Chapter 252 The British Who Stuck the Hornet's Nest
Chapter 252 The British who stirred up a hornet's nest
When Liu Zheng and his companions' supplies were hoisted from the Thor to the Fu Ship, the space on the Fu Ship's deck was immediately reduced by more than half. A group of sailors spent a lot of effort to load the wooden boxes into the cabin with the help of the crane.
At this time, it was time for Liu Zheng to say goodbye. Zhao Xin, Liu Sheng, and Ding Guofeng all came to the deck to say goodbye to Liu Zheng and the others.
Liu Sheng hugged Liu Zheng with a smile, then patted each other on the shoulder and said: "Man! Take care of yourself all the way. The hope of the entire Chinese people is pinned on you! No matter it is a foreigner or a Manchu, who dares to follow
You can stab Neng to death! No matter what others say, Mr. Zhao can kill you in minutes. So no matter how difficult it is, you must endure it. Thousands of fellow women in Beihai Town are still waiting for you to return!"
"Hey, Brother Liu, look what you said, you are asking me to stir up trouble." Liu Zheng was dumbfounded by Liu Sheng's teasing, and his original nervousness and reluctance suddenly diluted a lot.
Ding Guofeng also hugged and shook hands, and told: "Don't listen to Liu's nonsense, safety comes first. If it doesn't work, send a report and I will sail over to pick you up."
Liu Sheng smiled and scolded: "Look at what you can do! Your captain's internship is not over yet."
Zhao Xin chuckled, hugged Liu Zheng's shoulders, and whispered: "Do you remember those things I said?"
Liu Zheng patted Zhao Xin's back with his hand knowingly, indicating that he had remembered everything. Zhao Xin continued to whisper: "I won't say anything more. Remember, the most terrifying thing is not the hard work, the feasting, the feasting, the extravagance.
Daozi. Thirteen rows are full of fish and dragons. Foreigners have nothing to be afraid of. The one you need to be most careful about is this guy named Cai."
When the two shook hands, Zhao Xin chuckled and said: "A person usually only needs to deal with seven or eight people. If you can deal with these people well, then there will be nothing difficult."
Liu Sheng interjected: "He didn't tell you to find seven or eight wives!"
Several people laughed again.
After that, Zhao Xin and the others said goodbye to Liu Zheng's guard platoon and two correspondents respectively, and told them to protect Liu Zheng's safety and to be more careful themselves.
The platoon leader had participated in all the battles from Bear Island to Fuldan City. After Beihai Town was restructured, he gave himself a Chinese name, Li Sihai. He had already given all the instructions that needed to be given. Zhao Xin and the others only said to pay attention to safety.
, take care along the way, etc. After paying each other a military salute, Liu Zheng and his men disembarked from the ship through the gangway, then passed through a gangplank and boarded the lucky ship.
At this time, the sailors on the Fu ship untied the cables and raised the hard sail. Zhao Xin and others stood on the side of the ship, waving goodbye to Liu Zheng and others who were gradually moving away. Cai Shiwen and his men waved towards Wang Ping on the Thor.
Hands in greeting.
Wang Ping did not go with Fu Chuan. His mission was to send Zhao Xin and others to Macau first, and then take the boat to Guangzhou.
The Wailingding Island where the Thunder God is now located belongs to Xin'an County in Guangdong in this era, while Macao belongs to Xiangshan County. Both the Cai family's fortune ship and the Thunder God must sail west-north from Wailingding Island.
After crossing the banyan tree head, you enter the waters of Xiangshan County.
Because the Cai family's ship had command flags and tokens issued by Guangdong Customs, they did not need to stop along the way. After passing Banyan Tree Head, they turned directly north and headed towards the Humen Fort.
The Thunder God is different. According to what Wang Ping said, it must first be anchored off the coast of Macau. After the Macau Tongzhi Yamen and the Macau Portuguese Councilor send people to negotiate, they can find a place to dock, and then change ships to enter Macau. As for directly
To berth in Macau Port, let alone whether the court officials would allow it, there is no berth in Macau Port that can accommodate the Thor.
Coming to Macau was not a sudden whim of Zhao Xin, but a plan. He planned to use the Thor to visit Macau, in order to shock the foreigners who came to trade with China and let them know that there are still people on the sea of China.
A large Han ship that far exceeded the Manchu navy was patrolling everywhere.
Just like Liu Sheng said to Liu Zheng, whoever dares to explode will kill them!
Ding Guofeng waited until Cai Jiafu's ship was completely invisible on the sea, then he raised the anchor and sailed. After that, the Thor crossed Wailingding Island and headed west, first passing Banyan Tree Head, and then passing a place called "Cheung Chau Shit"
The small island soon came to the vicinity of Jitou Island at the east end of Tanzai Island. The ocean between Jitou Island and Tanzai Island in the west is the place where all ships coming to Macao drop their sails and anchor. This is also known as
It's called the chicken neck ocean.
Sixty years ago, in the third year of Yongzheng's reign, in order to limit the number of Portuguese coming to China and the outflow of Chinese people, the Qing government, through the then Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Kong Yuxun, limited the number of merchant ships trading in Macau to 25. This is the origin of "excess ships".
.In other words, excluding these 25 fixed merchant ships, all other foreign ships coming to China can only berth in the outer sea of Jijin Ocean if they want to enter the port; if the goods or people on the ship want to land in Macau, they must use these 25 ships.
transport.
Because the ship's currency is two-thirds cheaper than that at Humen Fort Customs, and the Qing government does not collect goods tax at the time of import, the goods can be moved directly into the warehouse, and the Chinese businessmen who buy the goods will pay the tax to Guangdong Customs when the transaction is completed.
; Therefore, even if there are ship quota restrictions, many foreign merchants will still choose to disembark their goods from Macau and pay a fee to the Macao and Portuguese parties.
At this time, dozens of large and small sailing ships from India, Malacca, and Luzon were moored on the Chicken Neck Ocean. On these ships, there were British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish people.
, the sailors aboard the ship are also of various races.
Seeing the sailboats appearing in the telescope, Ding Guofeng asked Zhao Xin: "Horn?"
Zhao Xin nodded and said: "Four short blasts, whistle!"
As the rapid whistle began to sound, the calmness on the sea surface of the Chicken Neck Ocean was broken.
"Oh my God! What's that! Look that! Look! It's a monster!" On the main mast observation deck of a British three-masted merchant ship, a blond sailor pointed to the east and shouted loudly.
On board the Reliance from the East India Company, Captain Marquis, who received the notification from the star officer on duty, walked out of the captain's cabin, walked to the left side of the bow, and pulled out his telescope.
After a moment, he glanced at the first mate next to him in disbelief, and found that the other person was also looking at him with wide eyes, so he quickly put his eyes in front of the monocular telescope to watch.
"Buck, is this an illusion?"
"Captain, I don't think it's possible for everyone to hallucinate at the same time." First mate Buck said as he patted Marquis on the shoulder. Marquis followed Buck's finger and saw the same thing on other sailboats on the ocean.
It's a huge crowd.
"Oh my God! There is such a big ship in the world! Buck, have you ever heard of such a ship?"
"Captain, to be disrespectful, I think Noah's Ark is only this big."
"Mr. Buck, can you see the gun ports on the hull? Why can't I see them?"
First Mate Buck looked at it for a while before replying: "It seems, it seems there is no muzzle."
The big ship in Marquis's field of vision gradually became clearer. He looked carefully for a long time and couldn't find a gun port. "A huge ship without gun windows. The guy who designed this ship must be crazy!"
At this time, a duty officer asked: "Captain, do you want to beat the drum to prepare for battle?"
First mate Buck said: "Harlan, you idiot, this is the Qing people's waters, we are not here to fight!"
Captain Marquis suddenly turned his head and said: "Jack! Get up there with the gun!"
"Yes! Captain!" The sailor with the best marksmanship on the ship climbed up to the observation deck with a brown bass rifle, but he could only see the bow and poop of the Thor.
After a while, Jack on the top beam of the mast shouted to the bottom: "Captain, their cabin is at the stern! As high as a mountain! I can't see if there is anyone on the bow. This ship is too big."
!my God."
Marquis continued to look at the huge white ship through the telescope, thinking to himself that this was definitely not a British Empire ship. Could it be a new American ship? If true, he would have to notify the East India Company immediately. Obviously, such a huge ship
The emergence of the ship will pose a serious challenge to the East India Company's trade in the South China Sea.
On both sides of them, there were already crowds of sailors looking around. A few guys felt that they couldn't see clearly, and even turned around and climbed onto the mast. At this time, all the people on the sailboats on the Chicken Neck Ocean went up to the deck, looking at more and more people.
The approaching Thor was at a loss.
Zhao Xin put down the telescope, pointed at a three-masted sailboat not far away with a British flag flying on the top of the mast, and said to Ding Guofeng: "Keep blowing the whistle! Drive there and scare them!"
"No problem, let's see!" Ding Guofeng was full of energy at this time, pressed the yellow button that represented four short whistles, and then turned the rudder.
Buck, the first mate of the Trust, listened to the whistle coming from the sea and watched the white ship suddenly change its course and head towards him. He asked Marquis: "Captain, what are they doing?
"
"Well I guess they want us to make way for them?"
As soon as these words came out, Marquis and Buck put down their telescopes blankly, looked at each other, and suddenly turned to shout at the sailors.
"Ring the bell! Weigh the anchor! Raise the sail! Quick! Quick!" After saying that, he shouted to the observation tower above his head: "Jack, fire a warning!"
The sailor named Jack held his gun and aimed for a long time. He couldn't see the deck of the ship at all, so he fired a shot at the top of the bow.
"Boom!" The Thor on the opposite side showed no response.
The crisp bell rang on the deck of the Trust, and everyone jumped up and down. The panicked sailors climbed to the top of the mast and began to lower the sail, while other sailors rushed to the bow to turn the winch to raise the anchor.
"Oh God! They are coming!" A young sailor shouted in panic. He even left the position of the capstan and crossed himself on his chest to pray: "Eternal Father in heaven, please look down on me from heaven.
Fallen sinners, hopeless and incapable of heart and mind."
First mate Buck rushed over and shouted: "Shut your stinky mouth! Go back and push me hard! Everyone, push harder, faster!" As seven or eight sailors pushed hard together, a heavy
The anchor slowly rose from the sea. At this time, Captain Marquis desperately turned the steering wheel, trying to turn the Trust.
At this time, everyone on the boat heard a loud rumbling sound, and two huge anchors fell from both sides of the bow of the big white boat; after a while, thick anchor chains continued to follow the anchor holes.
Sliding into the sea.
On the trust, which was turning hastily, Marquis saw the white ship getting closer and closer to the trust, and all the crew members shouted at the top of their lungs.
"Stop! Stop!"
On another British merchant ship, the Eliza, four hundred meters away, an 18-pound iron cannon under the hull made a "boom" sound, emitting a puff of white smoke, and an 8-kilogram iron bullet roared into the Thor.
The bow of the ship.
Seeing another British ship suddenly firing cannons, people on merchant ships from other countries were stunned. Are the British crazy?
Immediately afterwards, everyone heard a loud "boom" sound, and the 18-pound shell hit the outside of the bow of the big white boat, and then was ejected and fell into the sea!
"Oh my God! Is the hull covered with a layer of iron plate?!" Not only the gunners on the Eliza, but everyone on the sea who could see this scene clearly were dumbfounded.
In these days, everyone has seen the copper-clad bottoms of three-masted ships, but no one has ever heard of even the hulls being clad with iron plates. Although compared with the 30-inch-thick hulls of eighteenth-century sailing ships,
The thickness of the Thor's shell steel plate is only 2 centimeters, but at a distance of more than 400 meters, an 8-kilogram iron ball hit the special marine steel plate with a yield strength of 320Mpa with an initial velocity of 500 meters per second. That's it.
.
The captain of the Eliza did not know how serious the consequences of his actions would be. Five minutes later, the two M2HBs on the starboard side of the Thor opened fire.
The sound of "bang bang bang" machine guns echoed on the sea of South China for the first time in this time and space. I saw a series of water columns suddenly appearing on the sea near the Eliza, and then a stream of water sprayed out from the ship.
Countless sawdust.
In the lower cabin of the gun deck, several sailors were hit by sawdust flying everywhere. Several mango wood boxes placed on the lowest floor were hit by several rounds of .50 armor-piercing incendiary bombs and were immediately smashed to pieces.
; Immediately afterwards, the wooden boxes above also fell one after another. In this mess, black opium balls rolled to the ground; an extremely unpleasant smell, like the smell of urine that had been soaked for many days, permeated the entire cargo hold.
As the impact point continued to move upward, dozens of armor-piercing incendiary bullets penetrated the gun deck. The bronze cannon that had just fired at the Thor and had "Lucy Joe" engraved on the gun carriage was hit immediately.
It jumped up, rolled down 90 degrees in the small cabin, and then hit the cannon on the left hard, making a loud "Duang" sound. The sailors in the gun deck
The person who was beaten fell over on his back; a few lucky guys were lying on the deck, not daring to move.
The sawdust continued to fly, so the ship's railing on the starboard side of the Eliza was shattered, and a fire soon broke out; at the same time, there was a howl of ghosts and wolves on the main deck. Just when everyone on the Eliza felt that the end was coming, the Thor
The gunfire stopped.
At the bow of the Thor, Zheng Yi and others, who had escaped from collective bondage, were guarded by more than a dozen soldiers. They stretched their necks and looked at the two "quick cannons" that had just roared on the deck. Their jaws dropped in shock.
.
Oh my god! What kind of weapon is this?! Zheng Yixin said that if I had two, no, one of these rapid-fire cannons, the foreigners in the government would be no match for me!
At this time, the Thor's speed had slowed down, but in the eyes of everyone on the Trust, it still hit it at an unstoppable speed. Some sailors on the Trust were so frightened that they jumped into the water from the other side of the deck, desperately
Swimming towards other ships. Marquis reluctantly let go of the wheel rudder, hurriedly hugged the mast, and shouted to everyone on the boat: "Pay attention to the collision! Pay attention to the collision!" After saying this, he closed his eyes in despair, while the others on the ship
People also grabbed the cables one after another and kept praying to God to survive.
Amid the exclamations of thousands of people on the sea, the red bulbous bow of the Thor, which was half exposed from the water, stopped ten meters away from the Trust.
"Xu~~"
On the Chicken Neck Ocean, the people on the sailboats from all over the world breathed a sigh of relief when they saw this thrilling scene! Although the Trust is a 1,500-ton three-masted sailboat, it has never been seen before on such a ship.
In front of the huge ship, he was as weak as an ant; not to mention the Eliza, which was still burning on the deck.
The air on the sea seemed to be frozen for a few seconds, and what followed was the rapid ringing of bells on the sailing ships of various countries, like a rainstorm.
"Weight anchor, hoist sail! Run! The devil on the sea is out!"
"Hurry, lift anchor quickly, let's go to Macau! We need to enter Hong Kong immediately to report the news!" This was a plan to fish in troubled waters and enter Macau.
On the Trust and Eliza, the two captains and all the sailors were almost scared to death. Their backs soaked in cold sweat were blown by the breeze, and goosebumps appeared all over their bodies. In their hearts,
Everyone is struggling with one question: Where did this ship come from?
"Sir, let's get out of here quickly, shall we?" On a French merchant ship, a Macau Tongzhi Yamen (Guangzhou Prefecture Macau Coastal Defense Military and Civilian Tongzhi Yamen) who was leading people to board the ship took the general and Macau Portuguese director's subordinates,
Looking at the huge white ship two miles away, he was so frightened that his face turned pale and he lost his mind.
"Which country's giant ship is this? How dare you act so tyrannically in our clear waters!" After a while, he came back to his senses and slapped the table on the table, saying angrily: "Here comes someone!"
"Zha! Your Majesty's command." Several officers and soldiers from the coastal defense yamen knelt on the deck in fear.
"Quickly, escort me back to Macau quickly and report to Mr. Chen."
"Sir, wait for me, I will go back with you." The accompanying Macao-Portuguese director hurriedly followed, and he also wanted to rush back immediately to report to Governor Faria.
The captain of the French merchant ship chased to the side of the ship and shouted: "My lords, I haven't completed the inspection procedures yet!"
The Macao-Portuguese director boarded the big boat, turned around and waved his hands helplessly: "Captain, if something like this happens, you have no choice but to wait. Take care!"
"Damn it! I've been waiting for twenty days!" Seeing the big boat going further and further away, the French captain shouted angrily, but unfortunately no one responded.
On the big boat, when the captain kept urging his men to paddle, a soldier next to him suddenly shouted: "Sir, look!"
At this time, everyone on the sea, whether they had already raised the anchor or were preparing to raise the sail, saw on the bow of the big white boat, a huge rectangular five-star flag with a red background and a white five-star flag rising slowly along the mast, blowing with the wind.
Fluttering fiercely.
Ship tax refers to the customs in the Qing Dynasty that directly levied taxes on ships according to their size. Ships were divided into first-class ships, second-class ships, third-class ships, and fourth-class ships. The tax amount was: "First-class ship (seven feet long, five feet wide, two feet four feet wide)"
, about 900 tons), the quota was 1,400 taels (260 taels in the Ming Dynasty), which were reduced to 1,110 taels for second-class ships, 600 taels for third-class ships, and 400 taels for fourth-class ships.
.This concept gave rise to the term "chaoguan", which is the tax customs for collecting ship banknotes.