Chapter 99 War Machine

This new 24-pounder gun still belongs to the category of cannons. It has a long range and is also very powerful. If equipped with this gunboat, it can make the ship obtain relatively better firepower, which can not only attack remotely but also fight in close combat, greatly expanding the combat effectiveness of the ship.

After careful planning, in the inner compartment of the ship, five 32-pound Caron guns can be arranged on the left and right side, or three Caron guns and two 24-pound guns can be arranged. In the gun compartment alone, ten guns can be arranged.

Ten 12-pound short guns can also be arranged on the deck, and two 32-pound Caron guns can also be arranged on the deck. As for the one to three-pound light Franco machine guns loaded on the starboard, they can not be included in the number of cannons.

If you don't count the light small Franco cannon used in close combat, the ship can also be equipped with 20 cannons after the transformation, which will become the strongest gunboat among the sea wolf sailors. Seeing the coast of China, there is no Chinese warship among the same company, which can The ship fought against fire.

Even if this ship is used to deal with large Western-style splint ships, as long as it is not met with large gunboats with super firepower to deal with those ordinary armed merchant ships, the firepower of this ship can fight with them, and may even not fall behind.

Yu Xiaotian stood in the gun compartment of the ship and was very satisfied. He walked back and forth in the spacious gun compartment a few times, and lay on the newly opened gun gate at the side of the ship and looked out. It can be said that he was full of ambition. If he had dozens of such big guys in his hand now, who would he be afraid of in this sea of China! Even if he fights with the fleet of the Dutch East India Company, he may not lose to the Dutch.

What a pity! At present, there are only two such large ships, and the other one is the three-masted Dafu ship captured at the beginning. However, the condition of the Dafu ship is far less than that of the ship that captured Chu Cailao's ship, and the materials are not very good. Even if it is deeply transformed, I'm afraid it can't achieve the strength of the ship after transformation, and the transformation The efficiency ratio is also not good.

So he is not ready to carry out in-depth transformation of the ship at present. After inspection, although the ship is a three-maust Dafu ship, the materials are not good. It is a good cargo. There is no problem sailing at sea, but he wants to transform it into a gunboat unless everything inside is replaced. In that case, I'm afraid it will be much more troublesome than building a new ship.

But fortunately, after the ship was renovated, it was okay to serve as a cargo ship at sea, so now the ship has been assigned to the merchant fleet to carry bulk goods.

It is because when Xiaotian was busy remodeling this big ship, the Flying Clipper Detachment sent to the Zhangquan Sea sent back the news that it was brought back to Nanri Island with carrier pigeons.

At the end of the year before last, when the sea wolf cracked the fine business stack arranged by Chu Cailao on Nanri Island in the business stack area of Nanri Island, Yu Xiaotian found that they used carrier pigeons as a way to convey the message.

So Yu Xiaotian immediately sent people to the land to buy a large number of excellent breeding pigeons, brought them back to Nanri Island for expansion and breeding, and searched for people who would raise and train carrier pigeons to help him establish a communication network with carrier pigeons as the mode.

This kind of thing can't be done in a while. The carrier pigeons need to be trained for a long time and have a considerable number of carrier pigeons as the basis. In addition, they need to raise carrier pigeons in major strongholds and use their own nesting habits to form such carrier pigeons. Communication network.

After more than a year of preparation, it was not until six years after the apocalypse that such a carrier pigeon communication network was initially established.

Some foreign ships began to carry carrier pigeons as a fast and convenient way of communication to contact the wolf's den when they went to sea. Unfortunately, this contact method is still very limited, because the carrier pigeons carried on the ship can only communicate in one direction and bring the message back to the wolf's den, but there is no Fa received the instructions sent to them by the wolf's cave.

This time, the flying-size Clippers detachment sent to the Zhangquan area to trouble Zheng Yiguan sent back a message. During their month of going to sea, they intercepted and killed 18 ships under Zheng Yiguan's command, and destroyed seven enemy ships on the spot, five of which took advantage of the fog on the sea to escape. The remaining six were captured on the spot.

After capturing the enemy ship, the detachment originally intended to escort it back to Nanri Island, but when it went to Shenzhen and Shanghai Bay in Quanzhou, it happened to hit a fleet of Zheng Yiguan, and the two sides launched a war. Although the ships of the detachment had speed and firepower advantages, they were far more flexible than Zheng Yiguan's fleet.

However, because the few captured ships they escorted were so slow that they were bitten by the enemy and could not escape, so that the detachment finally had to set fire the captured enemy ships and finally withdrew from the battlefield.

Yu Xiaotian is not dissatisfied with such a situation. He does not expect how many goods ships the Clippers detachment will grab from Zheng Yiguan. As long as they can attack Zheng Yiguan, Zheng Yiguan will never be able to easily obtain a large amount of property, which will be enough to greatly delay his development.

Now these fast ships have temporarily gone to Meizhou Island for rest and replenishment, and by the way, they will repair the damage caused by the ship caused by the battle, and wait for Yu Xiaotian's next order.

However, the sea wolf did not actually control Meizhou Island before, because it was located at the mouth of Meizhou Bay and used to be directly controlled by the government. Yu Xiaotian did not want to stimulate the government too much, so he has never actually controlled Meizhou Island.

However, after he launched the battle between Puxi and Nanri Shuizhai last year, he occupied Meizhou Island as a bridgehead for their sea wolves to the south, which can not only be used to block the mouth of Meizhou Bay south of Xinghuafu when necessary, but also as a forward base for Zhangquan, so At the southern end of Meizhou Island, a small fortress was built.

This time, the Zhangquan Clippers detachment took this as a fulcrum. After resting and supplementing, it directly returned to the Zhangquan area to continue working.

After Yu Xiaotian thought about it, he made these fast ships temporarily rest on Meizhou Island and wait for his next arrangement. After more than a month of cruise and continuous combat at sea, the crew should have been quite tired. This is not just a long voyage. They have to keep searching on the sea. The enemy still has to fight with it. The crew has always maintained a state of tension and has to face the storm at sea. They are not allowed to have a good rest. Next, it will inevitably cause excessive fatigue and some accidents.

Originally, Yu Xiaotian planned to go to Danshui City to see how the projects were progressing there, but on April 18, Yu Xiaotian received a message from Keelung Fort that a Spanish fleet had landed in Taipei.

The efficiency of the Spaniards is obviously higher than that of the Daming government. In early March, after Schwar, the Spanish Governor-General in Manila, finally made the decision to send troops to northern Taiwan, they started the war machine in Greater Luzon.

Ships leaned against the dock and began to carry out renovation. A batch of combat materials and engineering materials began to be concentrated and transported to the dock warehouse waiting for shipment.

In the bars near Manila Pier, people began to shout loudly, recruiting sailors and soldiers. A group of adventurers or scum from Europe or other places often gathered in the dock bars and spent time here when they were free, but mainly waiting for opportunities here. Take the opportunity to get a hand.

In general, merchant ships sail at sea. For various reasons, the mortality rate of the crew will be quite high. Ships will lose a lot of crew on the way from Europe to Manila or from the Americas. Before the ship sets sail again, the captain will often recruit sailors in the bar to supplement the missing members on the ship.

Naturally, such a large-scale military operation also needs to be supplemented. These maritime powers in Europe lack not money, but manpower. After the era of Spanish navigation, as pioneers, ships spread all over the world, and their own population in Spain alone cannot be organized enough. Soldiers and sailors need to use some people from all over Europe who are unwilling to be lonely to meet their needs.

Many European countries have some restless adventurers who want to get a bucket of gold in their lives from this era, change their fate, wander around the sea, and find opportunities to make a fortune in their lives.

And there are many criminals and scum who really can't get along in Europe, escape from Europe and go around the world to join the adventure.

The Spanish donkeys in the Philippines do not have many troops, and the shortage of soldiers is very serious. In order to carry out such a task, they also need a large number of additional personnel. Therefore, their troops are not only composed of Spaniards, but also absorb people from all over the world to join their ranks.

After a period of personnel replenishment and on-site training, Schwa organized a fleet of six large sailboats as the main force. Two of these large sailboats are Spanish warships, and the largest one is a Galen ship with a displacement of 500 to 600 tons, equipped with 36 guns of various artillery, and the other is The 400-ton Galen ship is equipped with 28 artillery pieces.

The remaining four are armed merchant ships with a displacement of less than 400 tons, but the firepower configuration is not weak. After all, they have to sail at sea and often encounter privateers and warships of the Dutch and British who are now hostile to them, and will attack their ships, so these armed merchant ships, It is also often equipped with no less than ten artillery pieces, and the firepower is also quite powerful.

(Thanks to Feng Mu Chunjiang and stdx for their rewards! Thank you for your support!)