I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 593 Talent Issues

The British "recruiting team" would even go to the United States to capture sailors - they claimed that those sailors were immigrants from Britain and were still obliged to serve in the Royal Navy, and took them away and stuffed them into British warships.

Historically, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Navy's "Leopard" battleship directly stopped the US Navy's "Chesapeake" in Boston Harbor and wanted to board the ship to capture men.

As a result, the Americans directly sounded the battle alarm. After the two sides exchanged fire, the "Chesapeake" surrendered, and the British took some of the sailors on the ship away...

This was the famous "Chesapeake Incident" at the time, which became an important fuse for the Second Anglo-American War.

As for why France did not learn from Britain's practices.

One of the reasons is that the French are not as honest as the British people, and the "protest" gene flows in their veins. If the French Navy dares to capture men like the British conscription team, just wait for the citizens of the port city to riot.

In addition, the number of French sailors is far less than that of Britain, which relies on the sea for its livelihood. It is a relatively scarce resource, and the French Navy is unwilling to offend the sailor group too much.

Therefore, France currently adopts a reward model - the sailor registration system.

Any sailor who registers at the government registration office can receive a subsidy of 30 francs per year, but when the navy needs it, registered sailors must fulfill their service obligations.

The navy will even give registered sailors travel expenses from their hometowns to the barracks, and double the spoils obtained in the war.

But even so, the "unruly and freedom-loving" French sailors are still reluctant to register.

For example, there are only about 10,000 people on the navy's sailor registration list at present. And the wartime sailor shortage is as high as more than 40,000 to 50,000.

This has led to the French Navy having to recruit many people with no sailing experience to board the ship, and even temporarily borrowing people from the army - these people may not have even been on a ship before.

With the quality of sailors like France, not to mention that the warships are originally weaker than those of Britain, even if the same two fleets are given to Britain and France, the French will still be beaten to a pulp.

This is the famous Battle of Trafalgar in the Napoleonic era. The warships of the French and Spanish combined fleets are not much worse than those of Britain, but the end result is still being blown up by the British. The high-quality sailors of Britain played a key role here.

After listening to Marquis Castelli's words, Joseph immediately thought of learning the army model.

"Perhaps, we can build a naval academy." He looked at the Minister of the Navy and said, "Train a large number of qualified sailors for the navy."

Marquis Castelli did not seem to be very enthusiastic, and said tactfully: "Your Highness, this may be of some help, but it is difficult to completely solve the problem."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"We need a lot of crew members. For example, during the Seven Years' War, we recruited 40,000 to 50,000 sailors."

"50,000?" Joseph frowned. This number was indeed a bit too much, but he still gritted his teeth and said, "Then we will train 50,000 students."

For the development of the navy, he would rather invest a lot of money.

Marquis Castelli immediately waved his hand and said, "Your Highness, we don't need so many people."

Joseph staggered back: "Do you need 50,000 sailors or not?"

Marquis Castelli hurriedly explained: "Your Highness, the navy only needs more than 6,000 people at ordinary times. It was not until the war broke out that tens of thousands of sailors were needed. This means that we don't need to support so many crew members..."

He talked in detail for a long time, and Joseph finally understood. It turns out that nearly 70% of the navy's warships are usually docked in ports-there is no way, once these gold-eating monsters are dispatched, the speed of spending funds is faster than the flow of water.

This is also the reason why the navy spends a lot of money during the war.

And during the war, the combat positions on the warships will also increase significantly.

For example, a third-class battleship usually only needs to carry 40 marines, but in wartime it needs a full complement of 150 people.

The marines here are different from the marines of later generations. They play a more important role in supervising the crew and helping the captain maintain "rule". Of course, when the battle is fierce, they can also shoot at the enemy ships on the opposite side to join in the fun.

At the same time, the number of sailors on warships will also increase during wartime. For example, gunners must be fully staffed, which is not necessary in peacetime. Sailors in other positions must also be brought in as a supplement for combat casualties.

This leads to a sharp increase in the number of sailors needed by the navy after the outbreak of war.

The British Navy is even worse in this regard. Their crew size can increase to ten times that of peacetime in wartime!

And the salary of sailors is much higher than that of infantry. For the navy, which is always in a state of financial constraints, it is absolutely unwilling to keep so many people eating for free in peacetime.

More importantly, the navy would rather let these sailors go out to sea with merchant ships in peacetime rather than stay idle on land. Because this is the only way to continuously improve their sailing skills.

The operating modes of merchant ships and warships in this era are almost the same, and even the commands are the same.

The sailors of merchant ships can directly fight when they are pulled onto warships.

Joseph sat down at the table with everyone else and thought: "So, what we lack is not sailors, but ordinary sailors."

Marquis Castelli nodded immediately: "That's right, Your Highness, not only the navy, but also our merchant ships have been unable to find enough sailors for a long time. Merchants often have to go around Italy to recruit people, and then go out to sea."

"Then why don't people want to be sailors?"

"This..." The Minister of the Navy seemed a little embarrassed and his voice was much lower. "When we had colonies in North America and the Far East, this situation was not too serious..."

Joseph was also silent.

Yes, France lost all its overseas colonies in the Seven Years' War. Without the support of a huge amount of overseas trade, they all went to work as sailors and starved to death?

The UK can easily support tens of thousands of sailors with just one Anglo-Indian route.

He took a long breath and said: "The naval academy still needs to be built. Try to use professional soldiers to support the framework of the navy. This will also promote unified combat and navigation standards in the fleet."

In this era, all positions on warships can be regarded as high-level talents, especially positions such as officers, helmsmen, navigators, gunners, and doctors. If we rely solely on civilian training, the efficiency will not be very high.

But if there were military academies dedicated to teaching these, the speed would be much faster and the quality of talents would also be improved.

Historically, France did not realize this problem until nearly half a century later and built its first naval academy. Of course, currently, except for Portugal, which has a semi-military navigation academy, other countries in Europe do not have naval academies.

"In addition, we want to increase maritime trade as much as possible."