Chapter XXII: A 3rd Class Sailing Battleship In fact, Wei Zheng was also a little depressed, when Li Zhen was just named the general of Tiance, Li Shimin stuffed a lot of princes and nobles in the Tiance Mansion, in order to increase Li Zhen's power and change some people's attitude towards him.
However, it is a pity that I don't know if Li Shimin forgot or for some other reason, Wei Zheng's son was missing among these people, which made Wei Zheng worry for a long time.
Not only because he felt that he was no longer trusted by Li Shimin, but more importantly, when Li Zhen was in Chang'an, Wei Shuyu and Li Zhen were only general friends and did not have a good relationship.
There was no problem with this at that time, after all, it was to avoid suspicion, not only Wei Shuyu, but also Li Jing and Li Ji's children and grandchildren were not very familiar with Li Zhen at that time.
But with Li Zhen being established as the general of Tiance, it is basically a certainty that he will be established as the crown prince next, and now things will be troublesome, once Li Zhen succeeds to the throne in the future, the Wei family will almost be squeezed to the periphery.
Wei Zheng thought so, it was not unreasonable.
First of all, Wei Shuyu and Li Zhen are not familiar with each other, secondly, Wei Shuyu did not give him much help before Li Zhen succeeded to the throne, and thirdly, Wei Shuyu himself is only a mediocre talent, and he doesn't have much ability - why do people reuse you?
If it is not reused by the king, the Wei family will definitely be marginalized, so how can the glory of the Wei family be inherited?
Therefore, Wei Zheng was quite nervous during that period of time, and it happened that you couldn't recommend yourself for this kind of thing, but it made him depressed.
Now it's okay, it's finally my turn, and the matter has finally been resolved, which makes the crux that Wei Zheng has been holding in his heart finally open.
Although Wei Shuyu did not enter the Yue Wangfu or Tiance Mansion, he was also under Li Zhen's command, and he was also his subordinate, and it would be no problem to enter Li Zhen's eyes after completing a few tasks in the future, as for whether he could earn glory and wealth in the future, it would depend on his own ability.
"So be it, you step aside."
"The minister retired."
Li Zhen, who is far away in Lingnan, still doesn't know about the turmoil in Chang'an City, let alone Li Shimin has given him a tight spell, and he is now visiting the shipyard with great interest.
Today, he was in a particularly happy mood, because today, the Datang Yuezhou Shipyard finally built an epoch-making thing - a third-class sail battleship.
Three-class sail battleship, two to three layers of gun decks (mostly two floors), 64 ~ 80 guns, capacity of 490 ~ 720 people, displacement of 1300-1800 tons, this class of warships is the most perfect combination of firepower, speed, and cost at that time, generally used as the main warship in the fleet, is the middle force in the battle line.
The third-class battleships may be far inferior to the first-class battleships in terms of displacement and artillery intensity, but in terms of cost performance, they are the highest first-class battleships, and they are also one of the most manufactured main battleships at that time.
At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, 117 of the 175 capital battleships of the British Navy had third-class battleships, and in the Battle of Trafalgar, 20 of the 27 British battleships were of this class: 29 of the 33 battleships of the combined Franco-Spanish fleet were of this class, which shows how many third-class battleships were at that time.
If a fleet is compared to an army, the first-class battleship is the marshal, and the third-class battleship is the general, the marshal only needs to command the battle situation remotely, and it is the general (third-class battleship) and the many small soldiers (fourth-class and fifth-class battleships) who really go into battle to kill the enemy.
What's more, the third-class battleship is already competent enough for the task of ocean voyage, that is to say, the ocean conquest that Li Zhen has been planning in his heart can finally start completely.
It just so happened that Liu Renliang over there had also systematically followed some old sailors and sailors to learn the experience of sea navigation, and now only actual combat training is left.
And Li Zhen has already found a suitable target, as long as Liu Renliang can successfully find the place he wants to find, and bring back the treasure to himself, then he can graduate smoothly, and the position of the governor of the Tang Yuezhou fleet is his.
"Your Highness, this is our warship."
Zheng Yintao, director of the Yuezhou Shipyard, felt that he had a lot of confidence today, because after several months of hard work, the Yuezhou Shipyard finally built the battleship that His Royal Highness the King of Yue needed.
In front of Li Zhen was a battleship that was not too big, but looked full of muscles.
Compared with the merchant ship converted from which Li Zhen came back (in order to escort grain and grass, a lot of warships were needed, but Li Zhen did not allow the Vietnamese ships to make warships, and the Vietnamese ships could only use merchant ship modifications), although it was not as large as the battleship, but the design of the warship, the three-deck, and the gun windows showed a hideous appearance of nearly 100 guns (in fact, there were only more than 80 guns), none of which proved the strength of this battleship.
If two battleships were to be put together to bombard each other, there was no doubt that a merchant ship with a bloated structure and more than 20 guns would not be an opponent of the battleship in front of it at all, and even a third-class battleship would only need one salvo to smash the merchant ship out of range.
Quite simply, the structure of the merchant ship was not designed for war after all, and it simply could not withstand the violent recoil of several artillery pieces.
Therefore, in order to carry the guns onto the merchant ships, the power of the guns was weakened, and only the reduced guns could be carried on the merchant ships - anyway, the warships in the caravans existed more for intimidation than for killing......
Such a warship is more appropriate to be armed merchant ships than warships.
The range can't keep up, the power is not as good, the protection is even worse, and even the hit rate is not as good as that of a third-class battleship......
How can such a battleship compare with a real battleship?
I'm afraid that one third-class battleship would be enough to slaughter ten armed merchant ships.
"Not bad, not bad."
Looking at the battleship that was painted white as a whole, Li Zhen became more and more satisfied, with a warship of this level, his ocean-going plan could be realized.
First the islands of Southeast Asia, then Australia, then South America, and finally North America......
Peppers, corn, potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, peanuts......
Spicy and spicy mapo tofu, fragrant roasted corn, fragrant potato beef, sweet pumpkin pie, sweet sweet potato porridge, crispy and crispy drunkard peanuts......
No, no, the more I think about it, the more I want to drool, I'm their king of Yue, how can I drool in front of so many subordinates?
No, no, I have to hold back......
But I can't help it......