Traveling through history leaving a name

Chapter 350 Pirates?

With these three large ships, more than 1000 crew members do not need to take turns training on one ship.

After the delivery of the three Galen warships, Zhang Qingfeng allocated funds again and placed orders for [-] more warships from the three shipyards.

Zhang Qingfeng needs the three shipyards to manufacture twenty sailing warships within a few years.

A small European country can produce hundreds of large ships. If it wants to intervene in world maritime trade, how can it do it without a strong fleet.

The Galen battleship with a displacement of 18 tons requires an average of [-] taels of silver per ship.

Twenty warships would require more than 360 million taels of silver, which is equivalent to more than 36 billion copper coins. Zhang Qingfeng can be said to have spent a lot of money.

At the same time, Zhang Qingfeng placed orders for more than 50 Ming-made large merchant ships to shipyards all over the country, and these orders also cost more than 400 million taels of silver.

In order to get involved in maritime trade, Zhang Qingfeng bought a shipyard and manufactured firearms, and finally placed so many shipbuilding orders in one go, with an estimated total investment of tens of millions of taels of silver.

This investment will be Zhang Qingfeng's largest investment in many years.

Bohai Bay.

Although it is a bay, when the ship is in the middle of the bay, all that can be seen is the vast sea.

At this time, there were really three large sailing ships sailing forward side by side in a straight line.

At this moment, on the ship among the three ships, a flag bearer was quickly waving the flag in his hand.

After a while, the three sailing ships began to turn neatly.

500 meters away from the three large ships, two old ships floated quietly on the sea.

"Belt, everyone is ready!" At the bow of the ship, an orderly crew member said to a middle-aged man.

"Pass my order, all ships aim at the target and fire three rounds..." the middle-aged man ordered the crew.

Hearing the middle-aged man's order, the crew left quickly.

Soon, the flag bearer on this ship waved the flag again.

In less than a moment, with a bang, the ship in the middle fired first.

Immediately afterwards, the other two ships fired one after another.

As the three ships fired, at least 60 shells were fired at a target 300 meters away.

"Three shots were hit." Soon, someone counted the number of shells hit.

"Right full rudder!" Soon, the middle-aged man gave another order.

Following the order given by the middle-aged man, countless crew members began to move quickly, those who sailed the sails, those who loaded the cannons, and saw the three big ships draw a big circle on the sea, and soon turned to the other side. aimed at a distant target.

At this time, the fleet is in a line, balanced with the distant target.

Boom boom boom boom boom!

Then, there was another burst of cannons that shook the sky.

Immediately, countless shells flew rapidly, smashing towards distant targets.

"Four hits."

After the second round, someone soon counted the number of hits.

"It's too low, and the hit rate is still too low." Hearing the statistics, the middle-aged man shook his head. "The palm print says that the hit rate at 500 meters must reach [-]% to be qualified."

"Left full rudder!"

"Aim and shoot!"

A few minutes later, the third round of shooting began.

"Six hits." Someone counted the number of hits.

"It sank, the target ship sank."

Suddenly, countless voices on the three ships shouted excitedly.

The middle-aged man looked into the distance and saw two target ships hundreds of meters away, one of which was sinking slowly.

"Not bad." Seeing such an effect, the middle-aged man finally smiled.

"Go up and sink another ship, and today's drill is over." He gave an order.

Following his orders, the three large ships turned to approach the target ship in the distance.

Boom boom boom boom boom!

With the sound of rumbling artillery, the three large ships opened fire at a distance of less than [-] meters, immediately smashing the ships into holes.

Soon, the ship also quickly sank into the bottom of the sea.

"My lord, when are we going to run the route? It's been three months of training."

On the way back, a crew member asked the middle-aged man.

"It's coming soon. The palm print says that a fleet will go to Japan for trade in a few days. Let us escort it." The middle-aged man said to the crew.

"Great." Hearing this, the crew immediately cheered up.

Looking at a group of young people who were extremely happy, a smile appeared on the face of the middle-aged man unconsciously.

The middle-aged man, named Li Jinzhong, was none other than the famous Nine Thousand Years Old Wei Zhongxian.

A year ago, Wei Zhongxian would never have imagined that he would become a captain (captain) and lead a group of young people for three months of sailing training at sea.

It all started nine months ago.

The prince Zhu Changluo asked him to follow the eunuch Zhou Qingfeng in the palace, and Zhou Qingfeng arranged for him to study navigation at Daming Institute of Technology.

After studying for five months, after five months, he was assigned to be the captain and fleet commander of Tianjin.

Then, he led a group of young people to train at sea for three months, and the three months of training made his face tanned.

A few days later, Tianjin port.

A fleet of more than a dozen large ships, filled with countless precious goods, left Tianjin Port.

This fleet is naturally the maritime trade fleet organized by Zhang Qingfeng and some powerful and wealthy businessmen in the capital, with goods worth more than 200 million taels.

Among them are soap, soap, glass utensils, glass mirrors, cotton cloth, silk, sugar, musk, ginseng, deer antler and so on.

The person in charge of the trade this time was an eunuch named Chen Guangping single-handedly picked up by Zhang Qingfeng.

This time, Chen Guangping will lead the fleet all the way along the coast of North Korea, all the way to Japan's Hirado Domain (Nagasaki) for trade.

Wei Zhongxian, on the other hand, served as the commander-in-chief of the escort fleet, responsible for protecting the safety of the fleet along the way.

These days, merchant ships without armed protection are easily robbed by pirates.

And these pirates, sometimes you don't know who they are at all, maybe they are real pirates, or maybe they are businessmen who want to make a fortune and play a temporary cameo as a pirate.

Anyway, in the vast sea, when a person is killed or a ship sinks, the heavenly king and I don't know what's going on.

"Look, there is a fleet of ships in the distance, a huge fleet, at least hundreds of ships."

Just when the fleet led by Chen Guangping left North Korea and crossed the strait to Japan, they encountered a huge fleet in the middle of the strait.

When the fleet met, many crew members on Chen Guangping's fleet became vigilant.

In such a situation, only the old crew did not take it seriously.

"Don't worry, we can't fight." An old crew member comforted the young crew member and said.

"Why?" The young crew member was puzzled.

The young people are naturally students who have just graduated from the Polytechnic University. This is their first time to go to sea as a crew member.

Before they went out to sea, someone told them that the sea was very dangerous, and besides the wind and waves, they had to be careful of other ships, because they were probably pirates.

Even if you are a businessman on the surface, if you see that you are easy to bully, you may turn into a pirate and rob you immediately.

"why?"

Hearing the young man's words, the old sailor said, "First of all, our fleet is not small, and ordinary pirates would not dare to snatch such a large fleet."

"In addition, others don't know who we are, maybe we are also pirates?" The old crewman said with a smile.

Without waiting for the young man to speak, he continued: "Also, others don't know how much treasure our fleet has. What if we go to war and end up with nothing? Wouldn't it be a huge loss?"

"So don't worry, pirates don't dare to mess around without knowing their strength."

(End of this chapter)