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The renaming and independence at the beginning of the year, and the later birth of the king’s eldest legitimate son. Either of these two events alone would warrant a celebration from all citizens.

The nation was indeed in high spirits. The king was wise and enlightened, the ministers were incorrupt and capable, and the government ran smoothly which significantly improved the lives of the populace.

Even the poorest beggars benefited from the prosperity of a rising nation.

After all, if people lived better lives, wouldn’t they be more willing to give an extra bun to a beggar?

The joyous atmosphere persisted from the beginning to the end of the year.

After the happiness brought by the birth of his eldest son in August, Lu Yuan, in early December of the same year, received a report from Chu Wei.

After several months of effort, this future commander of the navy had finally set up a basic naval infrastructure.

Five thousand fishermen were recruited from the Dongting Lake area, supplemented by a number of various merchant and fishing vessels, finally established a place for the navy of Great Chu.

However, given these circumstances, the naval power was inevitably limited.

But that was not an issue.

According to Chu Wei’s plan, he was sending people to Ning Country to lure away naval commanders with high-ranking and generous rewards. Also, in Dongting Prefecture, he was looking for talents amongst those who had already retired or came from aristocratic seafaring families.

In addition, he had begun to order battleships from some shipyards in Dongting Prefecture.

During the Pre-Yue era, the main bases for naval construction throughout the country were mainly around Xunyang of Yuzhang Prefecture and Wujiang of Linhai.

However, that only meant these two locations had more shipyards and were capable of building larger and better battleships of various types.

Da Yue, as a coastal area, relied heavily on naval power for transportation. Other states also had their own needs for ships.

Even though shipyards in Xunyang and Wujiang could meet most of these demands.

But what if your ship broke down while you were doing business in another state and needed repairs?

If Xunyang and Wujiang were too far away, and local businessmen did not trade with those places and did not wish to travel to other prefectures, wouldn’t there be a need for local ships – and, as a result, a need for local shipbuilding?

Even when the navy of the court was patrolling and garrisoning an area, if a ship broke down, it couldn’t possibly be dragged thousands of miles back for repairs, wasting several months to fix one ship, could it?

Even if several small boats were lost when on water, wouldn’t it be more convenient to replace them directly with local supplies rather than waiting for replenishments from the rear?

In this regard, the navy of the court also had a demand.

Therefore, for a variety of reasons, there existed several shipyards, large and small, not only within Dongting Prefecture, but also within the three prefectures of Xichuan and four prefectures of Xiangyang that Lu Yuan controlled.

All these shipyards combined, there were as many as thirteen in total.

Although these thirteen shipyards could only build small combat ships that could carry a few dozen people.

These small warships, however, could initially meet the needs of the Navy of Great Chu for the first few years.

Chu Wei had already made arrangements with these shipyards, even selected the three largest and most promising ones. He urged them to recruit more shipbuilders from Ning Country in order to make efforts to build large warships that could carry hundreds, or even thousands, of people.

In terms of funding, the Great Chu Navy, with the support of the entire Chu State, had nothing to worry about.

If they could build ships, the Navy would buy them.

Encouraged by this, these three shipyards already started sending people to steal talents from Ning Country. Even other ambitious small shipyards, although they weren’t requested by Chu Wei, started making plans to get involved in this business.

As a result, without being asked, they also started sending people to steal talents from Ning Country, and even Zhou Country and Liang Country.

Zhou Country and Liang Country?

Indeed, it’s no mistake — these two countries also had navies and shipyards.

After all, these two countries were also faced along the Yangtze River, with numerous waterways and lakes within the country. Liang Country even had coastlines, so naturally, they had the need for ships.

However, the navies of these two countries, similar to the Great Chu Navy that Lu Yuan commanded, were only for defense purpose.

The strength of their entire country was just enough for defense, not aggressive invasion.

In comparison to Yue Country, which was a water country in Jiangnan, Zhou Country and Liang Country, being mainly plain lands facing inland regions, had to face more pressure from other land countries. Hence, they had to focus more on land.

Instead of spending a large amount of money to build a navy, which they did not really need, wouldn’t it be better to save that money to raise tens or even hundreds of thousands of troops to compete with other countries?

A navy with tens of thousands of men was enough for defense.

After all, not everyone was Yue Country, which needed to rely on a navy for survival of the country.

It’s precisely because of this mindset that although the navies of Zhou Country and Liang Country actually had quite a large scale, with tens of thousands of men, they were not well-known compared with the Yue Country Navy, which had a troop strength of one hundred thousand or even several hundred thousand at times.

But less prestige doesn’t necessarily mean their shipyard workers and techniques were inferior.

These two countries, capable of resisting Yue Country for so many years with their navy, must themselves have had some skills up their sleeves, right?

Their battleships were actually not bad, and neither were their naval talents.

Once these people were brought back and the shipbuilding level of each shipyard in Great Chu vastly improved, it could even be said that it would leap forward.

By that time, with Chu Wei bringing in enough talents skilled in naval warfare, along with a few years of training a group of elite soldiers accustomed to naval warfare.

The Great Chu Navy would finally be established.

Frequent victories from the navy added a touch of joy to the end of the first year of Shenwu.