Three days later, Shen Lingfei's fleet arrived to deliver grain and silver.

A total of 3,000 stone of grain was transported from Heilong Bay to Fushan City and stored. The grain of 3,000 stones is close to 600,000 catties, and at this time of green and yellow, it can alleviate the food crisis for a period of time. Of course, in the future, a large amount of grain will have to be purchased from Jiangnan. Gold in prosperous times, food in troubled times, eternal truth!

According to the description of Shen Lingfei's subordinates, they were at sea and did not encounter Yang Shengtian's pirate ship. The black iron head, I don't know if it's hidden somewhere, or if it's already receded. Zhang Zhun ordered the navy to temporarily retreat and continue to place sentinels on the coastline. If you spot a pirate, continue to fire a warning shot.

After getting the silver, Zhang Zhun naturally allocated thirty percent to Xue Zhidie for the first time to build a ship. The appearance of the black iron head made Zhang Zhun painfully determined to build a special warship. The captured pirate ship, as well as the two pork belly ships, were never able to enter Zhang Zhun's eyes...... The surname can still be too bad.

He wants to have his own special warship!

He's going to have his own special fleet!

He wants to have his own special water master!

As a result, the area along the coast of Partridge Bay became busy. A large amount of silver poured out, and workers and materials quickly gathered here. August is a relatively leisurely agricultural season, as long as it is not to reclaim wasteland, many military households are free. In order to earn silver in exchange for food, many people came to work to support themselves before the rice harvest. The daily consumption of grain by the workers alone costs several hundred catties.

At the same time, Laoshan also began to cut down a large amount of timber. The thick oak wood, the chestnut wood, the iron wood, the hawthorn wood, the pine wood, the fir wood, and so on, were all cut down. As long as the diameter is above the thickness of the bowl, all of them are cut. These are Zhang Zhun's exact words. As a result, all kinds of materials were transported to Partridge Bay, and soon piled up.

Zhang Zhun himself was also in Partridge Bay, discussing the issue of warships with Xue Zhidie.

Shipbuilding is a systematic project, involving many aspects. There are many issues of principle surnames, which must be determined before the official start of construction. Otherwise, there is no chance of revision later. There are several things that Zhang Zhun needs to determine.

The first is to determine the size of the warship.

The two most commonly used ships in the Ming Dynasty were fortune ships and treasure ships. The information on the treasure ship has been lost and cannot be built. The only thing that can be built now is a lucky boat. Fukubune are divided into four different types according to their size. The No. 4 Fu ship is the smallest, about 100 materials. The No. 3 Fu ship is slightly larger, about 200 materials. The No. 2 Fu ship is larger, about 300 materials. The No. 1 Fuku ship is the largest, about 500 materials.

[Author's note: "Material" is a shipbuilding unit in ancient China, some say it refers to the amount of wood used, some say it refers to the amount of volume, each has its own statement, I don't know which one. Ships in the West and later generations adopted the term of displacement, which was generally expressed in terms of "ton". The conversion of material and ton is very complicated, and the explanations are different. If you read my book, please understand it in terms of 1 material = 1 ton of displacement. 500 materials is about 500 tons of displacement. In ancient times, ships with a displacement of 500 tons were considered relatively large. 】

The three ships owned by Shen Lingfei's fleet are the No. 3 Fu ship with a displacement of about 200 tons and a carrying capacity of about 100 tons (about 1,000 stones). The three ships were fully loaded, and they were only transporting 3,000 stone (about 600,000 catties) of grain. Such a transportation capacity is not very strong. In the fleet of the Yuan Dynasty, basically each ship carried more than 3,000 stones. Since the implementation of the policy of banning the sea, the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty has seriously shrunk.

The ship itself was actually designed to be used as a merchant ship. Warships are a side hustle. If it is to be used as a professional warship, there are a large number of special parts that need to be reinforced, which makes its own weight increase a lot, and the cargo capacity will naturally be less. Moreover, there is a more depressing problem, that is, the Fubune is always not very suitable as a warship. Congenital deficiencies, no matter how they are changed, are unsatisfactory.

After research, Zhang Zhun decided to build the smallest Cangshan ship of fifty materials.

The Cangshan Ship is a professional combat ship of the Daming Naval Division, with a relatively small size, a total length of less than 20 meters, a width of about 4 meters, and a draft of about 5 feet (about 1.666 meters). According to the preparation of the Daming Water Division, it is equipped with 2 jack Buddha machines, 3 bowls, 4 Lumi guns, 40 spray cans, 60 chimneys, 30 fire bricks, 100 rockets, 4 medicine crossbows, and 100 crossbow arrows. There were 37 people on board, 4 sailors, 33 soldiers, and a third class. The first armor is a franc machine and a shotgun, the third armor is a firearm, and the second armor is a cold weapon.

Of course, in Zhang Zhun's hands, all other weapons except the Tiger Ben Gun were eliminated. At the same time, some changes were made to adapt to the shooting of the Tiger Hammer. The displacement of a standard Cangshan ship is only about 50 tons. However, after the research of Zhang Zhun and Xue Zhidie, it was decided to expand the volume of the Cangshan ship slightly, with a displacement of about 70 tons. This is more conducive to the shooting of the tiger and the horse.

There is a good reason why Zhang Zhun chose the Cangshan ship as the combat ship: first, the 50-material warship is relatively easy to build and the technology is relatively mature. With the technique mastered by Xue Zhidie, there is no difficulty at all. Second, the speed of construction is relatively fast. According to Xue Zhidie's estimate, such a Cangshan ship can be completed in about three months under the guarantee of manpower, material and financial resources. If you start building multiple ships at the same time, it will be faster. Third, it is easier to find the keel of the boat. For a warship, the keel is a very crucial element and must be made of the best wood possible.

The keel of a large ship requires a sturdy huge hardwood. The bigger the better, the longer the better, and the older the tree, the better. If there are trees that are more than three hundred years old, even better. Ordinary decades-old wood, if used to make keel, will not take long before it will be eroded by the sea and rot. However, hardwoods that are more than 300 years old are difficult to find in other places unless they are found in the deep mountains and old forests of eastern Liaodong. Because, this kind of hardwood is also the first choice for the rich and noble families to make coffins.

"Ants bite elephants to death."

"Wolf pack tactics."

These are the two basic principles of naval warfare that Zhang Chengcheng has established.

With the current economic strength and technical strength of Fushan City, whether it can build a large warship, not to mention for the time being, even if it is barely built, it is not applicable. Without a large number of skilled sailors and a large number of experienced commanders, it is impossible to run a large warship. It's like the power of a machine cannon is huge, but if you use it with a child, maybe the enemy won't hit it, and the recoil will kill you.

A large number of small boats, just enough to train a large number of sailors, a large number of commanders. In fact, the combat effectiveness of dozens of small warships is not necessarily worse than that of a large Fuship, and the key is the use of tactics. Moreover, from a strategic point of view, the Fushan Navy does not need large warships at present.

The main task of the Fushan Navy at the moment is still coastal defense, that is, to guard against the attacks of pirates. Therefore, there is no need for warships that are too large. On the contrary, considering the need for patrols and vigilance, the number of warships is more important. Otherwise, rotation is not possible. It's like escorting an escort in the Gulf of Aden in later generations, going to a 50,000-ton battleship is not as effective as going to fifteen 3,000-ton frigates.

According to Zhang Zhun's suggestion, each Cangshan ship is equipped with fifty tiger guns, and it is quite a powerful force in naval battles. For example, if there are three Cangshan ships, the pirate ship with the black iron head may not be able to escape. The wolf pack tactic, assaulting from three directions, is enough to take out that pirate ship. This is something that cannot be done by merchant ships such as pork belly ships. Pork belly ships are suitable for pulling goods and people, but they are really not suitable for combat.

The second is to determine the type of sail.

The choice of sail is a very crucial element of a warship.

"Do you use a hard sail or a soft sail?"

For this issue, Zhang Zhun and Xue Zhidie expressed their opinions and argued for a full day.

I don't know if you have noticed that there is a big difference between East Asian warships and Western warships in terms of sails when you play "Age of Discovery 4". The sails of Chinese sailing ships are straight up and down, like a wall. The sails of Western warships, however, were soft and bulging, large and small, at least dozens of pieces. That's the difference between a hard sail and a soft sail.

Historically, Chinese sailing ships have mostly used hard sails, which are generally woven from thin bamboo strips or cattail leaves. The benefits of a hard sail are its high overall efficiency, the ability to rotate around the mast, and the ability to fully utilize wind in all directions. Compared to soft sails per unit area, hard sails are much more efficient for wind power than soft sails. Generally speaking, a hard sail is faster than a soft sail with the same wind force.

However, the disadvantages of hard sails are also very obvious. Since the hard sails are joined together, they cannot be hung separately and must be raised and lowered in one piece. Therefore, the weight of the hard sail is generally larger, and the larger the sail, the heavier the sail, and some large ships even "cannot move without hundreds of people". For this reason, the area of the hard sail should not be too large, otherwise people will not be able to pull it. The height of the mast should not be too high, otherwise the strength of the mast will be affected. Otherwise, the soft sail would not have any advantage over it.

The soft sails of Western ships had to be built very high because of the low overall efficiency of the sail surface, and the mast was too high, which brought about the strength of the mast. In order to increase the strength of the mast, it is necessary to tie numerous ropes to the mast to enhance the strength of the mast. In this way, the sail surface cannot rotate around the mast like a Chinese hard sail, and he cannot use part of the wind, even if he uses it, and because it is a soft sail, the utilization efficiency is extremely low.

Therefore, the highest efficiency of the soft sail is the downwind time, at this time its efficiency per unit area is comparable to that of the hard sail, but the soft sail due to the light weight, its area can be very large (some up to 6000 square meters or more), so the thrust that can be obtained when the downwind is far more than the hard sail, can also drive larger boats. Even taking into account the headwinds encountered during sailing, Western sailing ships have finally defeated the unit area efficiency of Chinese sailing ships with the total area of sails, and the speed has a clear advantage, especially the ultimate speed.

Of course, in modern times, except for those sailboats built for tourism, the sails used on cargo ships to save energy have all been hard sails, but modern hard sails are made of aluminum alloy materials, fully computer-controlled hard sails. It seems that the ancient clever Chinese discovered the shortcomings of soft sails early, and abandoned the soft sailing ships in favor of efficient hard sails, these greatly advanced consciousness, but due to the backwardness of science and technology at that time, and failed to form a de facto advantage...... However, in history, Western sailing ships surpassed Chinese sailing ships in terms of comprehensive surname, after the Westerners introduced the Arabian spinnaker and used the Yanfan to solve the problem of low efficiency of the crosssail under crosswind. In China's South Seas region, there are often original Arab sailing ships, so Xue Zhidie knows a lot about Arab sailing ships. Otherwise, with the little knowledge of sailing that Zhang Zhun mastered, it would not be enough to greatly improve the sailing ship.

The final verdict is:

Continue to use the stiff sail and at the same time add a spinnaker for auxiliary at the top of the mast.

The third is the question of whether to introduce a watertight cabin.

Another problem of Chinese sailing ships is the problem of gun positions and defense, but both of these problems are caused by one reason, that is, the design of the water trap that is nearly a thousand years ahead of the world. Because if the whole ship does not have a water storage compartment, then it only needs an opening to lift the goods into the warehouse, and then fill the warehouse by moving the position of the goods. But if there were water compartments, it would have to be opened in each compartment to fill the whole ship, so there would be several openings in the deck, and every floor, so that a considerable number of gun emplacements would be lost.

Because there are partitions of compartments to support the structure, Chinese sailing ships are either not used ribs or very little when they are built, while Western sailing ships do not have compartments to support the structure, so a large number of ribs are used, especially for warships, almost one after another, these ribs provide a good defensive effect, so the rate of warships being sunk in the naval battles of the Age of Discovery is very small, and most of them are captured. Chinese sailing ships, on the other hand, are relatively easy to penetrate because they use less ribs, and the damage caused by cannonballs will be much greater than that of Western sailing ships.

By the 17th century, the damage caused by artillery in naval battles had become more and more significant. In large-scale naval battles, artillery is continuous, and shells are flying. Therefore, the stronger the warship, the better. Zhang Zhun decided to reuse ribs on Chinese sailing boats, and the Arabian sailing ship was the best reference point. As for the watertight cabin, this cannot be both.

(To be continued)