Dus-lan Ring
| History | |
|---|---|
| Themiclesia | |
| Name: | Djuh-lan ("long life") |
| Owner: | Monarchy of Themiclesia |
| Ordered: | 1804 |
| Builder: | Westwoods Shipyards |
| Laid down: | 1805 |
| Launched: | Nov. 3, 1807 |
| Struck: | 1975 |
| Fate: | burned to the waterline in 1973 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | one-off |
| Tons burthen: | approx. 2,420 t |
| Length: | 101 m |
| Beam: | 25 m |
| Draft: | 12 m |
| Armament: | (none?) |
The Djuh-lan Rêng (壽延𦫊, djuh-lan-rêng) is a Themiclesian ship constructed in 1807, on the government's instructions, as a birthday present to the Themiclesian emperor by the Westwoods Shipyards. It is one of the longest and heaviest ships built up to that point in Septentrion.
Origin and construction
Since the Raid on Rad destroyed most of the Themiclesian Navy at home port, admirals have petitioned to have the fleet rebuilt to answer the threats posed by the Tyrannian Royal Navy in the Halu'an Sea; however, Themiclesia's commitments towards the Second Maverican War drained necessary resources to rebuilt large numbers of warships at the same time. After the war ended in stalemate, Themiclesia's political scene became untenable for the large re-armament that the Navy desired. The government, wishing to test public reaction towards naval re-armament and the aptitude of the procurement process after its desolation in the recent war, ordered possibly the largest ship that Westwoods, the most prolific naval shipyard of the age, has ever built, on the pretext of the Emperor Hruh-mrjang's upcoming 70th birthday. Though the government's opponents thought this was a waste of public funds in a time of recovery, it was understood as a smaller commitment than a complete re-armament that the Conservatives were suspected of harbouring, since the Themiclesian admirals were all vocally Conservative.
While it is not unusual for Themiclesian emperors to receive boats as birthday presents, it is the first time that Westwoods has been commissioned to build the ship. Prior to this example, royal cruise boats and galleys were usually built by the Middle Engineers, who had been partly disbanded to support the war effort and was not restored following it. Since Westwoods usually produced warships rather than cruise boats, some conservative courtiers were concerned if it would impinge on the emperor's dignity to be on a warship. The Conservative government pointed out that Westwoods has built transport ships before and proceeded to ignore these concerns. Additionally, it is widely thought the Admiralty wished to test an even larger ship for future building, though the government very strictly denied this; plans were shown to the parliaments to demonstrate that the vessel built was not a warship in any way. Westwoods has had much experience building large, stable ships, especially on short notice, so Djuh-lan showed much more Casaterran influence than previous royal ships. Nevertheless, the Middle Engineers were re-assembled at the final months of construction and commanded to finish the woodwork and furnishings of the ship in the customary style.
Launching and initial voyage
While the ship was not a surprise to the emperor, who must have heard of it when the annual budget was read to him, it nevertheless generated an occasion for the court to leave the capital city of Kien-k'ang on excursion to Tonning, where the ship was to be launched. The government, high-ranking administrators, privy council, gentlemen-at-arms, and the empress' courtiers (but not the empress herself—she was taken ill) were present for the ship's maiden voyage, from Tonning to a minor port in Gwrje-dêng and then back. The charted course was designed to avoid going south and west, where Mavericans and Tyrannians respectively still posed a risk. The Court Oracle appointed Mar. 4, 1808 as the day the emperor boarded the ship, and the Middle Engineers tested the ship regularly in coastal waters, as customary, for seaworthiness. While the Navy's officials were present while the ship was tested, they were not when the emperor himself boarded the ship.
In February, the ship was outfitted with bronze bells, whose tolling would indicate the emperor's presence while sailing. The emperor's guards, the Gentlemen-at-Arms, were invited onboard and assigned their chambers on the bottom deck. Next, rooms were designated for other courtiers and for meetings. The emperor's state apartments were located, per modern accounts, close to the stern of the ship, but this may have been moved after the ship's launch; at the time, the location of the sovereign's bedchambers was an official secret. Per custom, the rooms directly adjacent to the emperor's bedchamber were occupied by shipwrights. The tradition dates to at least the 9th century, when Emperor Hmen of Dziai drowned with a ship glued, rather than nailed, together by spiteful shipwrights; the emperor had commandeered their services without compensation for years, to provide warships against Hallian raiders. Since then, shipwrights who built the ship (or their supervisors) were to be onboard during her maiden voyage. The Middle Engineers have filled this role since their institution as royal shipwrights; in the event the ship should become unsafe, the Middle Engineers were to rescue the sovereign, as they built the ship itself and are the most familiar with it. As they did not build Djuh-lan, the responsible officer of Westwoods was onboard as well, though in more a symbolic capacity.
On the appointed day, the emperor was led onto the ship by a Royal Attendant, with tribunes following; he was told that this was the largest ship the country had ever commissioned by length, width, and amount of timber used. The emperor replied that he wished to share the use of the ship with his courtiers, who bowed in response. During her maiden voyage, she was captained by the Director of Middle Engineers (中校令, trjung-krawh-mrjêngh) and crewed by his subordinates. Despite being a rather large ship, her complement seems to have been unusually small, probably limited by the reduced stregth of the Middle Engineers due to the Maverican Wars. The ship sailed for the next twenty-two days, according to the charted course; each day, the emperor held banquets for his courtiers and administrators. This was clearly not his initial voyage on the open ocean, but he said to the prime minister that he "never before had seen such a great ocean view". When he asked who built the ship, the Director of Westwoods was presented to him, and he said that he "is comforted that those who brave the waves have such excellent ships to rely upon." He ordered a special grant of 100 hmrjing to the Director of Westwoods and Director of Middle Engineers, each.
Public reaction
Later use
After the Djuh-lan's maiden voyage, she was used approximately every two or three years for royal cruises during the first half of the 19th century. This frequent use encouraged the restoration of the pre-Maverican War maritime institutions serving the royal court, including the Middle Engineers as designated royal shipwrights crews. After the Liberals defeated the Conservatives in government during the 1840s, royal expenditure was very deeply slashed for marginal reductions in overall tax rates. The Middle Engineers were devastated as an institution, since parliament decried that they "collect salaries twelve months of the year, while rendering service only one month of the year"; this was inaccurate, as the maintenance of the ship and periodic voyages was a year-long process. Moreover, numbering 100 or so, they were considered overworked by the naval establishment, since their duties extended to several ships, not only the Djuh-lan. Conversely, the Fore Engineers and Rear Engineers, who were construction specialists, were also significantly reduced in scale. The Middle Engineers were retained as a small group of sailing officers in a second round of slashing royal budgets in the 1850s; the crew henceforth were conscripted ad-hoc, by the Navy's Impress Service, though a notional distinction was still made between naval sailors and those in royal ships. In 1874, the Navy transitioned to a fully professional crew, obsoleting the Impress Service's most prominent functions. In 1876, statute provided that whenever a royal cruise was scheduled, the Navy must provide its crew, though the officers in charge will still be Middle Engineers; once the cruise ended, the crew would return to the Navy. While the Middle Engineers were concerned that the Navy's sailors were inadequate for royal cruises in various ways, the paucity of cruises during the late 19th century made the concern remote. Without a permanent crew, the maintenance of the ship was contracted to private companies, whose work quality was generally decent but inconsistent.
The Djuh-lan saw renewed use as a diplomatic ship between Themiclesia and Camia in the second half of the 19th century, after the Battle of Liang-la of 1867. Prior to this time, Themiclesian diplomats were transported by the Navy's (armed) ships to states accessible by sea, but as a gesture of peaceful intention, the 1868 dispatch of the ambassador to Camia was ferried by Djuh-lan, which was unarmed. Additionally, the Foreign Office directed that the embassy guards be changed for the Gentlemen-at-Arms, which domestically was regarded as a dignity, as they were elites and candidates for high office in the administration. In 1898, she was given a new coat of paint and brass plates around her hull to reduce anti-fouling costs. In 1902, metal reinforcements were added to her hull after dangerous wear to the original timber was reported. After parliament voted to increase funds for the Navy in 1916, in the first Conservative government since 1845, the Djuh-lan was fully restored to transport Emperor Gar to Tonning, to greet the Navy's officers; however, he never made the journey and instead sent his brother, the Prince of Nem-diarh, instead. Suspicious of the ship's seaworthiness, the prince refused to board the boat, on the grounds of seasickness, and travelled to Tonning by railway instead. After the Pan-Septentrion War broke out, the Prince of Pek, his Princess-consort, and their family petitioned to use the Djuh-lan for passage to Anglia in 1936; having reached it, they refused to return to Themiclesia, engendering a major scandal for the royal house. During the PSW, the Djuh-lan was drydocked in anticipation of war.
In 1959, Emperor Shljaps-tsung was arranged to pay a state visit to Dayashina and call on the Republic of Menghe. The choice of Djuh-lan was symbolic. By this time, Themiclesia's withdrawal from international conflict in the early 19th century was already widely analyzed as a sound policy; the Djuh-lan, built just after the enactment of the policy, is seen as a reflection of that policy. After the devastation of the PSW, it was again seen as a symbol of peace, particularly as Themiclesia and Dayashina had been bitter foes during the war. While some have doubted whether she was seaworthy after so many years in drydock, and if sailing in a normal steel-hulled ship would be safer, she was taken out of drydock for testing, and the initial workmanship by Westwoods was found consistent with ocean-going ships of the age of sail. She was towed into the open ocean by the Navy for test voyages and found adequate. The emperor was shipped by the Djuh-lan with modern escort ships to Menghe then to Dayashina in 1960. Westwoods, by this time a corporate shipbuilder, considered the success of the voyage a testament to its heritage and quality of work.
Destruction
After the Emperor Shljaps-tsung's 1960 state visit to Dayashina on the Djuh-lan, the ship was moored in the royal docks in Blim-tsi. In 1972, a thunderstorm caused an exposed natural gas tank, about 400 meters away from the docks, to escape its restraints; the dislocation caused the tank to breach, and the gasses then caused an explosion. The fireballs produced set a series of wooden dockside buildings alight, which in the course of an hour reached the Djuh-lan and engulfed it in flames. The crew onboard evacuated, it being judged too late to move the ship away from the encroaching conflageration. The ship's superstructure prevented the downpour from putting out the flames in her. By the following morning, she had burned to the waterline. As the royal docks hosted several other ships owned by the monarchy, Djuh-lan was not the only ship set alight; the Gwrjêng-k'lang (1787), T'aih-hjeng (1842), and La-law (1898) were also completely destroyed. In the 1990s, after the royal docks were moved to Tonning, the site became a popular destination for amateur artifact recoveries; thus far, a large amount of precious metals and other heat-resistant objects have been discovered where the ships burned. These items have been identified by statute as shipwrecked possessions and must be returned to the Crown as the known owner, though a number have surfaced on international and Internet auctions, with no effort to prosecute. Commentators note that stealing royal possessions in Themiclesia may constitute the crime of lèse-majesté, though disputes persist over the definition of royal possession.