When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 761: Flute-Shaped Ship and Industrial Complex

In the darkness of night, the bloated cargo ship broke through the waves and headed towards Fort Jeanne d'Arc.

The Saint-Sun ship is still under repair, and Horn is in a hurry to go to Jeanne d'Arc.

So he simply mobilized a new cargo ship at the dock and set off with nearly a hundred guards.

The candlelight swayed with the rise and fall of the boat. Horn sat by the window, letting the river breeze with the smell of fish and shrimp blow across his face.

Although they would not arrive at Chateau Joan of Arc until late at night, Horn still couldn't sleep.

The preparation time was originally one and a half years, then it was shortened to one year, and now it is only half a year.

Who can sleep well in this situation?
Currently, the Holy Alliance is facing crises both internally and externally. He must stabilize the situation while preparing for war.

Leaving Madeleine in charge of daily government affairs, Horn gave him two instructions:
First, we worked at full capacity to print three types of promotional materials: an investigation report on the flood conspiracy of the Leia people, a collection of bond dividend cases, and the secret order for the Duke of Wing Nest to dig a dam.

They have one thing in common: they are all fake, or half-true and half-false.

Second, expand the number of Chekas - the child soldiers in Zhongsi Academy who were only thirteen or fourteen years old four years ago are now sixteen to eighteen years old.

These orphans who have witnessed the cruelty of the church and the nobility have received four or five years of pious education in a completely closed and harsh environment. It is time to release them.

When entering a state of war, society will inevitably move from openness and tolerance to introversion and closure.

Especially when facing such a huge enemy as Leia and such an unfavorable situation at home, it is inevitable to use extreme means.

Afterwards, the Cardinals' Conference will summarize a complete schedule based on information from all parties.

However, before everything begins, there is one thing that needs to be done urgently.

That is conscription and mobilization of manpower.

Currently, Meliati has lost a large number of troops, so Horn has to recruit soldiers in advance to fill this gap.

If too many young and strong people are mobilized to engage in military affairs, flood control and transportation, it will inevitably have a significant impact on the local economy.

Horn's army is a money-eating beast, so how to balance it is a huge problem.

In order to get rid of his messy thoughts, he simply forced his attention to the ship below him.

This ship is a new type of ship that was just produced by Xiaochicheng Shipyard in recent years and is called the Flute Ship.

Due to the removal of a large number of tax checkpoints and river customs, as well as the prosperity of various types of trade, the original single-deck barges can no longer meet the shipping needs of the Thousand River Valley.

Therefore, with the efforts of the shipbuilders, this new type of barge was developed.

It has an extremely narrow upper deck, a pear-shaped hull and a spherical stern.

It is about 25 meters long, 6 meters wide, has three decks, and can carry about 3 tons, but only requires 250 people to operate it.

Moreover, as districts of 100 households were built in various places, the township sheriffs' control over the regions increased significantly.

When the troops retreated, the local tyrants and sheriffs cracked down on the pirates and robbers, reducing the number of armed personnel on the ships.

A ship like this can be purchased for only 260 gold pounds.

If it is transporting grain, the freight is about 5 dinars per ton, and a trip by the flute ship is 12.5 gold pounds.

Since only 12 people are needed and the 200-kilometer one-way journey takes only a week, the average daily wage of the crew can reach about 4 dinars.

But in this way, after deducting other costs, the shipowner still made at least 7 gold pounds.

If you transport sugar and spices, you can make more money.

Basically, the investment will be recovered in two years, and it will be profitable from now on.

It was thanks to these new cargo ships that Horn's Holy Union Market was barely established.

The 23 shipyards in Little Pond and Grand Rapids launch nearly a hundred ships almost every year.

Starting this year, more than half are flute-shaped boats.

Of course, compared with the Dutch Republic, the heyday of Horn's hometown, this is just as humble as an ant.

They launch 500 ocean-going vessels every year, but Horn's is just a near-shore inland vessel.

But compared with other shipbuilding areas during the same period, this is already a considerable efficiency.

It’s not that the shipbuilders in Lower River County and Cassia County have outstanding craftsmanship, but rather that they use a lot of hydraulic machinery and modularity.

Take wood as an example. Shipyards in other parts of the empire would buy wood after receiving orders, dry it for six months, and then slowly saw it to make it. Not only the hull, but also the bow, rudder, mast, etc., all needed to be made and adapted by themselves.

Even if you are quick, it takes 8 to 9 months to make a flute-shaped boat.

In the Holy Union region, although it has not yet developed to the point of using clockwork machinery, hydraulic machinery is certainly available.

Under the design and transformation of the Holy Trinity engineering team, the shipbuilders replaced the various laborious machines of the past with a large number of pulleys, ropes, and hydraulic sawmills.

Horn generously allowed them to pay for the renovation costs in installments.

The shipbuilders are now working at full capacity to build the ship, looking forward to the day when the ship loan will be paid off.

After the Holy League unified weights and measures and broke the traditional master-apprentice system, Horn instructed Catherine to develop a modular supply chain system.

Simply put, shipbuilders only need to design and build the hull according to the industry standards promulgated by the state-owned guild.

Parts like masts and rudders are made in advance by special workshops and can be installed when the time comes.

As long as the shipwrights and parts workshops strictly follow the measurements and industry standards, it will fit perfectly when installed.

Even the wood used to make the hull is bought and dried by special timber merchants, and the shipyard can just buy it directly.

In shipyards across the country, there is even a strange phenomenon of building ships first and then selling them.

There are citizens and young people everywhere in Shenglian who want to get rich. It is not uncommon for them to grit their teeth and mortgage their hometown land to buy ships to transport goods.

According to Catherine, they have even attracted a group of shipbuilders from Leia, and will be able to expand to 27 shipyards by the end of this year, driving a large number of other small workshops.

Not only the shipbuilding industry, but also the cannon casting and gun machinery industries in Huilu Town have taken shape.

Gun mounts, stocks, gears, straps... surrounding the central Huilu Town Gun Factory, large and small parts workshops guard Huilu Town like satellites.

There are even workshops that make the tools used to make parts, and workshops that make lathes that make the tools used to make parts.

Joan of Arc is a combination of construction and printing and publishing industries, while the Holy See is a combination of textile, alchemy, machinery manufacturing and academia.

Small workshops make parts by hand, while large central factories are only responsible for assembling, purchasing, supplying and manufacturing core parts.

This trend is not just happening in Xiaochi City, but can be seen everywhere in the Holy Alliance.

But they failed to develop like the shipbuilding industry. The main reasons were, first, a lack of craftsmen; second, a lack of customers; and third, a lack of materials.

The construction and printing industries in Joan of Arc were doing relatively well.

The gun industry in Huilu Town depends on market demand.

The textile industry of the Holy See is facing the problem of insufficient supply of raw materials.

And generally, they are short of craftsmen.

Several manufacturing entities under Horn's command have almost absorbed all of the elite craftsmen in the Thousand River Valley.

It actually still couldn't meet the demands of Black Snake Bay and Fran Trading Company, and even the demands within Thousand River Valley were sometimes met and sometimes not.

As for the reason, Horn knew it well. They just didn't have a good view on the future of the Holy Alliance.

In their minds, the Holy League is ultimately a shaky regime.

Under the propaganda offensive of the church and the lords, the artisans of the empire believed that joining Qianhe Valley now was basically equivalent to joining the Qin army in 1949.

This has caused Horn's industrial system to be stuck here, unable to move forward or backward, and will soon reach its incremental ceiling.

The solution to this problem is simple, it is nothing more than defeating the Leia people once.

Give the Empire a resounding fight, and it will not ignore your existence.

So the Holy Alliance actually needs this war?
Horn didn't know what to feel for a moment, and as he thought about it, he actually thought about the war again.

Fortunately, during this period of time, the ship had already sailed through the dark river water and docked at the port of the canal outside Jeanne d'Arc.

Walking from the plank road to the dock, a carriage with a thin iron plate interior was already parked on the side of the road.

Nearly a hundred officers from the St. Tangier Military Academy held torches and hammered their breastplates, making a clanging sound.

They were temporarily transferred to serve as Horn's guards, led by the short-haired Seromis.

Sitting in the carriage, Horn said without any delay: "Where is Jeanne? Okay, let's go to the Holy Visitation Hall."

(End of this chapter)