On the occasion of rebirth Zhou Sui

Chapter 462 Forming a navy

Although it is said that ill-gotten gains must be spent, they must be spent.

But Cui Che did not use it to build palaces or expand Prince Yan's palace.

Cui Xiangguo has never valued his own enjoyment, as long as he can get by.

According to Cui Che, the most important thing is to build a naval army.

Naturally, the Eastern Sui Dynasty had naval forces, and now they gathered in Qingzhou to prevent the Western Sui Dynasty warships from attacking Hebei and other places via sea routes.

Since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, navigation technology has become more mature, and the Soochow fleet during the Three Kingdoms period cruised Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

During the Sui Dynasty's war to destroy Chen, the then General Manager of Qingzhou also led a fleet from Donglai (today's Longkou, Shandong) into Taihu Lake to capture Wu County.

With such a case, Cui Che naturally cannot relax the coastal defense, and the Qingzhou Navy can only stay in the Bohai Sea.

Rebuilding a naval force is also the only option.

Cui Che summoned Shangshu Zuopu Shefang Xuanling, Minister of Chinese and Foreign Affairs Shi Liu Fang, Minister of Prime Minister Shi Wei Zheng and Minister of Household Affairs Zhao Yuanshu to discuss with him the scale of the new navy.

In the end, Cui Che made the decision, and the quota was set at 30,000 people. Cui Qiji, the general manager of Xuzhou, recruited brave warriors in Huaibei who could control Zhouji.

A small number of ships were transferred from the Qingzhou Navy and handed over to Cui Qiji to train the navy in Surabaya.

Today's Sishui has not yet been occupied by the Yellow River. It is formed by the confluence of four major rivers, the Bianhe River, the Sihe River, the Yihe River, and the Juhe River, and flows southward into the Huaihe River.

During the reign of King Xian of Zhou Dynasty, the Jiuding sank in the Sishui River outside Pengcheng. Qin Shihuang sent thousands of people to swim in the water to find the tripod, but failed.

Of course, another theory is that only one of the cauldrons sank in Surabaya.

However, Cui Che was not interested in Jiuding. He chose Surabaya because this place was suitable for water training masters.

There are gentle places in the river section, but there are also dangers of three floods. When a boat travels in it, the rafts will fall and the rafts will be destroyed, and dangers are everywhere.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Prime Minister Cao once dug a Xuanwu Pond in Yecheng to train his navy.

But the lakes in the city are calm and calm, how can they be compared with the rivers. It is no wonder that the navy trained there will get seasick when they reach the Yangtze River.

Cui Che plans to set up the training site in a place with gentle water flow in the early stage, and then send the soldiers to the Sanhong River section for training after they become proficient.

Only the naval forces trained in this way can be put to use.

Of course, recruiting soldiers was not enough. Cui Che ordered to recruit shipwrights from all over the country to go to Xuzhou to build warships.

What Cui Che wants to build is the famous Five-Tooth Battleship.

The Five-Tooth Battleship was raised and built by Yang Su before the Sui Dynasty destroyed the Chen Dynasty. It used a method of mortise and tenon joints combined with iron nails.

The warship has a five-story structure, is a hundred feet high, and can accommodate 900 warriors.

There are six shooting poles on the left, right and front, fifty feet high, and six poles can be lowered together, so there is no fear of being surrounded by enemy ships on all sides.

In the battle with Chen Jun's navy, Yang Su attacked the enemy's formation with four five-tooth warships, and successively sank more than ten enemy ships with rods and captured more than 2,000 people.

The Huanglong ship, which was second to the Wuya warship and could accommodate more than a hundred warriors, was also the focus of shipbuilding in the Eastern Sui Dynasty this time.

The warships with their own functions, such as flat rides and dinghys, will also not be ignored.

When the Sui Dynasty destroyed Chen, Yang Su established a relationship with Yang Guang through Cui Che. It was at the time when Cui Che had the closest relationship with Yang Su that he had obtained the blueprints of the Five-Tooth Warship and the Huanglong Ship early on.

After all, at that time, no one would have thought that the Sui Dynasty Prince Consort and a close friend of King Yang Guang of Jin would raise troops to respond to King Yang Liang of Han Dynasty in the future.

Cui Che planned to build six Wuya warships, fifty Huanglong warships, and thousands of other small boats such as flat boats and dinghys.

Just the cost of building the ship made Zhao Yuanshu, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, who had just been relieved for a few days, look bitter again.

Not to mention the food and salary for 30,000 naval troops.

Naturally, these 30,000 naval troops must intensify their training and cannot be like government soldiers, half peasants and half soldiers.

Since there is no time to work in the fields, the imperial court must provide military pay so that they can enjoy the treatment of soldiers, otherwise no one will apply.

Zhao Yuanshu said with a helpless smile:

"Your Majesty, how about confiscating the remaining 30% of Taoism?"

It has been twenty-three years since he followed Cui Che in the fourth year of Emperor Kaihuang's reign. Even when he followed Cui Che to raise troops in Youzhou, his life was not as difficult as being the Minister of Household Affairs.

Before Cui Che suppressed Buddhism and Taoism, Zhao Yuanshu could not sleep all night because of the treasury. He even had a lot of white hair on his head. You know, he is only over forty now.

Cui Che also understood Zhao Yuanshu's difficulties and comforted him:

"The autumn harvest will begin soon. If we wait a little longer, we won't be so strapped when the tax money comes into the treasury at the end of the year."

Zhao Yuanshu didn't really want Cui Che to completely raid Taoism. After all, people in power cannot go back on their word.

Faced with Cui Che's comfort, Zhao Yuanshu could only brace herself and continue to be his home.

Cui Che originally planned to build school buildings in various places and develop culture and education in addition to setting aside the budget to build a new navy.

He can exploit Buddhism and Taoism, but when faced with Confucianism, which is also one of the three religions, he can only be a money-spreading boy.

Cui Che did not worry at all that allowing monks to purify themselves would lead to the union of Buddhism and eunuchs, thereby taking over power.

After all, in ancient China, if Buddhism wanted to gain power, it had to ask the behemoth of Confucianism.

After Cui Che and others determined the size of the navy, Zhao Yuanshu led a group of household officials to calculate, and then they realized that the money collected from Buddhism and Taoism was enough for Cui Che to recruit civilians to cut down and transport giant trees and build ships.

, to support navy officers and shipwrights.

After experiencing the blow of Emperor Wu of Zhou who banned Buddhism and Taoism, even if Cui Che took away all the accumulation of Buddhism and Taoism for 27 years, he really couldn't withstand too many things he had done.

Fortunately, Cui Che was also mentally prepared for the cost of building a navy army, otherwise it would not have been delayed until today.

In fact, most of what was confiscated from Buddhism was acres of land.

Under the simple financial management concepts of the ancients, purchasing land was always their top priority investment choice.

Under the land equalization system, public land cannot be bought or sold, but private land, except Yongye land, can be freely transferred.

The so-called public land refers to the land without owners that was returned to the state during the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, for those lands with owners, the state naturally recognized their land ownership and allowed them to trade.

Cui Che confiscated the private lands annexed by these temples, so it was naturally impossible to resell them.

This led Cui Che to scrape the oil and water between Buddhism and Taoism, but he could only form a navy.

Fortunately, the confiscation of a large number of temple acres can be considered as a restraint on annexation and has somewhat eased the conflict between man and land in the Sanhe area.

Cui Che's plan to relocate people to Shibian has been implemented, but it is no longer the government forcing people to move.

Instead, based on the principle of voluntariness, Cui Che allocated full land to those who were willing to go to Yan and western Liaoning, exempted and exempted them from taxes, and encouraged people to bring their families and move to Yan to make a living.

besides

(End of chapter)