It's not that the Tang Navy is ambitious, or arrogant and ignorant, and doesn't want to wait until more warships are launched to serve before acting, but it's time to wait for me!

Now in the mouth of the Pearl River, there will be a fleet of Ming army sailors and Franco machine people in a period of time, and the Franco machine people are okay, so they don't embarrass those ordinary merchant ships, but the Ming army sailors are caught and killed one by one, well, although sometimes the Ming army sailors may not be able to beat those large-scale pirate gangs!

But this is a great threat to many small and medium-sized maritime merchants/pirates!

forced many small and medium-sized maritime merchants to dare not come to Guangzhou, but to go to Lianzhou, although Lianzhou got this opportunity to develop and grow, but the role of Guangzhou is still irreplaceable, so Li Xuan is hoping that the navy can clear the Pearl River estuary as soon as possible Ming army sailors.

I don't dare to say that the safety of the coastal areas of Guangdong is completely guaranteed, but the Pearl River Estuary, a small place, must always ensure safety, so that those merchant ships can smoothly enter and exit the Pearl River Estuary, as for the merchant ships in the open sea, the Ming Army Navy Division is a typical coastal sea division, but there is no ocean-going combat ability, if you dare to catch up, these maritime merchants will become pirates in minutes to teach them how to behave.

So the task of the Datang Navy is still quite heavy!

They also want to wait until more ships are launched into service before they can act, but the second batch of warships will take more than half a year before they can be put into service, which is too long!

Last year, the Datang Navy did not think about building a dozen or twenty warships at one time, but this was wishful thinking.

It's not that the navy has no money, even if these warships of several hundred tons are very expensive, a third-class frigate, its hull plus artillery, its cost reaches 70,000 taels.

Why is the price so expensive, this is because the warship needs to be equipped with a large number of guns, and in order to strengthen the protection ability, the wood used in the hull is very thick, and the cost of raw materials is going up at the same time, because this type of ship has never appeared in the East or in the West, everything needs to be explored from scratch, and it is too difficult to build, and it takes more labor costs.

Then the shipyard also needs to recover the cost of building the shipyard and the cost of R&D and design on these warships, so all together, it leads to this kind of professional warship, and the price is quite expensive.

And that's it, it's just the internal price given by the Datang Ministry of Industry's own shipyard, it doesn't count the profit, it's a pure cost!

A third-class frigate costs 70,000 taels of silver, and a third-class cruiser is even more expensive, reaching 110,000 taels of silver, that is, the cost per ton of such a professional battleship has almost reached about 200 taels of silver per ton.

The cost of contemporary ordinary ships is only about 100 taels of silver per ton, which is still a medium and large merchant ship that can sail on the open sea and is of hundreds of tons.

As for the small tonnage warships, the price of small ships that only sail on inland rivers and offshore waters is even lower, such as the inland river gunboats used as the main force in the inland river fleet of the Datang Navy, the tonnage is about 100 tons, but its construction is only more than 6,000 taels of silver, which is much cheaper than sea ships, and one ton is only more than 60 taels of silver.

And a small civilian ship of tens of tons that can only sail on inland rivers and offshore waters is even cheaper, if it is extreme, in fact, a few hundred taels of silver is enough!

The price of warships is incomparable with that of ordinary merchant ships, and the price per ton of large warships has increased exponentially compared to small warships.

This is like a destroyer of no more than 10,000 tons in later generations, which can cost billions of dollars, but an ordinary freighter of 10,000 tons will die for four or five million dollars.

However, although the battleships are expensive, the current Datang Navy is not short of money, not only has regular military expenses, Li Xuan has also twice pulled out a total of 800,000 taels of silver from the inner treasury to expand the fleet special funds.

Therefore, there is still no shortage of money in the navy!

However, this battleship is not something that can be built with money!

First of all, these warships have high requirements for the quality of wood, and it is impossible for the Tang Dynasty to directly cut down wood for construction, but will purchase finished wood that has been dried in advance for construction.

If there is a shortage of raw materials, you can get it at a high price, but there is nothing the shipyard can do!

Although the three large shipyards of the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty are expanding all the time, after all, the time is too short, and the large docks are too time-consuming, and the expansion speed is relatively slow.

There are a few private shipyards in Guangzhou, but their docks are not large, only one or two hundred tons are the majority, and they are basically not idle, most of them are used to modify armed merchant ships, or build some small and medium-sized warships in inland rivers and offshore waters, and at the same time, the maritime trade is prosperous, and they are also building a large number of various civilian ships.

As a result, there are not enough docks for building large warships, and even if there are enough docks, there are not enough workers to build them.

The workers in the shipyard are not cabbage, and they can pick up a lot of them casually!

Restricted by various factors, it has led to the fact that although the Tang Dynasty is already at full power, the speed of building ships is still not fast, even if it is really enough to know so many ships, in fact, the Datang Navy does not have so many manpower to start!

Centennial Navy, these words did not come out of thin air!

However, if there are fewer warships, you can't afford not to fight!

For this reason, the Datang Navy has begun to formulate relevant operational plans within the Naval Command, the core goal is to completely control the coastal area of the Pearl River Estuary, and the specific tactical goal is to completely expel the Ming Army Naval Division entrenched near the Pearl River Estuary, and the second goal is to force them to withdraw the blockade fleet.

The Navy Command quickly submitted the strategic plan to Li Xuan, and Li Xuan approved it after reading the plan.

Although this plan seems to be quite responsible on the surface, it will use all the ocean-going warships of the First Fleet and the Second Fleet, and many small ships of the River Fleet will also be involved in the battle, and even the army will need to cooperate.

But the actual tactical core is very simple, that is, to use one third-class cruiser and two third-class frigates that have already been in service and will be commissioned in the next two months as the core, and let them go to sea to continuously intercept the enemy's small fleet.

Although the number of these three warships is a little smaller, each of them is extraordinary, and the small fleet composed of three warships does not need to be afraid even if it encounters seven or eight or even more than ten large fleets of the enemy, and if the tactics are appropriate, they can even pull out their teeth.

The other more than a dozen armed merchant ships of more than 200 tons were used as auxiliary forces to cooperate with these three warships.

At the same time, the small boats of the river fleet will also carry out auxiliary operations in the coastal waters with numerical superiority!

Although the plan is huge, in Li Xuan's opinion, the core of this plan is actually harassment and attack tactics!

Take advantage of the high speed and high maneuverability of the three warships to attack frequently, and continue to bleed the enemy!

After getting Li Xuan's approval, the navy began to prepare for this, in order to plan such a huge battle, the navy still needs to do a lot of work, the most important of which is to continue to test the Wuzhou, and based on the actual test, compile relevant tactics and training manuals, after all, the Datang Navy has never played this kind of professional warship before.

At the same time, it is also necessary to train officers and soldiers to train a sufficient number of qualified sailors for the next two warships!

For a time, the Wuzhou, which had just been put into service, went to sea frequently!

At the same time, the other ships and officers and men of the navy were also busy, they had to survey the hydrology, they had to prepare ammunition, they had to practice artillery skills, and they had to practice all kinds of tactics.

Anyway, they have a lot to do!

The Navy sat and prepared for their strategic plans, and the Army did not sit idle, taking advantage of the rainy season in April, May and even June, to replenish and reorganize the troops.

Among them, the core is naturally to continue to reorganize the existing five provisional regiments, and expand these provisional regiments into mixed regiments, among which the fourth provisional regiment, which was the first to be reorganized, has taken the lead in completing the reorganization and has been awarded a new name, called the fourth mixed regiment.

According to the reorganization plan, the 3rd Provisional Regiment, the 4th Provisional Regiment, and the 5th Provisional Regiment were directly renamed the 3rd Mixed Regiment, the 4th Mixed Regiment, and the 5th Mixed Regiment.

The first and second provisional regiments were renamed the Sixth Mixed Regiment and the Seventh Mixed Regiment.

After this reorganization, the army will only have three kinds of formations left in the future: infantry divisions, mixed regiments, and supplementary brigades, and their purposes are also different; infantry divisions are the main force and are responsible for the operations of large corps, while mixed regiments are responsible for independent operations on the secondary fronts, and supplementary brigades are responsible for the training of new recruits, replenishment of troops, and escort of supply lines in the rear.

In addition to the reorganization of the provisional regiment into a mixed regiment, the army also began to try to expand the infantry division, mainly to increase the number of muskets and artillery, and at the same time began to replace the heavy infantry with plate armor.

However, due to the limited production of ordnance, only the First Infantry Division and the Fifth Infantry Division, two units with relatively heavy front-line tasks, have received initial expansion, and the reorganization is not complete.

When the army and navy were busy reorganizing their armaments, and at the same time, the war was over, and the affairs of the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Taxation, and the Ministry of Commerce were also on the right track, Li Xuan also slowed down the pace of work.

After being a workaholic for a few months, Li Xuan also felt a little tired, and he was a little upset when he saw the music recently, if he didn't know the seriousness of the matter, he would want to throw the matter to the ministers in the imperial study to deal with.

It is impossible to abandon the government, but it is still possible to slow down the pace of work.

However, Li Xuan's slowing down of the pace of work directly caused changes in the court, and even caused a lot of turmoil because of this!