"Ahead is the Zhoushan Islands. I heard that there is a group of extremely powerful pirates here in the Zhoushan Islands. The leader calls himself the Sea King. All ships traveling north and south must pay tribute to this Sea King to stay safe."
On the bow deck of the 'Taishan', Lin Shuhong looked through the telescope at the islands in the sea ahead, and said with a smile to Taiping Hou Du Mingen beside him.
"Neptune?"
When Du Mingen heard this, he raised his eyebrows slightly and said with a smile: "Our Ming Dynasty has always implemented a maritime ban on foreign countries, giving these pirates and Japanese pirates room to live. Some people have several ships, and a few people dare to claim the throne. It's really
I don’t know how high the sky and the earth are.”
"I also learned a lot about the pirates and Japanese pirates around the Ming Dynasty. In Zhejiang, the pirates in the East China Sea are mainly Fang Guozhen, known as the Sea King. He uses the Zhoushan Islands as his base and colludes with Japanese pirates from the Japanese country."
"Wang Zhi and Matsuura Takanobu, who were killed by Li Yuanshan and others last year, are also famous pirates and Japanese pirates in this area. However, they are mainly engaged in business and specialize in routes to Korea and Japan."
"Further south is the pirate group that is entrenched in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Ryukyu. Their leader Sun En is known as the sea spirit. This Sun En is both a pirate and a maritime trader. He goes north to Korea and the Japanese country, and to the south there are
I will also go to Nanyang sometimes."
"When it comes to pirates in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Qiongzhou, the biggest pirate leader is Wang Zhi, known as the King of Jinghai. What Wang Zhi likes to do most is to fight against others and rob other pirate groups. In addition, he is ruthless in doing things. All
If a sea vessel encounters them, if it obeys them, it can still survive. If it disobeys even a little bit, it will be killed immediately."
"So in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Qiongzhou, annihilating Wang Zhi will basically eliminate the pirates in this area."
"If we go to the Nanyang region, the indigenous shipbuilding technology in the Nanyang region is not good, so the biggest pirate in the Nanyang region is still our Ming people. His name is Chen Zuyi, known as the Overlord of the Seven Seas. He dominates all the major sea areas in Nanyang and often travels between our Ming Dynasty and Nanyang.
Do business in the region.”
Lin Shuhong seemed to be very familiar with all this. It was obvious that he had put in a lot of effort for this trip to Southeast Asia and had investigated these matters clearly beforehand.
"Sea King, Sea Spirit, Pure Sea King, Seven Sea Kings... I hope they will all come to trouble us. If we eliminate them all at once, the sea will be much safer. In the future, our merchant ships will not have to worry too much when they go south.
too much."
Du Mingen also smiled after hearing this, not caring about these pirates at all.
"Dang~dang~"
At this moment, a bell sounded from the mast, and at the same time the lookout loudly said to the people below: "There are pirates, there are pirates~"
When Du Mingen and Lin Shuhong heard this, they immediately became energetic and quickly took out their telescopes to look at the ocean ahead.
Only the water and the sky meet. Under the blue sea and blue sky, you can vaguely see a huge fleet lying across the sea. The number is very huge, there are hundreds of ships, among which the leading few
All ten ships are obviously lucky ships.
On each ship, the flags were fluttering, and the unique flags of pirates were hoisted. At the same time, pirates with swords and shouts could also be seen on these ships.
"The flag of Sea King Fang Guozhen~"
"Haijing Sun En~"
"King of Pure Sea, Wang Zhi~"
"Chen Zuyi, Overlord of the Seven Seas~"
"There is also Zong Lin, the great friend of the Japanese pirate group from the Japanese country~"
Lin Shuhong looked at the groups of pirate ships on the sea, and he quickly recognized them from the flags and characters on these pirate ships.
"They're all here, they're all here, all the pirates and Japanese pirates in Southeast Asia are here, it's incredible~"
Lin Shuhong said in disbelief, and the whole person was dumbfounded.
Isn't the invisible power behind this too powerful? It can actually gather all these famous pirates and Japanese pirates. This power is so powerful that it's a bit scary.
"It's best if they all come, so we can save the time and search for each other on the sea~"
Du Mingen put down the telescope and said with a sneer.
Then he immediately ordered without any further hesitation: "Prepare for battle~Operation Plan A~"
As Du Mingen's order was issued, a red flag was immediately hoisted on the 'Taishan', and then on the mast, the flag carriers began to wave the flag in their hands over and over again to convey Du Mingen's order to other ships.
"Dang~dang~"
On a ship, the urgent bell began to ring continuously, and the news of the pirates and Japanese pirates' attack was conveyed to every ship at the first time.
"It's really here~"
On the 'Huishanghao', Zhu Benduan was a little dumbfounded. He didn't expect to encounter pirates and Japanese pirates. Then he said anxiously: "What should we do?"
"what to do?"
"Just wait and watch the show. Didn't you see that our ships are changing teams?"
Prime Minister Feng seemed very calm, as if he was ready to watch the fun.
On the sea surface, a ship quickly began to deform. The Tianjin Ocean Trading Company's ship was on the outside, and the ships of other trading houses were in the middle. The entire formation turned into a triangular formation, with the ships on both sides facing each other.
It is a large ship owned by Tianjin Ocean Trading Company.
Although everyone on board each ship was panicked and scared, it was because the captains all graduated from Tianjin Maritime College. At Tianjin Maritime College, semaphore and following orders are the most basic courses.
So when Du Mingen gave the order, regardless of whether it was a ship from the Tianjin Maritime Academy or not, the formation changes were quickly completed according to the semaphore. This is the benefit of unified teaching.
If it were not for the existence of Tianjin Maritime University, these hundreds of ships would most likely become very chaotic due to the arrival of pirates and Japanese pirates. At that time, they would be like a piece of loose sand, and then be defeated by pirates and Japanese pirates one by one.
Now it's different. Under the command of Du Mingen, all the ships strictly followed the requirements and formed a huge formation. They faced the pirates and Japanese pirates like thousands of troops on the sea.
Rushed over.
"Let you try the newly made cannons from our Miyun Iron Factory~"
Du Mingen looked at the fleet behind him that had completed the change of formation, and nodded with a smile on his face. This is the good thing about graduates of Tianjin Maritime University. When everyone is on the sea, as long as there is someone to command, everyone can unite and act according to the command.
At this time, on the dozens of large ships of Tianjin Ocean Trading Company, the doors of the rows of cannon holes had been stretched out. The cannons this time were different from all the previous cannons.
Liu Jin has tens of thousands of skilled craftsmen under his command. These skilled craftsmen do nothing but specialize in various machines, technologies, etc. Among them are people who specialize in guns.
The flintlock musket was developed by these people under the prompts of Liu Jin. Liu Jin also attached great importance to artillery. He also expressed the artillery technology concepts of later generations and developed a new type of cannon.
The new cannon was named 'Miyun Cannon.'
The biggest difference between Miyun cannon and traditional artillery is that it adopts a design similar to that of later artillery shells.
Artillery has always been loaded by first loading gunpowder, then compacting the gunpowder, then loading the shell, and finally using the huge impact force generated by the burning gunpowder to push the shell out.
In this way, the loading of artillery is very troublesome, and the artillery of later generations all uses breech-loading shells to load, so the speed is naturally very fast.
The Miyun Cannon is also a rear-loading artillery. The ammunition and projectiles are also made into shells. You only need to load the shells and then light the fuse.
The emergence of breech-bored artillery originally did not appear until the 18th century. The appearance of breech-loading artillery was due to the emergence of mercury mercury, which greatly accelerated the loading speed of artillery.
Now Liu Jin has not yet developed mercury fulminate, so naturally there is no way to make a mature artillery like that of later generations, but it is almost the same to use a fuse to ignite it.
The most critical thing is the casting technology of artillery. Miyun Iron Factory not only produces steel, but also makes armor weapons, firecrackers and artillery. There are specialized people to study these things, plus Liu Jin exchanged them from Gold Finger.
Technology has produced such excessive products.
Although it is an excessive product, it is definitely an epoch-making technology for the artillery technology of this era.
Traditional artillery is too troublesome to load, and the rate of fire is actually very slow. It often takes several minutes to shell once, but the Miyun Iron Factory is completely different, because the shells have been manufactured, and the rate of fire has increased linearly.
"The distance is 18 miles, the wind speed is level 4~"
On each large ship, the crew members who graduated from Tianjin Maritime University held pens and papers in their hands, writing and drawing on them, and began to calculate the distance, speed, wind direction, etc. between the two sides.
These are extremely important design parameters. Once the cannon is fired, they can continuously adjust the angle and direction of the bombardment based on these data, and then implement precise shooting.
On the other side of the sea, many pirate leaders were also looking at the vast fleet in front of them. When they saw that the fleet had completed the change in formation in a short period of time, it turned into a triangular formation and headed towards them.
When Bian rushes over.
Neptune King Fang Guozhen couldn't help but take a breath.
"I have long heard that the sailing skills of these northerners are very good. Today I saw that they are truly worthy of their reputation. They were able to complete the transformation of hundreds of ships in such a short period of time. It is really amazing!"
He is a veteran at sea. If this expert takes action, he can tell at a glance whether there is anything wrong. He has to admire just a change of formation. At the same time, he frowns, and there is a vague premonition of something unknown.