Outsiders, even if they are Chinese, are most familiar with this kind of frigate for the Datang Navy, not those tall and mighty battleships, nor are they cruisers with beautiful hulls and good force and speed.

Because large ships such as battleships are all battleships that belong to the pillars of the town, they are all regarded as strategic weapons by the navy, and they are always ready to fight a decisive battle with the enemy fleet, and they will not participate in those ordinary daily cruising tasks, and it is very normal for outsiders to see them.

Even if it is an 800-ton cruiser, it is not so easy to see, the number of cruisers is actually not much, and the total is only about a dozen, some of which are used as the core warships of each detachment, and are also the flagships of each detachment, but some of them are used all year round with the battleship fleet as a fast forward battleship in the decisive battle of the fleet.

After years of development and innovation, the Datang Navy has basically established a system that combines the local fleet and the main fleet.

The main fleet is responsible for mobile operations, and the fleet decisive battle has the first fleet, the second fleet, and the third fleet, which are all the essence of the imperial navy, and the three fleets have a clear division of labor.

The First Fleet, with its headquarters in Hong Kong, is currently responsible for mobile combat missions in all waters south of the Dayuan Strait, that is, in the direction of the South Seas, with a number of battleship and cruiser subfleets.

At present, the Second Fleet is mainly responsible for controlling the mobile combat missions in all sea areas north of the Dayuan Strait, including the East China Sea, the North Sea, the Ryukyus, and the Fuso coast, and its headquarters is located in Wusong Port, and it also has a number of battleship and cruiser fleets.

The Third Fleet, which is a special fleet, is a reserve training fleet, and most of the ships equipped are old ships that are used to train naval officers and sailors.

There are four local fleets, including the South China Sea Fleet, the East China Sea Fleet, the Yellow Sea Fleet, and the North Sea Fleet, and the three overseas far-sea fleets of the Fuso Fleet, the Luzon Fleet, and the Banten Fleet, as well as the Pearl River Fleet, the Yangtze River Fleet, and the Yellow River Fleet, as well as the newly established Heilongjiang Fleet.

According to the relevant reform plan of the Navy, the above-mentioned local fleets are tasked with cruising and escorting ships and fighting small and medium-sized battles, and as for the decisive battle with the enemy's main fleet, it is naturally not their task.

At the same time, in wartime, the superior will temporarily transfer the ships of these local fleets to join the two main fleets to participate in the war, but this is only the deployment of ships, and it does not mean that the local fleets are under the command of the three major fleets.

There is no subordinate relationship between the three fleets and the local fleets, but units that are independent of each other.

It is also interesting to note that in addition to the three main fleets of the Navy, as well as the seven local fleets and the four inland fleets, there are also two very special fleets, one of which is naturally the Army's maritime transport division, and its first maritime transport division has a very loud name

The army has been tossing sea power for many years, but it has been strongly opposed by the navy, and Li Xuan does not support the army to build any army naval corps, so so far, the army has only built a first maritime transport division, and there are no professional warships, they are all armed transport ships.

However, the army's desire to build warships has never died, and ocean-going warships cannot do it, so they have set their targets on river warships and also supported the ground forces in combat, and they have formed quite a number of army patrol boat units in rivers and lakes, which overlap with the navy's river fleet in terms of function.

For example, in the Northeast Campaign, in addition to the combat ships of the inland river fleet sent by the navy, there were also the army's own patrol boats in the rivers and lakes.

This kind of chaos on inland river combat vessels will probably not change for a long time, this is not only a dispute between the army and the navy, but also the result of Li Xuan's laissez-faire, Li Xuan needs the navy to build an inland river fleet, maintain a certain military presence in the rivers and lakes and other areas, and go ashore to fight when necessary, and maintain a balance with the army.

Balance is very important, and the existence of the Guards fleet is also a product of this policy of balance.

In the early years, the Guards fleet only had a few river warships, but later, despite the strong opposition of the navy, Li Xuan still assigned the Guards real warships one after another, and they were also the most advanced and powerful warships!

The Guards Fleet, stationed in the exclusive port of the Guards dedicated to Jinling City all the year round, maintains one battleship plus two cruisers plus four frigates all year round, and its purpose is needless to say, it is naturally to defend Gyeonggi and protect Li Xuan at a critical moment.

In this way, taking the lower reaches of the Yangtze River as an example, there are a large number of official armed vessels of various names, including the Navy's Yangtze River Fleet, the Army's First Patrol Boat Fleet of the Army Operations Department, and then the Patrol Boat Brigades under the Army's Garrison Command of Gangnam Province and Gangbuk Province.

And then there was the Guards fleet.

Then there are the armed vessels of the various law enforcement agencies, the customs patrol boats used by the customs to combat smuggling, the patrol ships under the patrol police, and then the tax inspection team also has armed vessels!

In short, on the surface of the Yangtze River, there are many types of armed inland river vessels, which look quite chaotic.

However, it only seems chaotic on the surface, but the ships of different agencies have different tasks and purposes, the task of the inland warships on the navy side is to control the inland waterways and support the ground forces by the way, while the ships of the army are basically only used to support the ground forces. The vessels of law enforcement agencies are used to combat ordinary criminals and are not linked to military use.

Relatively speaking, the armed ships along the coast are relatively pure, the coast also belongs to the sea, the navy's attitude towards any armed ships on the sea is very tough, in the early years, there were coastal patrol ships of the navy, which was mainly to guard the security of the sea and frontier, and there were also patrol ships of the customs, which were used to inspect and combat smuggling, and at the same time there were patrol ships of the patrol police, which was to maintain maritime security. At the same time, it is forbidden for fishing boats from neighboring countries to enter their own waters to catch fish, and in addition, there are also relevant patrol vessels in the Immigration and Reclamation Division, which is mainly to prevent neighboring countries from entering the country through smuggling by sea, and then the tax inspection team does not dare to be lonely......

In short, because there were no clear regulations in the early years, all the agencies that had a relationship with them would engage in some armed patrol ships to patrol, and finally the navy couldn't bear it anymore and went straight to the frenzy, and then found Li Xuan, the son of heaven, and asked for the rectification of all kinds of chaotic patrol ships along the coast.

Of course, at the beginning, the Navy's idea was that other agencies should not mess up the messy armed ships, and our Navy would be enough, but the final decision of the Son of Heaven was that it had nothing to do with the Navy, and directly set up a Maritime Patrol Bureau, referred to as 'Maritime Patrol', and then put all the messy law enforcement vessels under the jurisdiction of this Maritime Patrol Bureau.

The main function of the bureau is to patrol the coast and inspect maritime smuggling, smuggling, fishing and maritime crime.

However, because it is equipped with a large number of armed patrol vessels near the coast, it also has the ability to maintain coastal security to a certain extent.

Therefore, this organization is under the dual jurisdiction of the Patrol Department and the Navy, and operates independently in peacetime, and after receiving orders from the Son of Heaven in wartime, it cooperates with the Navy in conducting military operations in the coastal areas.

Well, it's just cooperation, because they don't technically belong to the military, they're just law enforcement agencies.

In this way, it is also to let the law enforcement vessels in the coastal areas of Datang be uniformly named as Coast Patrol to crack down on smuggling and other maritime crimes, and at the same time, occasionally crack down on pirates who dare to operate along the Datang coast.

The law enforcement ships at sea have become simple and unified, but in the inland rivers and lakes, it is still chaotic, the army and navy, as well as the patrol, taxation, and other agencies are constantly arguing, no one is willing to give up this power easily, and Li Xuan is also in a balanced attitude, and does not want the army or navy to control the inland lakes alone, so for a long time in the future, there will still be more law enforcement vessels and military vessels in inland lakes, and they are messy.

However, this situation is naturally invisible here in Heilongjiang, because in this place, for the time being, there is only the navy, and the navy is naturally obliged to undertake all the river security and military tasks in the Heilongjiang River basin.

The Heilongjiang River Fleet, in terms of rank, is the same as the other three inland fleets, which belong to the highest level of the standard, and the commander of the fleet is a rear admiral.

However, unlike the Yangtze River Fleet, which has four sub-fleets, more than 30 large and small inland river gunboats, and more than 50 auxiliary inland river military vessels of various types, the current Heilongjiang Fleet does not have sub-fleets, but is directly under the jurisdiction of all of them.

This is because so far, there have been only eight river warships that have come along with the landing fleet, and there are only about a dozen auxiliary ships, and these river warships of the Heilongjiang fleet are divided into two groups, and the auxiliary ships are divided into three groups.

Now, when the Changzhou frigate ventured to the riverside with several empty armed transport ships, and then shelled the enemy army and Nuergancheng, the two brigades of the Heilongjiang Fleet also accompanied the civil war warships on the left and right, in order to prevent the enemy's small boats from approaching, especially fireships and the like.

Whether it is the Changzhou frigate or several other armed merchant ships, they are all hundreds of tons of big guys, and they are naturally not afraid of anything on the sea, but now they are in the Heilongjiang River, and they are more afraid of attacking fireships.

At this time, it is necessary to cooperate with the small and flexible civil war warship!

Of the two brigades, the largest is the flagship of the two brigades under the Heilongjiang Fleet, whose tonnage is only 120 tons, the draft is shallow, and the mobility is flexible, so it is very suitable for assisting the main warships in combat.