Three Kingdoms: I am not Cao Rui

The fleet continued southward along the Fei River and then entered Chaohu Lake.

During the Jian'an period, the water routes that Sun Quan took to attack Hefei several times were along the Yangtze River, Rushu River, Chaohu Lake, and Fei River. Xiaoyaojin was actually a ferry on the Fei River, and its name was similar to Mengjin and Puzhou.

As you enter Chaohu Lake, the water surface suddenly becomes wide.

The fleet sailed south with full sails riding the north wind. After arriving at Dongxing, before Cao Rui disembarked, he saw a group of officials, craftsmen and more than a thousand soldiers from the shipbuilding factory waiting at the dock.

On the top floor of the ship, Cao Rui looked toward the eastern harbor and said approvingly: "Chaohu Lake will become so prosperous. Before, I only saw some figures in the Privy Council's military reports. Today, I saw it with my own eyes and realized that this place is extraordinary!"

Jiang Ji, who was waiting beside him, smiled and said, "If it weren't for the great grace of heaven and the policy of your majesty, the development of Dongxing Shipyard would never be as smooth as it is today. In the fourth year of Taihe, this place was just a wasteland. At that time, I came to see this place with the chief architect Ma Deheng. The bay was full of silt and aquatic plants, the roads were impassable, and there were no people. In more than two years, everything has come here."

"There are ten large and small docks, and there are more than 3,000 full-time craftsmen working here. The imperial court and the state also continuously transfer corvée labor here, which supports the prosperity of this place."

Cao Rui nodded slightly and said, "Let's go, everyone, follow me to meet Ma Jun and Le Chen."

"As you wish." Jiang Ji and all the ministers answered at the same time.

Soon, Cao Rui walked down the wooden ladder slowly, and thousands of officials, craftsmen and soldiers gathered on the dock all shouted "Long live the emperor". After a simple ceremony, Cao Rui greeted Ma Jun and then looked at Le Chen who was standing aside.

"How long has Le Qing been in Yangzhou?"

Le Chen bowed his hands and saluted, and replied in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, I followed my father to Yangzhou to join the army in the 19th year of Jian'an. Taizu allowed me to start with the position of Dubo, and it has been 20 years now."

"Twenty years, how old were you when you came to Yangzhou?" Cao Rui asked again.

Le Chen replied, "I was twenty-five when I came to Yangzhou. Before that I had been living in my home in Dongjun."

Cao Rui nodded and said, "In the evaluations of the Privy Council over the past few years, I have seen that your evaluations are in the upper middle and upper upper levels, and you have never even been rated as middle. You can be said to be the best among all the generals and lieutenant generals in Yangzhou."

"I ask you, what should a general put first?"

Le Chen did not hesitate and answered loudly: "Your Majesty, a general should put military discipline first! Only by advancing and retreating in moderation and attacking and fighting in the right way can we live up to the orders of the emperor and the grace of the country!"

Cao Rui's expression remained unchanged. He asked, "Why don't generals prioritize bravery and military strategy?"

Le Chen replied, "A general's bravery is the bravery of one person. A strict military discipline makes the whole army act as one. This is the bravery of the whole army. I think we should look at the overall situation, not just the general! As for military strategy, I am stationed in Dongxing, near Shouchun. My superiors are in charge of my advances and retreats. I am familiar with geography. I think military strategy is not something that a general like me should consider."

Cao Rui laughed a few times and said, "You don't need to think about military strategy now. If you become a general in the future and take on the responsibility of a region, then you still don't need to think about military strategy in the future, right?"

"Come, Minister Xu, remember this for me."

Upon hearing this, Xu Shu walked from the back row to Cao Rui's left rear side, bowed, and stood with his hands behind his back.

Cao Rui smiled and said, "Le Chen, if that's the case, I'll transfer you, a lieutenant general who values ​​military discipline, to another post in a few days, okay?"

Le Chen was stunned at first, but he had been in the Yangzhou army for twenty years. When the emperor named him, it was either a promotion or a transfer. They had just had a good chat, so it was all good news. How could he not understand how to respond?

"I am willing to die for Your Majesty!" Le Chen knelt down and bowed.

Cao Rui said calmly: "You don't need to serve in Dongxing anymore. I won't transfer you far away. I will appoint you as the general of warships and let you lead the navy with the general of the ship. Are you willing?"

"I will only follow your Majesty's orders!" Le Chen kowtowed.

"Okay." Cao Rui raised his hand and gestured upwards: "Get up, you will stay beside me, and supervise the shipbuilding here with me for the next few days. Your specific tasks will be assigned to you later."

"Thank you for your grace, Your Majesty. I understand." After Le Chen stood up, he actually did as Cao Rui said and stood behind Cao Rui on his right side, without any sense of unfamiliarity at all.

The so-called General of the Battleship was a new title that Cao Rui had casually created today, similar to the title of General of the Louchuan worn by Cao Zhi. The title of General of the Louchuan was established during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty to command the navy, and the title of General of the Battleship also meant the same thing. The current number of the Wei navy is about 15,000, and most of them are transferred from foreign troops in Yangzhou.

Before the sixth year of Taihe, Yangzhou did not have a strictly specialized navy. Whenever ships were needed, ordinary infantry soldiers would board the ships after a brief training and use them as is.

At the beginning of last year, after a joint decision by Chen Qun, the military supervisor of Yangzhou, and the Privy Council, and after approval by Cao Rui, the original 10,000 foreign troops in Yangzhou were converted into a special navy. Last autumn, Cao Zhi sailed to Japan based on these soldiers. The other 5,000 soldiers in the navy were transferred from the prefectures and counties of Yangzhou.

Jiang Ji also heard the emperor's statement about the "overwhelming naval force" yesterday, so he was not surprised by Le Chen's position change at this moment.

This is the shipbuilding factory of Chaohu Lake. The dock and the shipbuilding site were originally integrated. Ma Jun, the chief craftsman, walked in front and introduced to Cao Rui the divisions of each place, how they improved the efficiency of shipbuilding, and how to manage this systematic project.

"Your Majesty, the Wei Dynasty now has hundreds of large ships. Please allow me to tell you in detail." Ma Jun introduced as he walked:

"There are five Type A tower ships, which are the old standard tower ships, each of which can carry 600 people; four Type B tower ships, which are mainly used for river defense, each of which can carry 500 people; ten Type C tower ships that can sail, each of which can carry 1,000 people. There are nine Type D tower ships equipped with giant poles, each of which can carry 500 people."

"There are five standard Type A warships, each carrying eighty people; twenty Type B warships that can sail, each carrying one hundred and fifty people; and forty-two Type C warships used in the river, each carrying one hundred people."

"Five Type A battleships, each carrying 200 men. Twenty Type B battleships with enhanced manpower, each carrying 300 men."

"As for the ordinary oil tankers and boats that can carry ten to twenty people, there are still thousands of them, and there are more than 2,000 flat-bottomed slow boats used to transport grain in various canals in Yangzhou."

Cao Rui nodded slightly. "That is to say, all the medium and large ships such as tower ships, warships, and fighting ships were built in the Chaohu Shipyard, and the oil tankers, boats, and grain transport ships were all requisitioned from various places? I didn't see any place to build small boats here."

"Your Majesty is wise. The governors of Qingzhou and Xuzhou supervised the construction of a thousand grain ships in the fifth and sixth years of Taihe. Together with the previous accumulation of Yangzhou, the number has reached more than 2,000."

Cao Rui turned his head and looked at Jiang Ji: "Wang Weitai told me before, I can't remember exactly. Did he say that the grain ships coming from Yuzhou only transported grain to Shouchun and then returned to their respective places?"

"Yes." Jiang Ji agreed. "The grain ships of Yingchuan and Runan counties west of Xuchang enter the Huai River from the Ru River, the grain of Xuchang and Chen counties enter the Huai River from the Ying River, and the grain of Hebei, Yanzhou, and Qingzhou first enters the Yellow River, then goes to the official warehouse of Junyi, and then enters the Huai River through the Caoqu and Woshui River. It will be transferred in Qiao County in the middle. The grain of Liang and Qiao also goes through the Woshui River. Although they all pass through Yuzhou, the three routes are not subordinate to each other, so they are only distributed in Shouchun."

Cao Rui hummed, then left Jiang Ji and continued to say to Ma Jun: "I roughly calculated that according to the current number and standards of Yangzhou ships, the total number of ships can carry more than 30,000 troops. I also know that this can't be calculated, right?"

"Your Majesty is wise." Ma Jun quickly responded, "Special ships are used for special purposes. The ten large ships used by the fleet to Japan last year had too high sides and were heavy to turn. They were not suitable for fighting in the river..."

Cao Rui interrupted Ma Jun and said, "This alone has cost us 10,000 people."

"Yes." Ma Jun continued, "We built five A-type ships of each type, including tower ships, battleships, and fighting ships. On this basis, we improved one or two models of each. With the new models, we can stop using the A-type ships if we can."

"It's not a waste." Cao Rui smiled and pointed at the several Type A ships moored on the shore: "They are good for training soldiers. If we don't count the Type A ships, then the total number would be less than 20,000 people, right?"

Ma Jun responded repeatedly: "Your Majesty is wise. According to your instructions to me before, we should build more large and fast ships. Now we have four Type B tower ships, nine Type D tower ships, twenty Type B warships, forty-two Type C warships, and twenty Type B fighting ships, which add up to about a hundred ships."

As Cao Rui and his companions gradually left the dock where they first disembarked, the crowd at the dock gradually dispersed and returned to their work. Only the craftsmen directly under the General Supervisor were qualified to join the crowd in welcoming the emperor, and ordinary people who were doing corvée labor did not have such an honor.

At this moment, Yangzhou Governor Jiang Ji said: "Your Majesty, the number of 50,000 naval forces I told Your Majesty the other day was not false. Now the naval force is only 15,000, and the ships can only accommodate nearly 20,000 people, so I think we need to increase the number of soldiers and ships!"

"How many more soldiers and ships should we add?" Cao Rui stopped and turned to look at Jiang Ji.

Jiang Ji bowed and replied: "Add another 35,000 soldiers and at least 200 ships!"

Cao Rui asked again: "Where do the soldiers come from? Where do the shipbuilders come from?"

Jiang Ji saluted and said, "Your Majesty, the 50,000 surrendered soldiers of the Wu army have been farming in Huainan for many years. We can select 10,000 of them and mix them into the ships. Then we can convert the remaining 5,000 foreign troops in Yangzhou into the navy, and draw 10,000 soldiers from Yanzhou and Qingzhou, and recruit another 10,000 new soldiers from various counties in Hebei. In this way, we can get 35,000 people, and the old soldiers and new soldiers will be replaced in an orderly manner!"

"As for shipbuilding," Jiang Ji continued, "let these 35,000 people come together to build ships. Once a batch is built, a batch will be formed into an army. If this is done, the entire navy can be built within two years!" (End of this chapter)