In mid-December, the suburbs of Guangzhou, Guangzhou Shipyard.
Another group of high-ranking navy officials came here, but the workers in the shipyard didn't care much about this, because they all knew that these high-ranking naval officials were here to participate in the launching ceremony of the warship.
Today, Song Binglin, commander of the Second Fleet of the Datang Navy, arrived here in person to support the launching ceremony of the Luoding cruiser.
The Luoding cruiser is also the fifth ship of the Lianzhou-class third-class cruiser, but for the Second Fleet, this cruiser is the first cruiser of the Second Fleet, which is of great significance to the Second Fleet, otherwise
Otherwise, Vice Admiral Song Binglin would not come here in person to preside over the launching ceremony.
Song Binglin, who was standing in the dock and presiding over the launching ceremony, was in high spirits. Two years ago, he was just an armed merchant fleet in the Tang Navy. However, because of his many meritorious services, he was transferred to the cruiser as captain, and then
He even served as the commander of the Second Squadron of the First Fleet, and the Second Squadron is currently the only two main squadrons in the Tang Dynasty.
He led the Second Squadron to participate in the Battle of Nan'ao Island and the Battle of Mawei in Fuzhou. Then he led the fleet to continue northward and participated in the fleet's blockade of the Yangtze River estuary.
With the cooperation of the army, they successfully entered the Yangtze River and annihilated a Ming naval force entrenched near Wusongkou.
Having made many military exploits, he was quickly promoted to become the commander of the Second Fleet and was promoted to Vice Admiral. When he first took office, he was also ambitious and wanted to build the Second Fleet into a true ocean-going fleet, and
Firmly control the vast sea area south of Nan'ao Island.
At present, the headquarters of the First Fleet of the Tang Dynasty have been moved to the coasts of Fujian, Zhejiang, and South Zhili. Currently, Wusongkou is the main base, and ports such as Mawei and Xiamen in Fujian are auxiliary bases.
The many naval bases along the coast of Guangdong and on Nan'ao Island, which has been placed under Guangdong's jurisdiction, were all handed over to the Second Fleet.
However, the current strength of the Second Fleet is somewhat weak. Before the Battle of Nan'ao Island, it had one cruiser and three frigates, but they were all seconded to the First Fleet, and His Majesty also said that these two frigates
It will not be returned to the Second Fleet. The shortfalls in the Second Fleet will be replenished from newly built warships first.
Now, after being replenished, the Second Fleet only has two frigates. As for the cruiser Luoding in front of us, it has just been launched. It will be outfitted, sea-tried and trained in the future. It will not be possible to put it into operation without half a year of effort.
fighting.
Due to the lack of capital ships, the Second Fleet can only rely on more than 20 armed merchant ships to support it.
On the other hand, the First Fleet has strong troops. There are now four cruisers and eight frigates. Their strength is stronger than that of the Nan'ao Island period. However, although the First Fleet is strong, their tasks are also more arduous.
The first is to support the operations of the Yangtze Fleet in the Yangtze River, cover and cooperate with army operations, and the second is to block the Yangtze River entrance to the sea, including the entire southern Zhili and even Shandong waters.
At the same time, you have to deal with countless pirates!
On the other hand, the task for the Second Fleet is not too heavy. Now the Tang Dynasty has negotiated peace with the Francois, and has also signed a treaty of friendship and trade with the Spanish. After settling the two world's naval powers,
, the small indigenous countries in Southeast Asia, as well as the ships of other Western countries that occasionally appear in Southeast Asian waters, are basically unable to pose any actual threat to the Second Fleet.
Now for the Tang Dynasty navy, the large number of pirates is a huge headache for them.
Although judging from the strength of battleships and other aspects, the Tang Navy is actually no longer comparable to those pirate gangs, but these pirates are so elusive that they have caused a lot of trouble for the Tang Navy.
Today, a squadron under the First Fleet, a frigate is sailing at high speed in the sea with its sails spread out, and in front of it are three slightly smaller ships.
But the three ships in front are all equipped with artillery, and the ships are relatively small. At a glance, you can tell that they are not serious merchant ships, not even armed merchant ships, but pirate ships specially used for plundering at sea.
"These pirates are so brave. They dare to rob our merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty. They are simply impatient. If we don't sink them, outsiders will think that our Navy of the Tang Dynasty is afraid of these pirates!"
The commander of the Third Squadron of the First Fleet, Major General Bao Qinghe, looked gloomy!
One day, he was leading the fleet on patrol, but he saw a ship burning. After rescuing the people who fell into the water, he found that these people who fell into the water were still half of his family members, and belonged to the newly established Pacific Shipping Company.
Company ships.
The Pacific Shipping Company is actually a shipping company invested and established by the royal family. However, because it is still relatively small in scale, it does not undertake external business. It only undertakes the transportation tasks within the Tang Dynasty, especially the factories under the Ministry of Industry.
transportation tasks.
This transport ship transported a whole shipload of construction equipment and materials from Guangzhou to Wusong Port to be used for the shipyard to be built in Wusong. Because these things are valuable, but if they are not valuable, they are not valuable.
We were in a hurry, so we set off alone without waiting for the escort ships arranged by the navy.
I originally thought that traveling along the coastline controlled by the Tang Navy would not be a big problem, but I didn't expect that when I arrived near Zhoushan, I would be attacked by pirates.
After the pirates plundered the ship, they found that the ship was full of worthless building materials and construction equipment that they couldn't understand. They sighed that they had not caught anything, so they burned the ship and killed many people.
The crew members then walked away.
When Bao Qinghe heard this, his face suddenly darkened, and he immediately summoned several warships under his command to start searching for these pirate ships.
Finally, these three pirate ships were found in the sea not far away!
Naturally, the pirates were not willing to be captured without mercy, and they did not have the guts to fight the navy's warships, so they simply ran away.
However, although their pirate ships are fast, they are still traditional Chinese sailing ships. They are opponents of warships specially designed for naval battles. After chasing for most of a day, although several other armed merchant ships under Bao Qinghe's command were already
Although they fell behind, Bao Qinghe was fearless and directly led the only frigate to catch up.
With his eyes open, the distance from one thousand meters to five hundred meters approached, and a ferocious smile appeared on Bao Qinghe's face: "Look where you are still running!"
Five hundred meters, three hundred meters, the forward artillery on the frigate was already firing one after another!
When it reached a distance of a hundred meters, the frigate had already begun to turn and continued to close the distance, and then walked side by side with the opponent's last warship.
Sailing side by side within a hundred meters was the best position for warships to exert their firepower. After firing several rounds of salvos, the ship on the opposite side burst into flames.
Bao Qinghe ignored them, but led the warships to continue forward, and then used the speed of the frigate to catch up with them one by one, and then used the powerful firepower to name them one by one.
Without giving them any chance to resist, they directly hit the three pirate ships, two of which were set on fire, and one of which was more than half flooded, forcing the pirates on board to jump into the sea one after another.
"Catch them all. If they interfere and resist, shoot them without mercy!"
After Bao Qinghe commanded such an easy clearing operation, he began to return home with dozens of pirates.
What’s interesting is that these pirates include Japanese pirates and indigenous people from Southeast Asia. Of course, most of them are Chinese from coastal provinces.
For them, the Tang Navy has always dealt with them very simply, and the only way to deal with them is to take them back to the port, then hang them on the dock and dry them!
Two days later, dozens more corpses were found floating in the wind on the pier of Ningbo Port. However, they were not the only corpses floating in the wind, there were more than two hundred others.
The corpses of these pirates are lined up from one end of the port to the other. They are quite spectacular when viewed from a distance, enough to make anyone arriving at Ningbo Port tremble with fear!
The eradication of pirates in Zhejiang waters is currently the main task of the First Fleet of the Tang Navy. There are really many pirates in this place. There are large pirate gangs, but more of them are small and medium-sized pirates, which seriously affects the maritime security of Zhejiang waters.
This was intolerable to the Tang Dynasty, which planned to open ports for trade to Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Songjiang after Guangzhou and Lianzhou.
The Tang Dynasty had tasted the sweetness of maritime trade, and even if Li Xuan did not promote it now, the navy and cabinet officials would still vigorously promote the development of maritime trade.
What the navy wants is influence, and then it wants to compete for more military spending to expand the navy's fleet, while the cabinet wants industrial and commercial development driven by maritime trade and customs revenue. Well, in the final analysis, it's all about money.
Who was happiest when the Tang Dynasty opened up maritime trade? Naturally, it was the legal merchants. But for some maritime merchants who used to rely on smuggling to monopolize maritime trade, this was very bad.
But now that anyone can go overseas to do business, how can they still make money?
Therefore, many people turned into pirates or supported pirates, trying to crack down on the opening of the port for trade.
The pirates have also been under tremendous pressure recently. The Tang Dynasty Navy's continuous purges have caused them heavy losses. Therefore, the two sides have hit it off and have formed some kind of alliance. Therefore, the waters off the coast of Zhejiang and even Fujian have not been very peaceful recently.
But the navy is happy to see this, because if they act together, the Tang Navy will be eager to find their home base, and then dozens of warships will swing, hundreds of naval guns will blast, and then
The awesome pirate gang must be put to death too!
Therefore, although pirates are rampant now, given time, the navy is still confident that they can be wiped out.
The previous Ming Navy was able to pin these pirates to the ground, but there is no reason why the Tang Navy could not defeat the Ming Navy!
But the trouble now is that although these pirates are united, they are still doing their own things as before, and they do not give the Tang Navy a chance to directly catch the main force and beat them up, so now the Datang Navy can only
It may be possible to gradually eliminate pirate power by strengthening daily patrols and gradually cleaning up islands along the coast where pirates can hide.
However, the coastal areas along the coast of Zhejiang and Fujian were not peaceful, but this still did not stop the Tang Dynasty's determination to open ports for trade in Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Songjiang.