Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

After nearly two years of construction, the infrastructure iron army from the University of East Africa has completed the first phase of the construction of Nigeria's heavy-duty railway and mine. The initial annual output of selected iron ore can reach more than 500 million tons.

Ten new 10-ton long-distance self-unloading ore transport ships were also launched, and a regular flight directly to North Africa was opened, transporting a steady stream of industrial products to North Africa and the Mediterranean, and then transporting iron ore back from Nigeria.

From the mine to the Southern Steel Plant, a complete closed loop has finally been formed. The Southern Steel Plant has a steel production capacity of 2000 million tons, of which nearly 500 million tons are now supplied from Nigeria each year. The remaining iron ore comes from the Thousand Islands and the Kangaroo Country, marking the initial realization of diversified raw material supply sources.

After these iron ores are transformed into high-quality construction steel or steel products in blast furnaces, they are sold to distant places again on ships.

The dense transport ships from the East University flow on the ocean, bringing huge profits, but also bringing the ubiquitous sea flies and vultures.

"We have received reports. According to statistics from the past six months, we have 15 of our Far-reaching-class and 20 of our Dawn-class transport ships attacked by pirates. 18 of them have been blackmailed, with losses of over a million. According to our statistics, from Malacca to the Indian Ocean-Red Sea near North African waters, these places are densely populated by pirates." Staff Officer Ye found Ren Zhong with another headache.

"We are basically helpless against these pirates right now. It is very difficult to prevent them. Brother Ren, you have a flexible mind and broad thinking. Can you think of a solution for us?"

Staff Officer Ye was really anxious.

Although only a few people have suffered losses due to the large-scale shipping brought about by overseas trade, the scale of piracy has also increased significantly as the scale of shipping has grown. According to international maritime statistics, there have been hundreds of reports from last year to now, with dozens of casualties among shipping sailors.

This has resulted in a significant increase in the cost of marine life insurance.

This would be very difficult for a country like Tokyo that relies heavily on sea transportation.

Not to mention anything else, the cost invested in security alone has increased a lot.

And there has been no effect yet.

After listening to this, Ren Zhong felt a little confused.

They have conducted special research on this aspect, but modern pirates in the main world are still very rampant, proving that this problem is really difficult to solve.

"Let me study it first, Chief of Staff Ye. You really know how to make things difficult for me. This pirate problem is probably not easy to deal with with the current means of combat. Although I haven't studied the method yet, there are places to hide everywhere in this vast ocean. With the current technical means and methods, it is impossible to quickly discover the traces of pirates. Moreover, these pirates can easily blend in with the fishermen, and how to identify them is a big problem." Ren Zhong gave Chief of Staff Ye a shot of prevention to prevent him from being too optimistic.

"Of course I understand that if these problems were not very difficult, they would not have reached my hands. Now that the problems have escalated to me, it means that the people below are really forced into a corner and have no other options." Staff Officer Ye said with a wry smile.

"We don't want to cure the root cause, but we can alleviate some of the pain and minimize the losses."

"If we don't solve this loss now, we will lose more than just money. Our shipping will also face a huge blow in the future. Maybe no one will be willing to work as a seafarer in the future."

Staff Officer Ye said that what he said was not alarmist.

If a job does not even have basic security guarantees, potential workers in this position will have to consider many factors.

This is not about defending the country, that is something that a passionate man must do, and sacrifice is glorious.

"I'll do my best." Ren Dian nodded. He knew that this would happen sooner or later as shipping developed, but he didn't expect it to happen so soon.

The origins of modern pirates are complex and they do not require professional training like they did in the Middle Ages.

Today's pirates may be honest fishermen in normal times, but after being organized by someone with ulterior motives, they turn into pirates. It is basically ineffective to strike at the source.

Because no legitimate business can be quicker than highway robbery.

Ren Zhong returned to the main world to obtain information to study this problem. Sure enough, this matter is not simple at all.

The waters from Malacca to North Africa are full of pirates. From fishermen to sailors, local tribes and warlords, everyone is involved in this dangerous game. The main world will not be able to solve this headache problem even by 2024.

For commercial fleets, demilitarization is the most basic requirement, which means that when merchant ships encounter pirate forces, they basically lack the means to confront them.

It is also not feasible to equip merchant ships with thermal weapons, and many countries will refuse to arm merchant ships.

After some searching, Ren Zhong finally figured out some clues about the matter. Although there is no permanent solution, there are still some ideas for treating the symptoms.

In the South China Sea, a Dongda cargo ship fully loaded with cargo was traveling under the starry sky.

The giant ship Yangbo No. 1 was a little different this time because of one more person.

Lin Liang was originally an engineer, but he was called up for training a month ago. After the training, he became the chief safety officer of a giant ship of the Dongda series and began to follow the giant ship for half a year.

"Everyone, pay attention. The subject we are going to learn today is archery." On the wide deck of the giant ship, several targets were erected more than 40 meters away. Lin Liang, holding a strange-looking bow and arrow in his hand, said to the free sailors on the ship.

"The bow in my hand is called a compound bow. It has the characteristics of high accuracy, high stability, great power, and easy to use. The longest range of the arrow can reach 300 to 400 meters under the right angle and favorable wind conditions. The arrowheads in your hands are made of alloy steel and are very powerful. Don't point them at the people or things on our ship. This thing can shoot through the explosion-proof shield and car door panels from ten meters away!
After training, everyone can basically accurately hit the bull's eye from dozens of meters away. If you train more attentively, you can almost accurately shoot at a target within about 80 meters and effectively kill it. In our situation at sea, the range of killing the human body is about 150 meters. "In the oncoming deck wind, Lin Liang's voice quickly scattered over the sea.

However, the twenty-odd seamen in front of him were all very excited. "Instructor Lin, is this the self-defense weapon the captain told us about?" A middle-aged man grinned and said, "I heard that we need to have some self-defense weapons. I thought we could get some rifles for the brothers, but I didn't expect it to be this. But after hearing what you said, Instructor Lin, I think this thing is not bad either."

"If you want to hit someone with an AK, it's not going to work if you're more than a hundred meters away. Now that we have this thing, we don't have to worry about facing an AK or anything like that."

"This is just a kind of self-defense equipment we have equipped for everyone. Please note that from now on, you will call these things sports equipment or simple self-defense equipment. We are a merchant ship, not an armed ship." Lin Liang corrected with a smile.

He was the first batch of seed instructors who carried out self-defense activities on the Dongda long-distance ships according to the five-piece self-defense set recommended by Ren Zhong, which was sorted out after Ren Zhong's research in the main world.

The sailors of the giant ships on long voyages are provided with a five-piece self-defense set, a three-defense combination of a bulletproof vest, a bulletproof helmet and a bulletproof shield, a compound bow, a mace, a high-pressure water cannon, and barbed wire around the giant ships.

This instantly raised the giant ship's close-range combat power to a very high level.

Now each giant ship is equipped with more than 10 compound bows, with at least 500 sharp arrows with lethal alloy arrowheads, and dozens of training arrows. If they are well-trained, these trained young sailors on the giant ship can fight against small groups of three to five pirates or even a dozen pirates.

The compound bow has the ability to directly kill from a distance, and the high-pressure water cannon's long-range suppression and boarding prevention effects are very obvious. Coupled with the barbed wire and mace in the final close combat suppression, it is extremely difficult for ordinary pirates to attack such a huge ship with just a simple AK.

This level of defense can curb 70 to 80 percent of pirates who act on impulse.

Ren Zhong has another trick for well-equipped and organized pirates: sending warships for escort.

A marine wireless communication system is now installed on each of Dongda's giant ships. It supports direct voice calls for help at a distance of about 100 kilometers, as well as long-range Morse telegraph. It can directly connect to similar equipment on the escort fleet's ships, call for help when encountering danger, and automatically report the current longitude and latitude of the giant ship.

This maritime safety wireless system is a simplified and redesigned version of the navy's wireless system, and can now be seamlessly integrated with Dongda's giant ship driving system.

All ocean-going shipping or fishing vessels registered with the University of Tokyo must install it. Since the shortwave is connected to the University of Tokyo’s current satellite system, the distance of the Morse code communication system is almost unlimited and global.

In this way, basically every Dongda ocean-going shipping ship can transmit the information of the attack back to a unified maritime emergency rescue center after calling for help, and the maritime emergency rescue center will carry out relevant distress rescue work.

This provided the escort fleet with first-hand on-site information.

In order to ensure the timeliness of rescue.

Ren Zhong suggested carrying out regular and practical patrols and escorts in waters where pirates frequently appear, such as the Malacca Strait and the Gulf of Aden!

According to the training plan of the Navy of the University of Tokyo, this kind of training and escort can be done by a single ship or a mixed fleet, which is just right to promote training through combat.

However, the current supply system cannot support combat training and escort in the vast ocean area, and we cannot rely entirely on our own supply ships.

However, for the current Southeast University, these are not big deals. Now the University has good external relations, and it quickly negotiated several commonly used supply ports and established supply points in Phuket, Maldives, Djibouti and Seychelles. In this way, the ships patrolling in the Indian Ocean and Malacca will have supply points almost every 3000 kilometers. Even the smallest Jianghai-class destroyer can now patrol these waters freely.

In this way, the three types of destroyers in the current fleet of Dongda, namely the Jianghai-class, Luhai-class and Luyang-class, can all be dispatched to the Indian Ocean in turn for routine actual combat training.

Great Strait.

It was past 12pm local time.

After a week of sailing, if Yangbo No. 500 safely passed the Great Strait, it would have smoothly crossed the entire dangerous Malacca Sea. Pirates usually ride on small boats, which do not have a long endurance. Such ordinary small boats equipped with a large number of engines will not carry too much fuel, usually only two or three hundred kilometers. Only very professional pirates will be equipped with a large fuel capacity and a long-range speedboat with a range of nautical miles.

But for Yangbo No. 1, who have been training for a week, not only are they not afraid of the pirates this time, they even hope that some ignorant ones will come up and let everyone test their skills.

"Instructor Lin, you said that our escort ships are also in this sea area, how come we haven't encountered them?" In the evening, Tong Wenbo, a seaman who shared a cabin with Lin Liang, asked curiously.

"We have only deployed two destroyers in this sea area, so it's not easy to encounter them at any time." Lin Liang thought about it and said to Tong Wenbo, "This information will be made public and there is nothing to keep secret. Normally, one of them patrols around Phuket and the other is near Singapore. If there is any problem, they can arrive in ten hours at most. Of course, if they are nearby, they can come at any time."

Generally, escort is now deployed in the form of a detachment. Usually, an ordinary destroyer detachment is composed of 5 Jianghai-class and 3 Luhai-class destroyers as the main combat force, while an elite destroyer detachment is composed of 5 Luhai-class destroyers, one Luyang-class destroyer and two Jianghai-class destroyers.

Therefore, when performing escort missions, more than two ships form a patrol and warning zone of 500 nautical miles in the area from Malacca to the Gulf of Aden and northeast Africa.

In this way, even if the scene of the giant ship accident is far away, it will only take a dozen hours to get there, and if you happen to be nearby, you can arrive at the scene very quickly.

"Then we can sail boldly and confidently from now on. The pirates in the past period of time were so abominable that they made the brothers who sailed at sea panic-stricken. Now with the safety devices brought by Instructor Lin and you, we feel more at ease." After several days of training, Tong Wenbo admired Lin Liang very much, who was superior to them in all aspects.

"We still can't be too careless. There are no signs of pirates appearing. The brothers who are responsible for lookout in the future must be vigilant and pay attention to the situation on the sea at all times. Especially the brothers who are on night watch, it is easy to make mistakes due to poor vision at night. They must overcome the fatigue brought by the night and pay attention at all times." Before Lin Liang finished speaking, a shrill alarm bell suddenly rang from the ship!
"Pirates are coming! Let's go!" Lin Liang and Tong Wenbo heard the alarm, turned over, and quickly put on the helmets and bulletproof vests next to them.

Then he opened the cabin door and trotted onto the deck.

The rest of the weapons were on the deck. After hearing the alarm, all the sailors who were resting trotted to the deck where the weapons were stored.

"Archery Team, Wolf Fang Team, Water Cannon Team, take your positions!" (End of this chapter)