knife

Chapter 531 Chen Yan
Near the waterline, the lower half of the warship had thirty-six oars extending from each side, which rose neatly above the water before plunging back in. With a powerful stroke, the warship, which was over ten zhang long, surged forward a considerable distance.

This is the Chu Kingdom's three-tiered main warship.
Hundreds of such warships and tens of thousands of elite river naval forces were their capital to contend with the Qin state over the years.

You roamed the north with your cavalry.

I led my fleet across the south.

Once we're ashore, I'm not as good as you.

Once we got in the water, you were no match for me.

Chen Yan stood on the third deck, gazing intently at the red sun that was only half visible on the mountaintop ahead. The river made a near 90-degree turn here, and from his angle, the mountain in front seemed to cut the river off.

The golden sun shone brightly, turning the warship and Chen Yan into a golden hue.

At forty years old, Chen Yan was in his prime and served as the deputy commander of the Great Chu's inland waterway navy. However, his brows were furrowed, and he appeared to be preoccupied with something on his mind.

Suddenly, a song reached his ears. Chen Yan turned his head and saw a man standing on the huge reef that jutted far into the river at Yanziji. The song was coming from there.

Chen Yan snorted coldly, wondering which madman from Danyang City was going crazy again.

Unlike the boats on the other side that were struggling to move forward by boatmen, the warship under Chen Yan's feet easily cut through the waves and sailed straight ahead. The seventy-two strong men in the lower deck were the most powerful driving force.

The last ray of sunlight was finally blocked by the mountains.

The sky seemed to darken immediately.

Chen Yan turned around and went back into the cabin. The warship seemed to sense the commander's emotions and began to accelerate towards the naval port.

It's getting dark, time to go home!
Chen Yan sat down at his desk and picked up the stack of blueprints on the table once again.

This was brought back by Zhu Chi from beyond the Great Wall.

There's a navy outside the Great Wall?

When Zhu Chi sent back the intelligence, most people were astonished and some could hardly believe it.

Everyone's impression of them was that the cavalry outside the Great Wall were formidable; they really didn't know that they also had a navy.

However, Chen Yan saw a crisis in the intelligence that Zhu Chi had brought back.

The thick stack of warship blueprints in his hand was the crux of Chen Yan's worries.

Not only did the area outside the Great Wall have a navy, but their warships were also quite formidable.

Laymen wouldn't have much of an understanding of this stack of blueprints. In fact, even if you put two warships in front of them, they wouldn't be able to tell the differences between them.

But it's different for insiders.

Similarly, they were all three-tiered main warships, and their sizes were similar, but the construction of these warships of the Guanwai Navy was quite different from that of the Great Chu Navy. Whenever Chen Yan saw these blueprints, he felt a little shocked.

Because these warships outside the pass are, at least in terms of design, far more powerful than the main warships of the Great Chu.

Faster speed, smaller turning radius, more rational design, more long-range attack weapons, and the ability to carry more soldiers.

In modern naval warfare, the damage from long-range weapons is actually quite limited. Most of the combat is still hand-to-hand after boarding. When the warships of both sides are of similar size and the command skills of the naval commanders are also similar, and no fundamental mistakes are made, the side with more men will still have a slight advantage.

The warships of the Beiting Protectorate are superior to those of the Great Chu Navy in every aspect.

Each one may seem small, but each one is a little ahead in its own right, and when added together, it becomes a terrifying force. Therefore, Chen Yan strongly urged the Great Chu to transform its navy as quickly as possible, even to the point of rebuilding these new warships. Given the shipbuilding capabilities of the Chu Kingdom, and with such detailed blueprints available, building a batch of these warships in a short period should not be a major problem.

However, this suggestion was rejected without hesitation by Wang Pu, the naval commander.

Moreover, it wasn't just Wang Pu who denied this; almost all the officials in the Ministry of Revenue did as well.

Wang Pu's reasoning was quite simple.

A large ship is hard to turn around!

Are all of the hundreds of warships in the Great Chu Empire to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch just because of a stack of blueprints?

impossible.

New warships mean new ways of fighting. Tens of thousands of naval officers and sailors of the Great Chu will have to adapt to them all. In such a time of great strife, will they have enough time?

And is it necessary?
Even if there are new warships outside the Great Wall, so what? Will we just bring them to Jiangnan?

The Ministry of Revenue's reasons for opposing it were even simpler.

No money!

Are you kidding me? A single capital warship costs more than three thousand taels of silver. If you want to rebuild them all, who will pay for that astronomical sum?

In fact, Chen Yan knew that it was impossible to replace everything, but he hoped that it could be done in stages, in batches. However, the court did not care about this matter and did not believe that the naval forces outside the Great Wall would threaten Jiangnan.

And now, trouble has finally arrived.

The Shu Commandery's navy sailed down the river and captured Badong and Zigui overnight. Although the two naval battles were fought with fewer troops than the enemy, Chen Yan confirmed from the descriptions of the soldiers who escaped that these new warships from beyond the pass had been built in Shu Commandery and put into actual combat.

The wolf is coming!
This was Chen Yan's first thought.

The Beiting Protectorate's execution capabilities are astonishing.

Within a year of conquering Shu Commandery, they had already built this state-of-the-art warship.
As time goes on, who knows how many such warships the Shu Commandery navy will build? At that time, will the Great Chu still rule the Yangtze River?

If they cannot gain an absolute advantage on the water, it will be absolutely disastrous for the Great Chu.

With a sigh, Chen Yan put down the blueprints in his hand. He had the shipyard under his control produce a prototype of this ship, which was about to be launched in the next few days. He would then have his soldiers pilot this ship and put it to a real battle against the old warships, so that the bigwigs of the court could see the difference between the two and change their opinions.

The melodious sound of horns rang out outside, a signal that the warships were preparing to enter the harbor.

Chen Yan once again stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck.

The gates of the water fortress were wide open, and a boat slowly sailed out. The waterway was only so wide that Chen Yan's warships had to make way for the boat leaving the fortress.

A cargo ship, clearly a civilian vessel, swaggered out of the naval port. At the bow of the ship stood a portly man who, upon seeing Chen Yan on the deck, smiled and cupped his hands in greeting.

Chen Yan's expression turned even more unpleasant.

When civilian ships leave a naval port, they are naturally bound to engage in smuggling and tax evasion. Those who can do this must be people of status and power that Chen Yan probably cannot afford to offend.

A swarm of insects!
If we could raid these guys' homes, the cost of building a new fleet would be more than enough.

(End of this chapter)