Part 254: Ming Qiu's Worries

Ming Qiu said nothing. He wasn’t particularly worried about the logistics at Kaohsiung and Jeju Island—he had great faith in the organizational and administrative abilities of these young men. The problem was, he didn’t have a qualified officer corps.

In this First Fleet, only one man, Li Ziping, was a former PLAN naval officer. Meng De, at least, was a maritime university student, so he counted for half. Including himself, that made a total of two and a half professionals. Although Le Lin was a Senator and an ardent naval enthusiast who could talk a good game about seamanship and naval tactics, he was, in reality, a Zhao Kuo with no practical experience whatsoever. All his sailing experience had been accumulated in the last three years. But the Navy’s tasks in Operation Engine were heavy, and the situation they faced was complex. Le Lin would be commanding a hybrid steam-sail warship, a vessel he had never encountered before. Even Ming Qiu himself felt a lack of confidence.

There were other Senators with naval backgrounds, but they were either indispensable in their current roles and couldn’t be spared, or they had served as clerks, technicians, or base personnel with little knowledge of seamanship. Their addition to the First Fleet would be of little use.

The backbone of the fleet, the naturalized citizen officers, were mostly former pirates. Whether their professional standards were up to par was also a major question mark.

“…The repair ships and colliers are almost fully outfitted. They can begin their official sea trials in about ten days, so they should be ready in time,” Chen Haiyang continued, thinking Old Ming was still worried about logistics.

When the shipbuilding plan was first conceived, they had considered the lack of repair facilities at Kaohsiung and Jeju Island, which would make it difficult to fix any breakdowns. Therefore, the construction of three repair ships was specifically included in the plan. However, both the Navy and the shipyard had overlooked the issue of fleet colliers. Steam warships consumed an astonishing amount of coal. Even if they used sails for most of the journey, they still needed a constant supply of coal.

In this era, apart from Hongji, Sanya, Bopu, and Hong Kong, there were no coaling stations anywhere in the world. The fleet had to bring its own colliers for replenishment.

The Planning Commission only realized this gap halfway through the implementation of the shipbuilding and outfitting plan. It was too late to add new ships, so they temporarily converted two H800 “Harmony” class ships under construction into colliers.

However, the structure of the “Harmony” class was not suitable for a collier. In fact, most of the ships in the Navy and the shipping department were not well-suited for it. From a safety perspective, transporting coal on wooden ships posed a significant fire hazard. The risk of smoldering was always present in bulk cargo like coal, not to mention the danger of coal dust explosions.

Ming Qiu pulled his thoughts back. Worrying was useless; the only way forward was to intensify training. Fortunately, the fleet’s initial tasks were not heavy. During their standby period in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, there would be plenty of time for training.

“How is the safety?”

Chen Haiyang said, “Safety is hard to say. This is just a temporary emergency measure. The H800s will avoid sailing alongside the fleet and at-sea coaling operations as much as possible. The ships will primarily be resupplied in port.”

He then discussed the plan for the Navy’s coal consumption during Operation Engine, which had been compiled by Suo Pu. Naval coal was quite specific. The Senate didn’t have the so-called “best ship’s coal,” Welsh anthracite, and had to use the best coal available in their sphere of influence, Hongji coal, as a substitute. Suo Pu planned to stockpile 2,000 tons of ship’s coal each in Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, and Jeju Island.

Two thousand tons seemed like a lot, but it was only enough for two full replenishments for the First Fleet. This didn’t even include the consumption of other steamships that needed coal. They had no idea what the actual coal consumption of the Type 854 and 901 would be during a voyage; the 2,000-ton figure per port was simply the amount Suo Pu had calculated based on their transport capacity.

Furthermore, they had to pre-stock hundreds of tons of animal and vegetable lubricants, spare machine parts, and spare ship materials at each base. The crew’s own provisions and ammunition resupply were not even factored in yet.

“Twenty-four ‘Harmony’ class ships sounds like a lot, but in reality, just keeping the fleet running and the bases supplied will be a huge strain.”

“Who is responsible for escorting the transport ships?”

“The General Logistics Department’s plan is to use a segmented escort system.”

The “General Logistics Department” Chen Haiyang mentioned was officially called the “Joint Logistics Command,” but he was used to the familiar term “General Logistics.”

Because no one could guarantee the mechanical reliability of the ships, Suo Pu and the others could only focus on strengthening maintenance and frequent overhauls, trying to avoid long sea voyages for the steamships.

“Specifically: the convoy from Hainan will be escorted to Hong Kong by the I-type and II-type sailing patrol boat squadrons of the Coast Guard. The convoy from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung will be escorted by the First Fleet. The convoy from Kaohsiung to Jeju Island will be escorted by the Second Fleet.”

The Second Fleet was composed of the other three Type 901 first-class gunboats currently being outfitted, plus the motorized “Fubo” class second-class gunboat.

The reason for deploying the First Fleet to Kaohsiung was that the Senate’s main enemies—the Ming Dynasty, Liu Xiang, and Zheng Zhilong—were all active in the waters off Fujian and Guangdong. In particular, Zheng Zhilong, whom the Senate considered its greatest enemy, treated the Fujian seas as his backyard, and his main forces were concentrated there. Ensuring free passage through the Taiwan Strait was the Navy’s top priority.

“The First and Second Fleets have a limited number of ships. Can they handle it?” Ming Qiu recalled that intelligence reports mentioned the presence of Korean and Ming naval forces near Jeju Island. Besides the Shandong fleet, the Ming government also had a naval force stationed in Tianjin, and the Korean navy was also active in the area.

Chen Haiyang said, “Each of the two fleets will be augmented with several sailing special service boat squadrons. Also, during the Jeju Island landing, the First Fleet will assist them in destroying the local maritime forces and clearing out the Korean navy.”

“This is Li Di’s plan, isn’t it?”

“Yes, he’s the Chief of Staff now. It’s his job.”

Although Ming Qiu didn’t speak, his expression once again betrayed his anxiety about this inexperienced naval chief of staff and fleet chief of staff.

Li Di had been undergoing staff training, but he had learned everything from books and documents. There wasn’t a single Senator in the entire Senate who had actually served as a naval staff officer. Whether one could become a competent staff officer just by reading books, only heaven knew.

“He’s very young and eager to learn. He has performed well in several staff exercises…” Chen Haiyang seemed to be trying to reassure him.

After a long silence, Ming Qiu finally uttered, “No one is born knowing how to fight. Let them grow in real combat.”

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Shusen Shishikawa was now a corporal. Although he didn’t quite understand what “corporal” meant, he knew he was now a minor officer under his new employers. This position was called squad leader—similar to an ashigaru gashira under a daimyo. He had nine Japanese mercenaries under his command. For now, however, he still had to obey a training sergeant sent by the Australians.

The sergeants were veteran soldiers, selected by Fu Sansi from the army for their excellent training skills and first-rate combat techniques. Their mission was to turn new recruits into qualified soldiers as quickly as possible.

To train qualified soldiers in a short time, the Senate’s old method was corporal punishment. For training the Pacification Army, they were even less lenient. The training camp was filled with the sound of slaps and shouts of “Baka!” all day long.

Shusen Shishikawa’s promotion was due to two reasons. First, having spent years mingling in Chinese merchant and expatriate circles—mooching meals, working as a thug, and doing manual labor—he was one of the better Chinese speakers among the Japanese mercenaries. He also came from a samurai family, had some knowledge of Chinese classics, and could read and write Chinese characters without difficulty. Second, Shusen Shishikawa was a down-on-his-luck samurai with a proper family name. Most of the other Japanese mercenaries were named some variation of -ro, -maru, or -maryu. Even having a name like “-bei” was a big deal. When faced with a samurai with a family name, they wouldn’t dare breathe too loudly. According to Japanese customs and laws, samurai were masters. Even if they were starving and naked, cutting down a commoner in the street was their legitimate right.

Of course, Shusen no longer had to go naked. He wore the new Australian uniform. His loincloth had been replaced with standard-issue knee-length shorts. For the common people, shorts versus long trousers was the main way to distinguish between the Pacification Army and the Fubo Army.

According to the new military system, they were organized into the “Pacification Auxiliary Force”—or “Pacification Army” for short.

The Pacification Army was different from the National Army. The National Army, as its name implied, was composed of “nationals” and performed local garrison duties similar to the armed police of the old world. The Pacification Army, however, was not necessarily composed of “nationals” and was mainly made up of mercenaries. Its primary role was to garrison and conduct sweeps in newly occupied areas, assisting the regular army in pacification warfare. Therefore, its organization, equipment, and personnel composition were different. The soldiers came from various backgrounds, and the equipment was simplified—switching from long trousers to shorts was just one example.

The Fubo Army wore long trousers mainly because field troops had to cross mountains and rivers, and long trousers reduced scratches from thorns and bites from insects and mosquitoes. Also, there had been a few accidents in previous training sessions where a soldier’s trousers would sometimes snag the hammer of their Minie rifle. That’s why European armies of the flintlock era wore tight breeches and complex web gear, and even tied back the tails of their jackets before battle.

The Minie rifle was much safer than a flintlock because the percussion cap was only placed on the nipple after lifting the gun. However, there was still no guarantee that a hammer striking an empty nipple wouldn’t produce a spark, or that someone wouldn’t put the gun down after capping it. After learning from these experiences, the clothing factory modified the pattern of the new uniforms. They redesigned the trousers based on the pattern of jeans, moved the pockets to the side and rear, and added puttees, which prevented such dangerous incidents.

However, the Pacification Army was mainly stationed in settlements and moved along roads. They generally didn’t need to cross mountains and rivers, so the drawbacks of the British colonial-style military shorts were not significant. Someone pointed out that the Pacification Army didn’t just serve in tropical regions, and that wearing only shorts during the winter in Hainan and Taiwan would be a bit tough to bear. But the Planning Commission’s response was that this could be overcome during the current training phase—the weather wasn’t cold now. If it really got too cold, they could just switch to long trousers.