Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 168 The Tranquility Before the Storm

A ray of morning sun sprinkled in the yard through the shade of the trees, and the dewdrops on the grass in the yard looked so crystal clear under the sunlight.Several hens walked back and forth cooing, and from time to time one hen picked out a caterpillar in the haystack, which immediately attracted fierce competition from the other hens.

Anda Fifteen sat on the wooden pier at the door, looking out of the door ecstatically.His Tatan wife was busy in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for him.The staple food for breakfast is thick porridge made from extravagant and expensive rice, as well as eggs, grilled sausage, cheese and refreshing and delicious pickles.

Such a breakfast, even in the affluent Dongfang Port, is not something ordinary people can afford.Don't talk about anything else, let's just talk about the rice. Don't look at Ping'an Town as the only rice producing area in the country, but the people who grow rice locally are generally not lucky enough to eat what they grow.

For no other reason than flour and rice are prohibitively expensive in a country where potatoes are still the staple food.The common people were reluctant to eat it by themselves, so they sold it to Dongfang Port one after another. The dignitaries there spent a lot of money, and the money they got back was enough to go to the market to buy a lot of good La Plata beef and cocoa powder that children like. .

But these are not problems for Anda Fifteen.This former Japanese down-and-out samurai who participated in two privateering operations with the navy, and is now the deputy director of the police station of Meihe Township (the location of the coal mine, which was upgraded to a township after the population exceeded [-]), and the deputy commander of the militia company, is not lacking today. Lord of money.

After receiving the privateering bonus issued by the Navy, he did not choose to buy the land like others, but invested in his oil-pressing workshop in Pingan Town based on his friendship with Xu Wenxuan.Then, together with some old brothers from the police station, they hired some Guarani people to plant grapes on the sandy land of Hexin Island in the Meihe River to make wine, and the harvest was quite good.

These two successful investments have opened up a big gap between his assets and others.Today, these two investments bring him no less than [-] yuan in income every year, making him a well-known rich man.

But the abundance in life did not satisfy him.

After a group of local Guarani tribes were suppressed and transferred away, the rest of them have always been honest, so his usual police career has been somewhat idle.Report to the office on time every morning, and then take a few old brothers to make a tour under the awe-inspiring eyes of the local Guarani people, and then there is nothing else.

He was bored with such a life.Only the twice-weekly militia military training can make him feel a little excitement. During the training, as the deputy company commander, he drilled the group of mudlegs to scream.And in the personal skill competition, whether it is unarmed combat, fighting with cold weapons or shooting with flintlock guns, the only one who can make him bow down is his company Changshou Taoist priest.

In recent months, the deteriorating situation with the British has spread to the town of Coal River, which is far from the frontier. Every day, the members of the preaching team preach the corruption, greed and corruption of the British in the small square of the town market. Evil, and their shameless acts of obstructing the normal trade of the East Coast Republic for no reason.Blaming the British for the recent rise in domestic prices and commodity shortages has aroused a lot of people's resentment towards the British, including many immigrants who originally came from England.

The heads of villages, production teams, factories and mines also held meetings every three days to indoctrinate the criminals committed by the shameless British, especially when the Clifford fleet attacked me in the fog off the Chesapeake Bay. The piracy of the "peaceful merchant fleet" has been repeatedly mentioned.All of this made Anda Fifteen smell something unusual, maybe... a war is coming?

Thinking of this, Anda Fifteen couldn't help but feel a burst of excitement, I really am not willing to be lonely.

"Husband, it's time to eat." His Tatan wife brought breakfast in a slightly weird Chinese.Then, the Tatan woman went to the back room, carried the two sleepy children out, and urged them to clean their mouths with tooth powder.

Anda fifteen big mouthfuls ate a hearty breakfast.With refreshing pickles and sticky rice porridge, Anda Shili Gulu ate two large bowls in one go, then sighed contentedly, and then slowly ate the grilled sausage and eggs.

The sound of hooves approached gradually.Anda Fifteen raised his head in surprise, and saw a man in a blue uniform riding a tall Lusitano horse galloping towards him on the path beside the field far away from the door.

"It's the postman!" Anda Fifteen quickly recognized it, and he felt his heartbeat suddenly speed up, and there was a faint sense of excitement in his mind.

The postman skillfully reined in the horse, then quickly dismounted and shouted into the house: "Meihe Yicun, Mr. Anda Fifteen, here is your letter, signed and issued from Dongfang Port Army Department."

"Ministry of the Army!" Anda Fifteen jumped up excitedly, walked to the door and stood at attention, then solemnly accepted a letter from the postman with both hands, as if the letter was his superior officer.

"To Mr. Anda Fifteen, Sergeant Sergeant of the Army Reserve: In view of the vile piracy of unscrupulous companies such as the East India Company of the Kingdom of England, the Merchant Adventurer Company, and the Morris Stone Tucker Company, the national interests have been seriously damaged, and the normal life of the people has been seriously damaged. Seriously disturbed. In order to combat the enemy's war potential, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to take decisive measures to recruit demobilized veterans. After signing the letter, please report to the temporary army agency at the Zhenhaibao wharf playground before March 1637, 3. National interest Inviolable, I hope that you will fight bravely for the welfare of the Republic. In addition, with this certificate, you can ride cars and boats in the country for free." Anda Shiwu opened the envelope, and inside was a call-up letter issued by the Ministry of the Army. time and place.

"Thank you." Anda Fifteen bowed to the postman, and then solemnly stuffed the letter of recruitment into his pocket.

"This is my job." The young Tatan postman smiled, "My brother has also been drafted into the army. His riding skills are very good, better than those bragging Cossacks. He is now An honorable cavalry corporal, he is the pride of our family. Come on, Mr. Anda Fifteen! The village chief said that these Englishmen are more hateful than the Polish masters who oppressed us in their hometown, kill them!"

"Kill them!" Anda Fifteen vigorously swung his clenched right hand, and his thoughts quickly flew to the battlefield full of shouts and explosions.

……

Zhenhai Fort Naval Base.

Wang Qinian, Minister of the Navy, was standing on the pier in the navy's autumn uniform, accompanied by local government officials, shipyard officials and a group of naval officers.

At the mouth of the narrow Duck Lake, two slender warships sailed towards the harbor one after the other.These are two "Yangwu" class fast cruisers that just returned from the third sea trial - "Yangwu" and "Yangwei".The standard displacement of this class of fast cruiser is 525 tons. The entire hull looks more slender than the traditional Galen ship, with an aspect ratio of more than five to one.

In order to reduce the resistance during sailing, a group of people from the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Natural Sciences repeatedly calculated and simulated a large number of ship shapes, and finally determined the shape of the ship.No way, there is a real shortage of talents among the time travelers, and no one knows how to design ships, let alone these 17th-century sailing ships.Over the years, many of them have followed the Flemish shipbuilders from Europe to build ships for several years, and now they have a little idea of ​​the design of sailing ships in this era.

After I had some practical experience and a theoretical basis, a group of "mathematicians" who had spent several years in the shipyard after repeated calculations, simulations, and a large number of models for verification, after numerous revisions, finally settled on " Yangwu" class fast cruiser.This class of fast cruiser not only has a slender hull, but the designers also refer to the curved bow of later ships, abandoning the traditional wide galleon design and adopting a design similar to the flying scissor bow.

It's just that this bow is not a complete flying shear bow.In order to maintain the stability of the ship, the designers did not dare to make large-scale changes to the traditional Galen ship. The bow building still exists, but it is greatly lowered and reduced.And those Flemish shipwrights insisted that although such a structure is not as easy to warp on waves as the hollow bow, the stability is greatly enhanced.

They have been building Galen ships all their lives, and the slender hull with an aspect ratio of five to one has already made them worry about whether the ship can sail stably, let alone the revolutionary design of the hollow bow , they cannot accept such drastic changes.Of course, the designers of the crossing don't know how to design the flying shear ship, so they can only explore slowly.

This three-masted sailboat still uses square sails, and its speed reaches 7 knots under standard sea conditions, and can even reach an ultra-high speed of 9-10 knots when the wind is smooth.Such a speed is really outstanding among the sail Galen ships with a general speed of 3-4 knots, so a group of officials from the Ministry of the Navy still like this kind of ship.

每艘“扬武”级定员为142人（不包括随船陆军），装备有八门24磅加农炮、八门18磅加农炮、十二门12磅长管/短管炮以及八门8磅短管炮（发射葡萄弹、爆炸弹），火力可谓强大。

"This kind of fast cruiser with high speed and strong firepower will definitely surprise those English bumpkins in naval battles." Wang Qinian thought to himself.He looked up at the cloudy sky in the distance, where the seagulls were flying low, and there was no wind on the sea, it was the calm before the storm.

(End of this chapter)