Chapter 317: Navy Shipbuilding, Army Planning

A moment later, the station master compiled Lin Qian's orders into a message and handed it to Lin Qian for review.

Lin Qian took it and saw the message read: "Send the envoy back, firmly refuse the alliance proposal."

Plain talk like "go back to wherever you came from" was indeed not quite suitable for beacon signals that treasured every character.

Still, Lin Qian asked curiously: "What if we insisted on sending the original wording?"

Li Shixiong said with slight embarrassment: "The character 'scram' is not within the encoding scope."

After all, aside from set phrases, the beacon signals had only ninety common characters, all high-frequency written language — giving the character "scram" its own code would be too foolish.

Lin Qian nodded and said: "Send it as is."

A moment later, the signal arms of the Panlong Ridge station swung, and the station across the Pearl River mirrored the movement.

Under the setting sun, the signal arms of the two stations flailed wildly, as if performing a shamanic dance.

After the main station finished transmitting, the sky grew ever darker. Lin Qian gazed into the distance and asked: "Nightfall is coming soon. What happens if this message gets stuck halfway?"

Li Shixiong said: "Along the entire chain, there are three hub stations — Zhaoqing, Wuzhou, and Pingle. When a message reaches a hub station, it is fully recorded, and based on the time of darkness, a judgment is made on whether to transmit to the next-level station.

Take this message just now as an example — it has only four phrase commands, one common-character command, and two order commands, seven commands in total. It can reach Zhaoqing before dark.

The Zhaoqing hub station will record the full text, and when dawn comes tomorrow, continue transmitting to Wuzhou.

This is only the response to nightfall. If heavy fog or heavy rain suddenly strikes, the station will hold the same command still. If the delay lasts too long, it will also send a message-blocked command to the hub station.

Then the previous message will return to the hub station and wait for restoration before being resent."

Lin Qian nodded: "Thoughtful."

Li Shixiong smiled and said: "Your Majesty flatters me. Developing the beacon signals is something I take delight in. Your student and the academy head are preparing to install lanterns on the signal arms — perhaps that can solve the problem of transmitting messages at night."

Hearing this, Lin Qian praised the idea greatly — this was the kind of researcher Daxia needed, full of initiative.

At the same time, night observation would certainly require telescopes with higher magnification and clearer optics, which also placed greater demands on material supply.

The matter of attacking Batavia needed to be pushed forward.

On the way down the mountain, Lin Qian chatted all the way about his ideas for implementing the new laws.

As the sun set, the Zhaoqing hub station received the full message. The station master recorded it in the message log, then ended the day's work.

Early the next morning, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, all personnel at the Zhaoqing hub station reported for duty. The station master pulled out yesterday's log and sent out the backlogged message.

In the morning light, the signal arms of the Zhaoqing hub station formed "122" — the main arm at a 45° angle to the ground, the left and right auxiliary arms perpendicular to the ground, looking like a person reaching out to wave hello.

Soon the subordinate stations also formed the same "122" posture, and then the Zhaoqing station began its transmission dance.

By noon that day, the beacon message had traveled all the way to Guilin city. The station master translated the message and handed it to Qin Liangyu.

Ma Xianglin, below the hall, had long been unable to contain himself and asked: "Mother, what did the helmsman say?"

Qin Liangyu corrected him: "The helmsman has now taken the title of king — you should call him Your Majesty. His Majesty's message says to send the envoy back and firmly refuse the alliance. Summon that envoy of An Bangyan."

A moment later, An Bangyan's envoy was brought into the main hall. Qin Liangyu said: "This old woman has consulted His Majesty. His Majesty does not agree to the alliance. Please return, honored envoy."

An Bangyan's envoy raged: "Bullshit! I've only been here one day — Guilin and Guangzhou are over a thousand li apart. How could there possibly be an order from the Xia King? Are you forging an imperial decree?"

Qin Liangyu said in a cold voice: "Beat him out!"

"On it!" Ma Xianglin grabbed a spear, swung it in a full arc, and laid into the envoy, who was soon howling in pain and fled in panic.

Although the message Qin Liangyu received was in written language, it used a standalone "stern" character command before "refuse/reject" — clearly there was no need to be too courteous with this envoy.

Moreover, the She-An rebels in the southwest were already universally reviled.

When She-An raised troops in the first year of Tianqi, they burned and looted Chongqing city to the ground, leaving hundreds of thousands of commoners homeless.

Afterwards they advanced into Sichuan, plundering dozens of prefectures and counties including Naxi and Yongchuan, slaughtering until the southeast of Sichuan was devoid of smoke for a thousand li, turned into a wasteland.

There was also the siege of Guiyang lasting over ten months, trapping more than four hundred thousand soldiers and civilians in the city until only a little over twenty thousand remained — it had nearly become a ghost city.

Their crimes were numerous, too many to record. Calling the She-An rebels the Jianzhou barbarians of the southwest was hardly an exaggeration.

Given Daxia's strength and good reputation, let alone forming an alliance with She-An — even having communication and contact with them, if it got out, would mean Daxia being taken advantage of.

After a while, Ma Xianglin returned and casually tossed aside the blood-stained spear.

Zhang Fengyi said worriedly: "You didn't kill the man, did you?"

An envoy's death would not be a pity, but if the envoy died, how would the news of the refused alliance be conveyed?

Right now An Bangyan was being chased like a rabbit by the Ming army, fleeing through mountain gullies and dense forests — even sending people into the mountains to find him would be difficult.

Ma Xianglin said nonchalantly: "Don't worry, I know my own strength. I left him half a life — enough for him to get back and deliver the message."

Then Ma Xianglin asked Qin Liangyu for the message, huddled together with Zhang Fengyi, and studied it carefully, occasionally looking up to gaze at the Guilin station on the city wall.

After a while, Ma Xianglin said: "Mother, is this really news from Guangzhou? The two places are over a thousand li apart — even taking a boat downstream would take two days. How could it arrive in one day?"

Qin Liangyu shook her head: "Within Daxia's borders, who would dare issue orders on behalf of His Majesty?"

Ma Xianglin said: "If so, let us send word to the helmsman, requesting to attack Guizhou from the north — capture Fu Zonglong alive, and we can return to Shizhu sooner."

After Qin Liangyu abandoned darkness for light, the court did not make things difficult for Shizhu — after all, Shizhu still had thirty thousand militia, its military strength was not weak, and its terrain was treacherous, so the Ming army could not easily attack it.

And Fu Zonglong's forces were short on troops — dealing with both Daxia and She-An was already a stretch, let alone launching a campaign against Shizhu.

But Shizhu was still under Ming rule after all, and Ma Xianglin and his wife always felt uneasy about it.

Qin Liangyu scolded: "Matters of state and military are no child's play! Right now Daxia's main forces are all besieging Ganzhou. Guangxi's task is simply to guard the border — do not stir up trouble!"

"Yes." Ma Xianglin, having been reprimanded, could only stand down.

The day after Lin Qian returned from Yuexiu Mountain, he convened colleagues from the Military Affairs Bureau, the Navy Department, the shipyards, and the General Staff to discuss a new round of shipbuilding plans.

Daxia's last large-scale shipbuilding was in the eighth year of Tianqi, building fourth-rate and fifth-rate ships that were completed last year and this year.

Tested by the two naval battles at Joseon and Poyang Lake, the ship designs had passed muster. And after two years of waiting, Daxia had accumulated a batch of new timber, enough to build another batch of new ships.

This time the hypothetical enemy was the Dutch, and the battlefield was on the open sea — so the new ships did not need to consider draft, but sought only sufficient tonnage and abundant cannons.

Lin Qian envisioned this batch of ships to be primarily fourth-rate, supplemented by a small number of fifth-rate ships.

The Yandun Bay shipyard had the previous batch of ships to practice on, so the construction speed of the new ships should have improved considerably.

But in the final analysis, how many ships the shipyard could build, of what tonnage, and how fast — it was all still determined by timber.

So Lin Qian asked, "What is the current timber reserve at the shipyard?"

Xiao Jiu took out a notebook and read aloud, "As of the end of the winter month, the shipyard has a cumulative timber stock of fifty thousand single planks, totaling forty thousand liao."

These were two Chinese shipbuilding units of measurement, not immediately intuitive.

So Xiao Jiu offered an analogy: "Converted into trees, that's nearly eight thousand large trees over a hundred years old, and the forest felled amounts to roughly over eleven hundred mu."

This was the closing balance, not counting consumption.

Although the shipyard hadn't built large warships during this period, small boat orders never stopped, and the main warships frequently went to sea and fought, with repairs also consuming large amounts of timber.

Adding it all up, over ten thousand trees had been consumed in two years—calling the shipyard a black hole for timber was entirely apt.

Among the timber, teak was consumed the most. Under Great Xia's vampire-like forceful suction, the Nguyen lords' regime had nearly stripped the near-mountain teak bare, and were forced to log deep in the old forests. Moreover, to obtain timber zones, they kept expanding outward into the southwestern aboriginal territories.

Logging was likewise extremely dangerous—virtually filling the gaps with human lives. It could be said that every piece of timber in the shipyard was soaked in the blood and tears of Annam's common people.

But there was no helping it—timber in this era was cut with human lives. Great Xia's own people were barely being looked after; how could they spare the heart to show charity to foreign commoners?

Great Xia merely paid money to purchase teak; it was Annam's own powerful elite who didn't treat the people under their rule as human beings.

When the people under the Nguyen lords' rule were squeezed to the breaking point and rose up against Nguyen rule, Great Xia would certainly provide support out of regard for the teak—might even provide a queen, since Nguyen Hongyu was still held in Lin Qian's hands.

Lin Qian asked, "If all of it were used to build Candle Dragon-class fourth-rate ships, how many could be built?"

Xiao Jiu calculated carefully and said, "At the very most, enough for seven—but some must be held back, timber set aside for repairs, and allowance made for rework and waste. Building six is more appropriate."

Lin Qian continued, "If six ships were laid down simultaneously, how long would it take to finish?"

"At the fastest, a year and a half," Xiao Jiu said through gritted teeth. "But if we build four first, then two more, it could be even faster—the first four could be completed within a year."

This was the merit of standardized shipbuilding. This batch of fourth-rate ships had no design changes from the Xingming and Yunming, so construction could naturally go much faster.

Lin Qian did a rough calculation: the Great Xia navy currently had three fifth-rate ships, four fourth-rate ships, and one third-rate ship.

Adding four more fourth-rate ships, the main warships would number twelve—slightly edging out the Dutch.

Of course, the Dutch had over a hundred armed merchantmen, while Great Xia had only eleven Yahat-class ships. In a pure comparison of vessel numbers, the Great Xia navy still held no advantage.

But factoring in marine training, gunner quality, artillery standards, and other multiple considerations, Lin Qian was still confident he could take Batavia.

So Lin Qian looked at the others and said, "Regarding the shipbuilding plan, does anyone have any opinions?"

Navy Minister Shen Yuan immediately rose, face flushing red, and clasped his hands in salute: "His Majesty is wise! This minister fully endorses the shipbuilding plan!"

Every year at the start, the Administration Hall conducted the annual budget, with army and navy military expenditures being the largest items. Now that year's end was approaching, the navy's budget had long been spent—even overspent.

Even with Shen Yuan's face as thick as a city wall, he couldn't very well go asking the Finance Department or the Military Affairs Department for more money again.

But now it was fine—His Majesty had directly specially approved shipbuilding, bypassing the lengthy funding request process entirely. An absolutely bold move.

And with six ships built—four first, two after—cannons would need to be purchased, wouldn't they? Crew and soldiers would need to be expanded, wouldn't they? New captains would need to be promoted, wouldn't they?

Next year's budget request would be much easier too.

He, Shen Yuan, had exceeded his quotas by who knows how much over these two years—surely the navy brothers would all be grateful for his "great kindness and virtue."

So when Lin Qian asked if there were any objections, Shen Yuan naturally jumped up first to voice his approval.

The General Staff also indicated no objections. The Director of the Military Affairs Department had some misgivings, but after hesitating a moment, he still nodded.

So Lin Qian immediately signed the order in the name of the Xia King and the General Staff, directing the shipyard to work overtime building the new vessels.

That evening, Army Minister Song Danchu got word of it and ran to Lin Qian's residence to complain tearfully.

The doorman said awkwardly, "Minister Song, His Majesty is in the middle of dinner. Perhaps you could—"

Normally, Song Danchu would never visit at mealtime—that would be far too rude—but this time he was truly desperate.

Year's end was approaching, and both the army and navy budgets were nearly spent. Everyone was tightening their belts—so why should the navy get six fourth-rate ships built out of thin air!

If Song Danchu didn't come to fight for it now, the army brothers would tear him apart come New Year.

Hearing this, Song Danchu smiled and said, "No matter. I'll wait in the entrance hall. Whenever His Majesty finishes eating, I'll trouble you to go in and announce me."

The doorman was caught in a dilemma. Song Danchu might look amiable, but he was still the Army Minister—the doorman wouldn't dare leave the man standing at the door. He could only slip inside to announce him.

A moment later, the doorman returned and said, "Minister Song, His Majesty invites you in."

Lin Qian had only eaten a few bites. Seeing Song Danchu enter, he said, "You haven't had dinner, have you? Sit down and eat together."

Song Danchu sat down nervously. A servant set out bowl and chopsticks. The dinner was lavish, but he had no appetite at all.

Just as he was pondering how to broach the subject, he heard Lin Qian say, "How are the soldiers faring before Ganzhou city?"

Song Danchu immediately sat up straight and replied, "Reporting to His Majesty, our army's supply line to Ganzhou starts from the Meiling Ancient Road, passes through Nankang into the Zhang River, and is then delivered to the city walls. In the first half of the year, when the Zhang River was under Ming army control, supply was very difficult. Now it's much better."

Having said this, he suddenly remembered he'd come to complain, and quickly added, "But no matter what, the stretch from the Meiling Ancient Road to Nankang is overland, with heavy transport losses.

This year, the army budget spent nearly half on front-line supply alone, let alone upgrading equipment.

Your Majesty, the flintlock musket has been developed for quite some time now, yet half the New Army is still using matchlock muskets. Artillery numbers a mere five hundred pieces. The engineers don't have steel shovels for every man, and the wolf-spear and sword-shield soldiers can't all be armored. How can this do?"

Lin Qian smiled without speaking and picked a piece of fish belly for Song Danchu: "Don't just talk—eat."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Song Danchu hurriedly bowed in acknowledgment.

In the administrative system Lin Qian had designed, the General Staff and the Administration Hall were parallel organs, neither subordinate to the other.

But the Army Department and Navy Department under the Military Affairs Department were both headed by civil officials, falling under the Administration Hall's governance.

In simple terms, this separated military command from military administration.

Deploying troops and directing battles fell under the General Staff; military supplies, logistics, and arms procurement all fell under the civil officials.

This system was the modern design of splitting military authority—eliminating warlord separatism, preventing soldiers from interfering in politics, and avoiding laymen directing experts.

Far more sophisticated than the Ming's local Three Offices separation of powers and the governor-superintendent system of civil officials commanding troops.

Thus Song Danchu, as Army Minister, was not clear on the front-line battle situation, but was intimately familiar with weapons iteration and army logistics.

Seeing Lin Qian focused on the poached perch in broth, Song Danchu spoke again: "Your Majesty, by my reckoning, Zhu Dadian may be reaching Jiangxi soon. The decisive battle before Ganzhou is likely not far off. This minister was thinking of requesting some more silver to buy wine and meat for the New Army heroes, to send them off—"

At this point, Song Danchu's voice choked with emotion. Lin Qian couldn't help but smile and offered him a few more words of comfort.

Strictly speaking, the Chongzhen Emperor's appointment of Zhu Dadian as Governor-General of Jiangxi was confidential—Song Danchu shouldn't have known about it.

But in fact, not only did Song Danchu know, but the entire Ming Empire—from Liaodong in the east to Yunnan in the west—probably everyone knew.

Among them, Daxia learned of it the fastest—the very day after the Chongzhen Emperor summoned Zhu Dadian at the platform, the Tianjin station of the Military Intelligence Office sent a hawk ship to Guangzhou with the message.

Three days later, even the specific contents of the platform audience were delivered by the Tianjin station.

This was not because the intelligence officers at the Tianjin station were so remarkably capable—it was simply that the Ming's secrecy work was infinitely close to nonexistent, even counterproductive.

First, factional strife in the Ming was severe; any statement was used as a weapon. Whatever the Donglin Faction said would soon be leaked by rival factions, sometimes even directly to unofficial tabloids to manufacture public opinion attacks.

Second, Ming officials were loose-tongued, craved fame, and loved writing letters to one another—cases of slips of the tongue and intercepted letters were everywhere; secrecy work was a complete mess.

Historically, Chen Xinjia's peace-negotiation leak happened when a servant boy mistakenly delivered the peace proposal documents to the Capital Gazette, and then the scandal of Chongzhen negotiating peace with the Jianzhou barbarians spread across the realm through the Gazette's distribution.

In the end, Chen Xinjia was thrown in prison and beheaded; no one in the court dared mention peace talks again, and the Ming, as it wished, fought the Manchus to the death until the nation fell.

Finally, bookshops, petty clerks, and eunuchs made their living selling court secrets—this had long formed an industry chain. The intelligence peddlers in the capital were crazier than the paparazzi of later generations.

And whatever the official Capital Gazette of the Ming did not print had long been dug up to the bottom by the private gazettes.

To be ashamed to say it, the Tianjin station personnel engaged in intelligence work—sounded impressive, but in truth seventy percent of their information came from reading the official and private gazettes of the capital; the remaining thirty percent came from chatting gossip with people in teahouses and taverns.

Information truly obtained through espionage methods—bribery, developing informants, secret meetings—was barely one in a hundred.

Seeing Song Danchu growing more and more pitiful, on the verge of crying on the spot, Lin Qian smiled and said: "Actually, I was just planning to propose some budget for the New Army at the budget meeting after the New Year.

The area around Poyang Lake is all plains, requiring cavalry operations—the dragoon units need to begin training; we also need to add more cannons, distinguishing between cavalry guns, infantry guns, field guns, siege guns, and other artillery types.

Zhejiang is a major cotton-producing province; once we take Zhejiang, the New Army's uniforms should also be standardized.

Moreover, whether cotton armor or cloth-faced armor, both have great limitations and high manufacturing costs. Once the Buddhist smelting furnace clusters and water-powered forging hammer clusters are built, we can go straight to equipping breastplate armor."

"Yes, yes, yes! Your Majesty, on behalf of the one hundred thousand brothers of the Army, I thank you!" Song Danchu's eyes gleamed with excitement as he hastily promised, "I'll go back and prepare the details, and at next year's budget meeting, I'll present a thorough plan!"

Having said this, he made to rise and leave the table.

Lin Qian smiled: "Finish your meal before you go."

Song Danchu said: "No need—the military supply transport on the Ganzhou front line involves many complicated matters, and I still need to oversee it personally; I also need to work on the budget plan—time waits for no one!"

In early December, Zhu Dadian arrived in Nanchang.

The moment he arrived, he immediately reorganized his troops and campaigned on all fronts, wiping out four "Leveling Kings" in one breath—the surging tide of slave revolts across all of Jiangxi suffered a heavy blow.

At the same time, Zhu Dadian plundered extensively within Nanchang city, bleeding the people dry through exorbitant taxes, land seizures, judicial corruption, and every conceivable means.

As the New Year approached, every household's accumulated savings had been scraped clean down to the pots and bowls; wailing cries continued day and night without cease.

Zhu Dadian not only squeezed the common people to the extreme—he let no one off, from low-level officials and small-to-medium landlords to the great aristocratic clans, all subjected to bone-sucking, marrow-extracting oppression, amassing a vast hoard of gold and silver at lightning speed.

His methods were so brutal that even the great clans well-versed in official rules could not bear it.

All of Jiangxi went from the extreme integrity of Yuan Chonghuan's administration to the extreme corruption of Zhu Dadian's period—almost in an instant.

Only at this point did the people begin to miss the goodness of Governor Yuan, but alas, there was no going back.

However, Zhu Dadian was not one to only take in without giving out—most of the money he extorted was rewarded to his officers and soldiers, and the rest was all spent.

This move objectively alleviated the silver shortage in Jiangxi, while also winning over the army's loyalty and suppressing the slave revolts, pulling all of Jiangxi back from the brink of chaos.

Whether this was deliberate on his part or an unintentional merit, no one could know.

Before year's end, Zhu Dadian had basically stabilized the area around Nanchang, gathered his troops, and headed south straight for Ganzhou. Along the way, he casually eliminated two more "Leveling Kings" near Linjiang Prefecture, sweeping away the gloom of the Battle of Poyang Lake—morale was extremely high.

Beneath the walls of Ganzhou, inside Lei Sanxiang's central command tent, the staff officers and generals had already broken into a heated argument.

Beside the sand table, Colonel Zhang Moye said: "The enemy is advancing down the west bank of the Gan River and has now reached the vicinity of Linjiang Prefecture. In about twenty days, their vanguard forces can reach northwest of the Zhang River.

Even if the main force is slower, they'll arrive in forty days.

According to enemy claims, Zhu Dadian has brought an army of one hundred thousand this time—I estimate two to three tens of thousands is more likely.

If we let them face us across the river in coordination with the Ganzhou defenders, their numbers will exceed ours—that's too passive.

Therefore, I suggest we take the initiative and strike out, sending troops down the Gan River to harass the enemy."

A staff officer said: "We have the navy coordinating defense of the Zhang and Gong Rivers—the enemy will find it hard to cross. Why take the initiative to attack? Wouldn't it be better to hold our position at Ganzhou and wait for the enemy to tire themselves out?"

Zhang Moye picked up the pointer and tapped Nankang County town.

"Nankang is the logistics hub, on the east bank of the Zhang River. During the dry season, the Youshui, Zuoxi, and Gushan Rivers to its north are all unfavorable for boat travel, but extremely easy to swim across. What if Zhu Dadian drives straight south and takes this place?"

The staff officer said: "We rely on the city walls and river channels, dividing our forces to defend."

Under the current situation, if the New Army attacked they would lose the terrain advantage; if they defended they would lose the initiative.

Lei Sanxiang was silent for a moment, then said: "You can't catch a wolf without risking the child—let's give up Nankang!"

"What?" The generals in the tent all stared at him in shock.

"Back when I followed Regional Commander Du to Sarhu, the old barbarian chieftain gave up Hetu Ala as bait to lure us forward;

then sent light cavalry to cut off our supply lines, driving us from behind; in the middle, he sent small units to seize advantageous terrain and block us at Jilin Cliff.

He drove that fool Du like a stupid donkey across the river, trapped him beneath Jilin Cliff, and the entire army fell into an ambush, slowly worn down to death. Now I'm going to learn this trick from the Tartars."

Lei Sanxiang lightly tapped the sand table.

"Right here—we'll fight a great ambush right here, and swallow up Zhu the fool's hundred-thousand-strong army in one go!

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen