Chapter 816: The First Battleship of the Tang Dynasty
In fact, when the army builds transport ships and even installs artillery on the transport ships, it is not that it is trying to compete with the navy for power. Well, although it seems like this to the navy, it is that the conflict between the army and the navy is not small in peacetime. Although it will be during war,
Mutual coordination, but no matter what, it is all about asking for help, and sometimes the navy cannot allocate warships, so the army can only wait miserably.
In order to change this situation, the Army has actually begun to strengthen its ship transportation and even combat capabilities very early.
It belongs to the Logistics Department of the Privy Council and has a large number of transport ships. However, most of these transport ships are civilian ships and usually require naval warships for escort.
However, the navy's funds are not large to begin with. The warships are limited and the escort force is often insufficient, so the army simply installs artillery on some of the larger transport ships for self-defense.
In several small-scale island-seizing campaigns, the Army simply did not ask for cooperation from the Navy and directly dispatched transport ships to carry the Army for landing operations.
In order to fight across the sea, the Army even specially ordered several professional transport ships. Well, they are called transport ships, but in fact they are battleships that can carry a large number of soldiers. They have fewer naval guns and can carry more soldiers.
However, the Army's development of maritime power is limited to this. The Navy has very strong opinions on the development of transport ships and often comes to Li Xuan to complain. Li Xuan also warned the Army several times, don't mess around, you are on land.
What kind of battleship are you playing as a military unit? That’s nonsense.
It doesn’t matter if we build a few ships, if we really want to build an army fleet on a large scale, the first person who disagrees is Li Xuan!
Professional matters should be handled by professionals. This is one of the principles that Li Xuan adheres to!
For maritime operations, it is better to let the navy do it, and the army should not bother with it. But now the navy is really weak, so Li Xuan also needs to give it a try.
With more than 20 professional ocean-going warships, the pirates could be tortured so miserably that the governor of Zhejiang couldn't bear to file a complaint. It can be seen that the navy must have been lazy recently.
However, for Li Xuan, it is just a little beating. If there is no improvement after beating, then Li Xuan will have to ask the navy heads to move their positions and occupy the position without doing anything. This is something Li Xuan does not allow.
thing.
And Li Xuan's beating also made Bao Yifen feel helpless!
Are there many naval ships? There are quite a few, but most of them are inland river ships. Are more than 20 ocean-going warships a lot? In such a wide coastal sea area, there are actually not many!
This requires leaving part to ensure the safety of the Yangtze River estuary and the Pearl River estuary, and freeing up part for patrols and escorts. The navy's existing ships are simply not enough.
But Li Xuan's beating is not unreasonable. The navy, which has spent so much money, can't do anything to deal with the pirates. This is naturally intolerable. Looking back, we still have to discuss a solution with our colleagues in the navy. We can't
Piracy continues to be rampant.
After suppressing his thoughts, Bao Yifen continued to report on the navy's affairs.
There are no other major events. What is worth mentioning is that the navy's first battleship has started construction at the Hong Kong Ding Shing Shipyard. Although the construction period is expected to be very long, it has finally started.
After hearing this, Li Xuan also became interested, and immediately looked through the construction plan of this battleship carefully.
The design plan of this battleship has been decided very early. The internal design of the hull will greatly refer to the design of existing cruisers and frigates, and the design concept is also different from cruisers and frigates. The navy's battleships, then
It is specially designed for decisive battles at sea!
The Tang Navy classified various types of ships according to their uses. For example, cruisers were used for ocean search and attack enemy transport ships. They also served as the main fleet's secondary artillery firepower, leading battleship and other multiple tasks.
The frigate is much simpler. Its establishment concept is to escort and conduct daily patrols.
There is only one battleship, and naturally it has only one goal, and that is for the decisive battle at sea!
Therefore, when setting up, strengthening the protection level of the hull and improving firepower are the key. As for speed and flexibility, it is not that important.
The first battleship of the Tang Dynasty, after many revisions of the design, the final plan was to have a standard displacement of 1,350 tons, a double deck, and carry a total of 64 artillery pieces. It was equipped with naval officers.
It has also increased significantly, and it is expected that there will be 500 people.
The artillery on board is also of various calibers. The largest caliber main gun is the 48-pound artillery. The Zhaoqing Arsenal is already overcoming difficulties with this kind of artillery and has begun to build prototype guns purely by hand. Moreover, because of the difficulty in manufacturing, the length of the barrel is limited.
It's not too long either.
Naturally, there are not many 48-pound naval guns. There are only two for show. The main naval gun of the ship will be the 24-pound cannon.
At the same time, fourteen-pound artillery, nine-jin artillery, and five-jin artillery will also be equipped in large quantities.
Basically, according to the bearing capacity of the ship's hull, the artillery is mounted as high as possible. If the large caliber can't be deployed as much, the medium caliber can be deployed. If the medium caliber can't be accommodated, the small caliber can be deployed.
In the end, there were a total of sixty-four long-barreled naval guns of various calibers over five kilograms, which was fully twice the firepower of the two cruisers.
The hull's defensive capabilities are unmatched by cruisers!
Of course, the construction capacity of this ship is also huge. Putting aside the naval guns, the hull alone is enough to keep the shipyard busy for several years. As for the cost, the Navy has not guaranteed how much it will cost.
came out, but very carefully gave a budget, well, it means planning so much first, and then adding more if it is not enough!
What is the navy's internal shipbuilding budget? Two hundred thousand taels of silver.
However, some people expressed pessimistically that before the Tang Navy wanted to acquire its first battleship, it would have to invest at least 300,000 taels of silver.
Because just building the hull and the artillery itself actually does not cost two hundred thousand taels of silver, but the price of this ship cannot be calculated like this. You have to include various research and development costs and upfront costs!
Of course, these R&D costs are a one-time investment in the early stage. Later, the battleship will be built again, or the new technology developed will be used to build the battleship. Naturally, it will not cost so much money. If more are built, all the expenditures will be calculated in the end.
The cost will be spread less.
However, even though battleships are expensive, the Navy has unswervingly promoted the battleship shipbuilding plan. Even after Li Xuan made it clear that it would not allocate special funds for shipbuilding for the Navy's battleship plan, the Navy still insisted on doing so.
.
Because from the Navy's perspective, the construction of a battleship takes a long time. Even if it starts now, it will take at least three years to get it. This means that the construction funds for this battleship can be divided into three years. This will
Give the Navy a huge buffer time.
In addition, the Navy also believes that although the domestic war of unification will continue, the Tang Dynasty currently has a greater advantage, and they also know that the Army is preparing a Northern Expedition plan. Once the Northern Expedition succeeds, the Army will not be able to
There has been such a large-scale military operation.
What does this mean? This means that the army's military expenditure will be greatly reduced!
At present, a large part of the huge military expenditures of the Tang Dynasty is war funds. If we simply maintain the current scale of the army, we cannot spend so much money. The most expensive ones are all kinds of war materials, such as those field artillery.
A gun costs a hundred taels of silver, but it will be scrapped after a few large-scale artillery battles. The same goes for muskets.
Not to mention, bullets, artillery shells and other ammunition are also thrown out for free.
If there is no large-scale war, the consumption of guns, artillery and ammunition is very low. There is no problem at all if one artillery is used for more than a dozen. For example, the Guards has not participated in large-scale wars in the past two years.
, their equipment loss rate is very low, and the earliest artillery equipment is still in good condition.
However, for units such as the 1st Infantry Division and the 5th Infantry Division, which frequently fought, the artillery initially equipped was scrapped and replaced with new ones.
Although it costs money to raise an army, it costs even more money to conduct a war!
Once the large-scale war is over, the army's military expenditure will be significantly reduced, and the navy's life will be correspondingly easier.
Unlike the army, the navy usually spends a lot of money to maintain its troops, but in a real war, it won't cost much more than usual.
The Navy of the Tang Dynasty has now become a force that maintains troops for a thousand days and uses them only for a short period of time. The cost of training and maintenance of battleships is relatively high on weekdays, not to mention the price of the battleships themselves.
And this is also the plan of the navy. Now in the past few years, naturally don't expect to get much military expenditure, but after the Ming Dynasty is eliminated, the navy's good days will come. By then, even if it doesn't take more, it will even take a year.
The extra several hundred thousand taels of silver is enough for the navy to expand a new squadron.
After seeing the design plan of the battleship and looking at the construction plan, Li Xuan simply gave the battleship a name. Still following the Tang Dynasty Navy's usual battleship naming rules, the ship was named after the place. It was the first ship of the Tang Dynasty.
The battleship was named Xingquan by Li Xuan himself.
Xingquan is the land of Longxing in the Tang Dynasty. It has great political significance. It is not an insult to name the first battleship.
Although he was personally named by Li Xuan, Zeng Ziwen's expression was not very good when he said goodbye to Li Xuan and went back. At this time, he still remembered Li Xuan's beating just now!
The matter of piracy cannot be delayed any longer.
Otherwise, if Long Yan is angered, many people in the navy will be unlucky, including himself!