The bow of the "Dongyang" crashed into the blue sea, leaving a straight trail. The gunners on the gun deck were conducting gun drills on both sides. With the command from the gun captain on the deck, the gunners nervously carried out various tactical actions, repeatedly loading and firing the coach's ammunition and training packages.

Wu Yiyong and Chen Tianli stood on the ridge of the ridge, observing their training with interest. Beside them, there were several trainee naval officers practicing using right angle instruments.

There are no GPS available to locate ships sailing at sea these days. So you can only use relatively simple tools to find the exact direction at sea.

The navigation positioning tools are four major items: nautical star plate, compass, right angle meter, and star lever plate. In addition to the compass, the other three tools use the heights of the stars (sun) and the horizontal plane to calculate the dimensions. This is the so-called "dimensional navigation" tool. With the compass, the sea ship can sail on the vast ocean without land as a reference.

In addition to the young officer who was holding a right angle gauge to watch the sun, on the back of the stern tower, there was also a sailor throwing a rope to the sea with a winch that was tied to a joint at every distance. The rope that was not long was tied to an empty wooden barrel thrown in the sea. This was actually a way to measure the speed. At the same time, a sailor was looking at a glass hourglass, so that he could know how many "junction" ropes were released over a period of time. Hence, he knew the speed?

Once you know the speed and direction, you can roughly estimate the location of the "Dongyang".

Now the "Tongyang" is sailing on the sea near the Tsushima Strait, with waves rising and falling around, boundless blue and extremely magnificent.

Zheng Yixin, the captain of the "Dongyang", a naval colonel in his early thirties, strode to Chen Tianli and Wu Yiyong, salute, and then reported: "Now we are sailing with the wind and sailing, and the speed is close to 10 knots! At this speed, we can reach Hirado Port in another 2 and a half hours."

"How long does the whole journey take?" Wu Yiyong asked.

"Five hours." Zheng Yixin replied.

"Haha, it's coming every day!" Wu Yiyong shook his head, "I really didn't expect... how many distances? 400 miles?"

“More than 400 miles.”

"Not half a day." Wu Yiyong took a sip of salty air, "Is this too fast?"

"Because it was a good wind," Chen Tianli smiled, "but the 'Oriental' does run faster! It is a soft sailboat, and the area of ​​the sail is much larger than that of the hard sailboat. However, the wind direction will not work, and it is not as fast as the hard sailboat."

Wu Yiyong said: "It's still fast enough... I can run dozens of miles in one hour with a wind! If I march from the land, I can't go that far in a day!"

"It's not just fast, but also strong transportation capacity!" Zheng Yixin said proudly, "The Toyo cannons with 18 kilograms and 24 kilograms alone have as many as 60 long cannons! There are as many as 300 officers and sailors on the ship! At most, they can carry the same number of Army soldiers. The cargo holds on the ship can also carry 3,000 stones of various cargo.

If artillery, ammunition and gunners are not installed, the Toyo can also transport more cargo and personnel."

Wu Yiyong nodded, "There are several warships like the Toyo now under construction? When will it be put into use?"

"There are only two ships at present," Chen Tianli replied, "and the Toyo is still in the sea trial stage and has not been officially put into service.

However, the Navy also has a large number of hard sailboats of the "Truth" class. There are more transport ships developed based on the hull of the "Truth" class! Not only are there military, but also civilian types. These hard sailboats will not run too slowly from the nearshore of Japan. As long as they are fully mobilized, they can transport personnel and equipment of two infantry divisions at one time!"

"There are really so many?" Wu Yiyong asked, "Two divisions at a time? Where can I transport them to?"

"You can travel from Lushun to Higashido," Chen Tianli said. "If the wind direction is right, you can arrive in two days."

"How is Hirado?" Wu Yiyong asked again, "Can the troops be stationed?"

Chen Tianli smiled and said, "Hirado is coming soon, General, please see it yourself."

...

Japan, outside Hirado Port.

This port city is located approximately at the westernmost end of the Japanese archipelago facing China. Before being forced to rent it to the Great Zhou Republic, it was just a deserted island. There were two large and small sheltered bays in the north of the island, forming two natural anchorages. Belonging to the hills on the island, low wooden buildings were densely arranged. There was no Japanese-Chinese style, just small panel houses. In the port area, it looked like an emerging industrial and commercial city like Tianjin and Lushun. Tall veranda buildings were everywhere. There were also many cranes trampled by manpower on the port, which looked a bit like a water truck. A short Japanese laborer wearing shorts was shuttled back and forth.

There are cargo warehouses everywhere above the port and the sea are moored by the merchant ships and warships of Zhou Kingdom. There are all kinds of things. There are old-style broad ships, blessing ships, new-style "truth" models, and some are improved models of truth, with soft sails installed.

All ships were banned by the ten thousand talismans of Zhou, and all ship registrations were in the Great Zhou Republic.

As for merchant ships from other countries, they are not allowed to enter Japanese trading ports such as Hirado, Hakata, Namba, and Sado Island for trade.

According to a series of treaties signed by the Great Zhou Republic and Japan, the Great Zhou Republic exclusively enjoys the "ziyou trade" rights of several trading ports in Japan.

In other words, only Japan can only trade with the Great Zhou Dynasty, and cannot trade with other countries...

The two bays that make up Hirado Port share an entrance. The width of the entrance is less than two miles, and there are hills on both sides. There are two cannon barriers along the hillside to block the harbor.

The cannon building is not a bastion structure, but a traditional rammed earth city wall. It only faces the sea and has a bullet-proof slope. The cannon is set up at the height of the city wall, with a 18-pound long cannon, and the two fortresses have 12 doors.

The port is divided into two north and south bays, among which the Beiwan outside is the commercial port, and the Nanwan inside is the military port.

The "Tongyang" is huge in size and painted black in the shell. The "Tongyang" slowly sails into the military port located in Hirado Nanwan Bay under the guidance of a port pilot.

The surrounding area of ​​the military port is very strict, and the entrance to the South Bay is very narrow, only a few dozen feet wide. Navy clutches patrolled, and merchant ships without permission are prohibited from entering.

The military port wharf was also very cold, and there were no Japanese workers and no ships docked.

Near the pier is a castle of rammed earth. The castle is of great size and is square in shape. The Wanfu flag is flying on the city wall. It should be an important stronghold of the Great Zhou Republic in Hirado.

Wu Yiyong carefully observed the surrounding terrain, which was a bit narrow, but there were no particularly dangerous mountains. They were all low hills. They could build a military camp by cleaning up the trees.

The entire island seems to be quite large, enough to place an army of tens of thousands of people.

The only uncertainty is whether there is too much fresh water on the island?

If there is no problem, this Hirado Island should be the base of the Japanese Expeditionary Force!

Just as he was planning to set up a base camp for the Japanese dynasty in Hirado, the "Dongyang" with the banner of Wanqu was slowly approaching the dock.

There were some people waiting on the pier. They were all wearing neat narrow-sleeved robes and squid scarves. Needless to say, they all knew they were officials of the Hirado garrison and the Governor's Office. They were waiting for the warships to approach the pier with a smile.

Standing with them were a few guys wearing tall hats. At this time, it was clear from the deck that there should be some Japanese officials. Looking at the huge Dazhou warship, everyone was open and stunned.

These Japanese officials are all trade departments in the Dazaifu stationed in Hirato. The leader was named Weisun Noyan, who was a retainer of the Regent Takatoshi Shirakiwara. He was responsible for managing several farms in the Hinata country of the Fujiwara family.

Because the Zuokyo doctor Fujiwara Ie Takashi served as Dazai Shaoer, he followed Hiraki to work and was stationed in Hirado Island as the Trade Department. He was actually responsible for diplomatic affairs with the Dazhou.

These days, senior officials from Japan's vain style were all useless otakus. Even if they were sent to local officials, they didn't care about serious matters, that is, picking up girls, singing, and tea parties. Just like Guangyuanjun in "The Story of Genji", it was far inferior to the group of imperial examination literati in the Song Dynasty, and it was not the most useless, but only even worse.

However, these idle Duke Gongqing have some lackeys who can help oppress good people. This is the so-called warrior!

Most lackeys have to make a living by their ability! The Japanese court specializes in raising waste firewood, but waste firewood will not use its own money to raise other waste firewood, so it has to raise some useful lackeys.

Japan is maintained by these lackeys! Because the lackeys are too useless, they gradually become bigger and are unwilling to be a dog, and they begin to want to develop upwards.

This is how the samurai class subject comes from it.

Of course, samurai are not all changed from lackeys of the public. Some high-level samurai were developed from the lackeys of Emperor Shirakawa. Emperor Shirakawa's lackeys are called northern samurai. In fact, some military officers of noble origins can also be regarded as ministers, but they are not that useless and can be beaten or killed.

However, famous samurai from Genji, Hei, Fujiwara and Kirishi family account for a low proportion of the samurai class, and most of the samurai are native tyrants.

By Chinese standards, it is the poor landlord class.

Wei Zong Nengyan's origin was the Wei Zong clan, who was neither above nor below. The Qin clan (the ancestors were Chinese or Goryeo), who came from the saviors, was not considered too poor. However, Wei Zong Nengyan was not from the legitimate family, but was a worthless villain. He could not hold an official position in the court, but could only serve as a Fujiwara clan.

Nengyan was originally very satisfied with such a future until he became the trading department of Dazaifu stationed in Hirado.
Chapter completed!