Not all of them are wise, there are always stubborn idiots, so stupid that they are unbelievably stupid and make people sigh for them. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Not far from Snake Island, there is a bear island. This island is bigger than Snake Island, and there are really bears in the mountains on the island. But the most famous bear on the island is a man named Dogbear.

A man as thick and sturdy as a bear, this man is a neighbor of the red viper, and has always wanted to marry the red viper as the wife of the village.

Bear is a real pirate, unlike the Red Viper, who has been on the sea for twenty or thirty years. In the past, there was no fixed place, and it was only in the past few years that it began to settle on Bear Island. Occupying Bear Island, robbing merchant ships, smuggling, and even kidnapping, murder, and extortion, there seems to be nothing he doesn't do.

Although the people on Snake Island were a little suspicious of Li Chao's favorable conditions, they finally listened to Du Hongying's persuasion and accepted the surrender. Li Chao sent someone to say hello to the Dengzhou government, and he sent a few officials over there very cooperatively, and then after some formalities, these people could be transported to Haidong by Li Ji.

"Beware of black bears, these people are real pirates, and they do all kinds of evil." Du Hongying reminded Li Chao.

"You're familiar with this black bear and the Wuhu Islands, why don't you act as my guide first?" Li Chao invited Du Hongying.

"Let me start with a statement." Du Hongying did not refuse immediately, but hesitated and said, "I have only married one man in my life, that is, my husband Ximen Junyi, and after he dies, I don't plan to marry again." ”

This is a little embarrassing, Cheng Biting Jin's old rascal is right, Du Hongying really misunderstood that Li Chao fell in love with her. However, this does not seem to be surprising, the Li family moved the Jianghuai Army group to their own territory, more than 1,000 people. With such preferential conditions, he must want these people to become members of the Li family.

And the simplest, and it is also a common method for those powerful people, which is tantamount to taking Du Hongying directly. In this way, the more than 1,000 people of the entire Jianghuai Army will truly become their own people.

The heroes like to do this, and Du Hongying also mistakenly thinks that Li Chao thinks the same way.

Li Chao thought for a while and said, "You are indeed a commendable woman, if there is a chance, I do want to pursue you." But I'm a person who never pushes for it. "This is to give her face, otherwise it will be very embarrassing to tell the truth. Such compliments are harmless.

Du Hongying is still a little skeptical.

"Thank you, Zhao Guogong."

"You can call me San Lang, or you can call me Wenyuan, you don't need to be so polite. If you wish, I would like to ask you to be my guide, and even if there are people on your island who are willing to come to me for a while, I can find you a place on my ship, and the salary is very good, you know, it is very difficult to find experienced people on board these days. ”

Du Hongying knew that Dengzhou Port was full of rich people waving treasure money and gold coupons to recruit people, but they would not consider it before. But now, she thinks she can think about it.

"I think you can consider it, and when you get to the treasure island and divide the land, it won't affect you to work on my ship."

More than 1,000 people want to leave here, and in the future, they can't rely on toll collection, smuggling and counterfeiting, and their income will definitely have an impact. Another one, doing things for Li Chao is also to strengthen the relationship between the two sides, after all, they will live in Li Chao's territory in the future.

"I can pick out about a hundred people to come on board to help."

"Thanks, you've done me a great favor."

After becoming Li Chao's guide, Du Hongying's first suggestion was not to try to recruit this guy. "Don't give this guy the slightest chance to raid Bear Island. Otherwise, he will run, and it will be difficult to catch. Once he is allowed to escape, it will be very troublesome in the future, although this person is nicknamed Black Bear, he is extremely selfish and resentful. ”

In the past, the black bear had been pestering Du Hongying, and for the sake of Snake Island, she had been vain and procrastinating, but she really didn't have a good impression of this man in her heart.

Li Chao clapped his hands, "You are now not only my guide, but also my staff advisor." Very well, since this is your first suggestion, then let's do what you say. ”

The red viper is familiar with its neighbors on Bear Island, and it is also familiar with Bear Island.

Bear Island is larger, there are not only water villages but also mountain villages, but the number of people is smaller than that on Snake Island, there are only about 300 people on the island, but they are all a group of vicious pirates.

They had five or six boats, all of them with soft sails and hard sails, but none of them were large. The largest is a small three-masted soft sailing ship, a ship of about 500 materials, which can carry about 12 pirates.

"These pirates rob merchant ships, and after hiding in some islands or coastal bays in advance, they will choose the target ship at the port, usually choosing the old merchant ship, which is slow. Then keep an eye on them with a speedboat, and when they leave the port, they will notify the pirates, and then find a secluded place and raid and chase them. ”

"They used the speed of a clipper to catch up with the merchant ship, and then boarded the ship by jumping off the side to force the merchant ship to surrender or kill the guards to seize the ship."

Du Hongying came up with a plan.

"We have a pretty good relationship with Kumashima, and we have some contacts. If I take the people from Snake Island to Bear Island, they won't be too wary. We took the opportunity to take down their water village, and we could solve them in one fell swoop. ”

The plan for this raid is good, especially for Li Chao.

"There's no need to take risks, our ships are outnumbered, just attack them directly."

"Zhao Guogong don't underestimate the enemy, there are a few catapults in the black bear's water village, as well as eight bull crossbows. If we attack and they fight back, they may inflict casualties on both the ship and the men. ”

Cheng Yanjin laughed beside him, "Three hundred pirates, a few catapults and three-bow crossbows, this may be considered very powerful among pirates, but let me tell you, in front of our Zhao Guogong's armed merchant ships, it is not worth mentioning." Our merchant ship is equipped with cannons licensed by the imperial court. Even the sailors of the imperial court may not have the firepower of Wenyuan's merchant ships. ”

"Let's attack, there's no need to risk you." Li Chao said to Du Hongying with a smile.

It is also necessary to use black bears to train the firepower of armed merchant ships. If you don't practice with live ammunition, how to fight the real enemy in the future.

Ten merchant ships were dispatched, and more than a hundred new people were added to the Snake Island.

・・・・・・・

When the Great Gaishi approached Bear Island, the alarm bell had already sounded on the island, and these people were worthy of being specialized pirates, very alert and quick to react. But no matter how fast it is, it is not as fast as Li Chao and them.

The Great Guy quickly blocked the Bear Island pier.

"Turn the ship's side."

"Open the porthole!"

Orders were passed down, and the sailors and marines on board were busy. For them, the battle was also a novelty.

The Galen ship was already facing Bear Island, and it was very close.

Small windows suddenly opened on the side of the ship, and a cannon pushed out.

As a popular and important minister of the Tang Dynasty, although the output of artillery is small now, Li Chao can still give priority to installing these new weapons on his merchant ships.

Although these guns, known as general guns, are actually smaller in caliber and not too far in range, they are also guns anyway. When a Li Ji armed merchant ship with more than 30 cannon guns opens the cannon window, it can still make people full of fear.

No matter how small a cannon is, it is stronger than a crossbow.

"Let's try our general's cannon."

The cannon that Li Chao was equipped with on the ship, called the general's gun, was actually a long-barreled cannon. Because of the shortage of copper in Datang, and the technology of iron smelting and cast iron is now more advanced, Li Chao uses cast iron cannons.

Du Hongying watched the gunners busy, pointed to the black and long guys in surprise and asked, "These are the artillery?" ”

"This is General Shenwei, still in the experimental type, cast iron cannon, caliber two and a half inches, fifty-five inches long, using four and a half catties of iron bullets, the cannon weighs 1,200 catties."

In the name of testing, Li Chao got himself a batch of cannons.

This batch of guns is equivalent to the navy's three-pounder cannon on a sail warship in the Age of Discovery.

In the Age of Discovery, sail battleships had hundreds of guns, and the lower deck was full of 32-pound guns. Three-pounder guns, at best, are arranged on the upper deck, which can be regarded as light guns.

Bronze cannons are actually lighter and more durable, but Datang is a country lacking copper, and if copper cannons are used, it will be more than six times the cost of iron cannons, so the firearms supervision bureau of the imperial court adopted Li Chao's suggestion to use cast iron cannons.

"How far can you shoot?"

"The effective range is 200 paces, and the maximum range is 300 steps, but the best range should be about 100 steps." These experimental cast iron cannons, although they have a high starting technology at the beginning, are after all starting from scratch, two and a half inches of caliber, firing four and a half pounds of iron bullets, and the range is not too far.

However, it should be placed on a ship and used to bombard enemy ships, which is still very powerful, after all, the long-range strike force on ships in this era is too few and too weak.

Originally, Li Chao also considered installing the Franc machine in the rear, but later felt that the Franc machine was originally a deviated artillery, and the power of this gun was too small, so he simply skipped it.

Du Hongying was amazed when he watched the gunner on the ship stuff a four-and-a-half-pound iron ball into the barrel weighing more than 1,000 catties.

Iron.

It's all iron.

Although iron is cheaper than copper, copper is money, and iron is also very valuable. And on Li Chao's ship, on a boat, there were thirty-two iron cannons on the gun decks on both sides of the ship, which was tens of thousands of catties of iron, and those boxes of shells were all iron.

It's a luxury, it's rich.

It's like smashing people with money.

The guns on one side of the board have been loaded.

Two layers of artillery are on standby.

Cheng bites Jin and rubs his hands.

"Wen Yuan, let me give the order to open fire. Damn, in the past, in the war, the other side shot him a round of arrows first. Ten thousand arrows in unison, at that time, I thought that the way of playing was extremely extravagant, but the damn ten thousand arrows in unison didn't come to this hundred cannon salvo. An arrow is less than one tael, and your one cannonball is more than four fucking pounds, but it's seventy-two taels. ”

"Lao Cheng, I like such a luxurious style of play."

Li Chao smiled and nodded, Datang used to produce only one million catties of iron a year, and such a little iron material really can't support this kind of artillery offensive. But today's iron production is increasing in a straight line, and Li Ji alone can contribute millions of catties of iron to Datang a year, and this amount is still growing rapidly.

"Okay, give the order."

Cheng Yanjin put down the telescope in his hand, this distance can actually see the pirate water village on the opposite side clearly without a telescope.

"Shoot him, shoot his son of a!"

Cheng Yanjin waved his hand and shouted.

Of the ten big guns in the world, only Li Chao's two ships were equipped with artillery.

There were more than sixty guns in total, and there were more than thirty guns at one time with full firepower.

The gun windows on the side of the ship lit up fireworks one after another, and one iron cannon after another blasted towards the Bear Island Pirate Water Village, and the cannon sound was like thunder.

Li Chao watched the cannonball flying, and couldn't help but be a little stunned, Datang's artillery fire, who can be the enemy in this world?