Naval Engineers (Themiclesia)

The Naval Engineers (諸水工, tja-st′jur′-kong) are a branch of the Themiclesian Navy that dealt with fortifications, armaments, and gunpowder weapons in several contexts. Its formal head is the Director of Naval Engineers (水寺工令, st′jur′-sdje′-kong-ringh), who answers to the Privy Treasurer.

History

The Themiclesian navy adopted an manufacturing department on the model of land forces that supplied its melée weapons and metal ship components very early in its history. While originally this department was loosely associated with the navy, the consistent demand for its products pulled the two close together. When the navy acquired Portcullia and Williams, it sought to improve and fortify these holdings in Meridia, for both military use and furture development as markets under naval protection. The manufacturing department, composed of craftsmen of various specializations, controlled these locations and worked towards those ends.

In the 1300s, the department was ordered to develop gunpowder weapons such as cannons that defeated the fleet in the Battle of Portcullia of 1325. Given government resource, the Naval Engineers produced similar cannons that saw use in the Battle of Tups of 1352. Since the crew were unfamiliar with new technology and must focus on boarding once close combat began, the Naval Engineers formed gun crews to man the guns. As guns became fixtures on ships in the century, so did their crew become a permanent part of the fleet. In the 15th century, naval guns, much like those on land, existed in many forms; some were heavy and fixed, while others were light enough to be moved and operated by one or two men. At some point in the 16th century, the engineers who manned the light, mobile guns began to mesh with melée troops for tactical benefit. Those who manned the heavy, fixed guns remained separate from the sailing crew for longer, since they were considered interchangeable with troops who manned fixed guns on fortresses and ports. During this period, the Naval Engineers also formed small musketeer units that patrolled these areas, adopting Casaterran fighting styles.

Into the 17th century, various factors led the crew to participate in manning the heavy guns. The most important seems to be that passengers and light-gun engineers have taken over the task of boarding enemy ships, leaving the crew to navigation and duties on their own craft. Thus, the engineers embedded into the crew much like they previously have with the melée infantry. This is generally accepted as the reason why both the modern navy and marine corps both have ranks such as "gunner" and "assistant engineer", which are vestigial titles of the shipboard engineers. The Naval Engineers continued to man the ports and fortifications around the Halu'an Sea in the 17th and 18th centuries as well as produce weapons and parts for naval use. In 1713, the court ordered that all the engineers on the west coast of the Halu'an to report to the Colonel-general of Passengers (冗人尉) in consequence of Camian independence, which supplied the first organized enemy attacking Themiclesian positions there.

At home, the Naval Engineers remained an important department purely for its manufacturing function, having lost all its combat arms abroad.

Structure

The Naval Engineers remained distinct from both sailors and marines for a fairly long time in history, due their internal structure. Themiclesia enacted very strong state control over technical crafts, including production of guns and gunpowder. "Public" engineers (寺工, mlje-kong) produced goods or rendered services to the state and were required to pass down their craft to their heirs, while "private" engineers (私工, sji-kong) did not. Private engineers were still censused by the state that they could be pressed into service should an emergency require. Certain crafts, like the manufacture of guns, were restricted to public engineers, who in their spare time could also offer their skills and products privately. As a result of this system, the naval engineers were, for their first two centuries as part of the fleet, a hereditary profession, making, repairing, and operating the fleet's many guns. This is not to say that all naval engineers were interchangeable, as subdivisions existed in their department. Some stayed in workshops, while others operated them on board, and still others came to man the very fortifications defended by them.

Culture

As no part of the modern fleet is considered a direct sucessor of the Naval Engineers, parts of their culture can be gleamed from the practices of other branches. For example, guns (of any size) manufactured for the Marines all bear the stamp or impression "public engineer" (寺工). Formerly, this would only have been stamped on small arms made by government or government-funded workshops, but as a remembercer of their heritage it has recently been seen as a customization on imported firearms as well. This practice is attested in the archaeological record from the founding of the Naval Engineers. Armour and melée weapons from the 15th century were usually stamped "public engineers delivers to marines" (寺工俞冗人) instead, demonstrating that musketeers were once considered part of the gun crew, rather than naval infantry.

See also

• Themiclesia