After asking Zhuge Liang, Liu Hou asked Guan Gong again: "Second uncle, what is the movement on the Dongwu side now?" Also, to what extent is the construction of our naval army progressing now? ”

"Your Majesty, since the last battle at the mouth of the Youjiang River, Dongwu has made an iron chain on the river, known as an iron lock across the river, and later has successively made a lot of things that block the passage of ships, and even made some reefs out of the river, so it is really a bit troublesome to attack Dongwu from the waterway now."

Liu Hou's heart sank when he heard this, it seems that this Lu Xun is not a vegetarian, and even the artificial reef has been made. But it doesn't matter, Liu Hou took a boat from Chengdu to Jingzhou, and he didn't know how many reefs he blew up along the way, and he was not afraid of even the natural big reefs, and these artificial buildings were not enough to see.

"Oh, it seems that the people of Dongwu are not very stupid, and they can think of these methods. But it doesn't matter, just get some underwater bombs and blow up all these annoying things. Liu Houdao.

"As for our naval army, there are now about five hundred ships, of which two are super warships, five are large warships, fifty are medium warships, and the rest are small warships. In addition, there are 100,000 soldiers in Jingzhou, and after this period of training, all of them are now good at water warfare," Guan Gong continued.

After listening to Guan Gong's introduction, Liu Hou couldn't help but be disappointed, after doing so long, Shu Han's naval army only has 500 ships, and most of them are small ships, so this little strength has a use for wool?

"Why so little?" Liu Hou was taken aback and blurted out.

Since Guan Gong was originally a red-faced man, it was impossible to tell if his face had turned red because of shame, but listening to his tone of voice was a little embarrassed: "Your Majesty, this, this is also something that cannot be helped."

Now it is really difficult to hire shipbuilders, it is said that good shipbuilders are monopolized by the Soochow people, and the rest are either old and weak, or they are not skilled. If it weren't for His Majesty's insight and talent, he gathered a large number of Cai clansmen, including many shipbuilders and former naval generals, our naval army would not be able to have this scale now. ”

After Guan Gong's reminder, Liu Hou remembered that outside the "Zuixiang Building" in Xiangyang, he met some ragged homeless people, and the person headed by him was Cai Ban, who was a member of the Cai clan and Cai Mao's relatives.

At that time, these people wanted to take refuge in Shu Han, so Liu Hou asked Cai Ban to contact the Cai clansmen who knew shipbuilding and water warfare to serve the Shu Han naval army. After such a long time, I didn't expect them to really play a big role.

Although he knew that this was an objective reason, Liu Hou still couldn't be satisfied, although with firearms, it was no problem for these five hundred warships to defeat the Dongwu naval army, but it was difficult to prevent them from scattering and escaping into the complex water network and the vast Yunmengze.

It can be expected that in the battle with the Soochow naval army, because the naval army is too small, it will not be able to achieve an overwhelming advantage in the battle, let alone intercept it everywhere, so it can only concentrate its combat strength and fight a decisive battle with their main force.

Even if they could defeat the main force of the Eastern Wu naval army, they would not dare to disperse the pursuit of the enemy who fled everywhere, so that the generals of Eastern Wu and their regime would most likely be exiled in Yunmengze or the East China Sea.

At that time, it was the beginning of the nightmare of the people along the Yunmengze coast and the East China Sea. Liu Hou will never allow this kind of thing to happen, which also means that now Shu Han must vigorously develop the water army.

"Your Majesty, in fact, in addition to the issue of craftsmen, there is also an important issue that is the issue of shipbuilding materials." Guan Gong continued.

"Oh? What's wrong with shipbuilding materials? I heard that Gao Ding got a lot of precious timber in Jiaozhou and sold it to the Central Plains, if there is a shortage of timber for shipbuilding, the second uncle might as well send someone to contact him and ask him to cut down some good timber and send it to Jingzhou to build a ship for the second uncle. When Liu Hou heard Guan Gong mention the material problem, he remembered Gao Ding, who was engaged in the slave business and timber business in Jiaozhou.

"Your Majesty, Gao Dingyuan is in Jiaozhou, the mountains are high and the roads are far away, the transportation is difficult, and the transportation cost is also astronomical. At present, he mainly transports timber by sea. Timber can only be transported to coastal areas by sea. The coastline south of the Yangtze River was under the control of Soochow, so Gaoding's timber could only be transported to the area north of the Yangtze River for sale.

There are also a small number of people who travel north by land through Lingnan. No matter what kind of transportation, it is extremely expensive and consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. In particular, in order to guard against the Soochow naval forces in the coastal waters, they could only sail far from the coastline. And the sea is full of dangers, and the road is long, and it is easy to encounter danger.

The second uncle often heard that there were cases of transport ships encountering wind and waves or hitting rocks, resulting in ship destruction and death. Therefore, Gaoding's Jiaozhou timber is sold very expensive, and if they are used to build warships on a large scale, I am afraid that the imperial court will not be able to afford it at all.

Therefore, most of our shipbuilding is based on local materials. The types of wood we often use are: fir, pine, cypress, teak, elm, red wood, camphor wood, nanmu, catalpa, catalpa, oak, cypress, etc. Most of this timber can be cut nearby.

Although the local timber is not as good as the timber in Jiaozhou, as long as it is handled properly, it can still be used. The key is that these nearby timber can be mined in large quantities, the mining cost is very low, and the mining time is also very short. ”

When Guan Gong said this, Liu Houcai suddenly realized that the wood in Gaoding was taken the high-end route. His timber was mined by slaves, although the mining cost was not high, but the transportation cost was very high, and the value of the timber increased by I don't know how many times after it was transported to the Central Plains.

In this way, his timber naturally has to be sold for a high price in order to recoup the cost. Therefore, these timbers can only be sold to those dignitaries to make exquisite mahogany furniture, and it is impossible to use them to build warships, otherwise the cost of a warship will be astronomical.

The timber mined by Guan Gong locally, although not as good as those Jiaozhou mahogany, is cheap enough. Don't forget that it is still a world with a very high rate of greenery, and there are large~large~ woods and even forests everywhere.

If you want wood, just cut it down, there is absolutely no Greenpeace bubble to block it, and no one will jump out and say that this forest is mine, and if you want to cut down the tree, you have to pay for it.

Therefore, if you want a lot of wood, the only condition you need is to have enough manpower. And manpower, is there a shortage of Guan Guild? What is Guan Gong's identity? Guan Gong is a general stationed in Jingzhou, with 100,000 elite soldiers in his hands, and has jurisdiction over a vast area, with millions of people in his jurisdiction.

He wants manpower, as long as he sticks a paper order out, even if he doesn't recruit the people, the next military order can be done by the soldiers, anyway, he can do whatever he likes, and there are a lot of people for him to recruit.

Of course, in order for these people to work, they still need food, and they can not be paid, but they still need to be supplied. As the saying goes, the emperor is not short of hungry soldiers, and it would be too unkind if you wanted people to work and not include food.

Therefore, if you want people to work and want wood, in the final analysis, it is a question of whether there is enough food. As long as there is food, you can find people to cut down the trees, and you can find people to transport the trees back.

Thinking of this, Liu Hou couldn't help asking: "Second uncle, is it because there is not enough food, so you can't recruit enough people and cut down enough wood?" ”