1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 715 Traffic

September 1655, 4, Hanzhou, Jianye Port.

The battleship "Benyue" slowly sailed into Jianye Port and docked at the berth of the special military wharf on the south side.After the ship stopped, the officers and sailors disembarked one after another, took passenger carriages, and headed for the city impatiently.

"Xiao Liu, go to the city to play later?" Navy trainee officer Qi Pengfei laid out the huge sail neatly, then straightened up and looked back at the pier.

"No, after floating on the sea for more than two months, my bones have long since fallen apart. I will go directly to the dormitory of the naval base and have a good sleep. Then, taking advantage of the holiday, I will take a carriage back to Yongxing (now Adelaide, northern Australia) I haven’t been home for more than half a year, and my father must be thinking about it.” Zhu Shanping held a bundle of cables without raising his head, and dragged them towards the side with great effort.

"Third brother, I'll go to the city with you." A thin trainee officer said with a smile, "Your home is in Jianye City, and you will have to be the host at that time. Please let us brothers enjoy it."

"No problem, I'll cover all the expenses of the brothers." Qi Pengfei patted his chest and said loudly: "Everyone is not allowed to go back to the barracks tonight. Take advantage of the holiday and relax. I heard the captain say, When we come back from vacation, we will go around Weiyuan Island with the Grand Fleet and go to Daming. Then we will return to the mainland, maybe it will be next year."

"No way, our warship is a new ship. According to the usual practice, it will take at least one year of sea trials." A sturdy trainee officer who came out of the cabin took off his general cap and wiped his face. Put the sweat off your brow.

"Walking around Weiyuan Island, the wind, waves and sea conditions there are dangerous enough, especially on the side of Luzon, where there may be a big storm. Therefore, the training staff of the Admiralty think that this long-distance voyage is enough to replace us. The daily graduation sea training. In addition, you can also test the various performances and sea combat capabilities of this "Moon" class warship."

"Third brother, you are very well informed! The captain told you? We passed through Weiyuan and Luzon, will we experience actual combat?"

"There is an actual battle, but it's just a small sampan against the natives." Qi Pengfei said with a smile: "However, this kind of battle can't arouse our desire to fight. It would be great if we could fight the Dutch again Ah! Worst of all, it would be good to fight with Zheng Zhilong's navy."

"That's right, I'm tired of bombarding deserted islands or the sea all day long. Our navy should find an opponent of comparable strength, so that we can all experience a real battle at sea, so that we can test our strength." What is the level of daily training?"

This is a group of reserve officers who are about to graduate from the Naval Academy. They have just gone through more than two months of sea trial training with this "Moon" class warship with a full load of 850 tons, and then the ship will enter the dock for some maintenance. At the same time, according to the report of the sea trial officer, some ship functions were changed and improved.

In more than a month, the warship will accompany several warships under the Weiyuan Fleet to escort dozens of diplomatic representatives around Weiyuan Island and arrive in Luzon to participate in the founding ceremony of Yizhou Town.

Yizhou Town established a national name and chose three names, Song, Chen, and Wei, and asked Qi to choose one of them as the country's name, or give it another name.

Song, taken from the name of Lu Song, and inherited from the former Song; and Chen, the surname of Cheng Guangyin, the commander of Yizhou, and one of the twelve princes in the Spring and Autumn Period; Wei, which means protecting the land of Lu Song, defending Qi, In addition, the Kingdom of Wei is also the oldest feudal state in Chinese history, with a total of 907 years before and after the founding of the country, and 41 monarchs. Yizhou Town hopes that it can go through such a long time.

After receiving the request for statehood from Yizhou Town, the Qi State Cabinet gave it the title of Wei after only a short discussion, and conferred the title of Duke of Wei to its commander Cheng Guangyin, who lived in Luzon forever and belonged to Qi State.

For a small warlord in Luzon to establish a country and establish a system, these reserve officers who have not yet graduated officially ignore and pay attention to it.Young blood, high passion, and longing for success make them even more eager for a close naval battle.Since the armistice between Han and He a few years ago, Qi's navy has hardly encountered a comparable opponent.Although Zheng Zhilong rebelled against the Ming Dynasty and surrendered to the Qing Dynasty a few years ago, the Qi State Navy assembled a large number of ships and joined forces with the East India Company to go to the waters of Daming and Japan to intercept and kill Zheng's ships.

However, Zheng Zhilong seems to be trying to preserve his maritime strength. The large ships with strong combat effectiveness under his command either avoid entering the coastal ports of Fujian and serve as a fleet, or when encountering Qi naval ships at sea, they adopt a passive attitude of avoiding battles and retreat directly. , Most of the battles between the two sides are boring chase battles.

As for Zheng's many small boats, Qi's navy is like a tiger and a wolf bullying a flock of sheep, or like a pack of wolves hunting, it doesn't have the sense of exhilaration of a giant ship's cannon.

You must know that these reserve naval officers who have studied systematic theory for two years at the Naval Academy have learned a large number of examples of European naval warfare under the professors of many foreign instructors. In 1588, the Battle of Gravelines (the British destroyed the Spanish Armada) , the Battle of Matanzas Bay in 1628 (the Netherlands captured the entire Spanish treasure fleet), the Battle of Slack in 1631 (the Dutch fleet launched a night attack on the Spanish fleet in Antwerp), the Battle of Downs in 1639...

Dozens of hundreds of warships confront each other, powerful artillery bombardment, various changing naval tactics, surging waves, shadowy sails, wise commanders strategizing, and countless heroic sailors rushing and shouting. What an exciting event! scene!This is the war that my generation of navy men look forward to!
"Although the soldiers are mighty and fierce, but not in the battle, but dying at sea is the final destination of my heroic man." In a restaurant in Jianye City, several navy trainee officers immediately became emotional after drinking several times. , but within half an hour, several people fell under the wine table and fell asleep soundly.
-
On April 4, Montenegro.

Zhang Yongshun patted his painful head vigorously, and tried to open his eyes to look around, only to find that several passengers in the carriage were smiling and looking at him, and his face blushed.Damn it, as a naval officer (although he is still preparing), sleeping in such a state of embarrassment on the carriage is too detrimental to the image of a soldier.

"Sixth, wake up, wake up quickly." Zhang Yongshun patted his companion Zhu Shanping on the head vigorously, trying to wake him up.

"What's the matter?" Zhu Shanping sat up and rubbed his head with some discomfort, "Last night, I really drank too much. Unexpectedly, I haven't sobered up today, and my headache is unbearable.... Where is this?"

"It's Heishan City." A man sitting opposite said with a smile: "Where are the two young military masters going? But you missed the drop-off point?"

"I'm sorry." Zhang Yongshun nodded, and his eyes signaled Zhu Shanping to tidy up his military appearance, "The two of us are on vacation in the army, and we are going back to our hometown to visit relatives. Since the carriage just arrived in Heishan City, we didn't miss our alighting point. "

"The road to the south of Jianye City, as long as it passes Heishan City, it will become more and more rotten, and the officials don't know how to spend some money to completely repair it." The carriage began to become a little bumpy, which made the man on the opposite side complain. stand up.

"This old man probably doesn't know something." A man with a short beard next to him said, "At present, many wealthy merchants and tourists like to take a horse-drawn carriage, which is not only much faster, but also travels faster. It should also be stable. As for the asphalt and gravel road, it is basically driven by some private factory owners in order to save a few track usage fees. If the trucks travel a lot, the road surface will be crushed. Due to financial constraints in several counties and towns along the way, no one wants to pay for road repairs themselves, and they are all counting on the cabinet government to allocate money to repair this road. So, wait and see. Taking this road in a carriage, if you can't bear it, maybe you can allocate some money to repair it a little bit."

"Come on, why would the gentlemen of the government go this way." Another man said sharply: "They will definitely choose to take a rail carriage when they travel."

This large four-wheeled people-carrying carriage has three horse-drawn carts in the front, and can carry up to 30 people in the carriage at a speed of 10-15 kilometers per hour. the most important means of communication between them.In Jianye City, there are more than [-] passenger and carriage trips every day, leading to various counties and towns in the south.In the prefectural and county centers of Hanzhou, there are also passenger carriage stations to meet the daily travel needs of local people.

From time to time on the road, you will encounter heavy-duty cargo carriages, dragged by more than five horses, with a load ranging from one ton to several tons, constantly transporting inland-produced goods to Jianye Port. , and shipped countless raw materials and other materials from the port, and returned to various factories and cargo stations in the inland.

When a heavy carriage passes by, it will leave two deep ruts behind it.The Hanzhou natives on both sides of the road, who are responsible for daily maintenance, will quickly use iron rakes to pave the gravel when the road is free. unimpeded.

"I remember that a few years ago, this road was paved with a black material called coal tar pitch, which made the whole road extremely smooth. It was very comfortable for the carriage to drive on it." A man with a flushed face said: "But later, with the increasing number of heavy horse-drawn carriages, the asphalt road surface was deformed to the extreme, with large and small pits, so that the road maintenance personnel along the way had to re-lay many gravel and cinders on the road surface. As a result, only the roads in towns are paved with that kind of asphalt road."

"That's not true! Later, a cement road was laid, and within a few years, it was still crushed by those heavy carriages. The government should build two or three roads!" The short-bearded man said: "In this way, even if a road If it is crushed, there are always other roads that can be used to facilitate timely repair and leveling by road maintenance personnel.”

"To put it bluntly, the government doesn't pay much attention to this old road." The thin man said, "Whether it's the Ministry of Communications or the counties and towns along the way, they are all counting on the cabinet to allocate funds to build another horse-drawn track."

"But if you want to travel on the track, you have to pay some fees. Like our travel, the same distance, if you take this old road, the toll will be at least a few cents cheaper?" A man in his 40s muttered: "If In order to save a few shipping costs, those factory owners and merchants chose not to follow the track and run this old road, wouldn't it make the officials' calculations come to nothing?"

"You said those factory owners and businessmen who make a lot of money, why are they reluctant to pay for a few rail freights? They made them use some heavy horse-drawn carriages to run back and forth on this road, and the road was full of holes. The people in the passenger carriage will suffer!" the red-faced man complained.

"Hey, tell me, are the officials deliberately not repairing this old road because they want to force those heavy horse-drawn carriages to move to the track? Didn't you see that, after walking for more than ten miles along the way, I met several heavy-duty horse-drawn carriages. The carriage broke down on the side of the road, causing the escorts to jump their feet in a hurry! In this way, the delivery time of these factory owners and merchants was delayed. Hehe, if you miss the shipping schedule at the port, you deserve it! "

These gloating words immediately caused a burst of laughter in the carriage.If it weren't for the lack of money, who would take this kind of carriage on the uneven road?Although most of the horse-drawn carriages on the horse-drawn tracks are heavy-duty horse-drawn carriages from government-run factories, there are still many passenger carriages running on them. The flesh hurts endlessly.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!..."

Hundreds of meters away on the left side of the road, there was a sudden rumbling noise, and the people in the carriage on the left side raised the curtains and followed the sound.

Through the shadowy woods, a railway track several kilometers long can be vaguely seen, on which lies a huge machine. The rumbling sound comes from that somewhat weird machine, and thick smoke billows from the top of the machine.Under the surprised eyes of the passengers, this huge machine crawled slowly on the rails.

"Boom! Boom!..." The bottom of the huge machine seemed to be rubbing violently against the rails, making a sharp and piercing sound.

"Boom..." After the heavy and huge machine crawled for more than ten meters, a puff of green smoke came out from both sides, and it lay on the rails.Dozens of craftsmen and scholars rushed out of the vicinity, and quickly came to the machine. While waving the thick smoke with their hands, they yelled loudly, as if expressing different opinions about the failure of this huge machine. Views.

There were more than a dozen military policemen with guns scattered beside the railroad tracks, and they swept towards the road with cold eyes, as if warning the carriage passengers passing by not to peek at the situation here.

However, the passengers on the carriage were obviously very interested in the things making loud noises on the rails. After the carriage gradually moved away from the machine testing ground, they still poked their heads out and looked there vigorously, trying to see more In order to be able to tell this rare thing to my neighbors, to show my knowledge.

"Lao Liu, I arrived in Kaiyuan City (now Humpty Doo, northern Australia) in the afternoon. Stay at my house for a night, and drive the carriage back to Yongxing tomorrow." Turning his head back from the side window of the carriage, he felt that he had eaten a lot of dirt in his mouth. , Zhang Yongshun spit out a few more mouthfuls, then turned his head and said to his companion.

"I won't bother you." Zhu Shanping had a trace of hesitation on his face.

"We have been classmates in the military academy for more than two years, and we can be regarded as brothers who eat with a rice spoon. We don't need to see outsiders." Zhang Yongshun gently bumped Zhu Shanping with his shoulder, "But the family conditions are not good, so don't be disgusted."

"Okay!" Zhu Shanping was no longer pretentious, "Among the classmates, if the family conditions are good, who can be as rich as Qi Pengfei's family? Otherwise, why would we take this carriage. However, we will officially graduate in the future , I became a naval officer, and maybe I can improve a thing or two with my family."

Soldiers in the Qi State are treated very well, with generous salaries. If they go out to perform combat missions, there are various allowances and subsidies. In addition, there are battlefield seizures. This allows each soldier to easily support three or five families with only his personal income.As a result, ordinary people in Qi State, all adult men, will work hard to join the army and become loyal and brave soldiers after they have no hope of studying.Not only their own social status is high, but it can also greatly improve the economic situation of the family.

(End of this chapter)