The Boats (1)

For the last few days Guo Yi had been visiting all sorts of places. But he felt increasingly trapped by the feeling that the more he learned, the less he understood.

Originally, he had thought this business trip would be a quick two or three day affair. However, he had just reported to his boss that he would be staying for a few days more. From the tone of the voice on the other end, Guo Yi knew that his boss thought that he was being a bit too nosy, or that he was just taking the opportunity to have a little vacation. Regardless, Guo Yi was becoming more and more interested in this case.

Firstly, he found that people arrived to the town almost every day. There weren’t many, but they all spoke with different accents and came from all over the country. Most of them were young and male and carried a lot of luggage. Moreover, they weren’t like the manual labourers that were common to this area.

Secondly, while visiting the local companies that this company had contacted, he discovered another oddity.

In the various wholesalers of technical parts around the city, the sale volumes of certain products had skyrocketed in the last three months. From a rough summary these items included: various foods, medicines, medical instruments, hand tools, pumps, electric motors, small machine tools, various grades and alloys of steel, electrolytic copper and other such raw metals, metrology instruments, clothes, shoes and so forth.

Putting these purchases in the context of the Crossing Company’s nation-wide activities, it seemed that they had divided their procurement into two parts: ordinary and simple goods were purchased locally, while items of high technical content or large regional price differences were purchased elsewhere.

Guo Yi was too lazy to continue speculating about this company’s activities, so he finally decided to directly go to the company and have a look himself.

He rode a motorcycle over to the base. The facility looked quite old, with buildings mostly from the 60s and 70s. The office building in the middle was slightly newer, maybe just over ten years old. He didn’t see any construction done by the Crossing Company, although he did see a lot of construction machinery. The gate of the base was wide open, and there were two old men chatting and smoking in the gatehouse. They looked just like any other gatehouse guards. Guoyi was worried that showing his ID at the gate would alert the enemy, so he decided to first stop on the side of the road. He climbed up the small hill nearby and observed the base with a pair of binoculars.

On the exercise yard he could see teams wearing green cadet uniforms divided into various groups, apparently in the middle of formation drills. He zoomed in on the scene. He could clearly see that several rows of people were holding short bamboo poles in their hands, and there were even some carrying marching drums. Although he was a bit too far away and he couldn’t hear anything, it was obvious that these people were marching to the rhythm of the drums. As he watched on, the group of people spread out into a horizontal row, then fluidly morphed a column, and then suddenly into a square. In each geometric arrangement the people in the front row would half-crouch with the bamboo poles stuck upright, while the people in the back row lifted the poles horizontally over the people in front of them. The overall scene was very weird.

What are they doing? Guo Yi had gone through some cadet training throughout high school, university and when he started working, but the formation drills he took part in never involved anything like what he was seeing.

Guo Yi quickly adjusted the focus, and then caught these people practise another strange sequence of actions: they fiddled with the bamboo pole, took something out from their chest, raised it to their mouth as if biting it, and then fiddling with the top of the bamboo pole…the more he watched the more confused he got–there was nothing except the bamboo stick in their hands?

“Strange.” He muttered, unable to decipher these cryptic actions. He turned to watch another spot in the base. Besides a sand pit a group of people were practising hand-to-hand combat. The instructor in the middle was obviously from the infantry. There were many veterans in Guo Yi’s office, and the hardened physique and demeanour of such soldiers could be felt just by watching from a distance.

Adjusting the zoom to max and looking at the dock, Guo Yi saw iron barrels and steel beams piled high. There were people welding something, sending orange sparks flying everywhere. There were also two small row boats moored on the dock.

“What the hell is this company doing…”

After wandering around the hill for most of the day, Guo Yi finally returned to the town disappointed. Apart from a growing fog of mystery he gained nothing from his trip.

That night, Guo Yi exited the hotel and roamed the streets for a while, before finally finding a small restaurant and drinking two bottles of beer. He was quite depressed. He had never thought that he was dumb. In his many years of work he had experienced quite a lot, and he usually figured out the general situation quite fast. But the puzzle that was taunting him now, he really couldn’t figure out.

Let’s just go back first. Guo Yi thought. It wouldn’t be good to stay here for too long. He had already spent four days, and he couldn’t stay here forever. From everything he’d seen, this company was a bit suspicious, but it hadn’t done anything that would affect social stability and unity. After all, it was its right to purchase anything it saw as useful for business. As for money laundering and other financial problems, it was better to leave it to the relevant departments.

Guo Yi’s investigation was more or less known to the Executive Committee, passed up the grapevine through the gathering of Zhong Lishi and several locals. Although the activities of the Crossing Company had been evidently exposed to the government, no one took it too seriously. Only Xiao Zishan was somewhat worried. Things had already reached this stage, and all that was left was a single, final step. No one wanted to end up the same as the Chinese men’s football team.

In the morning Xiao Zishan’s wolfed down the canteen breakfast in a hurry and went to find Wen Desi.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal.” Wen Desi said after thinking for a moment, “Just let him investigate. We haven’t done anything illegal. He won’t find any problems.”

“We should still hurry up. The longer we wait the more potential for trouble.”

“Have all the people who haven’t come yet confirmed that they are?”

“They all have. There are 19 more people who will arrive before next thursday. I’ve also confirmed with those who aren’t coming.”

“Then let’s hold a General Assembly next Friday.”

“Have all the proposals been drafted?”

“I think so, or at least they’re finishing up soon. These last few days all the groups have been in many discussions, and everyone has been working hard.”

While they were talking, the office door opened, and a dusty Wang Luobin entered. He looked utterly exhausted. He was currently in charge of project establishment, approval and materials procurement in the Executive Committee. He was often travelling all over the country. In the past three months he had been focusing on the issue of getting a ship.

The time travellers had discovered over the course of their trips into the Great Ming that the energy of the wormhole decayed as a function of the time it was open. The longer the wormhole was open the more energy would be consumed.

Their previous trips were small and involved no more than a few trolleys full. But for their final trip they must move thousands of tons through the wormhole. It was not feasible to use a simple truck convoy to move that much stuff, as it would take too long and drain the wormhole before they could get everything through.

The only thing that could pass through the wormhole in a reasonably short time and simultaneously transport a large amount of materials was a ship—one as large as possible. The equipment list of the time travellers was quite large, so without a large ship, it would be impossible to send hundreds of people and thousands of tons of equipment and materials to the 17th century.

In addition to transport, a modern cargo ship could also serve as a temporary base. Such a ship was a microcosm of modern industry. Within its steel body were engines, high and low pressure pipelines, pumps, cables, electronic communications and observation equipment, desalination equipment, small machine repair workshops, sanitation facilities...

As such, before they could establish a base on land, the ship could support the time travellers’ activities. The biggest advantage was that it could maintain somewhat modern living conditions for a considerable period of time, and so the travellers would not suddenly feel that the living conditions were too impoverished and have a mental breakdown.

Finally, it would have a military purpose. The huge iron ship would be enough to elicit a shocking sense of oppression. The steel hull would be impervious to all firearms and incendiary weapons. Even if the opponents wanted to jump on board and fight with swords, they had to climb up the freeboard that was as high as a city wall.

Even without any modern weapons, just using the ship itself as a ram would be enough to vanquish any warship in that time: smaller ships would split in half like matchsticks while larger ships would not withstand a collision with a steel bow as well. There was no way to escape either. Even very old cargo ships could easily reach a speed of 11-14 knots. So except for some specialised sailing ships that might escape given favourable winds, most ships were powerless to even run away.

If only they could get a gorgeous multi-turret battleship! With such a ship, wouldn't they become masters of the seas?

But behind such gorgeous dreams was often a humbling reality. The one who brought reality upon them was a graduate of a maritime university.

Meng De appeared before them at this time, a few weeks ago.

Meng De heard of the online chat group only after the second batch of key personnel had reported to the base. The space-time portal that he accidentally found on the BBS had actually appeared in reality, and a group had even begun to secretly gather accomplices to venture into the early years of Chongzhen. After confirming the authenticity of the news, Meng De resolutely signed up, dreaming of becoming a real re-writer of history.

Meng De was the only graduate of a maritime university among the time travellers, and even his job involved frequent contact with ships. Thus, his academic qualifications and work experience immediately attracted the attention of the Executive Committee. Although the Executive Committee suspected that his ship-handling skills were mediocre, no one else among the time travellers knew anything at all about large cargo ships.

The two otherwise unconnected factors of his being a maritime university graduate and the limited wormhole energy combined, and he was thus destined to be one of the few people who would write down their own chapter in the history of the new world.

A few weeks ago

At a meeting specially convened to discuss the question of ships Meng De was brought on as a consultant. This made the young man, who had graduated only a few years ago, felt truly recognised for the first time.

"Chief Wen, your plan is not easy to execute." Meng De said after listening to the Executive Committee's proposal. "The problem is the crew. We don't have any crew."

"How many do we need?"

"Older ships below 5,000 tons usually have 40 crew, while ships above 10,000 tons have more than 50.” Meng De said, "Even new ships with auto-pilot capabilities still have more than 20." He spread his hands helplessly, "These people all do technical work, and we can’t let laymen do these jobs."

Personnel on Chinese merchant vessels, if they weren’t carrying passengers, were basically divided into two: the deck complement and the engine complement. The deck crew included the captain, the first, second and third mates, the chief and auxiliary radio operators, the cargo operator and clerk, the boatswain and their deputy, first and second seaman, the first, second and third cooks, the deck steward, and so forth.

The engine department included: the chief, second, and third engineers, the electrician, the chief mechanic, the chief fireman, the mechanic, the deputy mechanic, the coppersmith, the electrician, the refueler, etc.

"If we want to use this ship for a long time, even if we do not have all of these positions filled, we must have at least half. Especially crucial is the engine department."

The executive committee looked at each other in bewilderment. Were ships really that complicated to run? How could they possibly fill in all those positions? They were already very lucky to even get a single maritime transport professional to participate, and they still needed to gather a shipful of sailors?

"What if we just limit ourselves to sailing through the wormhole, not extended operations?"

"It's still very difficult. Although that does mean we need fewer people." Meng De made his suggestion: rent a portside warehouse in Leizhou Peninsula, and set up a forward storage point there. All the stuff they needed to bring would be first transported there. Then, rent or buy a coastal bulk carrier, and plot a course to Bopu Port in Hainan. Some of the time travellers could disguise themselves as backpackers to board the ship, which was a fairly common phenomenon on coastal freighters, while others will take a few fishing boats to travel to the meeting point first. When the ship reaches the harbour mouth, the time travellers would hijack the ship, and send their original crew away. They could then pilot the ship through the wormhole themselves, and then on the other end just run it aground on Hainan Island.

"The Qiongzhou Strait is very narrow. I think that I’m capable of captaining the ship for such a short journey. I suggest that the Executive Committee send some people to learn a bit about the engine room and deck work. But be aware that this ship will basically be unusable in the future if we enact this plan."