Dragon Sea Empire

Towards the end of the year, Xu Xueju, governor of Fujian, finally gave a memorial to the court, requesting the opening of trade with Manila. This memorial has been brewing for a long time, and it is also the result of a compromise between the Fujian bureaucracy and the eunuch Gao Cai. The share of silver paid by the Governor's Office will increase, which will reduce the income of all Fujian bureaucrats accordingly.

Gao Cai encouraged Yuan Jin's thirteen pirates to work hard for a year without causing any harm to Yin Feng. Annoyed, Gao Cai used Yuan Jin's network and spent a lot of money to hire bandits in western Fujian and some people from the rivers and lakes in an attempt to make a living in Yin Feng. When Feng returned to Quanzhou, he assassinated him. As a result, more than a hundred assassins who participated in the assassination died at the south gate of Quanzhou, and Yin Feng escaped from Quanzhou unscathed.

Fujian officials pretended to be deaf and dumb to this matter and turned a blind eye to it. Zhu Wenda, Gao Cai's confidant in Fujian, took the opportunity to send troops to search the branch of Quanzhou Huaxing Union, but this caused an uproar. Many wealthy businessmen and gentlemen in Quanzhou, including Quanzhou prefect Cheng Dadu has share dividends in Quanzhou Huaxing Lianhao. Cheng Da, a Jinshi in Qingjiang, served as the prefect of Quanzhou in the 29th year of Wanli (1601). Corruption has become a normal thing, as long as local officials who are not too corrupt can be regarded as clean officials at that time.

Among Cheng Da's friends, there is a prominent person from Fujian, Ye Xianggao, Ye Xianggao, whose name is Jinqing, and whose name is Taishan, was born in the 38th year of Emperor Jiajing of Ming Dynasty (AD 1559), a native of Fuqing, Fujian Province, next year, In May of the 35th year of Wanli, Ye Xianggao had just been promoted to Minister of Rites and Bachelor of Dongge University, and became a cabinet scholar, Zaifu.

The assassination of Yin Feng was only a victim of a relatively well-known businessman. For the bureaucrats at all levels of the Fujian government, it was a trivial matter. However, the direct threats of the eunuch Gao and his subordinates damaged the immediate interests of the bureaucracy. This is a big deal, Cheng Da and other literati who suffered property damage quickly reported the situation secretly to Ye Xianggao, and Ye himself had nothing to do; In this situation, Ye Xianggao is busy with settling party disputes and quelling turmoil in various places. Regarding what happened in his hometown, he also tends to quell the turbulent situation first.

Therefore, through the eunuch Gao's confidant, Zhu Wenda, Fujian's chief soldier, the Fujian bureaucracy and the eunuch Gao Cai reached a compromise; Yin Feng's Huaxing joint account Quanzhou branch resumed business, and the Fujian government appealed to the court to reopen the sea trade with Manila.

Yin Feng was listening to Lin Xiao's report on the subsequent development of the assassination incident. Lin Xiao said angrily: "...In this way, the assassination of you, the captain, will be treated as if it never happened. Is there any law for this? "

"This has nothing to do with the king's law. It's about the face of the court and the interests of the officials," said Zeng Qi who was sitting on the side. He just came from Quanzhou. He continued with a look of contempt: "Xu Xueju This person is timid, fearful, and has no opinion. He dare not stand up to the eunuchs, nor dare to offend the officials and gentry of the province. That's why he compromised with Gao Cai, my son-in-law..." He turned to Yin Feng and said, "Anyway, Your matter is not a matter of law now, as long as you don't file a complaint, it will be nothing."

Yin Feng smiled wryly and said: "You said what should I do, let's just let it go, we have already fought in the coastal areas of Fujian, I am afraid that the Fujian officials should be a little vigilant."

Zeng Qi shook his head and said with a sneer, "You're fighting pirates, they're so excited. These pirates are a powerful force. If you kill them, Xu Xueju and the others may not be too happy." He has been in the officialdom for decades Zeng Qi has a keen insight into every move of the government.

"As long as you don't deal with the officers and soldiers, or send troops to attack the city, they will still do business with you. In their hearts, you are more like a businessman than those unruly pirates. Therefore, you must swallow your anger, Don't sue, anyway, it's useless to sue, but you can take the opportunity to ask for some benefits, "

Yin Feng's eyes lit up, Lin Xiao scratched his scalp, and couldn't help asking: "Master Zeng, is it possible to ask the government for benefits?"

Zeng Qi smiled, took a square step in the middle of the room, put his hands behind his back and said, "Feng'er's assassination this time was actually done by Gao Cai. We adopted a compromise and promised to open up Manila trade; however, we, Feng'er, are paying the price for the Fujian government in vain. If we make a fuss and bring the matter to the Beijing court, Xu Xueju and his gang will be in trouble; they have seen When it comes to the power of the Zhonghua Company, if there is a real disturbance, the people of the Fujian government will definitely be unlucky, so we can take the opportunity to propose conditions, buy time for the Zhonghua United Company, and build a good relationship with the court government, "

"This kind of thing should be presided over by the father-in-law, the son-in-law knows nothing about officialdom," Yin Feng hurriedly pushed the matter to his father-in-law, Lin Xiao snickered at the side.

After sending Zeng Qi away, Yin Feng rushed to the training ground of the guards. This time, instead of watching the training, Li Yue invited him to watch the "new weapon" invention of the graduates of the technical school.

According to the regulations of the Chinese company, craftsmen enjoy the company's highest work and food silver; craftsmen are divided into four levels: worker, craftsman, craftsman, and master according to their technical level and personal inventions. Both craftsmen and masters can enjoy the company's dry shares. Enjoying the treatment of annual dividends, the technical school actually only teaches weapon manufacturing and chime clock manufacturing technology. Although other craftsmen such as ceramics, mud tiles, glazed tiles, and blacksmiths are also included in the promotion system of the Chinese company, no one can sum up the relevant theory. Give students formal classes, or pass on skills in the traditional apprenticeship mode.

Zhonghua Company only started mastering the production of the chiming clock last year, so the first batch of graduates from the technical school were all from the weapon manufacturing department. They invented a weapon during their graduation project. Li Yue specially invited Yin Feng to watch their experiment.

I saw a big black guy standing on the large field, on a processed and remodeled flatbed cart frame, on two rows of wooden frames with a total of five layers in front and back, a five-layer wooden frame was densely piled up with a hundred matchlock guns. Height, 20 matchlock guns on each floor, the rear of the guns are all connected in series with fuses, there is an iron turntable structure between the five-story wooden shelf and the flatbed cart, and there are two pillars at the rear of the flatbed cart in a figure-eight shape.

When Yin Feng saw this super-large combination of iron pipes, his mind "boomed" for the first time, and a word came out: "pipe organ gun".

Since firearms appeared on the battlefield, people have been working hard to improve their shooting speed. The practice of putting multi-barreled weapons on the stand for shooting is often considered to be the origin of machine guns. In 1380 (there are records in the inventory of the British Royal Treasury ) invented an 11-tube platoon gun, one of which fired stone projectiles, and the remaining 1 tubes fired lead projectiles and sharp arrows. This multi-tube platoon gun is the so-called organ gun (organ).

In the time and space before Yin Feng traveled, the organ guns of the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe were also placed on a rectangular wooden box. The French Burgundy Army used 1411 organ guns in a field battle as early as 2000. In the 18th century Wheeled 20-tube (5 rows stacked, the number of tubes from top to bottom is 2,3,4,5,6, 19, 1864, [-], [-]) pipe organ guns appeared, until the [-]th century, such as when the Danish army fought against the Prussian invasion in [-]. Shooting guns.

At the beginning of the 18th century, a rotary gun appeared in Britain. It is said that it was the pioneer of the Gatling machine gun. It was ignited by manual rotation, which was probably the predecessor of the Gatling rotary machine gun; At that time, Parker also stipulated that enemies who believed in Christianity should be hit with round bullets, and pagan enemies, such as Turks, should be hit with square bullets.

It is also worth mentioning that the Leca platoon gun used during the American Civil War (1861-1865) has 25 barrels arranged horizontally on a cradle plate. Its ignition mechanism is the same as the super-large organ gun in front of Yin Feng. , with a fire rope across the tail of 25 guns, as long as the rope is ignited, they can be fired one after another very quickly. lbs (7KG).

Yin Feng walked quickly to this huge weapon, looked it up, down, left, and right, and sighed in his heart: Look, the Chinese people's talent for inventing and creating firearms has not disappeared, although there are only a few dozen Chinese on Taiwan Island, Moreover, they have just begun to study firearms, but they have followed the law of firearms development.

Yin Feng knew that the biggest problem with this "organ gun" was that it was too bulky, inconvenient to operate, and inconvenient to use in field conditions.

In Yin Feng’s memory, there were also such super-large organ guns in Europe at that time. There was a Vandenberg platoon gun with 85-450 barrels! It can be fired almost at the same time. Not bad, the United Kingdom once tested a 191-barreled gun, and 100% of the bullets hit the target paper of 91.4 feet X 90 feet (6cm X 6cm) at 182.88 yards (182.88 meters). What is the trick? Its own weight is too heavy, because it is too heavy, the infantry is intimidated, and they dare not care about it, so they have to be installed on ships. Before the appearance of metal bullets with fixed bullets, it is impossible to imagine that there will be automatic weapons that use the energy of gunpowder and gas. Therefore, early Rapid-fire weapons are limited to firing multiple barrels in salvo or sequentially.

These young people from the Zhonghua Company Technical School are now standing behind the "organ gun", looking at their big boss Yin Feng anxiously. These people have only been in contact with firearm manufacturing and research for two years, and they have already made such "crazy" guns. With this kind of weapon, Yin Feng's confidence in cultivating himself as a master of firearms design soared.

He walked up to these technical school graduates. There were four of them in total. He nodded with a smile and said, "What do you call this guy?"

The four young men looked at each other, and the tallest one on the left stood up: "I tell you, the boss, we call this weapon the 'Storm Gun'..."

On the right, a young man who seemed to be the youngest rushed to say: "It's more formal to call it a multi-barreled volley..." Then, the boy found himself a little abrupt, stuck out his tongue and smiled, and retreated. Yin Feng laughed: "I see The names are all good, what's your name?"

The four young people, starting from the slender one on the left, are called Lin Qing, Zhang Xiaohai, Wang Gong, Li Hetian, and they are all the children of craftsmen from all over Fujian.

"Come on, give us an experiment and see how it goes," Yin Feng suggested with a smile. His attitude encouraged the four teenagers to act quickly, aiming at the target with the turntable mechanism under the wooden shelf: a person 150 steps away. Half-width plank.

I saw that Lin Qing lit a section of the fuse at the back of the wooden frame, and immediately the flames were divided into five lines, igniting twenty matchlock guns in each row in turn, and the shooting sound of "呯呯呯啪啪啪" was continuous and deafening. The dense gunpowder smoke completely enveloped the entire gun frame in a few seconds.

In just a moment, the 100 matchlock guns were fired, and the target target - that piece of wood had been completely shattered into pieces of wood.

The surrounding audience included the escort infantry who had just completed the training mission and some leaders of the company's workshop department. After witnessing this amazing result, they forgot to speak for a moment.

Lin Qing cleared her throat, bowed to Yin Feng and said, "What the students have done is still a preliminary design. This kind of gun..."

Yin Feng went on to say: "This kind of gun is too heavy and bulky, and it is inconvenient to install ammunition. This is a disadvantage."

Lin Qing and the others showed expressions of sudden realization, and they bowed together in a heartfelt convincing manner: "The big boss really hit the nail on the head, and the lesson is,"

Yin Feng's vanity was slightly satisfied, and he hurriedly said: "However, this is a weapon that China has never had since ancient times. This is your invention. Your name will last forever. We can use this weapon to defend the city wall and fortress. Or use it to cover the siege, I hope you can invent more and better weapons on the basis of this rainstorm gun, Brother Li Yue, "

Seeing that his subordinates received such praise, Li Yue, the person in charge of the factory department, stepped forward happily and said, "Boss, these young people should be rewarded."

"Yes, a big reward is required, and an order is sent to the Human Resources Department. These four young people will directly become the company's craftsmen, enjoy the company's dry stock dividend treatment, and assign them all to the Weapons Research Department to study new-style firearms with those foreigners."

The four of them were stunned. They had never expected such a big reward. Even Li Yue was stunned, and it took him a long time to realize: "This, is this appropriate?"

"Of course it's appropriate, they have the qualifications," Yin Feng said firmly, "That's the deal,"

This matter quickly spread throughout Taiwan. For those technical school students and various craftsmen, this kind of heavy reward was unimaginable. It's a fantasy, but now it's a fact, so many people look at the craftsmen with admiration.

Yin Feng also began to reorganize his armaments and began to make strategic adjustments for the Chinese company to counterattack Manila.

First of all, the relationship with the Fujian government and the Ming court must still be relaxed, but it is also necessary to prevent disturbances from the Ming government. Therefore, in addition to a proper display of force, it is Lin Xiao's choice to spread eyeliner widely and place hidden stakes everywhere. MLA.

Secondly, Yin Feng began to expand his army and prepare for war. After three years, he will fight back to Luzon Island. This is his promise with the Chinese company. , the three-masted, 900-ton, 40-cannon "Flying Tiger" was launched in Hong Kong and is undergoing sea trial training.

In addition, attacking Manila will inevitably affect the interests of Western maritime powers, so it is necessary to strengthen diplomatic work with Western powers. This is a bit complicated. For this reason, Yin Feng pondered for many days in his own home.

On this day, the fleet that went out to chase and suppress 1000 pirates along the coast returned. During this trip, they sank and burned nearly [-] pirate ships and captured more than [-] pirates. However, Yuan Jin and Li Zhong were not among them. The two ran away again.

How to deal with these more than 1000 pirates, Yin Feng suddenly had an idea,