bookbashuk #297 - The Navy Started with RoRo Cargo Ships
#297 - The Navy Started with RoRo Cargo Ships
The following matters couldn't involve Li Yunlong anymore.
Hu Zi led the newly formed guard detachment, a full 500-man Dalian Shipyard Guard, drawn from the Qilu Military Region. They quickly entered the Dalian Shipyard via sea transport.
At this time, the Japanese had not yet understood the Eighth Route Army's strategy. Using this kind of factory guard detachment to control the Japanese engineers at the shipyard was to prevent the Japanese from reacting and preemptively targeting industrial facilities in the Northeast.
It wasn't just the shipyard; steel and machinery factories in other places followed the same model. New Anshan Steel Factory Guards, Benxi Steel Factory Guards, and others were also formed and began entering Liaoning Province to await takeover.
This Japanese approach wasn't particularly deliberate. Furthermore, the factory guard detachment was directly separated from the army, allowing Hu Zi complete discretion in managing the Japanese engineers!
This greatly reduced the difficulty of management. Initially, the Japanese couldn't be treated too humanely. After the factory guard detachment entered, the first thing they did was arrest all the Japanese.
Those who had committed heinous crimes involving human lives were directly executed by firing squad! This showed the remaining Japanese in the factory the consequences of wrongdoing.
Of course, the Japanese crimes were clearly stated, giving those among them who hadn't committed offenses a glimmer of hope, striving for the opportunity to redeem themselves.
Not only the Japanese, but also the original Chinese traitor managers in the shipyard were purged in the same way. Those who had committed numerous evils and whose facts were confirmed were directly executed!
Through this combination of beating and intimidation, even if the Japanese engineers had any ideas in their hearts, they wouldn't dare to cause trouble again. Hu Zi used this swift and decisive method to control the shipyard at once.
According to current needs, the shipyard began building 3,000-ton transport ships. However, these weren't ordinary transport ships, but were manufactured according to the roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) transport ship method familiar to Ren Zhong.
Given the current transportation situation, sea transport was far superior to land transport. Ro-Ro cargo ships were convenient for both military and civilian use. For military transport, tanks and artillery could be directly driven onto the ship.
For civilian use, it could also load anything, making it much more flexible than current simple cargo ships.
Of course, the shipbuilding wasn't done solely by the original personnel. The destroyer research personnel that Ren Zhong had organized in the early stages now smoothly and on a large scale moved in, beginning to absorb shipbuilding experience during the manufacturing process of this transport ship.
These people were mostly scholars, with only a small number having actual shipyard experience. Now, delving into the front line allowed them to quickly learn how to build a ship.
The blueprints for the Ro-Ro cargo ship and the destroyer were naturally genuine, high-quality items that Ren Zhong purchased from the main world. In terms of the power system, Ren Zhong chose the Sulzer ST70 6-cylinder 2-stroke diesel engine (700 mm bore, 990 mm stroke), with a single unit output of 3177 horsepower. This was technology from the 1920s. The patent purchase wasn't expensive, and the technology wasn't too sensitive, but the continuity of the technical route was strong. As the first marine diesel engine, Ren Zhong purchased it back through Mr. Chen overseas and, after improvements, would use it as an auxiliary engine on subsequent ships.
Although from the current perspective, the technology of this diesel engine was somewhat outdated, with mainstream large marine diesel engines generally reaching over 6000 horsepower, it was precisely because of this that Ren Zhong knew it was feasible to buy it back.
The domestic diesel engine research foundation he had now was too poor. Whether it was gasoline or diesel engines, the Liming Research Institute was still striving for experience in the range of several hundred horsepower.
Although the Sulzer ST70 6-cylinder 2-stroke diesel engine was somewhat wasteful on a 3,000-ton Ro-Ro ship, with poor fuel economy, this Ro-Ro ship wasn't an ordinary civilian ship. It also undertook the task of preliminary research for destroyers, so economic efficiency wasn't a major consideration.
As one of the two major global giants in marine diesel engines, Sulzer had a long lifespan in the main world, still being one of the top companies in the diesel engine industry in the 21st century. Following the Sulzer technical route would definitely not be a big mistake.
As for the fact that this ST70 and later models were no longer at the same technical level, there was no other way. The Liming Research Institute's diesel engine technology accumulation was currently too low.
They had only completed the initial imitation of tractor-level diesel engines. Although tens of thousands of diesel engines had now been produced and were being widely used in agricultural vehicles, that was, after all, the lowest-end diesel engine. The new series of 3-cylinder, 6-cylinder, 8-cylinder, and even 12-cylinder diesel engines currently being researched were either just producing samples or were still digesting the designs. Although the main-world diesel engines that Ren Zhong took out had general design data, the processing technology, basic environment, and materials were different. It would still take a lot of time to accumulate the experience needed to copy and shamelessly create diesel engines from small to large series. This couldn't be achieved overnight.
The journey for diesel engines, gasoline engines, steam turbines, gas turbines, and jet engine power, starting from scratch, was still long.
Only in this way could Ren Zhong hope to make the navy's huge money-burning bottomless pit smaller. After all, without R\u0026D costs to amortize, the price of the navy's destroyers, cruisers, and even aircraft carriers could be reduced by an order of magnitude!
The number of these ships was limited, and the high R\u0026D costs, when added on, made the price of each ship much higher than that of ordinary transport ships.
Therefore, Ren Zhong wanted to put many dual-use military-civilian technologies into civilian ships for research, and then amortize the costs through large-scale sales of civilian ships.
He knew that even if he defeated the Japanese devils, the remaining Shenzhou would still be a broken land!
Even if he maneuvered within it, racking his brains to solve the basic food and clothing needs of the Dragon Clan people first, there were still too many things to do to pull this nearly century-old, impoverished, and weak country into a modern industrial power.
Just one educational catch-up was not something that could be achieved overnight. Among the 400 million compatriots, the illiteracy rate was estimated to be as high as 95% or more.
Because according to the statistics of the main world, by 1952, when the first large-scale literacy campaign began, students who participated in literacy classes could receive a "Literacy Graduation Certificate" after recognizing hundreds of characters. At that time, statistics showed that 80% of the country's 550 million people were illiterate, and the illiteracy rate in rural areas was as high as 95% or more.
Ren Zhong's industrial development, although it seemed to be advancing by leaps and bounds in the base area, was actually far inferior to that of the rogue eagle, even less than a fraction of a fraction!
In 1944 in the main world, the rogue eagle's steel production reached 81.32 million tons, Germany only 18.31 million tons, John Bull 12.33 million tons, the Great Bear more than 10 million tons, Little Japan 5.91 million tons, and the Gallic Rooster 3.09 million tons. Thus, at the peak of the rogue eagle's power, its production of steel and crude oil exceeded 50% of the world's total.
So far, the base area's steel production capacity has not exceeded one million tons for more than a few days, and more importantly, more than half of the pig iron production capacity is uneconomical indigenous blast furnace ironmaking. Regardless of quality, environmental protection, efficiency, or economy, these are all negative numbers!
These can be used in desperate times, but once the transition from war to economic construction is made, all of these production capacities will have to be eliminated and rebuilt!
After all, this is not a sustainable development path.
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The disadvantages of indigenous blast furnaces are too many for Ren Zhong to accept at all.
These all take time and require a lot of infrastructure construction to catch up.
The larger the land left to Ren Zhong, the greater the difficulty in planning it.
Fortunately, he is no longer fighting alone. After traveling for a long time, Ren Zhong has a sense of belonging to this new world, and instead, he has basically little sense of existence in the main world.
The businesses he founded in the main world, due to a lack of attention, have slowed down one by one. Although they are not losing money, they still need to purchase the necessary technical information and materials for cross-world transactions.
It is no problem to support them. The things they are researching are also constantly being adjusted by Ren Zhong, in line with the technological development plan of the Bright Sword world. According to Ren Zhong's approach, in the main world, they should have been directly shut down.
But with Ren Zhong constantly providing subsidies, buying "outdated as soon as they are developed" technologies at a high cost, supporting the businesses run by several brothers, even if these companies are not doing too well, they cannot go bankrupt in the short term due to the continuous injection of research funds, with both advanced and backward research routes being carried out simultaneously.
Seeing his brothers working diligently, and Ren Zhong giving a relatively considerable amount of research funding, the company still has some profits. After the dividends, the brothers' annual salaries can be raised to 500,000.
It's not that Ren Zhong can't afford to give more money. He can now smuggle high-end jade and calligraphy from celebrities from the Bright Sword world, which are still scarce luxury goods in the main world. Selling some from time to time brings in hundreds of millions.
Supporting these few companies with controlled scale does not put too much pressure on Ren Zhong.
This is also why he can focus his main energy on developing the Bright Sword world.
The brothers meet his requirements wholeheartedly, without asking why.
Collecting and even researching many backward technologies is an extremely stupid thing in the eyes of outsiders, but the brothers don't care about these. They know that since Ren Zhong can take out a lot of money to pay for these, there must be Ren Zhong's own considerations behind what they don't understand.
Doing these things often has created a tacit understanding among the brothers.
That's why the technology iteration in Ren Zhong's Bright Sword world is so fast. After all, it is backed by a new world that is almost a century ahead.
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