Chapter 196: Attack, Naval Battle
Although this Zhao Rushu Zhao Lord is the prefect of Mingzhou and is in charge of the third largest market in the Great Song Dynasty, he spends 70,000 yuan to buy weapons, and he also needs to play the imperial court.
Fortunately, Wang Sheng still has the goods unsold and is not in a hurry to leave.
Among the goods brought by Wang Sheng this time, the best ones to sell were actually those stainless ironware made of tinplate, which were cheap and good, and they were sold out quickly.
The sales of soap are also good, Chen Xian extracts the essence through the oil extraction method, adds it to the soap, and makes a crystal clear soap, which is much better than the soap made by directly mixing spice powder and soaphorn powder in this era, coupled with the exquisite packaging, even if Chen Xian sets the price of the soap more than twice as high as the home-made soap, he is still a gunman.
The earthy soap in this world is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford, and the price is not cheap, Chen Xian's soap is twice as high as the earthy soap, which is already sky-high.
Among all the goods, Chen Xian's only miscalculation is glass products, this kind of thing, because it appeared for the first time, although the local merchants were also optimistic, but they were not sure, and Chen Xian priced this thing extremely high, the merchants only dared to buy a small amount and put it into the market for testing.
However, with the passage of time, with the feedback of the market, merchants began to increase the amount of purchases, and the sales of glass products began to gradually increase.
Half a month later, the Mizhou maritime merchants who followed Wang Sheng and them south had already sold out their goods.
The reason why Chen Xian invited these maritime merchants to accompany him was mainly because he needed a guide, and at this time, Wang Sheng not only had a relationship with the local merchants in Mingzhou, but also had a relationship with the prefect of Mingzhou, so naturally he didn't need Mizhou maritime merchants.
Therefore, after Mizhou Maritime finished shipping, they left ahead of schedule.
After the Mizhou maritime merchants left, Wang Sheng waited for another half a month, and finally sold out the remaining glass products, and also waited for the envoy of the imperial court.
He eventually sold 2,000 revolver muskets for 70,000 pieces.
After selling the revolving musket, Wang Sheng's mission to the south this time was considered a successful completion, and he took the fleet Yang Fan to sea and embarked on the return journey.
At this time, the six armed merchant ships led by Wang Sheng were loaded with more than 100,000 yuan of copper coins, as well as luxurious silk and fine porcelain worth tens of thousands of yuan, with a total value of almost 200,000 yuan.
The fleet left the mouth of the Yongjiang River, turned north, and traveled nearly 100 miles, and several small islands appeared in front of them.
That's the Seven Sisters and Eight Sisters Islands.
Just as the fleet was about to pass through the passage between several islands, several small sailing boats rushed out from behind one of the islands.
These sailboats rushed out from behind the island one after another, endlessly, and in the blink of an eye, more than twenty sailing ships appeared on the sea in front of Wang Sheng.
These sailing ships were more than ten meters long, their hulls were long and narrow, and their three-sided demeanor was full of wind, and they intercepted Wang Sheng's fleet like arrows from the string.
This kind of fast ship Wang Sheng is no stranger, it is called a patrol ship by the people who beg for a living at sea, it is the largest number of sailing ships in the Song Army, the biggest feature of this kind of sailboat is that it is fast, and it is the vanguard in the water war.
In addition to sailors, at sea, there is another kind of people who like to use such sailing ships, and that is pirates.
Wang Sheng looked at the fleet in front of him, but he didn't look nervous, and even a sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth.
Not to mention the cannons, even if there are no cannons, there are two hundred sailors on each of their ships, each sailor is wearing light plate armor suitable for fighting on the ship, and a runner long musket equipped with bayonets, such a regular army, even if several times the pirate miscellaneous soldiers are not opponents, even if the other party is allowed to rely on the state to board the ship, Wang Sheng is sure to drive them into the sea, not to mention that in addition to the two hundred sailors on each ship, there are also a hundred gunners and fifty sailors, only need to open the ship's arsenal and equip these people with weapons, and their combat effectiveness is no worse than ordinary pirates.
And what made Wang Sheng sneer was not the soldiers on the ship, but the twenty huge cannons hidden below the deck.
The soldiers under Chen Xian's command knew the power of artillery, and in Wang Sheng's view, a ship without cannons and a ship with cannons was like a moth fighting a fire.
Wang Sheng quickly gave an order according to the training.
Six armed merchant ships, one hundred and twenty gun windows slowly opened.
On the deck, the sailors carried out the captain's orders in an orderly manner, and the sailors who had been on leave also put on their armor and came to the deck, kneeling behind the side of the ship, their revolver muskets ready to fire at any time.
On the gun deck, the gunners also quickly finished loading and pushed the muzzles out of the gun window.
Under the bewildered gaze of the pirate fleet on the other side, the six armed merchant ships not only did not flee, but rushed towards them head-on.
Just when the distance between the two sides was only a few miles, six armed merchant ships suddenly turned their bows and headed for the depths of the eastern sea.
The flotilla that changed backwards pulled out a long line of snakes.
The opposing pirate fleet also changed course, and eventually the two fleets drew a herringbone on the surface of the sea, and finally converged.
As the pirates happily approached the merchant fleet, they were greeted by the rumbling of cannons.
Since there were no means of threatening long-range attacks on the enemy's ships, the captains of the merchant fleet were very calm and did not give the order to fire until a pirate ship approached within thirty meters!
At a distance of 30 meters, even on a rough sea, the cannon could achieve a 70 or 80 percent hit rate, and in just one round of shelling, seven or eight pirate ships were hit with sawdust, and four of them were even broken by special chain bullets.
The battle ended quickly, and after a few minutes of shelling, the devastated pirates began to flee in all directions.
In the end, under the scattered pursuit of the merchant fleet, only eight pirate ships escaped, and the eight ships that escaped were all scarred, and if it were not for the excellent sinking resistance of the wooden sailing ships, none of these pirate sailing ships would have tried to escape.
After the pursuit, the six merchant ships returned to their original battlefield and rescued many of the pirates who had fallen overboard.
After interrogation, Wang Sheng was not surprised to know that this group of people was not pirates, but sailors of the Song Kingdom.
This fleet was actually a part of the Song Dynasty's naval fleet stationed in Mingzhou.
Wang Sheng's trading in Mingzhou City is not a secret, whether it is clear glass or pure soap, it has caused quite a stir in Mingzhou City, and Wang Sheng's arms deal with the Song Dynasty Imperial Court, let alone the military attache of the Mingzhou Navy, there is no secret at all.
When the Mingzhou sailor heard that the merchant fleet from the northern warlord was about to return to the sea with nearly 200,000 yuan worth of goods, he couldn't suppress the greed in his heart.
The entire Mingzhou Navy Division has hundreds of warships, including thirty or forty naval warships with more than 1,000 materials, and only six merchant ships, even if it is a big ship with 2,000 materials, it is naturally in the eyes of the Mingzhou Navy Division.
The generals of the Mingzhou Navy Division easily inquired about the time when Wang Sheng's fleet left Mingzhou, and dispatched more than 20 medium-sized naval warships with about 1,000 materials in advance to ambush Wang Sheng's fleet on the Seventh Sister and Eighth Sister Islands.
()