Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 351 Local Preparations ([-])

Dongfang Port in early 1643 was a beautiful time in midsummer.On the banks of the beautiful Dayu River, there is a long wooden chair fixed on the ground at intervals.Surrounding the wooden chair are fruit trees. Many of the saplings planted by everyone more than ten years ago have produced fruitful fruits, just like the country created by the people across the country.

Inside the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard, the newly appointed chairman of the executive committee, Liu Weimin, sat down on a bench, staring at the quietly flowing water of the Dayuhe River, without speaking for a long time.Sitting next to him is Xiao Bailang, who has retired as a transportation commissioner. Now he is officially serving as the director of the Dayu River Naval Shipyard, and at the same time, he is also the chairman of the National River Widening and Dredging Committee. It looks extremely weird .

Liu Weimin was a middle school teacher, and he has been one of the members of the original seven-member committee since the day he crossed. However, due to his personality and other reasons, he gradually faded out of the political front of the East Bank and became a Dew took the post of chairman of the National People's Congress.The term of the old government came to an end at the end of last year. According to the regulations, most of the people will step down from the current position of the Central Executive Committee. The stable political arena of the East Coast Republic of China has begun a new round—at least a superficial wash of political power. Card.

In desperation, Liu Weimin, who didn't want to go into this muddy water, was pushed to the chair of the executive committee by everyone.Liu Weimin, who was well aware of his lack of foundation, suddenly had a dizzy head. Since he took office, he has not even had a good night's sleep. The first major issue he faced was how to transport immigrants from the East.

First of all, I have to say that this is a big event, a very complicated but extremely important event.It tests the production, transportation, and armed capabilities of the East China Republic, as well as the overall planning, coordination, and organizational capabilities of the new government.The ambitious members of the new government have put forward the slogan of "building big ships" and have already started to put it into practice.For this point, Liu Weimin still basically agrees.As the situation in the Far East gradually opens up, more and more immigrants will definitely gather in Heishui Port and even the two strongholds of Jinshan Port and Gushan Port in Australia in the future. In terms of the existing extremely tight domestic transportation capacity, transportation may take Thousands of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty are tantamount to fantasy.Then, starting to build new ships immediately has become an inevitable choice.

Therefore, after finally finishing a batch of affairs accumulated at hand, Liu Weimin took a carriage to the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard located outside the south city of Dongfang Port early in the morning today (February 2) to inspect several ships in the shipyard. The construction progress of the ship.In addition to the fifth ship "Grouper" of the "Madao" class escort gunship ordered by the Navy in the berth, the other two 15-ton flute-shaped transport ships are the key objects of investigation.Old Liu watched very carefully, climbing up and down, no, after only inspecting for more than two hours, this old man with old arms and legs couldn't bear it anymore, and needed to sit down and rest.

Speaking of this flute-shaped transport ship, which is now equipped with as many as eleven people on the east coast, we have to mention its many advantages.For example: low material consumption, high cargo loading efficiency of the same tonnage, and of course the ultimate advantage is that it requires very few sailors—only 18-20 sailors are needed to drive such a 650-ton medium-sized ship.You must know that what people on the east coast are short of is sailors. Whether it is an ocean-going transport ship, a small river steamer, or the two major fleets of the Navy, a large number of sailors are needed to fill their countless vacancies.Well, since there is such a low-cost, large-capacity ship that only needs a very small number of sailors (10 east coast sailors + 10 Malay slave sailors) to operate, although its speed is a bit slower, It is definitely the first choice for people on the east coast at this time.

Of course, the East Coast people did not give up on the development and production of large-tonnage flying shear ships.Due to imminent immigrant action, and no one has time to develop larger tonnage ships, the two shipyards simply took the blueprint of the multi-purpose expedition ship "Fubo" from Hyundai Special Shipyard, and after a little modification, they started He designed the first large clipper sailing ship with practical value in the shipbuilding history of the Republic of China on the East Coast—the "Scud" class three-masted sailing ship with a full load displacement of 1200 tons.The design of the sailing ship is the same as that of the previous expedition ships. Because it is on a fixed route, the wind direction and ocean currents are very convenient. Therefore, the fore and middle masts of this ship are horizontal sails, and the rear mast is a longitudinal sail.In order to reduce the number of sailors needed, a small steam engine was installed on board to assist in sailing.

"The seven ships on the berths of the two shipyards will not be delivered until the end of April, so the construction of the 'Scud' class large clipper transport ship is estimated to be delayed until early May." Xiao Bailang nodded for Liu Weimin. pipe, and then lit one for himself, and said while smoking.

"The supply of wood in the New China region is quite sufficient, which solved the biggest problem for us. After all, these shipyards are state-owned enterprises, and we only need to pay the wages of the workers, and there is no need for any other big costs. Fortunately, otherwise, the government would not have the financial resources to build so many ships at once.” Liu Weimin said with emotion, “With ships, everything will be easy.”

"After the ships transporting migrants set off from Gushan Port, most of the seas they passed were low-latitude seas. The sea conditions were relatively stable, but the weather was relatively hot. In such an environment, food and drinking water are easily spoiled, and there is It may cause large-scale infectious diseases, so it is best to put the large clipper ship into this sea area, and use its high speed to shorten the sailing time as much as possible. By the way, the Ministry of Communications developed it on the basis of the 'Scud' class large clipper ship a while ago. A derivative model was developed. This derivative model was originally designed for immigration, so the internal structure of this ship is different from traditional cargo ships or warships. Its internal space is relatively large, but it is divided into independent Small rooms, each small room can accommodate 3-4 people, and each ship can transport 500-600 people. In addition, several ventilation fans driven by steam engines are installed in the entire interior cabin space, which is convenient for the cabin. The air is taken out and replaced with fresh air. In addition, there is a small seawater desalination device on board, which is coal-fired, to ensure that the drinking water can continue for a period of time when there is a problem." Xiao Bailang said.

He is currently serving as the director of the Dayu River Naval Shipyard, so he is relatively clear about these situations.Considering the general poor health of the immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, it is necessary to develop a special immigration ship to ensure the survival rate of these weak Ming immigrants at sea.However, relatively speaking, the construction cost of such a ship is also extremely expensive.And because of the many independent compartments, the use of this ship is very limited, and it can even be said that it can only be used to transport troops or immigrants, so this further increases the construction cost of this ship.

High cost, lengthy working hours, and narrow use all make this immigrant transport ship, which is stereotyped as the "Scud-A" type, an expensive luxury.For this reason, after starting the construction plan of the large clipper ship in early May, the Ministry of Communications even planned to build only two ships to test the waters, while the rest all built the "Scud" basic type (that is, cargo ships).

"Let's leave it at that for the boat issue. I don't know how much Mo Ming can do there, and whether he can gather enough people." Liu Weimin said with some concern, and then smiled: "Even if the situation cannot be opened for a while , with those few big ships, self-protection is not a problem. Moreover, they set up their bases in extremely remote and bitterly cold places like Sakhalin Island and Rishiri Island. It is really difficult for ordinary people to find them for a while, and the Fishing resources are extremely rich. If there are enough fishing boats and sailors, then the food problem is actually not insurmountable. We should first consider our own problems. Don’t catch people for us, but there are not enough boats to transport them. That would be Ours has failed. Then, how are the transport ships arranged for the other several voyages? How much do we need in total?"

"From the mainland to the Fort in the River, Fort in the River to Fort Xinhua, and Fort Xinhua to Gushan Port, these three sections are in the charge of the Ministry of Transportation of the local area, relying on the existing cargo ships to and from various places to attract people, but the number of ships may not be large. Too much, and the cycle of transporting people will probably be very long. As for the two sections from Heishui Port to Jinshan Port, and from Jinshan Port to Gushan Port, the Heishui Pioneering Team will be in charge. How to arrange it is unknown. It’s about tea, but I guess they don’t have enough boats, so the Hyundai factory has to continue to build new boats. The 62.8-horsepower steam engine of the No. 72 Machinery Factory has also been put into practical use, so it is completely possible to mount a faster and more efficient motor sailboat , the only thing to worry about is whether there will be enough ship materials at that time. At present, the Dayuhe Plant and Zhenhai Plant have taken up a lot of ship material resources, and they will soon build a large number of [-]-ton inland river steamers. The double-tracking project of the Luomei Railway that has already started construction, the timber resources are very tight, I don’t know the limit production capacity of the New Huaxia timber processing plant, I’m afraid they will have to expand their production.” Xiao Bailang reminded.

"Then let them expand their production." After listening for a long time, Liu Weimin finally said, "their population is quite large now, and there are always two or three thousand free people. Now the original timber processing plant's production capacity It is estimated that the pressure will not be too great for them to double the expansion. However, the ship has been built, and the training of supporting technical personnel such as sailors, steam engine repairmen, and ship repairers must also keep up. Wait, this is the principle! In addition, the production capacity of anchor chain factories, canvas factories, rope workshops, cooperage workshops, coking plants (marine tar) and other units supporting shipyards must also keep up. Those with insufficient production capacity should immediately recruit Manpower, find a way to expand production. A lot of immigrants have come recently, don’t let them idle, go to work in factories!”

(End of this chapter)