Chapter 177: Shipyard

In 1628, the Taijiang Inner Sea was five kilometers wide and twelve kilometers long. Vast, beautiful lagoons spread out along its northern and southern ends, a landscape that would persist into later ages, when the lagoon clusters would eventually become wetland parks and fishing grounds for tourists to photograph.

Now, under the rule of the Transmigrators, Taijiang already possessed the character of a port from a later era.

First, the shipping lanes.

In earlier times, due to silt accumulation, many parts of Taijiang were only one to three meters deep and impassable for cargo ships. But ever since the Transmigrators acquired a dredger, their first priority had been clearing a main channel running straight from Chikan Wharf to the mouth of the Dayuan Channel, then laying buoys along the entire route.

As for the other sections, the dredger was currently widening the channels and had no time to clear them yet. Even so, the Port Authority had still used buoys of various distinct appearances to demarcate functional zones across the surface of Taijiang — shallow-draft vessels, including those for coastal freight and short-distance passenger transport, now all had their own dedicated channels.

And these uniform, sleek-lined, dedicated boats were the mainstay products of the Taijiang Shipyard since its founding.

The shipyard, situated at the northeast cape of Taijiang, had been operating at full capacity since its establishment, given the surging demand for vessels from all sides. As manpower increased, the yard expanded northward in stages, its scale growing ever larger: on the various slipways stretching hundreds of meters, ant-like shipyard workers bustled around hull frameworks every day, machines roaring, the clamor dense and chaotic, the scene one of intense fervor.

Of course, large scale did not equate to high technical content; the greater part of the shipyard was still occupied by the small-boat work sections.

These boat-building sections were quite crude — essentially just shallow pits dug into the sand. A novice typically had to build two or three boats before they could even be considered initiated, after which they would specialize and cultivate a particular skill.

And the master craftsmen whom the Transmigrators called Project Managers were a scarce commodity; usually, one person was responsible for two or three boat sections.

After the Jiajing era of the Ming, the traditional "rotational corvée" system had effectively collapsed due to the massive flight of artisan households, replaced by a commutation system where the authorities collected silver in lieu of labor. By the Chongzhen years, craftsmen with genuine skill — shipwrights included — though low in social status, were in fact of the middle class and very unlikely to become refugees.

The craftsmen gathered at Moyun Temple had largely been acquired through the outlay of gleaming silver — hired, bought outright, or else redeemed from prison, types like convicted criminals and gamblers.

Once these people were collected, the first thing they had to do was study language and mathematics.

Traditional craftsmen had one problem that drove the Transmigrators to extreme frustration: most of them were illiterate, relying entirely on a few fixed templates committed to rote memory to carry out production — mechanically applying them with no creativity whatsoever.

After studying basic language and math for a period at Moyun Temple, these people came to Dayuan for further training — learning while producing. The curriculum would gradually shift its emphasis to unit conversions, simple geometry, and surveying; shipwrights and carpenters would also be exposed to specialized content like wood expansion coefficient tables.

A portion of those adept at learning quickly became the elite among the craftsmen. These people, now armed with theoretical knowledge, had all become "Project Managers" at the Taijiang Shipyard. This position was not handed out freely; the minimum requirement was that they could read the ship blueprints provided by the Transmigrators and direct the workers to build the actual vessel.

The "Taijiang Freight Type 1" and "Taijiang Passenger Type 1" — the two boat types built in the greatest numbers — were basic hull forms independently researched and developed by the Taijiang Shipyard.

To say "independently researched and developed" was a stretch; in truth, the shipyard had merely provided the requirements and various environmental parameters. The detailed blueprints for both hulls had been produced by Boss Cao, who had commissioned a professional ship-design firm from the later era, which used various computer technologies to design, calculate, and test them before he brought the files back to Dayuan on a hard drive.

The Transmigrators' current crude industrial capability simply could not support anything worthy of the term "design." Whether it was the equipment in the Kiln District or the vessels of the shipyard, everything was in fact "borrowism" — directly importing complete sets of equipment, or importing key components, then crudely imitating the other parts.

The shipyard leadership, headed by Qiao Zhengtai, faced the same problem: they could produce blueprints and data for over a hundred existing boat types, but the crucial question was, which one was best suited to current conditions? Or should they build them all and test each one?

Society progresses continuously. If those historically classic hull forms — from wooden sailing ships to steel battleships — with all their blueprints and data, were run through 21st-century industrial design standards, there would surely be many points that could be improved.

With their paltry manpower and equipment, it was fundamentally impossible for the Transmigrators to complete any ship design work. Design was not so simple; the finalization of any set of blueprints required an experienced design team, supported by extensive calculations and simulation equipment, to pull off.

In the not-too-distant future, a certain power would successively construct various wooden sailing warships, transport ships, iron-ribbed wooden-hulled warships, ironclad ships, battleships...

For all these diverse vessels with their varied functions listed above, Cao Chuan had already placed orders with the ship-design firms of the later era. These ships, after undergoing comprehensive improvements, would — with the highest sailing efficiency, the optimal structural layout, and the most elegant lines — gallop across the seven seas of the transmigration plane and project military might across the globe.

Returning to the small boats. The "Taijiang Freight Type 1," used for cargo runs, had been designed and built based on the current transport environment of Taijiang.

This type of boat had a flat bottom, used a Chinese-style rigid sail raised and lowered by a pulley block, carried a load of two tons, and could be easily operated by two or three people.

As a boat specifically running transport between Chikan and the Kiln Area Base, this vessel had a shallow draft, high speed, and stable cargo handling — making it quite practical. The Chinese rigid sail with its pulley system both saved manpower and ensured the boat could operate normally under most wind directions.

Its excellent handling characteristics meant that some veteran boatmen, during high tide, did not even need to circle around the outer edge of Beixianwei Island to enter Xingang Creek. These men, steering their empty boats after unloading, would charge straight from Chikan Wharf into the lagoon district north of Taijiang, and relying on their intimate knowledge of the route — stirring up countless waterfowl along the way — would take this shortcut and slip into Xingang Creek.

... Unlike the broad, flat cargo boats, the ten passenger-type boats specifically used to carry people employed clean white canvas fore-and-aft sails. These boats had long, slender hulls, graceful lines, and flew across the water at high speed, ferrying personnel back and forth across Taijiang every day.

However, this type of boat currently had one drawback: they could not be built in too great a number.

The reason was simple: a shortage of canvas.

Although the Kiln District had DIYed looms and a welding machine for joining large canvas panels using imported components, the supply of raw materials consistently failed to keep pace with consumption.

The Transmigrators lacked sufficient transport capacity to import cotton from Jiangnan, and Taiwan was unsuitable for cotton cultivation. Meanwhile, the fiber crops — flax, ramie, and the like — that the Agriculture Department had planted on a large scale had yet to reach maturity. The limited canvas had to be prioritized for main sailing ships like the Chengfeng, so the small boats, which could only ply coastal waters, would not be built in large numbers for the time being.

Besides the small-boat sections, which accounted for the greatest number at the Taijiang Shipyard, single-masted and double-masted sailing ships of slightly higher technical content were also under construction.

Both these types were derived from the two-masted fore-and-aft schooner that had appeared among the Dutch as early as the 16th century. Extremely fast, with gaff topsails and a characteristically long bowsprit — these were the hallmarks of the type.

In 18th-century North America, schooners came into widespread use for roles demanding speed and windward sailing ability, such as slave-trading and pirate vessels. This sail plan was also common on fishing boats and exploration vessels; by the late 19th century, over two thousand two-masted schooners were hauling cargo across the Great Lakes.

Thus, the schooner was an all-around vessel. Except for being outclassed in cargo capacity by the slow, big-bellied freighters, it was near-perfect in every other respect — a true multi-role workhorse.

Currently under construction on the slipways were two schooners that had undergone later-era design improvements: one single-masted, one double-masted.

The single-masted vessel was 22 meters long, the double-masted 30 meters; the two ships were largely identical in outward appearance. Once completed in the future, these two ships would be fitted with cannons and soldiers, and the Navy would test their cruising, combat, and transport capabilities within the strait. Once testing was complete, both types would be mass-produced and deployed as the Navy's mainstay ship classes.

Since these two vessels were the first medium-sized ships over 20 meters in length that the shipyard had ever built, the Transmigrator higher-ups at the yard took them very seriously. Recently, a large number of skilled workers and four Project Managers had been concentrated on the slipways, and every day, two Transmigrator senior personnel participated in the construction.

At the northernmost end of the shipyard lay the only dry dock the Transmigrators currently possessed.

This dock had been newly completed not long ago and had previously been used to maintain special vessels like the Chengfeng, which had been fitted with electronic instruments and power equipment.

Recently, however, the shipyard's true technical strength — including Factory Manager Qiao Zhengtai and several Transmigrators from the Mechanical Department — had all gathered inside the dock.

Parked in the very center of the dock was a Great Fortune Ship.

This 800-liao Fortune Ship, named the "Rui'an," had been purchased from Fuzhou.

The colleagues from Fuzhou Station, dispatched some time ago to establish a presence in Fuzhou, had purchased the Rui'an and a full load of iron material the moment they arrived in Fuzhou, then promptly sailed back to Dayuan.

After its cargo was completely unloaded at Dayuan, the Rui'an had been confined within the dry dock, where a series of modifications had begun.

The counterfeit "Cao Chuan" would soon travel to Fuzhou for an audience with Xiong Wencan, and by that time, the Rui'an would be just finished with its refit and could serve as the mission's ship.

Neither Old Xiong himself nor the Crossing Faction wished for any information to leak out before the formal pacification offer. Moreover, on this diplomatic mission, the envoy party would also need to carry out certain unsavory deeds; therefore, this trip to Fuzhou by the "Cao Chuan" played by Zhang Dongdong was, in substance, a covert operation.

Since it was a covert operation, the vessel moored at the wharf outside Fuzhou City naturally could not be a sand ship, a Guangdong ship, or a square-rigged ship; the only type that would not draw attention could only be a Fortune Ship.

And so the Rui'an — a Fortune Ship built with fairly decent materials and still eighty percent new — was placed upon the Transmigrators' modification bench.

The list of items on the Rui'an requiring modification was quite extensive.

The hull structure needed strengthening, the cabins required re-partitioning, and electronic instruments and a propulsion system had to be installed; spaces also had to be reserved for certain concealed features, including a machine gun nest.