Daming pirates

In addition to team training, sailors usually conduct simulation training on various tasks on the ship, and receive training on sailing, ruddering, fighting, anchoring, and supply operations on the ship. They also carry out some necessary combat training.

The soldiers mostly conducted team training and combat training on land. In addition, Yu Xiaotian allocated some old-fashioned matchlocks and put them in the training camp so that both sailors and soldiers could train in the use of muskets.

In addition, they have one thing in common, that is, artillery operation training. Both sailors and soldiers must receive artillery operation training.

For this reason, Yu Xiaotian provided the training camp with five new imitation six-pound guns and several old artillery pieces to use as their training guns. The recruits were given practical training on these artillery pieces in batches every day.

On the whole, under the auspices of Xiaotian, the new training camp has basically developed in the direction of formal militarization, completely eliminating the disadvantages of ordinary pirates who recruit people temporarily and directly arrange them to work on the ship.

Although the recruits are far from qualified sailors after training, they have a strong sense of obedience and discipline. After boarding the ship, they can quickly accept the management of the ship and adapt to life at sea.

They become qualified sailors.

This is also the road to self-improvement that Yu Xiaotian wants to take. If he wants to protect his vested interests, he must first have a division that is good at fighting. He must have a unique team and a ship that can win.

The team and personnel should naturally be the best.

Therefore, it can be said that he spared no effort in investing in the boot camp. In addition to providing adequate food guarantees, everyone who entered the camp was given two sets of new clothes, a sewing kit, and a full set of clothing.

As long as daily necessities were available, Yu Xiaotian would find a way to get them for his subordinates.

After the new recruits entered the camp, they discovered that working in Sea Wolf was really good in terms of treatment, but the training aspect was a bit overwhelming for them.

Yu Xiaotian had great expectations for this group of recruits. After summarizing the experience of several previous trainings, he revised a brand new training syllabus and handed it over to the training camp coaches to follow the rules.

In addition to discipline and obedience training, recruits also have strong physical training. They have to get up early every morning and run first, followed by a morning of leg training. In the afternoon, they undergo various physical training in the scorching sun. After evening

, we also need to gather together and arrange for people to teach them how to read for half an hour. After the recruits enter the camp, in addition to having a good sleep at night, the whole day can be said to be a non-stop cycle with almost no chance to breathe.

Moreover, Yu Xiaotian has extremely strict requirements for recruit training. He does not believe that he can control these recruits just by talking! Therefore, the corporal punishment in the recruit camp is also very harsh.

If someone fails to meet the requirements during training, running laps will be the lightest. If someone violates discipline or disobeys orders, it is common to be served with military sticks and whips. In any army, whether it is an old-style army or a new-style army, corporal punishment is the most effective.

Method, there is nothing worth saying about this.

As a result, after such high-intensity training, many guys who came here with the intention of making a lot of money became a little bit unbearable, and deserters began to appear soon after the boot camp opened.

But for these deserters, Yu Xiaotian made it clear to them in advance when they were recruiting that they would become Sea Wolf people when they got here, and there was only one fate for the deserters, and that was to be treated as traitors and killed without mercy.

When the situation of deserters appeared, a few were immediately arrested and sent directly to the execution hall. The execution hall sentenced these deserters to hanging and sent them back to the training camp in public, where they were hanged on the public platform of the training camp.

superior.

In this way, the momentum of suppressing the deserters continued to develop under high pressure, and the new recruits were brought under control.

After Yu Xiaotian returned to Nanyue Island, he did not leave Nanyue Island for two months and devoted all his energy to the training of recruits and other affairs on Nanyue Island.

As for the peripheral matters, he left them to his subordinates to take care of. Every day, the fast boat traveled between Nanyue Island Wolf Cave and other places, passing news back and forth, so that Yu Xiaotian could keep track of the activities of his subordinates.

In addition, he set up regular routes to three important places: Jilongwan, Shuangfeng Island, and Nangantang, and dispatched transportation speedboats every five days to deliver news from these places. In addition, in order to control the south

sea ​​area, he is again

A small village was built on Cormorant Island south of Nanyue Island, which could directly control the Meizhou Bay area. If the government had not set up a water village on Meizhou Island, he even wanted to take Meizhou Island as well.

One of his outposts.

In the past two months, in addition to focusing on the recruit training camp, Yu Xiaotian also devoted more energy to the boathouse.

Now that he is no longer short of money, the boat building has begun to build new ships. Now there are more than a hundred craftsmen in the boat building, and the types of craftsmen are also quite complete.

Building new ships has no technical problems for Nanyue Island Boathouse.

The reason why there was a delay in building new ships in the past and only repairing old ships was because Nanyue Island itself lacked wood resources. The required wood had to be purchased on land and transported back to Nanyue Island by ship.

OK.

Regarding this, before Xiaotian went to Jilong Bay last time, he had already made arrangements for the Council to purchase various shipbuilding timbers from land in large quantities, and to select the best wood.

After two months of preparation, various types of wood have recently begun to be continuously transported to Nanyue Island and stored in the boathouse, waiting for Yu Xiaotian to give the order to start building the ship.

However, after Yu Xiaotian returned to Nanyue Island, he was not in a hurry to let the craftsmen in the boathouse start building a new boat. Instead, while busy with other matters, he used his time in the evening to have several carpenters come to his residence.

During the process, I helped him tinker with some new things.

Before Yu Xiaotian came to this era, his biggest hobby besides Sanda was probably ship modeling. Now he finally has time to pick up this craft again. As long as he has a little leisure time, he will immediately return to his residence.

, and took a few carpenters to tinker with it.

With the cooperation of him and several carpenters, and after more than ten days, a novel-style sailboat finally appeared on his desk.

The hull of this ship is long and narrow, and the length-to-width ratio is probably higher than four to one and lower than five to one, which makes the hull look slender and beautiful. The bow is pointed. One look at this ship can tell that it has a very high speed.

The bottom of the ship is still a V-shaped bottom. There are no compartments in the upper part of the hull as a whole, but there are

Dense ribs are used on the hull to ensure the structural strength of the hull. However, the design of large compartments is adopted in the counterweight warehouse and sub-cargo warehouse below the waterline at the bottom, making it more or less functional.

A little bit of the characteristics of Chinese sailing boats effectively combines the features of Chinese and Western sailing boats.

Another feature of this ship is that there is no superstructure and only a stern working platform, which makes the overall ship look low and stable.

Moreover, this ship only uses one mast, which is located at the front of the middle part of the hull. On this mast, Yu Xiaotian hung two sails for it. The sails are extremely simple, and they are all made of Western-style soft sails.

Quality sails are used instead of the Chinese rigid sails made of bamboo strips.

The two sails are both triangular in shape, one in front and one in the back. The area of ​​the two sails is about the same. The one at the back is the main sail. The lower part is fixed on a horizontal rod. You can easily adjust the sail to receive the wind by swinging it left and right.

One corner of the foresail is directly fixed at the bow of the ship, and one corner is hung on the mast through a pulley. The lower part is controlled by a sail rope and can be adjusted to the left and right sides of the ship at any time to obtain wind power.

If there were knowledgeable people around at this time, they would have been able to tell at a glance that this was a very common ship type in later generations of racing and yacht sailing, and was called a sloop.

The hull of this kind of boat is not big, but because of the ingenious sail design, low hull, and simple sail rigging, it is very easy to lift the sail. It requires very few sailors to lift the sail, and it is very fast. It is very suitable for offshore use.

Activities, strong ability to drive against the wind

, even when sailing on high seas, it has great advantages. If it encounters a storm, its hull is low and its center of gravity is very low. It can effectively maintain the balance of the hull on the windy sea and is not easy to capsize. Its effective name is

Later generations have long since verified it.

This kind of ship with gaffed sails appeared relatively late. During the Anglo-American War, the United States built many ships like this, which were specially used as armed merchant ships. They could not only avoid the interception of British warships, but also serve as raiding ships to harass the British.

of merchant ships.

The most important thing is that this kind of boat is not very complicated to build, has fewer sails, and is easier to operate. Even sailors who have never been exposed to this kind of sailing boat can become proficient in it after only a short period of training.

Because of its speed, it can come and go freely on the sea.

What do pirate ships need most? It’s not just how strong their firepower is. What they need most is speed and flexibility. Only in this way can the pirate ship be in an absolutely dominant position at sea. If it can be defeated, it will fight. If it can’t be defeated, it will escape immediately. If it is attacked,

But if they still don't want to slip away, they can also take advantage of the speed and flexibility of the ship to deal with the enemy on the sea, stalk them, and attack the opponent when they see the opportunity. Sometimes a small wolf can also

If you don't do it well, you could kill an elephant.

The reason why Yu Xiaotian has not been in a hurry to build new ships for so long is that he has been thinking about what kind of ships they should build. Now the Spanish, Portuguese and even the Dutch, British and French are using a large number of improvements.

Clark type sailing ship or better Galen ship, these ships have tall hulls, are divided into multiple decks, can install a large number of artillery, have strong navigation capabilities, and strong combat effectiveness.

If they can build such warships now, they will have the ability to sweep across China's coastal counterparts in a short time. But the problem is that these Western-style sailing ships are relatively large, ranging from four to five hundred tons in light to one or two tons in weight.

Thousand tons, it requires a lot of labor to build, takes a long time to build, and consumes a lot of materials.

With the current strength of the Sea Wolf, their Nanyue Island boathouse is still unable to build such a large warship. Even if it can be built, it will take a long process, allowing the craftsmen of the boathouse to slowly explore and build it.

method, so starting to build such a Western-style warship now is obviously not a good choice, and it is even an approach that puts the cart before the horse.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian thought for a long time and finally designed their new ship to be this kind of light sloop.

(Thank you again to Brother Nanbo Wang for the reward! Thank you very much!)