unclear

Chapter 774 There’s a long way to go
"She is an Annan woman bought from Da Nang, and she settled down in Manila." At this time, Wang Yuanjing came up and whispered in a low voice to explain the situation clearly, fearing that the emperor would misunderstand.

The situation of the navy is quite special. The technical soldiers account for a large proportion of the officers and soldiers of the two fleets and the Marine Command. The longer they serve, the more beneficial it is to the improvement of the strength of the troops, so there is no such thing as a five-year retirement. As long as they are not injured, disabled, dead, or make serious mistakes, they basically have to serve until they can no longer work.

Therefore, family problems must be solved. It is impossible to let soldiers be single for their whole lives. Therefore, military dependents came into being. They are usually arranged in the military base or in concentrated housing built nearby.

However, in order to reduce the possibility of leaks, the General Staff has a strict rule for military dependents that those who marry women other than Ming Dynasty women are not allowed to settle down in the local area.

What does it mean? For example, if you are stationed in Da Nang, you can marry a local woman, but you have to leave Annan to settle down in Luzon, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, as long as there is a naval base.

"Okay, everyone, take your positions. We'll talk over dinner. Let's get ready to set sail." Hong Tao didn't delve into whether the General Staff's regulations were humane or effective. As an emperor, there were too many things to deal with, and it was impossible to take care of everything.

The irrelevant personnel on the deck dispersed, and the senior officers followed Hong Tao to the poop. Oh, no, the Han class completely cancelled the poop design, and only set up a steering platform near the stern.

"Raise the fleet flag... raise the command flag... set sail for inspection..."

At this time, the temporary deputy captain Miao Buzhun became a mouthpiece, loudly relaying the emperor's orders to the first mate and the boatswain, who then shouted them to the sail and cable chief, the navigator, the lookout chief, and the gunner, who then passed them down through these middle-level officers.

"Cargo hold normal... Ammunition hold normal... Gun deck normal... Sail normal..."

A few minutes after receiving the order to prepare to set sail, heart-wrenching shouts would be heard from every corner of the ship. There were hundreds of inspections, which were checked one by one by more than a dozen departments according to the procedures, and the inspection results had to be transmitted back to the captain's ears through shouting layer by layer.

This was the command system on large and medium-sized sailing ships during the sailing warship era. Different countries had slightly different systems, but they were all roughly the same. In the words of later generations, communication was basically done by shouting.

"Your Majesty, the South China Sea Fleet Han 001 has been inspected and everything is normal. Please apply for departure!"

In fact, for some positions, Miao Buzhen may hear the first call, such as the lookout, but he still has to wait for the chief lookout to repeat it loudly before he can officially hear it.

At the same time, the first mate next to him had to hold a notebook and write down the inspection results, date and time, berth direction, reporting personnel and other information.

Usually this job is done by one or two trainee deputy captains, but because the emperor came on board and took away the captain's position, the first mate was left idle near the helm.

"... Click... Well, let's weigh anchor and leave the port!" After all the inspection results were normal, Hong Tao continued to issue the second order, then turned to look at Wang Chengen, who immediately opened the briefcase he carried with him.

At the same time, all the naval officers standing nearby breathed a sigh of relief. As the saying goes, if you don't fight the diligent, don't fight the lazy, and only fight the blind, there will be no problem in the usual drills and actual combat, but if you make a mistake in front of the emperor, all the previous efforts may be in vain.

"Weigh anchor..." Miao Bunzun shouted at the deck.
"Raise the bow anchor..." After hearing this, the boatswain decided which anchor to raise first based on many parameters such as sea conditions, water currents, and the direction of the ship.

"Main mast full sail and half sail..." The first mate looked up and shouted at the mast after hearing the order. He also had to decide the order and number of sails to be raised according to the wind direction and the direction of the ship. "...Ring 30, heading 85..." The sailboat cannot sail normally just by pulling up the anchor and raising the sail, because the helmsman does not know which direction to go.

It is time to listen to the navigator. He took the nautical chart from the emperor, lay on the steering platform and looked at the two compasses inside. After careful comparison, he loudly gave the helmsman the data for turning the rudder.

It sounds troublesome, right? Actually, if you want to sail a large or medium-sized sailboat normally, it is even more troublesome. It requires the continuous and precise coordination of at least dozens of people. Any mistake in any link may endanger the lives of all the people on the ship.

Whether every judgment is reasonable, every command is clear, and every operation is correct will be recorded in detail in the logbook, which will be submitted to the Navy Staff for record after the voyage. It is clear at a glance who made the most mistakes, and if the mistakes are too many, they will be replaced, demoted, or even punished by military law.

A large or medium-sized sailing ship, especially a warship, has a crew of one to two hundred or even two to three hundred people. This is not to ensure that there are enough people in a fight, but because without enough people, they really cannot complete their duties.

Putting aside combat, daily navigation alone requires that the officers and soldiers be divided into at least two shifts, with each shift working 8 hours and resting 8 hours. Except for docking, there are no rest days and they are always working around the clock.

Today I sleep at night, tomorrow I sleep in the morning, the day after tomorrow I sleep in the afternoon, and the day after tomorrow I sleep at night again. Most people cannot bear it without years of training, and they either suffer from neurasthenia or endocrine disorders, and various diseases will follow.

If the sea conditions are high or the crew is ready for battle, all crew members will be on duty, accompanied by huge noise and discomfort. At this time, if there is a little time for rotation, you must let yourself sleep, otherwise if you don’t rest well, your resistance will also decrease, affecting your health and work efficiency.

This is the fundamental reason why some major countries have very strong armies, able to deploy tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers at any time, but their navies cannot become strong quickly no matter what they do.

Compared with the army, the navy has too high requirements for the quality of individual soldiers, which cannot be cultivated in one or two years. And it is not enough to have the quality of individual soldiers. It also needs a long period of training and actual combat to be run-in, and finally whether there is enough money and resources.

Take the Ming Navy established by Hong Tao as an example. It took 12 years and the entire country's financial and material resources, and during this period he tried every possible way to find opportunities for actual combat. However, so far he has only managed to gather a few thousand officers and soldiers capable of operating warships.

Qualified? No, these thousands of officers and soldiers are still a long way from being qualified as a navy, because they have never sailed on the ocean. And if they want to become an excellent navy, the distance is even longer, at least another 10 years. And it is not enough to just train, but also to participate in large-scale naval battles.

Is it easy to be a captain? It's nothing more than lowering the sail when the wind is strong, raising the sail and turning when the wind is weak, punishing those who are lazy, and deciding which ship can be attacked and which ship cannot be attacked. Basically, there is no work to do, just a trafficker.

It may seem so, but in fact the captain is crucial to a ship. The ability of the crew determines the lower limit of a ship; the quality of the captain determines the upper limit of a ship.

Normally, the captain is really useless, more like a military police on the ship, just to maintain discipline. But at critical moments, such as wartime, or when the ship is lost in a storm, the captain's role should be reflected. His decision often determines the outcome of a battle and the life and death of a ship's crew.

Therefore, if you want to make a fleet stronger, it is useless to just compete with the lower limit. You must find a way to cultivate more experienced, flexible, basic and unconventional captains to compete with your opponents in the upper limit.

(End of this chapter)