When Luo Zhixue approached Hua Xiuyuan, the current supervisor of the Western Trading Company, and asked if he could establish a colony in South Africa, Hua Xiuyuan fell into deep thought...
It is not easy to establish a colony in South Africa.
First of all, there is a full seven or eight thousand kilometers of sea route from Hongkou Port, the nearest colonial port of the Western Trading Company. To project troops over such a long distance and maintain logistical supplies, it is a huge challenge to transportation power. .
In addition, South Africa and the east coast of Africa along the way are not without owners. The Dutch, Portuguese, English and many other European countries have occupied colonies on the east coast of Africa.
Especially the Dutch are quite strong in this area.
The southernmost tip of South Africa, near the Cape of Good Hope, is now occupied by the Dutch.
Under such circumstances, it would be more difficult to colonize South Africa than to destroy a princely country in India.
However, His Majesty has made it clear that he wants to colonize South Africa, even if he is just asking about the feasibility of colonizing South Africa... However, since His Majesty has asked so, he must have this intention.
As a minister, it is your duty to share your worries for the king. Hua Xiuyuan could only grit his teeth and said: "Your Majesty, although the colonization of South Africa is extremely difficult, I and the 100,000 subjects of the Western Trading Company are willing to do so." , after a little preparation, I will launch the South African colonization plan!"
Seeing Hua Xiuyuan's expression and hearing what he said, Luo Zhixue knew that he had misunderstood him.
Luo Zhixue never thought about forcing the Western Trading Company to pay a huge price for forced colonization. He really just asked about the feasibility of the current colonization.
If the difficulty is too great, then it is not impossible to take it slow.
After all, Luo Zhixue wanted to colonize South Africa. In addition to occupying South Africa, a place with extremely important geographical location and controlling the waterway between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Luo Zhixue actually wanted more gold from South Africa to stabilize the domestic gold standard.
At present, the gold in South Africa has not been discovered on a large scale, and it will not escape even if it is left for a few years.
At the same time, the gold standard system of the Da Chu Empire was implemented for less than ten years, and because it adopted an indirect gold standard, the foreign trade of the Da Chu Empire was a surplus trade, and it was a large surplus trade. Therefore, even if the gold reserves were relatively small, it resulted in a large amount of With the over-issued banknotes, the gold standard system of the Chu Empire would not be a big problem for a while.
Wanting to control South Africa's gold is for the future.
Luo Zhixue estimated that if he had several thousand tons, preferably tens of thousands tons of gold reserves on hand, then the empire's indirect gold standard would be able to operate for decades to come.
As for a few decades later... the Chu Empire has already started playing with credit currency, who is still on the gold standard!
Today's gold standard system is, to a certain extent, just a compromise, mainly because the people's concept of currency is still limited to precious metal currencies. They are worried if these light banknotes cannot be exchanged for gold.
In addition, it also involves international trade... The indigenous people do not recognize any paper money. They only need gold or silver, and they can exchange gold and silver for the Chu Yuan paper money of the Great Chu Empire. This is the limit they can accept.
But after a few decades, with the further development of the economy and the further expansion of people's ideas, and it is estimated that the Da Chu Empire will at least complete its control of the global economy by then, then with the powerful national power of the Da Chu Empire, it is completely possible to issue credit currency.
At that time, the credit of currency will not be maintained by precious metals such as gold and silver, but by the armies of the Chu Empire spanning the world.
A credit-based monetary system is inevitable after the further development of productivity, because whether it is gold or silver, once productivity increases to a certain level, the quantity of these precious metals will not be able to support the huge productivity.
If you insist on continuing to play precious metal-based currencies, deflation will inevitably occur.
At this time, it is necessary to separate currency and precious metals, and then adopt a credit-based system based on the credibility of the regime.
Only in this way can the money supply continue to keep pace with the development of productivity.
In the future, the Dachu Empire will inevitably embark on the path of credit currency.
But it is too early to talk about the credit standard. People are worried about banknotes backed by precious metal currencies. Now if you tell them that banknotes cannot be exchanged for precious metals, it will definitely cause unnecessary waves.
Therefore, the indirect gold standard will continue to be implemented, and in order to maintain the indirect gold standard system in the next few decades, the Dachu Empire will need a large amount of gold.
Today's few hundred tons are simply not enough. In the future, the Chu Empire will need tens of thousands of tons of gold reserves. Currently, the only one that can supply the Chu Empire with so much gold is South Africa.
This is the reason why Luo Zhixue asked the Western Trading Company to colonize South Africa.
But don’t be too anxious. Take your time and spend a few years or even ten years to promote this strategy.
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It happened to take advantage of this time to completely vaporize the navy of the Chu Empire and the warships of the two major armed trading companies, thereby increasing their combat effectiveness.
It has been four or five years since the Da Chu Empire Navy started steaming. However, due to a series of factors such as the relatively low performance of early shipboard steam engines, low failure rate, high processing difficulty, and limited output, it is difficult to look at the large The Chu Empire Navy seems to be very active in steaming, but in fact, currently, the core main battleships of the Chu Empire Navy, that is, the dozens of battleships, are still mainly sail warships.
Only some battleships were equipped with steam engines as an auxiliary power.
In addition to warships, other ocean-going ships are basically sailboats. Only a few ocean-going ships are equipped with steam engines as auxiliary power.
Compared with the rapid and large-scale popularization of steam engines in inland river and offshore ships, the popularization of steam engines in ocean-going ships is much slower.
This is a technical limitation and there is no good quick solution. We can only wait for the continued technological advancement of the domestic industry, and new steam warships will be built and put into service one after another. At the same time, some of the existing pure sail warships with relatively new hulls will be repaired. Install a steam engine to gradually solve this problem.
According to the navy's plan, it will wait until around the 35th year of Chengshun, which is ten years later.
The navy will serve about forty sail battleships. These sail battleships were designed and carried onboard since the 21st year of Chengshun. The displacement is more than 3,000 tons, and the maximum reaches 5,500 tons. They use a large amount of steel. Parts, sail battleships with high-power steam engines.
At the same time, about sixty sail cruisers will be newly built and put into service. The displacement of these cruisers is more than 1,000 tons or more than 2,000 tons.
As for sail frigates, about two hundred will be built and put into service.
This is the so-called 300-ship plan of the navy, which means to build 300 new ocean-going warships before the 35th year of Chengshun.
It is worth noting that these battleships are larger than those in the pure sail era!
For example, in the age of steam engines, the Imperial Navy of the Dachu Empire expanded the number of large frigates built between eight and nine hundred tons, and reduced the number of small-tonnage frigates between four and five hundred tons, so that among the proposed hundred large frigates, Except for the more than 20 frigates built in the past few years, which were five to six hundred tons, the remaining frigates built in the 25th year of Chengshun were all large frigates of eight to nine hundred tons.
The expansion of ocean-going battleships is not only reflected in frigates, but also in cruisers and battleships.
There are no more cruisers with a tonnage of eight or nine hundred tons in the early days, and there are even less ones with a tonnage of over a thousand tons. Nowadays, the displacement of newly built cruisers has reached more than 1,500 tons. In the past, this kind of tonnage was only three to three thousand tons. Waiting for the tonnage of the battleship.
There are also many large cruisers used as flagships of squadrons on ocean patrol duty, with a displacement of more than 2,000 tons.
The tonnage of battleships has expanded from about 3,000 tons two years ago to the current five or six thousand tons.
The Hantian-class battleship under construction is designed to have a full load tonnage of 5,500 tons. This is mainly due to the use of a large number of steel parts and the auxiliary power of high-power steam engines. Otherwise, it would be impossible to build it with just a wooden hull. Even if it were built, the sailing speed of the more than 5,000-ton ship would be very low, let alone its maneuverability.
But with the availability of a large number of steel parts and high-power steam engines, these are no longer a problem.
Forty new sail battleships, sixty sail cruisers, and two hundred sail frigates were newly built and put into service.
This is the ten-year naval development plan that the Chu Empire had finalized in the 25th year of Chengshun.
In addition to the above-mentioned newly built warships, a large number of original pure sail warships will actually be steam-modified. These modifications will be carried out during the overhaul time of the warships to extend the service life and combat effectiveness of the warships.
The modified battleships are mainly first-class battleships with relatively large tonnage and relatively new hulls, as well as some new third-class battleships. The number will reach dozens.
Other cruisers and frigates have even more modifications.
After modification, many battleships will be downgraded, such as third-class battleships to cruisers, cruisers to frigates, frigates to offshore patrol ships, etc., and some will be converted into training ships or warships for other purposes.
Regardless of whether it is new construction or modification, one thing the navy always insists on is that the number of active ocean-going warships must be maintained at more than 600... After all, the Da Chu Empire needs to control the sea areas, overseas colonies and routes that need to be protected. Too many. At the same time, the Chu Empire was also colonizing the Americas, India and even the east coast of Africa.
These overseas expansion operations would be impossible to maintain without a powerful and large naval fleet.
The reason for emphasizing quantity is because no matter how powerful a warship is, it cannot appear in two places at the same time. If you want to maintain such a huge sea area and maintain an advantage at the same time, numerical advantage is indispensable.
This is why the Navy built such a large number of various frigates in the early years. The tonnage of these frigates is actually not large, generally around 500 tons, and their combat effectiveness is not strong. They are equipped with twenty or thirty artillery pieces. These small frigates sometimes confront Some powerful European armed merchant ships are unable to do what they want, let alone fight against the enemy's regular battleships.
But the Da Chu Empire Navy still built hundreds of these small frigates!
Because the Dachu Empire's navy needed a large number of warships to maintain its presence in various colonies, routes, and sea areas, and to deter various indigenous and European colonists at any time.
Let’s not talk about whether the combat effectiveness is strong or not. First of all, you must have so many battleships.
As for why frigates with larger tonnage were not built in the early days, it was because in the early pure sail warships, the cost would increase rapidly after the tonnage was expanded. The navy's military expenditure was also limited, and more warships had to be built within the limited military expenditure.
That's why three different types of battleships, battleships, cruisers, and frigates, are used in conjunction with each other.
Among them, various frigates, which account for the majority of the number, are responsible for patrolling and protecting routes on weekdays, doing various miscellaneous tasks when accompanying the formation at sea, and sometimes performing low-intensity combat missions.
The core of the fleet battle is still those battleships.
As for the cruisers, in the Da Chu Empire Navy, some of them cooperate with the battleships and serve as secondary combat missions such as peripheral reconnaissance and attacks, and some are used as the flagship of the escort fleet.
Therefore, strictly speaking, the cruisers of the Da Chu Empire Navy can be divided into two types according to their combat purposes: reconnaissance cruisers and frigates.
The development of the navy of the Great Chu Empire is contextual and continues based on the level of domestic industry. The development of the navy will inevitably affect the overseas expansion activities of the Great Chu Empire.
The smooth progress of the colonial expansion activities in South Africa will depend on how well the Da Chu Empire Navy's steamization plan goes.
As long as the steamization plan proceeds smoothly, the Chu Imperial Navy will be able to colonize South Africa at a slight cost.
Otherwise, we can only use old warships to engage in a battle between traditional sailing warships and the Dutch and other European colonists.
And even if we can win the battle, the price we need to pay will not be a small amount.
When the Chu Empire expanded abroad, there was no precedent for paying a heavy price... When they colonized South Africa, they didn't want such a precedent.
Therefore, even if we kill them now, it is not impossible, but when they think of the possible huge losses and casualties, the empire's senior officials stopped this idea. It is better to wait a few years until the navy completes the steamization plan and its combat effectiveness increases significantly. Go fight again.
However, the real colonial expansion of South Africa can be postponed, but some preliminary preparations have to begin, such as exploring routes, finalizing ports suitable for landing and colonization, and formulating combat plans against the Dutch and other European colonists.
Then the Navy made a lot of plans and found out... If you want to attack South Africa, you must first control the east coast of Africa. If you want to take the east coast of Africa, you must first kill the Dutch, Portuguese and other European colonists. .
If you want to kill these European colonists, you must first seize their colonies in India. Otherwise, if you run across the Indian Ocean to Africa, their fleets on the Indian Peninsula can run over and attack your supply lines.
After much deliberation, the Navy found that if it wanted to colonize South Africa, it would be best to completely control the Indian Peninsula first. Even if it couldn't be completely controlled, it would be best to expel the European colonists in these places.
In this way, we can turn the Indian Peninsula into our own backyard, without having to worry about enemy warships suddenly appearing to attack the shipping route, and we can even turn the Indian Peninsula into a logistics supply place.
As for matters on the Indian side, the Navy cannot decide, and it still needs the cooperation of the Army.
As a result, it didn't take long for the Navy to find the Army and discuss doing something on the Indian Peninsula. The Army also saved money for several years after ending the main war with the Russians, and now it has money in its pocket. I just wanted to do something with my money.
Originally, the Army was still thinking about whether to attack the Ural Mountains, but now they heard from the Navy that they wanted to cause trouble on the Indian Peninsula.
After thinking about it, the army's top brass felt that this matter could still be done. Although India had needed the navy to transport soldiers and supplies in the past, once they landed on the Indian Peninsula, the army could simply leave the navy and handle matters such as subsequent wars on its own.
This is not a great achievement.
As for the navy, let them serve as logistics and transportation captains.
After the army and navy finalized their cooperation intentions, they began to bring up the Indian strategy at the staff meeting.
Then a group of civil servants expressed their attitude very clearly: Your military should not expect us to provide a copper coin in additional military expenditures. At most, it will follow the example of Nanyang expansion and give the military a portion of the war revenue.
After the army and navy pinched their noses and admitted that they did not need any additional military expenditures, as long as the war revenue was shared, the civil servants naturally had no objection... Putting aside overseas expansion and overseas markets, let's just talk about the war itself.
This battle was fought by the military, and the casualties were also those in the military, and had nothing to do with their civil servants.
Most of the war revenue gained from fighting can be used by civil servants for free...the civil servants have never refused such a good thing.
In the past twenty years or so, the civil servants of the Great Chu Empire have always had a very clear attitude on the matter of external expansion and war: as long as we are not allowed to pay, and we are allowed to take away most of the war income, then we Just support external expansion!
This Indian strategy is also in line with the consistent attitude of civilian officials, so it is easy to gain support from civilian officials.
The military has no objection to the attitude of civilian officials.
Those civil servants who were stupid in their studies were very talkative in other aspects besides being stingy. They basically did not cause any obstacles to their military's external expansion, and they also provided great cooperation.
As for war revenue, strictly speaking, all this money should be included in the national treasury. The military can take part of it as additional military expenses. This is the result of many games between the civil and military sides in the past two decades. A tradition has formed.
Civil servants need more markets and use war revenue as their political achievements.
Military generals need more wars and military exploits as a ladder for their promotion.
As for Luo Zhixue... he was actually the one behind this matter.
Under such circumstances, the top leaders of the Chu Empire officially passed a resolution to conquer India and expel the European colonists.
After the high-level officials made a decision, the Chu Empire officially began preparations for war against India!
