The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 372 "Treasure Ship"

"Big guns and huge ships, these are the most desirable things for a man!" Just as the "Shan" was about to set sail, Captain Wang Yuancheng looked back at the fleet flagship "Liying" quietly docked at the berth at the dock, with envy in his eyes that was beyond words.

Although the full load displacement of the "Yama" is as high as 1,600 tons, it would definitely be a giant ship if it were placed in Europe, but in front of the 2,500-ton "Riying", it can only be regarded as a little brother.

Needless to say, the "Liying" is a true ironclad ship, which cannot be compared with the traditional warships like the "Yama" which are iron-ribbed and wooden-hulled warships with only a thin layer of iron skin on the outside.

In April of the 1726nd year of Taiping (), the ironclad ship "Liying" engaged in battle with the English Navy for the first time in the Gulf of Guinea. Relying on its advantages of "strong ships and powerful guns", it killed all the enemies in its way, like a lion or tiger breaking into a flock of sheep, unstoppable and causing great harm to the English - not only in terms of loss of ships and personnel, but also in their fragile psychology.

As ironclad ships performed brilliantly in the Qi-Ying naval battle and proved through actual combat that this type of ship had unparalleled advantages at sea, the Qi Navy began to phase out wooden sailing warships in the years after the war and instead purchased large quantities of more powerful ironclad ships.

Before coal was used as a power source, sailing ships always played the main role of conquerors of the ocean.

The use of sails freed soldiers from the cumbersome labor of rowing and replaced or partially replaced human-propelled ships, which was of great significance in the history of navigation.

After mastering the power of sails, people gradually got rid of the difficulties of maneuvering at sea. Sailboats have almost unlimited endurance, can use multi-directional winds to drift on the sea for a long time, and can reach seas that have never been reached before.

However, sailing ships have weaknesses that are difficult to overcome.

It is too restricted by the weather. If there is no wind or the wind is weak, it cannot maneuver. The limitation of power (wind power) in turn limits the size and weight of the ship.

The reason is self-evident. When the wind is unable to drive the heavy hull forward, the ship can only "float" on the sea at best, like a dead fish.

The problem was that the displacement of large sailing warships was so large that it was impossible to row them with human power (Qi State had built merchant ships with a displacement of more than 3000 tons more than years ago). Therefore, the demand for new power technology was becoming increasingly urgent - this technology must be independent of wind and able to obtain continuous power.

The biggest improvement to the world's ships brought about by the vigorous industrial revolution in Qi was the power plant. The steam engine burning coal could convert thermal energy into mechanical energy to drive the ship forward.

Of course, out of suspicion of new things or inertia, the earliest batch of steam ships still installed sails as auxiliary propulsion devices, which were motor sailing ships. In this way, the powerful horsepower provided by the steam turbine enabled it to have a faster speed, and it could also sail with only three-masted sails - well, although this looked quite clumsy.

Steam ships were able to carry greater loads due to the powerful power of coal combustion. As a result, the Qi Navy was able to cover the teak hulls on both sides of some wooden sailing ships with 10 cm thick armor, making the defensive performance of Qi's "quasi-ironclad ships" the best in the world.

As Qi's steam warships gradually matured, another problem that had long plagued sailing warships was also solved.

Since the Age of Exploration, the power of shipborne artillery has been considerable. After entering the 18th century, with the continuous spread of various artillery technologies in Qi State, the power of artillery shells was further improved, and the navies of some countries were also equipped with explosive bombs with great destructive power.

In this situation, the warship is required to reduce the exposed area as much as possible to avoid being hit by enemy shells. To this end, the freeboard of the warship must be reduced to the minimum, but the problem is that the low freeboard hull plus the high mast with full sails will cause the center of gravity of the ship to be unstable when sailing in wind and waves, which is extremely dangerous for the ship.

For the same reason, although a sailing warship could be equipped with dozens or even hundreds of cannons, in order to maintain the stability of the ship's center of gravity, the muzzles were located on both sides, making it impossible to fire shells forward while the ship was sailing forward.

Eventually, the advent of steam warships allowed ships to "ditch" their sails, resolving the above concerns.

In the 1724th year of Taiping (), the ironclad ship "Sushen" was commissioned. Its construction marked a radical change in the design of naval battleships in Qi and even in the world.

The displacement of the Sushen reached an astonishing 4000 tons. Like the previous two ironclad ships, the steam turbine was its only source of power. It completely abandoned the mast and hull, with only a military mast for flag signals.

It also has a low side profile, a wide beam, and thick armor. Its main guns are installed on two huge rotating turrets at the stern and bow. This design laid the foundation for the subsequent ironclad ships of the Qi State.

In short, with the increasing maturity of steam engine technology, the design and construction of ships, their power systems, and the weapons they were equipped with all underwent tremendous changes - evolving from a combination of wood, sails, and spherical projectiles to a combination of steel, steam, and high-explosive shells.

The ocean during this period also entered the "ironclad ship" era.

The Qi-England War not only meant the end of traditional sail-powered warships, but also swept wooden warships into the dust of history and pushed naval warfare technology to a higher dimension.

The existence of ironclad ships completely destroyed the attempts of some small countries to gain a foothold in the ocean world by building large wooden sailing ships.

Ironclad ships will become powerful weapons of a great power. They are a concentrated reflection of intensive capital and intensive technology, and are also a concrete manifestation of a country's comprehensive industrial strength today.

In other words, when ironclad ships came into being, the navy was no longer something that a small country could handle. Steel, technology, funds, and the continued support of a strong national strength, with all of these, you can build a navy that can be of great use.

It is reported that the newest ironclad ship commissioned by the Qi Navy, the "Cangshan", has a full load displacement of a terrifying 8,500 tons, making it the world's largest and most powerful sea monster.

At the same time, the English Navy had just acquired two experimental ironclad ships, the Warrior and the Herald, with displacements of only 400 and 900 tons respectively. The Herald was launched only last April and has not yet been officially commissioned.

In view of the generation gap between the navies of other countries in the world and the Qi Navy, the cabinet government has repeatedly rejected the plan to comprehensively replace the navy's ships. It only slowly replaced a large number of wooden motor-sail warships at the rate of building three to four new ironclad ships each year.

The Qianzhou Fleet, which controls the key intersections of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, has 11 main battleships and only one ironclad ship. The rest are wooden motorboats wrapped in thin armor, striving to maintain the solemn image of the Da Qi Navy in the Qianzhou area.

At the request of the Changning Governor-General's District, the Fleet Command ordered the "Shan" and "Jishan" battleships, which had just completed care and maintenance in the dock, to go to Changning Port to provide armed escort for this year's "treasure ship" transportation mission.

After more than ten days of preparation, all the officers and crew members who were on vacation were recalled, and one month's supplies were loaded into the cabin. On May 5, with the farewell of relatives and friends on the shore, the two warships sailed out of the naval port one after another and entered Cape Green Bay (now False Bay, South Africa).

In fact, with Qi's control over the Indian Ocean, the pirates who once roamed freely have basically disappeared, and it is considered the safest sea area in the world. In theory, any merchant ship sailing in this sea area does not have to worry about being robbed by pirates.

However, the "treasure ship" of Qi State, which was loaded with huge amounts of gold, diamonds and precious ivory, was an exception. Every year, the navy had to send professional warships to escort the ship's journey back to its homeland in Hanzhou.

Since the discovery of the Xingshan gold mine (now the Johannesburg area) more than ten years ago, not only did the royal family and the cabinet set up large mining companies in succession, occupying large tracts of mining areas to mine local gold, but even some local dignitaries and wealthy people also used various connections to get a piece of the pie. The total amount of gold mined and refined each year is as high as four to five hundred tons, making it one of the largest gold producers in the world.

It seemed as if God was particularly fond of the State of Qi. Not long after the discovery of the huge reserves of the Xingshan gold mine, a gold digger from the German region accidentally discovered a diamond mine in Leling (now Kimberley, South Africa), which then triggered a diamond fever around the world.

Although, as an oriental Chinese nation, they were not very enthusiastic about diamonds, but seeing those European country bumpkins frantically pursuing this cubic natural crystal, the mining tycoons from Qi immediately joined forces with the local government to enclose the core diamond mining area within dozens of kilometers of Leling, and then organized a large number of workers to carry out mining and processing.

In less than ten years, more than 40 mining companies were established in Leling area. Behind each of them stood one or more top dignitaries of Qi State, even some members of the royal family. The total investment in mining exceeded more than 3.5 million yuan.

When the Leling diamond mine was first discovered, diamonds could be found by digging with a shovel on the surface. However, as time went by, diamonds became more and more difficult to dig, just like the gold mine in Xingshan. The mines also became deeper and deeper. This meant that more and more fixed asset investments had to be made, and a large amount of corresponding equipment had to be purchased to continue digging the diamond mine.

This has gradually excluded countless individual "diamond hunters", who have to either apply for a piece of land from the local government and become a farmer honestly, or be hired by mining companies with high salaries and continue to engage in the hard work of diamond mining.

With the huge increase in investment, the production cycle has become longer and longer. If mining companies continue to compete in the free market and cut prices as they did before, the risks will become too great. A wave of diamond market in Europe can make the miners who have invested heavily lose all their money. There is no way around it. Diamonds have almost no market in the East. People there seem to be more fond of warm and translucent jade.

Well, in order to reverse this unfavorable situation, there is only one way, that is, to establish an alliance of mine owners, and everyone will work together to build a monopoly organization for the diamond trade, just like the Dutch East India Company monopolized spices in the past, with unified operations, control of production, and unified pricing, and then squeeze out monopoly profits.

So, two years ago, more than 40 mining companies in Leling joined forces with the Dutch East India Company to form a mining joint venture called Fu Shenglong, and began to list and trade company stocks and bonds on the financial markets in Jianye and Daxing.

Through a series of complex corporate equity mergers and reorganizations, a series of Leling mining tycoons, including the Royal Jade Mining Company, were integrated into the Fu Shenglong Company, which monopolized nearly 70% of the global diamond trade through the Dutch East India Company's European distribution network (another diamond producing area, India, was also under the control of Qi).

Although a large number of diamonds from Leling would be shipped to Europe for sale after simple processing in Changning, to those high-profile wealthy businessmen or royal families of various countries, some diamonds of superior quality would be transported to the mainland of Hanzhou via "treasure ships" for further fine processing, and finally sold to Europe, or kept in the imperial royal family and the homes of the powerful.

It can be said that the total value of diamonds, gold, ivory and other goods carried by Qi's "treasure ships" was no less than that of the treasure fleet that transported gold and silver from the Americas by the Kingdom of Spain. In addition, there would be a large number of merchant ships accompanying them that would load the profits earned in Europe and transport them back to their homeland, making the "treasure fleet" a mobile treasury that attracted worldwide attention.

Someone once roughly estimated that the wealth carried by the "treasure fleet" that set sail from Changning Port was likely to exceed 20 million yuan, or even 30 million yuan. If a pirate force could intercept it intact, it would immediately allow each pirate to have a huge amount of wealth that is difficult for others to achieve, and from then on they would reach the pinnacle of life.

Yes, because the Indian Ocean belongs to Qi State and is also known as the safest sea area in the world. This allowed Qi State merchant ships to remove almost all weapons, thus freeing up more space for loading cargo.

Although Qi's merchant ships were equipped with steam turbines on a large scale, which made the ships travel faster and have stronger turning maneuverability, when facing those pirate ships driving traditional sailing ships, they could easily get rid of the pirates by relying on their graceful movements and speed advantages.

But there is no guarantee that some pirate ships would upgrade their technology in order to earn more food, and install steam turbines on board, and then venture to the Indian Ocean, thereby capturing one or two Qi merchant ships full of cargo or property and quickly achieving their own financial freedom.

The Imperial Navy maintains so many warships. In addition to expanding the empire's territory, it naturally has to assume the daily responsibility of defending the empire's maritime wealth. Not to mention that most of the wealth carried by the "Treasure Fleet" is gold, diamonds, ivory owned by the royal family and the government, as well as other precious materials plundered from overseas colonial territories. Nothing can be lost, so naval ships must be called in to escort the entire journey.

After the two warships "Shan" and "Jishan" made a brief stop at Nanhua Port (now Port Elizabeth, South Africa), they continued on their journey without stopping and arrived in Changning on May 5, where they joined up with the other two warships stationed in the port, preparing to jointly escort the "Treasure Fleet" back to the mainland of Hanzhou.

(End of this chapter)