Chapter 320 Navy Warship
In the study of the Weisi Yamen.

"How are the new military households doing?"

Yang Zhengshan sat behind the desk and asked Xie Yuan.

Xie Yuan put down his tea and said, "The situation is not bad, there are just some minor problems."

"What small problem?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"These people are just a group of refugees. They are weak after all. They just settled down yesterday. Maybe they are relaxed and many of them are sick!"

"I have sent out all the doctors in the camp. They will go to every hundred households and garrison to treat the sick!"

Xie Yuan said.

"Are there enough herbs?"

"Han Fei has already sent people to Jing'an Prefecture to purchase!"

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, "How about this, we'll set up a few big pots in the government office, boil a few pots of tonic medicine, and send some to every household!"

These refugees are physically weak, so it is inevitable that they will get sick.

The spiritual spring water can indeed strengthen their physical constitution and reduce the probability of them getting sick, but Yang Zhengshan cannot go door to door to feed them the spiritual spring water himself, so he came up with this unsatisfactory solution.

He took out some precious medicinal herbs, mixed them with spiritual spring water, boiled dozens of pots, and sent some to each household.

Even if everyone just drinks a sip, it can reduce the probability of them getting sick and allow them to recuperate for a few more days. The weakest people may even be able to survive.

"Okay, I'll arrange it later!" Xie Yuan said.

"Any other questions?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"Well, should we find some work for these new military households?" Xie Yuan asked.

He wanted to find some work for these people so that they could earn more and have a livelihood to support their families.

But right now, Tenglongwei really doesn’t have much work for them to do.

The salt fields, engineering teams, and commercial fleets are already fully staffed, and we can’t just let everyone keep idle people in order to take care of them.

"That's easy. The third batch of soldiers don't have to wait until after the autumn harvest to train. We can start now!"

"Let these new military households form a labor team to help other military households with the autumn harvest. We will pay them money and food based on the day and work done!" Yang Zhengshan said.

According to the original plan, the third batch of soldiers were to start basic training after the autumn harvest. After all, the autumn harvest is of vital importance to military households and should not be affected by training.

These newly arrived military households had no land to cultivate and no need for autumn harvest.

So there is no problem in asking them to help with the autumn harvest.

It's nothing more than the government paying more money and food in exchange for progress in military training.

For the Tenglong Guards now, time is still very tight, and exchanging money and food for time is not a loss.

"But this way, our expenses will be much higher!" Xie Yuan said with some concern.

Although the Lan family left behind a lot of money and food, the expenses of Tenglongwei were also very huge.

In less than a year, Yang Zhengshan had spent nearly half of the money and grain left by the Lan family.

And next year, they will have to support these new military households, which will be another large expense.

"It's okay. Next year the salt field will expand its production and its revenue will double!"

"Also, next year's merchant ships will be able to go out to sea, giving us another source of income!"

"As long as our current money and food can support next year's expenses, we won't have to worry about running out of money and food in the future!"

Yang Zhengshan said indifferently.

Tenglongwei was very poor, but the Lan family left behind a lot of money and food.

Under normal circumstances, even if Tenglongwei relies on the capital of the Lan family, it can still survive for five or six years.

Now Yang Zhengshan only needs the Lan family's capital to support him for two years. In the future, when Tenglongwei has more income, he will naturally not need to rely on the capital anymore.

"Just keep it in mind, sir!" Xie Yuan just gave a reminder and didn't say anything else.

Yang Zhengshan chuckled, "You will need to worry more about the upcoming autumn harvest and the resettlement of military households."

"This is what I should do!" Xie Yuan said with a smile.

Nowadays, everyone in the Weisi Yamen is very busy.

There are also the training of soldiers, the building of armaments, the construction of the city, the building of the navy, the expansion of the salt fields, the resettlement of new military households and the upcoming autumn harvest.

Everything is happening at the same time, making everyone busy and overwhelmed.

Yang Zhengshan is busy, and Xie Yuan is also busy.

After a brief meeting with Yang Zhengshan, Xie Yuan left the yamen and went to inspect the Qianhu Suo below.

The autumn harvest is approaching, and he must ensure that there are no mistakes in the harvest.

After learning about the situation of the new military households, Yang Zhengshan left the yamen and rode to the dock at full speed.

At this time, the first batch of navy soldiers had already begun training.

The more than 200 boatmen in the Zhang family fleet plus the more than 200 soldiers selected from the Tenglong vanguard, a total of 500 soldiers, were the first batch of soldiers of the navy.

The reason why there are only 500 soldiers is because there are too few instructors to train the navy.

Yu Tonghai, Xue Ping, Sun Cheng, Ningbo and so on, only these few can serve as instructors. Other boatmen are simply not capable of serving as instructors, and the soldiers of Tenglong Guard are not good at water battles, so naturally they cannot serve as instructors.

Therefore, the first batch of soldiers who received training in the navy consisted of only 500 people.

The training of this first batch of soldiers was actually somewhat experimental in nature, and its main purpose was to summarize experience and help Yu Tonghai and Xue Ping write a record of military training.

Yang Zhengshan would come to participate in the training whenever he had time. On the one hand, he wanted to replenish the spiritual spring water for these soldiers, and on the other hand, he also wanted to know more about the navy.

Live and learn. Yang Zhengshan didn't know much about sailing and wasn't good at naval battles, so he had to learn from scratch, starting from the most basic soldier training.

In mid-September, the autumn harvest in Tenglongwei began.

This year, Tenglongwei has had good weather and good harvests, making it a rare year of bumper harvest.

A good harvest always brings joy to everyone. From Yang Zhengshan to the newly arrived military households, everyone is happy about this good harvest. The autumn harvest is proceeding in an orderly manner, and the construction of the navy has also taken a crucial step.

September 20th.

The Ministry of Industry sent the first batch of warships from Jinhai to Tenglong Vanguard.

In total, there was one Dafu ship, four Haicang ships, eight patrol ships, twelve mother-and-child ships, and more than forty eagle ships.

These are half of the warships of the regular navy garrison of Dayong.

In other words, half of Tenglongwei’s warships are already in place, and the remaining half will arrive in the next two months.

The Dafu ship was one of the main warships of Dayong. It was 33 meters long, with five masts and three decks. The deck was built like a city, with guard plates on the side. Soldiers covered behind it and used crossbows to shoot arrows.

The bow of the ship is low and pointed, and can be used to ram enemy ships when the wind is favorable.

The Haicang ship was a medium-sized warship of the Dayong Navy. It had a draft of seven or eight feet and was maneuverable when the wind was light, cooperating with the Fu ships to hunt down enemy ships.

A sentry boat is a medium-sized fast ship with a pointed front and a narrow back. It is as narrow as a shuttle at the bottom and as wide as a wing at the top. When the fleet sets sail, the sentry boat can be the front scout.

The mother-and-child ship is a light fire-powered ship. The mother ship is 4 feet long, feet in the front and feet in the back. It has only two side panels, and a small boat inside with a cover on top. It has oars and is tied to the mother ship with ropes.

The mother ship has firewood and oil, so in wartime she can quickly approach enemy ships, nail them together, set the mother ship on fire, and then return on the daughter ship.

The two ends of the eagle ship are pointed, and it is difficult to tell the front from the back. It can move forward and backward quickly and has strong maneuverability. It can carry three to five people. In wartime, dozens of ships can gather like bees and ants, and can attack enemy ships or block enemies approaching the big blessing ship.

A complete navy naturally cannot have only one type of ship.

Large and small ships have different functions and they need to cooperate with each other during battles, so the main difficulty in navy training lies in the coordination of many ships.

If you can operate a boat, you can only be considered a qualified boatman.

If you are familiar with shipping routes, astronomy and geography, you can only be considered a qualified ship captain.

If you dare to fight, kill and fight to the death, then you are just a qualified sailor.

In order to become a captain and commander of the navy, in addition to meeting the above conditions, one must also be familiar with the functions of various ships and be able to use the coordination between ships to defeat the enemy.

Yang Zhengshan was obviously not a qualified naval commander, because it was the first time he had seen such a ship.

He could think of coordinating between large and small boats, but he was completely clueless as to the formation and coordinating between the mother-and-child ships, patrol boats and Haicang ships.

Moreover, he knew very little about the crossbows on the ship.

He had seen crossbows. There were many crossbows on the walls of Chongshan Pass, but he only glanced at them from a distance at that time and had never observed them up close.

Moreover, there are many differences between the crossbows on warships and those on city walls.

The crossbows on the city walls are multi-arrow crossbows, which means they can fire many arrows at one time.

The main purpose of defending a city is to kill the enemy, so the crossbows on the city walls do not seek to have powerful power, but to shoot more arrows at one time.

The arrows and crossbows on warships are designed to have range and power. The farther they can shoot, the better; the more powerful they are, the better. In the end, one arrow can penetrate the deck of an enemy ship and destroy its tower.

The navy's crossbows are mostly three-bow crossbows, which can be simply understood as three bows combined together.

There are seven arrow paths on the crossbow arm. On the middle arrow path is a giant arrow, which is six feet and five inches long and eight inches in circumference, with iron leaves as feathers. Three slightly smaller arrows are placed on each side, and all the arrows are fired at the same time.

Yang Zhengshan looked at the arrow that was longer than his spear and asked, "What is the range of this crossbow?"

Yu Tonghai next to him said: "This should be our Darong's best crossbow, with a range of up to 160 feet!"

One hundred and sixty feet!

Yang Zhengshan made a rough calculation in his mind and it was about five hundred meters.

"How powerful is it? Can it kill a warrior?"

"Ordinary warriors will die if they touch it. Warriors above the fifth level of acquired realm can dodge if they can find out in advance. Warriors at the eighth level of acquired realm should be able to resist it!"

Yu Tonghai hesitated for a moment, and then said, "However, the battlefield is ever-changing and full of dangers. No one can guarantee that everything will go well. So sometimes even a warrior at the eighth level of the acquired realm can be shot to death by a crossbow!"

"From what I have heard, many martial arts masters have died from crossbows!"

"If you are caught in a volley of crossbow arrows, it would be better to hide in the cabin!"

"..."

Yang Zhengshan was speechless. Was he afraid that he would be shot to death with a crossbow?

I'm not stupid. I don't have anything else to do but confront this thing.

However, Yu Tonghai's reminder was just kind, so Yang Zhengshan didn't take it seriously.

"Then how long will it take for our navy to train and be able to fight at sea?"

"One year, at least one year!" said Yu Tonghai.

"So long?" Yang Zhengshan frowned slightly.

"Training sailors is not difficult, but the difficult part is training captains to command ships! A navy must have at least one commander, two deputy commanders, and four lieutenant commanders, so that a fleet can have strong combat effectiveness!" said Yu Tonghai.

The main general, deputy general and lieutenant general he mentioned were not official positions, but commanders with certain command capabilities.

Although warships can communicate with each other through flag signals, many times when multiple warships go into battle together, they still rely on the tacit cooperation between the commanders.

Yang Zhengshan looked at the ships docked at the pier. The pier was still under construction. In order to accommodate more ships, the small hill extending from the coast had been completely leveled out. A straight platform extended more than 500 meters from the coast. In addition, a neat wooden platform was also built on the coast.

Standing on the Dafu boat and looking at the surrounding boats, you will feel like you are looking down on the world.

"In March next year, merchant ships will try to go out to sea for trade. The routes that have been confirmed so far are Jiangnan and Li Sheng Dynasty."

"I hope that the navy can sail with the merchant ships by then!"

Yang Zhengshan said softly.

"If we're just setting sail, there's no problem at all. Long-distance sailing is also a form of training!" Yu Tonghai said after thinking for a while.

If you're just going out to sea there's no problem of course. If you encounter a battle, it's actually not a big problem either. Failure to complete the training doesn't mean you don't have combat effectiveness, it just means your combat effectiveness will be much weaker.

When he said it would take a year, he meant that the Tenglong navy would be trained to the level of the Dayong elite navy.

"That's good!" Yang Zhengshan nodded with satisfaction.

(End of this chapter)