At present, the global trade dominated by the Tang Dynasty has basically no other countries in terms of shipping, because it is impossible for them to compete with the Tang Dynasty who owns steamships.
Even if they have some cost advantages, for example, if they only use sailboats to transport some materials that do not require such high timeliness, then European sailboats can transport them slowly. Anyway, Europeans' labor costs are very low, and the ships are empty.
With.
In this case, they can actually achieve lower transportation costs than Datang's steamships, because Datang's steamships require coal, and the wages of Datang's crew are generally higher.
but!
The navy of the Tang Dynasty was not just for food.
What is the Tang Navy used for with so much military expenditure every year?
Isn't that just to safeguard Datang's overseas interests?
If you find that when you are doing business on the sea, there are other countries whose merchant ships have lower costs than yours and are more competitive, then you can safely and boldly tell the navy which company's maritime trade is awesome.
It won't take long for the navy to come to their doorstep, use naval cannons to call them names one by one, break their sails into pieces, and blow their ports to pieces.
Or if you are one of the dozens of trading companies in the Tang Dynasty that owns armed merchant ships, then it is even simpler. Find your competitors, and then rely on the maneuverability of the steam ships and the range advantage of the front-mounted rifled guns to eliminate them directly on the sea.
Go up, um, and snatch their goods away by the way.
Although this kind of piracy is not officially advocated by the Tang Dynasty, and is even prohibited, on the vast sea, no one else knows what you are doing, not to mention that the Tang Navy prohibits piracy, and what is prohibited is pirate attacks on the Tang Dynasty.
Merchant ship.
The laws of the Tang Dynasty were not designed to protect indigenous ships.
In short, after a series of events, you will find that your own merchant ships not only have a competitive advantage over the indigenous people in trade, but may even have no indigenous competitors at all.
In short, if you can't compete normally, you should use abnormal competition. If you really can't compete, you should fight!
Of course, it is difficult to say this kind of thing publicly. The correct official statement is that the people of the Tang Dynasty worked hard. In addition, the steam ships of the Tang Dynasty were fast, not affected by the monsoon currents, and had a huge cargo capacity. As a result, the people of the Tang Dynasty were overseas.
The market is more competitive.
But it is undeniable that in the past ten years, many European ships plying the Atlantic Ocean have not been able to return after going out to sea. As for the cause of the loss, only God knows. It may have been a storm, it may have been...
If you get lost, you may be attacked by pirates, or you may encounter a Tang Dynasty warship or armed merchant ship.
There are various possibilities, but no one knows the truth.
In short, now, the ocean-going merchant ships in the world's waters are basically all Tang Dynasty ships.
In European countries, there are basically only a few Spanish ships and a few English merchant ships running the Atlantic route to America. These ships are basically official ships of various countries and have been certified and approved by the Tang Dynasty Navy.
However, although there are fewer ocean-going ships, it does not mean that there are fewer ships. In fact, European countries, especially the sailing countries represented by Spain, England, and the Netherlands, still have a large number of ships running routes in various European seas, including
Baltic Sea Route, Mediterranean Route, Atlantic European Coast Route.
This situation also occurs in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and some coastal waters of India. In fact, there are still many ships of local indigenous countries in these waters, such as ships of the Ottoman Empire, ships of the Safavid Dynasty, and ships of the Mughal Empire.
There are also ships from other Indian states.
Most of the ships from these indigenous countries, which only have a few dozen or several hundred tons and specialize in coastal routes, don't pay much attention to them and don't block them.
After all, the Tang Dynasty also needed a large number of indigenous coastal and inland river vessels to distribute large amounts of Tang Dynasty goods.
Although Datang's global shipping is great, it is more reflected in ocean transportation. As for offshore and inland river transportation, Datang people generally do not engage in these in indigenous countries and regions, and only develop offshore and inland river transportation in their own overseas territories.
transportation.
This mainly involves a technical control issue. Datang did not want too many civilian steam ships to appear on the coasts and inland rivers of indigenous countries, because it would be very troublesome to monitor them.
However, offshore and river warships are not included in this list.
The Navy and Army of the Tang Dynasty deployed small-tonnage offshore gunboats and inland river gunboats in many offshore waters and inland rivers under their control.
Even on the Volga River and Kiel River in Eastern Europe controlled by the Tatars, and the Danube River in the Balkan Peninsula, you can see the inland river gunboats of the Tang Dynasty.
Not to mention other places, the Tang Dynasty even deployed at least two offshore gunboats of more than 600 people in London all year round, which were usually moored at the pier in the embassy area of the Datang Consulate in London.
If something happens, they don't need to set sail. They can just raise their gun barrels and bombard the city of London. At the same time, they can also quickly sail to surrounding areas and even cross the English Channel to the offshore waters of France or the United Provinces to cooperate with other warships of the navy.
Combat.
Militarily, the Tang Dynasty's navy was very powerful in global control, and it did not rely solely on the navy's small number of marines, nor did it solely rely on its main battleships.
The Marine Corps is not large in scale and is mostly used to perform mobile strike missions. It is difficult to station too many Marine troops in one place all year round.
As for the capital ships, although Datang's capital ships are numerous, the Datang Navy needs to control more sea areas, and it retains a large number of capital ships all year round in the mainland. The number of capital ships in Europe can only be maintained at a dozen or so all year round.
scale.
The Tang Dynasty's navy controlled the global seas, especially the offshore waters of various regions, relying more on its large number of offshore patrol ships, shallow water gunboats, offshore gunboats and other small-tonnage, cheap offshore and inland river fleets.
Datang currently has an astonishing total of more than 300 offshore and inland river warships of various types around the world, which are used to carry out various combat missions in coastal, inland river and other sea areas.
Some of these more than 300 offshore and inland river vessels are equipped with front-loading rifled guns, and some are equipped with new breech-loading rifled guns. The tonnage ranges from one to two to eight hundred tons to one to two thousand tons, but generally they are
Small vessels of less than 500 tons.
In various areas of European waters alone, Datang had a total of more than forty offshore and inland river warfare vessels of various types, stationed at the piers of various embassy districts.
In fact, it is these ships that perform daily tasks.
As for the capital ships in the European fleet, they will basically only be dispatched during major missions. On weekdays, they are training, conducting naval gun diplomacy and so on.
Even if these battleships are dispatched, the main ones dispatched are actually cruisers and frigates. As for battleships or armored cruisers, I'm sorry, these battleships basically stay in the mainland and act as mascots. On weekdays, they only visit the mainland at most.
In the sea area, the most I can do is travel to Nanyang.
Unless any major accidents occur, it is basically unlikely that these capital ships will be dispatched to perform missions overseas.