As the saying goes, a century-old navy, and this word is actually even more so in the era of sails, because the navy in the era of sails has higher requirements for the quality of personnel, and without a large number of well-trained naval officers and sailors, you can't drive away with a Spanish invincible fleet.

Not to mention, in such rudimentary modern technology, to go on a high-sea voyage is basically a struggle between man and nature, and without experienced captains and sailors, the ship is very likely to sink to the bottom of the sea.

The Age of Discovery, has nothing to do with the word romance, what he represents behind it is bloody cruelty!

Words such as shipwreck, pirate, and death are the essence of the Age of Discovery.

This is also the reason why Colonel Bao Yifen proposed to set up a maritime academy to train naval officers!

To build a huge navy, not only must there be ships, artillery, and sailors, and all three, Datang does not have.

This is also the reason why everyone was enthusiastic when they saw these plans, but everyone quickly became puzzled: how could such a huge naval development plan be realized?

If for the time being, ships can be converted into civilian ships, and the problem of personnel can also be solved by recruiting Ming naval divisions and civilian sailors, but the problem of naval artillery is unsolvable.

Because according to Bao Yifen's ship-building plan, even if it is a ship-building plan in the early stage, at least more than 100 naval guns are needed, and these naval guns are not auxiliary firearms such as Franc machines and small-caliber shotguns in the Ming Army's naval divisions, and these auxiliary artillery are not included in the list of anti-ship naval guns in the Tang Navy.

The list of naval guns is all cannons, and they also need a large number of large-caliber cannons, which are 12-pound or even 18-pound, 24-pound, 32-pound, and 64-pound cannons.

And these artillery, even if it is a twelve-pound artillery, the Tang Dynasty can't make it!

Even if it can't be built, now the Tang Dynasty is in a period of war with the Ming army, the army is not enough artillery, and the navy is even more unable to share the output of artillery.

Based on the above, Bao Yifen's plan sounds very exciting, but in fact, it is extremely difficult to really realize it, at least at this stage, the Tang Dynasty is not capable of supporting such a large-scale naval expansion.

Although this plan was proposed by Bao Yifen, in fact, this naval expansion plan was formulated under the guidance of Li Xuan, Li Xuan naturally knew that it was very difficult to build such a large fleet, let alone now, it would be impossible to complete it in ten years for the Tang Dynasty, and even if it was completed, it would be an extremely heavy financial burden.

Raising a navy of 30,000 men is much more expensive than raising an army of 30,000 men.

But even if he knew that this plan could not be completed, Li Xuan still needed to put it forward, because he needed to set a goal for them to catch up, even if they couldn't catch up, but the process of catching up could always get some results.

His ideals for the navy are not high, he can recover the Pearl River estuary in a short period of time, just control the Pearl River, the medium-term goal is to maintain the coastal routes of Guangdong, and the long-term goal is to completely defeat the Ming army and control the coastal waters of China.

As for building a huge fleet comparable to the invincible Grand Fleet of Spain, it was a long, long time later, Li Xuan thought, if he was lucky enough to be able to unify the land of China, and was lucky enough to continue to live for a few decades, it was estimated that it was possible.

As for now, YY is on the line!

YY is not illegal!

Around this naval expansion plan proposed by Bao Yifen, a group of naval officers began to discuss in detail, and in the course of the meeting, the details will be refined.

However, Li Xuan doesn't care about the perfection of these details!

So soon, a group of naval officers expressed their approval of this naval development plan, and immediately, Li Xuan also pushed the boat down the river and said: "Since all Aiqing unanimously agrees, then let's handle it in turn!" ”

According to this shipbuilding plan, the discussion of the type and performance of ocean-going warships has also begun, and there is nothing to say about this, and the Navy Department of the Navy has already made a plan.

There are currently two plans for ocean-going warships, one is to build a new pure warship, and the other is to use the existing civilian ship hull for modification.

Modification is naturally necessary, and because the existing civilian ships have different specifications, it is impossible to form a unified model specification, just like the previous Weilong-class battleships, it is said to be eighty tons, but in fact, there are hundreds of tons, more than seventy tons, and almost every Weilong-class battleship is different.

It is said that it is a warship of the same level, but in fact, they are equipped with roughly the same firepower, and the others are basically different, which can be regarded as similar ship types.

Nowadays, if you want to modify large warships, it is even more so, because hundreds of tons of ships are not easy to find, it is difficult to find so many of them, and the Datang Navy can only refit one if it wants to modify a warship.

Because almost every modified battleship is different, and the performance data in all aspects is very different from that of professional warships, at least it is too far from the standards of various special warships proposed by Li Xuan, the Eternal Sage.

Therefore, in this meeting, the navy will call the existing and future civilian ships as armed merchant ships, and let these ships return to their original names.

However, according to the size of the firepower and tonnage, it is called a first-class armed merchant ship, a second-class armed merchant ship, a third-class armed merchant ship, and a fourth-class armed merchant ship, a total of four classes.

Among them, the first-class armed merchant ship specifically refers to the armed merchant ship of more than 800 tons.

Second-class armed merchant ships are armed merchant ships between 400 and 800 tons, and most of the large ocean-going merchant ships in this year are basically within this range.

The third-class armed merchant ship is an armed merchant ship with a displacement of 200 to 400 tons, and this tonnage of armed merchant ship barely has the ability to sail to the sea, and the Wuzhou, the new flagship of the Datang Navy, is an armed merchant ship converted from a 230-ton sand ship.

As for the fourth-class armed merchant ships, they are less than 200 tons, such as the previous flagship of the Tang Navy, which was also converted from a sand ship and had a displacement of more than 130 tons.

The existing warships and the warships that are expected to be converted in the future are called armed merchant ships, so where are the real warships?

It's not hard, it's still on paper!

In order to establish a grand goal for these turtles in the Tang Navy, Li Xuan worked hard, and even the types, standards, and titles of the warships were personally handled, for fear that these naval turtles would make four dissimilarities.

And the renaming of these existing warships as armed merchant ships is one of them, and these warships that do not even have a few guns are embarrassed to call themselves warships?

How can you make those warships with double, three, or four decks and carrying dozens or even hundreds of naval guns embarrassed!

Therefore, Li Xuan followed the classification of warships in later generations and formulated a simple standard for the classification of warships in the future navy.

First of all, in terms of purpose, ships used for ocean-going operations are divided into three classes, namely battleships, cruisers, and frigates. Inland river gunboats and shallow sea gunboats were used for inland river and coastal operations.

Battleships will be used for the decisive battle of the ocean-going main fleet, and according to the tonnage and firepower of the battleships, they are divided into first, second, and third classes in detail, and for the minimum standard of battleships, that is, third-class battleships, Li Xuan proposed that there should be at least 1,000 tons and more than 50 guns, which need to have strong firepower and excellent protection capabilities.

Unfortunately, at present, the Datang Navy does not have a plan for this type of ship, even if it is a third-class battleship, whether it is in service or in the subsequent shipbuilding plan.

This is beyond the capabilities of the current Tang Dynasty!

Cruisers, the purpose of this kind of warships is to patrol the ocean, act as the vanguard of capital ships, and attack the merchant ships of enemy countries, and they are also divided into first, second, and third class, among which the lowest third-class cruiser should have a minimum tonnage of more than 500 tons, have more than 30 guns, and should have excellent seaworthiness and high speed.

Frigates, which will be used to carry out escort and low-intensity combat missions, are also divided into three classes, of which the third class frigates need to have a minimum tonnage of more than 300 tons and more than 20 guns. It needs to have a relatively low cost and a small crew.

Li Xuan asked that when the Ministry of Naval Affairs carried out the corresponding design, it was necessary to comprehensively consider the design of Chinese and Western ships, and don't directly design the battleship with the broken things of the Fu ship, which has empty tonnage but can't fit a few guns, and don't make it a stupid big man like a Spanish galleon, which is tantamount to looking for death at sea.

We must have innovative thinking and combine the advantages of China and the West to carry out innovative design!

In addition to these main warships, there are also river gunboats, which are warships used to fight on inland rivers, and the shallow draft is the biggest feature.

Shallow sea gunboats, which are warships used to fight in coastal areas and some inland rivers with sufficient water depth, are characterized by sacrificing seaworthiness in exchange for shallow draft, greater firepower, and better defense.

Both types of gunboats were equally divided into first, second, and third classes.

However, although Li Xuan formulated a detailed classification for the Datang Navy, it is a pity that so far, the Datang Navy still does not have a regular warship, even if it is an inland river gunboat.

Because the existing warships in the Datang Navy are all armed merchant ships, but this does not prevent them from establishing standards and moving towards this goal.

And now, they are starting the first step towards this goal: to design and build the first ocean-going warship of the Datang Navy!