Start Being a Vassal King Today - Chapter 394

[Chapter 394 Navigation]

next day.

Naval Academy.

Zhang Yazi stood awkwardly on the general platform in front of the Naval Academy.

Below are 150 trainees selected from among the navy soldiers to be trained as captains, first mates and other generals.

At this moment, even though Zhang Yazi had changed into the new clothes that Tsui Hark bought for him, he was still nervous when he saw so many people.

Zhao Xu and Zhou Yi were also on the podium.

Zhou Yi looked at Zhang Yazi with great interest.

Hearing from the King of Yan that Zhang Yazi was sailing the boat back to Yanzhou from Gaoli by himself, he decided to make a decision on this person.

“This is a new student named Zhang Yazi. We will be brothers from now on,” Zhou Yi introduced.

Then, he told about Zhang Yazi’s return to Yanzhou from Korea.

The way the students looked at Zhang Yazi suddenly changed.

Many of these students are fishermen, and they naturally know the difficulty of navigating in the sea.

Pointing to a place for Zhang Yazi to sit down, Zhao Xu said at this time: “Raising troops for a thousand days and using them for a short time, your navy will have an important mission soon, what is this mission, I can’t say yet, but it requires you to drive Use the warship built in Pingcheng to destroy the enemy’s warship.”

Zhou Yi nodded.

When he came, King Yan had already told him the next plan.

He has only one feeling, and that is excitement.

The recruitment of marine soldiers had long since ended, and the first batch of soldiers he personally recruited had been trained for three or four months on the warships in the lake.

Now I have trained fighting and gunning in the South Camp.

He is quite proficient in both fighting and gunning, and is just waiting to board the ship.

He thought it would have to wait until the end of the year.

But I didn’t expect that because of the Northern Expedition, it was more than three months ahead of schedule.

“There is going to be a war.” The students heard the message contained in King Yan’s words, and suddenly whispered.

“During this time, the king has taught you some basic things, such as how to judge the square of ocean currents according to the seasons, and semaphore, which is convenient for command at sea, but the most important thing for you is how to control the battleship. Now, you go back and clean up After a while, we will head to Pingcheng in the afternoon.” Zhao Xu said.

“Yes, Your Highness.” The students all stood up.

After bowing to King Yan, they left the room in an orderly manner.

At this time, Zhao Xu said to Zhou Yi, “You lead the students to Pingcheng first, and I will explain something to you, and we will go after the party.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Zhou Yi smiled on his dark face.

During this period of time, he and his fellow students were receiving training at the South Camp, and they were as black as charcoal.

But he looks more and more like a general.

After leaving the Naval Academy, Zhao Xu went straight back to the palace.

In the study, he drew a blueprint.

The thing on this drawing looks like a compass with two legs apart, but there is a curved metal scale bar connecting the two legs.

There is also a short spotting telescope on top of the compass.

This thing is nothing else but the sextant, the so-called artifact of navigation in the age of great voyages.

This kind of thing appeared in the early eighteenth century, that is, around 1730.

After that, ships sailing at sea can use the sextant to locate their latitude and longitude, and judge where they are on the sea.

This time Zhang Yazi naturally crossed the Bohai Bay alone, but his route still deviated a lot.

Relying on this level of navigation, it is impossible to sail to a specific location at a fixed point.

So this time, in addition to letting the students go to Pingcheng to operate the warship, his focus is to let the students master the sextant.

However, because the battleship was originally delivered at the end of the year, he has not asked the military commander to build the sextant.

Next he will go to the Military Division.

After drawing the structure diagram of the sextant, Zhao Xu drew another navigation chart.

This picture is full of horizontal and vertical lines, which are longitude and latitude lines.

Only according to the standard longitude and latitude, the sextant can play a role, otherwise the measured position cannot be compared.

If the naval students have mastered these two things, it means that the navigation technology has directly jumped to the level after the eighteenth century.

His battleship will not need to sail along the land, but can go to any place he wants to go.

After all, before there were no satellites in the sky, warships relied on this method to find their own routes.

After drawing the two pictures, Zhao Xu took the picture of the sextant to the Military Division and asked Wang Ying to hand it over to the craftsman.

With the Bingzhangsi of precise scale tools, it is not a difficult problem to make such a thing.

And most importantly, Yanzhou’s monocular telescope technology has matured.

Without any link, the sextant cannot be made.

Now that both are available, it is naturally simple.

“When it is made, it will be sent to Pingcheng.” Zhao Xu told Wang Ying.

Before the sextant, he had to teach the students how to calculate the angle, so Wang Ying had plenty of time.

After explaining the matter, Zhao Xu returned to the palace.

The next day, he went to Pingcheng.

Knowing the purpose of Zhao Xu’s visit, Chen Shou was slightly taken aback.

“Not dried?” Chen Shou asked in surprise, very disappointed.

For the first time building this kind of warship, he always hoped for perfection.

But knowing the reason, he had no choice but to accept it. After all, King Yan’s survival was more important than battleships.

“The battle is imminent, there is not so much time, although it can’t be dried naturally, but you can make some stoves in the dry dock.” Zhao Xu said.

In fact, not only grassland people like to fight in autumn, but the Central Plains dynasty also generally fought in autumn and winter.

Prairie people are of course tall in autumn, horses are fat, and war horses are afraid of the heat.

But the Central Plains Dynasty also had to harvest rice after entering autumn.

Such a large-scale war required countless manpower and material resources.

Only after the autumn harvest can people be free, and there will be sufficient food and grass.

Therefore, the date of Zhao Heng’s three-way attack is the fifth day of October, which is the fifth day of October in the 23rd year of Taihe.

“Yes, Your Highness.” Chen Shou said, this is also a last resort when the warship is urgently needed.

After discussing this matter, Zhao Xu said to Zhou Yi: “Let’s go, I will introduce the battleship to you.”

Now the main body of the battleship has been completed.

Only bits and pieces of the structure remained, such as the railings on the deck.

Now, twelve huge warships lie in dry dock, which is quite spectacular.

Sailing warships are divided into five levels. The first-level sailing warships have a crew of more than 800 people and more than 100 artillery pieces.

The second-class battleship has a crew of more than 600 people and is equipped with about 90 artillery pieces.

The third-tier battleship is equipped with about 80 artillery pieces and about 500 ammunition.

The fourth-class battleship has a capacity of more than 300 people and is equipped with about 50 artillery pieces.

The fifth-tier battleship has a capacity of more than 200 people and is equipped with about 30 artillery pieces.

Among the five tier battleships, the three tier battleships are the most commonly used.

The firepower of this kind of warship is more powerful than that of low-grade warships, and more flexible than that of high-grade warships.

What he asked Chen Shou to build was this kind of three-tier sailing warship.

It is seventy-five meters long, sixteen meters wide, contains eighty-two cannons, and has a capacity of five hundred people.

(end of this chapter)