At present, in the Tang Empire, the newly built ocean-going cargo ships with tonnage ranging from 3,000 tons to 5,000 tons are not that many. As for the tonnage exceeding 5,000 tons, there are basically only a handful of them.
Because even if it is between 3,000 tons and 5,000 tons, its operation has been relatively restricted, and many overseas ports are inaccessible.
If the tonnage exceeds 5,000 tons, operations will be greatly hindered, and construction costs and later operating costs will also increase significantly.
On the other hand, the tonnage of ocean liners is generally larger. The tonnage of newly built ocean liners is generally between 4,000 tons and 5,000 tons. Because ocean liners generally only dock in large port cities, larger tonnage is acceptable.
At the same time, the current luxury passenger ships do not have to worry about the source of passengers. As the only means of transportation for long sea trips in the contemporary era, as Datang has more and more overseas territories and more immigrants, the development of this passenger ship has always been very rapid.
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When people from the Tang Dynasty travel to overseas territories, they basically choose to take these large-tonnage luxury passenger ships. Even ordinary people will choose to take the third-class cabins of these large-tonnage passenger ships.
Safe, comfortable, and cheaper!
The rich and powerful will also choose luxury liner. The first class cabin they take allows them to continue to enjoy luxurious services while traveling on the sea.
Even among shipping companies, for the sake of company honor and influence, they are competing to build and operate larger and faster luxury passenger ships.
In order to regain its reputation as the number one ocean shipping company and the number one luxury liner, Pacific Shipping Company has spent a huge amount of money to order a luxury liner with a full load displacement of 10,000 tons: the New Pacific
This luxury liner, which the Pacific Shipping Company has high hopes for, not only has the largest displacement among civilian ships today, but also extremely luxuriously uses a large steam unit that is only used on 10,000-ton battleships. Its cruising speed can reach an astonishing fifteen knots.
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This speed is basically the highest among current civilian ships, whether it is a passenger ship or a cargo ship, and even exceeds that of many warships.
It can also be seen from the New Pacific. In fact, with Datang's current shipbuilding technology, there is no problem at all in building ships of tens of thousands of tons, but why not build large oil tankers?
The main issues are construction cost and usage cost.
Nowadays, there is no port on Sidan Island. If you want large-tonnage oil tankers to dock, you have to build a large port, which is not cost-effective.
Moreover, their need for oil tankers is relatively urgent, but they do not have time to wait too long, and it takes too long to build large-tonnage ships.
After comprehensive consideration, they decided to build a batch of 3,000-ton oil tankers for use first, and test the technology first.
When demand arises in the future, we will build large-tonnage oil tankers.
When Sidan Island also started to develop oil, domestic oil prices also began to gradually fall.
The first thing to be affected was whale oil. Affected by the discovery of large-scale oil in the South China Sea, the price of whale oil fell further, causing many whaling ships to feel unsustainable.
These whaling ships also need costs to go out to sea to hunt whales. The coal burned by the ship when it goes out to sea costs money, and the sailors also need money to hire.
As the price of whale oil falls further, many whaling ships are unprofitable, and even some whalers are unlucky, or have poor technology and insufficient equipment, and fall into losses.
Naturally, it is impossible for the empire to ignore this.
After all, they are not just one or two whaling ships. There are about two hundred registered whaling ships in the entire empire active in the global waters. As for the unregistered whaling ships, it is impossible to count them, but they are definitely
It's quite a lot.
Naturally, these ships and the sailors on them need to be properly accommodated, such as providing them with training and letting them switch to fishing for other fish. Now that the empire is undergoing industrial development, the income of residents is increasing every year. For meat,
The demand for fish food is constantly increasing.
As the price of whale oil falls, the price of kerosene will inevitably fall as well.
The prices of these lighting oils continue to fall, and the biggest impact is that more families can light lights at night.
In the past, students from ordinary families could not expect to study with oil lamps at night. Students who often lit lamps at night and studied hard were, at least, middle-class children.
If we push the time forward more than ten years, those who can light up a lamp to study at night are all rich people!
So, when you see a certain ancient student studying late at night, you will feel how miserable he is. In fact, he is a serious and wealthy person. When he has nothing to do, he can go shopping in a small green building and chat with courtesans.
The kind that goes out for fun.
Ordinary students should not expect to stay up all night reading.
But now in Datang, even ordinary students can stay up late at night to study, and it is foreseeable that the price of kerosene will continue to fall.
After all, the cost of oil extraction and refining today is still relatively low. Even if prices continue to drop on the existing basis, there will still be huge profits.
The reason why the price has not been reduced yet is purely because the production capacity has not caught up yet, and in order to give a certain buffer time to the large number of whaling ships, the official is actually not very happy to see the price of kerosene lamps plummeting, but will adopt a step-by-step approach.
The price reduction method finally allowed kerosene lamps to truly enter thousands of households.
And this situation will not take more than a few years.
Today, Royal Petroleum's oil field production in Baku is increasing year by year, and the refinery's production capacity is also gradually increasing.
Imperial Oil Company discovered oil fields in Nanyang and made large-scale preparations to build large-scale oil refineries in the three major coastal areas of the mainland.
It is conservatively estimated that within five years, the refining capacity of domestic refineries will reach one million tons, and this number can basically meet the needs of the domestic market.
In the future, as the refining capacity further increases, prices will inevitably continue to drop, eventually causing kerosene to become a common consumable and truly enter thousands of households.
Seeing the rapid development of the oil industry also makes Li Xuan feel happy.
Regarding the development of the oil industry, Li Xuan actually did not promote much. He only directed the establishment of the Royal Petroleum Company a few years ago, and then directed the existence of several of their oil fields.
But for the development of the overall petroleum industry, Li Xuan actually did not promote much.
Just like other industries, Li Xuan gives more policies and general directions, and then lets them work on it themselves.
Sometimes he could achieve results that Lin Xuan was very satisfied with, and sometimes he would make mistakes and take detours, but as long as it wasn't a matter of major strategic importance to the empire, Li Xuan generally didn't bother to deal with it.
The empire is so big, there are so many industries, and there are countless new things. Li Xuan simply doesn't have enough time to pay attention to them all.
What's more, he hopes that all industries in the empire can develop healthily and independently without much external intervention.
Of course, these are actually just superficial excuses. In fact, Li Xuan has no interest in these things.
Now the Tang Dynasty has embarked on the highway of the steam revolution. Even if Li Xuan doesn't give any advice, it can still maintain rapid development. Such a Datang Dynasty is almost invincible on a global scale.
Even if industrial capacity is improved and technology is improved, it will not change much.
The Tang Empire is still the most powerful country on earth!
It won't change anything essentially.
In recent years, what Li Xuan is most concerned about is no longer domestic development, he is more concerned about overseas expansion.
Especially the localization of overseas territories!
The partial localization of several places in Southeast Asia and Baku was the result of his personal intervention. He could not wait for the entire Luzon and Banten provinces to be completely localized before engaging in any localization. Those needed
The time is too long.
So he adopted a policy of gradual localization.
By carrying out local localization in some places where the conditions are harmonious, we can stimulate surrounding areas to accelerate localization.
This is particularly evident in Southeast Asia. Since the partial localization of Luzon and Mindao, the localization process of neighboring Borneo has been greatly accelerated even if there is not much external push.
As for the local nobles and government of the domain, seeing that the island next door has developed rapidly after its successful localization, the officials will have political achievements, and the nobles and businessmen will make a lot of money, how can they bear it?
Back then, we were all the same poor guy, but now we suddenly find that this poor guy has turned into a rich, handsome man. This is unbearable.
If it were another situation, they would probably make a fuss and ask the central government to give them a localization policy even if localization was not completed, but it is impossible for such a thing to happen in the Tang Empire today.
Through steam engine transportation and wired telegraph, coupled with the strong centralized power model established in the past few decades, the centralization of power in the Tang Empire has now reached the peak that the feudal dynasty could reach.
Officials and nobles in overseas territories don't dare to make trouble. After all, Jinling is not easy to mess with. If you piss off the big bosses in Jinling, they will throw you to New Zealand Island and other places to be neighbors with cannibals in a minute.
It is not advisable to fight against Jinling, and it is not advisable to cause trouble.
So what to do?
Nonsense, what else can we do? Naturally, we should work harder to complete the local localization as soon as possible, and then learn from other places to apply for partial localization.
Whether it is Banten Province or Luzon Province, they are both provinces composed of many islands. There are many large and small islands. It is almost impossible to complete the localization of all the islands in a short time. However, in the established parts
It is possible to complete localization on the island.
Under this situation, the local government and local nobles in Borneo also began to work hard.
Optimistically, perhaps within one or two years, Borneo will be able to complete localization.
Compared with the localization work in Nanyang, which is very difficult, the localization work in the Americas is very easy!