The Great Bandit in Kangxi Year

Chapter 258 Preparation
After the three big islands in Indonesia were resolved, Wang Dashan began to concentrate his forces against other small islands. This time, the navy was the main force, and the army was the auxiliary. The Black Dragon Fleet dispatched [-] seal-class cruisers and [-] sea-lion class Cruise ships, some islands are extremely small, and the navy only needs to dispatch one cruise ship.

As for the larger islands, the army is dispatched, whether it is massacre or colonization, it is only a matter of thought, but in order to strengthen control, many small islands with a population of less than [-] have become uninhabited lands, and islands with a large population have colonial value.

At this time, only Timor Island, Maguro Islands, Papua Island, etc. are left on the slightly larger islands. Among them, Papua Island is the largest. According to reconnaissance, Papua Island still has a lot of Dutch troops, and next to Papua Island is a bigger and huge For this, Wang Dashan speeded up the military process while surveying Papua's intelligence, and asked the emperor whether to attack the big island next to Papua Island.

……

It was already the fifth day of the first month of the third year of Huaxing. Jiang Tao first visited the Lushun Shipyard to observe the launching ceremony of the eight new Sea Lion-class cruisers. The other 72 Sea Lion-class cruisers were in other shipyards and were scheduled to launch today.

Now the empire has 140 Sea Lion-class cruisers and 140 Seal-class cruisers, and more than 100 other warships, including more than [-] frigates. This time, the navy's strength is somewhat lacking.

Jiang Tao had no choice but to use these small frigates as the main force to form an inland river fleet, responsible for anti-smuggling and bandits, and protecting the increasingly prosperous inland water transport.

We plan to replace the frigates with flying scissor-style steel-hulled warships. These small frigates are not capable of long-distance sailing. They are only small boats with a hundred tons. They are suitable for inland river operations. There are about 1 personnel. Officers, and sailors are trained separately.

In this way, more than 1 people were freed up for the navy, but in the end it was not enough. Jiang Tao had to let the students of the Royal Naval Academy, who were about to graduate in half a year, join the battle. This solved the talent crisis. They are elite soldiers, half a month after the sea trial, half of the [-] Sea Lion-class cruisers will be sent to Southeast Asia, and the other half will stay in the empire, just in case.

At this time, there are still 30 Seal-class cruisers escorting the merchant fleet to the Americas, and they have not yet returned. There are also [-] Seawolf-class cruisers and [-] Zheng-class cruisers blocking Japan and cruising the coast of the empire.

In fact, both the Seawolf-class cruiser and Zheng's cruiser can't keep up with the current battle rhythm, and their role is already very small. Jiang Tao actually wants to eliminate them, but according to his estimation, the Netherlands, Britain, France and other countries will definitely come. Retaliation, one more warship means more strength, of course, it would be better if they didn't come.

Our own new battleship has not yet started construction, and the capital ship of the empire is the Sea Lion-class cruiser. The speed of the Sea Lion-class cruiser limits his ability to take the initiative to attack. The only way to block the dangers of the Strait of Malacca and Indonesia is the best policy.

The longer this battle is fought, the better it will be for the empire. The empire can send more than 20 reinforcements and hundreds of thousands of servants to Indonesia at any time, but European countries do not have this advantage. In a few years, the empire will be completely digested In each colony, the strength of the Dahua Empire will be even stronger by then.

Jiang Tao put down the engineer's design book. Now the empire can manufacture a pure steel battleship of about [-] tons. No matter how big the empire is, the technological strength of the empire can no longer bear it. In this way, for the time being, it is impossible to build a pure steel battleship. A warship with a wooden hull wrapped in steel armor, and the steam engine technology is immature and cannot be used, so the speed of the warship cannot keep up.

Because of this, Jiang Tao decisively deleted the construction plan of the first-class black dragon-class battleship, mainly because the ship took a long time to build, the speed was slow, and the cost was high. Although the defense was high, it was not very useful. He ordered the scientific research center to increase the improvement of steam engines. strength.

Look at the Sea Snake-class third-class battleship designed by the designer. The entire battleship (from the inside to the outside) is 14mm steel plate + two layers of staggered 200mm mahogany + one layer of 1mm steel armor, and riveted with nuts and bolts. But in this way, The armor increases the weight and draft of the battleship. The designer had to delete the three-layer gun deck on the battleship. Although this ship is very similar to the later warships, it only has 50 cannons, which is not as powerful as the Sea Lion class cruiser. .

The ship is 79 meters long, 17 meters wide, and has a draft of 8.48 meters. The hull itself has a weight of 300 tons and a displacement of [-] tons. The designer initially estimates that the speed of the warship is only six knots, and the cost is [-] million silver dollars. .

A battleship with such a thick armor is difficult to sink with the weapons of this era, but the high price, slow speed and low firepower make Jiang Tao feel that it is not worth it.

The main thing is the steam engine technology. If the steam engine technology is mature and the speed of the warship is increased to more than 13 knots, no matter how much money is spent, Jiang Tao will not hesitate to build it. But at this moment, he denied it again, because the speed of the ship This makes the ship unsuitable for ocean-going operations, and the empire's current naval strength is already capable of defending the empire's sea frontiers, so building this ship would be superfluous.

Jiang Tao sighed, put down the design book for the Sea Snake-class third-class battleship, picked up the design book for the clipper-type battleship, and quickly issued an order to the Ministry of Industry to build fifty clipper-type frigates.

The ship is 72 meters long, 12 meters wide, with a draft of 9.3 meters, a displacement of 1700 tons, and a hull weight of 830 tons. It can be rotated 20 degrees and uses 360mm rear-mounted guns. The gunner and ammunition depot are all under the protection of the turret, making it difficult to be injured.

The rear-mounted gun not only has rifling, but also has good airtightness. It is far superior to the front-mounted gun in terms of power and accuracy. The effective range has been increased to 4000 meters. The cost of each gun is 1 silver dollars. Twenty times as much as the cannon, and the copper-clad iron bullets used are also conical bullets. Although the propellant and the shells are not combined, three shells can be fired in one minute, but after ten rounds, it still takes Clean the lower barrel.

The entire sail area is 2760 square meters. Since the hull is made of pure steel, the speed is only [-] knots, and it has four torpedo launchers, two at the front and two at the front. A similar warship can carry ten rocket torpedoes.

The ship can carry 200 people and has an endurance of more than half a year.

However, the cost of the ship is also very high, requiring 120 million silver dollars. If Jiang Tao was not rich and powerful, he would not have built fifty flying scissor frigates in one go. Jiang Tao ordered another thirty Sea Lion-class cruisers and thirty Seal-class ships. The orders for cruisers are mainly because battleships cannot be manufactured in a short time.

In order to prevent the frigate from being captured by the enemy, Jiang Tao decided to equip the sailors on the clipper frigate with revolving lances, and he planned to equip the artillery on the battleship with 300% of the explosive ammunition, which uses a delayed fuze , it is stipulated that it should be used within a range of 300 meters as far as possible. The shell will only ignite the fuze when it is away from the barrel, and it will explode about 0.5 to 1 second after hitting the opponent within the range of [-] meters. Will cause an airburst.

Although the bullet has a flaw, it may bounce off if it cannot break the opponent's armor after hitting the opponent, but this flowering bullet is very safe. One-fifth of the price, but the cost is high, a flowering bomb costs 100 silver dollars, but it is invincible against wooden warships.

Although this battleship is a frigate, its combat effectiveness is extraordinary. For people of this era, it is simply a magic weapon, because she has fast speed, thick armor, strong firepower, and multiple attack methods. Except for the weakness of canvas, it is almost invincible. And other battleships are not opponents.

Jiang Wushang has been on his honeymoon since he came back from Europe. Jiang Tao appointed him as the commander of the frigate, but it will take nine months before the flying scissor frigate can be launched.

Jiang Tao no longer considered the matter of the navy. It had been more than a month since he issued an ultimatum to Wu Shifan, but Wu Shifan dared to ignore him, which directly angered Jiang Tao.

It's the first month of the year, and people are visiting their relatives during the New Year. It's not easy for Jiang Tao to launch a war at this time, but he has issued combat missions to the Mongolian Cavalry and the Royal Cavalry. The preparation time is two months, and he will raise supplies by himself.

However, the empire set up a transfer station in the city of Yarkand, where the looted material wealth and ammunition supplies will be carried out. This time, the empire only collected one-third of the loot for the plunder of the Mughal Empire.

In less than ten days, Jiang Xin and Jiang Wudao played a memorial to the battle. A total of 22 Mongolian cavalrymen and 25 spear jockeys were mobilized in this battle, a total of [-] people, each with three horses. Go out in early March.

Jiang Tao immediately agreed, hey, those who dared to yell at the Dahua Empire either died or fled. No matter how huge the Mughal Empire was, I would kill him a few times without begging for mercy, and would come here once a year.

As for the matter of recovering the whole of Myanmar, Jiang Tao did not dare to be careless. He decided not to give Wu Shifan another chance. Twenty sharpshooters must be dispatched, and an overwhelming offensive must be launched.

In other words, more troops will be sent to Burma. Jiang Tao thought about it and sent the newly formed five Royal Army divisions to Burma.

A Royal Army division has 1 combat troops, 8500 logistics personnel, 150 people in total, 100 revolver rifles, 1000 [-]mm infantry guns and [-] [-]mm infantry guns, and [-] breech-loading pistols, Huo Lei Bang, land mines and some steel Qijia knives.

The pistol is named Huaxing Type II pistol. It is a single-shot breech-loading pistol with a barrel length of 15 centimeters, a weight of 1.3 catties, and a caliber of 9 millimeters. The ammunition used is the same as that of a rotary rifle, and the effective range is 40 meters. , as a close-range self-defense weapon for logistics troops.

However, although the gun is a single-shot pistol, the gun is easy to operate and reliable, and it has won the favor of the soldiers in terms of carrying it.

Jiang Tao sent them out to test the power and performance of the new rifles. Unexpectedly, the tens of thousands of cavalry divisions transferred to Indonesia have not been used yet. The battle in Indonesia is almost over. Jiang Tao directly transferred these tens of thousands of cavalry divisions to Myanmar. , fighting to end the war in Burma before the Europeans came.

As for the big island next to Papua, it is actually Australia. Although Jiang Tao doesn’t think there are too many colonies, the current imperial front line is too long to completely conquer this place before the British, French, and Dutch fleets arrive. In the end, he had to order Wang Dashan to occupy it as much as possible. Command throughout Papua.

(End of this chapter)