Military fans in the old world often talk about sea power, but what exactly is sea power? The question seems very simple and complex, and if it is described in the most plain and credible language, sea power can be regarded as a power to use the sea.

Sea power is the power to use maritime shipping trade to obtain natural resources and economic benefits in peacetime, sea power is the power to prevent the enemy from using the sea to benefit in wartime, and the rich economic benefits brought by sea power can be roughly described as the meaning and value of sea power.

Sinking the enemy's fleet is only one of the simplest means of seizing sea power, establishing a new order of world trade, and drawing an endless stream of money from it, this is the true meaning of sea power, only consumption without output can not last. Just as in the old world, the bald eagle, as the current maritime hegemon, has been vigorously promoting free trade and globalization for decades, and the fundamental reason is not democracy and freedom, and certainly not universal values and human rights, but an instinctive act to safeguard its own maritime interests.

The U.S. dollar, commonly known as the Little Green Paper, was once known as the U.S. dollar in the Old World, and it could be exchanged for a fixed percentage of gold, thus gaining ample credit. Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the dollar has been decoupled from gold and has actually degenerated into unsecured banknotes, the so-called fiat currency, which is a stamped blank sheet of paper!

Throughout the world, the benchmark settlement currency for foreign trade transactions is the US dollar, such as rabbit imported resources, whether it is crude oil, iron ore, grain, or increased holdings of gold, these commodities are all denominated in US dollars.

In a word, as long as you continue to use the dollar to settle world trade, Bald Eagle can sit at home and play quantitative easing, using small green paper that costs eight cents per printing as real money to pay off debts and military spending, and collect seigniorage from the world. The core force that underpins this order is world trade, and the force that makes it impossible for other competitors to reject the dollar settlement system is the powerful Millican Navy with eleven aircraft carriers as the core, so the bald eagle's monetary hegemony is called the "naval standard" by a few poisonous experts, and if you can't understand this, you will never realize the importance of controlling sea power.

Whoever can control the sea power will also control the world trade, and whoever can dominate the world trade will gain the wealth of the whole world. With enough wealth as a backing, it is not a problem to burn money on weapons and equipment, which in turn strengthens the control of sea power.

Even in the just-concluded Battle of Dongning, Luo Zhengdao severely damaged the goblin fleet and the garrison fleet, but still could not prevent the goblin Second Empire from retraining a navy, and the reason why his situation was so passive was largely due to his failure to control the sea power. Luo Zhengdao only used violence to break the goblins' attempt to use regional sea power to threaten him, but he failed to establish his own regional sea power. Something like the world sea power, Luo Zhengdao doesn't have to hope for it in the short term, the two mountains of the Yaling Empire and the Elven Federation are not something he has the strength to shake, and constantly beating the goblin navy will also become a long-term task.

The link that really made Luo Zhengdao feel the pressure was the next step, how to obtain the rich benefits brought by the sea power, if he could not obtain the benefits from the sea power seized, this kind of sabotage relying solely on force could not last.

In Chinese history, the story of Zheng He's seven voyages to the West has made countless younger generations lament that they have missed a good opportunity, and the actual situation is far from so simple. The so-called sea power aimed at promoting national prestige cannot be sustained without actual benefits, and if it is not stopped in time, this huge expenditure will drag down the finances of the Ming Dynasty by 180 years ahead of schedule.

When ambitious Portuguese explorers sailed into the Indian Ocean in sailing ships with a displacement of several hundred tons, they received an almost endless harvest of spices and oriental specialties, even if it was in exchange for cannons and killing, but also a glimpse into the bloody nature of sea power.

In contrast, the Zheng He fleet of the Ming Dynasty, which was extremely political, was a diplomatic mission to show off the prestige of the Celestial Empire, which was nothing more than to support all countries to come to the court and solve the problem of the emperor's great success. There is no doubt that the colonization and trade of the Portuguese can bring tangible benefits to the national finances, while the political achievements of the Ming Dynasty consumed national resources, and it was already a failure if they failed to put real money into the treasury.

In this case, Zheng He's trip to the West was stopped, and it is impossible to talk about the word pity, which is originally an unsustainable squandering of national strength.

In short, the core of creating sea power is to build a positive cycle that starts with strong force, sets up a trade network, and finally obtains huge wealth from the trade system, which feeds back into the strengthening of force. If you can't do this, even if you have a strong military, talking about sea power will be a mirror-like empty joy after all.

Forced by Will Needham's increasingly active threat, the Second Goblin Empire has chosen to open the Five Ports of Commerce, opening a small crack in the door of the country that has been closed since the relocation of the forbidden sea, this extraordinary move has stimulated Luo Zhengdao, even more than the news of the expansion of the Goblin Fleet.

The so-called thousands of miles for money, those vicious pirates are not saints who consciously and voluntarily stand in the same camp as the exiled aristocracy of mankind, but the overly arrogant goblins who forced them to the same bench.

It is conceivable that once the goblins realize their previous mistakes and choose to abandon stupid policies such as moving the border and banning the sea, then the pirates will happily abandon the human exiled nobles and continue to make a fortune by doing their own cheap business. At the end of the day, the violence against the Goblin Second Empire did not bring much real benefit to the pirates, whose job was to raid merchant ships and ports, and the core values of the pirates were limited to grabbing money, more and more money, and indeed a rabble with no ambitions.

Compared to fighting with goblins on the ocean, Luo Zhengdao's battle with them for neutral forces was much more difficult, so he was already feeling a headache now.

After tossing and turning in bed all night, early the next morning, Luo Zhengdao, with dark circles under his eyes, announced a series of latest decisions to his subordinates, which really scared them so much that they almost thought that something was wrong with their ears.

"Ahh Fully open the Chuanshan Islands and no longer charge management fees and port entry fees? Is it tax-exempt to engage in transactions? Repair ships at half price? Your Highness, didn't you wake up today and talk in your dreams? ”

In the conference room, hearing the opposition of his subordinates, Luo Zhengdao, who was slightly depressed, touched his chin and said slowly:

"Didn't the goblins say that they were going to open five ports to lure pirates? We're going to have to put in more effort to compete with the Greenskins, and I'm going to see if the goblins have the consciousness to fight with me to the end. ”

This family business was worked hard by Luo Zhengdao himself, and the team left by the old earl couldn't say anything, the regent said ruthlessly to smash the pot and sell iron and fight the goblin to the end, and others couldn't persuade him, who didn't know that the goblin and the regent Will Needham were a lot of national enemies and family hatred, and no one could let go of this matter!

took the lead in promoting the use of ironclad ships in the new world, and the goblins tasted the bitterness and followed the imitation of ironclad ships, which seemed to be very unfavorable to Luo Zhengdao, and he himself did not see the related issues of technology diffusion that way.

In the old world, words like "late-mover advantage" are often mentioned, the Pulsatilla Bank uses a large number of computer equipment purchased 20 years ago, and the Rabbit Bank is basically the latest LCD octa-core desktop computer of Qingyishui, however, the competitive advantage of the industry is not measured by the hardware facilities. Even if the market capitalization and profit are among the world's top 500 companies, Huaxia's domestic banks are also donkey dung balls on the surface, every time they play with foreign counterparts, the end is almost to the other party's cripples, is it because the technology and equipment are not advanced, the new building is not luxurious and beautiful? Of course it's impossible!

As the old saying goes, buns have meat not in the pleats. The core competitiveness of the banking industry lies in whether it has a wealth of practical experience in financial operations and product design capabilities of personnel and reward system, Handan toddlers often only see the surface of the first mover's article, the actual operation of the operation is actually ignorant, this kind of rookie is not surprising to be played stupid.

New technology will change the rules of the past, and the number of sailors required to operate a wooden galleon is about three times greater than that of an ironclad of the same tonnage, and the Corsair ironclad has abandoned the traditional soft sails of the New World in favor of more niche hard sails.

Because there is a skeleton woven with bamboo strips as a skeleton support inside the sail, the weight of the hard sail is relatively large, and the sail needs to be lifted with the help of a pulley block when lifting, and a person pulls the sail rope when the sail is lowered, which greatly reduces the number of sail operators. Considering that the upper deck area of the ironclad ship is very cramped, and neither the enemy nor the enemy can devote a large number of troops to white-knuckle combat, it is enough for a ship to be equipped with more than 100 sailors, equipped with new guns with metal fixed ammunition, the intensity of individual firepower has been greatly increased, and the traditional cold weapons of the past have basically become decorations.

For example, a sail battleship with a displacement of about 14,000 barrels requires a minimum of 1,000 sailors to maintain daily operations, and an ironclad ship of the same tonnage needs more than 350 to 400 men.

As a by-effect of the Navy's technological innovations, the deployment of rocket engines for conventional power and wartime acceleration systems, and the drastic downsizing of the sailors on board have reduced the human resources crisis that has hampered Law's strengths.

That's right, building a new ironclad ship only needs to throw money, and with a group of loyal and reliable, capable sailors and captains with good qualities, it is not a blind money can be smashed, and if you think about it this way, you will not feel that the implementation of ironclad ships is a loss-making business.

Needless to say, Luo Zhengdao, as a traverser, is not afraid of the spread of technology at all, and the more advanced the technology, the more new tricks can be played. The primitive goblin rockets that had been used for thousands of years were played by him, forcing the Second Goblin Empire to imitate and learn from his successful experience, which is enough to prove that advancing faster than the opponent is a more effective means of victory than keeping secrets. In fact, the closer the form of war is to the modern war model of the old world, the more Luo Zhengdao can experience the comfortable taste of being like a fish in water, and instead of fighting with the enemy on a low-level model that he is not familiar with, it is far more cost-effective to raise the level and fight a war that he is more familiar with.