After Zhu Youxiao arranged this matter, he sent a message to Huang Kezuan, asking him to recruit cadets from the Ming Dynasty Royal Naval School to form an ocean-going fleet and prepare to go to America to find rubber tree species.
As for the ships of the ocean-going fleet, all ships use Fu ships.
The largest shipyard at this time was Qingjiang Shipyard.
The main shipyard was located along the canal between Shanyang and Qinghe River in Huai'an Prefecture.
It consists of four major factories: Jingwei, Weihe, Zhongdu and Zhili, with a total of 80 branches.
The factory area stretches along the canal, with a total length of more than 20 miles.
The scale is extremely large.
Before the Tianqi Dynasty, the annual output There are about six hundred ships.
After Zhu Youxiao came to the throne, he specially rectified the Qingjiang Shipyard, killed or demoted some officials with bad records, and specially sent Jinyi guards to station here.
Then the experienced shipwrights were concentrated in the four major factories, while the other branch factories were handed over to private operators through sales.
This approach has never been done before, but it is indeed effective.
Because Qingjiang Shipyard was originally state-owned, what ships were built, when they were built, and at what price were all controlled by the imperial court.
This gave officials an opportunity to exert their influence, and also caused a shortage of shipbuilding capacity in the entire shipyard.
After this change, the branch factory was privately owned, which reduced the burden on the court and allowed it to flexibly formulate shipbuilding strategies.
As a result, the number of ships built in peacetime reached 650 in the second year of Tianqi.
This was only the branch factory.
Number of ships built per year.
The main factory and the four major factories were funded by the imperial court and specialized in manufacturing large warships.
By the end of the fifth year of Tianqi, thirty-six great fortune ships had been built.
Among them, the largest Fuchuan is about 90 paces and 136 meters long and 35 paces wide.
The slightly smaller shuttle boats and double-tented boats can be up to seventy paces long and twenty paces wide.
They can install a total of twenty-four cannons, two at the bow and two at the stern, and ten on each side.
Their firepower is three Gunships are stronger.
Zhu Youxiao named the three largest fortune ships Daming, Zhonghua, and Dahan.
Coupled with three rushing ships and three double-tented ships, the Ming Dynasty Ocean Fleet was formed.
At this time, the naval ranks established by Colonel Zhu You were also officially promulgated.
The military ranks of the Ming Dynasty are divided into three categories: officer rank, warrant officer rank and soldier rank.
Warrant officer is a special category.
It is neither an officer nor a soldier.
It is an independent category.
It mainly undertakes professional and technical duties and corresponding management work, and does not undertake Leadership Responsibilities.
The military officer ranks are divided into nine levels: admiral, lieutenant general, major general, colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, captain, lieutenant and second lieutenant.
Warrant officers are divided into first-class, second-class, and third-class warrant officers.
Warrant officers actually have no superior-subordinate relationship and are mainly distinguished based on seniority.
Navy soldiers are divided into six levels: sergeant, sergeant, corporal, veteran, recruit, and private.
Now that the military ranks are established, the levels of each general must also be determined.
Yan Siqi and Zhang Qianfang were appointed as vice admirals, while Zheng Zhilong, Chen Houfu, Gui Chunzhen, Zheng Zha and Dai Chunfeng were all appointed as rear admirals.
The generals in Dongjiang Town and the Guards who transferred to the Ming Dynasty Royal Naval School were appointed to positions ranging from colonel to captain based on their original positions in the Guards.
In this way, Yan Siqi became the commander of the Luzon Navy of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhang Qianfang was the commander of the Ming Dynasty Ocean Fleet, leading a large group of students from the Ming Royal Naval School, plus the geography department, agriculture department, and astronomy department of the Imperial University Academy.
Made up of students from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Liberal Arts.
Except for Zhang Qianfang, who is the commander, who has the rank of lieutenant general, the highest ranking person below is only Colonel Mao Qiwu of the Military Investigation and Statistics Bureau.
This arrangement confused some people, but some smart people saw that after this ocean voyage, the fleet would probably have a large number of school-level or even general-level officers, so they were gearing up and preparing to make contributions this time.
I wish I could be promoted to a real general as soon as possible.
Zhu Youxiao thought about the geography he had learned in his previous life.
If he started from Quanzhou and headed east, he could reach Mexico at this time.
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However, there was no nautical chart for this route.
There was no urgent need to open this route now, so he decided to go first.
Arrive at Manila and proceed to South America using captured Spanish charts and those provided by the Portuguese.
The Ming Dynasty's ocean-going fleet set sail in Quanzhou.
Zhang Qianfang's departure was obviously not a short time away.
His whole family saw him off in Quanzhou.
His daughter cried silently, her face full of tears and she kept wiping them.
Zhang Qianfang's father shouted: "Why are you crying?
Your father has done something that no one has done for ages.
You should be happy."
Just after he finished speaking, tears were already shining in his eyes.
Zhang Qianfang was in high spirits.
He clasped his fists and said to the Quanzhou officials and people seeing him off at the dock: "We have traveled far and wide to find what the emperor needs.
After this sea route is opened, our Quanzhou goods can be marketed more It’s a great place, and then all of you, fellow villagers, can make money in America.
Please say goodbye and see you next year.”
The ocean-going fleet first sailed from Quanzhou to Dayuan.
The students vomited uncontrollably along the way, so the fleet took a day off in Xiamen.
The students landed on the island with weak feet and breathed a sigh of relief.
However, they were trembling with fear when they thought about the longer sea voyage ahead.
Zhou Yanru encouraged the students: "Don't be afraid.
The emperor said that if you vomit and vomit, you will get used to it.
When you get to Luzon, everyone will not vomit again."
The ocean-going fleet needs a person who is familiar with classics and history.
With his mind moving, he asked Ying to go out and was appointed by Zhu Youxiao as the chief officer in charge of the fleet except the army.
His status was only lower than Zhang Qianfang.
Due to family reasons, Zhang Qianfang had great respect for literati and Zhou Yanru, who was born as the number one scholar.
Except for military matters, all other matters were decided by Zhou Yanru.
Sure enough, even before reaching Luzon, some students have already fully adapted to the wind and waves on the sea.
Zhu Youxiao finally selected Song Yingxing to join the fleet, because Song Yingxing was as careful as a hair, while Fang Yizhi was clever, but after all, Fang Yizhi was too young and far away from the Ming Dynasty.
Song Yingxing should be more suitable for the task of finding new species.
As soon as he left the position, Song Yingxing was already in high spirits, and his face was not as earthy as when he was in Quanzhou.
While encouraging his fellow students, he has begun to habitually record what he has seen since going to sea.
On this day, the fleet sailed about a hundred miles away from Manila, and the scout ship at the front sent out a signal: A warship of unknown nationality was found ahead.
Since his nationality was unknown, he was obviously an enemy.
Zhang Qianfang was overjoyed when he got the report.
Since the war in Japan, he had not fought for a long time, so he was naturally happy to see him.
The flagship Daming sent out a semaphore: The gunboats moved closer to the flagship, the Dahan was in front preparing to attack the enemy ships, and the Zhonghua with the students stayed behind the fleet
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