Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 289 Naval Training Officially Launched
Within a few days, Zhu Youjian convened a military meeting of the Generalissimo's Mansion, and decreed that Liu Kongzhao would preside over the reform of the navy.

The first item of the reform was to recruit the first batch of naval cadets of the Daming Shipping Bureau from the original navy, soldiers from the guards and guards from all over the country.

According to the rules, it starts on the [-]st of the next month.

The Daming Shipping Bureau will accept applications from officers and soldiers from various military systems of the Ming Dynasty, including soldiers from the Guards Army. After registration, these officers and soldiers will conduct a unified selection test.

The examiners are Ma Shiying, Liu Kongzhao, Zheng Zhibao, Zheng Hongkui, and Gu Sanmazi. The chief examiner is Ma Shiying, and the deputy examiners are Liu Kongzhao and Zheng Zhibao.

Later, considering that the folks might still have unused talents, they also accepted the folk exams.

As for the content of the examination, it was decided by the examiners and submitted to Zhu Youjian for approval, which was nothing more than culture, water experience, and physical fitness.

Although the content is simple, the difficulty is not small. I am afraid that a single culture will be able to brush off many people by then.

But despite this, under the temptation of knowing that they will be awarded official positions after graduation and can take part in the imperial examination just like the officers and soldiers of the Guards, tens of thousands of people still signed up one after another.

However, in accordance with the principle of excellence, only [-] military cadets were recruited in the first phase of enrollment.

When the examiners finished screening all the candidates and only left [-] candidates, there were basically people with both cultural foundation and combat experience, even water combat experience.

These are mainly military officers from the original Nanjing Navy, soldiers with good water skills in the Guards, and people from the Zheng family and the Gu family.

There are also Jinyiwei secretly sent by Zhu Youjian to participate.

Although they each had different backgrounds when they became naval officers of the Daming Ship Administration Bureau.

But they all have one thing in common, that is, the current Ming Dynasty has the best potential to train excellent naval officers.

During this selection process, Zheng Sen, who has changed his name to Zheng Chenggong, has now begun to form a total of 100 naval warfare backbones sent by his father to assist the court, Gu Sanmazi, and military officers capable of naval warfare in the court. The battalion of human instructors conducts militarized training and further cultural training.

Zhu Youjian will occasionally give lectures, do ideological education, and come to observe them.

In short, Ming's naval training is finally on the agenda.

Once you have officers, you can start recruiting recruits. As for the original navy, they will be transferred to the local areas to serve as officers and soldiers in the guards.

There were even many who directly transferred to local civil positions and served as local officials, which also broke the gentry's control over the grassroots.

All of this was presided over by Ma Shiying, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, and it was hard work.

In order to praise him, Zhu Youjian specially awarded him the title of Prince and Taibao.

Establishing the Daming Shipping Bureau and conducting professional training for naval officers is only the first step for Zhu Youjian to expand his navy.

In the future, he still has more policies to be gradually implemented, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and now Zheng Chenggong can only let Zheng Chenggong train the battalion of instructors into qualified officers.

Although the people in these instructor battalions are all experts in naval warfare and have rich experience, their cultural foundation and military quality are still very weak, and they have not received professional training.

I don't have a deep understanding of the nautical and engineering departments and natural sciences, and I mostly rely on personal experience and dictation from seniors to operate artillery and command warships.

Now that they have come to Daming Shipping Bureau, the first step is naturally to understand the basic military etiquette, starting from learning the dress salute and basic queue training.

Then, Zhu Youjian also asked Zheng Zhibao, a literati with experience in naval warfare, to compile textbooks such as "Navigation Records", "Naval War Command Course" and "Naval War Weapon Operation Training Manual".

It is necessary to complete the compilation before the new students enter the school, and first let the fifty Zheng Jiabuqu who are about to become instructors familiarize themselves with the teaching materials and can propose revisions.

There are still many illiterates in the instructor battalion, so in just a few months, it is necessary for Zheng Chenggong to have the basic military quality and basic cultural foundation possessed by the officers and soldiers of the Guards, that is, the ability to read and write. In other words, the difficulty is not small.

He is now basically conducting queue training for this instructor camp during the day, and conducting cultural popularization at night, and the teaching material is the simplest "Three Character Classic".

Therefore, this became a miracle at the time.

The first sentence of reading sounded in the classroom of the entire Daming Shipping Bureau was not any theoretical knowledge of naval warfare, but "human beings are inherently good." Rao, Minister of Rites Liu Zongzhou, also praised this after passing the Daming Shipping Bureau once, thinking that His Majesty's move is to promote the way of enlightenment, and it will undoubtedly open the door for reckless pirates to learn culture.

The people in the instructor camp had complained quite a bit, but fortunately, they all knew that Zheng Chenggong was the young master of the Zheng family, was named by His Majesty, and was from the Guards, so they didn't dare to make mistakes, and they had to listen to Zheng Chenggong's words, saying You can train as you like, and learn to read and read obediently.

Zheng Chenggong was originally a talented scholar, and he was also Qian Qianyi's disciple back then. He had a high level of literary quality. He had long hated iron and steel for his family's trilogy that only knew how to plunder wealth and rob people. Now he just took this opportunity to secretly swear We must do our best to temper these instructors into regular officers with strict military discipline, a correct style, and a clear understanding of things.

These instructor battalions are all experienced in naval warfare, and many of them have a certain cultural foundation. Therefore, after a month of basic training, they basically ended the training and began to participate in the teaching arrangement of naval warfare.

Naval warfare involves comprehensive command of ships, navigation technology, sea artillery operation technology, ship manufacturing and repair technology, daily management and maintenance of ships, and landing operations.

Zheng Chenggong and Zheng Hongkui were initially divided into six departments according to the specialties of the instructors in each instructor battalion, namely, the Ship Comprehensive Command Department, the Navigation Department, the Maritime Weapons Department, the Ship Manufacturing and Repair Department, the Ship Daily Management and Maintenance Department, and the Marine Department. Marine Division.

And each subject is roughly divided into [-] to [-] instructors. The instructors of each subject, together with Zheng Zhibao, continue to compile textbooks and even basic natural science knowledge based on their own experience.

For example, how to distinguish east, west, north, south, how to calculate the speed of ships, etc.

After listening to the report on the training of the navy by the Daming Shipping Bureau, Zhu Youjian felt more and more the lack of natural science in the national education of the empire, because he found that many of the textbooks compiled by the Daming Shipping Bureau were actually the most basic mathematics popularization courses.

However, changing the foundation of education does not happen overnight. Zhu Youjian can only use the opportunity of running a military academy to let the army start to establish a natural science foundation first.

(End of this chapter)