Seventy-two long crossbow arrows with grenades were fired straight at the crumbling Galen ship like seventy-two meteors. Six long arrows with grenades were fired into the Galen ship, and the terrifying explosion sounded again.
Galen's ship rang out. The cabin was blown to pieces, and two big holes were blown out on the second deck. Two heavy cannons weighing several tons fell from the second deck and hit the third deck.
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Three large holes were blown out of the ship's side below the waterline by cannonballs. Under water pressure, seawater surged into the hull and began to engulf the stricken wooden sailboat. This time, the surviving sailors on the ship were desperate. They
I jumped off the Galen ship and swam towards the other Dutch ships behind me. The Galen ship was hit by cannonballs and sank little by little.
The Dutch woke up from a dream and knew that they could not catch up with Yang Peng's ship jumping gang, so they had to turn around and start an artillery battle with Li Zhi. Sixteen ships from the two camps lined up in two straight lines and used their broadsides one after another.
Aim at the enemy ship and compete with crossbows at a distance of one mile. The fire and smoke emitted by the crossbows with grenades are like flowers, which are constantly ignited in the vast sea. The rumbling sound of shelling dominates this sea area, making people feel
No other sounds were heard. The long arrows were like meteors, shuttling back and forth between the gunboats on both sides. Most of the long arrows hit the water, causing huge splashes. But sometimes, there were individual long arrows carrying
The grenade was fired into the ship.
Yang Peng stood on the deck and looked at the Dutch gunboat opposite with his binoculars. More than a dozen long crossbow arrows suddenly shot from the Dutch flagship, and all of them were fired at Yang Peng's Tianjing. Most of the crossbow arrows missed.
But a long arrow smashed into the second deck of the Tianjing. The long arrow broke through the hull and hit the barrel of a powerful crossbow, making a huge metal impact. The shell smashed the cannon and then
He changed lanes and hit the ceiling. He hit the first deck with a bang and lost speed. The arrow hit the ground.
A crossbow was damaged by the Dutch's long arrows, but no casualties were caused. The Tianjing aimed at the Dutch flagship in retaliation and shot eight crossbows with grenades. One long arrow hit the target.
The enemy ship landed on the bow deck of the Dutch ship, setting off a bloody storm. The long arrow with the grenade killed three sailors before it exploded. When the grenade exploded, the iron projectiles that burst out were even more
It swept across the deck like a storm and claimed the lives of more than a dozen Dutch sailors.
The Dutch sailors who were still alive fled with their heads in their hands, hiding only behind the masts and buckets, creating a mess. Blood and minced meat were sprinkled on the deck of the Dutch ship, mixed with the screams of those who were shot. The scene seemed like Shura Hell.
.Every long crossbow arrow from Yang Peng's fleet hit an enemy ship with a grenade, and it would cause a huge explosion inside the Dutch ship, blowing up the fragile internal tissues of the ship's hull into a mess. If the long arrow carried
The grenades landed on the densely populated first deck and second gun deck, which was a massacre.
If it falls on the edge of the ship's hull and explodes, the shell can blast a big hole in the ship's hull. After firing the crossbows, Yang Peng's eight ships only had a few holes and the damage was very small, but the Dutch ship was severely damaged.
Not to mention the sailors who were killed, even the crossbowmen on the second deck suffered heavy losses. Many ships had been broken into and exploded inside the ships, killing a large number of crossbowmen, and there were no longer enough personnel to fire the cannons. The Netherlands
People shoot fewer and fewer long arrows.
Several ships were blasted with large holes below the waterline. The sailors blocked the holes with planks of wood and barely managed to avoid sinking. The temporarily nailed ship planks were not perfect and would leak continuously, requiring the sailors to stop and stop the water.
A water pump is used to suck water from the bottom tank to ensure that the ship floats on the water.
Looking at the increasingly unfavorable situation on the battlefield, Forreston's face turned pale. Yang Peng's ship was faster than the Dutch ship, and the Dutch could not rush up to engage in a battle. Yang Peng's grenades would explode.
In the crossbow battle, the Dutch United Fleet was no match for Yang Peng.
If this continues, the battleships of the combined fleet will be sunk one by one by Yang Peng. Forreston is an old captain. He quickly understood the predicament he was in and made the final decision. He shouted loudly
Said: "All ships turn around, let's escape!"
First mate Caron said: "But Yang Peng's ship is faster than ours, and our fleet cannot escape." Forreston said: "The fleet separated and ran away in eight directions. After getting rid of Yang Peng, we went to Relanja.
Convergence.”
Forreston wanted the entire fleet to stage a great escape, and did not even expect to retreat as an organized unit. The fleet escaped separately, hoping that Yang Peng would not pursue it in eight directions, so that the Dutch could escape a few ships. The first mate
Caron's face turned pale, he nodded, and ran to the flag officer to deliver the order. The eight scarred Dutch gunboats saw the flag order displayed by the flagship, gave up the increasingly unfavorable artillery battle, and turned around and fled in eight directions.
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Seeing Hong Mao turning around and escaping, Yang Peng's fleet burst into deafening cheers. The victorious sailors raised their hands high to celebrate their victory. Even the more than 3,000 farmers on board breathed a sigh of relief and shouted loudly.
Applaud!
"Okay! The city lord is awesome!" "The general defeated Hongmao!" "You are right to follow the governor!"
Hongmao was the dominant one near Taiwan. Seeing that Yang Peng defeated Hongmao so easily, Lu Hu looked at Yang Peng with admiration and said, "The city lord is so powerful!" Yang Peng looked at the Dutch ships with his binoculars.
, sneered and said to Lu Hu: "The Dutch want to escape, our eight gunboats are divided into four groups, chase the four largest Dutch ships, sink the enemy ships and then meet at Hsinchu."
The artillerymen on Yang Peng's ships are all veterans selected from the vanguard group, but many of the boatmen on the new ships are novices and are not very skilled in operating ships. Yang Peng is worried that if the troops are divided into eight groups to pursue, there will be sailors from a certain group of ships.
Something went wrong, so they retreated to look for the next one. The troops were divided into four groups, each with two ships chasing one of the Dutch ships.
The ten ships were divided into four groups and chased the four large ships of the Dutch. Yang Peng led two crossbow ships and two ships without guns to pursue the Dutch flagship. The Dutch flagship was now heading southwest in the southeast wind.
The direction of the escape was not very fast. Yang Peng's ship used steam as power and drove at a high speed of nine knots in the south wind. It could easily bite the Dutch flagship, and from time to time it would catch up to the Dutch more than a mile away with a round of artillery shells.
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Continuously shot into the stern of the Braidan and exploded in the belly of the Dutch flagship, blowing the huge warship into a mess. Tianjing and Dagou took turns firing on the left and right sides, firing more than a hundred powerful crossbow rounds.
, finally defeated the Dutch warships and surrendered. The Dutch hung up the white flag, lowered the sails, and begged the Song people to let them live. Yang Peng asked twenty artillerymen to go up and tie up all the Dutch, and then boarded the ship to inspect it himself.
Flagship of the Dutch.
Yang Peng boarded the Dutch ship as a conqueror and inspected the Dutch flagship. Yang Peng hoped to find some useful technologies on the Western ships and add them to his own fleet.
But the results of the inspection disappointed Yang Peng.
"Garbage!" "Garbage, why is the technology of the Dutch in this era so rubbish?"
The Dutch did not have many technologies that were ahead of the Song people in this era. Both their bows and arrows and their powerful crossbows were very crude and could not compare with Yang Peng's technology. The only thing that interested Yang Peng was the Dutch's crossbows.
, the ballista used pulleys and hemp ropes to cushion the recoil of the artillery, allowing the Dutch's thirty-six-pound crossbow to be mounted on a wooden sailing ship.
The sailors turned over the ship and found more than 10,000 taels of silver. Yang Peng looked at the crossbows and said, "The materials for these crossbows are worth a lot of money. Drag the ship to Hsinchu and take it."
The strong crossbow was melted and replaced with copper!"
On May 13, Yang Peng took Zheng Hui and his guards on horseback and walked beside the new fields in Hsinchu. He felt happy looking at the farmers sowing and raising seedlings in the fields. Gao Ligong contacted two thousand rice-growing households in Taiping County, Zhejiang
After the old farmers came, Li Zhi sent a boat to pick them up. Now, these 7,000 old farmers in Taiping County and 8,000 farmers in Tianjin are planting more than 70,000 acres of the newly built irrigation canals according to the quota of 20 acres for every adult or strong woman.
Shuitian were the first farmers in Hsinchu.
Gao Ligong also contacted a group of farm cattle in Fujian, and Yang Peng transported them to Hsinchu by ship and lent them to the farmers. At this time, the farmers were planting late rice, sowing in May and expecting to harvest at the end of October. Thick rice was burned here in Hsinchu
The new fields covered with plant ash are extremely fertile. If managed properly, this season's rice harvest is estimated to be one stone and five buckets per mu. Although these paddy fields can only be planted for one season this year, the harvest is far higher than that of Tianjin's dry fields.
Yang Peng looked at the lush seedlings in the paddy fields and asked Guanshan: "How many people are there in Hsinchu now?" Guanshan replied: "City Lord, there are now more than 15,000 people in Hsinchu of all kinds. Among them, 12,000 are farmers.
, 3,700 people divided their fields and began to cultivate. There were more than 8,000 farmers who still had no fields. These farmers were building irrigation canals with two taels of silver a month. There were also a thousand soldiers from the Trap Regiment.
Helping farmers build irrigation canals. There are two thousand masons building houses for farmers. Finally, there are also some craftsmen who burn lime and bricks."
Yang Peng nodded and asked: "How many houses have been built so far?" "More than 6,000 brick and tile houses have been built so far. Except for the two thousand newly arrived farmers who still live in tents, the other people have all lived in brick houses.
In the tiled house." Yang Peng nodded and continued to ride forward.
Zhao Laosan was one of the first people to sign up for reclamation in Xiaoliuqiu. When he signed up, he didn’t know where Xiaoliuqiu was. He only heard people say it was a big island in the south with savages on it. The official from Tianjing New City who signed up
The official said that the people who opened up wasteland were tenant farmers of the Grand Governor, and each person was assigned twenty acres of land.
Zhao Laosan knew how rich the governor's tenant farmers were. One of his cousins farmed the governor's private land in Jinghai County and was now extremely rich. The cousin was in his thirties and already had a son and a daughter.
, but they are still planning to have another son, saying they can afford to raise him.
Zhao Laosan wanted to be a tenant farmer of the city lord before, but that required the old tenant farmer to act as a guarantor. Zhao Laosan’s cousin had many relatives who wanted to be guarantors, and he didn’t know that it would be the year of the monkey and the horse and the moon would be his turn to be the guarantor for Zhao Laosan. Zhao Laosan lived a hard life.
He rented 13 acres of dry land from the landlord Guo's family, and lived with his wife in two mud houses. They lived a tight life. He could not earn a new piece of clothing throughout the year, and he had to eat for one or two months every year.
After three years of marriage, Zhao Laosan did not dare to share a room with his wife for fear that the child would starve to death.
He looked longingly at the wealth of his cousin's family and was very envious. But this year the opportunity came. That day Zhao Laosan heard from someone who had studied in the village that the city lord was recruiting people to open up wasteland in Xiaoliuqiu, and he did not need anyone to act as a guarantee. He didn't even think about it.
I thought, I was the first to rush to the registration point and put my fingerprint. Zhao Laosan and the Tianjing New City official in charge of registration had a hard time talking, saying that if the registration started, they would be the first to take it.
I don’t know whether it was Zhao Laosan’s enthusiasm that moved the official who signed up, or whether Zhao Laosan and his wife were young and strong enough to meet the standards of a governor. The city lord was really the first to bring Zhao Laosan to Xiaoliuqiu. Now they are
The city owner called the big island of Taiwan. The boat to Taiwan was very bumpy. Zhao Laosan vomited three or four times, and Zhao Laosan’s wife also vomited several times. However, neither of them complained, and finally got the chance to follow the governor.
Given the opportunity, Zhao Laosan would not give up because of this little bump in the road.
After arriving in Taiwan and getting off the boat, Zhao Laosan discovered that Taiwan Island is a very fertile place. There are acres of woods, groups of wild deer, and a small river running through it. Standing on the hill where the camp was set up and looking over, both sides of the river were
The vast plains as far as the eye can see. This is obviously a good place for farming. Once those woods are burned, it will be the best farmland. The crops grown here will definitely have a good harvest. On the night of arriving in Taiwan, Zhao Laosan and his wife
Jumping and jumping in the tent.
The land reclamation farmers who came together were infected by Zhao Laosan, and they all jumped and made noise that night. Everyone gathered around the fire, looking forward to a good life in the future, and everyone was in high spirits. Things went smoothly afterwards.
The commander, Master Guan Shan, ordered everyone to burn wasteland, reclaim new fields, and build irrigation canals. During this process, he also defeated a Shengfan and a Hongmao. After all, the island of Taiwan is so rich, and there are still many people who are coveting it.
When the commander was fighting Shengfan and Hongmao, Zhao Laosan told the commander several times that he would give him a knife and fight with those soldiers. The commander ignored Zhao Laosan at that time and asked Zhao Laosan to stand aside.
He went there, but afterward he took a high look at Zhao Laosan. When the house was divided, the commander gave it to Zhao Laosan first.
Two months after Zhao Laosan arrived in Taiwan, he was assigned a two-room house made of bricks and tiles. This was a house that did not leak in rain or wind. Zhao Laosan had only ever entered a house like this at Mr. Guo's house in Jinshen every year when the rent was paid.
I slept in a brick house like this one night at my uncle's house in Jinghai County. Zhao Laosan never expected that he would live in such a good house so quickly.
There is also a toilet outside the house, which is very convenient. On the night when the houses were divided, Zhao Laosan and his wife hugged each other and burst into tears. His wife had been with him for more than three years and had a hard time, and now she was finally looking forward to it.
Good times.
Zhao Laosan's daughter-in-law wiped her tears at that time and said that the good life was given by the city lord, and she wanted to provide a longevity tablet for the city lord. Zhao Laosan went to find the masons who were good at carpentry and made the city lord's longevity tablet for herself.
Those masons heard that Zhao Laosan was going to provide a longevity tablet to the city lord, so they confiscated Zhao Laosan's money and helped Zhao Laosan do it. Not long after, in May, Guanshan listed Zhao Laosan as the first batch of land allocations.
As a farmer, Zhao Laosan now has paddy fields that can be cultivated.
A total of forty acres of fertile fields with irrigation canals were not far from Zhao Laosan’s village. When Zhao Laosan saw the forty acres of paddy fields, he was speechless for a long time. He fingerprinted the clerk,
So he ran back to his home crying and kowtowed thirty times to the Grand Governor's longevity tablet.
Zhao Laosan knew that his family would become rich in a short time. Even richer than his uncle's family. On May 13, something even more surprising happened. Zhao Laosan was weeding in his field and saw
The city lord. The city lord was very young and looked about the same age as himself. But the city lord was the city lord, and he had a dignity and dignity of his own, which was completely different from a commoner like himself. Zhao Laosan was kneeling on the ground at that time, not daring to say a word.
At that time, the city lord actually walked up to him and asked him. "What is your name?" Zhao Laosan stuttered and replied: Zhao Laosan." "Zhao Laosan, have you learned how to grow rice?" Zhao Laosan
The third child raised his head proudly and said: "Go back to the city master, the younger one has learned it. The rice farmers in Taiping County taught me step by step. I know how to sow seeds, how to transplant rice seedlings, and when to irrigate. I will wait until this year to plant it."
As for the rice, I followed the commander's instructions and gave one stone of grain to the master in Taiping County for tuition."
The city lord nodded, seeming to think that Zhao Laosan spoke quite clearly, so he asked Zhao Laosan a few more questions: "How much millet can you produce in late rice this season?" Zhao Laosan replied: "I heard from the master in Taiping County,
One acre of land can produce one stone and five buckets of rice." After listening to Zhao Laosan's words, the city lord pondered for a while, seeming to be calculating something.
After a long while, the city lord said: "Okay, you will only collect 50% of the land rent for this season's late rice. Next year, you will plant two crops of rice and collect 60% of the land rent." Zhao Laosan was stunned. Unexpectedly, after a few words, the city lord gave
I reduced my land rent by 10%.
Commander Zheng, who was next to the city lord, did the math and said loudly to the peasants kneeling on the ground: "The governor collects 50% of the land rent. In the first year, each man of the peasants can collect 15 shi of grain into his home, which is equivalent to 30 shi."
"This is just the income from more than half a year's hard work, which is equivalent to each man or strong woman earning three taels and seven cents and five cents of silver per month! The couple earns seven taels and five cents of silver per month."
When Zhao Laosan heard Commander Guan's calculation, he was so excited that blood rushed to his face. Helping the governor as tenant farmers, the couple could earn seven taels and five cents a month? He used to work as a tenant farmer in the Guo family, all year round.
Even if you take out food and drink, you can't earn more than seven taels of silver.
Zhao Laosan knelt on the ground, raised his head and looked at the governor with a silly smile. The good days have finally come. Guan Shan looked at Zhao Laosan's excited face and said, "Sir, you have excited these farmers."
Yang Peng smiled and said to Guan Shan: "The farmers have crossed the ocean to come to Taiwan with us to open up new fields. Naturally, we have to give them some benefits. When the first batch of farmers benefit, the following farmers will follow in an endless stream. This will be the case from now on.
It’s settled. If you can catch up with the early rice planting, you will receive 60% of the land rent. If you can’t catch up with the early rice, you can only grow one season of late rice, and you will only receive 50% of the land rent.”
Guan Shan cupped his hands and said, "The city lord's kindness is admired by his subordinates." Yang Peng nodded, stopped inspecting the field, mounted his horse and walked back.
Guan Shan did some calculations along the way and said to Li Zhi: "Sir, there are more than 60,000 acres of paddy fields that have been cultivated now. It is expected that the rice harvest will be 90,000 dan by the end of this year. The city lord will charge 50% of the land rent, which is 45,000 dan.
Taiwan’s paddy fields do not require payment of grains, so the half-year rent of these 60,000 acres of paddy fields is more than the annual rent of 200,000 acres of dry fields in Tianjing New City.”
Yang Peng nodded when he heard this. He heard Gao Ligong say before that the income from paddy fields in Taiwan is several times that of dry fields in Tianjin. It was just a concept. Only when the fields were actually opened did he feel that he could get twice the result with half the effort here.
The half-year income from land rent is 45,000 shi, which is equivalent to 90,000 taels of silver. Calculated over eight months, it is equivalent to a monthly income of more than 10,000 taels of silver.
And this is just the beginning. With the expansion of the fleet, Taiwan's subsequent expansion will become faster and faster. Taiwan's development is really profitable. There is great potential for subsequent development.
In mid-May, Yang Peng returned to Tianjing New City with the fleet. Now the city walls of Tianjing New City have been repaired, and the area of Tianjing New City has doubled. The wall between the two cities is the original southern part of Tianjing New City.
The city wall was demolished. The new city and the old city were connected together.
However, as soon as the new city was built, a lot of space was occupied by the new army barracks and expanded textile factories. Especially the textile factories, which are expanding every month. Now Yang Peng has a Japanese market where he can dump his cheap fine cloth.
Yang Peng plans to expand the textile factory to a scale of 15,000 people.
The factory with 15,000 people will bring huge profits to Yang Peng. It is estimated that tens of thousands of taels of silver will be generated every month, which can support Yang Peng's other businesses. However, the expansion of the textile factory cannot be accomplished overnight. Expanding production requires not only building machinery
, to build factories, it is also necessary to build villas for workers to live in. Almost all the masons near Tianjing New City were hired by Yang Peng. They kept moving building materials, driving piles, laying bricks, and plastering mud to the south of Tianjing New City every day.
It turned into a big construction site.
The textile factories that have been expanding their production have produced a lot of fine cloth in the past few months, all of which have been piled up in the warehouse, almost filling the warehouse. Fortunately, starting from the end of May, Yang Peng's fleet began to run the Hirado route.
Yang Peng did not buy the six sea-going ships from Cha Yunke and Cangzhou Zhang Family. Those small boats also needed a set of boatmen, and the efficiency was really low. But Yang Peng hired all the skilled boatmen of these six small boats and asked them to build them on their own.
of ships going to sea.
What happened after all? Let’s look at the breakdown next time.