I want to be emperor

Chapter 618 Nanyang Vibration
When the Fifth Division and a large amount of supplies were being transported to the Beijia area in China, Xu Donglai, who had been in Nanyang for more than half a year, also ushered in a new stage of his life!

The first rubber plantation he invested and built in the Kingdom of Siam has been successfully opened, and rubber saplings purchased at a considerable price have been planted one after another.

Originally, Xu Donglai wanted to go to the Beijia area to build a plantation, but later found that this idea was unreliable, because opening up a plantation required a lot of manpower, and it was difficult to get enough manpower in Beijia.

Because there are very few immigrants from the native land, and the immigrants all have their own land, they will not work for you to grow bananas!

As for the aborigines... In the actual control area of ​​the Great Chu Empire, for the sake of safety and to avoid subsequent troubles, the aborigines are not allowed to enter.

If you go to a place where there are a large number of indigenous people in the actual control area to open up plantations, the risk is too great.

The continued suppression and expulsion actions of the Great Chu Empire in these areas aroused strong resistance and hostility from the local indigenous people.

If Xu Donglai dared to run out of the actual control area and open up plantations in a place where there are still a large number of aborigines, it is unknown whether he can come back alive.

Moreover, the empire's expulsion and suppression operations in the Beijia area are still continuing, and the actual control area continues to expand. Sooner or later, this will cover the area where the plantation is located. At that time, what will happen to the natives employed in the plantation?
From Xu Donglai's point of view, the poor place in Beijia is only suitable for ordinary immigrants to farm in the actual control area, and it is quite unfriendly to businessmen like them who want to open plantations there...

In desperation, he could only divert to Bangkok, and then wanted to open up rubber plantations in the Kingdom of Siam, where the situation was relatively stable. After all, various business agreements had been reached with the Great Chu Empire.

By opening plantations in the Kingdom of Siam, local people can be hired to grow rubber, and the problem of manpower can be solved.

There is no need to worry too much about security issues. The Kingdom of Siam has been terrified by the Great Chu Empire. Now many Siamese officials are afraid when they see the people of Great Chu...

When Xu Dinglai ran to open a rubber plantation, the local Siamese officials took the initiative to send troops to protect him, fearing that something might happen to Xu Donglai on their land, which would lead to some diplomatic turmoil...

If something really happened, he would lose his official position and resign in minutes.

With the strong cooperation of local aboriginal officials, there is no problem in terms of safety, and the salaries of these aboriginal workers are even cheaper.

In this way, Xu Donglai also put the rubber plantation in the Kingdom of Siam.

Although these rubber saplings still need several years to grow before they can harvest rubber, Xu Donglai is full of confidence because he has reached a cooperation agreement with Panyu Rubber Factory, the only rubber processing factory in China.

As the only rubber processing factory at present, Panyu Rubber Factory wants to get more rubber sources and wants to go crazy...

In recent years, they have purchased rubber from the Spaniards. After the Spaniards discovered that this thing can be sold for money, they began to arrange for indigenous people to harvest rubber in South America and also planted it on a large scale.

This kind of rubber supply comes from a single source, and it is difficult to guarantee the safety of raw materials. More importantly, the Spaniards sell it too expensive!
There is nothing the Panyu Rubber Factory can do about it. After all, this thing can only be produced on a large scale in areas under the control of the Spaniards. They say that the price is the price.

In order to solve the problem of rubber supply, the Panyu Rubber Factory had previously coordinated with its superiors to allow officials to invest in the construction of several rubber plantations, but the scale is still relatively small, and most areas in the country are not suitable for rubber growth.

Now, after they found out that some folks went to Siam to invest in the construction of rubber plantations, they came directly to the door for support and cooperation.

They even signed a purchase contract in advance, allowing Xu Dinglai to avoid worries and allowing him to increase investment in rubber plantation.

This rubber has already been planted, and as long as it is well maintained, it can be harvested after a few years and bring Xu Donglai a lot of money.

However, Xu Donglai didn't plan to be idle for several years, but used the remaining funds in his hands to open a small trading company.

The main thing is to buy goods from domestic maritime trade from Bangkok, and then transfer them to the inland areas of the Kingdom of Siam for sale.

To put it bluntly, he is a second-rate dealer!
The small business of this kind of second-hand traffickers is generally looked down upon by those large domestic traders. They directly transport the goods over in whole ships, then wholesale them in Bangkok, and sell them to local aboriginal businessmen, or come here like Xu Donglai. Rich businessman.

People make a lot of money!
As for Xu Donglai, in fact, what he earned was hard money!

But because he is a businessman from China, he can make a face when buying goods. Even if the price is not discounted, he can still get more in-demand goods than those native businessmen.

For those big trading companies, these in-demand commodities are sold to anyone, as long as the price is high, selling more to colleagues like Xu Donglai is just a matter of effort.

Relying on the supply of these in-demand commodities, it only took Xu Donglai a few months to initially open up the market, and he also brought in several local aboriginal families in the inland area to cooperate to further expand the market.

The scale of this business is actually not that big, and it cannot be compared with those trading companies that own merchant ships and go out to sea for trade, and the value of hundreds of thousands of goods is not comparable.

But he, Xu Donglai, is not a big businessman either, so he is already very satisfied to be able to earn some hard-earned money in the eyes of those big trading companies.

In Siam, he was tossing about the rubber plantation, and at the same time he was tossing about the trade. When Chengshun settled the accounts on the first day of the 15th year, he found that the money he brought from China was not only not less, but more...

You know, he invested in rubber plantations one after another during the period, but he spent a lot of money. Basically, most of the money he brought from China was spent on rubber plantations.

However, through the trading company, he earned the money back.

And it only took half a year.

Looking at the account book, Xu Donglai couldn't help sighing: Nanyang is really full of gold!

However, like Xu Donglai, there are actually quite a few people who went to Nanyang to take risks and try to make a fortune, and there are actually not many people who can really be as successful as Xu Donglai.

Many people lost their money and lost their money, or they never returned. The devil knows where they died in that corner. Some people who are courageous and not very powerful even went to those islands with cannibals to try to do business. Became the shit of those cannibals...

Nanyang in this era is indeed full of opportunities for wealth, but it is also brewing with countless dangers.

Even in the Beijia area of ​​the Great Chu Empire, except for the areas that have undergone large-scale deportation and suppression, those areas that have not undergone comprehensive deportation and suppression are not considered safe.

If someone rashly ran out of the safe zone and wanted to experience some exotic customs, the end would probably not be very good...

As an aggressor, one must have the consciousness of an aggressor, and even foolishly ran to other people's territory, isn't that asking for death!
Could it be that you still expect them to entertain you, the invader, with fine wine.

In broad daylight, what are you dreaming about!
When friends come, there is good wine, and when wolves come, there are great powers. To the original natives, the people of Dachu were definitely not friends, but wolves who robbed their homes.

Many people who come to Nanyang to make a fortune actually do not have this awareness. Some Dachu people who come to Nanyang often have the illusion that they are superior to others, and then go to the aboriginal territory, thinking that those aboriginals respect him as a high-level civilized person ...

Then most of these people died unexpectedly!
There are still relatively few self-conscious people like Xu Donglai. Although he is also active in the indigenous territory, he is only limited to the safe zone of the Siam Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Siam has been terrified by the Great Chu Empire. At the same time, although the Kingdom of Siam was defeated, they did not collapse internally. Instead, they still maintained efficient governance of the local area and were able to ensure the basic law and order of the local area.

In order to avoid any diplomatic turmoil, the local officials of the Kingdom of Siam are more cautious towards the Dachu people, and try not to let the Dachu people have problems on their own territory.

In any case, there are more and more Dachu people who come to Nanyang to seek opportunities to make a fortune, and among these people, many of them quickly sense the danger... There is still a chance!
Xu Donglai, who is in Bangkok, is one of them. He found that during this period of time at the beginning of the year, there were a lot of merchant ships coming to Bangkok from China. After inquiring, many domestic merchant ships were recruited by the military at the beginning of this year.

In addition, Xu Donglai also discovered that the government bought a large amount of grain in the Bangkok area, and then shipped it away.

Although it is said in the market that this is to increase the grain trade between the empire and Siam, so the purchase volume has been increased, but Xu Donglai also has his own connections.

He heard from a friend who worked in the Nanyang Trading Company that these merchant ships full of grain were not directly shipped back to China, but were shipped to Bei Nian Port in the Beijia area.

At the same time, he heard that the Nanyang Trading Company has suspended its trade to the Indian Peninsula this year.

Since the start of the Indian trade, the Nanyang Trading Company has basically organized several fleets to go to the Indian peninsula for trade every year, but this year, the Nanyang Trading Company's fleet has been delayed.

These unusual places made Xu Donglai suspect that there was some change in the situation in Nanyang.

However, Xu Donglai was only skeptical, after all, he was just a small businessman, and his worth and social status were not enough for him to know the movements of the higher-ups.

Small businessmen like Xu Donglai still had doubts, but they couldn't figure out what happened. As a big trader, Liu Jiaquan had learned the relevant news early on.

At the end of last year, Liu Jiaquan had already received a notice from the navy, asking Liu Jiaquan to prepare the merchant ships under the Liuhe Trading Company to be called up by the navy in advance.

The recruitment date starts from February 15 of Chengshun and is expected to last for about half a year.

According to the Navy's call-up order, Liu Jiaquan must prepare in advance the two Fuchuan under his command and a new sea-going ship that has just entered service.

In addition, Luohua Shipyard, which Liu Jiaquan participated in, also received orders from the Navy to speed up the construction progress of several new sea-going ships under construction, ensuring that they will be completed and delivered in succession in the spring of Chengshun 15.

Although the military did not disclose why it wanted to call up ships on a large scale, it is clear to everyone with their toes that the military is definitely going to make a big move, and there is a high probability that it will launch a large-scale cross-sea landing operation.

Otherwise, there is no need for the military to recruit so many ships from major trading companies.

After all, for ordinary sea operations, the military's own warships are enough, and the armed merchant ships in the trading company are not needed. Even for small-scale landing operations and transportation tasks, the navy also has its own transportation fleet.

Now it is necessary to recruit a large number of armed merchant ships from major trading companies, which means that the scale of future operations will be huge.

At least it was a big operation to transport tens of thousands of combat troops and corresponding logistics materials, so it was necessary to recruit dozens of armed merchant ships at every turn.

In fact, Liu Jiaquan is somewhat resistant to this kind of recruitment by the military... After all, although the military recruitment will give compensation, it only gives basic compensation, that is, crew salaries and basic ship requisition fees, but the amount is not much , can only guarantee the daily maintenance costs of the conscripted ships.

But for a trading company, trade is where the profit lies, and if there is no trade on this day, there will be losses.

However, there is no way around this. The recruiting laws of the Great Chu Empire are very strict, especially the recruiting regulations for armed merchant ships. Anyone who dares not follow that will basically end up in prison and beheaded.

The Great Chu Empire allowed the private sector to form ocean-going trading companies and issued special licenses to allow trading companies to own armed merchant ships. In addition to allowing trading companies to protect themselves, the purpose was to be able to recruit a large number of these armed merchant ships during wars.

Some are wrong. Since the government has liberalized trade and the restrictions on armed merchant ships, these trading companies naturally need to take on additional responsibilities.

And accepting the military's call-up when necessary is the most important responsibility.

Before the Great Chu Empire also recruited merchant ships from various trading companies on a large scale during the Siam Campaign, and now that it is going to fight the Malay Peninsula, it will naturally be recruited again.

Therefore, although Liu Jiaquan had some opinions on the military's recruitment, he did not dare to disobey. Instead, he obediently planned in advance, prepared all three armed merchant ships under his command, and officially accepted the military's recruitment in the spring of the year , became part of a huge fleet transporting the Fifth Division and a large amount of logistical supplies.

In addition to Liu Jiaquan's Liuhe Trading Company, other trading companies were recruited, mainly trading companies directly under the three major Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.

These three government-run trading companies alone provided a total of 47 armed merchant ships, and these armed merchant ships are all medium and large ships, most of which are new sea-going ships.

While other private trading companies are much weaker, basically only one or two ships have been conscripted, and those like Liuhe Trading Company have been conscripted with three ships are relatively rare.

These conscripted armed merchant ships departed southward from various domestic ports loaded with supplies or soldiers. After gathering at the Hong Kong Naval Base, they were escorted southward by a navy fleet of warships.

At this time, the fleet going south was extremely large, with a total of more than 100 ships.

Before this huge transport fleet, a navy's main fleet had left the Hong Kong Naval Base several days in advance and entered the depths of the sea.

This naval main fleet not only possesses the main force of the Great Chu Empire Navy's Nanyang Fleet, but also temporarily mobilizes a large number of capital ships from the Great Chu Empire Navy's Beiyang Fleet.

In order to coordinate and integrate this huge combat fleet, Luo Zhixue personally awarded the fleet the temporary designation of the First Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy.

The First Fleet consisted of two first-class battleships, twelve third-class battleships, eighteen cruisers, 38 frigates, armed transport ships, maintenance ships, medical ships, and fast communication ships.

This can be said to be most of the main battleships that have concentrated the essence of the Great Chu Empire Navy. All ships are new main battleships, and their combat effectiveness is leveraged.

You must know that in today's Great Chu Empire, there are actually only two first-class battleships that have been completed and in service, and now both of them have been dispatched.

There are more third-class battleships, but there are only [-] ships in service now, and four of them were built and served in time because the war was about to break out in the past few months. The empire asked the shipyard to work overtime.

Strictly speaking, these four newly commissioned battleships are still in the process of seaworthiness training and do not have full combat effectiveness.

In other words...there are actually only fourteen third-class battleships in the Great Chu Empire Navy currently capable of full combat effectiveness.

And the navy sent twelve ships out in one go, leaving only two Jinling-class improved battleships, and four new recruits to watch the house!

In terms of cruisers, although the total number sent out was not many, the eighteen cruisers actually sent out were also the main cruisers of the Great Chu Empire.

Among them are four of the latest first-class cruisers of the Liaoyang class, which are improved versions of the first-class cruisers of the Songjiang class. After six first-class cruisers of the Songjiang class were built, the navy felt that the firepower was too weak. After all, the caliber of its main gun was only 130mm. millimeters, the penetration ability is limited, and the ability to kill battleships is seriously insufficient.

In addition, the seaworthiness of the ocean is not very good, and the long-term deployment in the ocean is very unfriendly to the sailors.

Therefore, the Matsue-class first-class cruiser was upgraded, mainly by replacing the main gun from 130 mm (18 lb) with a 150 mm (24 lb) naval gun. In order to control the weight, a body was specially developed for this cruiser. Naval guns with a slightly shorter barrel, of course, even with a slightly shorter barrel, still belong to the ranks of cannons.

In this way, although the increased weight is relatively large, resulting in fewer main guns, it also gains the ability to damage battleships.

The second is to increase ocean-going seaworthiness, increase material reserves, and living space for sailors.

These have led to an increase in tonnage, so that the standard displacement of the improved Liaoyang and first-class cruisers has increased to more than 100 tons, which is 800 tons more than the original [-] tons, and the price has also increased a lot.

But these prices are in exchange for a great performance improvement. Its firepower is not a problem to bully all kinds of cruisers, and it can also fight against some small battleships with fifty or sixty guns in many European colonial countries.

And it also has excellent ocean-going seaworthiness, which is very suitable for ocean-going deployment, and it is used for long-term overseas cruising, and the speed is fast!

There is nothing wrong with this thing except that it is expensive!
In addition, there are eight newest Wuzhou-class second-class cruisers. This kind of cruiser is actually a compressed cost version of the new cruiser concept. Build a third-class battleship with multiple 74-gun guns...

However, the number of cruisers is indispensable. For this reason, the Navy designed and built a low-cost version of the Liaoyang-class first-class cruiser, namely the Wuzhou-class second-class cruiser.

The displacement is controlled at more than 800 tons, equipped with a 130 mm (18 lb) main gun, supplemented by some 115 mm naval guns (12 lb), which also improves the ocean-going seaworthiness.

These two cruisers are currently being built and served by the Great Chu Empire Navy. There are expected to be a lot of orders. Of course, whether these estimated orders can be completed depends on the follow-up situation. I am very satisfied. It is expected that there will be more than ten ships on order, but only six ships were built later.

In addition to the two new cruisers, there are also several old Matsue-class first-class cruisers that have undergone seaworthiness modifications.

In the frigate fleet, there is not much change. It is still the Daye class frigate. The Great Chu Empire has a soft spot for this kind of frigate. For more than ten years, it is not that it has not designed and tried to build a new generation of frigate, but in the end they all gave up. , Continue to be honest with the enemy's Tianzao Daye-class frigate.

Why?

Just two words, this boat is cheap!
As the saying goes, three years of sewing and mending, three years and three years...

This ship has actually been improved three times, but the main artillery of this ship has always been the 115mm naval gun that has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

In the early years, there were still a small number of 130mm naval guns. Later, in order to save costs, the navy simply canceled the useless 130mm caliber and replaced them with 115mm naval guns.

Anyway, the 130mm naval gun is not available, so it is better to replace it with an all-in-one 115mm naval gun, which can also unify the caliber, simplify logistics and training, and reduce maintenance costs.

The reason for this is purely because the navy has always had very low requirements for frigates. In the navy of the Great Chu Empire, the biggest role of this thing is to maintain the establishment and training...

Then there is escorting, fighting a pirate, and bullying the natives who have little sea power!
When fighting with the enemy's regular navy, the combat targets are also some small-tonnage cruisers of the opponent. At this time, the Daye-class frigate actually has an advantage. Compared with the same level, the firepower of the Daye-class is not bad.

The recently built Daye-class frigate has standard 24 115mm naval guns as its main gun, which is quite a lot for a frigate doing odd jobs.

At least it is not much of a problem to deal with the enemy's ships of the same level, and it is also very good to deal with ordinary pirates. After all, pirate ships generally have less artillery, and the caliber is generally small.

In fact, many pirate ships are refitted merchant ships. There are only a few or a dozen cannons, and most of the attached cannons are light cannons, mainly six-pound cannons, and there are few twelve-pound cannons. As for the eighteen-pound cannons Phoenix hair water chestnut...

Except for the pirates who cameo on large armed merchant ships of large colonial companies...the latest flagship of the Nanyang Trading Company, the Shunhe armed merchant ship, this broken ship is fully loaded with more than 2000 tons...usually equipped with more than 40 artillery pieces for self-defense, and the caliber of the main gun can reach 150mm Millimeters, the Liaoyang-class first-class cruiser of the Great Chu Empire is enough to fight against it...

But ordinary pirate ships do not have such powerful firepower. Most of the pirate ships have to run away when they encounter Daye-class frigates.

Even if it is a few so-called relatively powerful pirate ships, they will all be hanged and beaten when they encounter the Xiangyang-class cruisers and other unsavory second-class cruisers!

It's a pity that there aren't many pure pirates these days, and many of them are armed merchant ships from trading companies...or simply cameo by naval warships...

For example, when the new armed merchant ships of the Nanyang Trading Company went to the Indian Ocean for trade, they often relied on their own speed and firepower to do this kind of thing!

Alas, people's hearts are not old, and the world is getting worse!

(End of this chapter)