Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1433 The Secret of the Shipyard
No one noticed when the man in black on the third floor balcony left.The crowd was immersed in a frenzied uproar, and then there was a moderate commotion, and the white captain broke the seat board due to excessive excitement, and rolled down from the balcony.Luckily, he was not physically injured, but lay straight on the ground, groaning in pain together with those who were crushed by him.

An hour later, the captain staggered into a tavern in the pier area of ​​Pasig River, ordered a large glass of Tuba wine made from coconut milk, which is almost the cheapest alcoholic drink in the Philippines, and cursed fate while drinking ruthless.

"Captain Fernand," someone greeted himself.The captain found a young Chinese man standing in front of him, wearing a straw hat, a double-breasted jacket that is common to Chinese people, and a pair of European-style sailor trousers on his lower body.He seems to have pushed his clay wine glass in front of the captain on purpose.Fernand's eyes were wide open, his nose was wriggling, greedily inhaling the aroma of rhubarb liqueur.An unattractive Chinese can afford to drink the expensive "Datang Princess" liqueur in Manila!
"My master is in the private room next door. He wants to treat Mr. Fernand to have a few drinks. Please come with me." The Chinese turned around and got up to leave. He picked up the glass very slowly.The captain's eyelids twitched: in the hands of the Chinese, a golden object appeared under the ordinary earthen cup.The other party had already turned around, and Fernand reached out and held down the gold coin, slowly wrapping it into his sleeve.

"Whatever it is," the captain said to himself, "it's all lost anyway." He put down his glass, grabbed his hat, and followed the back of the Chinese to the back of the tavern.

Fernand narrowed his eyes. From the bright outside room of the tavern to the dark compartment at the back, the change of light made his eyes very uncomfortable.There was no window in the cubicle, the door was closed behind him, and the only source of light came from a crude coconut oil lamp on the dining table, whose flame struggled and flickered, illuminating only half of the table.After the captain's eyes gradually adapted to the dim light in the private room, he saw a somewhat hunchbacked man sitting behind the table, his seat seemed to avoid the faint light of the oil lamp on purpose.

"Please sit down, De Fernando." The hunchback, whose body was mostly hidden in the darkness, spoke in a hoarse voice that had deliberately changed its tone.Captain Fernand sat on the opposite chair and was slightly taken aback: Not many people in Manila knew their homeland, but this mysterious man spoke French.

The Chinese brought Fernand cups and plates, filled them with liqueur, and withdrew to the door, seemingly uninterested in any conversation.

"De Fernand, there's a question that's been bothering me about you." If anything will stop Fernand from binge drinking, the mystery man's question is, "Which god do you believe in?" ? The Vatican, or the Huguenots?"

The captain's hands trembled, not noticing that his wine was spilled on the table.Breaking out from the tight siege of La Rochelle, working for the pashas in the Barbary Islands and almost dying in Portuguese shells; the British transporting goods for Surat were attacked by the Dutch East India Company, and the cargo was two lose.He never mentioned these experiences to anyone, at least when he was not drunk.In the territory ruled by the Spaniards, a Huguenot would have no other ending but to be sent to the stake.

"God is the only true God," said the captain slowly.

The body in the darkness moved in the chair, and the captain now saw that most of the body of the man in front of him was wrapped in a black cloak, with a black half-section mask on his face, revealing a very delicately trimmed beard.

"Captain Fernand, I know you are a businessman," the man in black switched to Spanish. "A businessman will always have only one God."

He raised his right hand, and the black sheepskin glove made Fernand tremble: as if sitting in front of him was a non-human ghost wrapped in a black body, the black hand let go, and a Ducat rolled When they reached the table, several wine glasses hit the captain's wine glasses before they fell down, making a golden sound. "The gospel of God is indispensable, my friend, especially after a big gamble."

Fernand's eager eyes were concentrated on these few gold coins. Under the flickering and dim light, it seemed that the entire tabletop was dancing with brilliant golden light.

"Sir, you won't make up for my loss for nothing, will you?" He desperately wanted to swallow some saliva to lubricate his dry throat, even forgetting the fine wine in front of him.

"Under the shed in the Manila shipyard, what kind of ship is there? Why does His Excellency the Governor value it so much? Mr. De Fernando?"

The private room suddenly fell silent, and only Fernand's heavy breathing could be heard: "That's His Royal Highness's secret—"

"Mr. Salamanca hired you to command the boat under construction because you are a brave enough captain and because you are always short of money," the man in black forced a chuckle through his teeth, "I want to know , What kind of ship is this? It needs a captain like you who dares to risk his life to control it?"

Mr. "Brave Captain" Mr. De Fernand's forehead was sweating. This is the governor's big secret. In the whole of Manila, only four people know the real situation of this ship.Once leaked out, the consequences would be disastrous.

"You need money, my friend. I have nothing to do with Mr. Salamanca, those priests in Manila, and I don't like their paranoid fanaticism. I want to know what the ship and the shipyard are doing now. What?" The man in black put a money bag on the table, untied the ribbon, grabbed a handful of gold coins, and let them fall from between his fingers one by one.With each crisp jingle, Fernand's pupils shrank, "I'm also a businessman, dear Fernand. This is just a business, just a business."

It was almost sunset when the man in black left the tavern with his Chinese attendants.They walked out of the tavern and boarded a bullock cart with a cloth canopy.There are hundreds if not thousands of such ox carts in and around Manila.The bullock cart finally stopped in front of the warehouse surrounded by a courtyard wall, and walked away after the two got off the cart.There are so many simple warehouses with log and grass roofs in the wharf area by the Pasig River.The man in black walked through the back door of the yard, took out the key, opened the padlock, and walked into the warehouse with the Chinese.The warehouse door closed behind them, and when it was opened a quarter of an hour later, the black cloak and mask were gone, the beard glued to his chin had been ripped off, and Pulpovan, whose back was stuffed with a lot of cotton to camouflage his hunchback, was gone.Count Vannanov mounted a horse that was tied in the yard, and left by the front gate.After a while, Jimmy put on a long Chinese gown, and replaced the sailor's straw hat with a melon cap, and hurried to the next contact point in the Parian District.

Mr. Genolino Pagno has been suffering from severe headaches lately, and it seems that all the stale air in his body is rushing into his head.But even if his skull exploded, he didn't want to go to the doctor. Those doctors only knew how to bleed people, and he didn't dare to see that drunk barber who cut his arm open all day long.

A priest who is proficient in medicine is not keen on bloodletting, or he can try a Chinese doctor.However, Genolino Pagno knew that his headaches were not medical; as head of the Royal Dockyard, his pain was due to a damned contract: to build 12 new patrol boats for the East Indies colony. Boat.

At the end of the day, everything should be blamed on the bastard Jap, the evil Paul Takayama.It is said that he was responsible for the drawings and models of the sloop clippers, and urged the governor to replace the outdated galleys and crude rowboats with them, which would give the colonial fleet a new look.Of course, as long as you see Gao Shan's boat, you will know that the so-called patrol boat is based on his boat.

Genolino Pagno was also one of the few extremely eager seconders at the time, and no one could be indifferent to the money that such a large order would bring, and the reward it would receive when it was completed.It was only after he undertook all the shipbuilding orders and couldn't wait to order the start of work that he realized that he had fallen into a big pit.

Paul Gaoshan’s requirements for this seemingly simple boat are incredible: the peculiar rigging, regardless of the various picks about the size and quality of the ship’s materials; he even required that the bottom of the boat be covered with copper skin below the waterline.Genolino, who has worked as a shipwright for more than 20 years, has never heard of such absurd things. Even the bottom of a large Galenic ship crossing the Pacific Ocean is nothing more than a layer of tarred canvas and a little lead. .Genolino decided to paint the new patrol boats with two coats of wood tar, at least to make them durable enough.As for the copper skin, to hell with it, all the copper in Manila was collected for that Japanese genius to make his precious cannon.

This is not the most outrageous.Mr. Salamanca didn't know what nonsense he had listened to the Japanese bastard, but he asked Genolino Panio face to face whether the keel and ribs of the new ship could be made of iron.If it weren't for the honorable status of the governor, Genolino Panio would probably burst out laughing.No one in this world has the ability to bend pig iron into the shape of ship ribs, and even if it is cast, its brittleness is not suitable for keels and ribs.As for wrought iron, let alone where Manila gets so much wrought iron, how to process such a large forging becomes a big problem

The head of the shipyard took this to mean that the governor was concerned about whether his product was strong enough.We had to double the material on the key parts of the ship.Fortunately, there has never been a shortage of good shipbuilding hardwoods here.But now the dry wood that has been stored for many years is about to be exhausted, and even one-third of the project has not been completed.

(End of this chapter)