Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

The so-called empire on which the sun never sets means that its colonies are distributed in twenty-four time zones around the world, and its territory is always under the rays of the sun.

Britain is not the first to receive the title of Empire on which the Sun Never Sets, that is an honor that belongs to Spain. After defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588, Britain replaced Spain as the emerging world hegemon.

By the beginning of the 19th century, during the Victorian era, the British Empire reached its peak. Nearly a quarter of the world's approximately 500 million people, 200 million of them, were subjects of the British Empire, and its territory reached approximately 33.67 million square kilometers. , accounting for a quarter of the world's total land area, from Asia to Africa, from Oceania to the Americas, there are British colonies.

Jevons, a famous British economist in the 19th century, described it this way: "The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields, Canada and the Baltic coast are our forest areas, Australia is our pastures, Peru is our silver mines, and South Africa is our silver mines. Australia and Australia are our gold mines, India and China are our tea plantations, the East Indies are our sugar cane, coffee, and spice plantations, and the southern United States is our cotton plantations." How glorious and powerful this is. .

The resources of these colonies were all transported to the country by sea transportation lines. It can be said that every sea transportation line was an artery of the British Empire and a lifeline related to the survival of the British Empire. Once these lifelines are cut off, it is not far from death.

"We will never surrender! Britain will never surrender! The Germans are trying to destroy us, Britain, and their conspiracy will never succeed! The ultimate winner is still the British Empire!" Churchill was on the radio station, foaming at the mouth and delivering a morale booster. speech.

Of course, no matter how eloquent he is in front of the radio microphone, the situation he faces still does not make people optimistic. After all, you will become decadent if you hide in a dark underground air-raid shelter every day.

It’s hard to see anyone on the streets of London because the V3 cannon has almost no guarantee of hit rate. Even the Germans don’t know where the shells will land, let alone the British. Maybe a cannonball will fall in front of you while you are walking on the road and blow you up into the sky. Or a cannonball penetrates the roof of your house and lands next to your pillow while you are sleeping.

What morale can there be to talk about under such circumstances?

Fortunately, if the Germans say they will attack London, they will attack London. The surrounding towns will not have any impact. Those with connections are trying to find ways to leave the city and escape to the countryside. Many wealthy people were fleeing north, on their way to Liverpool, where they hoped to get a boat ticket to Canada.

This kind of escape is similar to smuggling, because the British government has expressly prohibited civilians from escaping abroad. However, since only capable people can escape to Liverpool, not many people care about the so-called prohibition.

Just when Churchill was trying to cheer up the British people, who had already fallen into despair, somewhere in the North Atlantic.

On the submarine U-100, which is half-snorkeling and half-submersible, with only the bridge exposed on the sea surface, the captain Jogim Schepke is lying on the bridge using a periscope to look at the huge transport formation in the distance, thinking about how to eat it. This behemoth.

Because German submarines were becoming more and more rampant, in order to avoid the attacks of wolves, Britain tried to organize the transport ships returning from Canada into a large fleet, and then escorted it by destroyers, cruisers and even battle cruisers in an attempt to reduce its losses.

The German attacks never stopped, but no matter how powerful the wolf pack was, it was impossible for them to eat so many ships in one go. Although each transport formation suffered heavy losses, there were still more or less ships left to deliver supplies to the British mainland to subsidize their families.

Looking at the transport formation gradually moving away, Qiao Jim turned around and shouted an order into the cabin.

"Torpedo No. 4 launched!"

The first mate inside loudly repeated his order. "Torpedo No. 4 launched!"

At this time, the distance between the submarine and the transport formation was at least 15,000 meters; the range of commonly used German torpedoes during World War II rarely exceeded 10,000 meters.

The reason why Jojim ordered the torpedo launch was because they were equipped with a new type of torpedo.

In order to increase the range and power of a torpedo, it must carry more fuel and explosives, which will inevitably increase the size of the torpedo itself and affect its flexible use. On the contrary, the power of the torpedo cannot be exerted, resulting in putting the cart before the horse.

The best way to increase the sailing distance under the premise of a certain torpedo volume is to use a propeller with stronger power and better efficiency; thus, the "wet thermal power torpedo" came into being.

Since the early 20th century, torpedo experts from many countries have been mobilized to complete research on "wet thermal power torpedoes". However, they soon gave up the development of this "dream" weapon one after another.

The reason is simple - the propulsion principle of the "wet thermal power torpedo" is that the compressed oxygen in the gas tank enters the combustion chamber and is fully mixed with the fuel, so it is also called "oxygen power torpedo". As we all know, oxygen is a very dangerous gas. Combustion caused by pure oxygen in a small space can easily turn into a fatal explosion.

This "hot temper" has become the biggest technical difficulty in developing oxygen torpedoes. Serious explosion accidents have occurred in various countries during the development of oxygen torpedoes, which has made many technicians who pursue the dream of super torpedoes regretful.

Many countries gave up on the development of oxygen torpedoes after repeated setbacks, but the Japanese in the east persisted. However, they were also in the same predicament as other countries - unable to find a way to safely burn pure oxygen inside the torpedo.

But an accident gave the distressed torpedo technicians a glimmer of hope. In Showa 6 (1931), a gasoline tank explosion occurred on the seaplane carrier "Notoro" during a ship viewing ceremony held off the coast of Yokohama. When studying related preventive measures, it was discovered that the use of gasoline anti-riot agents can achieve good results. Effect. This made the torpedo design department shine. In previous oxygen torpedo experiments, once the air was mixed with more than 25% oxygen, it was easy to explode. What would happen if gasoline anti-riot agent was added?

Next, they discovered an interesting phenomenon: if the mixed gas of oxygen and atomized petroleum is ignited, an explosion will occur; but if the petroleum is ignited and then pure oxygen is blown in, it will not explode. This discovery is great news for the research community. As long as you understand this, the remaining problems will no longer be difficult.

The first experiment was conducted at the beginning of Showa 7 (1932). Researchers first introduced air into the combustion chamber, then sprayed out mist of oil and ignited it, and then blew in pure oxygen. Although it caused violent combustion, it did not Cause an explosion. This gives researchers more confidence.

In the second experiment, they mixed 50% oxygen and 50% air (the proportions of oxygen and nitrogen were 5% and 5% respectively) to form a compressed gas with a pressure of 195 kilograms per square centimeter, which was fed into the combustion chamber for ignition, and then Gradually increase the oxygen purity to achieve pure oxygen combustion. This time the structural strength of the combustion chamber has also been strengthened as the oxygen content has increased, and the volume has also increased. The experiment went surprisingly smoothly, the fuel burned stably and no explosion occurred.

In the days that followed, although they encountered some difficulties and setbacks, the technicians still worked hard to improve the technical details, such as the problem of delivering a mixture of oxygen and air into the combustion chamber. They added a small box next to the oxygen tank. In the starting combustion chamber (the volume is about 50 liters), oxygen is first mixed with air here, and then enters the main combustion chamber to mix and burn with atomized kerosene.