Daming pirates

As for the remaining seven or eight men, after interrogation, Yu Xiaotian learned that most of them were merchants from villages or counties along the coast of Fuzhou, children of wealthy families, or simply businessmen. The reason why Zhou Cheng kept them

If they don't kill them, they will just wait for their families to buy them back with money.

So after Yu Xiaotian, Liu Laoliu and others discussed it, they asked the Li family to send the news to his family, telling them that the original ransom would be halved and handed over to the Li family, and they could redeem it.

Although the Li family was not happy about this, now that they and Yu Xiaotian had formed a substantial relationship as masters of the nest, this kind of thing was also their responsibility, so they secretly arranged for someone to do it and pass the news on.

Go out, and do not come forward as the Li family to collect ransom, so as not to cause someone to report to the official that the Li family is a bandit.

But Yu Xiaotian became interested in one of the young people named Feng, because according to the confession of this young man named Feng, his father Feng Tianqing was a well-known businessman in Guangzhou. As long as Yu Xiaotian sent him back to Guangzhou

He can guarantee that his father is willing to spend three thousand taels of silver to redeem him.

Zhou Cheng had captured him on one of their boats and had sent a message to Guangzhou, asking his father to redeem him with money. However, his father probably had not received the news yet, so he was given to Yu Xiaotian again.

He was brought here, so Zhou Cheng didn't have time to get the ransom. Otherwise, Zhou Cheng would have become so rich that it would be enough for him and his men to feed him for two years. In the end, he got Yu Xiaotian's advantage in vain.

Yu Xiaotian was overjoyed when he found out. He didn't expect that the meat ticket he got the most from Zhou Cheng's lair this time would be this. This young man named Feng alone exceeded what he got from Zhou Cheng.

the value of all goods.

Knowing that this young man surnamed Feng was a rare commodity, Yu Xiaotian immediately ordered that this young man surnamed Feng be a distinguished guest and be kept under separate custody until there was an opportunity in the future to send someone to contact his family in Guangdong.

redeem it.

As the isolation period of the newcomers ended, various materials arrived and tools were put in place, the project of Treasure Island Water Village began immediately. Under the command of Li Gouzi, some people used picks and shovels to open along the periphery of the village.

A deep trench was dug, and then logs were placed side by side into the trench, and then the sand and gravel were backfilled and compacted. In this way, a wooden wall was gradually formed.

However, because the ground on the island is mostly rocky, it is very laborious to dig deep trenches. As a last resort, Yu Xiaotian had to allocate part of the limited gunpowder reserves for blasting operations in some hard rock areas.

And they had plenty of gunpowder on hand recently. After carefully crushing the saltpeter and sulfur they grabbed in the early stage, Yu Xiaotian used the fine charcoal purchased from the Li family to grind it into powder, and used the best gunpowder he knew.

The proportions are mixed and configured into usable gunpowder.

However, Yu Xiaotian was still dissatisfied with such powdered gunpowder, because he knew that saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal have different specific gravity. During storage and transportation, the heavier components will sink, while the lighter components will float to the top.

, ultimately affecting the ratio of gunpowder, resulting in insufficient gunpowder power, and may even cause the inability to detonate. Therefore, before a new gunpowder is developed, the best way to maintain the power of black powder is to make it into granular gunpowder.

Granular gunpowder has many benefits. In addition to being convenient for storage and transportation, the most important thing is that it is far more powerful than ordinary powdered gunpowder, which will be of great help to them in the future to unleash the power of artillery and muskets.

Originally, when the Li family asked Yu Xiaotian to buy saltpeter and sulfur, they were still suspicious, thinking that even if Yu Xiaotian got the saltpeter and sulfur, he might not be able to prepare gunpowder, because in their view, preparing gunpowder was just a matter of

It is a skill that is in the hands of a few people. Most people do not know how to mix gunpowder.

But what they never expected was that for a person like Xiaotian who came from later generations, the proportion of black gunpowder was simply child's play. In later generations, even elementary school students would probably know the proportion of gunpowder, let alone Yu Xiaotian.

For such a person, this matter cannot be difficult for Xiaotian.

As for granular gunpowder, it is actually nothing new in this era. Some people have already discovered the benefits of granular black powder and mastered the production method of granular gunpowder. The Ming Dynasty army also began to use granular gunpowder in this era.

Gunpowder, however, was not widely popularized. Europeans had also mastered the production method of granular gunpowder at this time, but no one thought that people like Yu Xiaotian could actually produce granular black powder.

Regarding the production of granular black gunpowder, Yu Xiaotian's solution was very simple. He just spread out the prepared powdered black gunpowder and evenly sprayed some glutinous rice paste on it.

The glutinous rice slurry itself has a certain viscosity. After shaking, the surrounding powder will stick to the granular shape, and then dried in the shade to form hard granules. After that, sieved powder can be obtained into granular gunpowder of different sizes.

Yu Xiaotian just used this very primitive but very effective method to easily obtain granular gunpowder. After it was made, he tried it and found that the performance of this granular gunpowder was stable and its power was much greater than that of powder.

Gunpowder, with very little black smoke, burns very fully after deflagration, and the smoke is also in the state of green smoke.

For this reason, Yu Xiaotian had people use this kind of granular gunpowder to load the cannon and test fire a few rounds. It was found that this kind of granular gunpowder increased the bore pressure of the gun chamber a lot, and the range and power were improved under the same charge amount.

Nearly 30% more, Yu Xiaotian was extremely happy at this time.

He specially selected three careful and steady people among his men, and gave them the responsibility for making gunpowder. Considering safety issues, he built several houses at the southern end of the island.

He ordered them to make gunpowder outside the village and set up their first gunpowder workshop. They also ordered that fireworks be strictly prohibited around the gunpowder workshop. Production was only allowed during the day and lights were not allowed to be lit at night. This would prevent an explosion from happening accidentally.

This caused losses to people and property, and the gunpowder produced was immediately packed into barrels and transported to a special underground warehouse for storage in preparation for use.

After solving the problem of gunpowder, the progress of the construction project began to increase rapidly. For a time, there would be rumbling sounds every day on Treasure Island. Some hard rocks were exploded amidst the blasting sound of gunpowder.

Improved the speed of construction.

At this time, Yu Xiaotian suddenly missed the ordinary cement that he was used to in the old time and space. If he had this thing on hand now, he would not have to spend so much effort. He only needs to mix cement and sand.

After mixing the stones, you can easily build a strong fortress, and you don't have to worry about using these logs to build his stronghold.

It is a pity that although cement production is not difficult for him, the small Treasure Island currently does not have any conditions for firing cement by himself, even for simpler soil cement.

We do not have the conditions for production, so we can only use the most primitive methods to carry out construction.

Fortunately, what they built this time was just a simple small village, and the construction volume was not very large. Otherwise, with just their dozens of laborers, God knows how long it would take to complete these things.

Even so, it took them nearly twenty days to build the wall of this stockade, and at this time, it was also the end of the second year of Tianqi.

Yu Xiaotian looked at the ten-foot-tall log wall in front of him and couldn't help but sigh with emotion. He calculated with his fingers that half a year had passed since he came to this world in the blink of an eye.

In the past six months, he has transformed from an extremely desperate man into the leader of a group of pirates with dozens of pirates. If it were the old time and space he lived in, he would never have dreamed of such a thing.

He would think of it, and after joining this profession, he discovered that even being a pirate was not as simple as he originally thought. It can be said that every step of doing things on the sea is risky, and if you are not careful, all your achievements will be wasted.

And he didn't understand this until he had been in this business for such a long time. Now he has just found a place to settle down. Even he himself is a little unclear about what his future will be like.

But on the other hand, in the past few months, he has done a good job. From the beginning, there were only about 20 people and two boats, one large and one small. In the past few months, his strength has doubled, and the number of boats has also expanded to four.

Considering that there are many fellow pirates who have gone to sea to become pirates, his speed can be considered quite fast.

Thinking of this, Yu Xiaotian couldn't help but feel proud again. In any case, this was his first kick. As long as he controls his subordinates well, he believes that the future road will become wider and wider.

Sooner or later, there will come a time when you no longer have to worry about being in danger.

A burst of firecrackers suddenly sounded at the village gate, followed by cheers from a group of people. Yu Xiaotian turned around and walked towards the village gate.

(Brothers, please leave your precious red tickets after reading this! Thank you very much!)