"That sailboat is on fire!" the sailor on the deck of the Crown Prince screamed.

On the sea, a ship with a mast was emitting black smoke from a distance.

The Crown Prince, the three armed merchant ships, and even the people on the Li Jinde merchant ships, all came out of the cabin and looked at the ships that were emitting black smoke on the sea.

"Why is it on fire? Pull the sails to rescue!" Li Jinde said anxiously to the sailor when he saw something happening to his own ship.

Princess Sophia looked at the smoked ships in the distance and also ordered the captain: "Rescue the fired ships immediately."

It was normal for ships to catch fire in the sailing era. Because of the lack of wireless telegrams, I could not ask for help from nearby ships. I could only see if there were ships passing by nearby ships.

They thought that the ship that was on fire was actually the giant cable ship of Oriental, and the black smoke was naturally the black smoke discharged from the coal-fired boiler of Oriental.

The sailors of the Orient also noticed the nearby wooden sailing fleet.

"There is a fleet approaching! There are gunships!" A sailor, who was observing with a telescope, notified the crew on the Orient.

"There is no reason for gunships to appear in the hinterland like Bohai. Is it our fleet? Get my telescope." Nelson took the telescope from his deputy and looked at the Crown Prince.

"The flag of the Royal Navy..." Nelson, who was also from the Royal Fleet, could see the flag hanging on the battleship of the Crown Prince, the Royal Fleet of Britain more than a hundred years ago in his time.

He has been supervising the laying of submarine cables at sea for a long time and has not received any news about the Royal British Envoy. When he saw the Royal Navy ships and flags appearing in the Bohai Sea, his mood was also a little complicated.

Nelson was summoned by Chu Yun to this era and had already entered the Chinese household registration. In addition, he had almost no relationship with Britain in this era, so it was definitely impossible for him to serve Britain again. Moreover, Chu Yun also has a system to ensure that the people summoned are absolutely loyal.

"Don't worry, it's not an enemy." Nelson said.

He knew that Britain in this era would not be able to send special battleships to expedition the East, because the Royal Navy could not get out of the way to maintain the North American colonies, let alone spending half a year to come to the East.

Perhaps the arrival of these ships is the limit of this era.

The Crown Prince Battleship, Li Jinde Merchant Ship, and three armed merchant ships gradually approached the Dongfang, and found that the "fire" ship they wanted to rescue turned out to be a narrow and long steel monster. In addition to the tall main mast, this monster also had several thick chimneys. The black smoke that everyone saw just now emerged from the thick chimneys.

The Crown Prince battleship, which is more than 50 meters long and is enough to look down on many ships, actually looks so small in front of the Oriental, less than half of the Oriental, and Li Jinde's merchant ship is only one-third of the Oriental.

The battleship fleet of the Crown Prince passed by the Oriental, and all the sailors above were staring at the huge steam armored ship in amazement.

Although the Oriental is not a warship and does not have a single cannon, the shock brought by the Oriental using advanced technologies such as steam power, steel hulls, propellers, paddle wheels, etc. is unparalleled for this era, especially for maritime countries such as Britain.

"The black hull, is it iron..." Princess Sophia looked at the steel hull opposite her, her mind was blank.

How does the steel hull float up on the sea?! Her common sense is hard to understand.

"What kind of monster is this..." Sir Greenville was shocked when he saw the Oriental, which was emitting black smoke and iron armor. He was terrified as seeing the giant beast on the sea.

The sailors of the Royal Fleet were filled with despair when facing the giant beasts on the sea. Their artillery might not be able to penetrate such an armored ship. As long as the other party dared to hit him, the Royal Prince would likely be sunk!

"Our Royal Navy probably does not have a warship that can match it...even the battleships being secretly built are not good..." The captain of the battleship of the Crown Prince stood at the bow and said blankly.

They had seen the Daqin of the Nanyang Fleet in Hoi'an Port before. The Daqin was the first batch of sail battleships built by Chu Yun. It may be slightly stronger than the Crown Prince battleship, but the gap is not big and is within the scope of the British. The steam iron armored ship, a behemoth that has separated from the sailing ship era, is completely incomprehensible.

"Is this still a sailboat?" Salina was on Li Jinde's merchant ship, looking at the body of the Dongfang, and was very shocked.

"No, don't look at it with sails, it's actually a steamboat... Before I went to the West, I heard that a steamboat "Yongchang" appeared in the north, but it could never be so huge. It should have been built during my disappearance." Li Jinde left China for a year. During the time when he left, the Dongfang was launched and started cable laying. Li Jinde had never seen the Dongfang.

This was his first time seeing the Dongfang.

"Steam?" Salina looked at Li Jinde.

"A machine that can make water boil and generate high pressure to drive the machine to run is the force that blows the lid of the pot when the water boils. I don't know if it's specific." Li Jinde said.

"Can the power of water be so powerful?" Salina still hardly imagined that the giant wheel in front of her, which was more than 100 meters, was actually driven by the power of hot water?

"I am just a businessman, and I don't know the principle very well. I only know that the steam engine has brought us a lot of convenience. Many of our businessmen have used such machines in their workshops." Li Jinde couldn't help but feel a little regretful that he knew very little and could not even introduce him to others.

In fact, let alone Li Jinde, even Chu Yun cannot explain too many details. Is a practical steam engine so easy to understand by ordinary people? The structure of a practical steam engine involves a separation condenser, an insulation layer is installed outside the cylinder, and oil is used to lubricate pistons, planetary gears, parallel motion connecting rod mechanisms, centrifugal speed regulators, throttle valves, pressure gauges, etc. It is even more complicated to drive a steam boiler of an iron-armored ship with a maximum displacement of more than 10,000 tons like the Dongfang, which is even more complicated and unimaginable. The weight of a cylinder may exceed 20 tons.

If it weren't for the system that summoned thousands of designers and skilled technicians, these technicians would have trained more apprentices and used these people's power to accumulate and build the armored ship technology, otherwise the Oriental would have been impossible to build.
Chapter completed!