Daming pirates

After three months, in addition to the original industries, under Yu Xiaotian's continuous promotion, they were developing at a high speed. In addition, new news came back from Jilong Bay.

Before the end of July, the fort in the northwest corner of Jilong Bay had been basically completed and could be initially put into use. As a result, Jilong Bay only had to go all out to build the Dazhai in the bay, and it also already had considerable defense capabilities.

control ability.

Moreover, Heitou and Sun Baoqiang sent people to report back to Nanyue Island. In July, a fleet of more than a dozen ships appeared outside Jilong Bay.

The fleet wandered outside Jilong Bay for a while. Blackhead immediately led the boat out to meet them and asked about their identities. The other party also inquired about their identities. In the end, after both parties informed of their identities, no conflict occurred.

The fleet then bypassed the northern end of Taiyuan Island and headed south along the west coast of Taiyuan Island.

Blackhead reported that the leader of this fleet, whose surname was Yan, came from the Japanese country. The specific reason was unknown. There were about three to four hundred people under his command. There were both Ming people and Japanese people on the boat, and it looked like they were doing this.

OK.

However, because they saw that Sea Wolf's ships and men were very majestic, and also discovered the fort on Heping Island outside Jilong Bay, they did not have a head-on conflict with Heitou and the others, and finally gave up the idea of ​​docking in the bay and turned to

Left Jilong Bay.

Yu Xiaotian took this news very seriously, because when he heard that the leader of the group was named Yan, he roughly guessed the identity of the leader.

At this time, who else could lead the fleet to Taiwan Island with the surname Yan? Apart from Yan Siqi, the famous founder of Taiwan in history, no one else could be found.

Yu Xiaotian is actually very curious about Yan Siqi. When he read about Zheng Zhilong before, this person was mentioned in the article. In history, some people called him the King of Taiwan, who was the first to lead the development of Taiwan Island.

Chinese.

So he checked some information about this person. There was some controversy about Yan Siqi in history. Some people thought that this person and Li Dan should be the same person. However, later historical data confirmed that this person was not the same person as Li Dan.

There is indeed a person, but the life trajectory of this person and Li Dan are very similar.

In the early years, it was said that he was also from southern Fujian. During the Wanli period, because he offended the official's family, he killed the servants of the official's family in a rage, abandoned his family and fled, and went to Japan's Kyushu Island to make a living as a tailor, and also secretly engaged in the pirate business.

Moreover, it is said that this person named Qing is a heroic and righteous man who likes to make friends. He has made many friends from southern Fujian on Kyushu Island and has formed a considerable influence. Even the authorities in charge of Japan have appointed him as the leader.

But this man was not a peaceful person, and he couldn't stand what the Japanese shogunate was doing, and he actually wanted to participate in rebel activities. Unexpectedly, the matter was exposed, and he was hunted down by the shogunate. He had no choice but to escape from Kyushu Island with his men.

He just came to Taiwan Island, ready to use Taiwan Island as his base, develop Taiwan Island, and prepare to do a big business.

It's a pity that Yan Siqi was unlucky. Although he was ambitious, his life was short-lived. After arriving in Taiwan, he fell ill and died suddenly without much effort. As a result, all the hard work he had put in before was wasted.

After Yan Siqi's death, his subordinates returned to Zheng Yiguan. Later, because their location was close to Tainan, they clashed with the Dutch. In the end, Zheng Yiguan had to give up Yan Siqi's business in Tainan and led the way.

Zhong withdrew to Quanzhou and started his piracy business.

So Yu Xiaotian has been paying attention to this matter for more than a year. Now Yan Siqi finally appears and continues to move towards the future according to his life trajectory.

In the past, Yu Xiaotian thought about why Yan Siqi led his troops to the central and southern areas instead of staying in Jilong Bay. Later, after he checked the terrain of northern Taiwan, he figured out the reason why Yan Siqi did not choose northern Taiwan.

The terrain of Taiwan affected Yan Siqi's decision. Northern Taiwan has few plains and many hills and mountains, which is not suitable for agricultural development. Yan Siqi made up his mind that if he wanted to carry out pioneering farming, he would choose a relatively flat plain terrain to establish his foothold. Therefore, in the end he

He moved to central and southern Taiwan and established himself.

The place chosen by Yan Siqi is not bad. In the central and southern parts of Taiwan, the terrain is relatively flat and the land is relatively fertile. It is indeed more suitable for clearing up wasteland and farming. However, for Xiaotian, he knows that the Dutch have also arrived at this time.

In the Tainan area, it is too close to the Dutch city of Jelanja, and it won't be long before there will be a head-on conflict with the Dutch.

Zheng Yiguan later inherited Yan Siqi's inheritance, but still failed to defend his territory and was forced to leave Taiwan Island by the Dutch. He did not want to knowingly commit the crime, so he resolutely chose Jilong Bay, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, as his

The first step to landing on Taiwan Island.

Yu Xiaotian secretly remembered this news in his heart, and he was also very curious about the legendary figure Yan Siqi. He made up his mind to look for him if he had time. It would be best to get to know this person and talk to him.

Make some friends and see if this person is as benevolent and heroic as the legend says. If so, he would be happy to make friends with him.

He sent people to reply to Heitou and Sun Baoqiang. He didn't need to worry about the group of people named Yan for the time being. He just let them go. At present, the construction inside Jilong Bay was the top priority. In addition to building the stronghold, if the manpower

If there are enough, we will also start building roads in the bay to connect various work points. In the future, in addition to facilitating work and improving labor efficiency, it will also facilitate the movement of troops in the bay and deal with enemy situations that occur in the surrounding area.

In addition, he sent a fleet to deliver more than ten artillery pieces of various types to Jilongwan, which were installed in the Heping Island fort and the newly built fort. At the same time, he also sent them a large amount of ammunition and 20 artillery pieces.

The newly made flintlocks will strengthen the defense there.

The artillery factory and gun factory, two of the most important arsenals in Xiaotian, have now been combined into one, and together with the gunpowder workshop, they belong to the Ordnance Factory under the Council Hall.

Nowadays, the number of people working in the armory alone has reached more than 200, which is already quite large. Even some large iron yards on land may not be larger than Seawolf's armory.

Manpower combined with technical advantages have greatly improved the firearms production of the Seawolf Ordnance Institute. After such a long period of training and study, the former novices have gradually become experienced experts, and the output of artillery has increased day by day.

It's improving every month.

Nowadays, artillery production can not only produce six-pound light cannons and twelve-pound short cannons, but also trial-produce a twelve-pound long cannon with an elongated barrel and wall. Yu Xiaotian renamed this twelve-pound long cannon as a ten-pound cannon.

The two-pounder cannon and the previously produced twelve-pounder cannon were renamed twelve-pounder howitzers.

However, the weight of the twelve-pound cannon exceeds 1,500 kilograms. After adding the gun mount, it exceeds 2,000 kilograms. It has exceeded the carrying capacity of the ships currently owned by Sea Wolf and can only be used temporarily as a weapon on the island.

The fort is used as a coastal defense gun, because this thing is heavy, powerful, and has great recoil. Once a Chinese ship, including those lucky ships, is loaded with this thing, it is estimated that it will only last the life of one gun. After one shot is fired,

, the ship will be shaken apart.

Therefore, although this kind of cannon is very powerful, it can only make the guys on the ship drool, but they dare not put it on their ship.

Therefore, this kind of twelve-pound cannon can only be used in the fort for the time being. During the three months of Xiaotian's cannon production, six of them were cast, four were transported to Jilong Bay, and two were left behind.

Among the forts outside Dazhai on Nanyue Island, after the new sloop is built in the future, a few more equipment will be produced and placed on the bow of the sloop to serve as the main cannon.

On the contrary, the twelve-pound howitzer, because its weight is within the acceptable range, some of the larger ships in the Sea Wolf fleet can carry it after being reinforced. It has recently become the main product of the artillery industry and was cast into ten pieces in one go.

Eight gates, six gates are cast and equipped almost every month

Entering the fleet, the firepower level of Sea Wolf's fleet has once again reached a big level. Now, if they encounter a peer fleet of the same size, they can definitely beat the shit out of them with just artillery.

You don't even have to rely on help to win the battle.

Even if the navy of the Fujian navy were to come and cause trouble for Sea Wolf, Sea Wolf's fleet would not necessarily have anything to fear from them.

In addition to the busy work of gunpowder, the gunpowder workshop is also in full swing. They recently got back a shipment of saltpeter from the Spanish. The quality of the saltpeter produced in Chile is very good. The gunpowder workshop is busy every day.

The saltpeter is converted into gunpowder, so that Sea Wolf's gunpowder magazine now has a full reserve of 40,000 kilograms of gunpowder.

If forty thousand kilograms were converted into tons in later generations, it would be about more than twenty tons. Although in later generations, this amount of gunpowder would be nothing, but in this era, the application of firearms was still in its infancy, and the consumption of gunpowder was far lower.

Due to the consumption of ammunition in later generations, these 40,000 kilograms of gunpowder were enough for Sea Wolf to cope with a war of considerable scale.

The problem of gunpowder was temporarily solved for Xiaotian, and then he began to tinker with it again and tinkered with a new type of weapon, that is, grenades.

In fact, hand grenades are not a new thing, and the structure of this thing is very simple and easy to manufacture. However, so far, Yu Xiaotian has not been able to solve the fuze problem, so he can only use local methods and use the most primitive fuses.

solve.

Yu Xiaotian ordered the blacksmith to cast a batch of cartridge cases, pour gunpowder into the cartridge cases, plug them with wooden plugs, drill a hole in the wooden plugs to insert a lead, and seal the joint between the projectile body and the wooden plugs with wax to prevent moisture.

purpose.

So the birth of Seawolf's first grenade was announced. Once it was trial-produced, Yu Xiaotian immediately took people to the shooting range for testing.

After a few roars, the result was disappointing to Yu Xiaotian, because he encountered the same problem that the Eighth Route Army's armory repair shop encountered.

That is, after all, black powder has a low detonation speed and low power. After being loaded into the iron shell, it cannot effectively explode the shell when it explodes, forming a large number of fragments.

After the grenades exploded, two of them did not even have their shells shattered, but only cracked. After several other grenades exploded, the best one only exploded six or seven pieces of shrapnel, and most of them just broke in half.

, except that the sound is quite loud and quite scary, it basically doesn’t have much lethality.

(The second chapter is here. Please book your monthly tickets for next month first. Don’t forget to leave them for me then! Haha!)