Chapter 239 Victory Port Shipyard (4)
At present, the construction progress of the No. 1 test ship has reached the upper deck stage. If it is not necessary to wait for the main mast to be processed by the Tiandu Industrial Zone, it is estimated that it will be able to enter the outfitting stage in the next few days - the only way is to wait for the main mast to be installed. After that, the ship can adjust its center of gravity and make final preparations before launching.
Another important reason that slows down the construction progress comes from the military industry sector. According to the requirements of the Military and Police Department, new sailing ships must be equipped with a certain number of marine artillery, whether they are used for commercial freight or other purposes, or have the ability to be equipped with artillery after simple modification. To put it bluntly, new sailing ships must have the ability to operate in battle. The ability to uniformly transform into armed ships.
It stands to reason that the design and construction standards of merchant ships and warships will be quite different. This requirement of the Military and Police Department may sound a bit unreasonable at first, but it is also a helpless solution based on the current situation. The new sailboats that the Maritime Department has worked so hard to develop will never be able to take out the drawings and customize them at shipyards in other places when they start to be finalized and mass-produced later. They will still have to rely on the Victory Port Shipyard to build them one by one. , it is conceivable that the speed of entering the water will not be too fast. If the number of new sailboats is not large enough, it will be difficult to use technological advantages to overwhelm opponents at sea. Just like the two catamaran sailing ships, although their performance is completely beyond this era, after all, the number is too small and the tonnage is too small. Most of the time they can only be used as training, reconnaissance and transportation ships. If there is a naval battle, these two ships are Never throw yourself into the battlefield.
How to make good use of the limited number of new sailing boats? The Executive Committee and the Ministry of Shipping have also held several consultations and discussions on this matter. The final general opinion is that these ships should still be used for armed escort and fast shipping in the early stage of launching. , as for freight or immigration transportation, it is better to leave it to the existing Fuzhou Shipbuilding and Guangzhou Shipyard.
The problem of weapon configuration of new sailboats has also been a big trouble that has troubled various departments for a long time. Although the military industry department built the first 6-pound gun as early as May, due to the limitations of the processing technology and materials at the time, the mechanical braking device became an unresolved problem, resulting in the ship's artillery being unable to be finalized and produced.
Of course, it would not be a big problem if the 6-pound guns used by the Army were reluctantly installed on the ships. However, due to the lack of effective braking devices, the ships in the hands of the Maritime Transport Department at that time simply could not install a few guns. Moreover, these sailing ships are built according to the standards of civilian ships, and the strength of the hull is still far from the requirements for equipped with artillery. The Ministry of Shipping also loaded ships with artillery and sailed to the Luhuitou Peninsula for many sea firing tests, but the results frustrated everyone - these civilian ships were simply not strong enough to withstand the recoil of artillery fire, and they fired two or three rounds. After that, the load-bearing deck began to crack, and the joints of the wooden structure became obviously loose. If a more intense naval battle breaks out in this way, I am afraid that my own ship will be shattered before sinking the opponent. As a result, the development of ship artillery was temporarily stranded. The Ministry of Shipping could only strengthen the load-bearing structure of the new sailboat while waiting for the military industry department to make new progress in the manufacture of artillery braking devices.
However, the early sea test of the artillery, which consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, was not in vain. At least the Ministry of Shipping and the military industry department responsible for artillery development realized the shortcomings in the work and collected a lot of useful data from the test process. Various departments modified the original design plan based on the conclusions drawn from these tests.
Although the military and police departments of the Crossing Group are full of talents, they are seriously lacking in personnel with naval qualifications, let alone the understanding of naval artillery warfare. To put it bluntly, everyone is a keyboardist. Everyone knows that naval artillery battles in this era are often very close, and therefore they also thought of using the range advantage of artillery to suppress contemporary maritime opponents. However, after actually testing the artillery at sea, Everyone discovered that the necessity of this kind of close-range artillery battle was not only limited by the range of the artillery. The main reason was that the shooting accuracy of the front-loading cannon on the ship was too terrible. A large range did not necessarily give enough advantages. Even if the distance is only four to five hundred meters, the accuracy at sea cannot even be one-tenth of that on land - just a little bump in the wind and waves is enough to cause the shell to deviate from the target by dozens of meters at this distance. meters away.
If you really want to trade range for firepower advantage in combat, there are only two ways to go. Either improve the shooting accuracy, which obviously cannot be achieved by relying on the existing front-loaded cannon, but the breech-loaded cannon cannot be developed in a short while. The existing military industry department cannot accomplish this goal independently. Chemical industry, The technology trees of various departments such as machining and metallurgy must be upgraded to a certain stage; or they can only rely on the number of cannons to make up for the lack of accuracy like a Western-style sailing ship.
In comparison, the latter solution is obviously easier to implement, but there will also be many problems in its implementation - if you want to install more guns, you have to build a larger ship, and with the current technical strength, it is impossible to build a gunboat with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. , I am afraid no one will dare to take advantage of this guarantee if one ship is launched in a year. And even if it is built, the existing artillery training may not be able to keep up. Although artillery is not yet organized separately, if we only estimate based on the planned artillery establishment, an artillery company will be equipped with about eight to ten artillery pieces, and a warship equipped with 25-30 artillery pieces will require the number of artillery pieces. It probably requires a battalion. The future competition for artillery resources between the land and sea can already see some signs from this time, and this is one of the important reasons why the Military and Police Department is now eager to expand its establishment and increase the scale of artillery training.
Of course, the Ministry of Shipping cannot build such a large ship for the time being. The current construction plan is still based on the No. 1 test ship. It will start with a displacement of two hundred tons. After accumulating sufficient ship building experience, it will gradually increase the shipbuilding tonnage.
Under the leadership of Yue Zhiyun, Li Nai climbed onto the scaffolding made of bamboo boards and went up to the deck to inspect the construction progress. This time Li Nai keenly noticed that there was a row of small square windows on the side of the ship on the second deck, and these were obviously not windows used for ventilation - the shape was exactly the same as the portholes of the gun ports on Western sailing ships! Li Nai even saw a shipwright installing iron hinges for opening and closing the portholes so that they could be closed at ordinary times. There was no need to ask anything this time, and Li Nai was sure that the ship's design had set aside a special cabin for artillery equipment.
The No. 1 test ship is divided into three layers below the deck. The lowest layer is the cargo hold for storing ballast and other supplies. There is actually a two-foot-thick watertight compartment below it. The second floor is a cabin where the crew rests and sleeps, while the floor close to the deck is mainly a combat floor where artillery is arranged. Because the tonnage of the ship itself is not large, the actual space on each floor is very narrow. Except for the combat floor, people in other places cannot stand straight up at all. And even on the relatively spacious combat floor, after setting aside the artillery positions, there is very little space left for the gunners and crews to move. If this kind of ship is to be used directly as an armed merchant ship, then the cargo that can be loaded on the ship may not be as large as the supplies on the ship, because the configuration of the artillery will more than double the number of crew members compared to a merchant ship of the same tonnage. Of course, given that this is just a test ship used to verify the design plan, neither the Military and Police Department nor the Executive Committee has anything to fault about it.
Also due to the displacement, the number of guns that can be arranged on the second deck of this ship is also extremely limited - five 6-pound guns on the left and right sides, and a 12-pound gun on the bow and stern. Compared with its Western counterparts in this era who often carry dozens of cannons, the firepower of this experimental ship is indeed a bit weaker. However, if compared with ships of the same tonnage, it will be difficult to find one that can match it in both the East and the West. opponent. The three-masted gunboat, the main warship of Zheng Chenggong's navy that defeated the East India Company fleet in history, had a displacement more than twice that of this test ship, and was only equipped with eight red barbarian cannons and some small-caliber Franco cannons. Calculated based on average tonnage, the firepower intensity is far less than that of this test ship that is still on the slipway.
And this kind of firepower equipment is not at the upper limit of this ship. According to the design of the Ministry of Shipping, if necessary, 10-12 more cannons can also be arranged on the top deck, but doing so will greatly affect the center of gravity of the ship. , reducing the ship's seaworthiness at sea. Under such conditions, it is not suitable for ocean warfare. There is another way to increase firepower, which is to increase the caliber of the ship's artillery. However, this requires further efforts by the mechanized unit to upgrade and improve the ship's artillery braking system. Although the military industry department has currently trial-produced the mechanical artillery braking system required by the Military and Police Department, due to production capacity, it has not yet adopted a hydraulic braking device, but a multi-unit spring braking device. Although this type of retraction device is not as effective as hydraulic retraction, it is superior in that the process is simple, and the difficulty and cost of production are relatively much lower. The only obvious disadvantage is that the service life is short, and may not even be as long as the life of the artillery itself. long. However, the Executive Committee considered that this device was easier to manufacture and ultimately determined this device to be the standard configuration of ship artillery in the next few years. If the military industry department can improve its materials and manufacturing processes, it is not a fantasy to upgrade the artillery on ships of the same tonnage to 12-pound and 24-pound guns in the future.
Although Li Nai didn't know how big artillery the Haihan people would install on this ship, it was obvious that the Haihan people were not too relieved about the current maritime situation. You must know that although the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants in this era also had so-called armed merchant ships, they were often nothing more than a few small-caliber Franco machine guns or homemade cannons with iron nails and porcelain pieces as shells. They were not as powerful as the artillery made by the Haihan people. They are completely different things. Li Nai had seen the power of Haihan artillery fire, and he couldn't help secretly guessing that with this kind of firepower, the Haihan people only needed a dozen ships to wipe out all the Ming Dynasty naval forces on Qiongzhou Island.
However, judging from the current performance of the Haihan people, they do not seem to regard the Ming Navy as a potential opponent - the warships of Yazhou Water Village enter and leave the Victory Port more frequently than the merchant ships of "Furuifeng" Much more, the commander-in-chief of the water village felt as at home in Shengli Port. This relationship obviously cannot be described as "hostile".
When Li Nai came yesterday, he happened to see two small Ming army warships sailing out of the harbor. During dinner, he asked a few questions while drunk. Tao Donglai actually said that these ships were here to help transport immigrants to colonize Xingang in the east. . Li Nai had seen a lot of this kind of thing when the garrison asked local wealthy businessmen to ask for money, and his own family had to pay a lot of blood for it. However, the garrison did things for local dignitaries for money. This kind of thing was really rare - this These were not half of the guardsmen who had been reduced to private soldiers and peasants, but actual Ming Dynasty navy soldiers!
Of course, Li Nai also knew why the Yazhou Navy was "corrupted" to such an extent. With Haihan's ability to make money, just a little leakage from between his fingers would be enough to feed those stupid soldiers for a year and a half. . But if this kind of thing happened in Guangzhou, I am afraid that the leader, General Qian, would have been arrested by the command department and sent to prison. Only in remote areas like Yazhou can there be collusion between the navy and local dignitaries. occur.
Li Nai thought of the Haihan people's arms sales strategy to Fujian, and vaguely felt that the various actions of the Haihan people today seemed to be preparing for direct intervention in Fujian's maritime disputes in the future. Just imagine that after another two or three years of fighting in Fujian, both Xu Xinsu and Zheng Zhilong will be seriously injured. Under this situation, if an armed fleet equipped with Haihan weapons enters the local waters, who else can attack it? resist? Thinking about it again, after I returned to Guangzhou this time, I heard that the Guangdong Office was trying to find out the situation of all the forces in the Pearl River Estuary. This was probably not just to ensure the safety of their sea routes, but to try to establish a stronghold in the Pearl River Estuary. ?
The more Li Nai thought about it, the more he felt that his guess was reasonable. Last time he came to Victory Port, he heard that the Haihan people went to develop a coal port somewhere overseas. This time, he heard that a new coal port was built in a bay in the east. Salt farm, this kind of behavior of colonizing and enclosing land is completely normal for the Haihan people. With these past deeds as foreshadowing, Li Nai would not be surprised at all if the Haihan people really occupied a place outside the Pearl River Estuary one day. Moreover, the Haihan people always make decisions before taking action. If they really have their sights on a place, they are likely to have started preparing for it now - such as the unfinished new armed sailing ship in front of them.
Li Nai's guess was not wrong in the general direction, but he still thought of things too simply. It will take quite some time for Chuanchuan Group to truly expand its influence beyond Sanya. The two sides currently fighting in the Taiwan Strait, whether it is Xu Xinsu or Zheng Zhilong, control the population, territory, and ships under their command far more than the current crossing group, and this gap cannot be made up by relying on a very small amount of advanced artillery equipment. of. To put it bluntly, people can survive losing one or two battles, and even lose for a year and a half. But if the current time-traveling group loses just once, it may affect its future development prospects. Therefore, the Cross-Travel Group has always been very cautious when formulating foreign policies, especially whether military means are needed to solve problems. Even the always unruly Military and Police Department dare not make a conclusion in vain.
The Chuanchuan Group is now concentrating various resources on the development of new sailboats to prepare for future expansion of power, but this expansion does not necessarily require real swords and guns to fight back the land bit by bit - if only It's for land, so Hainan Island is enough for the Cross Group to develop for twenty years.
What the Crossing Group values more is actual external influence. This influence is not unilateral military suppression, but more importantly, economic and cultural penetration and influence. Military means ultimately only serve to protect external expansion. It's just an escort - I don't necessarily have to hit you, but I will let you know in various ways that I am very good at fighting, and I can fight ten at a time. The Executive Committee allowed Li Nai to enter the shipyard to see the latest achievements. In fact, it was somewhat of a show of force.
During Li Nai's visit here, he had been thinking about why this group of Haihan people from across the sea could create such a situation in just half a year. According to several Haihan executive committee members Li Nai came into contact with, this is the "superiority of the system." From the proud looks on their faces when they made their remarks, Li Nai could understand that their "superiority" was basically aimed at the Ming Dynasty - obviously, the Haihan people believed that there were many problems with the Ming Dynasty's system.
Although Li Nai did not know what a public intellectual was, in the Executive Committee's stratified positioning of Ming society, intellectuals like him with certain fame and wealth were clearly defined as "public intellectuals of the Ming Dynasty" by the Executive Committee. This group also has considerable influence in Ming society, and is an important target for the Executive Committee to export culture and values.
In his contacts with the Haihan people, Li Nai continued to explore the true purpose of what this group did in Victory Port, and the Executive Committee also regarded the contact with Li Nai as a way to contact the Ming Dynasty scholar class in the future. Treat as an example. Judging from the scale of the current educational institutions of the Time Travel Group, it is difficult to achieve success within ten years. If you want to gradually conquer the mainland, you must have a large number of advocates who cheer for the Time Travel regime. And if you choose people with a relatively cultural foundation To carry out purposeful cultivation, the speed will definitely be much faster than training those illiterate indigenous children. Li Nai, a scholar from the Ming Dynasty who is not averse to Haihan culture and has deep interests entangled with the Chuanchuan Group, is a very suitable target to win over.
(End of chapter)