Wei Xiaoliang is eighteen years old this year, and he is a swarthy and sturdy young man. Don't look at your young age, you already have five years of experience in going to sea. In addition to boiling salt, going to the sea to make a living is also a way to survive.

Wang Yue specially selected a group of people from the army who had gone to the sea, even if they had traveled by boat on inland rivers or a group of people who had taken a boat, to form a detachment, led by Wei Xiaoliang, who had been promoted to deputy battalion commander. Instructor Zhu Youxue, Chief of Staff Qi Changguo.

The various units of the Tiance Army have been gradually assigned political officers, and Zhu Youxue is the first batch to be assigned to the naval detachment. Qi Changguo was a member of Li Zixiong's staff team and was assigned by Wang Yue to the naval detachment as chief of staff.

The detachment was a battalion-level detachment, less than 350 people, organized into six companies. All the people in this detachment had experience sailing, and Wang Yue gave them an extra car driving training for their usual training, so they could already be used as drivers.

In addition to car driving, they usually play a game console similar to ship driving, which has become one of their favorite activities. There are six of these consoles, one in a row.

In addition, they have to learn how to use radio sextants. This sextant does not require complex formulas, just enter the coordinates you want to reach, and the distance and direction will be automatically calculated. Ordinary sextants were also distributed to them as part of their future studies.

So Wang Yue downloaded an offline map package for them to look up the coordinates.

It will be a huge project to revise the names of towns and cities that are different from those of the Ming Dynasty in modern times. Wang Yue has arranged for a special person to do this work, and after all the checks are completed, it will be revised on the computer again.

The main routes of later generations, Haiwen data, especially all the routes in Bohai Bay, Haiwen data were also issued to them for reference, although there are factors of change of the times, but the change should not be large. In addition to these route charts, there are also nautical charts drawn by Europeans in the 18th century as references.

With so many accurate and detailed nautical charts, Wang Yue threw them at will. If those current maritime powers knew about it, they would definitely go crazy.

Nautical charts are often a secret of these countries, and they are a treasure that has been acquired through exploration over many generations. These are the supreme magic weapons of their cross-sea conquests, colonization of the world, killing people and goods, and rampaging on the seas.

But it's not a matter here at all in Wang Yue's place, how many such things are needed, and they are incomparably accurate.

"Report to the commander, sand boats can sail offshore. Stripping boats are flat-bottomed boats that do not withstand wind and waves, making it difficult to sail far from the coast. Wei Xiaoliang said.

Wang Yue nodded and said, "Well, immediately unload our engines and install them on these ships." ”

Wei Xiaoliang took the order and left.

These were seventy-five horsepower marine thrusters, which could be fastened to these wooden boats with steel plates and long bolts, and the speed of travel was of course incomparable with sails.

For this trip, Wang Yue has been preparing for a long time. After the personnel organization, propeller fixing parts production, equipment familiarization and training were all completed, this trip to Tongzhou was completed.

In addition to this company, which Wang Yue called the naval detachment of the Tiance Army, there were also three construction teams drawn from the Civil Affairs Office, the Zhouqiao Battalion, the Port Construction Department, and the Shijingshan Industrial Zone, forming a team of more than 2,000 people.

This detachment, together with the workers who came with them, were already familiar with the installation of the thrusters, so the installation speed of several hundred people was very fast, and it was really easy to bolt on wooden boats. More than 60 thrusters, all of which were installed in less than an hour.

The hired boatmen, unaware of what they were up to, watched stupidly as they dismantled the rudder and put on a big black one.

Wang Yue saw that he was almost dressed, took off a life jacket from his car and put it on his body, and said to Wei Xiaoliang: "Wei Xiaoliang go, try to drive a boat." After saying that, he was the first to board a sand boat.

"Commander, you better go down, I've tried and you can go back later." Wei Xiaoliang was worried.

He knew that the commander was from Shanxi, and a person who came up from the loess high slope, where had he ever been on a boat, and if he fell into the water, he could not afford this responsibility.

They have only demonstrated this kind of marine thruster, although it has not been used on the water, but the high-speed rotating propeller looks infinitely powerful, and it is conceivable that the propulsion speed in the water must be very fast.

Wang Yue smiled and said, "Do you think I can't swim?" Don't talk nonsense, get out of the boat. ”

He really knows how to swim, and there will be many swimming pools in later generations! What's more, he also wore a life jacket.

In desperation, Wei Xiaoliang and several soldiers got on the boat one after another.

When this diesel thruster is started, the noise is not too loud. With a clattering roar, the sand boat started moving.

The thruster is operated by a handle, and the throttle is similar to that of a motorcycle. Wei Xiaoliang's speed and sense of direction are good, and the sand boat is very stable.

Wang Yue said happily: "Yes, the control is very good, a little faster." ”

Wei Xiaoliang was equally pleased! Since joining the City of Beginnings, it has been nothing but surprise, and now it has brought this surprise to the water that he is familiar with.

Wang Yue saw that it was almost over, and ordered everyone to get on the boat, and all the ships set sail, and their ship was the lead, and slowly sailed in the direction of Tianjin.

The ships were all piloted by the soldiers of the naval detachment, and the land pilots went to the water, and there was basically no major mistake, and these thrusters were all tried.

For the sake of safety, the starting speed is not fast, only a speed of ten kilometers per hour, and the overall speed is pressed by the head boat, and the unified dispatch is made with a walkie-talkie.

Wang Yue looked at his watch, and the departure time was not yet eight o'clock in the morning. They set off from the starting point at six o'clock in the morning, and the target was the Dagu mouth of the later generations, which was mostly called Zhigu by most people in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Ziyun is now in charge of internal affairs, and he is busy with affairs these days, so he did not accompany him. The starting point city was led by Wang Zhuo, and Li Zixiong accompanied Wang Yue.

In the vicinity of Dagukou and later in the vicinity of Dagang, a large area of land has been purchased by the District Affairs Department since three months ago.

Wang Yue bought the land at the mouth of the Haihe River, and later the location of Tianjin Port.

Tianjin Wei opened the port very early, but it was more used as the northern port of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, serving the Grand Canal. Rather than being established as a seaport city, three of the acropolises were built near the mouth of the river, which is actually quite far from the sea. The only place close to the sea that can be used as a seaport is in the Dagukou area at the mouth of the Haihe River.

Due to the ban on the sea in the Ming Dynasty, the shipping at the mouth of Dagu was not developed. Since the shipping route has to bypass the Shandong Peninsula, it is not as safe as taking the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, and the distance is close, so the ships in the north and south of the Yangtze River do not go to Dagukou.

Only a small number of more southern, seagoing vessels such as Fujian and Guangdong arrived here. The sea transportation in Shandong and other places is even more scarce, and the most are the ships that traffic in illegal salt, so the current Dagukou is also the direct sale of the Ming Dynasty is very depressed.

Before the Ming Dynasty, to be precise, until the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Central Plains regime had never suffered a strategic attack from the sea. Even if there is harassment by pirates, it is still just pirates wandering and robbing mode.

The tactic of landing a large army from the sea and directly taking the key points of the Beijing division has not yet been formed, so the scale of coastal defense construction near Dagukou can be imagined.