The sailors on the deck ran and found their weapons, shouting at the strange "big bird" in the sky, and some threw debris and garbage at the "big bird". However, fortunately, the plane flew at a low altitude of more than 100 meters, and it was impossible to hit the plane with manpower with the strength of these pirates.

But the real threat soon came, and several sailors tore off a piece of cloth from the stern, revealing a manwivel cannon underneath.

"Let's go, fly higher, that's a boom cannon!" Xue Ziliang has seen many models of ancient warships and has a certain understanding of this whirlwind cannon.

"Boomerang?" Yuan Zhenli also took a closer look, and sure enough, the sailor in charge of firing the cannon had quickly aimed the muzzle of the cannon at him. "Didn't this thing only appear in the 10th century?" He protested in frustration as he pulled the plane up.

"This thing has been around since the time of the Pirates of the Caribbean, and its role is to prevent the enemy from jumping or firing cannons to cover when their own people are jumping. Since these pirates must have this kind of demand, and the appearance of the boom cannon is not a new thing......" Xue Ziliang said quickly while nervously grabbing the handle in the plane.

The muzzle of the whirling cannon below soon erupted with fire and thick smoke. Many pieces of broken iron and porcelain that had been loaded into the barrel as shells flew out of the muzzle, but because of their irregular shape, like a huge fireworks, the fragments "bloomed" at the muzzle like a flower with gunsmoke.

"Hehe, we're overestimating the range of the Gyroscope." Yuan Zhenli looked down, and the plane itself was not hit, and the ammunition flying out of the muzzle was not able to fly fifty meters.

"Reload!" The small leader of the sailors shouted as he whipped the slaves loaded with propellants and cannonballs. The slaves dodged the whipping of the whip while quickly turning the muzzle of the boom cannon, and used the wool felt soaked in water to clean the sparks in the barrel, and when they were about to pour the propellant, the little leader looked up at the "strange bird" that had just flown away and was now approaching again, and ordered loudly: "Fill more medicine!" ”

The slave hurriedly opened another can of propellant, poured it into the barrel, and compacted it with a loading rod. If you press too tightly, it is likely to explode in the chamber, and if you press too loosely, you will not be able to achieve the effect of the propellant, resulting in the shell not flying far. At this time, such a small cannon is used, the muzzle is small, the gun body is short, and the firing range itself will be greatly affected, so the loading of the propellant is more stringent. The slave was a Malay who had been sold to ships in his early years, and because of his hard work, he was appreciated by the sailors and sent to work as a loader. His predecessor was also a loader, because he was filled with too much gunpowder and caused a bombardment, he still remembers the scene of his predecessor wailing on the deck covered in blood, but the small leader in charge next to him didn't say a word and let people just lift the loader who was not yet out of breath and threw it into the sea.

He compacted the gunpowder, and then the ammunition hand on the side poured a jar of broken copper and iron directly into the muzzle, pressed it again with the loading rod, and then the shooter on the side aimed the muzzle of the gun at the "strange bird" still flying in the air. Then the firer brought the burning fire rope to the position of the burning hole, and the fire rope quickly ignited the primer, and with a flash of fire, thick smoke once again surrounded the gun position.

"I'll ...... Can this gyroscope gun still be used as an anti-aircraft gun? Yuan Zhenli complained, but there was no sense of panic in his tone. Because although the things fired out this time were spectacular, they still had no effect on the plane, he looked at the altimeter, and said to Xue Ziliang with a smile: "Brother Xue, our current altitude of more than 100 meters is absolutely unattainable for these pirates, do you want to lower it a little more and fly in to take a look?" ”

"No," Xue Ziliang looked at the smoky whirling gun position and shook his head, "This thing is not an anti-aircraft gun after all, it can't hit targets above 70 degrees, we can fly above their heads with a swagger, but we can't lower too low on their sides," he said and pointed to a few small cannons on the deck. "Those cannons should be six-pounder naval guns, and if our altitude is too low, they can be used to fire at us, and it's not impossible to get hit if it's all bowling, so let's keep it high."

Watching the "strange bird" swing its wings a few times and fly higher, the sailor leader angrily took the pirate knife in his hand and danced all over the deck, making the slaves next to him very nervous, and no one dared to squeak, for fear of provoking the leader to get angry and cut off his own life.

"Reload!" The leader felt relieved after waving his long knife angrily, so he put it back in its sheath and issued the next order. One of the slaves who helped next to him saw that the leader did not seem to be angry, and happily stepped forward in three steps and two steps, grabbed a powder keg, opened it, and poured it into the muzzle, and the loader only had time to shout "don't", and the gunpowder poured in between was ignited by the gunpowder residue that remained in the barrel and was still burning. With a "boom", all the people next to the roundabout gun position were blown up everywhere by this powder keg, and the corpses and wreckage were everywhere. The flaming gunpowder ignited the hard sails of the ship, turning it into a torch in a matter of seconds. The panicked sailors poured out of the bilge onto the deck, clutching whatever they found to float around and jumping into the icy sea.

With the explosion in the tail building, the helmsman was also killed, and the corpse pushed the rudder to the right side of the ship, and the Fubune quickly turned to the left in the wind, and when it was perpendicular to the direction of the wind, the Fukufune finally stopped, and then the burning mast collapsed outward, igniting the rigging on the other masts, and it didn't take long for the whole ship to burn on the ship.

"I'm dizzy!" Yuan Zhenli watched the fire of the boat in amazement, but was very surprised why this happened. "What's going on?"

"What else could it be? Didn't you see the stupid guy who poured gunpowder into it? Probably before he had time to clear the chamber, he poured gunpowder directly into it, and then it was equivalent to igniting an incendiary bomb in the stern of the ship. Xue Ziliang smiled. It's still a wooden boat. ”

The other people on the boat heard the explosion and turned their heads to see this scene, and they couldn't help but be dumbfounded, many people only found the "strange birds" flying in the sky at this time. Some people raised their fire guns, lit fire ropes and opened fire on the strange birds, and some took out longbows and fired arrows at the monster. At this time, a big black man with five big and three thick men on the leading fortune boat hurriedly ran up from the cabin, he looked at the strange bird in the sky that did not mind that was still flying easily, and then looked at the fortune boat that was still burning in the distance, and couldn't help but stomp his feet angrily and shouted: "Ceasefire!" Cease fire! ”

Seeing that the sailors around him were still shooting in the air with their weapons, he hurriedly rushed to the nearest sailor with a three-eyed gun and kicked him from the tail tower to the stairs on one side of the stairs with three steps. As the sailor screamed as he rolled down the stairs to the lower deck, the sailors on the ship stopped, and turned their heads to look at the big black man. A boatswain-looking man hurriedly ran up and made a gesture. "Big brother! That monster set our ship on fire and killed a few of our brothers, so why didn't you let us open fire? ”

The big man slapped the boatswain twice like a spinning top, and when he was still standing, he pointed to the boatswain's nose with his right hand. "Big ears Liu! You idiot, I've promoted you to boatswain, look at this distance, can we fight? You idiots are wasting Lao Tzu's gunpowder here! At this time, there was also the sound of "banging" firearms from other ships in the distance, and there was still the roar of the boom when the boom cannon was fired. "Hurry up and get those pieces of shit out of fire!"

The flag bearer on the side hurriedly turned around and raised the flag against several boats not far away. The black man thought depressedly, "A bunch of waste idiots, Lao Tzu's hard work to smuggle the gunpowder from the Wu Dynasty was wasted like this, and he didn't rub off the skin of the strange bird in the sky after hitting so much, so he was set off as a firecracker, and the broken boat robbed today has little income, and all of them say that they have an eighty-year-old mother and an eight-month-old baby, and they all say that they are poor eggs, can poor people drive such a good boat?" ”

The boatswain on the side hurriedly touched his swollen face, which had just been fanned, and agreed vaguely. "Big brother Mingjian! These merchants don't shed tears when they don't see the coffin, and they still have to hold a gold ingot when they die, so we intercepted such a big five-masted ship this time and drove it to Zhancheng for refitting, which is definitely more deterrent than the ordinary armed merchant ships of the Medeno people. Not to mention the meat tickets on the ship, it is also a great benefit for us to rob this boat. ”

"It's good! Before we reached the shore, we were burned a lucky boat. The big black man pointed to the ship that was still burning in the distance, and black smoke was still rising on it, and the powder keg on the deck was still exploding from time to time. One mushroom cloud after another rose up, making him feel very dazzling.

At the back of the queue, a fortune ship turned its bow and drove near the burning ship, and began to salvage the sailors who had fallen overboard.

Yuan Zhenli and the others flew around in the air again, and found that there was no movement below, and felt that it was not interesting, so they continued to fly towards the east.

At this time, the "crossing fleet" was speeding on the sea at a speed of 12 knots, and Gu Fulin was still sitting nervously next to the radio navigator, and when he saw the data change on the screen, he knew that the plane was hovering there.

"How's it going over there?" The members of the executive committee still maintained a certain objection to an unarmed reconnaissance plane going to reconnoiter a pirate fleet at low altitude. The water reconnaissance plane in World War II still had light machine guns and small bombs, but only Yuan Zhenli brought a pistol in this solar-powered electric plane, what can it be used for?

"It's okay, it's okay." Xue Ziliang's voice came from the communication radio. "They opened fire on us, but the range was far from enough, and probably someone accidentally lit the powder keg on the deck, so a fortune ship has caught fire, and now it is completely out of control and has become a big torch."

"Hehe, is that what you sank?"

"Doesn't count, does it?" Yuan Zhenli said with a smile. "It's clearly a pirate fleet, shall we take them out?"

"It's not necessary, right? It is not advisable to waste ammunition on pirates, we need to find a place to land now, if we drag on the sea for too long, do not wait for encirclement and suppression, our men will already lose their combat effectiveness. Beiwei said with a smile on the side.

"How far have you gone now?"

"We set out westward more than an hour ago at a speed of 12 knots, and now we have traveled at least 20 nautical miles." Gu Fulin informed Yuan Zhenli.

These naval units immediately made his head as if he had lost a firecracker, "Don't talk about naval units, okay?" Let's just say that the metric system, is the kilometer good? ”

"That's 38 to 40 kilometers." Gu Fulin was not ambiguous at all, and immediately reported the converted metric units.

"I think we're going to do away with the nautical mile in the future." Du Yande couldn't help but complain on the side. But it immediately attracted the opposition of several admirals on the sidelines.

"How can the sea be abolished? Although the conversion is a bit troublesome, it is equal to the arc length corresponding to 1 minute of latitude on the elliptical meridian of the earth, and the naval textbooks we brought are all written with such naval units, if we want to abolish it, how should we convert it? Bu Zhongfu said on the side.

At the same time, Gu Fulin also laughed. "Then how to convert, it can only be said to be 1.852 kilometers."

"Yes, this maritime unit of measurement should not be unified with the metric unit, otherwise it will take several generations to be converted, which is a waste of energy and resources for no reason." Zhang Yuan said on the side. "Rather than making a lot of effort to convert such a maritime unit of measurement, it is better to let it go, and the navy will just use it anyway. If you really want to abolish these units, you can leave them to future generations. ”

"I'll go, pass the basin to my son, right?" Xiao Jing on the side quipped. "I don't think we should put too much effort into the unit of measurement, we are now mainly to unify the weights and measures of the indigenous people, and I don't know if it is troublesome to implement our public system of weights and measures."

"This shouldn't be a hassle. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it didn't take long for China to implement the metric system, and we were born in the era when we were not already adapted? It took about three or four years to switch. ”

"Are you done arguing?" Yuan Zhenli's voice came from the radio. "I'm traveling at 100 kilometers per hour, and I should be back on the mothership in half an hour."

"Oh! Good luck with you. Gu Fulin hurriedly blessed and let go of the microphone. Forgot to let go, the argument we had just here was all transmitted to the plane. ”

"Okay, call over." Yuan Zhenli also stopped talking and concentrated on flying the plane.

"Originally, the speed of the plane could reach 135 kilometers per hour, but in order to ensure that it can land on the water, these two large pontoons have been added, and now it can only reach 100 kilometers per hour."

"Actually, it's not bad to be able to reach 100 kilometers per hour, at least better than the speed of four to five kilometers per hour that people can walk. And if you have a pontoon, it's really safer. Xue Ziliang leaned over to the window and looked at the pontoon. But you didn't make this pontoon, did you? ”

"Of course we made it ourselves, can we still buy this thing?" Yuan Zhenli looked at Xue Ziliang, who began to show a panicked look on his face. "Don't worry, we have done experiments, and we have also taken off and landed at sea three or four times, but the power of this motor is insufficient and it can't take off, but there is still no problem with landing."

Xue Ziliang was still not at ease, "Didn't there still be an accident when your mothership ejected a few hours ago?" ”

"That's not a big accident, okay, we didn't have any accidents."

…………………………

"Brother Liu, do you think that big bird is auspicious?" A sailor with absolutely bronzed skin leaned over to Liu Da's ear and asked in a low voice.

"Xiangrui fart!" Liu Da'er replied angrily. "Didn't you see Wang Xiaoba's boat burning there? What kind of auspicious rui will set the ship on fire? ”

"So what do we do now? Just watch this big bird fly away? ”

"Big bird, fart! What kind of bird can still sit in the belly? Liu Da'er pointed to the plane that was leaving quickly. Didn't you see it when we were going around in circles just now? There's someone up there! ”

"Someone just now??" The sailor asked curiously. But he immediately received a violent blow to Liu Da's ears on the head.

"You fucking put the gun down a few times just now, and you didn't see anyone up there?"

"Impossible, right? Brother Liu, how could this person fly in the sky? ”

"You're stupid! People can't float on the sea, this can be done by boat, and that person flies to the sky by sitting on a fairy weapon. Why else did we slam and bang for so long without hurting them? ”

…………………………

"The reconnaissance plane reports that we have seen the Vostok!" Yuan Zhenli turned on the radio and reported to the Dongfang.

"The Vostok replied, we didn't see you, please report the location."

"We are now on the right side of your direction. Preparations are being made to lower the height. ”

"See, see, see!" Someone at the observation position outside happily jumped three feet high, holding a naval telescope in one hand and pointing in the direction the plane was flying from, shouting loudly.

The crowd on the deck had been rocked for most of the day, and the surprise of seeing the sea and the new world had been distracted by the unchanging surroundings for several hours, when they suddenly saw people jumping and jumping at the observation position and people cheering and hugging, and they couldn't help but turn their heads to look in the direction they were observing.

A small black dot in the distance is flying towards this side, and it is slowly beginning to become clear, it is the reconnaissance plane launched this morning, the plane looks like a big tadpole from a distance, the cockpit is round, the huge wings are placed on the upper part of the cockpit, and a thin aluminum alloy fuselage connecting rod supports the tail and tail backwards. Underneath the plane hung two large pontoons.

The plane slowly descended to an altitude of 50 meters, circled around the "crossing fleet" to the cheers and waves of all the crossing crowds, and then began to slow down and land in the direction of travel.

Yuan Zhenli had already experimented with landing on the sea several times in the base leased by the crossing trade, and this was not a problem at all. I saw him maneuvering the plane to fly lightly over the bow of the Vostok, lowering the altitude to about fifteen meters, and began to slow down.

Because it was a tailwind, he had reduced the speed of the propeller to the lowest state at this time, and the plane only relied on inertia to glide in the air, and at the moment when it was about to land, the wind direction suddenly changed from east wind to west.

This sudden windward blow directly to the plane, Yuan Zhenli and Xue Ziliang were both stunned, only to hear a shout on the radio, "Pull it up!" Pull it up! ”

Yuan Zhenli subconsciously pulled the lever back, and Xue Ziliang looked at it and knew that it was going to be bad. He had also played some flight simulation games and knew that such an airplane that was blown by the wind would inevitably stall if it climbed straight up without power. He hurriedly patted Yuan Zhenli on the shoulder and shouted, "Steady!" ”

Saying that, he helped Yuan Zhenli straighten the joystick, and at the same time his eyes swept over the row of switches above his head, and soon found the "throttle valve", and he quickly pushed the throttle valve down to the highest. The propellers on the wings immediately spun rapidly, and the plane had enough power to keep it in level flight.

At the same time, a few soft "pops" were suddenly heard, and the propeller suddenly stopped spinning again, only to idle for a while with the thrust of the wind.

"What's going on?" Xue Ziliang also panicked now, beads of sweat dripped down his face to the ground, and his legs trembled.

"It's okay, it should be that the motor is overloaded...... Yuan Zhenli calmed down at this time. It's okay, I've been in worse situations. ”

He maneuvered the plane, which had lost power, to turn in the wind, climbed directly to a height of more than 30 meters, and skimmed over the head of the "crossing fleet".

As long as the people on the ship have eyes, they can see that there is something wrong with the plane, although the plane is still flying in the sky, but it has turned to the rear of the direction of the fleet, something must have happened. Yang Feng hurriedly grabbed the walkie-talkie and shouted. "Yu Yi Yu Er turned to follow to see what was going on and prepared to rescue."

The two fishing boats were at both ends of the umbrella formation, and when they heard the command, they drew two beautiful arcs and chased back, and the crossing people on the deck of the fishing boats also ran quickly, some were pumping the inflatable lifeboats on the back deck, and some were quickly putting orange life jackets on their bodies, and the people wearing life jackets were moving their legs and feet on the deck, ready to wait for the plane to start rescuing.

I saw that the reconnaissance plane in the distance jumped a few times in the wind, and finally landed relatively smoothly on the surface of the sea, and the splash of water on the side of the pontoon splashed high on both sides, like a fountain. Under the resistance of the seawater, the reconnaissance plane only taxied for less than 30 meters before coming to a complete stop, and then began to rise and fall with the wind and waves.