There was an error in the description of the northwest region in the previous chapter. After searching for information today, the second half of the previous chapter was deleted. You can go back and read it. It will have a relatively large impact on the rest of the article.
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In the summer of the sixth year of Chengshun, these few months were a rare period of peace for the Chu Empire.
Since the pacification of Yunnan and Guizhou in the spring, the entire Chu Empire has basically stopped large-scale external wars.
There are no external enemies in the Yunnan-Guizhou direction. Myanmar in the south of Yunnan has no courage to fight against the Chu Empire. Even when the Chu army marched into Yunnan, Myanmar even took the initiative to send troops to blockade the border in order to avoid provoking the Chu Empire and introducing a large army to invade. To prevent the remnants of Ximing from entering.
In the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area west of Sichuan and south of Gansu, various chieftains or chaotic forces in this area are now facing the invasion of the Mongolian and Shuote tribes in the desert. They cannot threaten the Great Chu Empire, and even threaten the Great Chu Empire. Looking for help.
There are no external threats to the northwest.
On the Xuanda and Jiliao lines, it was the same as last year. There were always small frictions with the Dongji people, but the scale was not large.
For the Chu Empire, which frequently engages in large-scale battles involving tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, such battles involving hundreds or thousands of people are nothing at all...
Therefore, in the past few months, the Chu Empire gained a rare period of peace. Taking advantage of this time, Luo Zhixue also reorganized and deployed the army.
For example, some of the main divisions stationed in Yunnan and Guizhou will be transferred, and some of the main divisions on the western front will also be transferred. In the end, more main forces will be concentrated on the northern front.
During this process, the refitting and reorganization plan of the Class A division was also continued.
According to Luo Zhixue's requirements, all first-class divisions deployed on the Jiliao and Xuanda front lines and preparing to participate in the Northeast Campaign must all be new first-class divisions equipped with flintlock rifles.
At the same time, more cavalry forces were mobilized to fight against the huge cavalry force of the Eastern captives.
These troop mobilization and reorganization work are expected to be completed around October this year.
This timetable also predicts that the Great Chu Empire's war against the Eastern Diaspora will be postponed to next year.
"The Rebirth of Financial Giants"
Because by October, it will already be winter. Launching military operations in the Northeast in the middle of winter is simply asking for trouble.
In addition, the strategic initiative is now in the hands of the Great Chu Empire. Based on the current strength comparison between the Great Chu Empire and the Dongji people, the Great Chu Empire can send troops whenever it wants.
As for the Dongluo people who want to take the initiative to kill them, or even want to enter the pass, the difficulty is not ordinary. The Dongluo people have tried twice before, and each time they lost their troops and generals.
Considering that the reorganization will not be completed until October, and the war against the Eastern Capture will not begin until the spring of next year at the earliest, the Chu Empire will also continue to transport more ammunition, food, grass and other materials towards the north during this time.
Because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has limited transport capacity and will be frozen in winter, in order to be able to maintain supplies to the north during the winter, the Da Chu Empire prepared to supply supplies to the north by sea after many preparations.
Nowadays, the Chu Empire conducts maritime transportation in the East China Sea, Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea and other sea areas, and basically will not be harassed by external enemy maritime forces.
Although the Dongji people have some ships, they are not enough to be seen in front of the Chu Empire's navy, and the Koreans and Fusang people are about the same.
As for the Western barbarians, the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, they do have some maritime power, but they are basically blocked in the South China Sea. In addition, although they have conflicts with the Chu Empire, they have not said that a real war broke out. War, strictly speaking, is at most a maritime conflict.
Therefore, the maritime transportation safety of the Dachu Empire can still be guaranteed.
The only thing that cannot be guaranteed is the risk brought by the sea itself. Sailing these days is always dangerous, but this aspect is not insurmountable.
The navy of the Dachu Empire accepted a large number of sailors from the former Ming Dynasty, especially sailors from the Zheng fleet.
This also allowed the Da Chu Empire Navy to have tens of thousands of sailors with rich experience in navigation and maritime combat.
Under the control of these experienced sailors, although sea navigation is still dangerous, it is not insurmountable.
Especially when these experienced sailors were equipped with large ships built by the Chu Empire, maritime safety was further improved.
On July 12, the sixth year of Chengshun, a group of naval admirals wearing blue shirts and white pants gathered together at the Wusong Naval Base. The leader was Admiral Lu Xingye, the Minister of the Navy.
Admiral Lu Xingye was flanked by many powerful generals in the Chu Empire's navy, including Admiral Xia Qiuyang, commander of the Beiyang Fleet, and Lieutenant General Zheng Zhilong, commander of the First Cruise Fleet of the Beiyang Fleet.
Now, this large group of naval generals are standing on the pier. Directly in front of them is a huge warship with many colorful flags!
Rear Admiral Sun Zhengyong, Director of the Naval Ship Administration Department, said in a proud tone: "My lords and colleagues, what is parked in front of us now is the first-class cruiser Songjiang."
"This is a large warship with powerful combat effectiveness. It is also the largest warship we have designed and built so far. It has forty guns and a displacement of 950 tons."
"In order to increase the speed, deploy more naval guns, and lower the center of gravity of the ship, when we designed it, we lengthened the hull to give the ship a larger aspect ratio, allowing the ship to sail faster. , more flexible.”
"In terms of artillery deployment, we did not use the single-layer continuous deck of the Xiangyang-class second-class cruiser. Instead, in addition to the single-layer continuous deck, we added a quarter deck at the rear of the ship."
"A total of twenty-six fourteen-pound cannons are deployed on the main deck, and a total of fourteen nine-pound cannons are deployed on the quarter deck and forward deck at the rear of the ship."
"The powerful firepower of forty naval guns is enough to tear apart any enemy in a naval battle!"
"At the same time, its slender hull brings excellent speed, and its speed is faster than the original Xiangyang-class cruiser. As for the original bird ships, the speed of the Fuzhou ship is not even worthy of carrying shoes! "
"The huge tonnage also allows this kind of warship to carry more food, fresh water and other supplies, sail for a long time and perform ocean combat missions."
Listening to the words of Major General Sun Zhengyong, Director of the Ship Administration Department, Zheng Zhilong next to him stared at the battleship and sighed.
Sun Zhengyong was right. The combat power of this Songjiang was enough to defeat the bird ships he had built before.
Although the bird ship is considered a new type of ship, it still has considerable limitations. For example, it is difficult to carry a large number of heavy artillery, and its speed is not very good.
This is why the Chu Empire directly stopped the construction of new bird ships after accepting Zheng Zhilong's fleet, and instead fully invested in the construction of new warships.
These new warships use Western-style soft sails. The ship shape is similar to the Galen ship type, but the hull is generally more slender. At the same time, the huge tonnage is almost used to carry artillery or ammunition and supplies.
Unlike those so-called warships in Zheng Zhilong's era, a large amount of space was needed to carry cargo.
The warships built by the Dachu Empire Navy were all very pure warships, only built for sea battles. Transporting cargo was not their responsibility.
This is true for the Daye-class frigates, Xiangyang-class cruisers and now the Songjiang-class cruisers. They are purely for naval battles and do not consider other uses at all.
In Zheng Zhilong's view, if his cruise fleet can be equipped with a few more Songjiang-class cruisers and a few Xiangyang-class cruisers, he would dare to take the cruise fleet directly to Manila or even Malacca.
As for the northern sea area, it was swept directly.
Not to mention the latest Songjiang-class cruisers, even relying on the current Xiangyang-class cruisers and Daye-class frigates plus a large number of new bird ships and other ships, the Beiyang Fleet can roam the northern seas and fully control the East China Sea, The maritime rights of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea have nothing to do with the Eastern captives and the Koreans.
After all, there are quite a few of these two new types of warships in the Chu Empire now.
All eight Xiangyang-class cruisers have been put into service. After the Xiangyang-class, the Da Chu Empire Navy is currently beginning to build Songjiang-class cruisers with larger tonnage and stronger firepower. The scheduled construction plan of this class of ships has reached twelve.
The Da Chu Empire is very satisfied with this kind of cruiser. This kind of warship has very good ocean seaworthiness, and its larger tonnage can also carry more supplies, allowing the warship to perform long-term ocean combat missions.
In addition, many Daye-class frigates have also been built. This kind of frigate, which is mainly offshore and has certain ocean combat capabilities, is purely used by the Dachu Empire Navy to make up the numbers and maintain the size of the navy.
At present, more than 20 ships have been built and in service, and many more are under construction. The entire construction plan has reached 48 ships, and it is required to be completed before Chengshun eight years to fully replace the existing various Fuchuan and Bird ships. Boat.
Many of the original fortune ships, bird ships, etc. will gradually withdraw from the army's first-line forces. First, they will be transferred to the second-line fleet to maintain scale and continue to train sailors. When the number of new warships increases, they will be directly withdrawn from active service in the army.
Do you think it would be heartbreaking to see so many ships retired one after another? In fact, even if these ships are retired, they can actually be transferred to the transport fleet directly under the navy, or sold to domestic maritime trading companies, which will not cause waste.
Besides, when the Chu Empire originally recruited Zheng Zhilong's troops, what they were looking for was not the lucky ships and birds under Zheng Zhilong's command... but the tens of thousands of skilled sailors.
These sailors are what the Chu Empire's navy is in urgent need of, and there is no way to train them in a short time.
With these sailors, the Chu Empire could freely build ships, dozens and dozens of ships.
It can also be seen from this that when a centralized empire like the Chu Empire really wants to build a navy, the energy it can unleash is huge.
For a powerful navy, only frigates and cruisers are not enough, and they lack a soul.
Although the new 800-ton Songjiang-class frigate is already very powerful, as a cruiser, its firepower is naturally not very good... It is used for daily cruising, bullying the weak is no problem, but when it encounters the enemy's main battleship, it will Gotta catch him blind.
After all, it only has forty cannons, which is too few for a battleship that often has dozens of cannons.
And in order to control the weight, the artillery it carries is still a 14-pound cannon and a 9-pound cannon, not even an 18-pound cannon... Compared to a battleship equipped with a 24-pound cannon, it is impossible to see!
The generals of the Da Chu Empire Navy naturally knew this, so they started preparing for the construction of a new type of warship early.
This is the Jinling-class battleship
