Chapter 94 Stone Under the Well

Since establishing business with sea wolves, the trade between Portuguese and sea wolves has been quite good. In the past, they couldn't sell a lot of things, but now they have finally found a next one who is willing to take over. Although the price does not satisfy them too much, it is better than asking them to continue to use only silver to buy. When the goods are entered, to a certain extent, the two sides adopt barter trade.

So the Portuguese are quite satisfied with doing business with sea wolves, and also give sea wolves considerable discounts. Nowadays, because the Spanish and Portuguese and even the Dutch compete with each other, like the price of sea wolf* has dropped by nearly 40%, making sea wolves cheaper. Buy more things.

But the Portuguese are also wary of sea wolves, because while doing business with sea wolves, they also find that sea wolves never buy cannons, rifles and other popular things from them, and never buy any luxury goods from them, which makes them very strange.

It is reasonable that weapons such as firearms now have a great demand for weapons because they have been fighting with slaves in the north all year round and have to deal with the chaos of luxury.

This has also made it difficult for pirates to spend money to buy enough weapons over the years, especially heavy weapons such as artillery. The supervision of the land government is relatively strict. In addition, the quality of firearms in Daming has always been not as good as that of firearms made by Western craftsmen, so it is even more popular among pirates. It was fired very high.

It turned out that the Spaniards and the Portuguese once suggested to the sea wolf people that they were willing to exchange their cannons and arqueline guns for the sea wolf's goods, but they were rejected by the sea wolf, and after seeing the firearms they made for sale, the sea wolf people still seemed to be a little disdainful.

This makes them a little strange. It is reasonable that sea wolves are also pirates and should also like these things, but why don't they want them? Unless they have something better, there is no reason why they don't want these guys! Later, it was not until a battle between the sea wolf and Chu Cai that they heard that the sea wolf could cast its own cannon, and it was said that the cannon cast by the sea wolf was still a Western-style Hongyi cannon.

These Europeans are a little surprised. They don't believe that a group of pirates can actually cast Western-style cannons by themselves. It is very difficult to imitate even if it is the Ming government. There is no reason why a group of pirates can do this!

And there are rumors that there are many red cannons of sea wolves, which is even more incomprehenible. They all know how difficult it is to cast cannons. In this era, the technology used by Western gunners is actually not much better than the casting technology adopted by Daming craftsmen, and it is also cast in the clay mold method.

It's just that when the Western gunners casters have mastered some more advanced concepts, formulated some advanced norms for gun casting, formed a relatively systematic gun casting technology, and had an in-depth understanding of the relationship between some gunpowder and artillery, which made their artillery casting better.

However, Chinese craftsmen have never formed a systematic concept of casting guns. Although they have also learned to imitate Western artillery and even control the quality of casting, they have always lagged far behind Western countries in concept and can only follow Western countries and follow them.

So these Europeans do not believe that sea wolves will have such a good means to cast very good artillery. They just think that sea wolves may have mastered some techniques of casting cannons, and some craftsmen who can cast cannons can initially imitate some Western-style artillery, but it is impossible to compare with The cannons they cast are good.

For this reason, they also tried to get one or two cannons cast by sea wolves to make a comparison, but for more than a year, they have never been able to do so. Seawolves have never sold artillery* before, and no one has captured the sea wolf's warships. Even if someone has robbed the sea wolf's merchant ship, but the sea wolf's merchant ship is also It's just some light artillery, and I can't see why at all.

They can only give up on this matter and continue to wait for the opportunity slowly.

Zheng Yiguan now ran to Jing'ao to buy artillery from the Portuguese, which was also out of helplessness. Recently, Yan Siqi and he fought many times on the sea around Penghu. Zheng Yiguan found that Yan Siqi's ship was loaded with some powerful cannons, which could bombard his ships at a long distance. Only.

He can guess without thinking that this must have been sold by Yu Xiaotian to Yan Siqi. After Yan Siqi's newly obtained cannons produced by sea wolves, Zheng Yiguan's men took a lot of advantage when they fought with him. With the help of these cannons purchased from sea wolves, they can often win more with less, and even have been 200 steps away. At a distance, several of his ships were sunk.

At this time, Zheng Yiguan realized that if he wants to compete with Yu Xiaotian and these colleagues at sea, he will definitely suffer losses if he does not improve the quality of his equipment, especially if he wants to fight with the sea wolf in the future and there is no enough decent cannon, then he will not do it well. The original footsteps.

So he began to * all kinds of cannons, some iron fields and cast iron workshops around Guangdong and Fujian. Now they have begun to imitate Western-style cannons, that is, Hongyi cannons, but these gun officials are very tight and difficult to get them, and ordinary people dare not dare not sell them.

But the key is that Zheng Yiguan tried to find a way to take a look at these Hongyi cannons imitated by Daming craftsmen. These cannons look similar to the shape of Western-style cannons, plus cannon ears and aiming at the gate, but there is a problem that these cannons are heavy guns. Even if they are smaller, they are more than 1,000 catties, large There are even seven or eight kilograms.

Even if he can buy this gun, he can only use it on the shore. At present, few ships in his hand can carry these cannons, so he has no choice but to turn to the Dutch and Portuguese*.

But because Xu Xinsu broke up with him, Xu Xinsu had a lot of face in the Dutch and controlled a large supply of raw silk. The Dutch did not want to offend Xu Xinsu, so they had to apologize to Zheng Yiguan, so Zheng Yiguan touched his nose at the Dutch, leaving only the Portuguese way. .

It is said that the western toothpants also have artillery fields in Manila, casting artillery for sale or for their own use. This era is still quite famous, which is often referred to as Luzon cannons in later generations.

But because of Li Dan, they used to be very wrong with the Spaniards. Li Dan was once cheated by the Spaniards, so he later helped the Dutch deal with the Spaniards. As a result, Zheng Yiguan has inherited Li Dan's manor and is naturally on the Spanish blacklist, so he wants to buy cannons from the Spaniards. Basically, there is no hope.

And Zheng Yiguan was very familiar with Macao, and he was also baptized and Catholic, so after he asked to buy cannons, the Portuguese did not refuse. Some time ago, the Portuguese agreed to help Zheng Yiguan cast a batch of artillery.

This news is not good news. This news shows that Zheng Yiguan may improve some of his strength in a relatively short period of time, so I'm afraid that Yan Siqi will feel more difficult next.

So after thinking about it, Yu Xiaotian discussed with Liu Laoliu, Ma Xiao and others, and decided to give Zheng Yiguan another stone and sell them to Yan Siqi a batch of artillery recently. In addition, including Xu Xinsu, he also sent people to contact them to see if he could establish a cooperative relationship with Xu Xinsu.

Xu Xinsu's economic strength is strong, but his force is weak, which is a very easy thing to use, so Yu Xiaotian decided that this advantage cannot be occupied by Yan Siqi. If necessary, he can also provide some help to Xu Xinsu. Whether it is sending a ship to escort them or selling him some cannons, it doesn't matter, only It's enough to be able to make money and disgust Zheng Yiguan at the same time.

In addition, now they have built a batch of flying fast ships, and the number of such ships is not as scarce as the previous year. In the past year, the sea wolves have successively shipped a lot of flying fast ships.

These sloops themselves have a very strong ability to navigate offshore and have strong firepower. When dealing with Chinese warships of their counterparts at sea, they have one-sided advantages, so Yu Xiaotian decided to draw a batch of about five to seven flying sloops and send them to Zhangquan for activities.

The mission of this fleet is very simple, which is to find Zheng Yiguan's bad luck there. Like Chu Cailao at the beginning, it specializes in attacking Zheng Yiguan's ship, like peeling onions, gradually weakening Zheng Yiguan's strength.

According to Yu Xiaotian's words, isn't Zheng Yiguan developed now? I'm not in a hurry to have a big fight with you, but I can slowly grind you and strip you away little by little. As long as I, Yu Xiaotian, is still living on the sea, will not allow you Zheng Yiguan to be as rampant as in another time and space in history.

The flying fastship is an excellent type of ship that can act as a prey. However, unlike the privateer ships in Western countries, these flying fast ships sent by the sea wolf belong to the official behavior of the sea wolf, not to the private armed ship. It belongs to the official military action of the sea wolf, rather than the spontaneous profit-seeking. Personal behavior.

Zheng Yiguan can stand it. Some time ago, the sea wolf only acted as a behind-the-scenes messenger and manipulated Yan Siqi and Zheng Yiguan to stand up behind his back, but now Yu Xiaotian has decided to jump to the front desk and personally participate in dealing with Zheng Yiguan.

Although he did not invest much strength, he believed that his well-trained and well-organized subordinates, coupled with these sloops, were enough to give Zheng Yiguan a headache for a long time.