Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather

In the study room of the Weisi Yamen.

"How are the new military households?"

Yang Zhengshan sat behind the desk and asked Xie Yuan.

Xie Yuan put down the tea and said, "The situation is not bad, but there are some minor problems."

"What minor problems?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"These people are a group of refugees. After all, they are weak. They just settled down yesterday. Maybe their minds are relaxed. Many of them are sick!"

"I have sent all the doctors in the camp. They will go to each hundred households and garrisons to treat the sick!"

Xie Yuan said.

"Are there enough medicinal materials?"

"Han Fei has sent people to Jing'an Prefecture to purchase them!"

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly, and after a little hesitation, "How about this, set up a few big pots in the Yamen, cook a few pots of tonic medicine, and send one to each household!"

These refugees are weak, and it is inevitable that they will get sick.

Lingquan water can strengthen their physique and reduce the probability of them getting sick, but Yang Zhengshan can't go door to door to feed them Lingquan water, so he thought of this unsound method.

Take out some precious medicinal materials, mix them with Lingquan water, boil dozens of pots, and send some to each household.

Even if everyone just drinks a sip, it can reduce the probability of them getting sick, let them recuperate for a few more days, and the weakest people may be able to survive.

"Okay, I'll arrange it later!" Xie Yuan said.

"Any other questions?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"Well, do you want to find some work for these new military households?" Xie Yuan asked.

He wanted to find some work for these people, so that they can earn more and have a livelihood to support their families.

But now Tenglongwei really doesn't have much work for them to do.

The salt field, engineering team, and commercial fleet are all full of people, and we can't let everyone support idle people just to take care of them.

"That's easy. The third batch of soldiers don't have to wait until after the autumn harvest to train. They can start now!"

"Let these new military households form a labor team to help other military households with the autumn harvest. We will pay them money and food according to the day and work!" Yang Zhengshan said.

According to the plan, the third batch of soldiers who were undergoing basic training had to wait until after the autumn harvest. After all, for military households, the autumn harvest is very important and cannot be affected by training.

And these new military households don't have garrison land and don't need autumn harvest.

So there is no problem at all for them to help with the autumn harvest.

It's nothing more than the government paying more money and food in exchange for the progress of training.

For the current Tenglong Guard, time is still very tight, and exchanging money and food for time is not a loss.

"But in this way, our expenses will be much higher!" Xie Yuan said with some concern.

Although the money and food left by the Lan family is a lot, the expenses of Tenglong Guard are also very huge.

It's less than a year, and Yang Zhengshan has spent nearly half of the money and food left by the Lan family.

Next year, they will have to support these new military households, which is another large expenditure.

"It's okay. The salt field will expand production next year, and the income of the salt field will double!"

"In addition, merchant ships can go out to sea next year, and we have another source of income!"

"As long as our current money and food can support next year's expenses, we don't need to worry about not having money and food in the future!"

Yang Zhengshan said indifferently.

Tenglongwei is very poor, but the Lan family left a lot of money and food.

Under normal circumstances, even if Tenglongwei relies on the old capital of the Lan family, it can still survive for five or six years.

Now Yang Zhengshan only needs the old capital of the Lan family to support two years. In the future, Tenglongwei will have more income, so it will naturally not need to rely on the old capital.

"Your Excellency, just keep it in mind!" Xie Yuan just reminded him, but didn't say more.

Yang Zhengshan chuckled, "You still need to worry about the next autumn harvest and the resettlement of military households."

"This is what I should do!" Xie Yuan smiled.

Today, everyone in the Weisi Yamen is busy.

Soldiers training, armaments building, city construction, navy construction, salt field expansion, as well as the resettlement of new military households and the upcoming autumn harvest.

All things are going hand in hand, making everyone busy.

Yang Zhengshan is busy, and Xie Yuan is also busy.

After a brief meeting with Yang Zhengshan, Xie Yuan left the government office and went to the Qianhu Office for inspection.

The autumn harvest is coming, and he must ensure that there are no mistakes in the autumn harvest.

After learning about the situation of the new military households, Yang Zhengshan also left the government office and rushed to the dock.

At this time, the first batch of soldiers of the navy has begun training.

The more than 200 boatmen in the Zhang family fleet plus the more than 200 soldiers selected from the Tenglong Vanguard, a total of 500 soldiers, are the first batch of soldiers of the navy.

The reason why there are only 500 soldiers is because there are too few instructors to train the navy.

Yu Tonghai, Xue Ping, Sun Cheng, Ningbo, etc., only these few can serve as instructors. Other boatmen cannot serve as instructors at all, and the soldiers of Tenglongwei are not good at water battles, so they naturally cannot serve as instructors.

Therefore, the first batch of soldiers who received training in the navy only had 500 soldiers.

The training of this first batch of soldiers was actually a bit experimental, mainly to summarize experience and help Yu Tonghai and Xue Ping write a record of military training.

Yang Zhengshan would come to participate in the training whenever he had time. On the one hand, he wanted to replenish the spiritual spring water for these soldiers, and on the other hand, he also wanted to know more about the navy.

Live and learn. Yang Zhengshan didn't know about navigation and wasn't good at naval warfare, so he had to learn, starting from the beginning, from the most basic soldier training.

In mid-September, the autumn harvest of Tenglongwei kicked off.

This year, Tenglongwei had good weather and good harvest, which was a rare year of bumper harvest.

A bumper harvest always makes people happy. From Yang Zhengshan to the newly arrived military households, everyone was happy about the harvest.

The autumn harvest was proceeding in an orderly manner, and the construction of the navy also took a crucial step.

September 20.

The Ministry of Works sent the first batch of warships from Jinhai to Tenglong Vanguard.

There was a total of one Dafu ship, four Haicang ships, eight sentry ships, twelve mother-and-child ships, and more than 40 eagle ships.

This is half of the warships of the regular navy guard of Darong.

In other words, half of the warships of Tenglongwei have arrived, and the remaining half will arrive in the next two months.

The Dafu ship was one of the main warships of Dayong. It was 33 meters long, with five masts and three floors. The deck was built like a city, with guard plates on the side. Soldiers covered behind it and used crossbows to shoot arrows.

The bow was low and pointed, and it could be used to crash enemy ships with favorable winds and waters.

The Haicang ship was a medium-sized warship of the Dayong Navy. It had a draft of seven or eight feet and was maneuverable when the wind was light, cooperating with the Fu ship to hunt enemy ships.

The patrol ship was a medium-sized fast ship with a pointed front and a narrow back. It was as narrow as a shuttle at the bottom and as wide as a wing at the top. When the fleet sailed, the patrol ship could be on the front patrol.

The mother-child ship was a light fire ship. The mother ship was three meters and five feet long, two meters in front and one meter and five feet in the back. It had only two side boards, and there was a small boat inside with a cover board on top. There were four oars that could be rowed and tied to the mother ship with ropes.

The mother ship had firewood and fierce oil. In wartime, it could quickly approach the enemy ship, nail them together, and set the mother ship on fire. Then the people could return on the child ship.

The two ends of the eagle ship are pointed, and the head and tail cannot be distinguished. It can move forward and backward quickly and has strong maneuverability. It can carry three or five people. In wartime, dozens of ships can attack enemy ships and block enemies approaching the big ship.

A complete navy naturally cannot have only one type of ship.

Large and small ships have different functions. They must cooperate with each other in battle, so the main difficulty of navy training is the coordination of many ships.

If you can operate a ship, you can only be regarded as a qualified shipman.

If you are familiar with routes, astronomy, and geography, you can only be regarded as a qualified ship boss.

If you dare to fight, kill, and fight, you are just a qualified sailor.

In addition to the above conditions, if you want to become the captain and commander of the navy, you must also be familiar with the functions of various ships and be able to use the cooperation between ships to defeat the enemy.

Yang Zhengshan is obviously not a qualified navy general, because it is the first time he has seen such a ship.

He can think of the cooperation between large and small ships, but he is a novice in the formation and cooperation between the mother-and-child ships, sentry ships, and Haicang ships.

Moreover, he knew very little about the crossbows on the ship.

He had seen crossbows, and there were many crossbows on the walls of Chongshan Pass, but he only saw them from a distance at that time, and had never observed them up close.

Moreover, there were many differences between the crossbows on the warships and the crossbows on the walls.

The crossbows on the walls were all multi-arrow crossbows, which meant that they could fire many arrows at one time.

The main purpose of defending the city was to kill the enemy, so the crossbows on the walls did not pursue strong power, but to shoot more arrows at one time.

The crossbows on the warships pursued range and power. The farther the better, the more powerful the better, and finally one arrow could smash through the deck of the enemy ship and destroy the tower of the enemy ship.

The crossbows of the navy were mostly three-bow crossbows, which simply means that three bows were combined together.

There were seven arrow paths on the crossbow arm. The arrow path in the middle was a giant arrow, six feet and five inches long, eight inches in circumference, with iron leaves as feathers, and three slightly smaller arrows on each side, and all the arrows were fired at the same time.

Yang Zhengshan looked at the arrow that was longer than his spear and asked, "How far is the range of this crossbow?"

Yu Tonghai next to him said, "This should be the best crossbow in Darong, with a range of up to 160 feet!"

160 feet!

Yang Zhengshan converted it in his mind and it was about 500 meters.

"How powerful is it? Can it kill a warrior?"

"Ordinary warriors will die if they touch it. If warriors above the fifth level of the acquired realm can find it in advance, they can avoid it. Warriors at the eighth level of the acquired realm should be able to resist it!"

Yu Tonghai pondered for a moment and said, "However, the battlefield is ever-changing and full of dangers. No one can guarantee that there will be no mistakes, so sometimes even warriors at the eighth level of the acquired realm will be shot to death by crossbow arrows!"

"According to what I have heard, many martial arts masters have died from crossbow arrows!"

"If you encounter a volley of crossbow arrows, it is better to hide in the cabin!"

"..."

Yang Zhengshan was speechless for a while. This is because he is afraid that he will be shot to death by a crossbow arrow!

I'm not stupid. I don't have time to fight this thing.

However, Yu Tonghai's reminder was kind, so Yang Zhengshan didn't bother with him.

"Then how long will it take for our navy to train to have the ability to go to sea?"

"One year, at least one year!" Yu Tonghai said.

"So long?" Yang Zhengshan frowned slightly.

"It's not difficult to train sailors, but it's difficult to train captains to command ships! A navy must have at least one commander, two deputy commanders, and four lieutenant commanders, so that a fleet can have strong combat effectiveness!" Yu Tonghai said.

The commander, deputy commander and lieutenant commander he mentioned were not official positions, but commanders with certain command capabilities.

Although warships can communicate with each other through flag signals, many times when multiple warships go to war together, they still rely on the tacit cooperation between commanders.

Yang Zhengshan looked at the ships docked at the pier. The pier was still under construction at this time. In order to dock more ships, the small hills extending from the coast have been completely leveled. A straight platform extends more than 500 meters from the coast. In addition, a neat wooden platform has been built on the coast.

Standing on the Dafu ship, looking at the surrounding ships, it feels like a bird's eye view of the mountains.

"In March next year, merchant ships will try to go out to sea for trade. The routes that have been determined are Jiangnan and Li Sheng Dynasty."

"I hope that the navy can sail with the merchant ships at that time!"

Yang Zhengshan said softly.

"If it is just sailing, there is no problem at all. Sailing is also a kind of training!" Yu Tonghai said after a moment of consideration.

If we just go out to sea, there is no problem. If we encounter a battle, it is not a big problem. Not completing the training does not mean that we have no combat capability, but the combat capability is much weaker.

What he said about needing a year is to train the Tenglong Navy to the level of the Darong Elite Navy.

"That's good!" Yang Zhengshan nodded with satisfaction.