Chapter 333 Sea Sparrow-class fast communication ship

[After going out to play for a day, I was a little tired, but I remembered that there were still more than fifteen thousand brothers waiting for the update, so the cruiser had to get up and update a chapter (∩_∩)]

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With the safe arrival of the Pacific Trading Company's European fleet in Tianjin, the ups and downs of this journey finally came to an end.

The two huge battleships could not enter the Haihe River to reach Beijing, so they could only anchor at Tianjinwei. The vicinity of the wharf attracted many ordinary people to stop and watch, and it was the first time they had seen such a huge Western warship.

Navy Minister Chen Yaoming and relevant naval officials held a grand welcoming ceremony in Tianjinwei to welcome Rear Admiral Yang Chen's safe return of the two battleships.

Prior to this, the shipbuilding technicians escorted by Yang Chen, as well as a large number of European scientists and scholars who had been abducted and kidnapped, had arrived four months earlier.

They traveled through the Mediterranean, via the Suez region to the Red Sea by land, and then returned home on ships of the Imperial Suez Company under the escort of the Imperial Navy.

The reason why they went separately like this was because Yang Chen judged that the Spaniards would not let them go back to China lightly. In fact, Yang Chen's worries were not superfluous, and the Mexican governor, at the instigation of Fernando, was also jealous of the huge wealth of the Pacific Trading Company, so he sent a Mexican fleet to intercept it halfway, intending to grab this huge wealth.

To this end, the Mexican fleet used thirty-two fourth-class battleships, as well as a large number of fast frigates and schooners.

However, there were colonies and fleets of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and other countries in the Caribbean, and as soon as the Mexican fleet moved, the fleets of other countries became clear, so the entire Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and even the entire Atlantic soon learned that the Spanish were preparing to rob the Chinese merchant fleet.

None of the countries were at ease, and they were ready to take advantage of the Spaniards' looting, and they would also get a piece of the pie. As a result, the detachments of various countries in Central and South America also kept an eye on the movements of the Mexican fleet.

However, to their disappointment, Yang Chen took the merchant fleet to Africa, making their efforts in vain.

The Dutch were most fond of looting, and were especially interested in treasure fleets. The Dutch East India Company was amassing warships and mercenary armies around the world in preparation for the recovery of the Dutch East Indies, as well as Dutch Guinea.

The Dutch East India Company was undoubtedly quite powerful, at least they were very wealthy and could recruit the officers and sailors they needed from all over the world. Officers pay directly to hire retired officers, and even those in the active navies of various countries who are making extra money. In today's world, except for the navy of the Chinese Empire, which is professional, the navies of other countries are mercenary, all of them recruit sailors from the civilian population, and they can fight with a little training.

It has been two centuries since the Great European Voyages, and since the end of the Dark Ages of the Middle Ages, the basic education in Europe has improved considerably, so that although sailors are recruited from the civilian population, there is no doubt that these civilian sailors can become good naval soldiers with a little training. This gap has been caught up by the Chinese Empire, but basic education obviously takes time.

The Dutch government was in a hot fight in Europe with the Spanish troops stationed in the north of the Netherlands and was unable to help the Dutch East India Company. Moreover, this time the Dutch East India Company provoked public anger, and was besieged by the armies of seven countries, including the Chinese Empire, and the Dutch government now needed the support of the British, French, Swiss, and Norwegian governments in Europe to obtain Dutch independence, so under the pressure of these four countries, the Dutch government no longer cared about the affairs of the East India Company.

The Dutch East India Company was temporarily unable to get help from the government, so it could only rely on its own strength. The Dutch East and West Indian Companies decided to mobilize all their forces to recover the Dutch East Indies.

The two companies mobilized a large number of warships and mercenaries from all over the world, mostly on the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

When Yang Chen escorted the merchant fleet of the Pacific Trading Company past the Cape of Good Hope, he encountered one of the Dutch fleets.

The two sides were entangled for nearly half a month, and because the Dutch fleet did not have a battleship that could match the two battleships in Dingzhen, several exchanges of fire were expelled by the powerful firepower of the second ship in Dingzhen. But the Dutch have been following from afar, and Yang Chen has tried several times but can't get rid of them. The Dutch entangled, and soon more Dutch battleships were waiting. Yang Chen knew that he couldn't delay it any longer, so that when the Dutch had a certain number of warships, his escort fleet would not be able to protect the caravan.

Just when Yang Chen and Li De were worried, the rainy season in the Indian Ocean suddenly came, so Yang Chen took advantage of a heavy rainstorm to change his route and detour to Australia.

However, the Dutch were smart and didn't lose it. In order to obtain this fleet full of wealth, the Dutch forgot the purpose of their visit to the Far East and devoted themselves to the encirclement of the fleet of the Pacific Trading Company.

Yang Chen had no choice but to let the fleet go first, and he led the escort fleet to the rear of the palace. Just as the two sides were preparing for a big battle, the Pacific Fleet arrived in time, and the Dutch, seeing the Pacific Fleet coming, knew that they could not capture this treasure fleet. The Dutch East India Company's main enemy at present was not the Chinese Empire, so the Dutch finally abandoned the raid.

After Deng Haonan in the capital learned the whole story, he greatly appreciated Yang Chen's performance in Europe, and personally awarded him the first-class Jiahe Medal.

The Cabinet didn't care about what warships and shipbuilders, they only cared about the gold and silver bricks brought back by the European caravans of the Pacific Trading Company.

"There should be no opposition to the construction of the Suez Canal by now."

In the imperial study, Deng Haonan asked Qian Qianyi with a smile.

Qian Qianyi also had a smile on his face, and said: "The gold and silver that Emperor Shengming transported back this time can be preliminarily estimated to mint more than 200 million silver dollars, and now that the finances are rich, counting the income of the colony, there are 300 million silver dollars that can be directly transferred. If you take into account the central bank's reserves in various places, the empire can use half a billion silver dollars. This was unthinkable before."

Of course, Deng Haonan was surprised by the terrible financial management ability of the former Chaoming. In the huge Ming Dynasty, the central government's annual finances are only less than four million taels of silver, and it has made people angry and resentful, which is really unbelievable.

"With this large amount of money, the empire can do whatever it wants in the future"

Deng Haonan shook his head and said, "You can't put so much money into the people all at once."

Qian Qianyi asked suspiciously: "Shu Weichen is puzzled and dares to ask the emperor why is this?" ”

Deng Haonan said: "Most of this money is obtained from overseas, and so much money is put into the private sector, which will inevitably cause inflation and depreciation of silver coins."

Qian Qianyi nodded, he also understood some things in this regard, so he said: "What the emperor said is that this fund will not be put into the private sector all at once, and the cabinet will use it prudently." ”

Deng Haonan smiled faintly.

Qian Qianyi saw that Deng Haonan seemed to have an idea, so he asked, "The emperor has a clever plan"

Deng Haonan nodded and said, "I naturally thought of a plan."

He continued: "You can put the money in the colonies, or trade with the countries of Southeast Asia, as long as you exchange the materials from them, you can control it."

"The Emperor Shengming"

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The Imperial Chinese Navy has more than 480 warships of various types, most of which are small-tonnage frigates with one gun deck, which are mainly used for territorial defense, coastal smuggling, anti-piracy, expelling foreign ships, and escorting the imperial merchant fleet.

By the summer of the third year of Shenwu, about 300 frigates had been commissioned. At the same time, the Royal Navy is constantly renovating and maintaining the existing frigates at a rate of 20 frigates per year.

Cruisers larger than frigates used to be the main warships of the Imperial Royal Navy, but with the large-scale construction of the Beiyun-class fourth-class sail battleships and the Sea-Lion-class third-class sail battleships, and after their successive commissioning, the cruisers have withdrawn from the first line of the imperial navy's capital ships and retreated to the second line, becoming a special existence that cruises the oceans, shows off the maritime power of the Chinese Empire, and maintains influence around the world.

The Purpose Empire has more than 80 cruisers, except for 20 as the defense force of the home fleet, the remaining 60 or so cruisers have been dispatched to all parts of the world to patrol the four oceans of the world, so that the dragon flag of the Chinese Empire will fly in the eyes of all countries in the world.

These cruisers were organized into small detachments, with a maximum of five cruisers and at least one cruiser to loitering independently.

While showing the military presence of the Chinese Empire, they were also on a mission. Their mission was to provide the necessary armed protection for Imperial merchant ships passing through the nearby seas, or to provide intelligence to the Imperial fleet, or to conduct colonial wars on their own.

Of course, this is all because the global communication is so bad that it sometimes takes months or even a year and a half to get a piece of news. In many cases, strategic deployment failures or missed opportunities are caused by backward intelligence.

The Imperial Navy sent these cruisers to the oceans around the world to know the latest strategic developments in the world. These cruisers do not lightly wage war against sovereign states, but they can wage colonial wars against backward tribes and uncultivated areas.

The Empire allowed these roaming navies to colonize and plunder, rob lone passing merchant fleets, and even establish colonial strongholds in uncultivated areas around the world.

In its policy towards these naval warships, the Empire offered them lucrative terms. In addition to the normal salaries and benefits paid by the Imperial Government, the Empire stipulated that eighty percent of the money they plundered abroad belonged to themselves, and two percent was used to hand over to the national treasury.

Originally, Emperor Deng Haonan was not prepared to ask them for these two percent of the plundering wealth, but the cabinet and the military department believed that they needed to pay for the wear and tear of the warships, and at the same time let them pay taxes, indicating that the imperial government had always supported their actions, and together with them, they shared the consequences of looting, including causing wars and military conflicts.

Although the European powers discovered the major continents and oceans on the earth, the continents and oceans were too large, and they now actually controlled less than one-third of the area. Therefore, at this time, it is a good time to grab territory with the Chinese Empire, and if they wait until they change their breath, then the expansion of territory will basically have to be solved by force.

The Empire's cruiser formations were mainly located in the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and African coastal areas, as these areas were populous and easy to plunder. At the same time, the European powers focused more on North Africa and the American continent, and it was not easy to collide directly with them.

In the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, the Empire will also send some warships to cruise, but only under the banner of friendship, running over to spy on intelligence, and at the same time, the naval warships will also carry some cargo in exchange for some funds.

Among the capital ships of the navies of European countries, cruisers and frigates are classified as non-capital ships, that is, second-line substitutes. Most of the main naval warships of the European powers were fourth- to second-class battleships, and a few powerful countries were equipped with first-class battleships.

Today, the countries of Europe felt threatened by the battleships of the first class built by Britain and France, so they rushed to build battleships of the first class, and even warships with more guns. In addition to some second-rate naval powers in Europe, cruisers are also used as the main warships, and in the navies of the powerful countries, cruisers have become second-line capital ships.

On the capital ships, the Imperial Royal Navy already has twenty Beiyun-class fourth-class sail battleships and twenty Sea-Lion-class third-class sail battleships. As for the cruisers, they have withdrawn from the main fleet and, like the frigates, have entered the second line and are specialized in guerrilla warfare.

In this way, the navy of the Chinese Empire has officially entered the ranks of world-class naval powers from a second-rate naval power in terms of equipment. As for whether it can become a first-class navy, it still needs to be tested in actual combat.

The Sea-Lion-class third-class battleships have already entered service, but the Soaring-Eagle-class third-class battleships have not entered service for a long time.

After almost four years, the construction of the Eagle-class battleship has been dragging on. It's not that the workers and technicians don't work hard, but the first time a steel-hulled battleship is built, there are always some kinds of problems.

The engineers started with a small two-hundred-ton hull and gradually experimented with it until it reached 800 tons. But when the tonnage was increased to more than 1,000 tons, the design and strength of the gun deck made it impossible for the existing riveting process to keep up.

In this way, the progress of the Falcon-class battleship was once again stuck.

However, because of the 800-ton steel hull, although it did not meet the requirements of a large battleship, it could be used as a hull for frigates.

At this time, because the construction of the flying scissor bow matured, the sailing speed of the 800-ton hull soared, and the speed reached 20 knots at full speed, exceeding the average wind speed of the global ocean for the first time.

At this time, Deng Haonan was annoyed by the long time it took to gather intelligence and transmit information around the world. The Admiralty was well aware of the Emperor's ideas and was therefore inclined to create a fleet of fast communications.

The Admiralty's idea quickly reached the grassroots level, and some of the shipyard's designers came up with the idea of creating a fast fleet of ships based on the steel-hulled hull of the scissor bow.

The Sea Sparrow-class fast communication ships are designed and built based on these mature conditions.

The Sea Sparrow-class fast communication ship includes a total length of 59 meters, a width of 13.7 meters, a draft of 7 meters, a mainmast height of 48 meters, a steel-hulled hull, and a displacement of 620 tons. Four-masted Western soft sails enhance the ability to eat the wind. Increase speed. The mainmast is hung with five crosssails, the rear mast is hung with a triangular longitudinal sail, the diamast is hung with a seven-sided triangular steering sail, the flying scissor bow, the large ramming angle design, the high freeboard wave protection design, and the trapezoidal stern.

The middle three-storey battlement building, with a capacity of 150 people, a maximum speed of 20 knots, a standard cruising speed of 15~17 knots, and a battery life of 8 months.

In terms of firepower, the Sea Sparrow communication ship was not used as a combat ship, so the gun deck design was abandoned. Due to the successful development of the army's new breech gun at this time, Deng Haonan proposed a bold new ship design at this time, that is, a pair of fixed rotating turrets were set up in front and behind the horizontal deck.

Since the Sea Sparrow communication ship has a steel-hulled hull, engineers can install rotating turrets on it.

In this way, the Sea Sparrow-class communication ship installed a 150-mm Shenmu cannon on each of the two horizontal decks in the front and rear.

The naval gun was installed with an anti-recoil device, so it could be fixed on the casemate. The turret, on the other hand, uses a rotating mechanism, and the artillerymen rotate the turret to achieve fire from different angles.

The design of the rotating turret allowed the Imperial Navy to achieve a huge overhaul in the design of warships and the doctrine of operations. This will have a huge impact on the Imperial Navy, and indeed the world's navies, accelerating the pace of progress of the world's navies. At the same time, it also allows the Chinese Imperial Navy to go to the world, and the navies of all countries around the world will follow it, and the Chinese Imperial Navy will slowly move towards the leading position of the world's navy, and will continue to do so.

The Sea Sparrow-class communication ship, except for the soft sails invented by the Westerners, has no Western shadow on the hull, and all of them are Oriental-style structural designs. For example, the unique oriental design of the broad-ship, flying scissor bow, and long hull with a large impact angle has canceled the way of arranging guns on the side of the side, and has changed to a rotating turret, which can be used for all-round shooting, and the front and rear turrets respond to each other, and there is no shooting blind spot.

The all-steel hull makes it difficult for enemy shells to damage the hull, and the speed of 20 knots is beyond the reach of the navies of all countries.

However, the only drawback is that the Sea Sparrow-class fast communication ship can only be used for reconnaissance and message transmission, and in a naval battle, she can not seriously damage enemy ships with only two 150mm naval guns.

Of course, if you wait until the Xiangying-class battleships complete the riveting technique of the side gun doors, then a qiē will change.

However, compared to the construction of wooden sail warships, after using an all-steel hull, the cost of a single Sea Sparrow-class communication ship reached an astonishing 1.3 million silver dollars, which is equivalent to building a third-class battleship.

Fortunately, the Empire had enough money to spend on this, so when the Cabinet asked the Admiralty to increase the budget for the construction of Sea Sparrow-class communication ships, they all generously agreed.

In this way, the budget for the first batch of 10 Sea Sparrow-class fast communication ships was approved, and the construction was carried out by seven shipyards across the country, which is expected to be completed by the end of the third year of Shenwu and officially join the service of the Imperial Navy in the spring of the fourth year of Shenwu.

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The situation in Southeast Asia has changed in a new way, and the Dutch East India Company has summoned the West India Company to increase the number of troops to the Dutch East Indies by 50,000 troops and sent more than 100 warships, including battleships, which has made the situation in Southeast Asia tense.

Of the 50,000 troops, 12,000 were Dutch regulars, which the Dutch government secretly sent to appease the East India Company. At this time, the Netherlands had less than 200,000 troops on its own, and it was already difficult to cope with the Spanish army, and it was already the limit to be able to send 12,000 soldiers to the Far East.

The remaining 38,000 soldiers were mercenaries recruited from all over the world, including the Spaniards. Of course, these Spaniards don't have a sense of statehood, and whoever gives the money for how long is up to whom.

Originally, the Dutch East India Fleet still had about sixty or so cruisers, but this time the East India Headquarters sent a strong lineup, including twenty third-class battleships, forty fourth-class battleships, and fifty cruisers, so that the number of warships in the Dutch East India Fleet surged to one hundred and seventy, not including up to two hundred frigates and schooners of various kinds.

For a time, the dominance of Southeast Asia returned to the Dutch.

In the Dutch East Indies, the armies of the East India Company of Britain, France, Sweden, Norway, and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Spanish participating armies, were shocked by the actions of the Dutch.

They never imagined that the Dutch would go so far as to give up all their possessions for an East Indies.

After the Dutch army was reinforced in Batavia, the commanders of the six armies in the Dutch East Indies knew that they could not fight the Dutch on their own, so they gave up their turf rivalry and turned hostile to the Dutch.

At the same time, in addition to the Spaniards, the governors of the East India Company of the other five countries sent envoys to Luzon and Beijing to request assistance from the Chinese Imperial Government.

At this time, the Chinese Empire occupied ninety percent of the Southeast Asian archipelago, most of which were Dutch. Therefore, the imperial government was nervous about this, and agreed to the request of the East India Company of the Five Nations, willing to increase troops in Southeast Asia and help them deal with the Dutch.

However, to the surprise of the Imperial Government, the Dutch sent people to Beijing to seek peace with the Imperial Government.

In the imperial study, Deng Haonan looked at the report submitted by the Ministry of Rites, and couldn't guess what the Dutch thought.

"What do you think?"

The Ministry of Rites Shangshu Chengji replied: "According to Weichen's judgment, the Dutch should first pacify the empire, then concentrate on clearing the power of the other six countries in Southeast Asia, and finally have a showdown with the empire."

Deng Haonan nodded and said, "But the Dutch recognize the Empire's control over the existing occupied areas, which is very beneficial to the Empire's future actions."

In order to prevent the Chinese Empire from intervening in the war in Southeast Asia, the Dutch proposed to recognize the sovereignty of the Chinese Empire over the Philippines and sovereignty over Kalimantan Island, Singapore, Papua and other areas actually occupied. E