According to the opinions given by the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty treasure shipyard, the so-called horse ship is actually to move the stables onto large ships and build many side by side stables on the deck of the relatively empty ships to facilitate the placement of cattle and horses. At the same time, the cattle and horses are separated to prevent them from fighting each other.
The key to building stables on a boat is to facilitate cleaning of feces...
Therefore, the stables on the boat are often built on the edge of the boat. People in charge of cleaning do not even need to enter the stables. They just use long-handled brooms and shovels to shovel cow dung and horse manure, and then throw them into the sea. Then, if the weather is not cold, they can also rinse the floor in the stable with sea water to remove the possibility of odor and flies.
After learning this experience, the craftsmen of the Long Island Shipyard in New York built a large number of stables on the inner side of the top deck on the ship, making use of the space to the extreme.
However, after the repair, they found that the space in the middle was wasted...
In order to increase transportation volume, the shipyard used a large 500-ton ship, which was modified from the Beihai National Warship as a template.
Its size is similar to that of the Beihai Kingdom warships, both of which are 40 meters long and 10 meters wide, and they are the type of double-layer artillery deck. Of course, no artillery was set off.
The width of the deck is 10 meters, while the length of the single-row stable is generally more than 2 meters long, usually within 2.2 meters. If only the stables that are next to each other are built on both sides of the deck, then the area of ​​more than 5 meters in the middle will be wasted.
After collective discussion among the boatmakers, they finally added a row of single-row stables in the middle to accommodate cattle and horses. As for the cleaning of cow dung and horse manure, they were arranged to clean up twice a day. As for the cleaning of the stable deck in the middle, the boatmakers finally decided on the plan to repair a drainage ditch on the deck after repeated discussions.
They raised the decks of the middle row of stables and then built special drainage ditches on both sides. In this way, when rinsing the decks, water flows along the drainage ditches and flows into the sea through special locations. In this way, the row of stables in the middle of the decks can easily cause water accumulation when rinsing the decks.
In this way, a 40-meter-long deck can be built with 26 or 27 stables in one row, and 80 in three rows according to the width of a single-row stable.
The template of the cattle and horse ship is a 500-ton warship with a double-layer artillery deck. Therefore, after the two-layer artillery decks are converted into three rows of stables, a total of 160 horses or 160 cows can be loaded.
As for the crew members on the ship, they live in the bottom cabin or the stern building on the ship. Because the cattle and horse ships that transport animals do not pursue speed, the stern building is built on the ship as the residence of the captain and senior crew members. After all, the cabin is relatively stuffy and is generally for low-level sailors to live in. The food on the ship and the feed of cattle and horses are usually placed in the bottom cabin.
However, in order to worry about scurvy, during the voyage, in addition to eating hay, the cattle and horse ships will also dock at fixed locations, collect some grass and leaves on the shore and feed them to the cattle and horse to supplement vitamin C.
However, from Persia to Europe, it mainly passes through the Portuguese sphere of influence, and only the coast of Mozambique is the Spaniards who are good at Marin. Therefore, when it comes to choosing a stop, Marin still needs to argue with the Portuguese.
However, now is definitely not a good time to discuss landing with the Portuguese to supplement the green grass location. Because Marin has almost had a falling out with the Portuguese...
...
After being robbed by "Captain Jack", the unlucky Portuguese spice transport ship returned to Lisbon in a mess and caused a stir in Portugal.
"Captain Jack"'s words almost clearly showed his origin - being instructed by Marin...
After all, the Portuguese aristocratic circle in Lisbon knew that Marin's transport ship was robbed in the Azores. Now that this happened, it was clear that Marin was slapping Portugal in the face.
You should know that in Portugal, the spice trade was controlled by the Portuguese royal family and several great nobles, and ordinary little nobles could not get involved. But it was precisely these great nobles who determined the fate of Portugal.
Marin had revenged the Silva family before, but in fact, the great nobles knew it, but they were all happy to be laughed at. Anyway, they were not the ones who lost it.
But in this operation, Marin directly targeted them, and they were immediately unhappy and angry...
Except for Marin's friend Jorge de Rencastre, Duke of Coimbra, who was kicked out of the core circle of spice trade for the throne with Manuel I, almost all the great nobles in Portugal got a share of the Indian spice trade. Marin's instructing pirates to rob the spice ship was basically equivalent to offending all the great nobles of Portugal.
In fact, Marin did not want to make trouble at the beginning and offend the Portuguese nobles. However, this time the Portuguese government and the opposition's acquiesce to Rui Silva against piracy made Marin angry.
What Marin was most worried about was that these guys would acquiesce to those Portuguese aristocracy who had not participated in the Indian spice trade, organized pirate ships, robbed the North Sea merchant ships, and even coveted the American colonies. This is very likely to be due to the urination of the Portuguese aristocracy.
After all, history has changed. Under the influence of Marin, Portugal did not develop Brazil as in history. In this way, the interests of many Portuguese small and medium-sized aristocrats were not satisfied.
The Indian spice trade was tightly controlled by the Portuguese royal family and the great nobles. So if the Portuguese small and medium-sized nobles want to gain benefits, they can only find ways from other aspects.
Rui Silva pretended to be pirates and looted the North Sea transport ships in Portugal. After all, after Rui Silva succeeded, the goods on the ship also needed to be sold. Once he took action, the entire Portuguese aristocratic circle would be clear.
But they all chose to remain silent and even secretly encouraged them. Because these Portuguese nobles also knew that their own appearance was too ugly and they could not share the benefits to the small and medium-sized nobles. If they could find their own way to make money, the nobles would also be happy to see it. As for who is the victim, what does it have to do with them?
It is precisely because of this attitude that completely angered Marin - since you ignore my interests, don't blame me for being rude!
So, despite seemingly unwise, Marin ordered the Black Pearl to attack the spice ships that belonged to the Portuguese nobles to remind those arrogant Portuguese nobles that I am not so easy to mess with!
However, doing so did the hornet's nest. The relationship between the North Sea and the Kingdom of Portugal began to deteriorate...
Chapter completed!