Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 32 Set sail
"Raise - anchor -"

When the auspicious time came, with a loud command, eight naked men threw their arms and exerted their strength. The vertical winch, which was more than ten feet high, began to rotate slowly. The iron chain as thick as a bowl rubbed against the anchor frame, making a tooth-piercing sound. A sour sound.

"Take it hard, hit it hard! The devil is calling you poor? Ouch, ouch, ouch! With a strong heart and a strong heart, you will go through this world. If you endure well, you will get rich early, and you will say good things when you grow old! Blood and sweat, poverty and hunger! Ouch, ouch, ouch! Come on, the devil is telling you to be poor..."

Following the beat of the trumpet, the eight big men exerted their strength and panted together.Working in teams of two, they pushed the four locking rods inserted into the holes, and the wooden locks kept turning. The anchor, which weighed more than a kilogram, gradually emerged from the water.

When the two four-claw iron anchors were raised one after another, the person shouting the command began to shout again: "Set the boat!"

Hearing the shouts, the oarsmen on the towing boat began to row, and on the big boat, they punted and steered.With the concerted efforts of everyone, a three-masted ship left the berth with difficulty and moved forward slowly in the inner harbor of Macau.

It is now mid-April, and the northeast monsoon that has been blowing for half a year has stopped. Now it is the southwest monsoon's turn to rule the sea.After sailing out of the inner harbor of Macau, the big ship began to turn from south to east, from near windward sailing to the most comfortable side and tail wind sailing, and the ship began to raise the sail.

The three masts are all hard sails of bamboo strips with stays. The process of raising the sail is similar to that of raising the flag in later generations. Of course, the hard sail of this big ship is very heavy. The sail on the main mast weighs eight or nine tons, except for the pulley. A winch is also needed to lift it up.Still, it's much more convenient than a Western-style soft sail, as it doesn't require the sailor to climb the mast.

"Uncle, what do you think of this boat?" Lin Hai stood on the open deck facing the wind and asked the stone wall next to him with high spirits.

"I've seen Fangui's duck butt before. It's very good, but it's just too expensive." Shibi said, glancing at Miguel not far away, and whispered, "Hexiang, this ghost guy Are you trustworthy? I'm afraid you don't have the same heart as us."

"No matter how hard he is, he is still a grasshopper on a rope when he gets on the boat. If he encounters red hair..." Lin Hai remembered the many taboos about sailing and quickly changed his explanation, "When something happens, he has no choice but to do nothing. "

Shi Bi nodded and said, "That's true. My brother doesn't know how to handle cannons. Otherwise, if you want to lure these ghosts on board, you won't be able to pass my test."

Lin Hai knew that when Shibi first debuted three years ago, he fought with Xie Tianyou under the command of Li Zhongguo. At that time, he fought with the Portuguese in the Dianbai Overseas and suffered heavy losses, so he felt a little unhappy with these big noses.

But he didn't mind that.Currently, most of the people on this ship are Shibi's old men. If some external forces are not introduced, he will never be able to gain a dominant position.

This trip to Dongfan was an opportunity. Because of the possibility of encountering the Dutch or Zheng Zhilong, Lin Hai advocated selling the last ship.Through Miguel's introduction, he bought this old ironwood lock ship from a Portuguese maritime merchant and named it Bowang.

Different from ordinary old lock ships, the rudder of the Bowang is Western-style. This is one of the main reasons why Lin Hai likes this ship. Another reason is that the ship has relatively many gun windows on the side. , which is relatively rare in merchant ships.

The old lock ship has a Western-style hull and Chinese sails. Like the Galen ship, the forecastle is low and the stern is high, so the Cantonese people vividly call it a duck's butt.Different from the watertight compartments of Chinese-style hulls, old lock ships use dense ribs as the main support structure, making the hull much stronger.

In addition to having stronger resistance to shelling, this structure can be designed with multi-layer fully-accessible decks, which is more conducive to the installation of large-tonnage sideguns, while Chinese sea-going ships are generally only equipped with cannons on the bow.

Bowang was equipped with two 8-pound cannons at the bow and stern. Under the open-air fore and aft decks was a full gun deck. There were eight 12-pound cannons on each side. The four guns in the middle were Koufelin long guns. Near the bow and stern are cannons.These heavy artillery are made of bronze and mounted on the newly developed four-wheeled artillery carriage, which can be loaded quickly without leaving the battlefield.In addition, the bulwarks on both sides are also covered with swing machines used to hit people.

This is already a considerable firepower configuration on the Asian seas, enough to crush most armed merchant ships.Of course, it would still not be enough to see the main battleships of the Western colonists.

There was nothing he could do about it. In order to get the Bowang, in addition to selling the last ship, Lin Hai also chipped in another 7000 taels of silver.Moreover, the last ship was larger in terms of tonnage, which was equivalent to sacrificing a certain volume and load capacity.

Both Shi Bi and Zheng Tingqiu had fought against the Portuguese in Macau and were very aware of the combat power of the old lock ship. In addition, the last ship and the 7000 taels of silver belonged to Lin Hai, so they did not raise any objections to this.

In this way, Lin Hai invited Miguel on board the ship in the name of needing gunners, and asked him to recruit more than 50 sailors in Macau who could operate guns.In addition to a Portuguese named Peter Jinxi, there were five Indians and seven blacks among these sailors. The rest were all Chinese and had served on Miguel's ship.

Currently, in addition to Zhu Niang's family and Lin Hai's three disciples, there are more than 100 Shibi old men and more than 50 people like Miguel on the ship.The advance wages of the nearly two hundred crew members cost another thousand taels, and the ship's spare parts, living supplies, and additional light weapons also cost more than 1000 taels.

In addition, Lin Hai also imported a batch of goods from Macau and Foshan, with a total value of about 5000 taels. In the blink of an eye, the 300 taels of gold were almost spent, leaving almost the same weight of silver.

Lin Hai and Shi Bi were still chatting, and Shi Bi sighed: "The business has finally opened. I haven't seen the income yet, but the money in my hand is like water. It's really painful."

Lin Hai smiled and said: "We are businessmen now, not pirates. Doing business always requires capital."

Shi Bi said cheerfully: "It's hard to say. If you encounter other ships, I will just rob them."

"That's natural. Business without capital is also business. If pirates can do it, merchants can do it as well." Lin Hai said this thoughtfully, and Shi Bi laughed loudly when he heard this.

At this time, the sun has gradually climbed to the top of the head.Led by the pilot boat, the Bowang traveled nearly [-] nautical miles in the Pearl River Estuary at a speed of almost five knots.

Of course, this is far from the top speed of Bowang.At this time, the stay ropes of the three hard sails were all in a taut state, lifting the lower beam at the bottom of the sail surface more than two feet high, but the sail surface was not fully unfolded.This is because the Pearl River Estuary has complex ocean currents and dense reefs, making it unsuitable for high-speed navigation. At the same time, the wind direction at high altitudes is more stable.

Just as Lin Hai was about to invite Shi Bi to go to the poop restaurant for lunch, he suddenly saw Lun Diyi emerging from under the back deck, followed by two young men.

Lin Hai knew both of these two people, Chen Yaozu, the second son of Chenji Shipyard, and Zhang Yong, the son of the general manager of the shipyard.

This Zhang Yong has an unattractive appearance. He has always been a gourd with a sharp mouth and a dead face. He does not have the spirit of a young man. If it weren't for his poor Portuguese and Japanese, Lin Hai might not even be impressed by him. .

(End of this chapter)