“What, can't afford it?” Roland sat in his office, the memo requesting more administrative staff and the purchase of a sailing ship lying on his desk.

Barov cleared his throat, "Your Highness, that's indeed the case. A two-masted sailing ship costs between ten and one hundred and twenty gold dragons, but that's just the cost of building the ship. Counting the crew, it's more than that, with the total price estimated to be over two hundred gold dragons."

"Didn't I say, I don't need sailors or helmsmen? No captain either, I just want the ship," Roland asked, tapping the desk. With Wendy around, he didn't need so many people to operate the sailboat. Inland river boats are mostly square-rigged, and operating them is like raising and lowering flags. Oarsmen and sailors are redundant, and you can just grab anyone to try out as the helmsman. Anyway, with Vector Wind, what's there to be afraid of the ship not moving forward?

"Your Highness, there are no such deals, at least not in Willow Town," Barov explained carefully, "You may not be familiar with this industry. Generally speaking, the owner of a ship is the captain. It could be a merchant or a noble. The former recruits his own crew and travels between the wharves of various towns, trading or transporting goods. The latter usually hires an acting captain to follow the ship. Employees are not paid monthly, but once every one to three years."

"Most of the time, the ship and the crew are tied together. If you plan to buy the ship from the captain but don't want his crew, then he'll be losing the employment salary. Ten gold dragons, even for a great noble, is not a number to be casually given up. Counting the raw gemstone trade with Willow Town at the beginning of the month, the City Hall currently has a surplus of three hundred and fifteen gold dragons. If you spend a large portion of it to buy a ship, your militia will not be able to get paid next month," the Minister Assistant said in one breath, raising his glass to drink some ale.

"You said most of the time..."

"That's right," he nodded, "There are two situations where you can buy an empty ship. One is when a merchant urgently needs cash and sells off his assets. At this time, he will dismiss all the crew and then sell the ship as quickly as possible. The other is to replace the old ship with a new one, which is easy to understand. But I have to say, both situations are very rare."

"Wait," Roland frowned, "You said buying a new ship... then where do these ships come from?"

"Clearwater Port, Sea Breeze County, North Point. Only port cities have docks, and only they can build ships."

So "there are no such deals in Willow Town" meant this. Roland was silent for a moment. Buying a ship from a port city was too far, and if he didn't hire a crew, who would help him sail the ship back? "In that case, I'll think about it some more."

After the Minister Assistant took his leave, the prince fell into thought.

In the strategic plan he conceived, shipping was an irreplaceable element. Without fast and convenient shipping, he could not complete the encirclement with cannons. The Duke of Fortress's troops were generally conscripted farmers, knights, and mercenaries, and their marching speed would inevitably be slow, and he would only be slower. As Carter said, relying solely on land routes, a mud pit could make the cannons unable to move an inch—the land transportation of this era was not asphalt roads, not even cobblestone roads. It was just that more people walked, and a path was pressed out. It was fine on sunny days, but it would be muddy after rain.

In the end, he still had to build it himself?

Roland spread out a piece of paper and wrote down the specifications he needed, one by one.

First, this was a ship that could transport one or two cannons, plus about thirty people, and the ship did not need power and could be propelled by sails. Second, the ship sailed on inland rivers and needed to be stable, reliable, not easy to capsize, and have a shallow draft. Third, it had to be easy to operate, so that the militia could quickly get started after a short training.

Combining these points, the answer was only one... a flat-bottomed barge.

Before Roland transmigrated, this kind of ship with extremely shallow draft and low center of gravity could be seen everywhere, almost all over the rivers and waterways. In the past, those ships full of river sand or stones, with the gunwale almost level with the water surface, were flat-bottomed barges. As long as there was a tugboat, it could pull several barges forward like a train.

After the ship type was determined, the next key point was to choose what material to build with.

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

Making ships with wood was the earliest nautical technology tree unlocked by mankind. From rafts to sailing battleships, from rivers to oceans, wooden ships could be said to be enduring. Unfortunately, Roland didn't know how to piece together a flat-bottomed ship with logs, and he didn't have relevant craftsmen under his command. If he relied on a few carpenters to do it, it would probably be a large raft that could fall apart at any time.

As for iron ships, the structure was similar to building a house, with crisscrossing primary and secondary beams forming the keel, and then covered with iron sheets. If Anna did the welding, the overall rigidity would be guaranteed. But this method would exhaust the already small iron ore reserves. Unless absolutely necessary, it was obviously more appropriate to use these iron ores to produce steam engines and gun barrels.

So cement ships became the last option—the city wall had already been built, there were still remaining raw materials, and Anna could obtain enough cement powder by firing it once or twice. The construction process was also much easier than iron ships. Just use wooden templates to form the shape, arrange the iron bars that serve as reinforcing steel, and then fill in the cement. Even in his hometown's countryside, several cement boats could be built for fishing. Compared with iron ships that need to be regularly rust-removed and painted, it doesn't even need maintenance after it is built. It can be said that it is cheap, strong, and durable. Even if he had never learned how to build ocean-going ships, building a cement river barge with a low technical content should not be a problem, right?

With a try-it-out mentality, Roland picked up a quill pen and quickly drew a draft of the barge.

…

A walled shed was built on the bank of the Clearwater River.

To facilitate launching, Roland placed the shipbuilding location as close to the riverbank as possible.

The shed could shield from wind and snow, and at the same time, two pots of charcoal were burning in the room to avoid low temperatures affecting the cement hardening effect.

The wooden templates planed out by the carpenters had already pieced together the basic outline of the hull—the bow was arc-shaped to reduce forward resistance, and the stern was square to increase the load-bearing area. The ship was about twenty-four feet wide (8 meters), and the length-to-width ratio was 3:1. Compared to the slender shape of conventional ships with a ratio of 8:1, it was simply a fat man. There were two masts in the middle. The masts were inserted into the bottom of the ship and connected to the iron beams running through the centerline of the ship. A wooden stake was also erected at the stern, reserved for the rudder. The rest of the place was covered with crisscrossing iron bars.

It didn't matter that there was no iron wire for binding. All the intersections of the iron bars were firmly welded by Anna herself, forming an iron mesh all over the bottom of the ship.

When the "template" and "reinforcing steel" were ready, Roland ordered the workers to start pouring operations.

The mixed cement was poured into the template in basins, with a flat bottom in the middle and a height of about one and a half meters around, as the side walls of the hold. At first glance, it looked like a large, uniquely shaped bathtub.

Everyone involved in the construction, including Anna, did not expect that this strange thing made of the same material used for the city wall was actually a ship.

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