Chapter 1010 Ming Qiu's Hidden Concerns
Ming Qiu fell silent. He wasn't particularly worried about logistics issues in Kaohsiung and Jeju Island—he trusted this group of young people's organizational and work capabilities. The real problem was something else: he didn't have a qualified officer corps.
In this First Fleet, only one person came from PLAN naval officers: Li Ziping. Mengde was at least a maritime university student, counting as half. Adding himself, that made a total of two and a half professionals. Though Le Lin was a Senator and fanatical navy enthusiast who talked knowledgeably about navigation and naval tactics, she was actually a Zhao Kuo—all theory, no practical experience whatsoever. All her sailing experience had been accumulated in just the past three years. Yet during Operation Engine, the Navy faced heavy tasks and very complex situations. Le Lin would be commanding a steam-sail hybrid warship she had never dealt with before. Even Ming Qiu himself felt uncertain.
There were some other Senators with naval backgrounds, but they either had their own duties and couldn't get away, or they had been headquarters soldiers, technical soldiers, or base soldiers who knew little about navigation. Even assigned to the First Fleet, they wouldn't be much use.
The fleet's core naturalized citizen officers mostly came from former pirates. Whether this group's professional standards were qualified remained questionable.
"...The repair ship and collier are nearly finished with outfitting. In another ten-plus days, they can formally begin sea trials—should be in time by then." Chen Haiyang continued, assuming Old Ming was still worrying about logistics matters.
When shipbuilding was first planned, they had considered that neither Kaohsiung nor Jeju Island had repair facilities, making repairs difficult if problems occurred. They specifically included three repair ships in the plan. But both the Navy and shipyard had overlooked the issue of fleet colliers. Steam warships consumed astonishing amounts of coal. Even sailing under canvas most of the time, they still required continuous coal supply.
In this dimension, except for Hongji, Sanya, Bopu, and Hong Kong, there wasn't a single coaling station available anywhere in the world. The fleet had to carry its own colliers for en-route supply.
Halfway through implementing the shipbuilding outfitting plan, the Planning Bureau finally realized this gap. Since adding ships was too late, they temporarily converted two H800 Hexie-class vessels under construction into colliers.
However, the Hexie-class structure wasn't suitable for colliers. Actually, most ships in the Navy and shipping departments weren't very suitable—wooden ships transporting coal had major safety hazards. With bulk cargo like coal, the danger of smoldering fires always existed, not to mention coal dust's explosion risk.
Ming Qiu pulled back his thoughts—worrying uselessly served no purpose. The only approach was to strengthen training. Fortunately, the fleet's initial tasks weren't heavy. During standby in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, there would be considerable time for training.
"How's the safety?"
"Hard to say," Chen Haiyang replied. "This is just a temporary emergency measure. H800s will avoid accompanying voyages and at-sea coaling operations as much as possible. Ships will primarily resupply in port."
He then discussed the naval coal usage plan for Operation Engine—compiled by Sopu. Naval coal was quite special. The Senate didn't have Welsh hard coal, known as "the best ship coal," and could only substitute with the best coal from their controlled territory—Hongji coal. Sopu planned to store two thousand tons of ship coal each in Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, and Jeju Island.
Two thousand tons seemed like a lot but actually was only enough to resupply the entire First Fleet twice. This didn't include consumption by other steam vessels requiring coal. They still had no idea what the 854s and 901s actually consumed during sailing. The two thousand tons per port figure was just storage capacity Sopu calculated based on transport capacity.
Additionally, hundreds of tons of animal and vegetable lubricating oil, mechanical spare parts, and backup ship materials had to be pre-stored at each base. Crew and ammunition supplies weren't even calculated yet.
"Twenty-four Hexie-class vessels sounds like many, but actually running operations, just ensuring normal fleet sailing and base construction is already strenuous."
"Who's responsible for transport ship escort?"
"General Logistics' plan is segmented escort."
What Chen Haiyang called General Logistics should properly be called Joint Logistics Command. But he still habitually used the familiar term.
Because no one could guarantee ships' mechanical performance, Sopu and others could only focus on enhanced maintenance and frequent inspections, avoiding long-term ocean sailing by steam ships as much as possible.
"Specifically: convoys departing from Hainan will be escorted by Coast Guard Type I and II sail patrol boat squadrons to Hong Kong. Convoys from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung will be the First Fleet's responsibility. Kaohsiung to Jeju Island convoys will be the Second Fleet's responsibility."
The Second Fleet consisted of three more 901-type first-class gunboats under outfitting plus the motor-sail converted Fubo second-class gunboat.
The reason for positioning the First Fleet at Kaohsiung was that the Senate's main enemies—the Great Ming, Liu Xiang, and Zheng Zhilong—all operated in Fujian and Guangdong waters. Zheng Zhilong especially, whom the Senate viewed as their greatest enemy, used Fujian waters as his backyard, with his main force concentrated there. Ensuring freedom of navigation through the Taiwan Strait was the Navy's primary task.
"First and Second Fleets have limited ship numbers. Can they handle it?" Ming Qiu recalled the enemy intelligence report mentioning Korean and Ming naval forces operating near Jeju Island. Besides Shandong's navy, the Ming government had naval forces stationed at Tianjin; Korean naval forces also frequently operated in these waters.
"Both fleets will each have several sail auxiliary boat squadrons attached," Chen Haiyang replied. "Additionally, during the Jeju Island landing, the First Fleet will assist in destroying local maritime forces and clearing Korean naval forces."
"This plan was drafted by Li Di, right?"
"Yes, he's now chief of staff. His job."
Though Ming Qiu didn't speak, his expression once again conveyed concern about this completely inexperienced naval chief of staff and fleet chief of staff.
Li Di had been undergoing staff training, but he had grown up relying on books and various materials. Throughout the entire Senate, there simply wasn't a single Senator who had actually served as a naval staff officer. Whether reading could produce a qualified staff officer, only heaven knew.
"He's very young and eager to learn. His performance in several staff exercises wasn't bad..." Chen Haiyang seemed to be reassuring him.
After a long while, Ming Qiu finally spoke: "No one is born knowing how to fight. Let them grow through actual combat."
Shikawa Hideji was now a corporal, though he didn't really understand what "corporal" meant. He only knew he was now a minor official under his new employer, called a squad leader—similar to ashigaru group heads under daimyos. Nine Japanese mercenaries served under him. However, currently he still had to take orders from an education sergeant the Australians had assigned him.
The sergeants were veterans Fu Sansi had selected from the troops, with good training levels and first-rate combat skills. Their task was to train new recruits into qualified soldiers as quickly as possible.
To train qualified soldiers in a short time, the Senate's previous method was military stick education. Training the Security Army was naturally even less polite. The training camp echoed all day with slapping sounds—Three Bows given constantly. Every day resounded with slaps and "baka."
Shikawa Hideji's promotion depended on two reasons: First, after years of hanging around overseas Chinese circles, eating Dine-and-Dash meals, working as muscle, doing hard labor, his Chinese was relatively good among the Japanese mercenaries. He himself also came from a samurai family, slightly versed in Chinese learning, able to read and write Chinese characters without difficulty. Second, Shikawa Hideji was a fallen samurai with an actual family name—and a respectable one at that. Most Japanese mercenaries were various -rōs, -marus, -maros; even having "-bei" was considered impressive. Seeing a samurai with a family name, they dared not even breathe in his presence. According to Japanese custom and law, samurai were all lords. Even if starving, even if naked, publicly cutting down a commoner or two was a legitimate right.
Of course, now Shikawa no longer had to go naked. He wore the Australians' new military uniform. His fundoshi was replaced with standard knee-length shorts—for common people, shorts versus long pants was the main way to distinguish Security Army from Fubo Army.
According to the new military system, they were organized as "Security Auxiliary Forces"—abbreviated "Security Army."
The Security Army differed from the National Army. The National Army, as the name implied, was composed of "nationals," undertaking local garrison work like the old dimension's armed police. The Security Army wasn't necessarily composed of "nationals" but was mainly mercenary. Its main duties were garrison and sweeping operations in newly occupied areas, coordinating with regular forces for pacification warfare. So its organization, equipment, and personnel composition followed a different system: troop sources were varied; equipment was simplified—long pants to shorts being just one example.
The Fubo Army wore long pants mainly because field troops had to climb mountains and wade through water. Long pants reduced scratches from thorns and bites from mosquitos and insects. Additionally, there had been several accidents during previous training—when soldiers picked up Minié rifles, pants sometimes caught on the hammer. European armies in the flintlock era had all worn tight pants and used complicated weapon belts to bind the upper body tightly; coat tails were also tied back before combat.
Minié rifles were much safer than flintlocks: caps could only be loaded after raising the gun. However, this couldn't guarantee the hammer striking an empty cap chamber wouldn't spark, or that someone wouldn't load a cap then set the gun down. After learning from experience, the uniform factory modified the new uniform design. They redesigned pants referencing jeans patterns, moved pockets to the side-rear, and added leggings—avoiding the danger.
The Security Army, however, mainly stayed at residential points and moved along roads, generally not needing to climb mountains or wade through water. British colonial-style military shorts had few disadvantages. Some pointed out that the Security Army didn't only serve in tropical regions, and in this dimension's Hainan and Taiwan winters, wearing only shorts was a bit hard to bear. But the Planning Bureau's answer was that the current training phase was completely manageable—the weather wasn't cold now. As for when it really became unbearable, they could switch to long pants.
(End of Chapter)