Daming Haikou

With the joint efforts of the helmsman and the sailors, the ship began to slowly turn its course on the turbulent sea, and adjusted the bow position to the direction they came from. When turning, the ship was affected by the wind due to the sail. There was a large inclination, and some unfixed things on the deck slid to the port side on the deck. The waves slapped on the side of the ship, and the waves splashed, splashing the people lying on the side of the ship all wet.

Another wave hit, and the hull shook violently. It was first thrown up by the waves, and then quickly fell to the bottom of the waves. A few unsuspecting people fell on the spot and slid to the port side screaming. The starboard side jumped onto the deck of the ship, and Yu Xiaotian's body was also splashed with seawater, which made him feel refreshed, and quickly stretched out his hand to grab a sail rope to stabilize his figure, so he didn't fall on the spot. fall.

Fortunately, this situation lasted not long, and gradually the ship completed its turn, the tilted hull began to regain its balance, the fully raised sails began to absorb the wind, and the speed of the ship obviously began to increase, following the direction of the wind and the direction of the waves, heading towards Go in the direction they came from.

The roll of the ship began to change into a pitch, but the magnitude of the shake began to decrease significantly, allowing the people on board to resume normal walking, and the sails were also adjusted to be able to absorb the wind force with the cooperation of the braiders. angle to provide maximum power to the boat.

It was only then that Yu Xiaotian realized that the operation of sailing ships in this era is actually not simple. Not only does the helmsman need to control the rudder well, but also the sailors on the ship need to effectively adjust the sails and cooperate with the helmsman to complete the steering smoothly. If they had made an urgent U-turn just now, the wind and waves on the sea were relatively strong, and the ship might capsize if they were not careful.

Fortunately, the helmsman and the linger on this boat are relatively proficient, and they can cooperate well, so that the boat did not lose control and was overturned by the waves. accident.

But at this time, the upper bucket on the mast was still firmly attached to the mast, and continued to monitor the two unknown ships in the distance. The mast was swaying greatly in the wind and waves, which made people I have to admire the courage of the battle. People who are a little bit timid may not dare to climb 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 to head north, the situation began to become clearer. The two unidentified ships were hanging far away from the ship Yu Xiaotian was on, and kept following As they turned around and adjusted their sailing direction, they gradually began to approach them.

This fully demonstrates that their target is this ship, and when they encounter such a situation at sea, they can basically determine the identity of the other party. Generally speaking, according to what Liu Lao Liu told Yu Xiaotian when he was free. Said that even if they encounter a military ship or an 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, which means that there is more than [-]% possibility that the other party is two pirate ships.

Only desperate people like pirates would choose to brave such storms, search for prey at sea, and launch pursuit of the prey.

So now everyone on the boat understands what happened to them, and no one is in the mood to laugh and chat at the moment, and everyone's face is tense. They all looked very nervous.

At this time, the two boats turned to the rear of this boat. From a distance, they also began to chase after them at full speed with full sail. It was only because Shangdou discovered them in time and judged their identities. The distance between them is still relatively far, basically a distance of several miles or so, which does not constitute any threat.

However, except for Yu Xiaotian, the people on board knew very well that the pirate ship was lightly loaded, and generally the sails of pirate ships would be larger. However, although the ship they were on was strong, it was fully loaded and had a deep draft, so the speed would naturally be slower.

If the pirate ships kept chasing them when it was not dark, it would be difficult for them to escape the pursuit of the pirate ships. Now all their hope was to try to drag them until dark and use the cover of night to escape the pursuit of the pirate ships.

But today they were a bit unlucky. They thought that when they came to Dongshan Island, it was in the morning, and there was still a long time before it got dark. The pirates had enough time to chase them, and it was difficult for them to drag it until it got dark. .

So just now the crowds on the boat scolded God for the wind, which made the sea rougher, but now they all wished that the wind and waves would be 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 board had already started to make preparations to resist pirates. When they sailed to Dongshan Island just now, in fact, Shipowner Liu had asked Ma Biao and the others to make some preparations in advance to guard against pirates. The hidden weapons were moved out of the cabin and placed on the deck of the ship for them to use at any time.

Now all they had to do was distribute the weapons, and start loading the muskets and muskets, ready to fire at any time.

Ma Biao and the other three guards on the ship may be the most nervous people on the ship, because their job on the ship is to defend against pirates and protect the safety of the ship. If they don't encounter pirates, they are the only ones on the ship who are free and eat well. They satiated watching other people's commotion, and laughed at others from time to time, but now they couldn't laugh anymore, and ran back and forth on the boat nervously, putting all kinds of weapons within easy reach on the side of the boat, and The bow was taken out of the cloth cover, the bow was hung on the bow with the legs, and the gunpowder was taken out to reload the three-eyed blunderbuss and arquebus.

Because Yu Xiaotian was tall and strong, he couldn't run to help them, and according to the order of the ship owner and Ma Biao, he propped up the broken fish on a pole and hung them on the side of the ship.

It was only now that Yu Xiaotian realized that the broken fish on the boat were not just used to hide people's eyes and ears. Along the way, Yu Xiaotian was still full of complaints. The fish came up to improve the food for the people on the boat. It turned out that they kept the fish to prevent pirates.

Once these fishing rods are propped up, they form a wall on the ship's side. This thing is definitely not good for blocking arrows, but it can effectively prevent pirates from jumping directly after they lean on the gang. Otherwise, even if the pirates jump over, they will be hanged Fishing, in that case, it's almost like courting death, if you don't fall into the sea, you will be stabbed to death by the people on the boat.

When the fish had just been hung up, Yu Xiaotian was called by Liu Chuandong again, and ran to a pile of things covered with tarpaulins at the stern. Liu Chuandong shouted at Xiaotian nervously: "Dumb! Uncover it quickly." !"

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

It turned out that there was a black cannon under the oilcloth!Before Yu Xiaotian uncovered the tarpaulin, he never thought that there would be such a big killer on their boat.

But after watching it carefully, Yu Xiaotian couldn't help being a little disappointed again!

Because the barrel of this so-called cannon is no more than 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. Trumpet-shaped, the wall of the gun barrel is also thinner. The gun body is cast with pig iron. .

Because he couldn't observe the barrel carefully, and he didn't know whether the inside of the barrel had been polished. On the whole, he felt that this thing can only be described in two words, that is, vulgar!And very vulgar!

The cannon was placed on a rougher wooden frame, with no wooden wheels underneath, and no mechanism for adjusting the pitch of the barrel. If aiming was to be done, the entire gun frame was moved by manpower to complete the aiming.

After looking around for a while, Yu Xiaotian can basically conclude that this thing is actually a cannon, which is a bit of an exaggeration. This thing is basically a large iron blunderbuss. From the shape, it looks like a Gate cast iron bowl muzzle gun.

As far as Yu Xiaotian knows, there were all kinds of firearms in the Ming Dynasty. Although the Fran cannons and Hongyi cannons from Western countries were imported and imitated in the late Ming Dynasty, many of the artillery were still older artillery, and the bowl-mouth gun was one of them. The gun barrel is short, the gun wall is thin, it is not easy to load, and the firing speed is very slow. The most important thing is that the range and power are not good. When he visited the military museum in Beijing in the early years, he saw such a Ming Dynasty on display in the military museum. The bowl-mouth gun is quite similar in shape to the bowl-mouth gun in front of you.

But this bowl-mouthed gun seems to be a bit cruder than the old antique in the military museum. Yu Xiaotian secretly guessed that this kind of gun must not be officially cast. He asked a private person to cast it for him at a high price, because the craftsmanship is simple, so it is so crude.

Just as Yu Xiaotian opened the door, Shipowner Liu ordered him to go to the bow, where there was also a pile of things covered with oilcloth. After Yu Xiaotian ran to open it, he really saw the bow of the boat. There is also a bowl and mouth gun in the same position.

So Yu Xiaotian was really a little surprised, and thought, no wonder this guy surnamed Liu has been running on the sea for so many years, and he has not been ruined by pirates. It turns out that this guy knows how to spend money, and he actually got two guys like this on the ship. It is estimated that he used these two cannons to scare off many pirates, which allowed his ship to be preserved.

Although these two bowl-mouth guns are really out of Yu Xiaotian's eyes, Yu Xiaotian has to admit that this thing is indeed quite deterrent to people in this era. It is impossible to get Hongyi cannons or "advanced weapons" such as Franji on his ship. It is quite good to get two such bowl-mouth guns.

Immediately after the two doors were uncovered, Ma Biao and the others took out several gunpowder barrels from the cabin, opened the lids of the gunpowder barrels with a chatter, and brought out buckets of iron nails, iron sand, Broken iron particles, even stones, broken porcelain pieces and other things mixed in, must have been used as guns.

Ma Biao took advantage of Yu Xiaotian's time standing by the cannon to watch, and took advantage of Yu Xiaotian's unpreparedness, kicked Yu Xiaotian's leg, and scolded with contempt: "Mute! Go away, don't hinder me It’s something! Haven’t seen it before, you bumpkin! This thing is powerful! Help me move it and aim at the back! Fuck, if the pirates catch up, I’ll see if I can shoot them to death!”

Yu Xiaotian secretly scolded Ma Biao for being a country bumpkin. You can't even think of anything I've seen, even if you put all your fucking toes on it!

But right now he didn't have time to argue with Ma Biao, so he reached out to help move the gun mount of the blunderbuss. Only after he moved did he realize that the weight of this thing including the gun barrel and the gun mount was really heavy, estimated to be 200 It weighs a lot of catties, and the wood of the gun mount is presumably made of mulberry wood. It is heavy and strong, and it is very difficult to move it.

Then Ma Biao showed off with one of his subordinates and began to load the gunpowder. He first poured gunpowder into the muzzle. The gunpowder used by Ma Biao was black powder, and it was in powder form. The quality of this kind of black gunpowder is unstable. When it is stored for a long time, because the three raw materials, saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, have different specific gravity, the particle size of the crushed powder is also different. After a long time, the raw material with high specific gravity will sink, while the charcoal with light specific gravity Floating on it will cause the power of the gunpowder to drop, and it may even fail to detonate.

But obviously, this group of people did not understand this kind of knowledge, they took out the gunpowder and started to refill it directly. Yu Xiaotian was not very clear about the specific ratio of this black gunpowder, so naturally he was unable to determine the power of this black gunpowder. What's up!

After Ma Biao and another guard put gunpowder into the muzzle of the bowl-mouth gun, they pushed the gunpowder to the bottom of the barrel with a pestle and tamped it tightly, then stuffed a cork with the same diameter as the barrel, and tamped it with a pestle. In fact, the messy guns were filled into the gun bore at the end. The loading process was very complicated and slow.

Yu Xiaotian pretended to be curious, and watched Ma Biao and the others loading the ammunition for a while. After Ma Biao and the others had finished loading and poured the primer into the fire door, Yu Xiaotian quickly backed away and escaped. far away.

This bowl of gunpowder was crudely made, God knows how safe it would be, and when Ma Biao and the others reloaded the gunpowder, they did so roughly, and no one could say clearly whether they charged more or less.

Once the cannon is fired, Yu Xiaotian is really not sure. This thing will hit the pirates. In his opinion, the possibility of this thing blowing up is very high, and the possibility of killing the enemy has probably not killed himself. Human possibility is great!So he secretly made up his mind, if the fire starts in a while, he should stay away from the two cannons anyway, don't really explode the guns, even he will be involved!In that case, he would be wronged!

And Ma Biao didn't dare to neglect after leading the people to load the bowl-mouth gun at the stern, and quickly ran to the bow again, and began to load the other bowl-mouth gun...

(Chapter 2 today! Friends who pass by, please store them up first. If you are too thin, you can fatten up and kill them later! At the same time, please leave your precious red ticket in your hand. Hanfeng is here to say thank you!)