The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 445 Longjiang Shipyard and Bao Shipyard

“If we want to protect our great maritime territory, sail across the ocean, and even compete for global hegemony, we cannot do without an elite navy.

In order to build an elite navy, not only the world's top ships, guns and other equipment are needed, but also a group of outstanding soldiers.

In order to show the importance we attach to the navy, I decided to first set up the Sea Dragon Guard in the Guards to train an excellent navy and set a pattern for subsequent naval construction.

Liheng is both civil and military, and is extremely talented in the military. Is he willing to serve as a general in Hailongwei? "

Yan Yingyuan was already impressed by Liu Sheng's ambition to conquer the ocean, but when Liu Sheng asked him bluntly, how could he not agree?

He immediately cupped his fists and said, "Wei Chen is willing!"

Liu Sheng smiled and said, "In that case, Liheng will come with me to inspect the Longjiang Shipyard tomorrow."

That's why Yan Yingyuan followed Liu Sheng on his trip to Longjiang Shipyard today.

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Longjiang Shipyard is located on the riverside in the western suburbs of Nanjing. Therefore, Liu Sheng and others walked out of Dinghuai Gate in the outer city and saw the large buildings of Longjiang Shipyard not long after walking.

Liu Sheng had already known about the situation at Longjiang Shipyard.

According to existing archives, the shipyard can be traced back to the early Southern Song Dynasty, when it was named "Du Shipyard".

The heyday of Longjiang Shipyard was naturally also during the Yongle period, because it shared part of the sea-going ship construction tasks.

At that time, in order to protect these warships, a water village was built along the river, called the "Ambassador Ship Village along the river", and its scale was further expanded.

Because the location of the shipyard was called "Longwan", the shipyard was later called Longwandu Shipyard.

Although a few years later, Emperor Xuande ordered Zheng He to sail to the West again, this was the last time the Ming Dynasty organized a voyage to the West, using the same treasure ship as before.

But in fact, Longjiang Shipyard mainly manufactures river ships, such as warships, water transport ships, patrol ships, sentinel ships, clippers, yellow ships and even civilian fishing boats.

Moreover, the Bao Shipyard was established in the third year of Yongle for the purpose of sailing to the Western Ocean, hence the name Bao Shipyard, also known as the "Nanjing Shipyard", which means that it specializes in manufacturing large-scale ships such as treasure ships for ocean navigation.

Back then, the Bao Shipyard built truly large-scale ships that were made of more than 1,000 materials, or even 4,000 to 5,000 materials. Moreover, Bao Shipyard was affiliated with the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty, but Longjiang Shipyard was affiliated with the Ministry of Industry.

However, after Zhu Di's death, Zhu Gaochi soon issued an order to "stop collecting treasure ships from the West" after he succeeded to the throne, and the treasure shipyard fell into despair.

Since Liu Sheng wanted to build the Da'ei Navy, he would certainly like to restore the Bao Shipyard, which specialized in building sea-going ships, if possible.

The Bao Shipyard is also in the western suburbs of Nanjing, but it is on the west bank of the Qinhuai River and east of the Jiajiang River, that is, south of the Longjiang Shipyard and closer to Jiangdong Gate.

Maritime trade was still prosperous in the Yuan Dynasty, so Longwandu Shipyard was not idle.

However, Liu Sheng also read the documents compiled by the Secretariat and learned that Longjiang Shipyard was not the treasure shipyard that historically built treasure ships for Zheng He's voyages to the West.

Due to the needs of the war against gold, various shipyards in Jiangnan developed rapidly, and the Du Shipyard, as a government-run shipyard, naturally also developed rapidly. According to statistics from the Jiankang Prefecture's Procurement and Procurement Department, more than 3,500 ships can be built and repaired!

From this we can see the huge difference between the two at that time.

At that time, Wanyan Jiumei (Zhao Gou) wanted to make Jinling the capital, but as the Jin soldiers approached Jiangbei, he was frightened and fled to Hangzhou. However, the "Du Shipyard" was established during this period, hence its name.

These ships are all less than a thousand materials, and most of them are even less than 400 materials.

In the early Ming Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang established his capital in Jinling, he naturally attached great importance to the shipyard. Not only did he continue to expand its scale on the original basis, he also ordered his flag to specialize in building warships. It was not until the Jiajing period that the shipyard was renamed "Longjiang Shipyard".

On the contrary, the Longjiang Shipyard was still in operation until the Yi army captured Nanjing.

After Zheng He's last voyage to the West, the remaining treasure ships also stayed in the abandoned shipyard to eat ashes, left to be blown by wind and rain, and eventually turned into a pile of rotten wood.

Therefore, Bao Shipyard actually ceased production in the year Zhu Di died.

However, the treasure shipyards that were born and prospered because of the Ming Dynasty's voyages to the West also declined rapidly with the cessation of the Ming Dynasty's voyages to the West. It can be said that it flourished and died suddenly.

On the contrary, Longjiang Shipyard still exists today because it manufactures river boats, boats, and even mostly repairs ships.

In addition, just looking at the size of the factory site, Longjiang Shipyard is not much smaller than the Bao Shipyard that is almost impossible to find today - it covers an area of ​​more than 180 acres!

When Liu Sheng was sitting on his horse and looking at the shipyard buildings in front of him, Zhang Qianfan, director of the Longjiang Shipyard in Da'ei, led some officials in the factory to salute him at the door. "See Your Majesty!"

Liu Sheng came to his senses, raised his hand and said: "Ping Sheng."

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

After that, the accompanying guards first separated two battalions into the factory to check for dangerous soldiers and deploy them. Only then did Liu Sheng enter with a large number of his entourage.

As soon as he entered the factory, Zhang Qianfan began to introduce the names and functions of the buildings in Longjiang Shipyard to Liu Sheng.

"Your Majesty, please take a look. It is the office of the officials in the factory, and it was also the former office of the promotion department. Next to it is the former office of the Dushui Division, the official restaurant (canteen), the command hall, etc...."

In fact, Liu Sheng came to Longjiang Shipyard once after the Tai army took control of Nanjing last year. But because he ordered the development of Longjiang Shipyard, the shipyard has naturally changed a lot compared to more than a year ago.

Not to mention the changes in organizational structure, personnel and other aspects, the buildings and scenery in the venue alone are very different from what Liu Sheng saw last year.

In the Ming Dynasty, although the Longjiang Shipyard was affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and had a royal background, the Ming Dynasty always sent officials with funds to take over the shipyard when needed and paid attention to it; when it was not needed, it stayed aside and allowed it to fend for itself. .

For example, during the Jiajing period when Japanese pirates were rampant, and when Wanli came to aid the DPRK, there were records of sending capable officials to the Longjiang Shipyard.

As for other times, Longjiang Shipyard was a little transparent and would not come into the eyes of the Ming Emperor and important officials in the court.

During the Chongzhen period, the Ming Dynasty had financial difficulties, and it was even less likely to pay attention to the "gold-eating beast" of Longjiang Shipyard.

In order to survive, Longjiang Shipyard, in addition to taking on various private jobs privately, also reduced the number of craftsmen and even diverted some workshops for other uses.

At this time, Zhang Qianfan led Liu Sheng and others through the government office area in the east and to the production area in the west. What they focused on was the reconstruction of the abandoned pond (shipyard) by the shipyard in the past year.

"Your Majesty, please see that when our Longjiang Shipyard was at its peak, there were as many as seven ponds, and seven ships could be built at the same time.

Later, due to the Ming Dynasty's cost-cutting and the reduction of shipyard funds, the ponds were repeatedly reduced, and at least two were retained.

The rest were rented out by the families of shipyard craftsmen and converted into paddy fields for growing rice to subsidize the factory office and craftsmen, barely maintaining the operation of the shipyard.

Now, with His Majesty's decree and the strong support of the DPRK and China, we have not only rebuilt all five abandoned ponds in the past year, but even built two more.

In other words, the shipyard can now build nine ships at the same time! "

Zhang Qianfan was so speechless that he found that Liu Sheng's expression was calm and he didn't look happy.

So he quickly added, "It is said that when Bao Shipyard was most prosperous in the past, it only had seven ponds. Now Longjiang Shipyard has nine ponds, which has exceeded Bao Shipyard..."

Seeing that Liu Sheng was still unhappy, Zhang Qianfan's tone became weaker and weaker, and he was even inexplicably scared.

Fortunately, Liu Sheng finally spoke at this time and asked: "Is it possible that Longjiang Shipyard is now building the sailing warships on the drawings given by the Ministry of Industry?"

It turned out that the reason Liu Sheng was not very happy was because he did not see the sailing battleship (Galen ship) in the dock.

He handed over the sailing warship drawings to the Ministry of Industry last year. Although he did not order Longjiang Shipyard to build a certain number of ships within a time limit, he had not seen a single sailing warship for more than a year, so he was naturally unhappy.

Although Longjiang Shipyard had nine shipyards at this time, only five of them were building ships, and all of them were repairing ships.

This kind of efficiency is still too low in Liu Sheng's opinion. Not to mention that the five ships under construction are all warships or blessing ships, not sailing warships.

It's not that Liu Sheng looks down on traditional ships such as Fuchuan, but these ships are really not suitable for carrying artillery.

If the subordinates dare to violate the rules and privately shelve or deliberately delay the construction plan of the sailing battleship, Liu Sheng will never mind getting angry and severely punishing a group of people - even if there are technical officials he has valued in the past.

Zhang Qianfan glanced at the Minister of Works and several other officials from the Ministry of Works before he bit the bullet and said, "Your Majesty, I'm afraid it will take some time before construction can begin."

(End of this chapter)