After completing the transaction, Li Tu sent another 9,000 taels to Miyanoshiro Naomitsu for arquebuses, arquebus ammunition and bombs, and 4,000 taels for cannons. Three days after the pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info, the Satsuma clan sent someone to send weapons from Tsurumaru Castle.

The arquebuses and bombs were the same as those bought last year, one hundred and twenty iron cannons and three hundred bombs to equip the crew of the Crescent.

The four artillery pieces are all more than 1,000 pounds of Furlong machine guns.

The Furlong Cannon is an early reloader smoothbore cannon. Each of these four guns is composed of a mother gun and a child gun: the mother gun body is slender, and the gun body is equipped with a front sight and a light door, which can aim and shoot at long-distance targets. There are ear lugs on both sides of the gun body, which is placed on the gun carriage, so that the firing angle can be adjusted by pitching.

The rear part of the gun is thicker and has long holes and slots for loading the sub-guns. The sub-guns are similar to the small firearms, each female gun is equipped with six sub-guns, which can be pre-loaded with ammunition for backup, and the mother guns are loaded and fired in turn during battle, so the firing speed is higher. The four guns weighed more than 1,000 pounds, and were heavy Furlong cannons, each of which required four gunners and had a range of two thousand meters.

Litu armed all four guns on the aft towers of the two ships.

When the weapons arrived, the crews of the flotilla began training. In addition to arquebus and bomb throwing training, as in the same way last year, training was held at the training ground provided by the Satsuma Domain. As for the training of artillery and combat, Li Tu arranged for training at sea, in an environment that completely simulated real naval warfare.

Both ships were unloaded, both empty. Every afternoon, Li Tu sailed the boat to the offshore outside the port of Hejinfang, and let the crew other than the gunner train in combat on the terrace, and let the gunner shell the sails of the small boat 500 meters away in the waves.

Li Tu asked the gunners to use chain shells and shoot three shots at the sails of the boat every day, and there were rewards for two or more shots, and good food was served. The first cannon and below should be reviewed and reflected, and they can only eat coarse tea and light rice.

The so-called chain shell is to use a chain to connect two small shells together, and after firing, one shell will drag the other shell centrifugally and fly out, so it will greatly damage the enemy's sail or directly break the mast.

After more than 10 days of training, the gunners were basically able to hit the sails of small boats 500 meters away. Li Tu moved the target ship to a kilometer away and let the gunners practice shooting from a long distance.

On the other hand, Li Tu got a flintlock pistol from a British merchant and was ready to return to China to organize people to copy it. However, he was worried that the craftsmen of the Daming Guard were exploited and oppressed by the officials and their skills were not perfect, so he went to Miyanoshiro Naomitsu and asked him for a forge craftsman who could make iron cannons. Miyagi Naomitsu sent someone to contact Shimazu Tadashi, and after obtaining permission, he found a young craftsman from the blacksmith shop of the Satsuma Domain and said that he would take him to Daming to build an arquebus.

Hearing that he was given a reward of fifty taels a year, the craftsman abandoned all worries and decided to go to sea with Li Tu.

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Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it is the end of February of the fourth year of the Apocalypse. The Satsuma clan sent 20,000 taels of silver for the investment, and Li Tu's fleet was loaded with Japanese goods and sailed back.

The fleet passed through Masan, Shichitosan, and Daeluosan, and headed west to Ryukyu, where it was resupplied after a short period of supply. Yamatori Gumi Mountain, through Diaoyu Island into the Taiwan Strait.

On the morning of this day, Li Tu was chatting with the helmsman in the tail building, when he suddenly heard a gong from Aban on the lookout.

"There are pirates to the west!"

Hearing Aban's shout, everyone's faces turned white, and they secretly said that it was not good. Li Tu walked out of the tail tower and looked west. Sure enough, there were more than twenty black dots on the sea level, and they were more than twenty pirate ships. The pirate ships also seem to have spotted Litu's fleet and are heading this way.

There were too many enemy ships, and Li Tu was reluctant to ram them, so he turned to the rudder and shouted: "Go south, dodge them!" ”

The rudder Liu Huadian sang and turned the rudder, and Zaixing led the Crescent Moon to turn a corner and sail south. The pirate ships were unwilling to let go of Li Tu's fleet, and they also turned their bows and chased after them. The pirate ship was lighter, driving slightly faster than Litu's ship, and the distance between the two fleets was getting closer and closer.

The two fleets chased each other on the sea, and from morning to afternoon, the pirate ship finally caught up to two kilometers away from the Li Tu fleet. The crews of the Zaiheung and the Crescent took up their arms and stood on the terrace, ready for battle.

Li Tu looked around and saw clearly the composition of the pirate ship: a three-masted medium-sized ship and more than twenty small sand ships. The sand boats were flying orange, white and blue flags, and the fortune boat was flying a big Zheng flag.

"It's the Hongyi of Penghu Island!"

Xu San, the head shop, recognized the Dutchman's flag and said loudly: "These Hongyi are entrenched in Penghu, and they specialize in cruising in this sea area to plunder passing ships!" The most damn thing! ”

Li Tu pointed to the Zheng Zi Banner and asked, "Why is there a Zheng Zi Flag on that Fu ship?" ”

Xu San said loudly: "Owner, Hongyi doesn't know how to operate Ming ships, so he hired Daming's ship to drive Ming ships to plunder merchant ships, and the Zheng character should be the name of Daming ship!" ”

When Li Tu heard this, he was surprised. A pirate with the surname Zheng? There are not many characters surnamed Zheng on this foreign face! Could it be Zheng Zhilong? Li Tu had read a lot of novels in the late Ming Dynasty in later generations, and knew that Zheng Zhilong had gradually made his fortune since the fourth year of the Apocalypse, and the pirate fleet he encountered might have been commanded by Zheng Zhilong.

This hateful Zheng Zhilong actually worked for the Netherlands and robbed Chinese merchant ships!

The oars can only sprint short distances, and the crew does not have the physical strength to paddle all the time in this long-distance pursuit, and the pirate ships can only rely on the wind to catch up with Li Tu's fleet. The two fleets approached little by little in the sea breeze, and gradually, the pirate ships were only a kilometer away from the Crescent.

There were more than forty pirates on that Daifuku ship, and there were more than a dozen pirates on each of the other small sand boats, some Dutch red hair, some Chinese, each with a sword in their hands. There were more than 20 ships with three or four hundred people.

Suddenly, there was a sudden cannon shot in the distance, and the cannonball whistled from the flagship of the pirates, and landed twenty meters outboard the ship with a bang, causing a huge wave.

There is a bow cannon on the pirate flagship.

But Litu's fleet was not vegetarian either. Li Tu gave an order: "The gunner is in position, attack the mast of the pirate fortune ship with chain bullets!" ”

The standard-bearer waved his flag and carried Leetu's order to the Crescent. The four cannons of the two ships were pushed out into attack positions, aimed at the masts of the opposite Fukubune. Loading guns, aiming, igniting the fire rope, only a few huge "boom" sounds were heard, and four heavy guns of the thousand-pound Furlong machine spat out tongues of fire. The four chain bombs rolled at high speed and flew towards the fortune ship a thousand meters away.

Three shells missed and flew out of the sails. A single shot hit the side of the pirate flagship, sending out a cloud of bamboo shavings, which presumably injured several people.

The rate of fire of the Furlong cannon was far superior to that of the other guns, and after half a minute, the pirates' cannons had not yet fired, and Litu's four cannons had already fired again. This time, a chain bullet flew past and pulled firmly on the mast of Fukufune. I saw that the mast of the ship was tilted, and the entire sail was broken off by the chain bullet and pressed down from above.

The entire sail was pressed against the terrace of the Nafu ship, and it was estimated that a large part of it would be crushed to death.

The flagship of the pirates had no mainsail, the speed was stagnant, and there was no longer the motivation to chase.

The flagship was beaten to his stomach, and the pirates chasing Li Tu lost their command. However, the pirates and Dutch soldiers on the small sand boat did not seem to care about losing their command, and still fought bravely, setting sail to chase after Litu's fleet.