Demoness, Where Are You Fleeing To?

The Artifact Alliance struggled to repair the first 'Cloud Warship' and spent countless twists and turns.

They spent less than half a year just to figure out the structure of this battleship and make drawings.

However, on the second ship, the repair speed of the battleship suddenly accelerated.

Although the damage to the second battleship was more serious, it only took six months for the Artifact Alliance to repair the battleship to its original appearance.

This is because the Artifact Alliance already has experience in repairing it once, and the second reason is that the middle-class layman handed over the complete battleship blueprint to Li Xuan.

He also maintained a team of craftsmen overseas, with a total of more than 900 weapon refiners and senior craftsmen, all of whom were donated to Li Xuan.

There is nothing he can do if the middle-class layman refuses to give them away. He has no spare funds to support these people, and he has no ambition to start building the "Battleship in the Cloud" again. .

The addition of these craftsmen allowed the Artifact Alliance to build guns and artillery and repair warships at a speed that was suddenly accelerated.

Leng Yurou even repaired the two main guns with a range of 120 miles at the bows of the two warships under the orders of the imperial court.

She offered a sky-high price of eight million taels for this, but the court still gritted its teeth and accepted it. Just because currently, only the Artifact Alliance has this technology,

The rebels of King Yi built layers of fortifications in Shaanxi, causing the Jin soldiers there to complain endlessly.

Although they suffered few casualties, they continued to dig tunnels, blast, dig tunnels, and blast.

The imperial court also invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in money and food every day for this war.

They are in urgent need of heavy hammers like the Yunzhong Battleship to break open the turtle shell of King Yi's army.

The first thing Li Xuan saw was the sea trial of the second Yunzhong warship, the Yongle, and then the test firing of the main guns of the two warships.

The result was not bad. Although the Yunzhong Battleship's Five Elements Hunyuan Formation could not be used, the effective siege range of the two main guns still reached the expected 120 miles. The Artifact Alliance did not disappoint the court.

Their power also satisfied the personnel of the Ministry of War. Li Xuan expected that a city wall of Xiangyang's size could only withstand the continuous bombardment of a hundred cannons.

Only this shell is a bit expensive, similar to the electromagnetic gun, one shot costs 30,000 taels.

To knock down the Xiangyang city wall, three million taels of silver would be needed, not counting the repairs to the city wall by the defenders.

Li Xuan deeply understood the behavior of his sisters-in-law Su Zhaojun and Leng Yurou. They even had dark hearts.

After watching the main gun fire of the two Yunzhong battleships, Li Xuan went to Peacock Villa to open a workshop in Tianjin.

In the nearby shipyard, six armored steam warships customized by the imperial court are being built in full swing.

These steam warships that sail on the water are much cheaper. The total cost of the six ships is only 6.8 million taels, and they are expected to be delivered early next year.

Li Xuan was also very concerned about these armored battleships, and he went over to take a look.

These six armored battleships are completely different from the previous 'steam propeller ship' built by the Artifact Alliance to verify technology.

Although they also have wooden hulls, their displacement is as high as 55,000 tons, which is 5,500 tons.

The sides of the hull are also covered with a layer of four-inch-thick iron armor, and the iron armor below the waterline is even thicker, reaching five inches and five centimeters - this is to defend against those large sea beasts underwater. Their lethality is far greater than that of artillery fire.

The entire ship is fueled by coal, powered by steam engines, and driven by propellers. Each warship is equipped with one hundred and twenty-six cannons, large and small, and thirty gunpowder-launched harpoons - the latter is also specially used to attack sea beasts.

However, the Ministry of War still had doubts about the reliability of propellers and steam power. When designing the drawings, it strictly ordered the Artifact Alliance to preserve the sails.

The construction speed of the Artifact Alliance is extremely fast, and these six huge battleships have already taken shape, and they have an extremely majestic image.

The one who presided over the construction of these six warships was Mo Changsheng, an external elder of Peacock Villa, who had recently joined the Artifact Alliance incognito.

He was extremely honored and proud to be in charge of the construction of such an epoch-making warship.

"——Since ancient times, although there have been ships covered with iron armor, they have basically been covered with a layer of iron. Before today, there had never been such a huge hull or such thick armor. The key is It can also run at a speed that is not inferior to that of a horse-drawn carriage on the sea.”

After Mo Changsheng explained to Li Xuan excitedly, he sighed with regret: "It's a pity that the courage of the princes in the court is still insufficient. As long as there are thirty such warships, our Jin Dynasty will be invincible on the sea. It is enough." Sweeping across the entire South Ocean! Even those large sea beasts have to stay away."

Li Xuan thought that this was a good idea, but the problem was that the court could not afford so much money now.

According to the wishes of several auxiliary ministers, they did not want to build any of them. These six armored ships were already the result of Li Xuan's efforts against all opinions.

Those auxiliary ministers did not care much about the navy, but Li Xuan knew how huge the benefits overseas were.

——In Yizhou alone, they only need to solve the problem of miasma and epidemic diseases to resettle tens of millions of people.

The annual trade in Nanyang has always been calculated in tens of millions of taels. In the future, even if the Jin Dynasty only charges "escort fees", it will bring more than 30 million taels of income to the court a year.

But Li Xuan now also has no intention of spending the limited funds of the imperial court on shipbuilding.

He thought, why build so many wooden-hulled steamships?

Six ironclad ships are enough for the transition, and the Fuchuan gunboats of the Nanyang Navy are enough to cope with any war in Nanyang.

The Artifact Alliance is already developing more powerful steam engines and powerful retractable artillery. If we want to build it in the future, we still have to build fully armored warships.

In this magic world, fully armored battleships do not have any technical problems.

Afterwards, Li Xuan, accompanied by Mo Changsheng, walked around these unfinished battleships.

Dugu Biluo, who accompanied him, was amazed by these majestic armored warships.

But in later generations, Li Xuan had even seen aircraft carriers with a displacement of tens of thousands of tons, and his impression of this kind of ironclad ship was just average.

Next are the five cloud warships that have just begun to lay their keels. The Artifact Alliance casts these warships not in the dock, but in the large workshop next to them. They spent a lot of money to build five huge slipways.

The ship's keel is actually nothing to look at, but this time Leng Yurou adopted Li Xuan's suggestion and used an alloy assembled keel, which greatly reduced the cost of the Yunzhong battleship.

But Leng Yurou had no idea, because ships in the past had to cut down those huge trees that were hundreds of years old and used them as keels. Never before have they cast parts out of alloy and then assembled them into a whole.

You need to know that the keel is the core of the entire ship and is related to the success or failure of a warship.

Although they are building a floating battleship, the keel is still very important. It is the structure and component that bears the greatest stress.

Li Xuan came over today, firstly to see the laying and assembly of these alloy keels, and secondly to watch the strength test hosted by Leng Yurou.

As the leader of the Mo Sect, Mo Changsheng is also very interested in this.

He has little interest in the 'Battleships in the Cloud' itself, simply because these battleships have nothing to do with machinery and equipment.

Mo Changsheng believed that they were enlarged versions of the flying boats and flying shuttles of the Immortal family. They were the crystallization of the immortal talisman array and weapon refining techniques, and the mechanical equipment was only an auxiliary.

Its overall technology has little to do with Momen's main attack direction.

Only this 'assembled keel' and the five 'super electromagnetic guns' that Leng Yurou planned to place on the bow of the battleship as the main gun had some technical content.

Since Li Xuan arrived very late, most of the keel assembly in the workshop has been completed.

What he saw here was a magical scene. A dozen powerful magicians were assembling the parts into place one by one under the command of Leng Yurou.

In later generations, heavy alloy castings that required various instruments to be installed could be completed by a dozen magicians in this world, and the speed was very fast. It was expected that the installation would be completed in the early morning.

Li Xuan was not idle after arriving, taking a tape measure to measure everywhere.

He had seen the keel drawings designed by the Artifact Alliance and knew the dimensions of each component clearly.

What makes Li Xuan happy is that the accuracy of these alloy castings is up to standard and completely consistent with the design drawings. It is expected that there will be no major problems with the keel.

Unfortunately, the Artifact Alliance failed to go further on this basis.

Sure enough, when the dragon bone was assembled and many magicians from the Artifact Alliance tested various spells under the auspices of Leng Yurou, Leng Yurou walked over to Li Xuan very excitedly.

"Exceeds expectations! The overall strength of the alloy keel is more than twice as strong as the original keel cast from 'black hemlock', and its resistance in all aspects is also stronger, and the weight is 30% lighter. Our previous design was too conservative, and these five The size of the ship can actually be increased a lot.”

——The key is actually the cost. A "black hemlock" that is 1.5 meters long costs more than 3.4 million taels. There are only a few in the entire Dajin area.

A warship in the clouds must use four of these 'black hemlocks'.

But their alloy assembled keels, although the various materials used are also expensive, their total price is less than one million taels.

This can reduce the cost of five Yunzhong battleships from the original exaggerated 22 million to less than 10 million. Even if the electromagnetic main gun on the bow is added, the cost will not exceed 14 million.

"It's such a fantastic idea."

Mo Changsheng's eyes also shone: "Mo thought that this method could also be used on future armored battleships. What a pity, what a pity!"

He regretted that Li Xuan should have figured out this method long ago, otherwise the six armored ships he built would have saved more than 500,000 taels.

Li Xuan smiled sarcastically. He had never thought of assembling the keel.

Saving money for the court and saving money for yourself are not the same thing.

He was also in high spirits and delighted with his wallet.

But what Li Xuan is most concerned about now is the completion time: "Yurou, I want to know if these battleships can be completed within six months?"

Leng Yurou was stunned for a moment: "Is this too fast? Normally, this would take at least a year, and then there would be a trial period."

The construction of these five air battleships is not as simple as those armored ships.

"One year is too long!" Li Xuan frowned and shook his head: "I can only give you seven months at most. I have great use for these battleships."

Otherwise, why would he invest nearly 80 million taels in building these five Yunzhong heavy ships?

Leng Yurou wondered why Li Xuan was so impatient. Was it because he wanted to attack Jinque Tiangong? Or a decisive battle in Xi'an?

With five warships in the cloud and five electromagnetic guns with a range of 180 miles, it seemed that they were not ready enough to attack Jinque Tiangong.

It's enough to attack Xi'an, but Li Xuan is too willing to devote himself to the affairs of the court, right?

Another strange thing is that due to the expected higher strength of the alloy assembled keels, the volume of the five cloud battleships of their Artifact Alliance is 20% larger than the original version of the mid-level layman.

But most of this redundant volume was used by Li Xuan to enhance the seaworthiness of the Yunzhong battleship.

This can even allow five cloud battleships to sail in the legendary infinite space——

Leng Yurou thought about it carefully and agreed: "I'll try my best, but we don't have enough craftsmen. I may have to recruit people from the Ordnance Supervision and the Internal Weapon Staff Bureau."

These two imperial agencies maintained a large number of skilled craftsmen, but due to various reasons, they were unable to use their abilities.

Leng Yurou has coveted these people for a long time, but she didn't dare to poach them for fear of the court's opinion.

When Li Xuan heard this, he laughed dumbly: "Go and dig, just dig! Whatever happens, I will take care of it. As long as you can dig someone out, I will help you get rid of your craftsmanship."

He knew that many craftsmen in the Ordnance Supervision and the Internal Weapon Staff Bureau, no matter how superb their craftsmanship, could not earn more than a hundred taels a month. UU reading www. uukanshu.net

So many people obviously have good craftsmanship, but the things they build are shoddy.

In Li Xuan's opinion, this is simply a waste.

Taizu and Taizong of the Jin Dynasty only wanted to save money, but the method they adopted was exactly the most expensive.

Mo Changsheng, who was next to him, frowned worriedly when he heard this.

It was already taboo for Li Xuan to build the 'Battleship in the Cloud' without telling the court, and now he actually had to recruit people from the court's weapons supervisor.

Mo Changsheng thought that none of the powerful officials in ancient times did this.

He was worried about this. It was rare for Momen to see such an open-minded official in the imperial court. Li Xuan even tacitly allowed them to recruit disciples in the name of training craftsmen.

Mo Changsheng was worried that this backer would be criticized by the government and the public and eventually fall.

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