1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 239 Victory Port Shipyard ([-])
At present, the construction progress of the No. [-] test ship has reached the stage of the upper deck. If it is not necessary to wait for the main mast to be processed in the Tiandu Industrial Zone, then it is estimated that it will enter the outfitting stage in the next few days-only when the main mast is installed After that, the ship can adjust its center of gravity and make final preparations before launching.

Another important reason that dragged down the construction progress came from the military industry department.According to the requirements of the Ministry of Military and Police, new-style sailboats must be equipped with a certain number of marine cannons, whether they are used for commercial cargo or other purposes, or have the ability to be equipped with cannons after simple modification. Unify the ability to transform into armed ships at the same time.

It stands to reason that there will be a big difference in the design and construction standards of merchant ships and warships. The request of the Military and Police Department sounds a little unreasonable at first, but it is also a helpless solution based on the current situation.The new-style sailboats worked so hard by the Ministry of Shipping will be finalized and mass-produced in the future, and it is absolutely impossible to take out the blueprints and order them in other shipyards. We still have to rely on the Shengli Port Shipyard to build them one by one. , it is conceivable that the launching speed will not be too fast.And if the number of new sailboats is not large enough, it will be difficult to overwhelm opponents with technological advantages at sea.Just like the two catamarans, although the performance completely surpasses 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, patrol and transportation ships. If there is a naval battle, these two ships are It must not be thrown into the battlefield.

How to make good use of the limited number of new-style sailboats? The Executive Committee and the Ministry of Shipping have also conducted several consultations and discussions on this matter. The final general opinion is that these boats should be mainly 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 Fuchuan and Guangzhou Ships.

As for the weapon configuration of the new sailboat, it is also a big trouble that has plagued various departments for a long time.Although the military industry department produced the first 6-pound cannon as early as May, due to the limitations of the processing technology and materials at that time, the mechanical braking device became an unresolved problem, which led to the failure of the final production of the marine cannon.

Of course, it would not be a big problem if the 6-pound guns used by the army were reluctantly installed on the ship. However, due to the lack of effective braking devices, the ships in the hands of the Ministry of Shipping at that time could not be equipped with a few guns at all.Moreover, these sailboats are all built according to the standards of civilian ships, and the firmness of the hull is still far from the requirements for being equipped with artillery.The Ministry of Shipping also took ships loaded with artillery and sailed to the Luhuitou Peninsula for many sea firing tests, but the results made everyone feel very frustrated-these civilian ships were simply not strong enough to withstand the recoil of the artillery fire, and they fired two or three shots. Afterwards, the load-bearing decks began to crack, and the joints of the timber structure were visibly loosened.In this way, if a more intense naval battle breaks out, I am afraid that before sinking the opponent, the ship will be shaken to pieces first.As a result, the development of marine 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 the artillery retreat device.

However, the sea test gun that cost a lot of manpower and material resources in the early stage was not for nothing. At least the Ministry of Shipping and the military industry department responsible for the development of the artillery realized the shortcomings in the work, and collected a lot of useful data from the test process. Based on the conclusions obtained from these experiments, various departments have revised the original design scheme.

Although the military and police department of the crossing group is full of talents, there is a serious lack of personnel with naval military qualifications, let alone the understanding of naval artillery warfare.To put it bluntly, everyone is a keyboard party. Everyone knows that sea artillery battles in this era are often extremely close, and therefore also thought of using the artillery range advantage to suppress contemporary sea opponents, but after actually going to sea to test the artillery, All the people discovered that the necessity of this kind of close-range artillery battle is not only limited by the range of the artillery, but mainly because the shooting accuracy of the front-mounted gun on the ship is too horrible, and a large range does not necessarily have enough advantages.Even if the distance is only 500 meters, the accuracy at sea is not even one-tenth of that on land - just a little bit of wind and waves is enough to make the shells out of the chamber deviate from the target by tens of meters at this distance Far.

If you really want to exchange range for firepower advantage in combat, there are only two ways to go.Either improve the shooting accuracy, and this obviously cannot be achieved by relying on the existing front-loading guns, but the rear-loading guns cannot be produced in a short while. The existing military industry departments cannot independently complete this goal. Chemical, 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 artillery to make up for the lack of accuracy like Western-style sailing ships.

In contrast, the latter solution is obviously easier to implement, but there are also many problems in its implementation-if you want to install more guns, you have to build a big ship, and with the current technical strength, build a gunboat with a displacement of more than 25 tons I am afraid that no one will dare to play such a ticket when a ship is launched in a year.And even if it is built, the training of the existing artillery may not be able to keep up.Although the artillery has not yet been listed separately, if we only estimate it based on the planned artillery establishment, an artillery company will probably be equipped with eight to ten artillery pieces, and a warship equipped with 30-[-] artillery pieces, the required number of artillery pieces It probably takes a battalion to make up.In the future, the competition for artillery resources between the sea and the land can already see some signs from this time, and this is one of the important reasons why the military and police are now anxious to expand their staff 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. [-] test ship, starting with a displacement of [-] tons, and gradually increasing the tonnage after accumulating enough ship building experience.

Under the leadership of Yue Zhiyun, Li Nai boarded the scaffold made of bamboo boards, and went up to the deck to observe the construction progress.This time, Li Nai noticed very keenly that there was a row of small square windows on the side of the ship on the second deck, which obviously did not look like windows for ventilation—the shape was exactly the same as the portholes of the gun ports on a Western sailing ship!Li Nai even saw a shipbuilder installing iron hinges for these portholes so that they could be closed normally.This time there was no need to ask anything, Li Nai could be sure that the design of this ship had reserved a special cabin for the artillery equipment.

The No. [-] test ship is divided into three layers below the deck. The lowest layer is the cargo hold for ballast and other materials. There is actually a two-foot-thick watertight compartment below it.The second layer is the cabin where the crew rests and sleeps, and the layer close to the deck is mainly the combat layer where the 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 from other places can't even stand up straight when they get in.And even on a relatively spacious battle floor, after leaving the artillery positions for the artillery, there is very little room for the gunners and crew to move around.If this kind of ship is to be used directly as an armed merchant ship, the cargo that can be loaded on the ship is probably not as much as the supplies on board, 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, since this is just a test ship used to verify the design, neither the Military Police Department nor the Executive Committee has anything to criticize about it.

Also due to the displacement, the number of guns that can be deployed on the second deck on this ship is also extremely limited-five 6-pound guns on the left and right sides, and one 12-pound gun on the bow and stern.Compared with the Western counterparts of this era who often go out with dozens of guns, the firepower of this experimental ship is indeed weaker, but if it is compared with ships of the same tonnage, it is difficult to find a match for it in the East and the West. opponent.The three-masted gunship, the main battleship of Zheng Chenggong's navy that defeated the fleet of the East India Company in history, has more than double the displacement of this experimental ship, and is only equipped with eight red cannons and some small-caliber Francois machine guns. Calculating the firepower intensity based on the average tonnage is far inferior to this test ship that is still on the berth.

And this kind of firepower equipment has not reached 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 seaworthiness of this ship at sea, such a situation is not suitable for ocean-going operations.There is another way to increase firepower, which is to increase the caliber of the ship's artillery, but this still requires further efforts by the machine-added units to upgrade and improve the control system of the ship's artillery.

At present, although the military industry department has trial-produced the artillery mechanical 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-installed spring braking device.Although this type of braking device is not as effective as hydraulic braking, it is superior in that the process is simple, and the production difficulty and cost are relatively much lower. The only obvious disadvantage is that the service life is relatively short, and it may not even have the life of the artillery itself. long.However, considering that this device is easier to manufacture, the Executive Committee finally determined this device as the standard configuration of marine artillery in the next few years.If the military industry department can improve its materials and manufacturing process, it is not unrealistic to upgrade the guns on ships of the same tonnage to 12-pound and 24-pound guns in the future.

Although Li Nai didn't know how much artillery the Haihan people would install on this ship, it was clear that the Haihan people were not too relieved about the current sea situation.You must know that although the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty in this era also had so-called armed merchant ships, they were often nothing more than a few small-caliber Franc cannons or self-made earthen cannons with iron nails and ceramic pieces as shells. It's two different things.Li Nai had seen the power of Haihan's artillery before, and he couldn't help guessing in his heart that with this kind of firepower, the Haihan people only needed a dozen or so ships to wipe out all the Ming Dynasty navy in Qiongzhou Island.

However, judging from the current performance of the Haihan people, they do not seem to regard the navy of the Ming army as a potential opponent-the warships of Yazhou Shuizhai are more frequent in and out of Shengli Port than the merchant ships of "Furuifeng" Much more, the general manager of the water village is as comfortable as at his own home in Shengli Port. This relationship obviously cannot be described as "hostile".

When Li Nai came here yesterday, he happened to see two small warships of the Ming army 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 the east of Xingang for colonization. .The garrison asks local wealthy businessmen for money. Li Nai has seen many such things, and his family has suffered a lot for it, but it is really rare for the garrison to do things for the local dignitaries for money. It's not that half of them have been reduced to private soldiers, farmers and soldiers, but the real navy of the Ming Dynasty!
Of course, Li Nai also knows why the Yazhou navy is "corrupted" to such an extent. With Haihan's ability to make money, as long as it leaks through the fingers, it will be enough for those stupid soldiers to eat for a year or so .But if this kind of thing happened in Guangzhou, I'm afraid the leader would have been arrested by the commander of the capital and sent to prison. It is only in remote areas like Yazhou that there will be things where the navy and the local dignitaries are colluding. occur.

Li Nai thought of the Haihan people's arms sales strategy to Fujian, and vaguely felt that the various behaviors of the Haihan people now seemed to be preparations for direct involvement in Fujian's sea area competition 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 such circumstances, if an armed fleet equipped with Haihan munitions enters the local waters, who else can fight against it? resist?Reminisce that after I returned to Guangzhou this time, I heard that the Guangzhou Office is trying to find out about the situation of the various forces in the Pearl River Estuary. I am afraid that this is 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 well-founded. Last time he came to Shengli Port, he heard that the Haihan people went overseas to develop a coal port. This time, he heard that a new one was built in a certain bay to the east. Salt field, this kind of colonization and enclosure behavior is very normal for the Haihan people.With these past deeds as a foreshadowing, Li Nai will not be surprised if one day the Haihan people really occupy a place outside the Pearl River Estuary.Moreover, the Haihan people have always made decisions before acting. If they really set their sights on a place, they are likely to have already started preparing for it—for example, the unfinished new-style armed sailboat in front of them.

There was nothing wrong with Li Nai's guess in the general direction, but he still thought things too simply.It will take quite a while for Time Travel Group to really expand its influence beyond Sanya.Now the two sides fighting in the Taiwan Strait, whether it is Xu Xinsu or Zheng Zhilong, the population, territory, and ships controlled by them far exceed the current crossing group, and this gap cannot be made up by relying on a small amount of advanced artillery equipment of.To put it bluntly, people lost one battle or two battles, and even lost for a year and a half, and they can still bear it. But even if the current time-traveling group loses just once, it may affect the future development prospects.Therefore, the Traveling Group has always been very cautious when formulating foreign policies, especially whether it is necessary to use military means to solve the problem, and even the military and police departments, which have always been rebellious, dare not make a conclusion on their own.

The time-traveling group is now concentrating various resources on the development of new sailboats. Although it is to prepare for the future expansion of power, this kind of expansion does not necessarily require real swords and guns to put the land back bit by bit-if only It is for the land, and Hainan Island is enough for the development of the Transit Group for 20 years.

What the Traveling Group values ​​more is the actual external influence. This kind of influence is not a unilateral suppression of military power, but more importantly, economic and cultural penetration and influence. Military means are ultimately only used to protect external expansion. It's just the role of escort - I don't necessarily want to hit you with my hands, but I will let you know through various methods 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, but in fact, there was a little bit of this kind of show of force in it.

While Li Nai was visiting here, he kept thinking about why this group of Haihan people who came across the sea could create such a situation in just half a year.According to several Haihan executive committee members that Li Nai came into contact with, this is the "superiority of the system."From the proud expressions on their faces when they spoke, Li Nai could understand that their "superiority" was basically aimed at Daming—obviously, Haihan people believed that there were many problems in Daming's system.

Although Li Nai didn't know what public knowledge was, in the executive committee's hierarchical positioning of Ming society, an intellectual like him with a certain reputation and wealth was clearly defined by the executive committee as "Da Ming public knowledge".This part also has considerable influence in Ming society, and it is an important target for the Executive Committee to export culture and values.

During his contact with the Haihan people, Li Nai constantly explored the real purpose of what this group did in Shengli Harbor, and the executive committee also regarded the contact with Li Nai as a means of contacting the Ming Dynasty scholars in the future. Look at it by example.Based on the scale of the existing educational institutions of the Time Traveling Group, it is difficult to achieve great success within ten years. If you want to gradually attack the mainland, you must have a large number of advocates who want to wave the flag for the Time Traveling regime. To carry out purposeful cultivation, the speed must be much faster than the training of illiterate native children.Li Nai, who doesn't dislike Haihan culture, and who has deep interest entanglements with the time travel group, is a very suitable target to win over.

(End of this chapter)