When Bi Zhi'an returned to China to recuperate, the war in the Fuso area had also come to an end. The troops led by Ying Yikang took the lead in reaching the Tsugaru Strait, across the sea from Ezo Island, which had long been occupied by the Tang Empire.
At the same time, the Fifteenth Army also organized about 5,000 troops to land on Shikoku Island, crushing the daimyo forces on the island along the way.
By the summer of the 24th year of Xuanping, before the rainy season came, it was officially announced that the Tang Empire had successfully recovered the three major islands of Kyushu, Honshu and Shikoku.
Of course, although the large-scale war has ended, there are still many remaining Fuso indigenous troops in various places. Therefore, the 56th Infantry Division and several garrison regiments under the 15th Army must continue to garrison the Fuso area and launch a large-scale campaign.
A large-scale purge operation was carried out to eliminate the remaining daimyo troops.
It was just a follow-up matter, more of a political matter. The newly established Beihai Province of the empire began to take over the entire Fuso region, and set up prefectures and counties on each Fuso island according to the previously formulated plan to implement direct rule.
According to Li Xuan's imperial decree, the provincial capital of Hokkai Province is located in Edo, and consists of six prefectures: Kyushu Prefecture, Kanto Prefecture, Kanzhong Prefecture, Guanzhong Prefecture, Shikoku Prefecture, and Ezo Prefecture.
The various prefecture yamen under Beihai Province were actually transformed from the local colonial yamen. For example, the Kyushu prefecture yamen was restructured from the Nagasaki colonial yamen, and the Kansai prefecture yamen was restructured from the Hiroshima colonial yamen.
Kanzhong Prefecture was restructured from the Osaka Colonial Yamen, and Kanto Prefecture was restructured from the Edo Colonial Yamen.
The only thing about the Ezo Island Yamen is that it was not restructured, because before that, Ezo Island was already under the rule of the Tang Dynasty and was one of the many overseas territories of the Tang Dynasty. There was already an Ezo Island Affairs Yamen, so it was just changed to another one.
Just a name.
Subsequent political affairs have nothing to do with the military. Many military personnel no longer care much about the situation in Fuso. They are now setting their sights on distant Africa.
At the beginning of the year, news came back from India that the African Expeditionary Force fleet encountered a storm and lost more than 20 large and small ships and more than 3,000 navy and army officers. This news also caused a certain sensation within the empire, but it was not a big deal.
What a shock to both the government and the public.
Because the military directly blocked the news and did not allow the news to spread widely, the Tang Dynasty newspaper did not see any news about the fleet encountering the storm.
The only thing is that our Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty has successfully completed the greatest expedition in the world, and the African Expeditionary Force has successfully landed in Africa.
As for how many people were killed or injured during the landing, there is no need to mention it.
However, although the outside world did not know about this, and even many ordinary middle- and lower-level officers did not know about it, the senior military officials and senior officials of the empire knew that the expedition fleet was hit by the storm.
Although it maintained a low profile overall, it still caused quite a shock among the empire's top brass.
The army directly pointed its finger at the navy, saying that it was the navy's unfavorable escort that allowed at least two thousand soldiers of the army to die at sea before they even landed on African land. The navy made a mistake when choosing routes and dispatching transport ships.
He has sinned against anger.
The Navy is also very aggrieved about this, and they are not willing to encounter a storm. As for routes, although the Indian Ocean is so large, considering factors such as the voyage, wind direction, and ocean currents, there are actually only so many routes to choose from.
There are several routes, and the imperial ships have traveled countless times on the route from Ceylon to Madagascar in Africa. They have never been so unlucky to encounter such a large-scale storm before.
The army and navy like to quarrel over the slightest issue and then shirk responsibility. Li Xuan saw this and ignored it.
Anyway, a few words of quarrel will not lose a piece of meat. Besides, the losses have already occurred. It is too late to say anything now. The most important thing now is to prevent this type of incident in the future.
But then again, it is not that easy to prevent this type of navigation accidents.
There are two ways. One is to establish a complete weather forecast system that can cover the entire Indian Ocean. Well, it would be better if there is a supercomputer and a few weather satellites that can provide timely warnings.
But is it possible?
Impossible!
Limited by technology, although Datang now has weather forecasts, they are very primitive and backward. The meteorological experts at the Royal Institute of Technology can only make predictions based on the experience of their predecessors and their own random calculations.
Some specious weather forecasts. Anyway, so far, weather forecasts are very nonsense.
The only remaining option is to build and use larger tonnage ships!
Although storms in the ocean are violent, the same storm's lethality to ships of only three to four hundred tons is completely different from its lethality to ships of thousands of tons or even larger.
In the same storm, those ships of three to four hundred tons may not be able to withstand it and sink. However, although the ships of one thousand tons are blown around, they will not sink. If it is a ship of ten thousand tons, it will only be bumpy.
.
Most of the ships lost by the expeditionary force in the storm this time were ocean-going ships of less than 500 tons, while ships of more than 800 tons were basically intact.
Under this circumstance, Li Xuan is naturally more inclined to build and use ships with larger tonnage.
Nowadays, the survivability of many small-tonnage ocean-going ships in the empire is really poor. Numerous navigation accidents occur every year. This is not just about warships, but also civilian ships.
At the same time, Li Xuan also felt that the tonnage of newly built battleships today is generally more than 1,500 tons, and the Navy has a plan to build a 3,000-ton giant ship.
Even in the field of civilian ships, there are still large ships of 1,000 tons.
At this time, it is also possible to appropriately develop various types of large-tonnage transport ships.
In the field of private ships, although he is the emperor, he does not interfere directly. After all, ships with larger tonnage represent higher construction and maintenance costs. It is not that those trading companies don't know that large ships are more useful, but they can't afford them.
However, in the field of military ships, Li Xuan can directly intervene.
The various types of transport ships currently in use by the military are too small in tonnage, and there is no clear classification. They are all ordinary cargo ships.
Considering that the footprints of the Tang Empire may be spread throughout the entire army in the future, the military needs a variety of professional auxiliary ships that can conduct ocean voyages while ensuring seaworthiness.
To this end, Li Xuan directly ordered the navy to appropriately build various types of professional auxiliary ships, such as troop ships, hospital ships, coal ships, and supply ships, and the tonnage must be large enough.
In addition, Li Xuan also asked the Pacific Shipping Company, a subsidiary of the Royal Assets Department, to build a number of large-tonnage ocean liners, which were operated as passenger ships on weekdays and directly served as troop transports during wartime.
At the same time, he instructed that the tonnage of this kind of ocean liner must be at least three thousand tons!
Li Xuan wants to promote the navy and industry to work together to create an era of giant ships!
Building a three-thousand-ton ocean liner was undoubtedly a huge challenge for the Tang Empire's shipbuilding industry, but it was just a challenge, and it did not mean it was impossible.
In the past ten years or so, the shipbuilding industry of the Tang Empire has developed very rapidly. Let’s not talk about other shipyards, only the Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard, which is wholly owned by the Royal Assets Division. This shipyard has strong technology and can not only build battleships, but also
It supplies a large number of capital ships to the navy, and the shipyard is also a leader in building large-tonnage civilian ships.
The civilian ships built by Dingsheng Shipyard are basically large-tonnage ships, ranging from 800 tons to more than 1,000 tons.
Since the maturity of shipboard steam engines derived from high-pressure steam engines, Dingsheng Shipyard has begun a new round of expansion to welcome the navy's era of giant ships.
Specifically, Dingsheng Shipyard has successively built large-tonnage shipyards through expansion, new construction, etc. Two of the 3,000-ton ships were completed at the end of last year. By the second half of this year, a 5,000-ton shipyard will also be built.
will be put into use.
These three shipyards are currently the largest shipyards in the Tang Empire. The new generation of steam steel battleships ordered by the Datang Navy are being constructed in these two 3,000-ton ships.
It is worth noting that although this new generation of steam steel battleship is designed and built based on Jiangnan, Jiangnan is very different, because at the beginning of the design of Jiangnan, it was still greatly influenced by the design of traditional battleships.
Influence.
However, this new generation of steam steel battleship is expanded on the basis of Jiangnan, and uses a large amount of steel as the main structure of the hull. Its design tonnage has also reached 1,800 tons, and the estimated full load displacement
It will exceed two thousand tons.
Its power still uses sail power, but the power of its steam engine has been greatly improved. It will use a new generation of ship-based steam engines. The entire steam engine power system consists of four coal-fired boilers, two three-cylinder steam engines, and dual
Propelled by propellers, the total horsepower will exceed 1,200 horsepower, and the design speed can reach 13 knots.
The construction of this new generation of battleships also marked the beginning of the large-scale development of steam steel battleships by the Tang Dynasty Navy, rather than the previous construction of the Jiangnan, which was more experimental than actual combat.
At the same time, the Navy also has design plans for 3,000-ton warships and even 5,000-ton warships. However, at present, these design plans are not very mature. Although the top brass of the Navy supports the development of larger-tonnage warships, for the sake of safety, they have recently
The capital ships built on a large scale in China will be two-thousand-ton battleships, supplemented mainly by thousand-ton cruisers.
As for warships below a thousand tons, although they will continue to develop, the navy obviously no longer intends to use warships below a thousand tons as capital ships. The tonnage is too small to even accommodate a steam engine, and it cannot deploy too many artillery.
The Navy tends to develop two-thousand-ton battleships and one-thousand-ton cruisers in the short term. As a result, the five-thousand-ton dock that will be completed by Dingsheng Shipyard in the second half of this year will fall into the embarrassing situation of overusing materials and underutilizing them.
At this time, Dingsheng Shipyard received a new order from Pacific Shipping Company, a passenger ship with a design standard displacement of 4,200 tons!