I want to be emperor

On the cruiser Busan, Rear Admiral Peng Zhixing stood on the command bridge.

At this time, the battleship under his feet was slowly leaving the port under the propelled by the steam engine and the two steam engine tugboats next to it.

At this time, hundreds of warships of various navies gathered in the Hong Kong Naval Base. So many warships gathered in the harbor, which made the harbor of this originally huge naval base extremely crowded. Without the assistance of steam engines and tugboats, only relying on Sail power will become very troublesome if you want to enter and exit the port.

It is convenient to enter and exit the port, which is also a major role of steam engine power in early motor sailboats.

The cruiser Busan is equipped with a large vertical double-cylinder steam unit produced by Guangzhou Machinery Company. The maximum power can reach 4000 horsepower. It uses single-shaft propulsion. The horsepower of more than 2000 horses on the first-class battleship Suzhou with tons of tons is slightly worse.

But in terms of horsepower per ton, it far exceeds the first-class battleship Suzhou.

Coupled with the unique large aspect ratio of cruisers and the design of the flying arrow bow, the cruiser Busan can achieve a considerable speed under pure steam engine power.

If the sails are used together, the speed can even be further increased.

In terms of single-wheel speed, the cruiser Pusan ​​and its three half-sister ships are the fastest warships in the Navy of the Great Chu Empire today.

During the previous sea trials, the maximum speed could reach [-] knots when the wind was smooth and the sails were used together.

When the Western Trading Company began to make various preparations for the arrival of the follow-up army, the Dutch also smelled danger.

At the same time, the firepower of the ship is not high compared to its tonnage of more than 800 tons. It is only equipped with 28 naval guns, but the caliber of the naval guns is relatively large, and it is equipped with all 130mm naval guns.

In this way, the Dutch will learn some true and false news.

In terms of military construction, as long as the general direction is correct, Luo Zhixue will generally not interfere too much with the ideas of military generals.

When the Indian Task Force [-] was dispatched from the mainland, the [-]st Task Force on the Indian peninsula had already started preliminary preparations. Their warships were dressed in the skin of the Western Trading Company to escort merchant ships. Traveling between the east and west coasts of the Indian peninsula, further collecting information about the European colonies, such as the deployment of their troops, the whereabouts of their warships or armed merchant ships.

This class of ship is the latest generation of large frigates in the Great Chu Empire Navy, and it is also the first large frigate specially designed for the fleet's ocean-going operations.

Rear Admiral Peng Zhixing, watching his warships gradually leave the port and enter the scheduled route, immediately ordered the ships to raise their mainsails, and took advantage of the majesty on the sea to sail slowly. After sailing for a certain distance, He directly ordered the steam engine to be shut down to save coal.

----

Maybe it was for those natives, especially the Mughal Empire.

This time when going to India, the navy has pulled out a lot of new guys.

The main reason is that the tactical positioning of this kind of frigate in the fleet is not to engage the enemy's capital ship, but to use it for various auxiliary tasks such as reconnaissance, communication, and rescue.

However, no matter how big the brains of the Dutch, they never thought that the target of the Great Chu Empire this time was all European colonists who had colonies in the Indian Peninsula.

In order to maintain the size of the frigate, the navy may have to re-build small frigates of several hundred tons, patrol ships and the like...

Even if it is a frigate for miscellaneous work, there are also the most cutting-edge Longchuan-class frigates...

Whether it is the Dutch or the English, or Portugal or Denmark, as long as they are European colonists, they are all within the scope of India's strategic attack this time.

In addition, it is also necessary to purchase some food, livestock and other materials locally as much as possible for the army to use.

According to the order, Rear Admiral Peng Zhixing ordered the forward fleet to use the wind to sail at full speed, and spread out the ships at certain intervals to form a fan-shaped search area with a total width of about [-] nautical miles. The fleet provides early warning, interception, and expulsion.

Even during daily voyages, the warships of the Great Chu Empire Navy basically did not use steam engines, and only relied on sails for sailing to save coal...

Interestingly, this kind of frigate is already the most powerful frigate in the history of the Great Chu Empire Navy, but the high-level navy is still dissatisfied with this kind of frigate, and is planning to upgrade and refit this kind of frigate, and the purpose of the refit is Zooming in further on the hull...

The main reason is that the actions of the Western Trading Company in the past two or three months have been abnormal. It is said that they frequently went to other European colonies for trade, but it is not normal to conduct various hydrographic measurements nearby.

However, although Luo Zhixue was very speechless about the navy's move, he did not discourage it... Anyway, the overall development path of the navy is good, and the navy's military expenditure is also limited. It's just so much money, and they can do whatever they want. toss.

To put it bluntly, he is a handyman!
The classification of the various warships in the Great Chu Empire Navy has never been distinguished by tonnage or firepower, but by combat use.

Of course, limited by the tonnage of the hull and the higher speed, the roll of this kind of frigate is still relatively poor. When encountering bad weather at sea, it is bumpy when there are winds and waves... But there is no way, little All tonnage ships are like this on the sea.

Without the support of the local indigenous official forces, it is difficult to get it done through some small private channels.

You know, the size of the rear fleet is quite large.

The battleship has the cutting-edge Suzhou, the cruiser has the Toyosu class, and even one of them is the experimental ship Pusan ​​that has been replaced with a front-mounted rifled gun.

At the same time, it is also actively contacting some local indigenous forces, especially the Mughal Empire, not to say that they want to get help from these indigenous people, but to avoid these indigenous forces from making trouble.

This thing...is just a handyman. It is used to maintain the establishment, train officers and soldiers, and demonstrate the existence of the Great Chu Empire Navy in many vast sea areas. By the way, it bullies and bullies the natives who do not have an ocean-going navy.

For such a large-scale food purchase, it is natural to have to deal with the local indigenous forces. After all, tens of thousands of people can eat food for at least half a year, and at most one or two years. In addition, the military of the Great Chu Empire has always come With generous food and treatment, the food needed in total is quite a huge number.

Although the huge transport fleet of the Great Chu Empire can transport some food supplies from the mainland and the Southeast Asia region, if possible, it is best to solve the food problem locally in the Indian Peninsula, and then reserve the precious sea transportation capacity for weapons and ammunition. Supplies.

In the follow-up, the Great Chu Empire will continue to organize a large number of transport ships from the mainland to continuously transport supplies to Singapore, and then transport them to the Indian Peninsula through Singapore.

To put it bluntly, those in the navy are thinking about bigger and more warships... and when they do this, they often ignore, or deliberately ignore the true strategic positioning of frigates.

The war philosophy of the Great Chu Empire is to use more troops, more artillery, and more shells to submerge the opponent... But they have never had the hobby of playing evenly with the enemy, or even putting their own troops at a disadvantage.

It may also be aimed at a certain European colonist, it may be aimed at the English, it may be aimed at them, the Dutch, and the Danes, the Portuguese may all become targets.

When Luo Zhixue learned that the navy wanted to increase the tonnage of frigates to more than 1000 tons, he rolled his eyes.

In addition, the Great Chu Empire's preparations for the war against India are actually not top-secret. It is even done openly in China. On the Indian side, the Western Trading Company is also an insider or even a cooperator.

Cruisers are responsible for fleet decisive battles by using speed to seize favorable positions and providing fire support for the battleship fleet. In addition, cruisers are also responsible for ocean cruising, escort, and colony deterrence in daily life.

Of course, although the number of ships seems to be a lot...thousands of ships are scary, but in fact the transportation volume is not large, far inferior to the scale of shipping in later generations.

Because most of these transport ships have a carrying capacity of several hundred tons, and those with a carrying capacity of more than a thousand tons are relatively small. There are only a few naval supply ships and a few super-large armed merchant ships of the Western Trading Company.

The designed full-load displacement has reached more than 860 tons. It is equipped with a steam unit and has a large area of ​​sails, and its maneuverability is quite good.

There were even several ships carrying cement and steel bars, which were used for the subsequent construction of a series of military facilities in the military port on Ceylon Island, especially the coastal defense fort.

According to the positioning, even the cruiser Busan has a tonnage of more than 2000 tons, which is larger than a large number of third-class battleships, but it is still just a cruiser.

Therefore, in Luo Zhixue's view, the expansion of frigates by the navy is purely a matter of taking off your pants and farting. If you have the money, just build a few more cruisers and you're done.

The order required him to lead the vanguard formation, that is, the four Toyosu-class cruisers and eight Ryukawa-class frigates, to provide early warning for the fleet, expel possible merchant ships, and prevent those civilian ships from breaking into the huge fleet behind.

In addition to the ships directly under the navy, there are nearly a hundred merchant ships of various types belonging to the Western Armed Trading Company, including more than 40 armed merchant ships.

The four Toyosu-class cruisers and eight frigates will form a separate vanguard fleet commanded by Rear Admiral Peng Zhixing.

The move of the Western Trading Company to purchase and hoard grain in large quantities is obviously abnormal.

The entire cross-sea combat operation, on the surface, only had a ground combat force of more than 5 people, but in fact, there were as many as hundreds of ships of various types directly participating in this operation.

The type of ship responsible for the decisive battle of the fleet is the battleship.

In the end, the Dutch concluded that the Chu people must have a vote on the Indian Peninsula, but they still don't know the specific goals of the Chu people for the time being.

As for the transportation capacity is not strong, reduce the number of troops, and send a few hundred at most a few thousand people to fight like Europeans... The Great Chu Empire can't do this kind of thing, which is inconsistent with the Chu people's war philosophy.

Although the Western Trading Company has collected information for many years and has some basic knowledge of the Indian peninsula, much of the information is outdated, and the military of the Great Chu Empire needs to collect the latest information for backup.

The eight frigates in the formation are also the most cutting-edge frigates in the Great Chu Empire Navy: Longchuan-class frigates.

And around the four Toyosu-class cruisers, there are two frigates with a total of eight frigates, which belong to this advance fleet.

They are all engaged in some high value-added economic crop products or other special products.

After Rear Admiral Peng Zhixing led the forward formation to leave the waters of the Hong Kong Naval Base, it didn't take long before he received a semaphore order from the battleship Suzhou behind.

If the steam engine is turned on directly during ordinary voyages, it will not take long for the coal to be used up... Without coal, the steam unit will become a decoration.

In fact, this huge fleet is just the first batch of large-scale fleets distributed by the Great Chu Empire to the Indian region.

This is not even an indirect participation.

Even if the opponent was only a group of European irregulars who were still playing with matchlock guns, the Great Chu Empire still strictly followed its own war philosophy: sending 5 troops and combat weapons sufficient to maintain more than [-] troops in high-intensity combat for more than half a year. Upper Indian peninsula.

What is needed is more and cheaper, not how powerful the performance is.

This is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire only imported grain from the Nanyang region before, and rarely imported grain from India. The transportation was inconvenient and the cost was too high.

The current weak shipping capacity has greatly limited the ability of the Great Chu Empire Navy to project overseas forces.

Moreover, the navigation in these ships still relies heavily on sails, and most of the transport ships do not even have auxiliary steam engines, which means that their sailing speed is slow, and it takes several months to go back and forth at a time.

----

Prior to this, several convoys of different sizes had actually been organized, loaded with various materials. For example, the new heavy howitzers in a siege heavy artillery regiment of the Army had already been shipped to Singapore in advance.

At the same time, in terms of hull design, more attention is paid to the seaworthiness of the ocean. Not only does it have a faster speed, but the living space for personnel is also far greater than that of the previous small-tonnage frigate. Compared with the previous five- to six-hundred-ton frigate, it is more suitable for ocean operations.

Anyway, the army and navy of the Great Chu Empire are strong enough now, and they have the capital to let them toss around. Whether it is a frigate or a cruiser, they can be invincible to the warships of those indigenous countries by using the big killer of steam engines.

At this time, the cruiser Pusan ​​had already left the naval base for some distance, and there were three half-sister ships of similar displacement nearby, that is, the other three ships of the Fengzhou-class cruiser, Fengzhou, Yingkou, and Dengzhou. .

Avoid any potential enemy ships or civilian ships to interfere with the large fleet in the rear.

Therefore, the Western Trading Company needs to purchase and stockpile a large amount of grain and livestock as meat in the Indian Peninsula first, so that it can be used by the troops who arrive later.

Those in the Navy believe that the hull of more than 800 tons is still too small, the ocean-going seaworthiness is not good, and the firepower is also a bit weak. It is more reliable to expand the tonnage to more than 1000 tons.

In addition to more than 40 ocean-going warships, there are more than 50 various auxiliary ships of the navy, including troop carriers, medical ships, general supply ships, coal supply ships, communication ships and other auxiliary ships.

It is also not normal for the Western Trading Company to purchase and stockpile grain on a large scale. This amount of grain has far exceeded the needs of the Western Trading Company's regular personnel on the Indian Peninsula. Will do this kind of thing, not to mention the various risks such as moisture that the grain is exposed to during sea transportation, the transportation cost alone is several times more than the value of the grain itself.

Therefore, Luo Zhixue didn't care about the large-scale frigates that the navy wanted to do. After reducing the number of orders for Longchuan-class frigates from more than 30 to 24.

During the voyage, the steam engine on the battleship is generally only used when rushing or when a battle breaks out. It is used to increase the speed of the battleship and avoid the influence of the wind direction.

Of course, this maximum speed is of no practical value, because during the daily sailing of warships, it is rare to get a smooth sailing situation, and it is even more impossible to boost the steam engine to the maximum power.

The Great Chu Empire seems to have mobilized a large number of ships this time, but the amount of personnel and materials transported, in the 21st century later generations, is just a matter of a few large freighters.

All ships add up to more than two hundred!
Such a huge fleet carried more than 2 soldiers of the Army or Guards, as well as a large number of naval crews, sailors and marines, as well as a large number of various weapons and ammunition, canned food and other military supplies.

The same is true for the Longchuan-class frigates. Even though their tonnage is larger than that of a large number of second-class cruisers before, they are still just frigates.

Maritime transport capacity is limited, and one ton that can be saved is one ton, and it is nonsense to transport food from places such as Southeast Asia to India for combat.

And this frigate of more than 1000 tons after enlargement is not the ordinary cruiser that the navy is building now. The tonnage and firepower are all responsible for the navy's needs for future frigates...

In the era of pure sailing, it is not suitable for ocean transportation and trade of grain.

The frigates are responsible for tasks such as miscellaneous, reconnaissance, and search and rescue of those who fell into the water during the decisive battle of the fleet. In daily life, frigates will also perform tasks such as ocean cruising, escort, and colony deterrence under the leadership of cruisers.

Fully expel European colonists and occupy European colonies in the Indian Peninsula.

Thoroughly control and monopolize the foreign trade of the Indian peninsula, and at the same time avoid the destruction of the sea supply line during the subsequent colonization of Africa.

This is the goal of the Great Chu Empire, and it is also the goal of India's strategy this time.

The Dutch obviously did not expect the Great Chu Empire to have such a big appetite!
Also, it is hard for them in a small country to imagine the ambition of a huge industrial empire with a population of more than 3 million, let alone imagine how terrifying the war machine of such a huge empire would be when it is activated!
And this is just a regular foreign expedition of the Great Chu Empire. The Great Chu Empire did not even allocate additional military expenses for this, let alone mobilize for war... Even the production plans of those arsenals did not adjust, but continued Maintain the usual production rhythm.

A mere Indian war and a few European colonists are not worthy of mobilization of any nature by the Great Chu Empire!
Whether the Dutch, other Europeans or other natives, exhausted their brains, they can't imagine the horror of a centralized empire with a population of more than 3 million and complete industrialization!