The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 374: The Battle for Hailing Island
"What kind of coal do those merchant ships burn?"

The "Shan" and three other warships escorted the "Treasure Fleet" out of Changning Port on May 5, sailed north along the east coast of Africa, and arrived at Jinjiang Port in the Jingnan Governorate of Qi (now Maputo, the capital of Mozambique) two days later.

After staying in the port for two days to replenish some fresh water and food, four merchant ships loaded with gold, silver and ivory joined the "Treasure Fleet", expanding the size of the entire fleet to sixteen ships.

On June 6, the fleet left Jinjiang and turned east, preparing to cross the Jingnan Strait (now the Mozambique Channel) and head to Jianyang Port (now the southwestern city of Tulear, Madagascar), the seat of the colonial government of the Hailing Governorate (now Madagascar Island).

The "treasure fleet" departing from Qianzhou generally had a fixed route, setting sail from Changning Port, heading north to Jinjiang, then to Hailing, passing Fu'an Island (now Mauritius Island), and constantly gathering merchant ships returning to the mainland of Hanzhou along the way, eventually forming a large fleet, sailing south, crossing the Indian Ocean, and heading to Guizhou Port (now Perth, Australia) southwest of Hanzhou.

After leaving the port, the fleet was arranged in two vertical rows, with merchant ships in the middle and escort warships at both ends, sailing slowly on the blue Indian Ocean.

There were more than a dozen ships, all powered by steam. As they sailed, they produced trails of black smoke that soared into the sky, creating a spectacular sight.

The navigator of the "Shan", Captain Pan Zongli, stood on the slipway at the bow of the ship, looking at several merchant ships in front of him, which continuously spewed out billowing black smoke, dyeing the clean sky into dirty marks, and he couldn't help but complain.

"These merchant ships are probably using low-quality coal to save costs." She Xiangguang, the chief engineer of the Shan ship and the Imperial Guards, glanced at them and shook his head, saying, "Although low-quality coal can be used, it will have a serious impact on the service life of the steam turbine. This shipowner is willing to damage the steam turbine equipment just to save a few coal dollars. How ignorant!"

"Those ships seem to belong to the Dutch East India Company, and the mechanics they hired are probably half-baked domestic ones, so they are unlikely to stop the shipowners from saving money. Moreover, if there is no problem with the steam turbines, how can their value be reflected?" Pan Zongli said with a smile: "Unlike the coal our navy burns, it is either high-quality lignite from Yingzhou (now Newcastle, Australia) or Cardiff coal from Wales, which not only has high heat but also has fewer impurities, and the smoke is not that thick."

"Of course not." She Xiangguang nodded and said, "If this happens on the battlefield, and the enemy's steam warships also burn this kind of low-quality coal, we can probably see the billowing black smoke from them from a long distance. For us, this means we can prepare for battle more than ten minutes or even one or two hours in advance of the enemy. On the battlefield, as long as we are a little faster than the enemy, we can gain a great initiative."

Relying on the inexhaustible wind power, the endurance of sailing ships was almost only limited by food supply. But after entering the steam age, people had to pay attention to the source of coal, the power of ships.

As early as more than 30 years ago, the "Naval Regulations" of Qi State clearly stipulated that "high-quality bituminous coal for ships is necessary war reserve materials for marching and combat."

Although all steam engines burn coal, not all coal is suitable as the main fuel for steam engines.

Coal can be divided into lignite (brown lignite, black lignite), sub-bituminous coal (sub-bituminous coal), bituminous coal (raw coal), anthracite, etc. according to the degree of carbonization. The quality of various coals varies greatly, which has a great impact on the driving force, the speed of the ship, and even the life of the equipment.

After years of verification, the Qi Navy believes that the coal from Yingzhou, the native land of Hanzhou, has high heat content and is most suitable for ships and warships on ocean routes. Of course, the price of this kind of coal is also high, 30% to 50% higher than ordinary coal.

In order to ensure the power needs of warships, the Qi Navy spent a huge amount of money to store large quantities of Yingzhou coal in many overseas bases so that this high-quality fuel could be loaded at any time during wartime and cruises.

More than ten years ago, the people of Qi discovered that the Cardiff coal exported by the English was not inferior to the Yingzhou coal and could meet the power needs of the Qi navy. They therefore imported large quantities of it to replenish the coal stocks of nearby naval bases in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions.

During the Qi-England War, it was thanks to the high-quality coal stored in the Qishan Islands (now the Canary Islands), Dehua (now Tangier, Morocco), Tianmen (now the North African city of Ceuta, Spain) and other places that the Qi navy was able to continuously launch attacks on the English navy, and eventually forced England to surrender through raids and blockades.

After the war, in order to pay war reparations and heavy domestic debts, the English not only began to levy taxes on their "own sons" North American colonial territories, but also increased the export of domestic materials.

The coal mines in southern Wales were very popular among the people of Qi because of the good quality of the coal they produced, high calorific value and little residual ash. They immediately attracted a lot of capital investment and soon became England's largest single export commodity. The Port of Cardiff also quickly became England's largest coal export port.

It is ridiculous to say that for the purpose of capital profit-seeking, in order to exchange valuable "foreign exchange" from Qi State, the high-quality Cardiff coal ignored the needs of the Royal Navy of England and sold a large amount of high-quality coal to Qi State merchants first, leaving only some unpopular crushed coal and inferior coal, "the crushed coal has no oil and one ton can only be used as half a ton."

This type of coal has a low calorific value and contains a lot of residual ash, which not only slows down the speed of warships, but also has a negative impact on boilers and other equipment.

Some senior generals and steam warship engineers of the Royal Navy of England pointed out in Parliament that the coal supplied by the coal mines "is scattered and broken, with heavy smoke and ash, which is difficult to fully utilize steam power and has hidden damage to engines and boilers. If such low-quality coal is normally supplied to the navy, it will not be usable. Then, in wartime, how can the Royal Navy prepare for war normally?"

There is no need to look at the Qi Navy. Just take the many Qi steam-powered merchant ships as an example. When most of their ships are sailing, there is only a thin wisp of white smoke on the sea. Only when they are very close can you observe them carefully through a telescope to discover their existence.

Supplying the Royal Navy with such low-quality coal is simply a drag on the Royal Navy's training and combat!
In fact, in addition to the Royal Navy of England which was often forced to use low-quality coal, many steam-powered merchant ships in Europe would ignore high-quality coal and add some cheap, average-quality coal during the voyage in order to save operating costs.

After all, in the past, when ships were "drinking northwest wind", they didn't have to pay a penny.

It’s not like now, where steam-powered ships have to spend money to buy coal from time to time, which is really a bit wasteful.

Of course, steam-powered ships are indeed much easier to use than pure wind-powered sailing ships. At least there is no need to rack your brains to capture weak winds at sea, and there is no need to consider the restrictions of monsoons and ocean currents.

More importantly, steam-powered ships not only travel faster, but also increase the operating efficiency of merchant ships by several times.

Just as countries around the world began to gradually promote the use of steamships, many people suddenly discovered that the ports or islands near the world's major shipping routes were all occupied by Qi. In the Mediterranean, West Africa, South Africa, the Western Indian Ocean, Persia, India, and even the East Indies, there was a port or trading post of Qi almost every hundreds or thousands of nautical miles, which could provide all ships sailing on the sea with the necessary coaling, water, and other daily supply services.

Decades ago, some Europeans responded with endless ridicule to the State of Qi for its large-scale occupation of islands and numerous "unowned lands" in the ocean, saying that the people of Qi were a group of typical "land collectors" and "soil addicts" who were willing to spend huge sums of money to seize and develop these "colonial territories with no return at all". They were simply prodigals with money but no place to spend it.

You have to know that at this time, European colonists occupied land either because there were mines, such as Spanish America and Portuguese Brazil, which had large amounts of gold and silver, or because there were geographical conditions and natural environments that could achieve economic value-added, such as the many "sugar islands" in the Caribbean, or because there were resources that could be directly converted into cash, such as furs in the French New France and timber and tobacco in the British American colonial territories.

But look at what colonial territories Qi occupied?
Oh, of course, the Qi people still occupied a lot of excellent colonial territories, such as Qi's Xuanzhou (now California), Qi's South Africa, and large tracts of Indian territory, where the gold and silver mines and huge commercial interests are still extremely enviable. But what do you see in some of the colonial territories occupied by Qi?

The Sand States on the Arabian Peninsula (now the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the coastal areas of Basra Province) had nothing but sand and were really cheated by the Ottomans by exchanging hundreds of thousands of dollars for debts.

There are also large coastal territories in East Africa, which seem to have nothing but flying and leaping animals except for endless deserts and forests, and cannot create much value at all.

From the perspective of professional European colonists, Qi occupied too much "bad land" and its efforts and rewards were not proportional at all. If any European king or adventurer company were to develop these colonial territories, they would probably lose so much money that they would even have to pawn their pants!

But now it seems that the Qi people's crazy land enclosure actions were simply foresighted. They provided a series of supply stations for steam-powered ships, just like the service areas on highways in later generations, to refuel coal, water, and replenish supplies for the merchant ships that were constantly traveling.

No matter where your ship sails, you can see the "service area" set up by the Qi people. They will kindly refuel you and then pay the corresponding service fee out of your pocket.

Some people say that the Indian Ocean belongs to the people of Qi. Perhaps in time, when they have gradually completed their layout in the Atlantic Ocean, the entire ocean world will completely become the world of the people of Qi.

Oh, it’s really scary to think about it. The people of Qi had begun to prepare for ruling the ocean decades ago, and they kept setting up strategies and eventually got ahead of everyone else and established their unprecedented maritime advantage.

Now, they are consolidating and strengthening their advantages, trying to connect the colonial forces that were previously arranged in points and lines, and raise their flags in countless vast lands to declare their sovereignty.

On June 6, the fleet arrived at Jianyang Port, Hailing Island.

This port was built in the eighth year of Shaoning (1694) and was the first colonial outpost of Qi State on the island.

After more than 30 years of colonization, more than ten colonial outposts were opened on the west coast, and they continued to penetrate and expand inland, and also established the Hailing Governor's District.

As of last year, the population of the Hailing Governorate of Qi State had reached more than 35,000, and its sphere of influence covered almost the entire west coast.

Well, the reason why we haven't penetrated deep into the interior is that the Kingdom of Merina (also known as the Kingdom of Imerina) located in the central plateau unified the vast central region as early as 1610.

Moreover, the Melina people also mastered iron smelting technology and were able to manufacture iron weapons such as javelins, scimitars and axes. They formed a very combat-capable army and established a complete state institution. They were not an indigenous tribe that could be easily controlled.

In the 1699th year of Shaoning (), the Governor-General of Hailing launched a tentative attack inland through several conquered Sakalava tribes. As a result, it was hit head-on by the Kingdom of Merina. More than Sakalava vassal troops were almost wiped out, and even the dozen or so Qi military advisers who accompanied them were killed and injured, and they retreated to the seaside in embarrassment.

That's right, the French Fort Dauphin (now the city of Taolanaru) located southeast of Hailing Island sold a lot of firearms to Melina over the past few decades, and even sold them powerful artillery. This undoubtedly enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Melina army to a certain extent, and naturally gave them an absolute advantage when facing the Sakalava vassal army that mainly used cold weapons.

Taking into account the complex geographical environment of the central plateau and the huge population of the Merina Kingdom, the Qi people temporarily gave up their plan to invade the inland. They planned to consolidate their colonial rule in the western coastal territories, accelerate the integration of the Sakalava tribe, and wait for the right opportunity before attempting to seize the entire island.

Hard work pays off, and the Qi people's opportunity soon came.

The wise and brave king of the Kingdom of Merina, Andri Yamaji Navalona, ​​died of illness in the 1711th year of Shaoning (). Before his death, he was so foolish that he divided the entire kingdom into four parts, which were managed by his four sons respectively.

Not surprisingly, the once powerful Kingdom of Merina immediately fell into division and a brutal civil war began.

Therefore, the people of Qi were very enthusiastic about selling weapons to the four little princes who were determined to restore the unity of the kingdom, adding fuel to the civil war in the kingdom.

The civil war lasted for more than 1725 years. The central plateau was almost reduced to ruins and the entire agricultural production suffered huge damage. The Kingdom of Merina, which used to be the granary of the entire Hailing Island, was in a state of famine all year round and had to rely on the Qi Hailing Governorate and the French Madagascar Governorate (in , in order to fight against the Qi people on the west coast, the French government merged Fort Dauphin and Tamatave into a unified governorate) to import food from overseas.

The people of Qi carefully manipulated the civil war in the Kingdom of Merina, trying their best to prevent any one party from dominating and thus re-unify the kingdom.

They were very patient and waited until the Merlina were completely exhausted before they would calmly rush over to clean up the mess.

By then, I believe the entire central plateau will be like a ripe fruit, which will fall into the hands of the Qi people with a slight touch.

Once the inland plateau area is occupied, the rest of Hailing Island will surely be conquered, and eventually all of it will be incorporated into the territory of Da Qi.

However, when the "Treasure Fleet" arrived at Jianyang Bay and waited to dock, they unexpectedly discovered that a large number of soldiers and Sakalava servants had gathered at the port, and various military supplies were piled on the dock and were being loaded onto the ships in a steady stream, as if a major military action was brewing.

"The French have personally intervened in the civil war among the Melina people, with the intention of controlling the central plateau." A port official on the dock said angrily, "Therefore, our Hailing Governorate should gather a large army, march into the inland plateau, and attack the indigenous king's city before the French."

Huh? The French actually want to compete with us Qi people in the Indian Ocean region. Are they crazy?
"It is said that the King of Merina in the eastern part of the plateau was inspired by a French priest and was baptized as a devout Catholic...."

Oh I got it!

(End of this chapter)