“What, can’t afford it?”Roland sat in his office, and the paperwork for the expansion of the executive and the purchase of sailboats was on his desk.

Barov cleared his throat, “Your Highness, it is.”A two-masted sailboat costs between eighty and one hundred and twenty golden dragons, but that is only the cost of building a ship.This is more than that of the people on board, and the total price is estimated to be more than two hundred golden dragons.”

"Didn't I say, 'No need for a sailor or a helmsman?'I don't need the captain, I just want the ship."Roland knocked on the table and asked.There was Wendy in, and he didn’t use that many people to operate the sailboat.Inland boats are mostly straight sails, the operation is like lifting the flag, the oarsmen and sailors are superfluous, the helmsman casually pulls a person to try.Anyway, there is a vector wind, but also afraid of the ship not going forward?

“Your Highness, there is no such sale, at least not in the town of Willow.”Barov carefully explained, "You may not know much about the industry, in general, the owner of the ship is the captain."It may be a merchant, or it may be a nobleman, the former by their own recruitment, with the ship to and from the major towns docks, merchants or transport goods.In the latter case, a proxy captain is usually recruited to take care of the ship.Employees are not paid on a monthly basis, but once in one to three years.”

“Most of the time, the boat and the people are tied together.You are going to buy a ship from the captain, and instead of the men he hired, he is a loss of employment pay.Eighty gold dragons, even for the great nobles, is not a figure that can be cut at will.At the beginning of the month, counting the gemstone trade with the town of Willow, there are now a total of 315 gold dragons in the town hall, and if more than half of it is spent to buy a boat, your militia team will not be paid the next month.”The assistant minister said in one breath, and raised his glass and drank the malt.

“The vast majority of the time you say...”

"Yes," he nodded, "in two cases where empty ships are sold, and the merchant is in desperate need of cash to sell property.At this time, he will demobilize all the crew and then sell the ship as quickly as possible.The second is to replace the new ship, which is very understandable.But I have to say that both cases are very rare.”

"Wait," Roland frowned, "you say you're buying new ships... where do they come from?"

“The Port of Clearwater, Sea Wind County, and the North Cape.Only seaport cities have docks, and only they can build ships.”

It turned out that such a sale could not be found in the town of Willow, Roland was silent for a moment, went to the harbor city to buy a boat too far, and did not hire a crew, who helped himself to drive the ship back?“If that’s the case, I’ll think about it.”

When the assistant minister withdrew, the prince was lost in thought.

In the strategic plan he conceived, shipping is an irreplaceable part.Without fast and convenient ship transportation, he could not complete the bag with the gun.The duke's troops were usually conscripted farmers, knights, and mercenaries, and the march was bound to be no faster, but more slowly.As Carter said, just by land, a mud pit can make it difficult for artillery to do—the land traffic of this era is not asphalt roads, not even slate roads.But there are more people who walk, and they come out of a road.On a clear day, it will be muddy when it rains.

In the end, do you have to build it yourself?

Roland spread out the paper and recorded the specifications he needed.

First of all, this is a ship that can carry one or two guns, plus about 30 people, the ship can be unpowered, sail forward.Second, the boat is traveling in the inland river, requiring smooth and reliable, not easy to sink, and shallow to eat.Third, to be easy to operate, the militia can get started quickly after short-term training.

Looking at these points, there is only one answer left... the flat-bottomed barge.

Before Roland crossed, this draught was extremely shallow, and ships with a very low center of gravity could be seen everywhere, almost all the river routes.In the past, those ships that were piled with river sand or stone, and the ships with almost equal water on the side of the ship were flat-bottomed barges, and as long as there was a tugboat, it could pull several barges forward like a train.

After the ship type is determined, the next key point is to choose what kind of material to build.

Roland wrote down three options on the paper: wood, iron, and cement.

Using wood as a boat is the first navigational science and technology tree lit by human beings, from the raft to the sail battleship, from the river to the sea, the wooden boat can be described as enduring.Unfortunately, Roland did not know how to use logs to spell a flat-bottomed boat, and there were no relevant craftsmen.If you rely on a few carpenters hard, it is likely to be a large raft, or the kind that may be scattered at any time.

If the iron ship is similar to the construction of the house, the main beams criss-crossing form the keel, and then cover the iron skin.If Anna is welded, the overall stiffness is guaranteed.But this practice will be a small iron ore reserve will be exhausted, less than the last resort, these iron ore mines for the production of steam engines and barrel is obviously a more appropriate choice.

Then the cement boat became the last option - the city walls had been built, the raw materials were left, and Anna could get enough cement powder if she burned it once or twice.The construction process is also much easier than the iron boat, as long as the wood template to spell out the shape, the arranged iron bars filled with steel bars, and then filled in cement.Even in the countryside, several cement boats can be built for fishing.Compared with the iron ship need regular rust paint, it is built without even needing maintenance, can be described as low cost, and durable.Even if you have not learned how to build ocean-going ships, building a low-tech inland cement barge, should be a big problem?

With a try-at-it-a-tipped mentality, Roland pinch the quill pen and quickly draw a sketch of the barge.

...

A walled shed was set up by the Red River.

In order to facilitate the launch, Roland will build the ship as close as possible to the riverbank.

The shed can block the wind and snow, and two pots of charcoal are ignited in the room to avoid the low temperature affecting the cement hardening effect.

The wood template laid out by the carpenter has spelled out the basic outline of the hull - the bow is arced, the forward resistance is reduced, and the tail is square to increase the load area.The ship is about twenty-four feet (8 m) wide and 3:1, which is a fat man compared to the slender body of the conventional ship 8:1.Set up a double mast in the middle.The mast is inserted into the bottom of the ship and connected to the iron beams that run through the ship's middle line.The stern also erected a wooden pile as a rudder reserve port.Elsewhere, there are criss-crossing iron bars.

It didn't matter if there was no wire for tying, all the iron bars were welded firmly by Anna, forming an iron net that covered the bottom of the ship.

When the templates and steel bars were ready, Roland ordered the workers to start the dosing operation.

The cement mixed is poured into the template by a basin, the middle is flat, four times higher than one meter five, as the side wall of the ship's warehouse.At first glance, it looks like a large bathtub with a unique shape.

All those involved in the construction, including Anna, did not think that this strange thing made by the same material as the wall was actually a ship.