chen Yixin kept staring at the waves stirred up by the propeller on the sea, and asked Bai Kesi with envy.
Bai Kesi nodded and said: "The design power is nearly half greater than the Nanhai Type C steam engine used in the Majesty class. This ship is equipped with two units, which can easily increase the speed to more than fifteen knots."
Chen Yixin asked: "Has this thing been mass-produced? When can you arrange dozens of units for me?"
"Dozens of units? Even arranging just a few units is difficult!" Bai Kesi smiled bitterly: "At present, it can only be said that it is finalized, but it is still far from mass production. The processing technology is imperfect, the production cycle is long, the service life is short, and the operation The reliability rate is not enough, maintenance and repair are inconvenient, and there are still a lot of areas that need improvement. Moreover, this thing burns diesel, which means it relies much more on supply points than the steam power system, and it will be difficult to popularize it in a short time. .”
Chen Yixin smiled and said: "Otherwise, the Ministry of Industry will provide several diesel engines and installation plans, and I will pay to build a few new ships, which will be used as experiments for the new engines. At that time, the Ministry of Industry can also collect usage data and use to improve the process.”
Bai Kesi glared and said: "You are really good at calculating! This thing is not so easy to use in the north, especially in winter, it will be very difficult to start."
Chen Yixin said: "In this case, it is even more necessary to increase experiments in the northern region. This thing has been manufactured for so many years, can't it just be used in the south?"
Diesel engines are actually nothing new to Haihan. More than ten years ago, Yu Feng of the First Machinery Factory had already led a group of people to build a prototype, which was even made a headline in the Times at the time. Hot discussion.
In the following years, the Ministry of Industry built on this basis and successively manufactured diesel generators, diesel trucks, diesel tractors and other equipment, and naturally some of them were also used on ships.
But at the same time, the manufacturing precision and maintenance difficulty of diesel engine parts far exceed that of steam engines. In addition, special fuel is required, so the manufacturing and use costs have always been high, which is also far higher than that of steam engines. engine, which greatly increases the difficulty of promoting diesel engines in various fields.
Although diesel engines have been manufactured, they have not been widely used in the past ten years or so. Only some official organizations can use this type of equipment regardless of the cost. This, in turn, has resulted in limited R&D expenses for related projects, and therefore slow development of upgrades in manufacturing technology.
The main user of marine engines is of course the Navy. However, after weighing the comprehensive cost and reliability of use, the Ministry of National Defense does not want to replace diesel engines on a large scale in the new ships it builds. Instead, it prefers to use mature technologies and more reliable maintenance. Convenient steam power system. Until the production and operating costs of diesel engines fall significantly, steam power systems will remain the Navy's first choice.
Civilian ships are even less likely to use this high-cost power system. For merchants, the vast majority of goods transported by sea do not have strong timeliness requirements. The benefits brought by using engines to significantly increase the speed may not make up for the increased operating costs.
At present, only a few powerful shipping companies have begun to try to install steam power systems on newly built large sailing ships to run some relatively fixed long-distance routes with stable cargo volume.
Bai Kesi believed that this was because the northern region was too remote. Before that, Chen Yixin had not specially sent anyone to participate in the sea trials organized by the Ministry of National Defense. He did not know much about marine diesel engines, so he thought it was a good thing. . But he would soon discover that Chen Yixin's interest in diesel engines was not just for use in naval ships.
With the blessing of advanced power equipment, the ship left behind the other two escorting warships at extremely fast speeds. It only took half a day to sail from Zhifu Port to Penglai Port outside Dengzhou City.
The two diesel engines on the ship performed in good condition during this period without any malfunctions. This also greatly increased Chen Yixin's confidence in them, and he once again mentioned the Northern Fleet's proposal to introduce diesel engines to Baikes.
The Penglai Port currently used by Dengzhou City is actually the Shuicheng Military Port where the Dengzhou Navy was stationed. However, the establishment of the Dengzhou navy had already existed in name only during the Denglai Rebellion. After Haihan entered Fushan County, he would not allow it to revive again.
After the Qing army invaded Shandong in 1639, Haihan took advantage of the situation and began to openly take over the Dengzhou area from the Ming Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty still maintained its rule in a few states and counties such as Dengzhou City, it actually had no means to deal with Haihan's expansion measures from cannibalization to annexation, and could only watch the situation worsen step by step.
By around 1645, the Northern Region no longer recognized the legitimacy of the government agencies established by the Ming Dynasty in Dengzhou, and required agencies headed by the Dengzhou government office to hand over household registration and field records and other information to Haihan, and withdraw from the Dengzhou area within a time limit. Otherwise, force will be used to achieve the goal.
After procrastinating intermittently for another three years, the Ming Dynasty no longer had an organized armed force in this area. There were only a small number of armed servants affiliated with local officials, who were not a single enemy of the Haihan Army at all. Ming Dynasty realized that it could not regain the areas in Shandong that had been de facto occupied by Haihan, and the two sides finally reached a peace agreement through lengthy negotiations.
The Ming Dynasty transferred the governance of Denglai and Denglai states to Haihan in the form of "trusteeship" and evacuated all official personnel affiliated with the Ming Dynasty. At this point, Haihan had almost won control of the entire Jiaodong Peninsula without any bloodshed.
At this time, the administrative seat of the Northern Region has been set in Jinzhou. The core area in Shandong is the emerging seaport city centered on Majiazhuang and Zhifu Port. Chen Yixin is not interested in revitalizing Dengzhou, so this area is being planned. After returning to Haihan, there were no major changes in appearance, almost maintaining its original appearance.
Everyone landed from Shuicheng, passed through the Zhenyang Gate on the south side, and saw the adjacent Dengzhou City.
There is a moat between Shuicheng and Dengzhou City. As Chen Yixin walked, he introduced to Bai Kesi and Bai Letong: "In the Denglai Rebellion, the rebels led by Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde fought out of Dengzhou from here, holding hostage. The navy fled to Liaodong and surrendered to Hou Jin. After this battle, Shandong's vitality was severely damaged and it was no longer able to support the Ming army's anti-Jin war in the Liaodong Peninsula. You can see the damage and craters on the city wall here, which were caused by the fierce fighting at that time. The traces left behind.”
Bai Letong walked closer, and sure enough, the ruins left by the war could be seen everywhere on the city wall, with large craters as big as a washbasin. Thinking back to the fierce war situation back then, Bai Letong also truly felt the weight of history that words cannot express.
(End of chapter)