In the northern part of the Banten Sea, in the Makassar Strait west of Makassar, a small ship flying the flag of the Datang Navy is sailing north at an ultra-high speed of more than ten knots.

The displacement of this kind of fast communication ship is not large, only about fifty tons, the hull is slender, the small freeboard, the superstructure is almost none, the surface of the whole ship seems to be close to the sea, and under the water, it is the most suitable hull for high-speed sailing, plus its length-to-width ratio has reached an astonishing nine to one, making this kind of fast communication ship have a flying speed.

Of course, this kind of ship with extreme design, in addition to speed, then basically there is no other commendable place, the protection is almost none, the firepower is only light guns that do not occupy the deck, and even because of the excessive aspect ratio, the hull is not stable enough, in order to strengthen the stability of the hull, so that the ship can survive the waves, but also specially used steel to strengthen the keel and other key parts of the hull.

At this time, this communication ship, named Little Luzon, also played its largest, if not the only value: run fast!

Driven by the strong winds, the Little Luzon was speeding at an astonishing speed of thirteen knots, because the speed was so fast, and the ship was relatively first, and the aspect ratio was so large that the ship seemed to be rocking up and down, left and right!

The only constant is that it maintains a high speed throughout!

This communication ship needs to deliver the news to Luzon in the shortest possible time, so that they can send reinforcements.

Even if they encounter a storm or something along the way, they will not lower their sails, but will continue to move forward against strong winds and waves!

Even if the ship is tossed in the waves, it seems that it will fall apart at any moment, and it will not stop moving!

Even the old sailors on the ship, accustomed to seeing the wind and waves, will vomit up and down in this violent turbulence, and after this voyage, it is estimated that the sailors on the ship will not be able to slow down without three or five days of rest.

But even so, they still won't lower their sails and stop!

At the same time, the fleet led by Xia Zhiquan was also galloping on the sea, and the fleet was eager to return to Banten City in the next second, but the speed of the fleet was so fast, even if all the sails were opened, the speed was only five or six knots.

Ordinary sailing ships, whether they are warships or armed transport ships, their speeds are far from being comparable to those of clippers and schooners, which can easily reach a speed of more than ten knots, and in the case of a smooth wind, they can also run to thirteen or even fourteen knots, and in extreme cases, a speed of about seventeen knots can also be reached.

However, other traditional sailing ships, even the newly designed warships of the Tang Dynasty, which integrate the advantages of the East and the West, and the Datang 680 merchant ship rhino series with certain advantages of new warships, their average speed is actually only about six or seven knots, which is not much faster than ships such as Galen ships.

And the speed of six or seven knots on the wide sea, there is no sign of movement at all in a short time, and it will even give people an illusion, as if this fleet has been in place all along!

Compared to the sea, human beings are still too small and too small

Even if Xia Zhiquan is anxious, but he can only wait slowly, at this rate, even if it is the smoothest, it will take seven days to return to Banten City, if the wind direction on the road is slightly deviated, then the time will be even longer!

As for the reinforcements sent from Luzon, if all goes well, it is estimated that it will take a month to arrive in extreme cases, but in reality it is impossible to be so fast, a month and a half or even two months is possible.

In this case, the safety of Banten City depends on the strength of Banten City itself.

But Xia Zhiquan is worried!

He had received information that there were at least 20,000 enemy troops besieging Banten, and that there were plenty of artillery and muskets in them, which needless to say, must have been provided by the Portuguese.

Although these natives are not good at fighting, they are also a threat when they have artillery and muskets, and there are many pirates among them.

These pirates are not comparable to the indigenous army, they are experts in playing with guns and guns, the pirates of these years, a little reorganization, in fact, can be directly pulled out and used directly for the navy, and their sailors can also be used as the army after they go ashore.

That's what many countries in Europe do!

The indigenous army plus pirates, and Xia Zhiquan was also worried that there would be Portuguese military personnel in command, if this was the case, the side of Banten City would be even more dangerous.

Xia Zhiquan is worried about the safety of Banten City, and this worry is also becoming a reality!

Outside Banten City, a mixed army of 20,000 natives and pirates has been making a lot of preparations in the past half month, they have built a complete battery and removed a lot of artillery and ammunition from the ships anchored near the sea.

At this time, all these guns have entered their artillery positions, and it will not be long before they can open fire!

There are about three or four thousand natives and pirates armed with muskets, divided into two sides, one side is the natives, the other is the messy pirates, are arraying to attack, and from their formation, it is obvious that the formation of those pirates is more perfect, those natives, although they have been in contact with the Tang Empire and foreigners for many years, but obviously still have not learned how to use muskets to fight.

As for the remaining more than 10,000 natives, they are holding all kinds of messy cold weapons!

Muskets and artillery are still a tall thing in these years!

And if nothing else, at least half of the arquebuses in the hands of these natives and pirates are made by the Empire!

At present, in the entire East Asian region, the power to build guns in batches is not large, the Tang Empire is one, the Portuguese are one, it is worth mentioning that the Fuso people will also, of course, this is talking about large-scale building, sporadic small-scale construction is more, even if the pirate gang robs a few craftsmen, they can also make a few guns by hand.

These three forces that can produce guns in large quantities, in fact, the output of the Fuso people is very limited, and their original base for manufacturing guns, that is, Osumi Island, has been captured by the Tang Empire, at present, only a few daimyo in the west of Kyushu Island can build guns, and the output is not much, that is, hundreds of thousands of production, it is not enough for their own use, and they have to order a large number of arquebuses from the Tang Empire.

As for the Portuguese, their production is also quite good, although Malacca is a big place, and there are not many Portuguese, but there are many natives who work for them.

In addition to equipping local soldiers, they are also recruiting local indigenous people to form a colonial army, these armies are also equipped with muskets, the Portuguese conscription of natives, is also directly threatened by the Tang Empire, if there is no Tang Empire eyeing Malacca, they will not recruit a large number of indigenous people as an army.

And the rest will also be sold to the outside world!

This also means that in East Asia, the only people who have the ability to provide guns to the outside world are actually the Tang Empire and the Portuguese!

However, the Tang Empire had a strict import and export control system, strictly prohibiting the export of flintlock pistols and artillery.

However, all kinds of cold weapons such as arquebuses and plate armor are allowed to be exported, but they need to go through strict audits.

The export of arquebuses, that's because if you don't sell it, the Portuguese will sell it, besides, many times, the Tang Empire also needs to use weapons as bargaining chips to provoke the natives to engage in civil wars and the like, even if those natives can't come up with the money, sometimes the empire will give it away directly for nothing for other interests.

For example, in the Fusang region, the Tang Empire has been doing this in recent years, they will send a small amount of arquebuses, plate armor, swords and other weapons to some daimyos, and encourage them to attack the nearby daimyos, and when they taste the sweetness, they will immediately sell all kinds of weapons at a high price, and after selling this one, they will turn around and run to the attacked daimyo to sell weapons!

In the end, these two rival daimyo will fight with all kinds of weapons provided by Datang!

That scene made a group of imperial merchants engaged in Oriental trade laugh from ear to ear, and sighed one by one: How can you make money selling weapons by selling cloth!

There is a lot of gold and silver in Fusang, and their market is not large, the ordinary people are very poor, and the things that the Tang Empire can use for export are some swords, light industry and weapons, and cloth, the sales volume in the early years is okay, but now it is gradually saturated, because this kind of consumer goods for ordinary people needs a large number of buyers to support, and the ordinary people of Fusang can not afford to buy much.

As for other industrial products, not to mention, they can't afford to sell them, no matter how good the things are, they can't buy them at a loss!

There is no way, in order to find new profit growth points, they just target weapons!

Because among the many export commodities, weapons are the most profitable!

The actual value of a retired arquebus that the military has used for several years is at most more than one or two pieces of silver, but it is sold to those export merchants, and the military can open his mouth and directly ask for three or four taels of silver.

And these arms sellers purchase brand-new export-oriented arquebuses from the three major weapons companies, and the purchase price is only eight or nine taels of silver, you know, even a few years ago, the military's purchase price was only more than four taels of silver, but if the price of the export model is not doubled, how can they be embarrassed to say that they are weapons merchants.

But those maritime merchants are even more ruthless!

They transported these second-hand guns to Fusang, and they dared to buy more than ten taels of silver, and as for brand-new arquebuses, they dared to buy thirty taels!

Or is there a limited number of loves!

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