I want to be emperor

Luo Zhixue inspected the local canal project in Suez, but this place is also a very large construction site, so there is nothing particularly interesting. Luo Zhixue just took the train to briefly look at the canal construction sites along the way, and also stopped by The northernmost port of the canal: Subei Port.

The name means that this place is the northern port of the Suez Canal.

This place was originally just a small coastal village. After the Suez area was ceded to the Chu Empire, this place was built as a port in the nearby area and was also the outlet of the proposed canal to the Mediterranean.

Therefore, the people of Chu State carried out extensive construction work here and built a large port that could berth ships of 10,000 tons.

At the same time, the entire port is also connected to Sunan Port at the southern end of the canal, realizing railway transportation in the canal zone.

In other words, even if the current Suez Canal has not been completed, in fact, people and goods traveling between Europe and Asia can still be transferred through this Suez Railway to shorten the travel time.

After all, even if you include cargo loading and unloading time and railway transportation time, a few days are enough... If it is an emergency transportation, the transfer can even be completed within one day, and people or light cargo can be boarded at Subei Port. Continue to various places along the Mediterranean Sea and even Cadiz, the base camp of the Chu people in Europe.

But if you want to go around Africa, it will take many days.

Of course, this method of transshipment by rail is only suitable for people with high time requirements and light goods. After all, the overall cost is still relatively high.

Bulk goods are still transported by ship, traveling around the Cape of Good Hope between Europe and Asia.

As for personnel, it depends on the situation. If the time requirement is more urgent, then take the train to Suez... If the time requirement is not so urgent, or you don’t want to cause so much trouble, or you want to continue to enjoy Wanton Given the comfort of large passenger ships, you will still choose to travel around the Cape of Good Hope to travel between Europe and Asia.

In reality, most passengers choose to go all the way back and forth by boat instead of going through the process several times and having to transfer to some small and medium-sized passenger ships in the Mediterranean.

This is because most transoceanic passenger ships are relatively fast. Cruising speeds of more than fifteen knots are the norm in daily voyages. If they are advanced luxury passenger ships, they can basically achieve a cruising speed of eighteen or even twenty knots.

This speed does not refer to the maximum speed of a warship... it refers to the average cruising speed of a passenger ship during its daily voyage... People run so fast all the way.

As for warships, they actually cruise at a speed of ten to eight knots in daily life to save coal and avoid long-term high-power operation that affects the life of the steam engine.

But the power systems of those ocean liners are often larger and even more advanced than those of contemporaneous warships... The first large ship-borne three-expansion four-cylinder was not used first on warships, but on those 10,000-ton luxury ocean liners. used on.

When that thing was first produced, it was very expensive, and the Navy was reluctant to use such a thing.

At the same time, ocean-going luxury liners are more willing to pile up units... A warship may only have ten or eight boilers, but they will stuff fifteen or even twenty boilers of the same level.

This is because Navy warships require a large amount of tonnage and space for firepower systems and protection systems... Those artillery guns are not just a simple barrel. Behind the large-caliber main gun is a whole set of very huge systems. What people see every day The turret and barrel are only a small part exposed. In fact, there is a huge ammunition supply system and ammunition storage system inside the simplified fuselage.

Not to mention protection, the Chu Army pursues the idea of ​​comprehensive protection in the new generation of warships. It would rather have thinner armor but full coverage. However, even if it is thinner, the weight of the armor under full protection is still very huge.

In addition, the Navy also needs to consider long-term endurance combat capabilities during combat, and requires a large amount of space to accumulate coal, ammunition, food, fresh water and other supplies.

Therefore, every inch of space and every tonnage on the warship is very precious. The weight and space left for the power system are also limited. It is impossible to pile up power systems casually!

...Of course, the power system is also too expensive. The increase in shipbuilding costs caused by accumulating too many power systems is also difficult for the navy to accept.

As for civilian ocean liners, there is no need to consider so many things... Armor is not needed at all. In terms of firepower, it is indeed available, but generally only a few 50mm or 40mm calibers are installed. The civilian model ship-borne rapid-fire cannon is used for self-defense and does not require a huge loading structure at all.

This frees up a lot of space for the power system!

This also leads to the fact that in the contemporary Dachu Empire, the power systems of ocean-going luxury liners can generally beat the power systems of warships... The same is true in terms of speed.

Any new ocean-going luxury liner built and put into service in recent years can basically sail across the ocean at an average speed of eighteen knots.

If a warship and an ocean liner were to sail across the ocean, the ocean liner would have already reached its destination, while the warship probably hadn't even finished halfway!

Under such circumstances, in fact, for passengers, even if they go around the Cape of Good Hope, it will not take much longer than transiting on the Suez Railway. In this way, passengers will naturally be more inclined to take a boat all the way between Europe and Asia. , will not easily get off the ship in the middle, and then buy the train ticket by yourself, and have to find a ship to go to the destination in the middle... After such tossing, it may be delayed more time and cost more money.

This also leads to the fact that although there is a railway, the main function of this railway is not passenger transportation, but freight.

And the more important freight task is not commercial operations...helping goods travel between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, but the various materials needed for the construction of the Suez Canal.

When this railway was originally built, it was for the construction of the Suez Canal...it was considered a preliminary project for the canal construction project.

Anyway, it doesn’t cost a lot of money... There are only more than 100 roads in total, and it is a small narrow-gauge single-track railway built on a flat desert. This kind of small railway is generally used in special occasions, and the construction difficulty is small. , low cost, this thing can be built easily for the Dachu Empire's railway industry, which has already built hundreds of thousands of roads.

In the words of some contemporary railway engineers, for this kind of railway, just draw a line and then build it all the way with your eyes closed.

In fact, this is indeed the case. The Peninsula Railway Company, the Dachu Empire Railway Company, only took eight months to build this railway!

Much of this time was due to the fact that the equipment and materials did not arrive at the same time, but arrived one after another, which delayed the railway construction time to a certain extent.

Luo Zhixue walked along this small narrow-gauge railway and went to the northern Jiangsu port for a brief inspection!

This port is relatively important to the Chu Empire. It is currently one of the main naval bases of the Chu Empire in the Mediterranean region. It is used to control the eastern Mediterranean and control the canal.

Therefore, this place is also the headquarters of the Mediterranean Fleet. There have been more than ten warships of different types stationed here and operating around it for a long time.

After completing his inspection at Subei Port, Luo Zhixue took a train back south and arrived at Sunan Port. He boarded the Royal Princess again, left the Red Sea under the escort of the inspection fleet, and then headed south along the east coast of Africa.

During this trip south, although the inspection fleet will still provide supplies at several port cities along the way, Luo Zhixue will not disembark for inspection.

The main reason is that the cities directly under the Central Government along the way are not very interesting... They are said to be directly under the Central Government, but their scale is generally very small. In the vast overseas territory system of the Dachu Empire, they are only used as supply ports and cargo transportation ports. , even the Port of Maputo, which belongs to the South African Province, is no exception.

Although a large amount of gold is shipped out of this place every year, there is nothing else except gold... Not to mention that the origin of the Golden City is not in this coastal port, but in Tshwane, an inland area of ​​Maputo Prefecture. city.

And it is impossible for Luo Zhixue to go ashore and then take a train hundreds of kilometers to see the gold mine... Besides, the local gold mine is not suitable as an inspection place at the moment. Because local gold mining requires a large amount of labor, in order to save costs, the empire actually classified the local gold mining areas as military management areas. This kind of military management area allowed dispatched workers from indigenous labor companies to work in limited areas. of.

The overall model is similar to the current Suez Canal Military Management Zone, where there are 200,000 to 300,000 indigenous labor dispatch workers.

In order to avoid trouble, especially safety trouble, it is impossible for Luo Zhixue to go to these places with a large number of indigenous people.

Therefore, when Luo Zhixue was in Maputo, he did not even get off the ship. After meeting with senior local civil and military officials and the South African governor who came to greet him on the ship, he continued southward after the fleet completed supplies such as coal, food, and fresh water.

The inspection fleet went all the way around the Cape of Good Hope and finally arrived at Cape Town, the provincial capital of the South African Province, the seat of the South African Governor, the seat of the South African Garrison Command, the 25th Army Headquarters, the African Fleet Command and other civil and military administrative agencies. .

Because this place has relatively few large-scale ship repair yards in overseas territories, the inspection fleet will stay here for about half a month after leaving Ceylon Island and after a continuous voyage of more than 20,000 kilometers in order to conduct inspections. Inspect numerous ships in the fleet for repair and maintenance.

During the previous long voyage, ships in the inspection fleet had problems one after another. Even the battleship Tianjin had some minor problems with its power system while sailing in the East African waters. Although it had been inspected by the fleet maintenance team and made emergency repairs, The powertrain was restored.

However, it is still necessary to go to the South African shipyard for detailed inspection to avoid subsequent problems.

Some other ships also had some problems. One transport ship's refrigeration system broke down while in the Red Sea.

This resulted in most of the more than 4,000 tons of various frozen fresh foods transported on this transport ship being scrapped... to a certain extent, affecting the endurance of the inspection fleet in extreme circumstances.

After all, there are tens of thousands of people in the entire fleet, and the variety of fresh food needed every day is very large... Although there are many supply bases along the way, a large amount of fresh food will be supplied at every stop.

But the reason why the inspection fleet brought so many transport ships was not to a large extent for maritime supplies during the voyage... but to prevent accidents!

The staff team in the inspection fleet considered that in the event of extreme weather or other unexpected situations, the entire fleet would be floating on the sea without a solution, or if the supply port encountered any trouble, such as rebel unrest, When the scheduled supply ports are unable to be used due to indigenous attacks, etc., they can still rely on a large number of living supplies, coal, fresh water, etc. on the transport ships to maintain an endurance of at least 30,000 kilometers.

For example, this time when we left the Suez Canal Management Zone and headed to Cape Town, South Africa... the journey was about more than 10,000 kilometers. This voyage exceeded the conventional endurance of each ship, even the Tianjin-class battleship, which was overloaded with coal. Under normal circumstances, its endurance is only 8,000 kilometers, and this is still talking about endurance at a speed of ten knots.

Even a behemoth like the Tianjin class cannot reach Cape Town from Sunan Port in one go. Coal and fresh water are required to be replenished along the way.

However, if supplies cannot be obtained at the planned supply ports, namely Mogadishu and Maputo, then the fleet will need to rely on the coal, fresh water and various living supplies carried by each ship itself and each transport ship to sustain such a long distance. voyage.

This is why there are not only coal ships but also fresh water transport ships in the inspection fleet.

In short, it is to avoid any accidents and troubles... For absolute safety, even after problems occur at the scheduled supply port, we will not consider going to unplanned ports for temporary supplies!

At planned supply ports, Guardsmen will usually arrive in advance to control local defense, monitor local conditions, and ensure supply safety.

But unplanned ports... who knows what will happen there.

Especially after a problem occurs at the planned supply port, who can guarantee whether the rebels or indigenous people did it deliberately to drive you to a nearby unplanned port... There is no guarantee that there will be an ambush by rebels or indigenous people anywhere. Wait, just waiting for you, Luo Zhixue, to fall into a trap.

Therefore, the itinerary of the inspection fleet will never change... Even if the planned supply port is unavailable, we will not go there... For this reason, the inspection fleet has brought a lot of various supply ships and transport ships with it!

Theoretically, based on the supplies and reserves of the passenger ships, warships and troop carriers in the inspection fleet, plus the large amounts of supplies carried by professional supply ships and ordinary transport ships, it is enough for the entire inspection fleet to sail 30,000 kilometers without any supplies. Thousands of kilometers.

This standard is calculated based on the voyage from the east coast of North America back to the mainland Wusong Port...

Taking the straightest route from New York all the way, without any hassles in between, it would be about more than 26,000 miles. In actual navigation, you will definitely need to travel more miles and consume more coal, so if you leave a margin, calculate Thirty thousand kilometers is about the same.

If there is no such requirement, the size of the inspection fleet can be directly reduced by more than half... because the total number of ocean liners and troop transport ships in the inspection fleet is only more than 20, plus dozens of warships... the rest are The hundreds of ships are actually various cargo transport ships, professional supply ships, hospital ships, maintenance ships and other professional auxiliary ships.

But His Majesty naturally has to consider all aspects when traveling, so the inspection fleet has become a huge scale of more than a hundred ships. This fleet size can be used for transoceanic landing operations.

After the inspection fleet arrived in South Africa, Luo Zhixue did not conduct any decent inspection activities in Cape Town, South Africa... because there was nothing interesting to see in South Africa.

This South African province was originally established mainly for the gold in Maputo Prefecture, South Africa, and the maritime supply function of Cape Town... In addition, there are some arable land resources in the local area, and a relatively thorough purge operation was carried out in the early days, so South Africa Apart from those gold mines, there are no indigenous people in the province, so it is logical to establish overseas territories directly under the jurisdiction of the province.

But there is more... there is no more. Apart from ship repairs, there is no industry in this place, and the agricultural development can only be said to be average... Well, in fact, the agricultural development in the entire Africa is not very good. The local climate It was so bad that no one in Chu was willing to come.

That’s why the Chu people set up various colonial plantations in Africa, and acquiesced in Chen Jingyun’s West African Kingdom and various other agricultural development companies that although they did not openly establish a country, actually controlled a large area of ​​land and had a large number of armed personnel, security Chu state enterprises such as companies.

Because if we don’t do this, it will be difficult for local agricultural development in Africa, let alone providing agricultural and mineral products for the empire, it will be good if the empire does not provide subsidies!

Specific to the South African province, it is similar. The overall development is relatively backward, and the economy relies heavily on gold and port services.

Under such circumstances, Luo Zhixue was too lazy to run away. He casually inspected for two days and then entered vacation mode. He took more than a dozen concubines and some accompanying princes and princesses to travel around, see the scenery, hunt and so on.

After staying like this for more than half a month, Luo Zhixue took his family back to the Royal Princess, which had completed maintenance.

At this time, other ships in the inspection fleet have basically completed basic maintenance, and some problematic ships have also been inspected and repaired.

Not to mention material supplies, which were completed early.

Therefore, as soon as Luo Zhixue boarded the Royal Princess, the entire inspection fleet set sail north. They would go all the way north. After completing the mid-way replenishment in the administrative territory of Ghana City, they would go straight to the headquarters of the Dachu Empire in Europe, a territory directly under the jurisdiction of the European Governor. Port of Cadiz.

According to the scheduled plan, Luo Zhixue will receive kings/queens from major vassal states in Europe in Cadiz!

According to the way the local natives in Europe speak, it is probably: His Majesty the Emperor of the Chu Empire will receive his loyal servants in Cadiz!