Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 28 Boat Song

   The sun is setting, and the Skua has set sail again.

  The sailors who escaped the dead sang happily, scrubbing the deck and tending the ropes, as if the **** landing battle a few hours earlier was just an illusion.

   But the revolving gun just installed on the top floor of the **** has not been removed.

Next to the revolving gun, Winters, Bud and Andre were sitting on the deck, leaning against the fence in a daze.

   The excitement brought by participating in the battle for the first time has passed, and the mind that was previously swept away by the blood has returned to its senses.

   Recalling the battle just now, in addition to some pride, the three warrant officers had only fear and confusion in their hearts, as well as the nausea caused by recalling the tragic scene of hand-to-hand combat with tattered skin and flowing internal organs.

   "Hey, I always think it's not a good thing to do." Bud sighed, he didn't directly name what it was, but Winters and Andre wouldn't misunderstand.

   The pirates who finally surrendered still failed to save their lives. Major General Layton fulfilled his promise and did not kill.

   So he arranged for the cadet warrant officers to do the work for him, and he deliberately selected those warrant officers who had no blood on their knives to be the executioners, that is, the cadets who could not actually participate in hand-to-hand combat during the battle.

   In the narrow environment of the ship, the battle did not turn into a melee, so only the warrant officers at the front were really fighting against the pirates, and most of the rest could only cheer in the back.

"Even if the pirates can come ashore alive, they will eventually be hanged. In fact, the outcome is not very different." Winters also felt that killing prisoners was not good, but he could not deny that this was indeed a simple and effective solution: "I I feel that on the one hand, the major general is a bit bloodthirsty, and on the other hand, this group of pirates is really difficult to deal with. This small boat, the Skua, cannot hold so many people. Stay on the Good Luck and they will find an opportunity to seize the ship. How to do?

   "If you kill it, you will kill it. What if you don't kill it?" Andre yawned and stretched his waist again. Now he seems very tired.

   Compared to the time when Major General Layton directly decided to fight the pirates before the war, the time spent discussing how to deal with the prisoners and finishing the war was much longer after the war.

The interrogation of the pirates after the war unearthed an unexpected piece of information: the Good Luck did not catch the Skua by mistake, but now the pirates in the entire Inner Sea are looking for a three-masted light Veneta. warship

  Because the pirates got the news: the ship was loaded with gold and silver that the "Tanelian Islands Captains and Plantation Owners Association" used to bribe the ruling council of the Ocean Blue Republic.

   The Tanilla Islands Captains and Planters Federation operates a rowdy guild-style democracy with a loose structure and weak power. But it is undeniable that the captains and plantation owners are the actual owners of the Tanilla Islands.

   Above the inland sea, pirates are rampant. The relationship between Taniria and the Ocean Blue Republic has always been extremely tense as a pirate selling land and supply point all the year round.

  The pirates don’t know why the Federation wants to bribe the Hailan Governing Council, but they are sure that at this moment there is a three-masted clipper loaded with gold and silver coins heading for Hailan City.

   As for the reasons for the Federation to bribe the Hailan Governing Committee, the pirates have various and contradictory statements, and there is no accurate statement at all, but they firmly believe that there must be such a treasure ship.

   Because it is difficult to deduce the result from the reason, but to find the reason from the result...Is it not easy to find a reason that can convince yourself?

   Even before being executed, the pirates aboard the Good Luck still believed that the Skua was the treasure ship, and the warrant officers were the soldiers who escorted it.

   Convoy? Or **** bribes? Winters, Bud, and Andre had never heard that they had to **** a load of gold and silver on the way home.

   Could this be a secret mission? Only Major General Layton and Major Moritz knew what was going on?

   Winters thought so at first. But as soon as he saw the expressions of the major general and the major, Winters knew that they were also confused.

   But the pirates were so eloquent that they really didn't look like they were lying, making the major generals, majors and warrant officers suspicious.

   So the pressure came to the fat captain. The fat captain was sweating profusely, and swore that he would never know anything about the treasure ship, and that there would never be any bribes from the Federation on the Skua.

   Words of speech have no basis, and oaths cannot dispel any doubts. Anyway, the Skua has only a few places in it, and the pirates will understand whether it is true or false after checking.

   So the major general directly ordered the cargo to be checked into the cabin. The warrant officers searched the Skua carefully, opened every box and bag of cargo in the cabin, and knocked on every wooden board to ensure that there were no hidden compartments.

   In the end, it was proved that what the fat captain said was true, that the cargo in the ship was only sugar and tobacco.

  The situation facing the Skua is now clear: the pirates firmly believe that there is a treasure ship sailing from Taniria to the sea blue city, and all the pirates in the inner sea are already red-eyed and want to intercept this ship;

   There may really be such a ship, but it is definitely not the Skua, there is not a single gold coin without an owner on the Skua, and the ship is only loaded with ordinary sugar and tobacco;

   But unfortunately, the appearance of the Skua is very similar to the treasure ship that the pirates think, or the treasure ship that the pirates think is a light three-masted ship like the Skua;

  The Skua can't prove to the pirates that it's not a treasure ship, so it can't stop for the pirates to check, right?

  This is the case. The Skua in the Inland Sea is a high-risk ship. Usually, a flag can be used to keep the pirates safe, but now a flag is absolutely impossible to scare off pirates.

  Because the two senior army officers didn't seem to think that they could immediately dock and let the officers disembark. The fat captain also hoped that the army officers could stay on board to protect the Skua, and deliberately did not propose this plan.

   Therefore, Major Admiral Layton, Major Moritz, and Captain Fat agreed that the Skua must not sail directly to Ocean Blue now. It needs to leave the main route as soon as possible, and take a detour to return to Ocean Blue by taking a detour to the sea where the ship is inaccessible.

   In addition, we can only quickly pray for a strong wind at sea.

  Perhaps the devout prayers of the sailors played a role, and as dusk approached, the originally weak sea breeze began to gradually strengthen again.

  The Skua ate enough wind to break through the waves again at a speed of eight knots.

"I think the major general's idea is right. In the current situation, pirates are like dogs that smell the smell. Even if we are iron-clad, we can't bear to have two more battles. Returning to Hailan City as quickly as possible is the first step. One important thing." Andrei said casually. He was simply lying on the deck now, as if he wanted to take a nap.

   "Those oarsmen are innocent, can't they kill them indiscriminately?" Bud obviously disagreed with Major General Layton's solution.

No one disagreed with the    order to change course, and what really sparked debate was how the Good Luck was handled.

   Major General Layton's solution was to slaughter all the pirates who were still alive, push the pirate's body into the sea, scuttle the pirate ship directly, and the Skua returned to Ocean Blue City as quickly as possible.

The problem with    is that there is no distinction between coerced paddlers and pirates in Major General Layton's eyes. As long as the living people on the pirate ship are all identified as pirates, they all have to die.

   But for the first time Major Moritz raised objections to the big leaders. In his view, oarsmen were in a coercive position, essentially innocent sailors caught as slaves on pirate ships. To kill all these sailors who were not pirates would be too sensational and would damage the reputation of the Army.

   "Huh." Andre sneered, obviously disapproving of the innocent's statement: "Which innocent? Isn't it because they helped row the Skua to be caught up? Besides, don't you also suffer from the loss of those rowers?"

  Bard was at a loss for words. Bard didn't know what "Stockholm Syndrome" was. Three oarsmen had indeed attacked him, and he could think of no plausible reason to defend those who had been instigated by the pirates against him.

Winters listened to the conversation between the two, and remembered the smell of rotting in the cabin, the scrawny body and desperate eyes of the oarsmen, and couldn't help sighing: "I don't think those oarsmen really wanted to help pirate."

   "Then what do they want to do?" Andre was very disapproving of this sympathetic attitude towards the enemy.

   "They just want to die happily."

This answer left Andre speechless for a while, he scratched his head, opened his lips several times but made no sound, and finally regained his indifferent attitude: "Don't think so much, they dare to fight with us, they are dead. We deserve it. We are just a few low-level officers—not even officers, just apprentice officers. No power, hehe, but no responsibility. We can do whatever the top tells us to do. Hold it high."

   Winters thought that maybe it was just to have this mentality to sleep well every night, he smiled wryly: "Yeah, just use yourself as a tool."

   Major General Layton's solution was only half executed in the end. The pirates who surrendered were all slaughtered, the pirates who did not surrender were all mended with knives, and the corpses were all pushed into the sea to feed the fish and shrimp. Only half the life of the pirate captain was left, because the major general wanted to bring him back to Hailan for further interrogation.

  The rower was not executed as a pirate, a result that Major Moritz fought for.

  The Good Luck was not scuttled either, which was the result of the fat captain's best efforts.

   We still don't know the name of the fat captain on the Skua, but he is no longer on the Skua. The current acting captain of the Skua is the original first mate, and the fat captain has taken over Good Luck Gold's class and led a few sailors to the Good Luck to be captains.

   As the fat captain said, the most valuable thing in the sea—at least in the inner seas is not the cargo, but the ship.

   Major General Layton was going to scuttle the Fortune, and Major Moritz didn't really care. Both of them are army officers, they don't know the market and they don't care about such a broken ship.

   But when he heard that Rear Admiral Layton was going to scuttle the Good Luck, the fat captain firmly disagreed, and for the first time showed an amazing momentum, slapped the table in front of Rear Admiral Layton and glared.

   The fat captain held his fingers again and made a calculation for the two army landlubbers:

   First of all, although the Good Luck is a few years old, it is also a good ship with a strong hull, complete functions, and durability.

  Secondly, although the Good Luck is an old-fashioned galley, most of the ships in the inland sea are of this type. Although it was unfortunate from a thief, it was a good merchant ship when it was brought back to the port for repairs.

   All in all, Good Luck can sell for a lot of money! It's a waste of time to scuttle. This ship is now a serious trophy, and the ownership belongs to the army officers. Isn't it good for everyone to share the money?

  Here, the fat captain cunningly did not mention the specific price that could be sold, and only used imaginary attributives such as "a lot" to describe.

   Fat Captain also persuaded Major Admiral Layton and Major Moritz from another angle:

   There are more than 30 oarsmen on board the Good Luck. If the Good Luck is scuttled, what will happen to these oarsmen? Where to put it?

   There are about fifty people on the Skua now, and it's overwhelmed. There's really no room for more than thirty paddlers.

"If you want to scuttle the Luck, you have to kill the oarsmen; if you don't kill the oars, you can't scuttle the Luck." Through this chain of logic, the fat captain succeeded in killing Major Moritz. Also strapped to his chariot.

  The boat cannot be chiseled. To chisel the boat, the fat captain must be chiseled first.

   But how to bring the Good Luck back to port has become a new problem.

  The pirates are dead, and there is no crew to steer the Good Luck.

   How many pirates are left as crew members? Major General Layton refused to do it, and neither did the fat captain.

   Let the oarsmen be crewed? The fat captain refused to agree. These oarsmen are familiar with the pirate ships. If they have malicious intentions and rob the ship and sell it themselves, wouldn’t the people on the Skua be empty?

   This is the crisis of confidence caused by the special living environment at sea. Above the sea, there is no communication, no law, and no supervision. There is only such a ship between heaven and earth, and outsiders have no way of knowing what happened on the ship, let alone.

  The fat captain didn't even dare to ask his first mate to take some sailors to the Good Luck to get the ship back to port. Because people are separated from each other, who knows if this seemingly simple and honest chief mate has any bad thoughts in his heart? If the first officer had evil thoughts, there would be another pirate ship named "Doom" in the inner sea tomorrow.

   In the end, Captain Fatty had an epiphany and came up with a genius solution:

   He himself took half of the sailors on the Skua to the Good Luck, so that he could barely manage the ship;

  The oarsmen on the Good Luck did not recover their freedom, and were temporarily tied in the cabin as before. To prevent them from taking the boat with evil intentions, it also requires them to continue to paddle. When you get to the port, get the sheriff, and then let the oarsmen disembark on their own;

   The first mate on the Skua takes the position of the captain temporarily, and selects a few sailors whose bodies have not been spoiled from the oars on the Good Luck to supplement the crew on the Skua, so that the Skua can also function normally. There are more than thirty army officers on the Skua, and anyone who dares to make trouble can be easily suppressed.

   In the eyes of Major General Layton and Major Moritz, this is a very good solution. The only disadvantage is that there are too few crew on the Good Luck. If Captain Fatty encounters pirates on his way back to port, he may have to... give it for nothing.

   But the fat captain, who is obsessed with money, has already decided to take this risk. Besides, considering the current attraction of the Skua to pirates in the inner sea, it is hard to say which ship is more dangerous.

   The fat captain took half the sailors of the Skua and a letter explaining the origin of the Good Luck, signed by Major Admiral Layton and Major Moritz and sealed with a lacquer seal, and excitedly got on the Good Luck, and the two ships parted ways.

   Now the boat song that Winters, Bud and Andre hear is the chorus of the new and old sailors.

  Andrei didn't speak for a long time, apparently already sleeping.

Bud still seemed to be thinking about a lot of things. He frowned and said to Winters: "I always feel a little ... strange, everything is very evil. It is said that there are several fires in Guitucheng every year, but This time, it happened that the arsenal was on fire, and it burned so big; every year, people go overseas, but this year, there is not a single overseas dispatch; and this so-called treasure ship, treasure ship? Do you believe it? This world must be happening What changes we don't know about."

"Hey, why do you think so much? I'm still so screwed that I can't use magic." Winters understood Bud's anxiety, but he thought the boat would go straight to the bridge: "Even if something big is going on, We can only be carried away by the waves. Andre is right, we are three little warrant officers, let's rest assured to be tools, the sky is falling, and the high rank is on."

   Chief Mate of the Skua—oh, no, now the captain—climbed up the poop. He was here to deliver wine to three warrant officers, and he was obviously excited to be acting captain even temporarily.

"Drink it, your Excellency officers, drink it. I saw that you jumped in the gang today. You are all first-class warriors. Even the sailors who seek a living at sea can't find a few heroes like you. These I'll treat you to a drink."

   Winters took the bottle with a smile, and asked casually, "What song did the sailors sing? It's nice, but the accent is so heavy that I can't understand it."

  The acting captain smiled embarrassedly: "Some people call these songs boat songs, but they are actually some unpopular sailor's tunes, and most of them are about women and wine."

   "I think these songs are natural and simple. What's wrong with women and wine? Isn't the song supposed to express emotions? Unfortunately, I can't understand what they are singing..."

   "Then I'll sing it to you with a Veneta accent?"

   "That's great!"

   The first mate cleared his throat and sang along with the sailors. His voice was rough and wild, but the lyrics contained inseparable sadness:

   "Farewell now! Girl of the Islands.

  Farewell now! Beauty of the Islands.

  Because we are heading towards the old Veneta.

   We will never see someone as beautiful as you again.

   We roared and laughed like real Veneta sailors.

   We roared and laughed, accompanied by the salty waves.

   Until we measure the gulf of Cenas,

   From the archipelago to the sea blue, there are two hundred leagues.

  …

  Fill the glass and drink it all in one go.

   Fill the glass and drink it.

  We drown melancholy with alcohol.

  May every lover be healthy, let us drink this cup.

  …”

   In the singing of the sailors, Winters is getting closer and closer to Hailan, and he is about to get his military rank and officially become a trainee officer.

   He's not a complete novice, but that's just the beginning of education. There are many, many things that will need him to learn in practice.

   The prototype of the boat song in this article is SpanishLadies, which is not on the shelves anyway. I wrote a little bit of lyrics and it doesn’t count. Whether in the East or the West, the boat song has a long history. The tracker's horn can also be regarded as a kind of boat song. The charm of this song lies in the true feelings of the working people. The so-called true feelings are people's real desires, not necessarily noble. The songs of the Xialiba people may not be as good as the spring and white snow, and the true feelings of the working people are often more contagious. The original work of "Blood Romance" describes the sour songs in northern Shaanxi. Many songs are about men and women. In fact, it is because the poor people in northern Shaanxi in the old society were in sexual repression all the year round, and they came to relieve their emotions. However, this kind of sour song may not have much appeal in today's social environment of "I'm not afraid that you have nothing to rush, I'm just afraid that you will rush to death", which shows that the song also has to follow the times.

   (end of this chapter)