In the 12th year of Guangxu, Chen Zhen, who was studying in the United States and working with others to build submarines, returned to his country after five years of absence at the invitation and persuasion of Zhang Yinhuan, the ambassador to the United States. The person who came back with him was John Holland, an Irish man who developed and built submarines with him in the United States.

At that time, John Holland had already parted ways with the "Fenia Society" that originally funded him for submarine research. When he just lost the funding of the "Fenia Society", Holland had to temporarily stop the submarine research in order to survive and worked as a tracing officer at a gas gun company. But at this time, Chen Zhen came to the United States and found him. With Chen Zhen's strong support, Holland established the "Anal Fish Submarine Company". Afterwards, artillery captain Zalinsky also joined in, and they built the submarine Zalinsky together.

In 1886, when the "Zalinsky" was built and launched, the entire boat was destroyed due to the collapse of the slide. At this time, the "Anal Fish Submarine Company" was on the verge of bankruptcy. At this time, Zhang Yinhuan found Chen Zhen. Chen Zhen, who was about to be desperate, received support from the motherland, so he decided to return home without hesitation. John Holland, who had no source of income at that time, followed.

Chen Zhen and Holan returned to China and received strong support from the Qing government. The court set up a laboratory in the Summer Palace, which was very suitable for these two people. Three years later, some new people were added to the laboratory, including the Spanish Navy Captain Neymar Isaac Berl who was excluded by his boss in China. However, scientific research was not smooth. Although the three of them devoted themselves to the research of submarines, they did not receive the desired results. The reason was that the key link was stuck in two aspects.

The first is the power problem of the submarine. Without proper power, the battery life of the submarine, especially the submarine's submarine's time will become extremely short, and in war, it is useless to sprint dozens of nautical miles at a time. But if you don't consider submarines, then is the so-called submarine still valuable?

The second bottleneck is the attack method. In today's world, there are only three types of attack methods that can be used: artillery, torpedo, and mines. Needless to say, any gunboat does better than a submarine; torpedoes are subject to the horizontal control ability and range of torpedoes, and cannot be used; the only thing left is mines.

Secret mine laying through submarines is indeed a better way to block the enemy's port, but in this way, I went back again - how can submarines without endurance and submarine ability lay mines at the enemy's military port?

But all this began to change in the 16th year of Guangxu.

This year, a young man from the United States tried to use a thermal engine to drive the torpedo, and at the same time, he installed an azimuth gyroscope in the torpedo to control the torpedo - that is, a wheel with a diameter of 3 inches and a weight of 1.75 pounds is built into the balance ring of the torpedo shaft. The speed before the torpedo is launched is 2,400 rpm, ensuring that the torpedo is in a straight line after being launched, but does not affect the torpedo speed.

With the adoption of these two technologies, the Qing Dynasty's torpedo technology has made leap forward since the 17th year of the Guangxu period. With more abundant attack methods, the value of submarines will become more obvious. Later, Chen Zhen and his team launched a new submarine.

The submarine's displacement is 260 tons, and it uses two powers: gasoline engine and rechargeable battery. When sailing on the water, the gasoline engine can provide a flight time of one thousand nautical miles, which is much higher than the previous submarine's endurance. However, the flight time when sailing underwater is still not satisfactory, only fifty nautical miles. However, even so, a submarine equipped with a new attack torpedo is still a new naval combat weapon.

However, this little achievement could not touch Emperor Guangxu's heart. Later, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, and the Qing court focused all its energy on the war. Submarines were stopped because they could not form combat power in a short period of time, and all their remaining manufacturing capabilities were used to produce torpedoes.

After the war, Zai Tian restarted the submarine project and moved the submarine's test base to Qingdao. In the 21st year of Guangxu, the No. 1 workshop of Qingdao Shipyard once again ushered in a person who was crucial to the development of submarines: Nikola Tesla.

The experiences of heroes always seem to be surprisingly similar, all of which fell on the hurdle of "money". The so-called money stumped the hero. At that time, Tesla, who had a lot of status, was suppressed by Edison because of competition with Edison for "DC" and "AC" in the world's leading inventor, big entrepreneur Edison, and even implicated his friends and were on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to save his friends, and also save himself, Tesla had no choice but to accept Zaize's conditions and came to China to serve the Qing Dynasty for five years.

Tesla's arrival immediately solved the problem of battery - they were born with electric power. Later, at Tesla's suggestion, they replaced the unstable gasoline engine with a relatively stable diesel engine, that is, they used diesel engines and electric motors as the power source of the submarines. In the 22nd year of the Guangxu period, they built the second experimental submarine - Assassin 2.

Assassin II achieved unprecedented success. Its surface range can reach more than 400 nautical miles at an average speed of eight nautical miles, and if the speed drops to four knots, it can reach 1,500 nautical miles. If the underwater range is a speed of four knots, it can continue to sail 200 nautical miles, and after re-ventilating and charging the battery, it can also submarine again.

Assassin 2 made Zai Tian truly see the appearance of the submarine in his heart, so he waved his pen and started construction!

Now anchored in workshop No. 1 is the first submarine that is about to be mass-produced, the "Zhu Hai".

Because most of the submarine developers are foreigners, in order to cater to the 'good people', everyone recommended Chen Zhen, the first Chinese submarine, to explain the submarine to Zai Tian. "This submarine adopts Simon Lake's idea, uses a double-layer boat hull design, with a displacement of 360 tons. Chai-electric dual-power propulsion, equipped with three torpedo tubes. After the torpedo was improved by Mr. Tesla, the range was increased to 2,200 meters and six ammunitions. It can also carry twelve mines. In addition, according to your instructions, the boat did not install artillery, but only a 25-mm 'pombing cannon' and a Maxim machine gun."

Standing on the submarine, Zai Tian felt quite proud and satisfied. What kind of battleships and armored cruisers are all other people's things. The Chinese just learn from others, imitate them, and copy them. This submarine is different. It is truly independent intellectual property rights, the only one in the world, the most advanced thing, which is to leave several streets of Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Russia.

While listening to Chen Zhen's explanation, Zai Tian pointed to various equipment on the boat and asked this and that. His spirit was completely different from the state of the surface ship when inspecting the surface ship. After turning twice, Zai Tian suddenly discovered a problem.

“Why are there no snorkels?”

"What? What do you mean?" Chen Zhen was stunned when asked.

"The ventilator is just a ventilator tube." Zai Tian repeated again.

"I don't know what you are talking about by your husband. I guess there is nothing on our boat." Chen Zhen replied cautiously.

Zai Tian frowned, "No, then I ask you, how can this submarine charge the battery after the battery is used up? How can we ensure that the crew in the boat have sufficient oxygen?"

"When you go back to the emperor, every time you submarine, the submarine will float to the water surface. On the one hand, you will change the air inside the boat and charge the battery. But the emperor is relieved that the submarine will choose to float to the water surface at night, so it is unexpectedly discovered."

"A bunch of stupid pigs!" Zai Tian slapped his forehead: "Whether it is at night or during the day, floating on the water will increase the chance of the submarine being discovered. Moreover, if it is during wartime, will the enemy give you a chance to operate only at night? What if the ocean surface has been blocked, how can you escape if you can't snorkeletons?"

"This..." Chen Zhen was sweating, and the other people fell into deep thought after hearing what the translator said.

"What this one!" Zai Tian interrupted the idea of ​​several people and said, "So you need to use a snorkel! It is a snorkel that can be extended to guide the outside air to the diesel engine. The waste gas generated is also discharged through the snorkel. In addition, a pipeline is attached to prevent seawater from entering and removing the incoming seawater. By using a snorkel, the submarine can use a diesel engine at the depth of the periscope, so that the submarine does not have to float up to replenish its power."

Under Zai Tian's description, these masters immediately realized that the use of snorkels would significantly change the operation mode and elasticity of the submarine. Without using snorkels, the submarine must float out of the sea for ventilation and charging operations, and this operation time is limited to night. After using snorkels, the submarine only needs to extend the snorkels out of the sea to charge, which not only reduces the chance of the submarine being discovered, but also expands the time when the submarine can be charged. It greatly improves the survivability of the submarine.

‘My God, did this young Chinese emperor come here in time?’ The new Nikola Tesla sighed silently in his heart, while the others were not surprised. I remember that in the first few years, it was the emperor's slander that everyone found that they could improve the effectiveness of the torpedo. That time, like today, the younger emperor said angrily: Unstable? Isn't it stable to add a gyroscope? Not far away? Is it going to change the engine soon?

So everyone added gyroscopes to the torpedo and replaced them with a thermal engine, which led to the current torpedo.

"Yes! We'll make improvements right away!"

"Change it now! In addition, this ship should not be called 'Zhu Hai', but change it to 'Yu Rang'." Zai Tian said. "Also, I will emphasize again, you must pay attention to confidentiality! Otherwise, you will be severely punished!"

Although the submarine project seemed to be not going smoothly in Zai Tian's eyes, in fact he also knew that the current submarine was already the most advanced in the world, so although he criticized these engineers on the surface, in fact, everyone still sealed a red envelope.

After inspecting the submarine project, Zai Tian continued to stay in Qingdao for a few days, and missed the construction of Qingdao Port, shipyard and coastal defense fortifications in detail. He also asked Shandong Governor Li Bingheng, Ministry of Railways Zhan Tianyou and Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Communications about the construction of Jiaoji Railway, Jiaoji Telegraph, Jiaowei Telegraph, etc. Later, he also went to Weihaiwei by land, with the purpose of the purpose of seeing the traffic conditions between these two major naval bases.

After inspecting the road from Qingdao to Weihai, Zai Tian asked the Jiaoji Railway under construction to divide another branch road, which was transferred through Jimo to connect Weihai and Qingdao, so that the two major naval ports could have an additional emergency channel when encountering emergencies.
Chapter completed!