Ming East India Company

For Shirayuki, money was a major issue, whether it was shipbuilding, immigration and development, or fighting against Europeans in Southeast Asia. Therefore, it would be abnormal not to exploit these hard-won "fat pigs" as much as possible.

In any case, the Silver Silk Road can only serve as a cash cow for his ambitions now.

As Bai Ye had predicted, the Tonghai Chamber of Commerce had no choice but to accept Bai Ye's conditions.

In the following months, more and more Yuegang merchants, like the Tonghai Chamber of Commerce, accepted Baiye's business terms.

……

In Naha Harbor, Ryukyu, a large Fujian ship from the Ming Dynasty was steadily moored at the shore. This giant ship, which had come from across the East China Sea, had its hull washed by the waves, and its bottom bore the marks of oysters and reefs. Hundreds of Ryukyu craftsmen were pulling the ship closer to the shore.

As the tide receded, the seawater on the beach gradually receded, revealing the tall hull of the Fujian ship. The craftsmen used wooden piles on the shore to support the side of the ship, and then repaired the other side that was tilting.

A salty, damp sea breeze swept through the harbor. Most of the craftsmen, their arms bare and wearing only coarse cloth aprons, worked nimbly and efficiently. Several men set up wooden ladders and leaned against the sides of the ship, chisels and mallets in hand, painstakingly removing barnacles and ship maggots from the hull. The thud of chisels striking the planks mingled with the dull thuds of mallets, echoing throughout the harbor.

Craftsmen carried polished Ryukyu hardwood, precisely fitting it into the damaged grooves in the ship's hull, repeatedly tapping it with wooden mallets to ensure a tight fit. Other craftsmen held scalding hot tung oil ash, wrapped it in hemp fibers, and carefully stuffed it into the gaps between the wooden planks, their fingertips covered in ash, but they didn't bother to wipe it off, just focused on pressing it firmly to prevent seawater leakage.

Due to limited manpower, some boats could not wait to be fully towed ashore and were simply repaired in the water.

On the water, several skilled swimmers sat in small wooden boats close to the hull, using scrapers to clean underwater debris and then applying preservative oil. Every now and then, they would wipe the sweat and seawater from their faces. On the shore, assistants bustled about, some carrying timber, some boiling water and boiling oil, and some passing tools, each with their own tasks and hurried steps.

In the era before docks, this was the oldest method of ship repair.

Since Ryukyu gained a trade monopoly, the entire Ryukyu Island has become a huge ship repair yard, with countless ships on the Southeast Asian and East Asian routes coming here for "transit" and maintenance.

This allowed Baiye to not only reap the full profits from maritime trade but also enjoy a windfall of maintenance fees.

Looking at the clumsy repair methods of the Ryukyu craftsmen in front of him, Shirono couldn't help but scratch his head.

This method of ship maintenance not only has a short construction period, but can only be carried out during the ebb and flow of the tide, and is also extremely risky.

If the supports are insufficient or if the boat is not properly operated when it is put back into the sea after being repaired, the entire boat will capsize.

With the closure of Yuegang, more and more merchant ships are coming to Ryukyu for "transit". Shirano now urgently needs to build its own dry dock.

With the dry dock, Shirano can not only maintain and repair the ships in the dry dock, but also extend the service life of the ships.

More importantly, it allows for large-scale shipbuilding projects to be carried out in dry docks.

At this time in East Asia, whether it was the Ming Dynasty or Ryukyu, shipbuilding was carried out using the simplest and most direct methods:

Find an open space on the beach, then build a wooden platform, lay the keel on it, expand the hull, and build the deck.

After the main structure is completed, the ship will be pulled to the nearshore area by manpower and animal power. Then, outfitting will be carried out, and locks, hinges, fore and stern towers, etc., will be added to the ship.

One advantage of this shipbuilding method is its low investment cost; it does not require digging a dry dock beforehand or restricting the terrain for shipbuilding. Even the wooden platforms used during construction are temporary structures.

All you need is a flat beach and a harbor with water that isn't too shallow to successfully build a ship, making it very suitable for building small vessels like the Fujian ship.

However, this also presents a technological trap: the ships cannot be built in large quantities.

Large sailing warships or merchant ships are extremely large in tonnage. In the era of sailing warships without steam engines and internal combustion engines, it was very difficult to launch them by manpower alone. Therefore, ship owners would tend to build smaller ships from the beginning to make them easier to launch.

Moreover, this dry sand construction method has another drawback: the boat is very easy to capsize when it enters the water.

After all, commanding thousands of people or livestock in this era was an extremely difficult task. Even slight unevenness in the force could cause the ship to tilt or even capsize when it was launched.

After months of hard work repairing the boat, it suddenly sank when it was launched. No boat owner could withstand such a blow.

Even worse, this wasn't a rare occurrence. Before the advent of dry docks, approximately 20% of ships built using the flat-land sand method would be lost during launch...

This has led to a vicious cycle:

Ships built using the beach method are inherently small in tonnage, but ship owners tend to build smaller boats because they are easier to tow and the losses are manageable if the boat capsizes. As a result, the boats being built are getting smaller and smaller.

During the late Ming Dynasty, Fujian ships were still superior to galleons and carracks in terms of technology.

However, in terms of tonnage, they had been completely outmatched by the enemy. Many of the large Fujian ships would have been only class 5 or 6 ships in the era of Western sailing warships. They would have been barely able to join the battle line or even undertake guard and raid missions.

A well-established dry dock can solve all of the above problems.

The dry dock has iron gates. Whenever a ship needs repair, the gates are opened to let seawater in, and the ship can moor in the dry dock during high tide.

After the tide recedes, the sluice gate is closed, and the drainage ditch at the bottom of the sluice gate is opened, allowing the seawater to recede automatically.

The dry dock has wooden ramps and keel blocks at the bottom, which can be adjusted to support the direction of the boat according to its size and shape. The timing of water release can also be controlled, and water release can be stopped at any time if the boat tilts.

Once the drainage is complete, the boat will be secured to the slipway, allowing the craftsmen to freely clean the hull and below the waterline of any damage or unidentified creatures.

Once the repairs are complete, the locks can be opened during high tide, allowing the boat to gradually rise with the water level and then turn around and go back into the water.

The same applies to shipbuilding. First, the water in the dock is drained, and then the keel and hull are laid directly at the bottom. When the time is right, the gate can be opened to slowly let the ship into the water.

Even if the sea trials don't go smoothly, the ship can be taken back to the dry dock for major repairs.

Once the idea was made up, Shirano began to consider the feasibility of building a dry dock in Ryukyu.