Chapter 74 Shipbuilding

"What, can't afford it?" Roland sat in the office, and the document requesting the expansion of administrative staff and the purchase of sailboats was placed on his desk.

Barov cleared his throat, "Your Highness, that's true. The price of a two-masted sailing ship is between 80 and 120 gold dragons, but that's just the cost of building the ship. Counting the people on board, it's more than that. The price is estimated to be more than two hundred gold dragons."

"Didn't I say that I don't need a sailor or a helmsman? Neither does the captain, I just want a boat." Roland asked, knocking on the table. With Wendy around, he doesn't need so many people to operate the sailboat. Most riverboats have straight sails, and the operation is the same as raising and lowering the flag. The paddlers and sailors are redundant, and the helmsman can just pull someone up and try it out. Anyway, with the vector wind force, are you afraid that the ship will not move forward?

"Your Highness, there is no such business, at least not in Liuye Town." Barov carefully explained, "You may not know much about this industry. Generally speaking, the owner of a ship is the captain. It may be a merchant, or It may be nobles. After the former recruits their own manpower, they go to and from the docks of major cities and towns to do business or transport goods. In the case of the latter, they usually recruit an acting captain to follow the ship for themselves. Employees are not Instead of monthly salary, it is paid once every one to three years.”

"Most of the time, ships and people are tied together. If you plan to buy a ship from the captain instead of the men he hired, then he is equivalent to a loss of employment salary. Eighty gold dragons, even for For the nobles, it is not a number that can be given up at will. Including the rough gemstone transaction with Liuye Town at the beginning of the month, the city hall now has a total of 315 gold dragons. If more than half of it is used to buy a boat, the Your militia won't be able to pay your salaries in a month." The assistant minister finished speaking in one breath, and raised his glass to take a sip of ale.

"Most of the time you said..."

"That's right," he nodded, "There are two situations in which an empty ship will be sold. One is that the merchant needs cash urgently and sells his property. At this time, he will dismiss all the crew and sell the ship as quickly as possible. The second is to replace the ship. A new ship, this is easy to understand. But I have to say that both situations are very rare.”

"Wait," Roland frowned, "You said you bought new ships...then where did these ships come from?"

"Clear Water Port, Sea Breeze County, North Lookout Cape. Only harbor cities have docks, and only they can build ships."

It turned out that "you can't find such a business in Liuye Town" meant this. Roland was silent for a moment. It was too far to go to the harbor city to buy a boat, and he didn't hire a crew. Who would help him drive the boat back? "In that case, I'll think about it again."

After the assistant minister left, the prince fell into deep thought.

In the strategic plan he conceived, shipping was an irreplaceable link. Without fast and convenient transport by ship, he could not complete the double-team with artillery. The army of the Duke of the Fortress generally recruited farmers, knights and mercenaries, and the marching speed must not be much faster, but it is slower. As Carter said, if it is purely by land, a mud pit can make it difficult for the artillery to move an inch-the land transportation in this era is not asphalt roads, not even stone roads. It's just that there are too many people leaving, and a road is forced out. It's okay when it's sunny, but it's muddy when it rains.

In the end, do you still have to make it yourself?

Roland spread out a piece of paper and recorded the specifications he needed one by one.

First of all, this is a ship that can transport one or two cannons and about 30 people. The ship can be propelled by sails without power. Second, the ship is required to be stable and reliable when traveling in inland rivers, not easy to capsize, and has a shallow draft. Third, it should be easy to operate, and the militia can get started quickly after a short-term training.

Putting all these points together, there is only one answer left... flat-bottomed barges.

Before Roland crossed, such ships with extremely shallow draft and extremely low center of gravity could be seen everywhere, almost all over the main rivers. In the past, those boats that were piled up with river sand or stones and whose sides were almost at the same level as the water surface were flat-bottomed barges. As long as there was a tugboat, several barges could be pulled forward like a train.

After the ship type is determined, the next key point is to choose which material to use for construction.

Roland wrote down three options on paper: wood, iron, and cement.

Using wood to make a boat is the earliest navigation technology tree lit by human beings. From rafts to sailing battleships, from rivers to oceans, wooden boats can be described as enduring. Unfortunately, Roland didn't know how to make a flat-bottomed boat out of logs, and he didn't have any relevant craftsmen. If a few carpenters are used to harden it, it is likely to be a large raft, or the kind that may fall apart at any time.

In terms of iron boats, the structure is similar to building a house. The criss-cross primary and secondary beams form the keel, which is then covered with iron sheets. With Anna doing the welding, the overall rigidity is guaranteed. However, this approach will exhaust the few iron ore reserves. It is obviously a more suitable choice for these iron ores to be used to produce steam engines and gun barrels unless it is a last resort.

Then the cement ship became the last option—the city wall has been built, and there are still raw materials left. Anna only needs to calcine it once or twice to get enough cement powder. The construction process is also much easier than that of an iron ship. You only need to use wooden templates to spell out the shape, arrange the iron bars as steel bars, and then fill in the cement. Even in the countryside of my hometown, several small cement boats can be built for fishing. Compared with iron ships that need to be regularly derusted and painted, it does not even need maintenance after it is built. It can be said to be cheap and durable. Even if I haven't learned how to build an ocean-going ship, it shouldn't be a big problem to build a low-tech inland river cement barge, right?

With the mentality of trying, Roland picked up a quill and quickly drew a sketch of the barge.

...

Sheds with walls were erected by the Chishui River.

In order to facilitate launching, Roland placed the shipbuilding site as close to the river bank as possible.

The shed can shelter from the wind and snow, and at the same time, two pots of charcoal fires are burning in the room to prevent the temperature from being too low to affect the hardening effect of the cement.

The wooden formwork planed out by the carpenter has spelled out the basic outline of the hull—the bow is arc-shaped to reduce forward resistance, and the stern is square to increase the load area. The width of the boat is about twenty-four feet (8 meters), and the aspect ratio is 3:1. Compared with the slender body shape of conventional boats of 8:1, it is almost a fat man. There is a double mast in the middle. The masts are inserted into the bottom of the ship and are attached to iron girders that run through the centerline of the ship. There is also a wooden pile erected at the stern as a reserved opening for the rudder. Other places are laid with criss-cross iron bars.

It doesn't matter if there is no iron wire for tying. Anna welded all the intersections of the iron bars firmly by herself, forming an iron net all over the bottom of the ship.

When the "formwork" and "rebar" were ready, Roland ordered the workers to start pouring and tamping.

The well-mixed cement was poured into the formwork in pots, with a flat bottom in the middle and a height of about 1.5 meters on all sides, which served as the side walls of the ship's warehouse. At first glance, it looks like a large bathtub with a unique shape.

All the people involved in the construction, including Anna, did not expect that this strange thing made of the same material as the city wall was actually a ship.

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