On June 10, 1652, the rumbling cannons outside Yancheng Port had just ended. The naval ships who returned from the exercise returned to the port one by one to rest and receive supplies, which made the residents of the small Yancheng Port cheered.∈↗↗

The Navy's first fleet, including 6 battleships - "August 10", plus the newly launched "Strong and Indomitable", the "Great Wall of the Sea" - 18 sail guard gunboats, 4 water supply ships, 3 ammunition supply ships, 2 repair ships, 2 coal transport ships, 1 medical ship, 1 troop transport ship, and 1 communication and communication ship, the First Navy Fleet, which has been in intensive training outside the rare-travel Yancheng Port, and has been practicing for more than two months.

During the exercise, most of the daily dietary consumption of more than 4,900 naval officers and soldiers depended on Yancheng Port, which had a population of only three or four thousand people. This is actually a considerable burden for this port, which is famous for salt production and fishery. Fortunately, there are certain food storage in the city, and nearby residents like to raise ostrich, grazing goats, and occasionally go out to hunt deer and camels. The food sources are very diverse, so they barely fooled the past two or three months - of course, the returns are also very generous. The commercial sales of the entire city have reached the quota for the whole year in the past two or three months. It makes people sigh that raising a navy like the First Fleet is really not a worry-free thing.

Raising a navy is just a burning money! Captain Ventura's Kingfisher (affiliated with the private "Messenger Liner Company") Garen sailing ship was parked in the port to unload goods. When they heard that the naval warships were entering the port, they had to move to another berth at the request of the dock officials to continue unloading the goods in order to give the good berth in the original position to the navy. This made the sailors on the Kingfisher boo.

"Have you heard that? The English Navy asked all foreign ships passing through the Dover Strait to give them a "flag-raising ceremony"! I don't know if our merchant ships should do this when they head to Riga and Arhangel!" I was idle. Some sailors on the Kingfisher began chatting with each other.

"It shouldn't be necessary," said an elderly sailor with wrinkles in uncertainty. "I heard that the British did not strictly enforce this rule. In fact, they mainly stared at the Dutch, and they didn't care about ships from other countries. They were not fools, and they wouldn't be foolish enough to offend all countries now."

"In other words, only Dutch ships need to perform a 'flag-raising ceremony' to the British when passing through the Dover Strait? No other countries can comply? This is not bad. I thought our merchant ships would always have a British flag in the future. This is really not a pleasure..." A young sailor breathed a sigh of relief.

"The British have invested a lot in the navy and shipbuilding industry over the past three years. You have also heard the boasts of the English sailors who come to trade. What governments encourage large ships? What subsidies for every 50 Raster (about 100 tons) of ships are subsidized by 10 shillings per Raster? What is the income of sailors getting higher and higher? So, looking at their proud look, I feel like spitting, what's the thing!" Some sailors said with a complex expression of envy, jealousy and hatred.

Captain Ventura leaned beside the ship's side, eating a half-dead fruit while smiling as he listened to the sailors chatting. As a veteran captain and the manager of the "Messenger Line Company", he knew much more than they did, especially when his fellow villager Lieutenant Rossetti was still in the navy, he could always know something that others didn't hear very easily - of course it was no secret.

For example, he knew that the British fleet had entered a period of rapid growth since 1649. Almost every British port was carrying out shipbuilding movement, especially on both sides of the Thames estuary. The British bourgeois government reiterated the shipbuilding subsidy policy in the Elizabethan era to encourage the people to build large ships of more than 100 tons. You should know that the minimum Dutch fishing boat was 60 tons, but the British fishing boats were generally between 6-12 tons (and the number of fishing boats also accounted for the vast majority of the British ships). The two were not of the same level at all. No wonder they were repeatedly hit by Dutch fishing boats at sea, resulting in the tragedy of ship destruction and death.

However, since 1649, the situation has improved greatly. The British government clarified the basic national policy of establishing a country by navigation and began to overcome financial difficulties (for which it had to auction a large number of royalists' property), vigorously built warships and ocean-going transport ships, and also encouraged the people to build new ships and large ships. For a time, the shipbuilding fever emerged in the UK, and the tonnage of ships also increased rapidly. According to a data circulating in Amsterdam, the total tonnage of British merchant ships has now exceeded 180,000 tons, which has been reported.

The total tonnage of ocean-going merchant ships on the east coast is twice the total tonnage of ocean-going merchant ships (only the ships under the jurisdiction of the Nanhai Transportation Company and the Immigration Department, not including others) - However, most of the large transport ships with more than 100 ships on the east coast (the number of sailors is about 2,300) are transporting "special cargo" such as immigrants and do not participate in cargo transportation, so the actual maritime capacity is actually only about 20% of that of the UK. And with the promulgation of the "Navigation Ordinance", a law that has a great stimulus effect on the British shipping industry, the gap between the two sides is still widening rapidly.

Of course, the British also have troubles, that is, their shipbuilding costs are much higher than those of the Dutch. The Dutch shipbuilding industry is not comparable to that of the British in terms of scale and intensiveness, which saves a lot of costs. At the same time, their mechanization is also higher than that of the British, and they purchase accessories (Amsterdam is a distribution center for shipbuilding), raw materials - because the Dutch mastered the raw materials such as hemp, flax, mast, wood, tar, beeswax, etc. in the Baltic Sea and the Principal of Moscow, the cost advantage in this aspect is even greater - the cost advantage; and their much cheaper financing and labor costs than British shipbuilding companies, their shipbuilding costs are often only half of that of the British, and in extreme cases, only one-third of the British, which greatly hit the development of the British shipbuilding industry.

The Dutch were able to start construction of hundreds of ships at the same time, which consumed a lot of shipbuilding resources and increased the average shipbuilding cost in Europe. They also sent 700-800 ships (average tonnage of 280 tons, a total of 207,000 tons) to the Baltic Sea for trade every year. With the dual advantages of politics and economy, they almost monopolized trade along the Baltic Sea. It was difficult for wood, iron, cable, asphalt, asphalt, beeswax, etc., which are extremely critical to the British shipbuilding industry, to enter the British market - or even if they enter it, the prices are extremely high (this is the conscious behavior of the Dutch) - which made British shipbuilding entrepreneurs furious but helpless.

"Thank you Tianzun for giving us the inexhaustible and inexhaustible timber treasure house of New China Island; and thanks to the enterprising Nantiron Company, which helped our country's shipbuilding industry control the endless beech forests in Tierra Tierra and Chile; and finally, thanks to the wise executive committee. Our country has its own independent ship design, construction and testing system, a stable number of skilled workers, and a complete supporting industry. There are complete factory-run vocational schools to train talents. Our country's shipbuilding industry is efficient and healthy, and it is not controlled by anyone. Thank you Tianzun!" Captain Ventura thought of this and couldn't help but take off the gossip pendant around his neck.

...

"The British Navy is developing too rapidly, and this speed is surprisingly fast." Major Li Yi, the commander of the First Fleet, stood on the deck of the battleship "August 10" that entered Yancheng Port, and said in a worried tone to Navy Minister Lu Ming, who came to inspect the exercise.

Lu Ming served as the Chief of Staff of the Military Headquarters as the Minister of the Navy, fighting wits and courage with the generals of the army. He has not paid attention to the daily training of the navy for a long time. However, the First Fleet held a large-scale military exercise on the coast of Yancheng Port, which was a military exercise that almost covered most of the naval ships on the east coast. Lu Ming still took time out of his busy schedule to take a look so that he could get a close look at the development of his beloved navy.

The main naval generals also seized this opportunity and began to complain to the Minister of the Navy about the lag in the development of the East Coast Navy - that is, there have been almost no new ships in recent years, and a batch of them have been launched this year, and it has not been built for several years.

"According to publicly circulated in Europe, by the end of 1651, the British Navy had increased the number of demobilized warships to 80-100 (the real number was 88). More than ten years ago, this number was only twenty or thirty, and the growth rate was really scary." Li Yi complained loudly to Lu Ming, "In comparison, the development speed of our country's navy seems too slow and too conventional. But now our country's overseas interests are increasing, and the maritime transportation lines that need protection are also longer and longer. The slow growth of naval power has become an increasingly serious problem. Therefore, increasing investment in the navy and increasing the scale of the naval fleet are things that the Executive Committee should focus on in the next stage."

"The crazy increase in the number of British ships is due to the release of concentrated pressure due to the short investment in the past twenty years. This is unsustainable. The British government cannot afford to spend too much money to continue to build ships like in the past three years, unless the benefits they gained from this war far exceed the past, or the dictator Cromwell continues to tax and invest in the navy at home." Lu Ming patted Li Yi on the shoulder and comforted him: "Our navy is taking the elite route, with large and strong ships, high mobility, strong firepower, high morale and well-trained officers and soldiers. This year,

At the beginning of the year, the Ministry calculated that after some new ships were put into service, the annual salary of the Navy's personnel will reach 674,400 yuan, and the training cost will exceed 1.2 million yuan. If it weren't for the Navy's own small treasury and stolen expenses in its own small treasury, the Navy's maintenance fee of less than 2 million yuan this year could really bankrupt the country. None of the navy's navy in European countries trained so frequently, so hard and so scientific, so don't underestimate yourself, have confidence in yourself, and also have confidence in the 1.2 million yuan training fee you spend a year!"

"As for the number of professional warships that the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have rapidly expanded, aren't the Navy or the Executive Committee worried? But what's the use of worrying? Our national strength currently only allows us to have such a large-scale navy, which is already the limit. Unless we significantly reduce training costs, when there is a fleet, who will agree?" Lu Ming said this, sighed imperceptibly and said, "Everything must be taken slowly, and military force depends on whether the national strength allows it. The State Council has a huge expenditure on military expenditure every year.

I have already had a deep resentment. I have proposed to reduce military spending several times to invest in economic construction, but we have stopped them. In addition, the army's sentiment should be appeased, otherwise many things that have been destroyed by Taiwan's military headquarters will not be able to be done. Not only have their number been reduced over the years, but the military spending has also declined, from the peak of more than 800,000 yuan to about 550,000 yuan now. It is impossible to have no resentment! At this time, the limited military spending will be tilted towards the navy. Do you want those simple-minded and well-limbed guys to rebel?"
Chapter completed!