Xiao Ding led everyone to find the Hongyun shipyard outside Jingkou City, learned about the current shipbuilding situation from the shipyard owner Hong Langtao, and also looked at the drawings of the ship styles that Hong Langtao took out.

These drawings were all paid by Kuang Wenbin, and those well-known shipbuilding veterans in Yangzhou were invited to gather together and consult the information left by many predecessors to draw these styles of drawings.

There was no water division in the Great Song Dynasty, so if you want to develop a water division, you must refer to the information left by your predecessors to design.

There are many styles of naval warships of the predecessors.

These include small and fast boats such as boats, bridges, and raids; There are also medium-sized ships such as fighting ships and shipwrights; At the same time, there are also large ships such as bows, building ships, three-winged ships, and gate ships.

Each type of ship is different in size and has a different role.

For example, the bow, also known as the king's boat, is decorated with a crane's head on the bow, which is usually a large ship on which the monarch or the commander of the army rides, and plays the role of commanding the ship in the naval division.

The three-wing ship usually refers to the same type of warship of the same type: large wing, medium wing, and small wing, of which the large wing is equivalent to the heavy vehicle in the army, the middle wing is equivalent to the sinking vehicle in the road army, and the small wing is equivalent to the light vehicle in the army.

The building ship is named because the ship is high and wide, and the appearance looks like a building. Because of its high ship building, it is suitable for long-range attack and close combat, so it is one of the main forces of ancient water warfare.

Fighting ships and stern ships are medium-sized ships. Fighting ships use sails and oars to propel them. Its decks and war tents are equipped with women's walls, and soldiers can be concealed. There is a stomping mouth on the female wall for archery. There are also crossbow windows and wide doors around the tent, which are convenient for crossbowmen to fire arrows and for concealment.

The back is covered with raw cowhide, which has good defensive performance. The ship has a crossbow window and a spear hole, and has the combat ability to attack and return fire at enemy ships. The stern is mainly powered by oars and has the ability to sail quickly.

Boats, bridges, and spurs are all small boats, and these small boats are fast and lightweight. Most of them are powered by oars, and brave and elite soldiers are selected to row oars, going back and forth like flying gulls, taking advantage of people's reach to attack. Usually, walkers are used for raids; Because the bow is equipped with sharp metal ramming angles, it can be used to ram enemy ships; The bridge, because of its small size and fast speed, is mostly used for high-speed punching.

In addition, the sailors also need to be equipped with a certain number of cargo ships such as ships and bird boats for transporting materials to provide logistics supplies in a timely manner.

All kinds of ships of different types and different purposes can be combined with each other to form a complete naval division force.

In this era, gunpowder was only used on a small scale, and was not developed and used on a large scale. Therefore, there was no such thing as artillery in this era. The war on the sea is still in the stage of strong bows and crossbows and spears.

When Xiao Ding saw these drawings, he immediately thought of the large beaded crossbow he had designed before. This kind of crossbow arrow is powerful and has a long range, and if it is equipped on the large ships of the sailor troops, it will definitely outperform ordinary bows and crossbows.

However, in this era, the warships were usually made of square wood, which was hard and thick, and some of the warships were even wrapped with iron sheets on the surface. What's more, basically every warship will have a battlement or baffle on it, and with such a defense, the effect of crossbow arrows is immediately reduced by more than half.

As a result, Xiao Ding immediately remembered another weapon commonly used in ancient times - catapults. Catapults appeared very early in history, but Xiao Ding participated in the two wars on the Yongzhou battlefield and the Jiaozhou battlefield, and no one has seen anyone use this kind of catapult.

This may have a lot to do with the fact that catapults are not easy to carry. Catapults are usually used during sieges, using leverage to throw huge stones and smash them into the city, which is conducive to siege. However, catapults are very heavy and bulky, and they are not easy to carry. At the same time, the stones projected by the catapult are also bulky.

It is conceivable that if a unit were to march with dozens of such huge and bulky catapults and a large number of heavy stones during the march, it is estimated that the soldiers would have died of exhaustion before they reached the battlefield.

Therefore, the Hu people were already good at riding and shooting, and the march was extremely fast, so they disdained to use catapults. And the people of the Great Song Kingdom, most of the time, are guarding the city, and they are not willing to use such a bulky weapon.

But at this time, Xiao Ding thought that if he wanted to break through the defense of the enemy ship, using a catapult was the best way.

Moreover, the navy used warships to fight, and there was no need to worry about transporting catapults. It would be nice to build a few catapults attached to each large ship directly. Similarly, even the ballista does not need to be transported to the warship, and it is also possible to build a crossbow carriage in the ship's gang.

The large stones needed for the catapult and the spears and crossbows for the catapult only had to be prepared in advance and carried to the ship.

Therefore, Xiao Ding proposed in person, saying that these drawings could be improved.

However, Xiao Ding only understands the firing principle of the Lianzhu crossbow, so he can do it if he changes the design of the repeater and builds the crossbow carriage directly on the ship. As for catapults, Xiao Ding has only heard of them. It was because he thought that there were no cannons in this era, and then he thought of catapults.

For catapults, he naturally has never seen real things. Therefore, if you want to build a catapult launcher on the ship, you also need to look up the information left by the predecessors.

Xiao Ding believes that people before this era must have used this kind of weapon. So if you look for the information left by the previous people, you will definitely be able to find it.

Xiao Ding said his thoughts in public, and everyone applauded. It's just that the people who know about this catapult, except for the civet cat, the others don't even know about it. This surprised Xiao Ding.

In fact, it is no wonder that most of the people who came with Xiao Ding were reckless, and they rarely paid attention to military aspects. Hong Langtao, the owner of the shipyard, only learned the craft of shipbuilding from an elementary school, and usually pays attention to shipbuilding and business and making money, and naturally he has not paid attention to military weapons.

Therefore, as soon as Xiao Ding proposed to build a catapult launch frame on the ship, no one knew how to build it.

So Xiao Ding instructed Hong Langtao and the people he had found to design the ship's drawings to collect information about the catapult again, and then design and install the catapult on the deck of the warship.

Next, Xiao Ding asked Hong Langtao about the financial problems, as Kuang Wenbin said, the silver on the shipbuilding side is only enough to last for two months. Now that the timber is almost ready, the next step is to build various types of warships according to the drawings.

Preliminary planning, the first batch, to build 1,000 small warships, 500 medium-sized warships, and 200 large warships.

It will take at least two months to complete these ships. Hong Langtao said that it was not their Hongyun shipyard that built it alone, but he contacted dozens of shipyards here on the riverside to build these warships together. He naturally became a second-hand contractor, taking orders from the government, and then subcontracting out, and he could make a difference in the middle.

Xiao Ding looked at this Hong Langtao again and found that his business talents did not match his appearance. Judging from his appearance alone, it is impossible to see that he is such a shrewd man. In fact, if he thinks about it carefully, if he is not shrewd enough, how can he create such a big foundation from an ordinary craftsman?

However, Xiao Ding did not participate in this matter, and the price Kuang Wenbin gave to Hong Langtao was given according to the general market price. Hong Langtao will give the live bag to others at a low price, that is his ability, anyway, whoever the court looks for to build it will pay this money, so Xiao Ding will not mind Hong Langtao making the difference from it.

After all, such a huge project, if Hongyun alone relies on one family, it is estimated that it may not be able to complete the task in one year. It is impossible for the imperial court to have the energy to contact many shipyards at the same time, and manage so many shipyards, which is too troublesome and inconvenient to manage. How can it only be handed over to Hong Langtao's family to worry! In this way, the court only needs to sign a contract with Hong Langtao alone, and then ask him for the final result, as for how he did it in the middle, it doesn't matter.

After Xiao Ding finished arranging the renovation of the warship, he left the Hongyun Shipyard with everyone and returned to the city.

In the next few days, Xiao Ding would come to the shipyard almost every day to find out how they were doing to find out the information, and at the same time communicate with Hong Langtao about some problems encountered in the construction process.

As for the drawings of the beaded crossbow frame built on the ship, Xiao Ding quickly drew it and handed it to Hong Langtao, and told him that this was a military secret, and it should not be passed on easily, especially not to the hands of the Fanbang people, except for the people in the shipyard.

Hong Langtao knew the importance of the matter, so he solemnly agreed.

After that, the hard work paid off, and after a lot of reading by Hong Langtao and the designers of the ships they found, they finally found the structural drawings of the catapults of their predecessors. This catapult is also known as a catapult, or a catapult. It is a very important weapon in ancient warfare.

It was only after the Great Song Dynasty that its use was gradually replaced by other weapons, and the army thought it was cumbersome, so it no longer used this weapon.

With the construction drawings, the design drawings naturally came out quickly, and this time, Xiao Ding was very satisfied.

He seems to have seen that one day in the future, he will take a huge fleet equipped with beaded crossbows and catapults to the island country in the east, destroy it, and avenge my beloved second girl!