When he came back from Haikou Port, Roger recalled the previous investigation report on the situation in Hainan Island, and couldn't help but feel a headache - Qiongya is too backward, almost starting from scratch!

The port is only part of it. The most basic agriculture in food, clothing, housing and transportation cannot even be self-sufficient. The so-called industry is just a handicraft workshop, and there are almost no machines. It is not an exaggeration to say that the entire Hainan Island is poor and it is difficult to truly develop Hainan! [.]

However, no matter how difficult things are, we must do it. If we want to develop Hainan, we must first have a stable development environment. This is an inevitable prerequisite. I have never heard of any place where turmoil can develop rapidly. Creating a stable environment is nothing more than two aspects - on land and on sea.

The troops have been arranged on land to suppress bandits, while a navy needs to be established as soon as possible to undertake the task of routine anti-smuggling patrols and intercepting the opponent's landing fleet during wartime.

In view of the current actual situation in China and Hainan, Roger believes that the fast near-shore gunboat will be sufficient in a short period of time, and he is also planning to use this opportunity to accumulate experience for his shipyard.

Previously, Roger built a shipyard with ten small docks in Sanya. The construction has just been completed. The workers who dug up from various shipyards across the country are waiting for construction with a large number of local apprentices.

As early as after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Qing government began to reduce its investment in shipbuilding. After the Xinhai Revolution, major shipyards were in a difficult position. They could only rely on repairing warships to build merchant ships to make ends meet. However, these businesses were getting worse and worse, and now, it became even more difficult to eat.

Now that Roger is willing to pay a lot of money to poach people, workers from major shipyards naturally change jobs. It’s not that they are loyal or unfaithful, and they can’t even eat, so they still care about many of them? Thanks to these old workers, although Qiongya Shipyard only has some small docks now, they can count in the national shipbuilding industry in terms of personnel quality.

With good workers, machines naturally cannot be left behind.

At present, most of the machinery used in shipyards are ready-made from the Republic of China period. Most of the equipment ordered by Roger from Modern has not been shipped yet. It only has some welding-related equipment from Modern. This is also specially obtained by him. Compared with the traditional riveting structure, the welding structure can roughly reduce the weight by 10% to 30%, which is quite amazing data! Super battleships such as Bismarck Iowa use welding to save enough water to rebuild a heavy cruiser!

Although welding has been widely used, it is still a new technology in shipbuilding. At this time, most shipbuilding still uses riveting, and welding is only used in a small amount in local area. Full-welded structures and even large-scale warships that use welding have not yet appeared. As pioneers, the German-class pocket battleship has just been designed.

Since he knew the future development trend, Roger naturally would not let the workers focus on the outdated riveting structure. He planned to let the workers practice their hands when the shipyard is still small and the ships built are small, so as to master the "internationally advanced" welding technology to save trouble in the future. For this reason, he also specially found a lot of welding-related tutorials from Modern Times for workers to learn. Judging from the current progress, the effect is still quite satisfactory. If there are any shortcomings, just practice the welding technology of this era is quite primitive. The technical tutorials of the bad streets that Roger brought back from Modern Times are already a world of difference compared to the technologies of other countries in the Republic of China era.

Welding tools from modern times and welding technology. As long as workers can use them skillfully, although it doesn’t matter in modern times, they were actually a group of technical workers leading the world in the Republic of China era.

"Our boss, we have all the materials in hand. The engine ordered from the Americans also sent a telegram a few days ago that it had already been shipped. Now I'm waiting for you to speak. Let's start?"

Seeing that the boss he had been thinking about day and night finally came, Chen Dongchang smiled so sweetly. He was an old man from the Mawei Shipyard. His father was an old technician at the shipyard. When he was a child, he played big in the shipyard. His favorite thing was to see others build ships. When he grew up, his son inherited his father's business and was going to do a good job. When he came, he built a big warship himself. However, the situation in this country was getting worse day by day, and the situation in the shipyard was even worse. In the turmoil, everything was abandoned. A few days ago, Roger's people went to poach and promised him to build a warship, so he ran over without thinking.

Roger asked with a smile, "The design drawings are ready?"

"It's been done long ago! When we heard that we could build our own warships, we were so excited that we couldn't bear to sleep and we were making drawings there." As Chen Dongchang said that, he took out his hand-painted three views and explained it to Roger. "According to the design, our gunboat is loaded at about 400 tons, equipped with a 75mm gun, two double-mounted 37mm guns, three double-mounted machine guns and a mortar. This was what we used to plug into it, and we couldn't hold it any more. The ship's speed can reach 28 knots, but the armor protection is a bit poor, so we can only defend against rifle bullets and shell fragments, and small-caliber artillery can directly penetrate."

After hearing this brief introduction, Roger frowned. This data obviously focused on firepower. It looked quite powerful, but it did not match his requirements.

It's just a gunboat, and he doesn't expect him to undertake any attack mission. He doesn't need any support for landing on the beach. At this time, gunboats are built for near-shore patrols and anti-smuggling. They have low firepower requirements, but they require good speed. Even for wartime interception tasks, most of the opponents are unarmed fishing boats, so the firepower naturally does not need to be very strong.

So Roger said, "Old Chen, the design of our gunboat needs to be changed! Major changes! Our gunboat is used for anti-smuggling patrols. How useless is your gunboat? Those smugglers have at most two guns, so many weapons not only occupy space but also increase the cost! So, the weapons are left with a double-equipped 37mm gun and two double-equipped machine guns. All the others are removed, and you can increase the speed of the extra space and tonnage!"

"Ah!? This... well... the boss said how to build it..." Although he said that, it can be seen that Chen Dongchang was still quite reluctant. He could install more guns, so why not install it? Of course, the more firepower the warship, the better!

Seeing Old Chen's expression, Roger knew that this man was okay as a senior technical worker, and it would be too forced to design a ship - can a designer who cannot design targeted according to combat needs and control costs be considered a qualified designer?

"It seems that we have to consider introducing more design talents in the future... It's a pity that China still lacks such people." Roger couldn't help but sigh that the shipyards left by the Qing Dynasty had never produced many warships, and they have been abandoned in the past decade. They can design civilian ships, but when it comes to warships, they can't play with them too much. They can only look for such talents by themselves.
Chapter completed!