Chapter 85 Practical is the best training
After having the successful experience of the first hijacking of the ship, Yu Xiaotian also changed his original idea and no longer asked these people to practice alone. Through the last hijacking of the ship, he found many problems, but at the same time, he also found that actual combat can improve these people's experience more than a single training.
This is not only for his subordinates, including himself, and he was not in this industry before. He doesn't know many things at sea, let alone experience. Fighting at sea is very different from fighting on land, which contains many skills. Yu Xiaotian draws cats and tigers for later generations. Copying what he knows, it doesn't work at all, so even he also needs to accumulate more experience in dealing with people at sea. These experiences can't be done by practicing alone.
So after returning to Treasure Island and taking a short break, he took everyone to sea again and began a new round of hunting at sea. In addition, this period was the time when merchant ships concentrated in the north and missed this opportunity. They missed this good opportunity this year!
Through this trip to Dalian Island, although they could not get the replenishment of firearms immediately, the Li family still secretly sent them more than a dozen well-built single knives, gun tips and hook guns to the ship, replacing some of the messy inferior weapons they used before, which made them more More or less, the combat effectiveness has been improved, and everyone has a little deeper in their hearts.
In addition, after the experience of the first hijacking of the ship, they learned some experience from it and made them more confident. After going to sea, they soon turned their rudder south and sailed to the waters where merchant ships often haunted.
Hu Chengxian has now experienced the incident between Feng Scar and Li Gouzi. Although he is reluctant, he has also completely died and began to become stable. He no longer always think about going home. Moreover, in order to comfort him, Yu Xiaotian told him that he would send some money to his family later and find someone to take him. His family also received Treasure Island so as not to let his family be angry with the Liu family, so now, he also gave up the idea of going home and began to follow Yu Xiaotian honestly.
He himself is the handyman on the boat of the Liu family, and his skill of serving sails is quite superb. After seeing that he has calmed down, Yu Xiaotian simply let him do the head, and also appointed him as the handyman, specializing in training and directing several of his subordinates. Hu Cheng is also very satisfied with this. These days Come on, it's getting better.
After observing Liu Tong for a period of time, Yu Xiaotian found that this person was also a person with a strong personality, very loyal, and a little courage, and they came together and were more trustworthy, so Yu Xiaotian asked him to be the gun commander, specializing in taking care of the two bowls on the boat.
The bowl that they broke last time, after these days of repair, the carpenter who was caught made a new gun rack for the bowl, which restored the ability to use.
After passing the inspection, the mouth of the bowl only collapsed on the muzzle, and the gun body was still strong, and no cracks were found, which also reassured them a lot.
According to Liu Laoliu, who is more knowledgeable, these two bowls and mouths are produced by private workshops in Guangdong, and most of the ironmaking area in Guangdong uses charcoal rather than coal. Therefore, the iron material of Daming is the most refined in Guangdong. Over the Ming court, the army has needed fire. Cannon, Guangdong has the largest output, and the cannon is also the most refined, so these two cannons are not good-looking, but they are also made of fine iron in Guangdong, which is relatively reassuring to use.
After listening to Yu Xiaotian, of course understood why, because coal contains more sulfur, sulfur is harmful to ironmaking, while charcoal ironmaking has relatively low sulfur content and the quality of iron is relatively good. Therefore, it is not surprising that Guangdong's iron quality is high.
After the last time the gun rack collapsed, the people on the ship had a certain psychological barrier to the gun, and they didn't dare to touch it again, which was not a good thing for them.
After carefully recalling their previous process of loading cannons, Yu Xiaotian quickly found a solution. For a traveler like him, this kind of thing is easy to solve.
The fundamental reason why the gun rack of the bowl mouth was destroyed last time is that Blackhead and others made a mistake in the amount of gunpowder in a hurry and loaded too much gunpowder, resulting in an accident. The best way to avoid this accident is to quantify the gunpowder.
So Yu Xiaotian did several experiments on the island these days. He weighed the gunpowder directly and then divided it up. He wrapped it directly with oil paper from the Li family, and made it into a column with the same diameter as the inner diameter of the gun barrel to form a gunpowder bag. In this way, it was easy to solve the amount of charge per charge. The problem of uniform also solves the problem of unstable range and power.
After two test shots, everyone saw their two bowls fired safely, and the range of the shells became much more stable, so several designated gunners regained their confidence and dared to play with this guy.
In fact, the thing of fixed gunpowder is very simple, but no one has used it before, and not many people have thought about it, so no one knows, but this is not a problem for Xiaotian at all. As far as he knows, let alone fixed gunpowder, if there is machinery, even if he is allowed to make guns, it is not a big problem. However, at present, it's too early for him to make his own firearms, not to mention making guns. Now they can't make cold weapons such as knives and guns by themselves. Naturally, they don't have to think about anything else.
Fixed gunpowder not only solves the safety problem of artillery, but also found that after using this kind of oil paper-packed medicine package, the speed of loading these two bowls of medicine has also been greatly improved. In the past, they had to hoard the gunpowder little by little, and they also had to pound it carefully. Now Instead, they can pack the medicine into the gun barrel, then fill it with a shell or cannon, pound it with a pestle, and then use a cone to break the oil paper medicine bag of the gun's oil paper bag from the fire door, pour some medicine into it, and complete the preparation for launch.
In this way, the speed of filling the bowl with ammunition has more than doubled compared with before, which makes these people very happy. They are not pigs. Of course, they all know how beneficial it brings. If they shoot, they will There are enough opportunities to fight back two cannons, which is equivalent to more than doubling their firepower. Four cannons may not be able to suppress their two guns. This is a fight with people at sea, and they will take advantage of a lot!
Originally, Yu Xiaotian wanted to make a paper package of ammunition for the limited number of fire knives on the ship, but after carefully checking these fire knives, he directly gave up the idea. These fire knives have two three-eyed rifles, two old-fashioned fire knives, and a guy who looks a little like a bird rifle, and more Two fire rope guns that seem to come from nowhere, each guy actually has a different inner caliber. It's a joke for such a guy to uniformly fix gunpowder!
So Yu Xiaotian gave up this idea directly and talked about it until they had conditions in their hands! At present, with these messy fire, it basically doesn't play much role on the sea. Most of the time, they still have to fight directly with people with both hands to decide the victory or defeat.
After coming out this time and arriving at the predetermined waters, after more than a day of wandering, they finally found a target again. One bucketed on the mast and drank high on the left front sea, and found a two-bard boat coming in their direction.
Yu Xiaotian and the people on the ship came to be energetic as soon as they heard it. This time, it was not used for Xiaotian's instructions. Everyone immediately began to prepare according to Yu Xiaotian's previous requirements for them, putting all kinds of weapons, ropes, rope hooks and other things in an accessible position, and ran to him one by one. In their standing position, they put up a pergola and looked at the sea.
After a while, they saw a boat appearing on the sea level and coming towards them with full sails.
Yu Xiaotian laughed and immediately ordered: "Raise our golden wolf flag! Ready to work!"
The people on the boat immediately cheered in unison. Zhao Si acted as the flag bearer, ran to take out their golden wolf flag, hung it on the mast, and began to pull up.
And Hu Cheng immediately greeted his men and began to adjust the sail together. Liu Laoliu took the rudder, took the helm in person, and began to sail to the ship.
The opposite boat also quickly found them and immediately reacted. They began to turn their sails and sail in the direction of the coast. Obviously, they also realized that something was wrong and wanted to escape the pursuit of Yu Xiaotian.
Yu Xiaotian can't help at this time. He can only order the command to temporarily be handed over to Liu Laoliu, and Liu Laoliu is responsible for commanding the people on the ship to turn the rudder and chase the merchant ship.
As the distance got closer, they saw that the ship was also a small and medium-sized lucky boat, a relatively common merchant ship in Fujian, which was their most delicious food, so everyone was also excited and stared at the boat and began a chase.
The two ships continued to chase on the sea for about an hour. Yu Xiaotian and others gradually brought the distance between the two sides to about 100 meters. Yu Xiaotian picked up his wooden horn again, stood in the bow and shouted and issued a warning to stop the other party.
A letter Liu is written on the other party's sail, indicating that their shipowner is a merchant surnamed Liu, but this basically has no effect on Yu Xiaotian, a group of new thieves. They don't know the name Liu, in short, as long as they see it. In the middle, they are going to rob them.
The Liu family's boat was in chaos, and scolding could come from far away from their boat. After hearing Yu Xiaotian's warning, the other party was unmoved and continued to run away while fiddling with something in the stern.
After a while, the distance between the two sides narrowed to 60 or 70 meters. Yu Xiaotian fixed his eyes and observed it carefully. Suddenly, he saw the other party's stern, and there was also a cannon. Before he could identify what the other party's gun was, he saw a fire suddenly flashing from the stern of the Liu family, and then a white smoke rose. The latter shell, which was almost visible to the naked eye, hit Yu Xiaotian's ship even if it flew quickly.