The fastest and most convenient way to get from Jinling City to Shanghai is to take a boat all the way down the river.
Naturally, Chen Lifu was not immune to the vulgarities, so he set off by boat!
Originally, Chen Lifu also thought about traveling in his own boat, but he gave up the idea. Although his own boat was more luxurious and comfortable, and it was a new type of inland river schooner that had just appeared in the Tang Dynasty in the past two years, but this
The words were too ostentatious.
So he chose to take the official transportation ship. Although the conditions on the official ship were more difficult, the speed was still not slow.
This is because this kind of official transportation ship of the Tang Empire is usually used to transport important personnel and letters and official documents, and it is a regular flight. The ship type used is also a new type of longitudinal sail that has just been released in recent years.
The advantages and characteristics of this kind of sail are very obvious. The advantage is that it is fast, very flexible, and has excellent sailing ability against the wind. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to build a large ship. Therefore, at this stage, it is not suitable for large ships.
, generally used on small and medium-sized ships.
This kind of sail, combined with the clipper bow, is now the standard equipment of the fast communication ships and fast transport ships of the Datang Imperial Navy and Datang Western Company.
At the same time, most of the official transportation ships sailing on inland rivers also use this kind of sail, but they are not clipper ships.
The transportation ship Chen Lifu was riding on belonged to the Post Office. This post office was also the former post station. The early post station system was under the management of the military, but in order to maintain the balance of operations, the post station would also accept private input.
business.
Later, the inn system became an institution with military, official, and civilian uses. For better management, it was separated from the military and the independent voice system was separated. The management organization was also very complicated, including the army, navy, and state-owned enterprises.
The Ministry jointly dispatched personnel to form the Postal Department Management Committee.
In addition to Chen Lifu and his party, the transport ship that Chen Lifu was traveling on boarded, as well as a dozen other officials who were on duty or working in other places and their servants.
In addition to the passengers, there are a lot of official documents and other messy things in the cabin.
This is a transport ship that not only carries passengers, but also transports small supplies.
As the transport ship raised its sails and gradually sailed away from the dock, Chen Lifu did not return to the cabin, but stood on the deck of the bow, looking at the dock in front and the ships coming and going around it.
The dock as far as the eye can see is as busy and green as ever. This dock is not a commercial dock in Dongcheng District, but an official dock in the old city and is not open to private ships.
The ships anchored here are all official ships. The largest number are the large number of transport ships of the Postal Service, and then there are also patrol ships, ships of the tax inspection team, and most of the messy ships of other departments are also anchored here.
At the same time, this is also a military port, but it is not a naval port!
The military dock of the Navy's Yangtze River Fleet is not here, but at the Navy's Yangtze River Fleet base farther north. The military ships parked here mainly belong to the Army and the Guards.
Even though these two seem to be military services operating on the ground, in fact they all have ships.
The Guards is a mixed land and sea force. In addition to the ground combat forces, there is also a fleet force. The main ship is a frigate of more than 400 tons, and there are also a dozen patrol ships. The strength is not weak.
.
On the army side, they also have maritime transport divisions, and they are ocean-going ships. Such an army naturally also has inland river ships.
In the past two years, the Army has been arguing with the Navy. The Army wants to acquire the Navy's inland river fleet. After all, most of the inland river fleet's tasks are land support and escorting inland river transportation supplies. It has a close relationship with the Army and has a close relationship with the Navy itself.
The combat mission has nothing to do with it.
But the navy is unwilling to hand it over like this, so although we have been talking about it in the past two years, it has had no effect.
The Guards and the Army naturally cannot have too many ships. These battleships are not very professional, but they do exist after all.
The ships on this pier are army and guard warships.
According to common sense, such an official dock will not be very busy. After all, it is not a private commercial dock. But who made the empire so huge, and Jinling City is the capital of the empire. There are official ships from all over the world every day.
After arriving at Jinling City, there are also many ships leaving Jinling City every day, which makes even such an official pier so busy.
After leaving the dock and entering the Yangtze River waterway, Chen Lifu could feel the development of Yangtze River shipping even more. When the ship passed through Dongcheng District, the shore he saw was almost a patchwork of docks, with countless docks moored.
ship.
This is the civil commercial terminal of Jinling City, and it is also the port of Jinling in a general sense. The entire terminal is almost spread out along the south bank of the Yangtze River. A large number of various ships are moored here, which shows the development of Yangtze River shipping.
!
In recent years, inland waterway shipping on several major rivers, represented by Yangtze River shipping, has formed the economic artery of the Tang Empire!
The Yangtze River, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Yellow River, and the Pearl River are major arteries that drive many tributaries.
The Yangtze River Basin includes the Ganjiang River and the Xiangjiang River, and then connects to the Huaihe River through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and then connects to the Yellow River, and then goes all the way to Henan and even Shaanxi through the Yellow River.
The Pearl River Basin includes the Beijiang River, the Dongjiang River, and the Xijiang River. The Xijiang River passes through Zhaoqing, Wuzhou, and then reaches many places in Guangxi such as Liuzhou.
The extensive inland rivers also gave the empire the foundation to develop inland river transportation.
At the same time, the Empire is also vigorously promoting and stimulating inland water transportation. Therefore, in recent years, the Empire's inland water transportation has developed rapidly. The most representative area is the Yangtze River, especially the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from Jinling City to Shanghai, which is commonly known as the Yangtze River.
There are also many ships coming and going.
The ships plying the Yangtze River range from large to small. The small ones are just small sampans, but the large ones can reach a displacement of hundreds of tons. These ships sailing on the inland river are usually sand boats.
Sand boats are a type of ship that have been used for a long time. They are characterized by shallow draft, large load capacity, strong ability to sail against the wind, and resistance to wind and waves, especially poor wave resistance. Of course, they are also low in cost.
An important feature.
This characteristic determines that this type of ship is suitable for coastal use, rivers and lakes, but for long sea voyages, it is barely enough, but if you are not careful, the ship will be destroyed and people will die.
The Tang Empire was the first to develop shipping, inland river shipping and coastal shipping. Therefore, this kind of traditional ships also got development opportunities and began to be built in large numbers and widely used. Whether it is the Yangtze River, the Pearl River or various coastal areas, a large number of them can be seen.
Sand ship.
In fact, the shipbuilding technology of the Datang Empire has developed rapidly recently. Let’s not talk about warships, which have nothing to do with civilian use. As for ocean-going merchant ships, they are a series of new merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty developed based on the 680-type merchant ship.
This kind of ship is called a Tang ship by other natives of East Asia and Westerners, but within the Tang Dynasty, most of them are called a new ship, or simply called a 680 merchant ship, etc.
In addition to this new Tang Dynasty ocean-going merchant ship, there are several other new ship types, such as clipper ships. Although the hull of the clipper ship has been explored and applied, this hull is purely for the pursuit of speed, so that the transportation volume
It is relatively small, so purely in terms of freight costs, the price-performance ratio is actually far lower than that of a Tang ship, let alone a Galen sailing ship.
Only in some fields that require speed can we see the shape of ocean-going clippers, such as fast communicators and fast transport ships. In addition, a few trading companies have begun to use such clippers to transport tea!
When a commodity like tea is transported by sea, its shelf life is relatively short. In order to get the tea to its destination as soon as possible, it is natural to use faster clippers.
However, in ordinary bulk cargo transportation that does not pursue speed, it has not yet been able to replace Tang ships or Galen ships.
In addition to Tang ships and clipper ships, the Tang Empire actually also learned and imitated the Western Galen ships. After all, these ships have great advantages in transporting cargo. Some trading companies like to use Galen ships.
Compared with the rapid development of ocean-going ships, the development of offshore ships lags behind. These are mainly traditional ships in the Chinese region. Most of them were originally used for inland rivers and offshore navigation, and their performance was pretty good. Sand ships are the most obvious ones.
For example, the cost is low, the cargo capacity is large, and the number of sailors required is small, which means the transportation cost is low.
Otherwise, those shipowners would have already purchased the new schooner launched by Dingsheng Shipyard. That ship is great, fast and suitable, but it is expensive to build and cannot transport much cargo.
If you want to use this new type of schooner as an ordinary cargo ship, you will probably have to wait for the further development of shipbuilding technology. When the technology develops, the cost will be lower, fewer sailors will be needed, and more goods will be transported.
As a result, transportation costs are reduced, and it may be possible to apply it on a large scale.
Nowadays, the Tang Empire's coastal and inland river transportation is still dominated by ancient traditional ship types such as sand boats.
However, this did not affect the rapid development of coastal inland water transportation in the Tang Empire!
Industry and commerce have huge transportation needs, and shipowners will make profits. If there are profits, more and more ships will be invested in it. This is not only the result of the official promotion of the Tang Empire, but also a natural choice of the commercial market.