In the harbor of Sakai Town, the Dutch merchant ship "Crystal Knight" is quietly moored there. It is a standard European sailing ship with double portholes, four masts, and a double building at the rear with a fully armored knight's bow portrait. I could not accurately estimate the exact number of layers and cabins of the hull because I did not go inside, but based on the closed windows on both sides, I surmised that the ship was armed with at least 60 cannons, and that the scale of the loading would not be small.

Sakai is now a thriving maritime trading city, and there are many merchant ships from other countries parked in the harbor, including Portuguese and British ones, and even a Spanish one, which is not common in Japanese waters! In terms of the size of the ships alone, there are two Portuguese merchant ships in the harbor that are no smaller than the Crystal Knight, but the proportions of the slender structure definitely make it the best in terms of speed! Two other smaller Dutch merchant ships were anchored around the Crystal Knight, and it seems that Ernst had formed a small fleet this time.

"Hello Tsuda boss, ah! And you, honorable Stars! "As soon as we ascended the gangway, we ran into our old friend, Captain Ozac." Your complexion is not comparable to last time! ”

"Thank you for the compliment!" I shook his hand. "You can't always stop at the beginning!"

"Well said!" He led us to the rear tower. "Mr. Ernst didn't know you two were here so soon, so he didn't come to greet you, and he's putting the finishing touches on the documents to be used this time!"

A few of us followed him to a huge office at the stern of the ship, which was not very ornately ornamented, and which should have served as a dining room for the ship's senior officers and a makeshift exchange.

"Welcome, my old friend!" Ernst•López greeted us warmly. "Especially you, Lord Stars! Your recent deeds have been reported by our chargé d'affaires, and the agreement with us is gradually becoming a reality, and your lord's current situation has exceeded our original expectations! You know: even if you travel all over the world, you don't often come across a powerful person who is unifying a country, let alone being able to stand with him! And the upward trend you have maintained in this group is quite satisfactory to us, can I now call you Your Highness? ”

"Thank you for the compliment, but I'm really satisfied...... "I know the general habits of Europeans, and if they are too modest, they are likely to take it seriously, and I looked at him as I talked warmly. Ernst hadn't changed much from when we first met five years ago, and it seemed that the long years of wind and waves had not hurt him much, except for a few subtle wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. There were two other people in the room, a tall man in his thirties with blond hair like pins and blue eyes, and it was not difficult to judge the purity of his Aryan blood from his appearance alone; The other was a standard Japanese, seventeen or eighteen years old and quite weak-looking, but he was dressed in samurai clothes, but he was supposed to be a wild samurai. How could there be samurai under Ernst? However, it is not surprising that since the samurai have become equal to the ruling class, many scholars also wear samurai clothing. “…… It's rare for you to come once in a few years, did you bring any special goods this time? ”

"There are so many special things!" Ernst shook his head and laughed. "Besides, no matter how strange the goods are, will they surprise you?" He's talking about many of his "treasures" that I used to easily recognize.

"Really? This is a disservice to the reputation of your first-class merchant group in Europe! "I was joking, too.

"Speaking of the goods this time, they are mainly civilian goods such as velvet and glass, and there are not many things that can interest you......" He gradually became serious when he got to the point. There are a total of 4,200 muskets, and although they belong to the products of several commercial houses, the basic performance gap is not large! Except for 500 of them, which are more special, the others can be traded at the previous price of 12 pieces, but I still have to pay for the gold in full color! Although the transaction volume is relatively large this time, we will not ship it again until the second half of next year. ”

"That's not a problem!" The problem of forming an iron artillery team was solved, leaving two or three hundred for my own use, and the rest could be handed over to Sanyue House to be sold one after another. Because he was in a hurry to go further, he didn't pay much attention to some details in his words. "Still no new cannons?"

"Nope!" He shook his head. "Controls are still very strict in this regard!"

"That's a shame!" I muttered, and suddenly asked, "Can you give me a few doors from your ship?" ”

"You've got a lot of imagination!" He was amused by my words. "We are a semi-official merchant group commissioned by the Dutch governor, and now we have an inspector on this ship, so we can't do that kind of thing!"

"Alright! I can understand your difficulties, so let's forget about it this time! I reluctantly said, "But now that more and more European businessmen are coming to Japan, something can happen at any time with the fierce competition!" Of course, given our long-standing relationship, I would invite your merchant group to act as an agent even if I had to buy Portuguese or English cannons, but this would undoubtedly have a very negative impact on your country's commercial position in Japan! ”

"I will convey your opinion to His Excellency the Governor!" After staring at me for a long time, Ernst said. "But among the things I brought this time, I think there are still some that will make you surpass your opponent!" He walked to the wall and took a musket from the box on the cabinet and handed it to me. "This is what I said about the 'special' musket!"

I lifted the musket and took a closer look, and it was shorter than a normal musket, which is between 1.2 and 1.5 meters in Japan, but this one is only about 0.9 meters, and the workmanship looks more delicate. "It's just delicate, nothing special!" After watching it for a long time, I didn't notice anything else special.

"Then let me tell you!" He took the musket from my hand again. "Ordinary muskets will be unusable due to moisture in wet weather, but this kind of gun has no problem as long as it is not pouring rain, because it has no arquebuses at all!" As he spoke, he pulled open a secret door at the back of the barrel and said, "Stuff a sponge here, and as soon as you pull the trigger, the sponge will push forward and ignite the primer, but there is no exposed fuse!" ”

"Ahh I was blown away, this is definitely an epoch-making step forward.

"This musket doesn't fire any ordinary projectiles!" As he spoke, he handed me a scroll of paper. "It is to wrap the lead bullet and the fire yao into such a paper roll in advance, and stuff it directly into the breech when it is used, so as to avoid the time of temporary filling and compacting the fire yao!"

"Hmm!" I nodded as I watched. As a rough calculation, the time between firing is actually compressed to a staggering ten seconds, so that the "three-stage" shooting method is completely unnecessary.

"And ......," he asked with a mysterious smile, "Do you know how many times a normal musket is fired in a row at most?" ”

"More than thirty times!" I still know this. "Exceeding this number, even if there is no minor problem, the barrel will be too hot to fire!"

"And this musket!" Ernst danced his musket and posed. "Even if you shoot 200 times in a row, it will never happen!"

I looked closely at the barrel of the gun and noticed a faint blush of blue in the darkness. "Was tungsten added to the casting?" I'm not very good at chemistry, I just know that tungsten is a metal that is resistant to high temperatures.

"I don't know!" He shook his head. "This is a top-secret technology of a trading house, and even the scrap rate of their own production is difficult to control, so the output is very small! This time I brought 500 sticks, and it is not certain when I will have them in the future. ”

"In that case, I'll do it all-inclusive, how about the price of 20 pieces?" I thought about it.

He smiled and said, "50 is not negotiable!" ”

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Bear in Winter: I once asked a senior how to write a novel. His answer was: write about something that is simply impossible, and then make it plausible. Not just novels, but all works of art with plots! Lao Xiong was inspired, but he didn't have the ability to ask himself. Yesterday's chapter is really unreasonable.,But it's just a foreshadowing that has to be done to lead to someone's plot.,There will be some salvage after a few chapters.,But it's not very smooth.,It can even be said to be quite blunt.,Please readers read it in my first writing! Who is this "someone"? Certainly not Keiji Maeda! This character has been stereotyped, and there is no need for such a gimmick. This person is Ah Guo! This woman is definitely not simple, she has a very close relationship with the protagonist at a certain stage of development (not the kind of relationship between men and women)! Ah Guo is actually not very long, and her role is an indispensable medium, and the subplot of this part is expected to be fully revealed by the end of the third volume. Today, I say these words that may leak the plot later, not that Lao Xiong has to ask readers to understand greatly, but I don't want to cause a big debate, counting the essence of this week's votes in my hand, it's really not enough! Ladies and gentlemen, raise your hand!