Therefore, Hale hopes that the Zheng Group can regain its strength more than anyone else. For this reason, he hit it off with Zheng Zhifeng, who came to seek an alliance. In his view, although Zheng Chenggong has the status and appeal of the legitimate son, he also has the official status of the Ming Dynasty.
Support, and the decisive strategy revealed in seizing Anping makes his group not to be underestimated, but after all, it is the weakest - the most important fleet and commercial channels have been divided up, and it cannot play a big role. Moreover, he himself
He has no contact with the main members of this group, and it is unknown whether the other party can understand his power.
Zheng Zhifeng has cooperated with me for a long time, and he is the most powerful faction in Weitou Bay - his appeal is much greater than that of Zheng Gongcheng's group, which is the leader of Shao Guoxin, and he obviously has many more ships and payment capabilities.
"Mr. Feng, you are very haggard."
Zheng Zhifeng took off his cloak, "The Zheng family is in dire straits, but the situation in Weitou Bay is so treacherous that I can't sleep peacefully."
"Really? I think with your charisma and strength, you shouldn't have such worries. You just need to be less decisive."
Zheng Zhifeng nodded silently and took the hot cocoa from Marcos. She did not continue the topic.
"I want to get the goods, are you ready?"
"Of course. This is the product you want. Let's take a look at it first." Hale was still habitually efficient and had no unnecessary politeness.
In the air outside the hut, there were piles of cylindrical objects tightly wrapped with straw ropes, nearly ten feet long, as well as dozens of large and small wooden boxes.
Zheng Zhifeng's eyes couldn't help but focus on the object, as the package was opened. Dozens of workers raised the thick scaffolding, then used a simple iron pulley set to lift the long tube out of the box and skillfully placed it on the already assembled
Good gun carriage.
Zheng Zhifeng glanced back and forth at this novel weapon with greedy eyes. There were six fully assembled artillery pieces. Two large and four small. The larger one had a caliber of about four inches (Ming Dynasty inch, approximately 125mm) and eight inches long.
The diameter of the smaller one is more than three inches (Ming ruler, approximately 100mm) and the length is more than seven feet (Ming ruler, approximately 2.35 meters).
These cannons are not the familiar red barbarian cannons that people in the Ming Dynasty are familiar with - usually half snake guns or large snake guns. Instead, they are cannons made according to more modern techniques by integral casting and then milling out the barrel. After drawing out the rifling, they are already
It was a very powerful front-loaded rifled gun. Hale was well aware of the flaws in his materials, so he added iron hoops to the gun. Therefore, the gun seemed very heavy. Fortunately, Zheng Zhifeng's needs were mainly naval guns and
Fortress defense, it doesn't matter if it's bulkier.
As for the better-performing Dahlgren guns he manufactured, there were very few of them, and he was unwilling and inconvenient to sell them to Zheng Zhifeng. However, even this modified version could be used against Australian warships to a certain extent.
"Mr. Paul, is this the kind of powerful artillery that you said is comparable to the Australians? Why does it look inferior to the Hongyi cannon?" Zheng Zhifeng asked suspiciously. After all, the artillery in front of her was the same size as Zheng Zhifeng had seen before.
The massive 18-pounder redcoat cannon is different.
Hale's lips couldn't help but show a hint of contempt, and he said coldly: "Mr. Feng, you have reason to question what you saw. After all, not everyone knows about cannons. Bigger cannons are not always better." He paused.
After a pause, he completely ignored Zheng Zhifeng's mocked and ugly expression, and continued: "I said, my goods will never let you down. If you had moved faster, maybe you wouldn't have lost in Xiamen.
So tragic.”
Zheng Zhifeng said silently, indeed. If the artillery factory could start construction earlier, the "new artillery" used to fight the Australians would not be just the few cannons dismantled from the Australian ships. In the entire battle, except for those "Australian cannons"
Except for the "cannon", none of the Zheng family's firearms posed any threat to the Australians. Whether on land or at sea, the Australians had the advantage in range. The enemy was defeated with muskets even when there was no support from cannons.
The most frightening thing about our own gunners is that they shoot incredibly accurately - even the European gunners they hired cannot achieve such accuracy.
The gunfire of the massacres in Weitou Bay and Jinxia was deeply burned into his mind, making it difficult for him to sleep or eat well. Although he accepted most of the inheritance from the Zheng Group, he seemed to be the largest powerful group in Weitou Bay.
He is well aware that his position is fragile. Australian two-masted clippers appear in the sea off Jinxia from time to time, seeming to declare their sovereignty over this sea area. The flag that once could be sold for two thousand taels of silver has no one interested, because
When Australian patrol boats see a ship carrying the Zheng family flag, they will arrest it. Once captured, all the cargo will be confiscated. So the shipowners sailing to the West began to fly the Australian flag instead. The escort patrol system established by the Australians made it possible
They were completely unable to do anything about it. They could only sit back and watch this huge loss of income. Even some small splintered forces within the Zheng Group began to buy flags from the Australians.
There are powerful enemies outside, and there is also peace in Weitou Bay. The Zheng Cai brothers are entrenched in Xiamen and don't buy it at all. Zheng Chenggong occupies Anping and relies on official power, which also makes him choke. As for other small forces, although they are not a threat,
However, they have colluded with each other, working together, and helping each other to avoid being annexed by the three major forces. Let him eat the small ones first and then take over the big ones. The plan to reunify the Zheng family has repeatedly failed.
Zheng Zhifeng knew very well that the current silence of the Australians was temporary. They deliberately did not intervene in the disputes in Weitou Bay because they wanted them to fight each other to death, consume each other, and finally swallow them whole - not even the bones were left.
To break the deadlock, the only way to break the deadlock is to refresh armaments. The Australian attack opened his eyes and truly taught him a lesson about the "gap". In the past, the Zheng Group also realized that its own side was in armed conflict with Europeans.
The Zheng Group was lagging behind in ship artillery, so it introduced European ships, artillery and technical personnel. However, the gap between the two sides was not so large that the Zheng Group was unable to fight back. Most of them were able to take advantage of geographical advantages in several conflicts along the coast of China.
They had heard of the Australians' strong ships and cannons, but due to lack of practical experience, the backbone of the Zheng Group had great objections to whether to cooperate with Hale to establish a new gun foundry.
——After all, this expense is too large and will inevitably affect the distribution of profits.
Zheng Zhifeng lamented more than once that too much time was wasted on the discussion. If the artillery factory could be put into operation earlier, although it would not be able to reverse the situation, at least it would not have suffered such a heavy defeat, and his brother would not have been brutally murdered, causing the current division.
situation.
Now, his only hope lies with Hale. Zheng Zhifeng's men have traveled between Manila and Kinmen many times, bringing not only Hale's letters but also what they saw in Hale's factory and dock.
This made him more determined to refresh his armaments at all costs.
"As part of the original agreement, I will show you the power of this artillery. You will know that your money is worth it."
After that, Hale waved his finger and ordered the personnel to start operating the cannon.
"Do you want to specify a target?" Hale asked. "I don't want to be accused of burying gunpowder in a mound." He handed over the telescope.
Zheng Zhifeng nodded, took the telescope and looked towards the island for a moment.
"Mr. Paul, I want your cannon to hit the dirt bag two miles away. Is there any difficulty?"
Hale picked up the monocular: in the field of view, there was a mound a thousand meters away. To be precise, according to his professional perspective, there was a mound with a radius of about 9 meters at about 1,150 meters, standing alone on the corner, very conspicuous.
If you look at it with the naked eye, you can barely see it clearly, but it is indeed difficult to aim the artillery.
"No problem." Hale said, "Marcos, you bring a few gunners to fire. The six guns will fire together."
Marcos used professional means to first adjust the position and balance of the artillery and silently calculate the redundant compensation for the recoil distance so that there would not be a large error when the artillery was repositioned; then based on the results obtained from a large number of previous shooting experiments
Based on the gun table data, the elevation angle was adjusted using the wooden quadrant inserted at the muzzle and the adjustable sight at the rear of the gun, and the directional shooting angle was determined by moving the rear bracket of the gun carriage;
The gunners then loaded the paper-wrapped powder bags and conical shells with copper bases using the charge calibrated by the gun table data;
All artillery were placed on an artillery firing line, and the four-inch guns were calibrated with serial numbers a1, a2, and the three-point-two-inch guns were b1, b2, b3. Each gun was 6 meters apart and aimed in place.
After everything was ready, Hale first calibrated the guns A1 and B1. After all, the artillery will definitely change from its original best state after long-distance transportation and reassembly, so the newly assembled artillery must also be calibrated.
Under normal circumstances, the conditions of each artillery are different, and at least one calibration shot is required to determine the deviation compensation. However, Hale is very confident in the results of a large number of previous shooting experiments, and is also very satisfied with the professional quality of these assembly personnel.
, so only one of the two types of artillery was selected as the benchmark for calibration.
After two deafening blasts of "Boom, Boom", through the telescope, you can clearly see two points of smoke and dust raised by the calibration bomb at a distance of less than 30 meters from the front and rear of the small mound, and less than 15 meters from the left and right.
Hale nodded secretly in his mind. After all, it was a rifled gun, and its accuracy was far beyond that of a smoothbore gun. Moreover, the first calibration test firing could achieve this accuracy.
"Raise the muzzle two degrees!" Marcos put down the telescope and shouted the new command. The gunners immediately swung sledgehammers to hit the wooden wedges to raise the muzzle. (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature, the novel is better and updated. quick!