Chapter 318- Dragon Head
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Nora
The events at Xunzhou failed to attract Ouyang Shuo's attention.
No matter the strength of the uprising army, they couldn't come to Lianzhou Basin in a short time amount of time. On the contrary, the expansion of the Taiping Country would help him destroy the other small territories in Guangxi. In the end, it would result in a situation where one person would take it all.
At that point, Ouyang Shuo would just step out to clean it up. As long as he destroyed the Taiping Country, he would own the entire Guangxi.
The Taiping Uprising Army was merely a living target in his eyes.
It wasn't that he had grown arrogant and wanted to make use of the Lianzhou Basin to take down Taiping Country. He also had other trump cards, which would come into play when the time came.
At that time, whoever dared to underestimate Lianzhou Basin would end up in big trouble.
To put it another way, east of Xunzhou, Wuzhou, there was still Chiyou City.
When two tigers fought, one was destined to get hurt.
Ouyang a Shuo could just watch on as the tigers fought.
As for whether things would proceed as he had expected, it was still unknown.
The ripple that the Mulan House caused and everything else slowly subsided. Shanhai Territory had regained its normality.
The only matter that gave Ouyang Shuo a headache was the issue regarding war horses. To form up the 4th division, one had to mention the Qingfu horses. The other three other divisions all used Qingfu horses. Hence, Ouyang Shuo had to handle things fairly. Changing the war horses of the 4th division to Qingfu horses also climbed up his priority list.
Unfortunately, the various grassland tribes had already become wary of Shanhai City after the Tianqi tribe stirred up the waters. They did not want to trade with Shanhai City. As such, attempting to purchase Qingfu horses from them wasn't a practical idea.
After trade broke, Ouyang Shuo grew more and more worried about the grassland tribes.
Although the Lianzhou Basin had good weather and didn't have winter, the grassland wasn't suitable for herding close to the new year. Hence, the livelihoods of the herdsmen and shepherds became a big problem.
If they could not purchase food from Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo had grounds to suspect that the various tribes would start a war.
Ouyang Shuo had ordered the Military Intelligence Division to increase their investigation into the grassland tribes and immediately report news. The leader of the second group, Leixun, was given the orders to do so.
However, the intel from Leixun puzzled Ouyang Shuo puzzled. The tribes had no intention for war and no tribe had asked for the herdsmen to join the army.
Everything seemed really weird.
The calm grassland seemed like it was on the verge of a huge storm.
Ouyang Shuo could only order the Military Logistics Department to quickly draw up a battle plan and craft logistics to get ready for a war; he ordered the Shanhai House to speed up the building of the city wall. They would prioritise the north wall and make it into an unbreakable fortress.
As the military size increased, the situation would change. In order to start a large scale war, he could not simply move the troops and immediately fight like before.
As they said, before the soldiers moved, the grain would move first.
For a huge war, they needed to prepare large amounts of grain, horses, chariots, arrows and many equipment. It was not something they could complete in a short time.
The four military workshops and the cave military factory had thousands of workers who rushed day and night to craft batch after batch of items. They sent the items to the various camps for them to equip themselves.
Especially the newly established fourth division, they only had the system gifted equipment from the class change, far from the standards of the Shanhai City army.
The newly appointed combat logistics director Zhu Hongliang was so busy that he did not even have time to eat.
Baiqi and Du Ruhui were busy preparing the military forces. They had also brought their personal guards, who entered the grasslands to take a look at the environment to prepare for the battle.
Baiqi's mind would not stop at any moment, as he continuously thought and found methods to outsmart the enemy. He mainly focused on the investigation and preparation work before the battle.
Du Ruhui was also very experienced and he had a sharp eye. He was a great military advisor and his tactics and war ideas were better than Baiq,i who was from the warring states period.
The two of them worked together and helped put Ouyang Shuo at ease.
With the two of them at the helm, Ouyang Shuo could take time and effort to look at other things.
For example, the Qingfu Horses.
The only way to obtain Qingfu Horses now was from the Jifeng Valley horse stables.
The stables had sent out four thousand Qingfu Horses before and they only had a hundred left.
The nurturing of a warhorse was a lengthy process. In such a short time, Ouyang Shuo definitely did not want to use the horses in the horse stables.
From a long term stand point, such a great horse like the Qingfu Horse could not meet the needs of the expanding army. Even if he unified the whole Lianzhou Basin, the amount of Qingfu Horses would still remain limited.
In future wars, one would need to use hundred or even hundreds of thousands of troops. Even if one owned all the Qingfu Horses in Lianzhou Basin, it also would not be enough.
Hence, Ouyang Shuo had decided to build the horse stables to plan for the future.
Of course, it was only a backup solution. It helped to ease the problem but not solve it. The best method was to find another mount.
For this method, Ouyang Shuo had some ideas. In his last life, he remembered some superior mount production areas. As long as the time was right, he could break the lack of mounts in the army.
For the time being, it was hard for him to make any decisions.
Mu Guiying understood his tough situation. She said that they could slow down the changing of war horses since the Mulan Stronghold was the main priority.
And hence, they settled the matter for the time being.
Another thing that worried Ouyang Shuo was the Beihai Shipyard.
When Ouyang Shuo passed the ship making manual over to them, he instructed them to quickly build ships, as he badly needed vessels.
They met his expectations. On the 15th day of the 1st month, after hundreds of smiths and workers in the shipyard rushed day and night, they built the first turreted ship. It was ready to enter the water.
When Ouyang Shuo received the news, he personally rushed over to Beihai City to witness the moment.
Apart from Ouyang Shuo, the Shipyard special advisor Old Sun, Zheng Dahai, and Pei Donglai were all at the dock. Baiqi and Du Ruhui were busy with army matters, so they could not get away. Otherwise, they definitely would not miss this chance.
The Beihai Shipyard was right next to the Beihai Bay. There were two large scale docks and more than ten medium sized ones.
The first turreted ship was in one of the large scale docks, as it waited to enter the water.
The giant boat was over five stories high and could carry three thousand men. Not only did it have a menacing outer appearance, the boat had spears and flags. It had the ability to attack and defend like a castle on water. The head of the boat had a iron point which they sailors could use to ram other ships. It also had a stern rudder so it would never steer off course.
As expected, the turreted ship also made use of the watertight bulkhead technology.
At the two sides of the turreted ship, there were six clapper poles.
The clapper poles were used to smack enemy ships. They were around five arms in length and were made up of a pillar, a cross pole, and giant rocks and potters tied to the head. The pillar helped support the cross pole and allowed it to swing around and smack the enemy boats with the giant rocks. Ropes connected the potters to the cross pole. As such, one could manually turn it to pull up the cross pole and raise the giant rock.
Such a destructive weapon was the nightmares of enemy ships before the birth of cannons.
If it was not for the time constraints, Old Sun would have wanted to modify the turreted ship to make it even scarier. Successfully creating an olden ship naturally made a ship specialist like Old Sun emotional.
As for Old Sun's efficiency, Ouyang Shuo was very pleased.
Of course, the turreted ship was not perfect and without flaws; it also had weaknesses.
The weakness was that it was too high and unstable, so its ability to withstand waves was weak. Hence, it was suitable for fighting in rivers or nearby seas, but not suitable for long distance travel.
If not, a storm could capsize the entire turreted ship.
Thanks to the protection of Mazu, the Shanhai City navy could largely avoid this weaknesses. The specialty of the hidden building raised the protection from storms by 40%, which ensured that the ships would remain safe as long as they did not face a huge storm.
Zheng Dahai, who was beside Ouyang Shuo, decided to test the waters when he saw the marquis so delighted and pleased, “Marquis, please name the turreted ship!"
Ouyang Shuo was in fact really pleased, so he smiled, “The territory's symbol is a dragon so this first boat will be called the Dragon Head."
"Great name!" Old Sun butt in and laughed, “it’s auspicious!"
Ouyang Shuo nodded. Dragon Head would be his flagship, and it follow him out to sea, "Captain Zheng, immediately complete the relevant functions and features of the Dragon Head. A few days later, I’ll set it out to sea."
"Yes, my lord!" Zheng Dahai froze, he did not expect the marquis to rush so much. It seemed like he needed to make the smiths work overtime for a few days. One must know that a huge quantity of features and facilities must be added to a large scale boat.
Ouyang Shuo looked at Pei Donglai," General Pei, the Beihai Fleet will follow us out to sea."
"What is your destination?" Pei Donglai felt confused.
Ouyang Shuo gave a mysterious smile," Qiongzhou Island."
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