In the end, Puyol didn't let Hong Tao touch those things with a mechanical hand, but called Dan and Jim over, and asked the two of them to put a few shells, a few broken wooden boards, two clay pots, and a pillar more than a meter long and an arm-thick column into the submarine's salvage warehouse, and then pry up the gold coins exposed from the outside of the sunken ship's hull, and brought it to the surface by the small submarine. The two supposedly cannons were too heavy for the small submarine to carry, so they had to be pulled up to the surface with inflatable pontoons and then dragged back to the Mouse Superman by the patrol boat.

When everyone returned to the Mouse Superman, it was already past 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and it took 6 or 7 hours to do it, and no one realized that they didn't even feel hungry without eating lunch. It seems that this kind of thing is true, including Hong Tao, they are a little fascinated, and they are tireless, all of them are like chicken blood. It wasn't until they had moved everything salvaged into the hangar that Jim and the others were completely relieved and went back to the dining room for lunch. It's a pity that everyone doesn't feel much about the chef's craftsmanship, and their eyes are glued to the plates, but their brains are running to the hangar.

The two weak acid and electrolytic cells prepared by Hong Tao finally came in handy, and the salvaged things were divided into two categories by the brothers Jim and Puyol, tied with copper wires, and thrown into the two pools one by one. The weak acid solution pool is relatively small, similar to the vegetable sink in the kitchen, and generally small items will be put in. The weak acid solution is generally nitric acid, which is very corrosive to calcareous things, but it is not a big problem for metal objects, especially if the contact time is not long.

The coins were soaked in small lumps, and then the pool was filled with dense white foam like a shaken coke. In less than an hour, the calcareous shell around which the gold coin was wrapped began to crumble. The large chunks fell off, revealing the gold coins inside one by one. The Puyol brothers waited with a plastic clip. Take one out and put it in the clear water pool next to it to soak it. Then clip it out and put it on the towel quilt on the work table. According to different types and different years, there are several rows, and there are about three categories in terms of size, among which the kind with the royal insignia is the least, only a dozen, and the gold coins with the cross pattern are the most, 90% of which are of this kind of gold coins.

There was also a smaller gold coin, similar to a penny steel hammer. According to the Puyol brothers, this gold coin was not circulated in Europe, but was supposed to be used by Spain's South American colonies. However, due to the emptiness of the Spanish treasury at that time, the gold coins in circulation in the colonies had to be withdrawn, melted and reminted into gold coins that could be circulated in Europe, which shows how bad the financial situation in Spain was at that time.

In the end, a total of 523 gold coins were cleaned out of this gold coin mud block that was about the size of the table, plus the 29 pieces that Hong Tao got yesterday, a total of 552 coins. There were a total of 33 gold coins with the coats of arms of the king and queen, and only one gold coin of the pope was taken, which was also taken by Hong Tao. No matter how many gold coins the Pujol brothers take in exchange, they just don't take it out.

In addition to the gold coins, the rest of the salvage was so large that it had to be soaked in an electrolytic cell larger than four bathtubs. This works very slowly. It's been a few hours since it was put in, and a layer of small bubbles had just appeared on the object's outer shell, according to Jim. It takes about 2 or 3 days for metal items to be cleaned, and even longer for wood and ceramics. Because of their loose material. The salt has penetrated into the interior and must be used to completely resolve the salt. Otherwise, the items will quickly shatter.

Hong Tao couldn't wait so long, he picked a cylinder more than one meter long and arm thick from the electrolytic cell and put it into the weak acid pool, replaced it with a new solution, and began to clean this thing half and half. The reason why the weak acid solution pool is relatively small is that the cost of this solution is relatively high, and it will fail after neutralizing with limestone, and it must be constantly replaced with new solutions, so it is rarely used to clean large-volume objects. But Hong Tao didn't care, he knew that the electrolytic cell was so slow, he should have bought more nitric acid solutions to bring with him, time is money, with so many days of hard work, how many solutions have been bought, Jim They can afford to wait, but they can't afford to wait.

At dinner time, all the gold coins were basically registered, and they were all put into the safe, and Hong Tao's big stick was basically cleaned. It is made of copper, and the front loading is similar to that of an ancient cannon, except that it has a grip more than half a foot long at the back. How do you use it? According to the diagram drawn in Puyol's book, there should also be a part on the ear in the middle, which can hold the two ears in place, and then become a horizontal axis, so that the muzzle of the gun can be adjusted up and down. Underneath that part was a metal rod more than a foot long, which could be rotated from side to side by inserting it into a hole in the side of the ship during a battle.

Generally, this kind of small cannon operated by a person is very light, only a little more than 1 Spanish pound, and more often it is a loaded shotgun, which is specially designed to kill and injure the opposing sailors, so the firing distance is also very short, about 2 or 30 meters.

In 18th-century Spain, naval warfare was not a battle line bombardment, a method of warfare that was improved by the British, and the Spanish navy disdained it. A Spanish galleon is usually configured according to a displacement of 1-1.5 tons per person, for example, a 450-ton displacement sailing ship has at least 300 people on board. Of these 300 men, including officers, sailors, miscellaneous servants and gunners, there were generally no more than 120 people, and the rest were all regular Spanish army.

That's right, the Spanish Navy fought a war and relied on the army to finally solve the problem. Specifically why this arrangement, Hong Tao thinks it may be a matter of tactical guidance and careful consideration. The Spaniards believed that their army was stronger, so when fighting naval battles, artillery was only used as a supplementary weapon, and the important tactic was to fight in a gangside. That is, pull the two ships together with hooks and ropes, and then let the army rush over to destroy the enemy.

The advantage of this is that you can capture the enemy's ships and become your own, at that time a Spanish galleon was still very expensive, even in the heyday of Spain, there were only a dozen sailing ships with a displacement of more than 500 tons in the country, and to capture an enemy ship was equivalent to saving a lot of money, and it could be used to repair it. What is the disadvantage? Before the tactic of fighting on the battle line came out, there really was no harm, and at that time the Spanish Navy was the hegemon of the world's oceans. But the damned British not only stole the Spanish galleon, but also modified it themselves to be thinner and longer, with more guns and larger calibers. People don't play broadside battles with you, they just hit your ship with artillery, the ship is broken, and how many infantry you have are blind, and they all have to sink to the bottom to feed the sharks.

This kind of revolving cannon is the standard configuration on the bow and stern of the Spanish galleon, usually with severale, once close to the enemy ship, the gunner will control the revolving gun, aim at the deck of the enemy ship, a meal of iron beads, stones will be sprayed over, and then it is time for the infantry to charge.

More interestingly, the captains of the Spanish naval fleet were divided into two types of captains, one appointed by the king and the other by a naval officer, who would appear on the same warship at the same time. An army officer can command everyone on board, including the navy, while a naval officer is called an operational captain, and he can only command sailors and gunners, and the army on board does not listen to him. The command of the battle was also done by the army officers, and to put it bluntly, the captain of the navy was only in charge of opening the ship and firing the guns, and he could not control anything else.

It should be said that the Marine Corps was invented by the Spaniards as early as the 16th century, and it has always been used in this way. These armies on Spanish warships can fight both on ships and on land, isn't this the Marine Corps?

This rotary concoction is very exquisitely cast, there are all kinds of patterns on it, and the handle is actually inlaid with two large gems, one red and one green, and the entire gun body is gilded, but due to the erosion of the seawater, the gilt layer in several places has fallen off, revealing the copper tire inside. The Puyol brothers said that the cannon should have been on the stern, where the captain's command station was located, and some army captains liked to fire two guns with their own hands to show their might, so the revolving cannon was beautifully cast for the captain's use. The only pity is that there is a bracket missing, if it is equipped with a bracket, it will be more perfect.

Regardless of whether it is true or false, Hong Tao will not let go when he holds it in his hand anyway, letting Rada and Singh drag the Puyol brothers, and he trots all the way to put the revolving cannon in the bedroom on the third floor. The third floor of the Mouse Superman is Hong Tao's private territory, and no one can go on it without his consent, so this cannon has become his private collection again. So much so that when he returned to the hangar, the Puyol brothers set aside a person to follow him, just to prevent him from eyeing other items.

Hong Tao is not so blind, the rest of the things are either broken wood boards or broken iron shelves, and they don't want to give it to him for nothing. As for the elaborate patterns on those wooden boards, he didn't care at all, he just wondered what kind of wood it was, which could be preserved in the sediment of the seabed for 300 years without rotting. The Puyol brothers' answer to him was South American mahogany! In the era when wooden galleons were the mainstay, the best material for making sailboats in Europe was oak, but compared with South American mahogany, oak was inferior to the grade, and a galleon made of South American mahogany could buy two and a half oak sailboats. (To be continued......)