I want to be emperor

Chapter 502 Strategic Initiative

The description of Mongolia and Qingxue area in the previous chapter was wrong. After searching the information today, the second half of the content of the previous chapter was deleted and revised. You can go back and read it.

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In the summer of the sixth year of Chengshun, these few months were a rare time of peace for the Great Chu Empire.

Since Yungui was pacified in the spring, the entire Great Chu Empire basically stopped large-scale wars with foreign countries.

There are no external enemies in the direction of Yunnan and Guizhou, and Burma in the south of Yunnan has no courage to fight against the Great Chu Empire. Even when the Chu army marched into Yunnan, Burma even took the initiative to send troops to blockade all over the border in order to avoid provoking the invasion of the Great Chu Empire. Avoid the remnants of Ximing from entering.

In the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area west of Sichuan and south of Gansu, various chieftains or messy forces in this area are now facing the invasion of Moxi Mongolian Heshuote tribe, and they will not threaten the Great Chu Empire, and even threaten the Great Chu Empire. Ask for help.

There is also no external threat to the northwest.

On the two lines of Xuanda and Jiliao, just like last year, there have always been small frictions with the Dongyao people, but the scale is not large.

For the Great Chu Empire, which often engages in large-scale battles with tens of thousands or even 10,000+ people, this kind of battle with hundreds of thousands of people is nothing at all...

Therefore, in the past few months, the Great Chu Empire has gained a rare period of peace. Taking advantage of this time, Luo Zhixue also reorganized and deployed the army.

For example, some of the main divisions stationed in Yunnan and Guizhou were transferred, and some of the main divisions on the western front were also transferred. In the end, it was all to concentrate more main forces on the northern front.

In this process, the reorganization plan of the first-class division was also carried out continuously.

According to Luo Zhixue's requirements, the first-class divisions that will be deployed on the front line of Jiliao and Xuanda and prepare to participate in the Northeast Campaign must all be new-style first-class divisions equipped with flintlock guns.

At the same time, they mobilized and concentrated more cavalry forces to fight against the huge cavalry force of the Dongbang people.

The mobilization and reorganization of these troops is expected to be completed around October this year.

This timetable also predicts that the Great Chu Empire's war against the Eastern Captivity will probably be postponed until next year.

Because by the time of October, it was already winter, and launching military operations in the Northeast region in the midst of winter was purely asking for trouble.

In addition, the strategic initiative is now in the hands of the Great Chu Empire. Based on the current strength of the Great Chu Empire and the Dongyao people, the Great Chu Empire can send troops whenever it wants.

As for the Dongyao people who wanted to take the initiative to kill them, or even want to enter the customs, the difficulty was not ordinary. The Dongyao people had tried twice before, and each time they lost troops.

Considering that the reorganization will not be completed until October, and the war against the captives will not start until the beginning of next spring at the earliest, so taking advantage of this time, the Great Chu Empire will continue to transport more supplies such as ammunition, grain and grass to the north.

Because the capacity of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is limited, and it will be frozen after winter, in order to be able to maintain supplies to the north during the winter, the Great Chu Empire prepared to supply supplies to the north by sea after many preparations.

Now the Great Chu Empire conducts maritime transportation in the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Bohai Sea and other sea areas, and basically will not be harassed by any external enemy sea power.

Although the Dongyao people have some ships, they are not enough to look at the navy of the Great Chu Empire, and the Fusang people of Koryo are similar.

As for the Western barbarians, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese have some sea power, but they are basically blocked in the South China Sea. In addition, although they have conflicts with the Great Chu Empire, they have not said that a real outbreak has occurred. War, strictly speaking, is at best a conflict at sea.

Therefore, the maritime transportation safety of the Great Chu Empire can still be guaranteed.

The only thing that cannot be guaranteed is the risk brought by the sea itself. Sailing these days is always dangerous, but this aspect is not insurmountable.

The Navy of the Great Chu Empire accepted a large number of sailors from the former Ming Dynasty, especially the sailors of the Zheng fleet.

This also allowed the Great Chu Empire Navy to have tens of thousands of sailors with rich sailing and sea combat experience.

Under the control of these experienced sailors, although sea navigation is still dangerous, it is not insurmountable.

Especially when these experienced sailors were successively equipped with large sea-going ships built by the Great Chu Empire, maritime safety was further improved.

On July [-]th in the sixth year of Chengshun, at the Wusong Naval Base, a group of admirals wearing blue jackets and white trousers gathered together, headed by Admiral Lu Xingye, Minister of the Navy.

On the left and right of Admiral Lu Xingye, there are many powerful generals in the Navy of the Great Chu Empire, including Admiral Xia Qiuyang, commander of the Beiyang Fleet, and Lieutenant General Zheng Zhilong, commander of the First Cruise Fleet of the Beiyang Fleet.

Now, this large group of admirals is standing on the pier, and directly in front of them is a huge battleship with many colorful flags!
Rear Admiral Sun Zhengyong, Director of Naval Fleet Administration, said in a proud tone: "My lords, colleagues, the first-class cruiser Songjiang is moored in front of us now."

"This is a warship with a large size and strong combat effectiveness. It is also the largest warship we have designed and built so far. It has forty artillery pieces and a displacement of 850 tons."

"In order to increase the speed of the ship, but also to deploy more naval guns and lower the center of gravity of the ship, when we designed it, we elongated the hull so that the ship has a larger aspect ratio, making the ship faster when sailing. , more flexible."

"In terms of artillery deployment, we did not use the single-layer continuous deck of the Xiangyang-class second-class cruiser, but added a quarter deck at the rear of the ship in addition to the single-layer continuous deck."

"A total of 26 fourteen-pound cannons are deployed on the main deck, and a total of fourteen nine-pound cannons are deployed on the aft quarter deck and front deck of the ship."

"The powerful firepower of forty naval guns is enough to tear apart any enemy in a naval battle!"

"At the same time, its slender hull brings excellent speed, which is even faster than the original Xiangyang-class cruisers. As for the original various bird ships, the speed of the Fuchuan is not even worthy of lifting shoes! "

"The huge tonnage can also allow this kind of warship to carry more food, fresh water and other supplies, sail for a long time and perform ocean-going combat missions."

Listening to the words of Major General Sun Zhengyong, the director of the ship's administration, Zheng Zhilong next to him stared at the battleship and sighed.

Sun Zhengyong was right, the combat effectiveness of this Songjiang ship was enough to beat those bird boats that he made before.

Although the bird ship is considered a new type of ship, its limitations are still relatively large, such as it is difficult to carry a large number of heavy artillery, and its speed is not good.

This is also when the Great Chu Empire accepted Zheng Zhilong's fleet, it directly stopped the construction of new bird ships, and instead fully invested in the construction of new warships.

These new warships use western-style soft sails, and the shape of the ship is similar to that of the Galen ship, but the hull is generally more slender, and the huge tonnage is almost used to carry artillery or ammunition and supplies.

Unlike the so-called warships of Zheng Zhilong's era, a lot of space needs to be left to carry cargo.

The warships built by the Great Chu Empire Navy are all very pure warships, which are only born for sea battles, and it is not their responsibility to transport goods.

This is true of the Daye-class frigates, Xiangyang-class cruisers, and the current Songjiang-class cruisers. They were born purely for naval warfare and did not consider other uses at all.

In Zheng Zhilong's view, if he can add a few more Songjiang-class cruisers and a few Xiangyang-class cruisers to his cruiser fleet, he would dare to take the cruiser fleet directly to Manila or even Malacca.

As for the northern sea area, it was swept directly.

Not to mention the latest Songjiang-class cruisers, even with the current Xiangyang-class cruisers and Daye-class frigates plus a large number of new bird ships and other ships, the Beiyang Fleet can run rampant in the northern seas, fully controlling the East China Sea, The sea rights of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea have nothing to do with the Dongyao people and the Koreans.

After all, there are quite a few of these two new types of warships in the Great Chu Empire.

Eight of the Xiangyang-class cruisers have all been in service. After the Xiangyang-class, the Great Chu Empire Navy is currently building a larger and more powerful Songjiang-class cruiser. The planned construction plan for this class of ships has reached twelve.

The Great Chu Empire is very satisfied with this kind of cruiser. This kind of warship has very good ocean-going seaworthiness, and its larger tonnage can also carry more supplies, allowing the warship to perform long-term ocean-going combat missions.

In addition, many Daye-class frigates were also built. This kind of frigate, which is mainly in the offshore and also has certain ocean-going combat capabilities, is purely used by the Chu Empire Navy to make up numbers and maintain the size of the navy.

At present, more than 20 ships have been built and served, and many more are under construction. The entire construction plan has reached as many as 48 ships, and it is required to complete all of them before Chengshun eight years ago, so as to completely replace the existing various blessing ships and bird ships. .

Many of the original Fuchuan and Bird Ships will gradually withdraw from the first-line army. They will first be transferred to the second-line fleet to maintain their scale and continue to train sailors. When the number of new warships increases, they will directly withdraw from active service in the army.

Do you feel heartbroken when so many ships are decommissioned one after another... In fact, even if these ships are decommissioned, they can actually be transferred to the transport fleet directly under the Navy, or sold to those domestic maritime trading companies, which will not cause waste.

Besides, when the Great Chu Empire first recruited Zheng Zhilong's troops, it was not these lucky boats under Zheng Zhilong's hands... but tens of thousands of skilled sailors.

These sailors are what the Chu Empire's navy is in urgent need of, and there is no way to train them in a short period of time.

And with these sailors, the Great Chu Empire can build ships freely, dozens of ships.

It can also be seen from this that when a centralized empire like the Great Chu Empire really wants to build a navy, the energy it can unleash is enormous.

For a powerful navy, only frigates and cruisers are naturally not enough, and they lack soul.

Although the new 800-ton Matsue-class frigate is already very powerful, as a cruiser, its firepower is naturally not good... It is used for daily cruises, and it is no problem to bully the weak, but when encountering the enemy's main battleship, it has to be destroyed. Caught blind.

After all, it only has forty cannons, which is too small for a battleship with dozens of cannons at every turn.

And in order to control the weight, the artillery it carries is still a 24-pound cannon and a [-]-pound cannon, not even an [-]-pound cannon... The last battleship equipped with a [-]-pound cannon is nothing to see!

The generals of the Great Chu Empire Navy naturally knew this, so they started preparing for the construction of a new type of warship early on.

This is the Jinling class battleship

(End of this chapter)