Although the Pacific had just left the dock at this time and its speed was still very slow, it still attracted the attention of countless people. Many people on the riverside were watching the Pacific as it was about to start its voyage. People on other ships on the river,
I also watched this behemoth moving forward slowly.
At this time, on the bridge of the USS Pacific, several other officials and others had disappeared, leaving only Captain Sun and a dozen crew members.
Captain Sun issued various orders from time to time, while the crew shouted loudly through the installed microphones and conveyed them to various cabins inside the ship.
"Go forward at high speed!" After Captain Sun gave the order, the inner wheel room learned the order through the microphone!
They repeated the command "Go forward at full speed!"
At the same time start adjusting the steam valve!
At the same time, in the boiler warehouse, dozens of coal-burning workers were in the hot cabin, wearing only shorts on the upper body and shorts on the lower body. They were full of muscles, waving the shovels in their hands, and shoveling coal into the coal-fired boiler.
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The coal is burning and emitting huge heat, which continues to heat the water in the boiler and turns the water into high-temperature and high-pressure steam, which flows through the pipes to the steam unit.
Then it drives the huge piston to reciprocate!
The piston drives a huge crankshaft, which then drives a huge gear. The gear set continuously rotates, and then drives a huge rotating rod.
The rotating rod extends all the way to the tail of the ship, and then drives the two huge propellers at the tail to rotate through complex transmission devices such as gears.
The huge propeller turned, pushing the huge Pacific forward slowly!
At this time, the Pacific did not raise its sails, but simply used the power of the steam engine to push the ship forward. The speed was not very fast, only three or four knots at most.
This kind of operation is also the typical operation of most motor-driven ships when entering and exiting the port. That is, when entering and exiting the port, the steam engine is used as the main power to drive the ship forward.
At this time, the other five thousand-ton ocean-going ships that were also bound for the Americas were also driven away from the dock by tugboats.
They will form a medium-sized fleet and then head to America together.
In addition to carrying free immigrants, corporate employees, businessmen, etc., these six ships also carried more than 500 soldiers from the army.
These five hundred army soldiers are not regular rotation soldiers, but reinforcements.
At present, the Tang Empire's military power in North America mainly consists of three parts.
The first part is the army force, which is the Xinjinshan Garrison Regiment of the Tang Dynasty Army, with a strength of about one thousand people.
The second part is the naval force. The Navy has a North American Squadron in North America, which has a number of warships. Among them, there are 500 Marines stationed at the Xinjinshan Naval Base. They also cooperate with the Army to undertake ground defense, and
Participate in inland operations.
The third part is the militia. The number of this militia is relatively large, because the colonial militia system generally adopts the principle that all the people are soldiers, but all young and strong people will be incorporated into the militia. However, these militia units are scattered. On weekdays,
There is no organization, but they will be organized for training at fixed periods. During wars or other specific periods, they will be organized to assist the regular army in combat.
As for the bodyguards and armed guards hired by some companies in North America, although there are also a large number of armed guards, these bodyguards and armed guards are actually included in the ranks of militia, so they cannot be counted twice.
Although there are three major parts, they are scattered in more than a dozen colonies in North America. In fact, the military strength is quite empty, and the number of local indigenous people is very large, and sometimes they even suffer losses.
After all, weapons and tactics cannot replace numbers.
With the increase in immigration, more reinforcements are naturally necessary. The army plans to increase the number of troops by 500 to expand the local Xinjinshan garrison to 2,000.
After the fleet left the dock, they all raised their sails. Although the wind direction was not very good in the Huangpu River at this time, they could still use some wind power to speed up the ships.
However, none of the ships in the fleet have plans to run the steam engines at full speed, which consumes too much coal. Even if the fleet can obtain coal supplies after arriving in Beihai Province, it will still cost money.
These six ships are not military ships, so there is no need to estimate the cost of sailing. These six ships are all ships of shipping companies or trading companies, and each one is very careful when sailing.
Maintaining a speed of about five knots, the fleet slowly left the Huangpu River and entered the estuary of the Yangtze River. A southwest wind happened to blow, causing the huge three-masted sails on the Pacific to be blown up.
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Driven by the sails and assisted by the power of the steam engine, the fleet began to accelerate slowly, and then headed towards Beihai Province!
When the Pacific and other ships were heading to America, a fleet also left the island of Ceylon and headed for the port of South Africa!
In the past two years, Ceylon Island has become an important transit station and naval base for the Tang Empire in the Indian Ocean.
The Navy's Indian Ocean Fleet headquarters is located here, deploying a powerful fleet all year round. At the same time, because this place happens to be in the middle of the Indian Ocean, basically ships heading to the western coast of India, West Asia, and Africa will also pass through here.
And when passing here, they often choose to stop for supplies.
Therefore, it is reasonable that this place became the strategic transit point for the Tang Empire in the Indian Ocean.
In other words, when the Island of Ceylon was still in the hands of the Portuguese in the early years, it was actually an important strategic transit station. The same is true now that it is in the hands of the Tang Dynasty.
Many Tang Dynasty ships, especially those heading to the South African port, would stop here for supplies and gather more ships, waiting for the escort ships arranged by the navy to go to the South African port together.
In view of the large number of pirate ships in South African waters, the navy has on the one hand increased patrols to eliminate pirates, and on the other hand it has continued to implement a centralized escort system, arranging warships to escort merchant ships every few months.
Of course, if merchant ships are not afraid of pirates, they can ignore the Navy's centralized escort system. You can go to South Africa by yourself, and the Navy will not care about this.
But now, these ships leaving the island of Ceylon and preparing to go to the port of South Africa do not have naval escort warships.
The people in the port didn't understand it at first, but they were relieved when they saw that these ships were all flying the flags of the Western Trading Company.
This is an armed merchant ship of the Western Trading Company. The four merchant ships are all powerfully armed merchant ships. They have no problem at all in dealing with ordinary pirates. Under normal circumstances, there is no need for naval escort at all!
And these four armed merchant ships of the Western Trading Company also have a group of very special people. They are the imperial mission to Europe who have traveled thousands of miles from the mainland of the empire to the island of Ceylon, and then are preparing to continue to South Africa, and even go all the way to Europe.
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Since the empire decided to send a mission to Europe, the Empire's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other agencies, including the military, quickly decided on the personnel and size of the mission.
There are more than 150 people in the entire mission!
The person taking the lead was Chang Zhenchuan, deputy director of the European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Originally, this person was only a fourth-grade official, but in order to go to Europe as an envoy and show the dignity of the empire, Li Xuan specially gave him a temporary promotion to a third-grade official.
After all, in the Tang Empire, only those of third rank and above were considered high-ranking imperial officials.
The matter of sending an envoy to Europe can barely be considered a big deal. You can't send a mid-level official there, not because you think highly of those Europeans, but because mid-level officials don't have the authority to make some important decisions immediately.
In addition to his rank of third grade and his position as deputy director of the European Department, Chang Zhenchuan also holds an imperial decree to go to European countries and is an imperial envoy!
What imperial envoy?
"Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the European Countries"
He is the plenipotentiary ambassador of the Tang Empire in Europe.
When he went to Europe this time, his main task was to observe the war between Europe and the Tatars. If necessary, the Europeans would unite to fight against the Tatars. Anyway, the Tatars could not easily capture the entire Europe.
Under this premise, he will set up an embassy in Spain and be stationed in Europe.
As the Ambassador of the Tang Dynasty to Europe, he will be the first official ambassador in the history of the Tang Dynasty to a foreign country, and he will also be a senior diplomat of third rank or above. ww.
Before this, although the Tang Dynasty had dispatched many diplomatic officials, for example, the Tang Dynasty had a consulate in Malacca, but the level of the consul in the Malacca Consulate was only the fifth rank.
In recent years, in the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Dynasty and Mughal Dynasty in West Asia, as well as other parts of India, West Asia, and North Africa, the empire has also stationed some diplomats, but the level is not high, and they basically belong to
Below the fourth rank, most consuls are of the fifth or sixth rank.
A third-grade official, to be honest, this is the first time!
However, considering that Chang Zhenchuan is not just a certain ambassador, but the ambassador responsible for the foreign affairs of the entire Europe, it is reasonable to give him a rank of third grade.
In addition to Chang Zhenchuan, the mission also had two deputy envoys, more than 20 ordinary diplomats, military attachés from the army and navy, and finally a team of marines from the navy to protect the mission.
However, although the Marine Corps prides itself on being the most powerful in the world and can defeat the Army with one hand, let alone the indigenous people, but it is far away in Europe without any support. This is just a team of Marine Corps.
In fact, it is just to fill the scene.
Before the mission set off, the Empire's Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already conducted relevant negotiations with Portuguese and Spanish diplomats, regarding the Empire's dispatch of formal diplomats to Europe and the establishment of Datang's embassy in Europe, especially this
An embassy will also be established in Spain.
The Spaniards expressed great welcome and even joy!
Because they felt that this was the Tang Empire's recognition of Spain's strength and that the Spanish were the leading force in Europe. Otherwise, how could the Tang Empire set up its embassy in Europe in Spain?