After the administrative team was established, Shang Yi's affairs were reduced a lot, and he could devote all his main energy to military construction and military logistics construction. The emergence of power in the barrel of a gun is a veritable quotation in any era. Therefore, Shang Yi was also very clear that the army is the foundation for his foothold in this era. Without a strong army, everything else is a cloud.
Currently, there are four formal regiments of the merchant army stationed in Zhejiang, two special battalions, and more than 2,000 soldiers. There are more than 8,000 famous muskets and more than 200 artillery artillery of various sizes. Although compared with the Ming army of this era, the proportion of firearms in the merchant army is very high, there is still a big gap. At present, only the second, third and fifth regiments are equipped with full musket artillery. Although the newly formed sixth regiment has also conducted musket shooting training, it has not yet been equipped with firearms. For the time being, cold weapons can only be used.
However, it is still quite effective in recruiting troops. The Shangjia Army has been stationed in Hangzhou for more than a month and recruited more than 2,000 new troops based on the economy. Now there are nearly 3,000 reserve troops. In addition, a considerable number of Ming army that were disbanded during the rebellion were collected, with 3,000 or 4,000 people. Shang Yi organized them all into the reserve troops for training. If more than 4,000 troops from Changguowei, the Shangjia Army's reserve troops are now about 10,000, which can be organized into three regiments.
At the same time, the Shangjia Army also had nearly 30,000 prisoners. After several months of forced labor reform, some of them performed quite well. Shang Yi also prepared to select a group of people from the prisoners after the beginning of the year and add them to the army. And this was originally what he planned.
But in this way, the gap in artillery firearms will be even larger. But there is no way to do this. The construction of the arsenal is now in its initial scale. Even if some of it is put into production, it will have to wait at least until February and March next year. Now Hangzhou can only prepare ammunition for guns and cannons, while other craftsmen who moved from Muling Pass and Shang Yi who came to Nanjing can only temporarily do some preparations under the command of Sun Heding. If you really want to meet the supply of the entire army, you have to wait at least a year later. But by that time, the scale of the army will be further expanded, which seems to be a contradictory problem.
In terms of funds and materials, after the merchant army went south, they first cheated Zhang Xianzhong and swallowed up the money plundered by the rebels in Zhejiang. After entering Hangzhou, they had more than 1.3 million taels of deposited silver, but now they are spending hard, so they almost need to spend nearly 300,000 taels of deposited silver. There is still about 600,000 taels of deposited silver in Shandong. Overall, it should be fine for supplying for one or two years. In terms of grain reserves, Jingtun now collects all kinds of rice, noodles, and mixed rice, which is also sufficient. There is food and guns, so I feel unhappy.
However, although the silk factory has opened, it will take at least half a year to wait until there is profit. This matter is too urgent. After all, this base has just been settled and everything is in trouble, so everything can only be done slowly.
In the navy, Shang Yi gradually mobilized warships from various coastal defense stations in Zhejiang, and got more than 60 warships, but they were basically four hundred materials like Changguowei and two hundred materials, but they were better than nothing. They were still far from being able to form combat power at sea.
In addition, the three large ships ordered by Shang Yi started to be built in Hu Binjiang's shipbuilding workshop with the flow. The shipyard built in Hangzhou also selected the address, at the foot of Haiyan Phoenix Mountain at the junction of Hangzhou Prefecture and Jiaxing Prefecture, Hangzhou City is about fifty miles away. At this time, construction was started with the flow. Shang Yi transferred 5,000 prisoners' labor force to participate in the construction of the shipyard. The newly established navy of the Merchant Army was also stationed near the shipyard, practicing military forces and managing prisoners.
Navy construction is the top priority of military construction at present. Therefore, after Shang Yi took care of the matter in Hangzhou, he immediately rushed to the shipyard to inspect the shipyard's project progress.
When we arrived at the address of the shipyard, we saw countless tents tied along the coast, and several rows of brick and wood houses were being built on one side of the tent. Huang Zhen and Hu Jiangbin, who were left behind in the camp, came out to greet Shang Yi with more than a dozen apprentices. Shang Yi did not care about rest, so he asked Hu Jiangbin to lead him to watch the progress of the project.
Hu Jiangbin and Shang Yi and his group came to the beach, and saw a huge rectangular pit about hundreds of meters away from the coast. According to Shang Yi's vision, the large pit was about 80 meters long and about 30 meters wide. Now more than one person was dug out from the meridian. A circle of walls was built on the periphery of the pit. At this time, countless people were working inside and outside the pit.
Hu Jiangbin said: "Sir, this is the first dock. I excavated according to the size of a large ship with two thousand materials. However, the draught of a large ship with two thousand materials is more than two meters. Therefore, this dock must be digged at least two meters and five feet deep, and the surrounding area must be built with stones before shipbuilding can start."
Shang Yi nodded. In this era, sea ships with displacement of 1,000 to 1,500 tons generally had lengths of 50 to 70 meters, about 10 to 15 meters wide, and 6 to 8 meters small. The total length of the "Sea Monarch" sailing ship launched by Britain in 1637 was 70 meters long, with a hull of 51 meters long, 14 meters wide, 23 meters high, and 6.8 meters draft, with a total weight of 1,683 tons. It has been in service for more than 60 years. During this period, it has become a symbol of maritime hegemony of the British Empire. Therefore, the dock opened by Hu Jiangbin basically combined the requirements of more than 1,000 tons of warships. So he said: "How long will it take to repair this dock? Is it enough manpower? If not enough, I can draw more people."
Hu Jiangbin said: "It is expected that this dock will be built by the end of this year at the latest! But now it is the first dock, and the staff is enough. If there are many people sent, there will be no place for them to work. After the dock is repaired, the workers will have experience and have a model. I plan to start construction of the two docks together and increase the staff at that time."
Shang Yi nodded, took a long cloth bag from the guards, handed it to Hu Jiangbin, and said, "I have brought you the drawings with scriptures. Can the dock be built before you can start building a ship?"
When Hu Jiangbin heard the drawings were brought, he hurriedly picked them up. He immediately opened them in a hurry and said while looking at them: "It turns out that the treasure ship looks like this... As long as the materials are complete... the drawings are so detailed, this is the first time I have seen such a fine drawing... Once the dock is built, you can start building a ship... Oh... It turns out that the six masts are distributed like this..."
The drawings of this set of treasure ships were drawn from the computer by Shang Yi. There were fifteen drawings in total. Shang Yi spent several nights to draw the gourds and only drew the main five of them. The remaining ten detailed drawings have not been drawn very well. Although Shang Yi was not a painter, as a special force soldier, he also learned basic painting techniques and imitating a few ship models was no problem. In fact, the so-called drawings in ancient China were very rough and could only be just a rough look. Therefore, the drawings of Shang Yi imitated paintings were indeed detailed in this era.
Seeing that he was fascinated by his eyes, Shang Yi felt a little funny, so he patted Hu Jiangbin on the shoulder and said, "Master Hu, don't be anxious now, just leave the drawings here, you can read them slowly."
Hu Jiangbin came to his senses and felt a little embarrassed, saying, "I'll make you laugh."
Shang Yi said: "Okay, it's still early now. I'll go see the soldiers' training. You go back to the barracks first. I'll come to find you later."
Hu Jiangbin hurriedly said, "Sir, there is another thing, the villain wants to report it like you."
Shang Yi said: "What's the matter?"
Hu Jiangbin said: "When we were placing land here, someone once asked us to say that the property of this land belonged to their family and had to build a shipyard here. Every year, he had to pay them 10,000 taels of silver as rent. But the villain obviously liked that this was a wasteland, so he built a shipyard here. So when he asked them for the land deed, they not only couldn't take it out, but they also spoke rudely, and wanted to touch him. Later, General Cheng and General Huang brought people to him, and they retreated. But in the following days, people came to wander around. Fortunately, General Cheng sent people to guard him closely, so they didn't dare to do anything."
Shang Yi said: "Didn't you tell them that this is the Merchant Army's shipyard?"
Hu Jiangbin said: "The villain naturally said it, but they are still unscrupulous. Although they dare not do anything, they said a lot of unpleasant words."
Shang Yi nodded and said, "Who are they? Do you know clearly?"
Hu Jiangbin said: "Later we inquired, it turned out that they were from Majiazhai in Haiyan County. I heard that Majiazhai was a bully in this area. In the past, even the government could not do anything to them."
Shang Yi said: "Okay, I understand. Don't worry, leave the matter of Majiazhai to me to handle."
Hu Jiangbin said: "Thank you, sir, I'll take your leave first."
Then, Shang Yi brought people to the beach, and a team of soldiers were practicing swimming at the beach. The navy soldiers were divided into two groups, one left behind in the camp, one group participated in training, and took turns to replace them. Of course, the first thing to learn is naturally swimming, and then familiar with the ship, learning the techniques of pulling sails, watching the wind, steering, laying anchors, etc.
After Shang Yi and others arrived at the beach, they saw Wu Quanfu, his three sons and son-in-law, all naked at this time, observing the situation of the soldiers in the water on the shore with barefoot. Although it was early winter, Wu Quanhai and his family were both born in the Orange People and were like this at sea all year round, so they didn't feel cold.
When he saw Shang Yi coming, Wu Quanfu immediately knelt down to Shang Yi with his son-in-law and kowtowed. It turned out that Wu Quanfu's family is now swimming in the merchant army, and the ship instructors were responsible for priesting soldiers with these basic skills every day.
Because they were born in Danmin, swimming in the water and boats was a daily meal, so it was of course more than enough for the soldiers to teach the soldiers. But for the Wu Quanfu family, it was the first time that they could move to the shore to settle down steadily, and they also became instructors. Not only were they respected by the soldiers, but their income was ten times more than before. Even if they were working with five men, they could also allow the whole family to live a comfortable and stable life. Therefore, the Wu Quanfu family was naturally grateful to Shang Yi.