Chapter 911: Amphibious Corps

The northern part of Chuzhou is almost within the scope of the Tianhe River Basin, including Poyang Mansion, Guangling Mansion, Dongchang Mansion, if you count Yangzhou Mansion in the northwest of Yangzhou, these four prefectures almost occupy half of the Tianhe River section.

From the big lake of Poyang Mansion, eight thousand miles of Poyang Sea, all the way down the river, you can reach the Taihu Lake of Yangzhou Mansion, which is almost a golden road on the water, although because of the war, the Tianhe waterway was once deserted, but with the Xuanwu Naval Army of the Great Chu Kingdom gradually controlling this section of the river, the Tianhe water transport has begun to restore the prosperity of the past.

In the many towns along the lake around Taihu Lake, the shipbuilding industry, which has begun to expand since last year, has entered the stage of abundant ships, and the jungle giant trees cut down from the Jinhe River basin have gone north along the Xiqian Lake and entered the Taihu Lake through the Songjiang River, and these giant trees are all timber for building large and medium-sized warships.

Because of the sudden increase in shipyards around the Taihu Lake, the entire waterway was blocked by giant trees floating north, which shows how many boats have been built in the Taihu Lake area.

Originally, a series of towns around the Taihu Lake area had a very developed shipbuilding industry, because it was once the most prosperous body of water in Yangzhou, but the temporary loneliness of the Tianhe water transport led to a significant reduction in merchant ships on the Taihu Lake, which made it difficult for some shipyards to continue.

However, just when some shipyards could no longer support it, and even some of them had been abandoned and suspended, and the weeds in the dock were high, Nangong Lie appeared, and the Nangong family successively acquired 12 shipyards, and began to expand the scale of the dock, and began to hoard materials for large-scale shipbuilding.

The Nangong family has an unparalleled influence in Yangzhou City, and after marrying the Leng family in Chuzhou, the Nangong family's wealth is even thicker, although it has obviously parted ways with the empire, but in Yangzhou, the influence of the Nangong family has not decreased at all.

Nangong Lie's actions quickly attracted the attention of many people, and some families who were good friends with the Nangong family simply came to interrogate, while those who couldn't reach the table started from other aspects, in short, cats have cat holes, and rats have rats.

In this regard, Nangong Lie has nothing to hide, because what his cheap son-in-law gave him is how many boats to eat, of course, this is also a restriction on the type of ship, and in the end, as long as the quality is passed, there is no problem at all.

Many people don't believe it, and many people believe it, and some people believe that it is enough, so the towns around Taihu Lake that were still deserted before began to get busy.

What really made the Taihu Lake area crazy was the large order thrown by Nangong Lie, which was a list of large ships left after removing his share of the Nangong family, large, medium, and small, from warships to transport ships, including several ship types, Nangong Lie tendered according to Leng Zhuo's method.

And after Nangong Lie made it clear that this was only the first batch of orders, the entire Taihu Lake area was detonated, shipbuilding is not a simple assembly, but a large-scale factory involving many aspects, and it is also a manifestation of the strength of a country, and Yangzhou is undoubtedly the richest place in the Tianlong Empire, and it is also one of the most developed areas in the shipbuilding industry.

Shipbuilding requires qualifications, but there are still a lot of cakes in this industry, such as wood processing, such as a variety of items needed on a ship, in short, this is an industrial chain, the rise of shipbuilding, directly led to the economy around the Taihu Lake area has gone downhill.

As the shipbuilding cycle in the Taihu Lake area entered the right track, the successive building ships that may take three to five months also began to be launched, and after the test, these warships and even transport ships left the mouth of Taihu Lake and went to Chuzhou for reorganization.

After the Xiangyang Legion was reorganized into the Xuanwu Legion, the entire legion embarked on the direction of amphibious warfare, to put it bluntly, even the landlubbers in the legion also had to get on the ship for simple water combat training, adapt to the swing of the warship, and learn to swim.

Originally, the Xuanwu Corps was divided into two parts: the naval army and the army, but with the new direction of army building, the two were also merged, and the Xuanwu Corps was expanded into eight amphibious divisions, each of which had enough warships and transport ships to transport all the troops of the entire division.

According to this requirement, in the calculation of a battalion unit, one small building boat is needed, two flying fish, two war sharks, two boats and two ships, and two transport ships that can transport soldiers, war horses, and baggage, and at the same time, the building boat will also carry eight grasshopper flying boats, and there are about 20 large and small boats combined.

A brigade is still composed of 10 battalions, but in the brigade, there are two water battalions directly under the brigade and regiment, with three large building ships, six medium-sized building ships, and 12 transport ships, but these two battalions belong to the reinforced battalion, and one battalion has 800 people.

On the basis of the brigade, the division above the brigade has an additional super warship, five large building ships, equipped with various types of flying fish, a number of boats, and a fleet of more than 50 transport ships.

In this way, the number of a division and regiment has reached an unprecedented 30,000, the maximum number of people in a water battle can reach 18,000, and in the case of a landing battle, the maximum number can reach 20,000.

The entire division has one super warship (up to 800 people and 300 tons of supplies), 20 large building warships (can carry 500 people and 200 tons of materials), 30 medium-sized warships (can carry 300 people and 150 tons of cargo), and 50 small warships (can carry 200 people and 100 tons of cargo).

There were 150 flying fish, 150 war sharks, 200 boats, 200 ships, 500 grasshopper boats, 120 baggage transport ships, and 1,421 ships in the whole division.

The Xuanwu Legion has eight amphibious divisions under its jurisdiction, and these alone are enough for tens of thousands of shipbuilders, not to mention that this is only what the Xuanwu Legion needs, and the Qinglong Legion under the jurisdiction of Zhou Yu after the reorganization also has such an amphibious combat division, and in addition, the transport ships are even more huge.

And such a huge shipbuilding plan, the shipyard around Taihu Lake can't bear it, but after many diverts, it still detonates Taihu Lake, so you can imagine how crazy Leng Zhuo's shipbuilding plan is.

And what can support Leng Zhuo's madness is because Leng Zhuo controls the financial machine of Ping An Bank, so that he doesn't need to worry about lack of money at all, as long as Leng Zhuo still controls Chuzhou, he doesn't need to worry about his economy not being able to support it.

However, such a huge plan, if you want to complete it completely, it is obviously not overnight, the soldiers need to be trained, the warship needs time to be built, and then it needs to be run-in, if you want to form combat effectiveness, don't think about it every three or five years, fortunately, as on the river today, the Xuanwu Army is a dominant one, and the naval division of the Tang Army is now more and more not an opponent.

Time is in a hurry, summer has passed in a blink of an eye, the cool heat in September has not been relieved by the fall of the autumn rain, the autumn tiger in October is still full of might, Dongchang Mansion, an inconspicuous Tianhe inlet, here has become an important place to garrison, the surrounding area has been fully martial law, and stationed here is the strength of two water battalions, which is such a small inlet that did not even have a wharf before, it is already a big battle.

"It's so heavy, I really don't know which soldiers and horses are this way!" Standing on the deck of a small building warship from afar, looking at the row of vague figures in the distance by the moonlight, I could faintly feel a trace of coolness, this was not the coolness of the evening breeze, but the chill that made people's hearts creep.

"It doesn't matter where he came from, it's only right to send this army across the river quickly!" The person who spoke was Lu Chanyue's third brother, who was regarded as a small commander, and the commander belonged to a temporary title, between the battalion captain and the brigade commander, usually leading two to four battalions, and the highest commander of the force appointed to command could be called the commander, in fact, this was also a manifestation of more flexible operations.

More than 1,000 soldiers and horses have boarded five double-decker transport ships, this kind of transport ships are not divided into small compartments, in the upper two floors, almost connected large space, the environment is not good, but it is a good choice for short-distance transportation of troops.

The two battalions escorted the five transport boats under the cover of night, slowly left the water village and sailed into the wide surface of the Tianhe River, where the moonlight shone on the river, shining with layers of light.

"Lord Commander, are you going to carry out a large-scale attack on Zhongzhou?"

"Who knows, there is no order from above, but it seems that it should be very likely, October is the harvest season, if you enter Zhongzhou at this time and stir up a mess, it will be a big weakening for Li Tang, and the boss should not let go of this opportunity!"

"But this army of more than 1,000 people, what is the use of going north, we have attacked several times this year, and now the Tang army is sharp, building beacon towers along the Tianhe, plus the soldiers and horses stationed everywhere, it doesn't work if there are fewer soldiers and horses, it is easy to be surrounded and killed!"

"This army should be a lot of ordinary soldiers and horses, I think it should be the elite of the army, I just looked at it from a distance before I could feel that kind of sky-high aura, I think the small cavalry of the Tang Army can't help them!"

"I hope so, since Li Tang conquered Youzhou and connected with the Hu people in the north, Li Tang has a large number of cavalry under his command, if it is too far away from the river bank, we will all suffer a big loss, this Li Tang is really our old enemy!"

"Hmph, although Li Tang is strong, he can't cross this Tianhe, it's not that he can only defend passively, speaking of which, we still take advantage, the Tang Army has spent a lot of strength and used a lot of soldiers and horses in order to guard against us, but it's not that it can't be guarded against, waiting for the completion of the reorganization of our Xuanwu Legion, that's when we can show our skills!"