Ling Cao and Zhou Tai were both fierce generals of Soochow, who followed Sun Ce to capture Jiangdong, and were famous for their bravery and daring to fight.
After Sun Quan came to power, these two men showed their loyalty to Sun Wu and had no messy ambitions.
Liu Yu was able to bring them over from Yangzhou and recommend them to him, which made Liu Xiang overjoyed.
After this recommendation, Liu Yu was just their leader. He was kind but had no subordinate relationship. The two people met each other and became his subordinates.
The most gratifying thing is that they are all the leading talents that the Anping Army lacks and can fight water battles.
Liu Xiang returned the gift with his hand, which made the two people of low background feel honored.
Ling Cao has no words, which shows that he is not even an ordinary nobleman. Zhou Tai joins the bandits, so he has no origin to speak of. With Liu Xiang's reputation and official title, this ceremony is called the courtesy of a virtuous corporal. In the Han Dynasty, this class was very strict.
In today's society, this move is very easy to use and can easily win people's hearts.
Therefore, the superior is polite and has a very charming personality. Many soldiers and generals of the Anping Army are willing to work wholeheartedly for him because of their usual respect.
Treating others equally was a very rare quality in the Han Dynasty, and this became Liu Xiang's unique personality charm.
Seeing Ling Cao and Zhou Tai, both of them looked happy and admired. He decided to strike while the iron was hot and conquer the land on the spot to calm their minds.
When I first arrived, I naturally couldn't appoint senior officials. Thinking that Ling Cao had made great contributions to Liu Yu, he said: "Conquer Ling Cao as the Sima of the Yunfan Camp, conquer Zhou Tai as the Military Marquis of the Yunfan Camp, and conquer the main ship of the Liyang Camp."
The team has taken office and will be under the command of Taishi Ci. I hope you two can submit."
"Thank you for the promotion, General!" The two of them were overjoyed. They started out as mid-level officers, and many people would never reach this position in their lifetime.
When Cui Yi served as a team leader for eight years, he was not even able to become a village commander, let alone a higher-level military lord and a higher military commander.
Liu Xiang continued to encourage them: "I established the navy because I wanted to conquer the rivers, lakes and seas. The two of them were from Yangzhou, and from the looks of them getting off the boat, they are quite familiar with the nature of water. They should lead their ships, perform meritorious services, and be granted the title of marquis.
That day is not far away."
The officer system of Yunfan Camp is the same as that of infantry and cavalry, but there are some differences in the organization, which is based on ships.
A patrol boat usually has three to five people, and the captain is the captain. A large transport ship usually has ten to twenty people, and is under the jurisdiction of the captain. The main galley warship has a full complement of fifty-two people, and is under the jurisdiction of the team leader, with soldiers and oars.
Hands and sailors each have their own commanders to oversee them.
It is equivalent to the chief officer being the captain, and the subordinate officers being the boatswain and captain. There is no first mate, second mate or anything like that.
There are no larger ships now, but in Liu Xiang's vision, ships with about a hundred people would be under the jurisdiction of the commander, those with more than 200 people would be under the jurisdiction of the military marquis, and those with more than 500 people would be under the jurisdiction of the military commander.
Large ships will be equipped with technical officers, such as pilots, medical officers, craftsmen, damage control and so on.
It was an unexpected surprise for Ling Cao and Zhou Tai. The more than 500 shipwrights and their more than 2,000 family members brought back by the fleet were the real deal.
Some of these people were mobilized by the Wujun Shipyard, and some were recruited by the Kuaiji County Shipyard. They were gifts brought to Liu Yu by pretending to be a public servant for personal gain. Of course, Yangzhou Mu took action, and of course they were all talented people. There were six master craftsmen, and they had two hundred apprentices with them.
The rest are craftsmen living in various shipyards.
It is not an exaggeration to say that these people are the most important weapon of the country.
They can build high-rise ships and battleships, equip them with strong men, and immediately defeat all the shipyards in Youzhou.
With this group of people able to get together, it seemed that Liu Yu wanted to make a big move in Yangzhou, but with the help of Yuan Shao, he finally got an advantage over Liu Xiang.
Yuan Benchu is a good man!
We will discuss the matter of repaying Yuan Shao later. The most urgent matter is the resettlement of these people.
Liu Xiang now has two shipyards. One is in Quanzhou County, Yuyang County, responsible for building large and small cargo ships. The other is in Haiyang County, responsible for building warships. There are eight shipbuilding canals, which are dry docks.
There were no shipyards in the Han Dynasty, so Liu Xiang "invented" a shipbuilding site called a "shipyard".
In fact, the principle is very simple. Dig a canal by the river. If the water in the canal is connected to the river, it is called a wet dock. If there is a dam to block the water flow, it is a dry dock.
Wooden piers are placed at the bottom of the main canal, and large wooden beams are laid on top of the piers. The boat is built on the wooden beams. After the boat is built, water is introduced into the canal, and the boat floats, and then enters the river directly along the waterway.
The principle is very simple, but the craftsmen are very clever. They not only built a boat shed on the main canal to protect it from the sun and rain, but also imitated the thousand-pound lock of the city gate and made a gate that can be pushed laterally.
The main body of the gate is an iron grid-like fence, which is not hindered by water pressure when pushed and pulled. The gaps are then blocked with plates, so that there is no need to repeatedly build and demolish embankments.
After the new ship is built, the gate is opened, water flows in, the ship floats, and drives out of the waterway. Then the gate is pushed back, the gap is blocked, the water in the canal is drained, and the next ship is continued.
Although Youzhou's shipbuilding technology is inferior, its shipyard technology leads the world for more than a thousand years.
With such a good dock and a small broken boat that was 28 meters long and four meters wide, Liu Xiang seemed to hear the dock crying.
The arrival of this group of shipwrights can greatly improve Youzhou's shipbuilding technology, but Liu Xiang doesn't really want to build flat-bottomed ships. He still likes sharp-bottomed warships, and the sea is his goal.
With the size of the building boat, if it is equipped with a pointed bottom, it will not be able to enter other small rivers except large rivers. The hull of the flat-bottomed building boat is forty meters high and can enter the water for ten meters. If it is replaced with a pointed bottom, it will be more than fifty meters tall.
meters, nearly thirty meters into the water. Most rivers cannot meet the needs of navigation and are easily stranded.
Moreover, the construction cost of the building boat is too expensive, and he won't be able to use it in the short term.
I discussed the problem with several staff members. Xun Yu, Jushu and others were all a little confused. They were all from the north and did not understand big ships.
Liu Yu, who was still dragged along, figured out a way.
"You can first build a fighting ship for combat, and then build a pointed-bottomed sea cargo ship to gain experience."
He immediately called six master shipbuilders over, and when he thought about it, they were stunned because they had never seen a pointed-bottomed ship.
The group of people immediately went to the water village.
When they saw the galley warship with iron birch as the bottom, and heard that the keel was made of a whole piece of wood, the six master craftsmen were so angry.
He looked at Liu Xiang as if he were a prodigal, and muttered: "You will be struck by lightning if you waste all your natural resources."
"It's a pity that such a precious material is available."
After seeing the ship model, testing the performance, and understanding the materials, the six master craftsmen unanimously agreed.
"It's not a big deal for a ship that's twenty-five feet long. You can also try a ship that's thirty feet long."
However, taking into account the draft and the flexibility of inland water use, after several days of discussions, a rough sketch of the new ship design was released.
The fighting ship is twenty-two feet long, three feet four feet wide, six and a half feet high, with three masts, a single oar, and sixteen pairs of oars. The empty ship enters the water three feet long. That is, it is 52 meters long, 8 meters wide, and 15 meters high.
, 7 meters into the water. There is one floor in the bottom warehouse, one floor in the oar cabin, and two floors of watchtowers are built above the deck.
It can carry about 200 crew members, and can still have a load of nearly 300 stone.
It is longer, narrower, faster, and more flexible than the Chinese-made fighting ships, but it is shorter above the water surface. The specific combat effectiveness cannot be known until it is tried.
Not necessarily on inland rivers, but on lakes and seas, facing tall ships and fighting ships is like a leopard hunting a stupid cow.
It is very consistent with Liu Xiang's fighting philosophy: fight if you can beat him, and run if you can't beat him.
Great, that's it.
But I had a hard time coming up with a name. Both ships were sharp-bottomed galley warships, which were also very different from the Han-made warships and fighting ships. They had to have a name, right?
But what should it be called?
Liu Xiang is a bad name. I thought about it for a long time but couldn't think of a good name.
Or should we call it Centipede Type 1 or Centipede Type 2?