Daming pirates

With the joint efforts of the helmsman and sailors, the ship began to slowly turn its course on the rolling seas, adjusting the bow position to the direction they came from. When turning, the ship was affected by the strong wind due to the sails.

There was a large inclination, and some unfixed things on the ship slid to the port side on the deck. The waves hit the side of the ship, and the spray splashed, making the people lying on the side of the ship wet all over.

Another wave hit, and the hull of the boat shook violently. It was first thrown up by the waves, and then quickly fell to the bottom of the waves. Some unprepared people fell down on the spot, and slid to the port side with surprises, and a lot of sea water fell from it.

He jumped onto the deck of the ship from the starboard side, and half of Yu Xiaotian's body was splashed with sea water, which made him refreshed. He quickly stretched out his hand to pull a sail rope and stabilized his body, so that he did not fall on the spot.

fall.

Fortunately, this situation lasted for a short time, and the ship gradually completed its turn, the tilted hull began to regain its balance, the fully raised sails began to take in the wind, and the ship's speed obviously began to accelerate, following the direction of the wind and the direction of the waves, heading towards

Go in the direction they came from.

The rolling of the ship began to change into pitching, but the amplitude of the shaking began to decrease significantly, allowing the people on the ship to resume normal walking. The sails were also adjusted to be able to absorb the wind with the cooperation of the sailors.

The angle provides maximum power to the ship.

Only then did Yu Xiaotian realize that sailboats in this era were actually not easy to operate. Not only did the helmsman need to control the rudder, but the sailors on the ship also needed to effectively adjust the sails to cooperate with the helmsman in order to successfully complete the steering. If it was like

If they had made an emergency U-turn just now, the wind and waves on the sea would be relatively strong, and the ship might capsize if they were not careful.

Fortunately, the helmsman and sailors on this boat are relatively skilled and can cooperate well enough to prevent the boat from losing control and being knocked over by the waves. If a group of novices were to complete such an action, it would definitely be possible.

Something happened.

At this time, the upper bucket on the ship's mast was still firmly attached to the mast, and continued to monitor the two unidentified ships in the distance. The mast was swaying greatly in the wind and waves, which was shocking.

I have to admire the courage to fight. People who are a little timid may not dare to climb to such a high place under such circumstances. That's why some people say that only brave people can become a qualified sailor.

Just when the ship completed its turn and increased its speed and headed north, the situation began to become clearer. The two unidentified ships were always hanging far away from the ship where Yu Xiaotian was, and kept following it.

As they turned around and adjusted their sailing direction, they gradually began to approach.

This more fully demonstrates that their target is this ship. When encountering such a situation at sea, they can basically determine the identity of the other party. Under normal circumstances, according to what Liu Laoliu told Yu Xiaotian when he was fine before

It is said that even if they encounter a military or official ship of the imperial court by chance at sea, they will not go out to sea to check the passing ships when there is a storm. This means that there is more than 90% chance that the other party is two pirate ships.

Only desperadoes like pirates would choose to brave such storms, search for prey on the sea, and launch a pursuit of the prey.

So now everyone on the boat understands what they have encountered. No one is in the mood to laugh or chat anymore. Everyone's face is tense. While taking care of the matter at hand, they can't help but look toward the stern of the ship.

They all seemed very nervous.

At this time, the two boats turned to the rear of the boat. Looking from a distance, they also began to raise their sails and speed up to pursue them. It was only because a superior discovered them in time and judged their identities. At this time, among the three boats,

The distance between them is quite far, basically a few miles away, so it doesn't pose much of a threat.

However, except for Yu Xiaotian, everyone on the ship knew very well that the pirate ship was lightly loaded, and generally the sails of pirate ships would be larger. Although the stability had been changed, it was not conducive to the safety of the ship's navigation, but it could be effective.

to increase the speed, but the ship they were in, although strong, was fully loaded and had a deep draft, so the speed would naturally be slower.

If the pirate ship continued to pursue the pirate ship when it was not dark, it would be difficult for them to escape the pirate ship's pursuit. Now all their hope was to wait until dark and use the cover of night to escape the pirate ship's pursuit.

But today they were a little unlucky. They thought that when they came to Dongshan Island, it was in the morning, and there was still a long time before dark. The pirates would have enough time to pursue them, and it would be difficult for them to wait until dark.

.

So just now the people on the boat were scolding God for the wind that had made the sea rougher, but now they all wished that the wind and waves would get bigger, so that the two pirate ships behind would retreat and give up on their own.

Although the ship was speeding up, the people on the ship had already begun to make preparations to resist the pirates. When they were sailing to Dongshan Island just now, Captain Liu had actually asked Ma Biao and the others to make some preparations against the pirates in advance and put the ship on board.

The hidden weapons were moved out of the cabin and placed on the deck of the ship for them to access at any time.

What they have to do now is distribute the weapons, and start loading ammunition for a few blunderbuss and muskets, so that they are ready to fire at any time.

Ma Biao and the other three escorts on the ship may be the most nervous people on the ship, because their job on the ship is to resist pirate attacks and protect the safety of the ship. They usually don’t encounter pirates, so they are the only ones on the ship who have free time and food.

They drank enough to watch the excitement of others, and laughed at others from time to time, but now they could no longer laugh. They were running back and forth nervously on the boat, placing various weapons within easy reach on the side of the boat, and placing

I took the bow out of the cloth cover, pinned the bow arm to the bow string with my legs, and took out the gunpowder to load several three-eye muskets and matchlock guns. I was very busy.

Because Yu Xiaotian was tall and strong, he naturally could not run away to help them. According to the instructions of the shipowner and Ma Biao, he used poles to prop up the broken fish on the ship and hung them on the side of the ship.

It was only now that Yu Xiaotian realized that the junk on the boat was not just used to hide people's eyes. Along the way, Yu Xiaotian was still full of complaints, feeling that the owner of the boat was not kind and refused to do a few things.

The fish were brought up to improve the food for the people on the ship. It turned out that they kept these fish to prevent pirates.

Once these fishermen are propped up, they form a wall at the side of the ship. This thing is definitely not good at blocking arrows, but it can effectively prevent pirates from jumping directly after relying on the gang. Otherwise, even if the pirates jump over, they will be hung up.

If you go fishing, that would be like seeking death. Either you fall into the sea, or you will be stabbed to death by people on the boat.

After the fish was hung up, Yu Xiaotian was called by Captain Liu again and ran to a pile of things covered with oilcloth at the stern of the boat. Captain Liu looked nervous and shouted at Xiaotian: "Dumb! Hurry up and uncover it."

!”

Yu Xiaotian didn't know what was under the oilcloth, so he quickly untied the rope, lifted the oilcloth with force, looked down, and was shocked again.

It turned out that there was actually a black cannon placed under the oilcloth! Before Yu Xiaotian opened the oilcloth, he never thought that there would be such a big killer weapon on their ship.

However, after taking a closer look, Yu Xiaotian couldn't help but feel a little disappointed!

Because this so-called cannon is only about ten centimeters thick, the length of the barrel is only about two feet, definitely less than one meter, and the weight is not too heavy, and when viewed from the muzzle, the muzzle is

It is trumpet-shaped, and the wall of the barrel is thin. The barrel is made of pig iron, and the surface is very rough. It is obvious that the barrel was not polished after it was cast, and there is a layer of rust on it, which makes it look rusty.

.

Because he couldn't observe the gun barrel carefully, and he didn't know if the inside of the gun barrel had been polished. Overall, he felt that this thing could only be described in two words, that is, vulgar! And it was very vulgar!

This gun was placed on a cruder wooden frame. There were no wooden wheels underneath, and there was no mechanism to adjust the barrel pitch. If you wanted to aim, you had to rely on manpower to move the entire gun frame to complete the aiming.

After looking at it for a while, Yu Xiaotian can basically conclude that this thing is actually a cannon, which is a bit flattering. This thing is basically a large iron blunderbuss. From the shape point of view, it looks like a cannon.

Door cast iron bowl mouth gun.

As far as Yu Xiaotian knew, there were a wide variety of firearms in the Ming Dynasty. Although in the late Ming Dynasty, imitations of Western cannons and Hongyi cannons were introduced, many of the artillery were still older artillery, and the bowl-mouth blunderbuss was one of them.

The gun barrel is short, the wall is thin, it is difficult to load, and the firing speed is very slow. The most important thing is that the range and power are not very good. When he traveled to Beijing to visit the military expo in the early years, he saw such a Ming Dynasty gun on display in the military expo.

The shape of the bowl-mouth gun is quite similar to the bowl-mouth gun in front of you.

But this bowl-mouth gun seemed to be more vulgar than the old antique in the military museum. Yu Xiaotian secretly guessed that this kind of gun must not be officially cast. Maybe Liu Shipong had it through an underground workshop.

He asked a private person to cast it for him at a large price. Because the craftsmanship is simple, it is so crude.

Yu Xiaotian had just opened the bowl-mouth gun, and then Captain Liu ordered him to go to the bow of the ship. There was also a pile of things covered with oilcloth there. After Yu Xiaotian ran to open it, he really saw the bow of the ship.

A similar bowl-mouth gun is also placed in its place.

So Yu Xiaozhen was really a little surprised, thinking that no wonder this guy named Liu could run on the sea for so many years without being bankrupted by pirates. It turned out that this guy knew how to save money and actually got two of these guys on the ship.

It is estimated that he relied on these two cannons to scare off many pirates, which enabled his ship to be saved.

Although these two bowl-mouth blunderbuss really cannot catch the eye of Yu Xiaotian, Yu Xiaotian has to admit that these things are indeed quite shocking to people of this era. No matter how much Liu Shipong spends, he estimates that

It is impossible to get Hongyi cannons or "advanced weapons" such as Franchise guns on his ship, but he can get two such bowl-mouth blunderbuss, which is already quite good.

After the two bowl-mouth guns were opened, Ma Biao and the others immediately moved out several gunpowder barrels from the cabin, opened the lids of the gunpowder barrels with a loud click, and also brought out barrels of iron nails, iron sand,

The broken iron particles, even stones, broken ceramic shards, etc., must have been used as cannonballs.

Ma Biao took advantage of Yu Xiaotian standing by the cannon to watch, and took advantage of Yu Xiaotian's unpreparedness. He kicked Yu Xiaotian's leg with his foot and cursed with contempt: "You dumb! Get out of the way, don't bother me."

It’s something! You’ve never seen it, you bumpkin! This thing is powerful! Help move it and aim at the back! ***, if the pirates catch up, I’ll kill them with one shot!”

Yu Xiaotian secretly scolded Ma Biao for being a bumpkin. You can't even think of the things I've seen before even with your fucking toes!

But at this moment, he didn't have time to argue with Ma Biao, so he reached out to help move the gun mount. Only after moving did he realize that this thing, including the barrel and mount, was really heavy. It was estimated that it weighed twice as much.

It weighs more than a hundred kilograms. The wood of the gun mount is probably made of mulberry wood. It is heavy and strong, making it very difficult to move.

Then Ma Biao showed off and led one of his men to start loading ammunition for the bowl-mouth gun. He first poured gunpowder into the muzzle. The gunpowder Ma Biao and the others used was black powder, and it was powdery.

The quality of seed black gunpowder is unstable. When stored for a long time, because the three raw materials, saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, have different specific gravity, the size of the crushed powder particles is also different. After a long time, the raw materials with heavy specific gravity will sink, and the charcoal with light specific gravity will

If it floats on top, the power of the gunpowder will decrease, and it may even become impossible to detonate.

But it was obvious that this group of people did not understand this kind of knowledge. They took out the gunpowder and started loading it directly. Yu Xiaotian was not very clear about the specific ratio of this black gunpowder, so naturally he could not determine the power of this black gunpowder.

What's up!

After Ma Biao and another escort loaded the gunpowder into the mouth of the bowl-mouth gun, they used a pestle rod to push the gunpowder to the bottom of the barrel and tamped it down. Then they inserted a wooden plug with a diameter similar to the diameter of the barrel and also used a pestle rod to pound it.

In fact, the mess of cannonballs was finally filled into the barrel. The filling process was very complicated, cumbersome, and slow.

Yu Xiaotian pretended to be curious and watched Ma Biao and the others loading ammunition for a while. When Ma Biao and the others were busy with loading and pouring primer into the fire door, Yu Xiaotian quietly retreated and escaped.

Far far away.

This bowl-mouth blunderbuss was crudely made. God knows how safe it would be. Moreover, when Ma Biao and the others loaded the gunpowder, they also roughly estimated the size of the gunpowder. No one could say for sure whether the gunpowder was more or less.

If it really fires, Yu Xiaozhen is not sure that this thing will hit the pirates. In his opinion, this thing is very likely to explode, and the possibility of killing the enemy is probably not high enough to kill himself.

The possibility is high! So he secretly made up his mind that if there was to be a fight soon, he would have to hide far away from these two cannons, so as not to really explode the barrels, and even he would take it with him! In that case, he could

It’s so unjust!

After Ma Biao led people to load the bowl-mouth gun at the stern, he did not dare to neglect. He quickly ran to the bow of the ship and began to load the other bowl-mouth gun...

(Today’s second chapter! Friends who are passing by, please collect them first. If they are too thin, you can fatten them up before killing them! At the same time, please leave the precious red tickets in your hands. Han Feng is here to say thank you!

)