The expansion of the navy is different from the expansion of the army, after the army has a complete recruitment, training, and establishment, an infantry division is formed from scratch, as long as the funds are in place, basically the personnel can be in place in three months, and the soldiers still go through the initial recruit training.

After changing weapons and equipment, the troops will conduct some special tactical training and cooperate, and they will be able to pull up and carry out their tasks in about four or five months.

Even in the state of emergency, as long as you complete three months of recruit training, you can directly go out to fight, which is not much combat effectiveness, but in any case, it is better than the young and strong homeless, and in the process of performing the task, after the baptism of blood and fire, those surviving soldiers can quickly grow into a veteran.

After such a purely new unit performs combat missions for several months, or directly fights a few big battles, then this unit basically becomes an old unit with combat experience.

Therefore, with the current army system of the Tang Dynasty, it is actually very fast to want rapid expansion, and the main thing that restricts the large-scale and rapid expansion of the army is military spending and ordnance production.

But for the Navy, it's different!

Because to expand the fleet, there must be new warships, and the construction cycle of warships is calculated in years.

Now in the Tang Dynasty, it takes about a year to build a frigate, a cruiser about a year and a half, and a battleship, I don't know how long it will take, but according to the estimates of Dingsheng Shipyard and Guangzhou Shipyard, it will take them at least three years to complete the construction of the hull.

After the completion of the construction of the hull of the battleship, it will take at least a few months of outfitting, including the installation of interior decoration, naval guns, sails, etc.

A third-class battleship, from the laying of the keel, to the completion of all the construction, to the delivery of the navy, the shipyard estimates that it will take at least three and a half years, and if there is any accident, this time is likely to be more than four years!

After the battleship is delivered to the Navy, don't think that you will be able to go out to fight directly, you still need to conduct various sea trials and training!

According to the current standards of the Datang Navy, after a cruiser is delivered to the Navy, the Navy needs to organize officers and sailors to accept it, and then conduct sea trials and training before it can form combat effectiveness, and this process will take at least two or three months.

That is, even if it is funded, the dock is sufficient, there are officer reserves and sailors, and everything is carried out perfectly, it will take at least four years for a third-class battleship to go from the start of construction to the formation of combat effectiveness!

If you only think of expanding the fleet when the war broke out, then it is very likely that the war is over, and this main battleship has not yet been built!

Therefore, under normal circumstances, the expansion of the navy is to build and maintain the size of the fleet in peacetime, and when the war breaks out, although warships will be built urgently, most of the auxiliary warships that can be successfully completed and put into service during the war are short-term auxiliary warships.

Unless the war drags on for more than a few years, it is unlikely that the main warships built at the time of the outbreak of the war will be built and put into service during the war.

The Tang Navy estimated that the Son of Heaven might launch a war against the Portuguese in three or five years in order to seize Malacca, seize most of the profits from European trade, and control the South Seas.

In this case, it is possible for the Datang Navy to start construction of new warships immediately, and if construction starts immediately, then it is hoped that it will be put into service in four years, and if it drags on for a long time, then it is very likely that it will have to rely on two battleships to support the scene.

Not only the expansion of battleships, cruisers and frigates, but also the navy is also considering, but the construction period of cruisers and frigates is shorter, so the time is not so urgent.

Of course, more importantly, the military spending on the navy is also limited, which can squeeze out funds to start building three battleships at once, and it is a little tight to start building a large number of cruisers and frigates.

They intend to formalize the construction of cruisers and frigates after they have won military spending, and the specific number of construction will also be determined according to the amount of naval military spending in the following years.

After all, it is not how many warships the navy wants to build, and how much money will be given from above, they can only determine how many warships to build according to the amount of military spending.

A cruiser also costs more than 100,000 taels, and after the battleship is completed and put into service, the annual maintenance cost is not a small amount.

The maintenance cost of the navy is no less than that of the army, and it is even more expensive.

After the navy placed an order for three battleships, it submitted the final fleet expansion plan to Li Xuan!

The fleet expansion plan sent to Li Xuan this time is a formal plan, and all aspects are very detailed, and the content contained in it is not only the construction of the main warship, in fact, the construction of the battleship is only part of it, and the other is the construction of the port, the construction of a large number of auxiliary military ships, the establishment of a warship repair plant in the military port, and the investment in the research of various new technologies.

This plan, on the whole, is supplemented, improved, and specific according to what Li Xuan said at the naval strategy meeting before.

Li Xuan skimmed over a lot of descriptive content and looked directly at the data, which is also his habit of reading many official documents, and he will not read a lot of messy tirades, he usually looks at the data directly.

This habit also made the Tang Dynasty officials write excerpts, and when they write official documents, they are also forced to list all kinds of data, and Li Xuan is more serious, if you use vague words such as about, promise, and approximate to replace accurate numbers, Li Xuan will directly use vermilion to draw a big cross on the number, and go back for them to rewrite.

Once, when a certain prefect was in an audience to report on his work, when describing the local financial situation, he said that the annual tax revenue was about 3.78 million yuan, and Li Xuan interrupted him on the spot and asked whether it was 370,000 yuan or 380,000 yuan? Or are both numbers inaccurate?

As a result, the prefect couldn't answer at all, because he didn't know it himself, and as a result, this unlucky guy was sent to a remote place.

Therefore, at present, officials of Datang often list detailed data in various official documents.

Li Xuan directly looked at the various data of this fleet expansion plan!

Three new 1,400-ton improved third-class battleships will be built, one will be started by the end of this year, and two will be started next year, and the cost of the hull, guns, and sails will add up to 260,000 taels of silver for each ship.

Eight new 800-ton cruisers will be built in batches, and one will be started directly in the remaining three months of this year, three will be started next year, three will be started the year after next, and the next year will be started, each costing 120,000 silver!

Sixteen new 400-ton improved frigates will be built, four will be started at the end of the year, six next year, and five the year after, each costing 65,000 taels of silver.

Twenty new 180-ton improved coastal patrol ships will be built, five of which will be started by the end of the year and 20 next year, each costing 28,000 taels of silver.

Li Xuan noticed that these ship types were either newly designed or improved, and at the same time, cruisers and frigates had also canceled the previous first-class, second-class, and third-class divisions, leaving only battleships with first-class, second-class, and third-class divisions.

Moreover, Li Xuan also noticed that there were no third-class cruisers in the past, that is, five-hundred-ton cruisers.

So he directly turned to the page where the specific ship type was written, the 1,400-ton third-class battleship was basically an improvement of the current 1,350-ton third-class battleship, and some small defects in the original design were modified, and the specific gun configuration was changed, resulting in an increase in tonnage of 50 tons.

The second ship is expected to cost 280,000 taels.

Now, it has become 260,000 taels of silver per ship, and with the progress of technology, the price is getting cheaper and cheaper after the R&D and preliminary investment costs are apportioned.

This improved battleship of the third rank, which looked pretty good and acceptable.

The 800-ton cruiser, there is no first, second, or third class here, but it is directly called a cruiser, and in terms of design, the tactical positioning of this 800-ton cruiser is: to act as the vanguard of the battleship fleet, a reconnaissance ship, as a mobile force to cooperate with the battleship in a line decisive battle, and when necessary, directly participate in the line artillery!

In addition, on the secondary front, without battleships, act as the main force of the fleet to participate in the decisive battle!

To put it bluntly, this kind of cruiser has two positions: the first is to act with the battleship and use it as a mobile force, while the second is to use it as the main force on the secondary front.

It is not the same as the previous third-class cruisers for ocean cruising and protecting the route!

According to the Navy, in the future, the task of cruising in the ocean and protecting the route will be entrusted to the frigate, and the tonnage of the new frigate has been expanded and strengthened, so that it can be competent for the task of cruising and escorting the ocean, and at the same time, in the future, the existing 550-ton cruiser will also recognize this combat mission and use it as the flagship of the escort fleet.

The 180-ton patrol ship is an upgraded version of the previous 150-ton patrol ship, and the patrol ship can be said to be a great success in the Tang Dynasty, because it has a certain combat effectiveness, and the draft is shallow, and it can fight along the coast and relatively large rivers, and it is cheap enough, it is built in large quantities, and is widely used in coastal patrols, and even inland river patrols.

Now the Navy has come to an upgraded version, ready to continue to build a large number of such patrol ships, anyway, it is cheap enough, and it will not cost a few dollars to build dozens more!

From the tactical positioning of the above-mentioned new warships, it can basically be seen that the strategy of the Datang Navy in the next three to five years is to build a main ocean-going fleet, which is specially used for fleet decisive battles, and will also build a large number of escort fleets scattered in various sea areas for cruising and escorting.

As for the patrol fleet, there is no need to say anything, it is only responsible for the defense of the coastal waters, and in peacetime it is to check smuggling, check passing merchant ships, protect shipping lanes and ports, and it is not their task to go to sea to fight the enemy's main fleet.