With the joint efforts of the helmsmen and the guardsmen, the ship began to slowly turn its course on the rough sea, and turned the bow position to the direction from which they came, and when turning, the ship was tilted at a large inclination angle because the sails were windy, and some things on the deck that were not fixed slid to the port side, and the waves crashed on the side of the ship, and the waves splashed, splashing the people lying on the side of the ship.

Another wave hit, the hull shook violently, first thrown up by the waves, and then quickly fell into the bottom of the waves, a few unsuspecting people fell on the spot, exclaimed and slid to the port side, a lot of sea water from the starboard side pounced on the deck, Yu Xiaotian was also splashed half of the body of the seawater, so that he was excited to lift his spirits, and hurriedly reached out and pulled a sail rope, stabilized his body, so that he did not fall on the spot.

Fortunately, this did not last long, and gradually the ship finished turning, the inclined hull began to regain its balance, the full sails began to eat the wind, and the speed of the ship began to increase markedly, following the direction of the wind and the waves, in the direction of the wind and the waves, in the direction from which they came.

The roll of the ship began to turn into pitch, but the amplitude of the sway began to decrease considerably, allowing the people on board to resume their normal walking, and the sails were adjusted to an angle where the wind could be used to provide maximum power to the boat.

Yu Xiaotian only then realized that in fact, the operation of sailing ships in this era is not simple, not only need the helmsman to control the rudder, but also need the ship's handsmith to effectively adjust the sails and cooperate with the helmsman, in order to successfully complete the turning.

Fortunately, the helmsman and the handsmith on this ship are relatively skilled, and the cooperation can be regarded as okay, so that the ship does not get out of control and is overturned by the waves.

And at this time, the upper bucket on the mast is still firmly attached to the mast, and continues to monitor the two ships of unknown origin in the distance, the mast is in the wind and waves, swaying greatly, which makes people have to admire the courage of the fight, and a little timid person, in this case, it is estimated that they will not dare to climb such a high place at all, so some people will say that only a brave person can become a qualified sailor.

Just as the ship finished turning and increased its speed to the north, the situation began to become clearer, and the two unidentified ships had been hanging far away from Yu Xiaotian's boat, and constantly adjusting the direction of the voyage as they turned around, and gradually began to approach it.

This more fully illustrates that their target is this ship, and when they encounter such a situation at sea, they can basically determine the identity of the other party, under normal circumstances, according to what Liu Laoliu told Yu Xiaotian when he had nothing to do before, even if they accidentally meet a military ship or official ship of the imperial court at sea, they will not go to sea to ban passing ships when there is a storm, which shows that the other party has more than ninety percent of the possibility, it is two pirate ships.

Only an outlaw like a pirate would choose to brave such storms and waves to search for prey at sea and launch a pursuit of it.

So now that everyone on board understood what had happened to them, no one was in the mood to laugh and gossip at this time, and their faces were tense, and while they were concerned about the matter at hand, they kept looking in the direction of the stern, and they all looked very nervous.

And the two boats turned to the rear of the ship at this time, and from a distance, they also began to raise their full sails and speed up to chase them, just because Shangdou discovered and judged their identities in time, the distance between the three boats at this time is relatively far, basically a distance of a few miles or so, and it is not yet a threat.

But in addition to Yu Xiaotian, the hearts of the people on the ship are very clear in their hearts, the pirate ship is in a light load state, and the sails of the general pirate ship will be larger, although the stability has changed, which is not conducive to the safety of the ship's navigation, but it can effectively increase the speed, but the ship they are on, although it is strong, but it is in a fully loaded state, the draft is deep, and the speed will naturally be slower.

If the pirate ship had been pursuing it when it was not dark, it would have been difficult for them to escape the pursuit of the pirate ship, and now all their hopes could only be to fight for towing until it was dark, and use the cover of night to escape from the pirate ship.

But today they were a little unlucky, thinking that when they came to Dongshan Island, it was the morning, and there was still a long time before dark, and the pirates had enough time to pursue them, and it was difficult for them to drag it out until it was dark.

So just now, the people on the boat scolded God for the wind, which made the wind and waves on the sea stronger, but at this time, they all wished that the wind and waves would be bigger, so that the two pirate ships behind would retreat and give up on their own.

Although the ship was speeding up, the people on board had already begun to prepare to defend against pirates, and when they sailed to Dongshan Island just now, in fact, Liu Shipowner had asked Ma Biao and them to make some preparations to guard against pirates in advance, and moved the weapons hidden on the ship out of the cabin and placed them on the deck of the ship, which they could access at any time.

Now all they had to do was distribute their weapons and start reloading a few muskets and muskets, ready to fire at any time.

Ma Biao and the other three escorts on the ship may be the most nervous people on the ship, because their job on the ship is to be responsible for resisting pirate invasion and protecting the safety of the ship. He also took out gunpowder and reloaded a few three-eyed guns and arquebuses, and was very busy.

Because of his tall and strong body, Yu Xiaotian naturally couldn't run to help them, and according to the instructions of the shipowner and Ma Biao, the broken fishing nets on the boat were propped up with poles and hung on the side of the boat.

It wasn't until now that Yu Xiaotian understood that these broken fishing nets on the ship were not just things used to cover people's ears and eyes, and along the way, Yu Xiaotian was still full of complaints, feeling that the owner of the ship was not kind, and refused to take a few nets to catch some fish to improve the food for the people on the boat.

Once these fishing nets are propped up, they form a net wall at the side of the ship, which is definitely not good at blocking arrows, but it can effectively prevent pirates from jumping directly after ganging, otherwise even if the pirates jump over, they will be hung in the fishing nets, in that case, it is similar to looking for death, not falling into the sea, they will be stabbed to death by the people on this boat.

When the fishing net was just hung up, Yu Xiaotian was called by Liu Chuandong again, and ran to the side of a pile of things covered with oilcloth at the stern of the boat, Liu Chuandong yelled at Xiaotian with a nervous face: "Dumb! Hurry up and uncover it! ”

Yu Xiaotian didn't know what was under the tarpaulin, so he quickly untied the rope, lifted the tarpaulin vigorously, looked down, and was suddenly startled.

It turns out that there is a black cannon under the tarpaulin! Before Yu Xiaotian uncovered the tarpaulin, he never thought that there would be such a big killing weapon on their ship.

However, after taking a closer look, Yu Xiaotian couldn't help but be a little disappointed again!

Because this so-called cannon, the barrel is not more than ten centimeters thick, the length of the barrel is about two feet, absolutely not up to one meter, the weight is not too heavy, and from the muzzle, the muzzle is trumpet-shaped, the wall of the barrel is also thin, the body of the cannon is cast with pig iron, the pimples on the surface are very rough, it is obvious that after casting, the cannon body has not been polished, and there is a layer of rust on it, which looks rusty.

Because he couldn't carefully observe the cannon chamber, and he didn't know if the inside of the cannon chamber had been polished, and on the whole he felt that this thing could only be described in two words, that is, vulgar! And it's very vulgar!

The gun was placed on top of a crudely more rudimentary wooden mount, with no wooden wheels underneath and no mechanism for adjusting the barrel pitch, and if it was to be aimed, it was necessary to move the entire gun carriage by hand.

After looking at it a little, Yu Xiaotian could basically conclude that this thing actually said that it was a cannon, and it was a bit of a lift, and this thing was simply a large iron gun, and from the perspective of shape, it looked like a cast iron bowl.

To Yu Xiaotian knows, the Ming Dynasty firearms are varied, although the late Ming Dynasty introduced imitations of the Western countries' Furlong cannons and Hongyi cannons, but many artillery is still more old-fashioned artillery, the bowl mouth gun is one of them, this thing has a short barrel, the gun wall is thin, the loading is not easy, the firing speed is very slow, the most important thing is that the range and power are very bad, when he visited the military museum in Beijing in his early years, he saw such a Ming Dynasty bowl mouth gun displayed in the military museum, the shape is quite similar to the bowl mouth gun in front of him.

But this bowl mouth gun seems to be more vulgar than the old antique in the military museum, Yu Xiaotian secretly guessed, it is estimated that this cannon is definitely not officially cast, it is not possible to find it Liu Shipowner through the underground workshop, spend a lot of money to hire a private person to cast for him, because the process is simple, so it will be so crude.

Yu Xiaotian had just uncovered the bowl, and then Liu Shipowner ordered him to go to the bow of the ship, where there was also a pile of things covered with oilcloth, and after Yu Xiaotian ran to uncover it, he really saw that there was also a similar bowl at the bow of the ship.

So Yu Xiaotian was really a little surprised, no wonder this guy surnamed Liu has been able to run at sea for so many years, and he has not been bankrupt by pirates, it turns out that this guy knows how to make money, and he actually got two such guys on the ship, and it is estimated that he has relied on these two cannons to scare off many pirates, which made his ship safer.

Although these two bowls really can't get into Yu Xiaotian's eyes, Yu Xiaotian also has to admit that this thing is indeed quite deterrent to people in this era, no matter how much Liu Shipowner invests, it is estimated that it is impossible to get Hongyi cannons on his ship, or "advanced weapons" such as Furlong machines, and it is quite good to be able to get two such bowls.

After the two bowls were opened, Ma Biao and the others immediately took out a few powder kegs from the cabin, opened the lids of the gunpowder kegs with a chatter, and also brought out barrels of iron nails, iron sand, and broken iron particles, and even mixed with stones, broken porcelain and other materials, which must have been used as cannons.

Ma Biao took advantage of Yu Xiaotian's time to stand by the cannon and watch, taking advantage of Yu Xiaotian's unpreparedness, kicked Yu Xiaotian's leg with his foot, and scolded with contempt: "Dumb! Get out of the way, don't get in the way of Lao Tzu! I've never seen it, it's a bun! This thing is amazing! Move it around and aim at the back! Grandma's, if the pirates catch up, let's see if Lao Tzu doesn't bombard them to death! ”

Yu Xiaotian secretly scolded Ma Biao in his heart for being a dirt bun, what Lao Tzu has seen, you can use your fucking toes, and you can't think of it!

But at this time, he didn't have time to worry about Ma Biao, and reached out to help move the gun carriage at the mouth of the bowl, and he realized that this thing even had a gun barrel with a gun carriage, and the weight was really not light, estimated to weigh more than 200 pounds, and the wood of the gun carriage was estimated to be made of mulberry wood, which was heavy and strong, and it was very difficult to move.

Then Ma Biao showed off with a subordinate, began to load ammunition for the bowl mouth, he first poured gunpowder into the muzzle, Ma Biao they used gunpowder is black powder, and it is powdery, the quality of this black powder is unstable, when it is stored for a long time, because the specific gravity of the three raw materials of saltpeter sulfur and charcoal is different, the size of the crushed powder particles is also different, after a long time, the raw materials with a large proportion will sink, and the charcoal with a light gravity will float on it, causing the power of gunpowder to decrease, and even there will be a situation that cannot be detonated.

But obviously, these people don't know much about this kind of knowledge, so they took out the gunpowder and started to fill it directly, what is the specific ratio of this black powder, Yu Xiaotian is not very clear, and naturally he can't be sure how powerful this black powder is!

After Ma Biao and another escort ship loaded the gunpowder into the mouth of the bowl, they used a pestle to push the gunpowder to the bottom of the barrel and tamed it, and then stuffed a wooden plug with a diameter about the same as the barrel of the gun, and also tamped it with a pestle.

Yu Xiaotian pretended to be curious, and watched Ma Biao and them load ammunition for a while, when Ma Biao and they were busy, the loading was completed, and after pouring the primer into the fire door, Yu Xiaotian hurriedly retreated quietly and hid away.

This bowl of mouthpiece is crudely made, God knows how safe this thing will be, and when Ma Biao and they loaded the gunpowder, they also roughly estimated what they were wearing, and no one could say whether the specific charge was more or less.

Once the cannon is really fired for a while, then Yu Xiaotian is not sure, this thing will be a big pirate, in his opinion, this thing is very likely to blow up, and the probability of killing the enemy is probably not as high as the possibility of killing his own people! So he secretly made up his mind, if he started fighting for a while, he would have to hide away from these two cannons, don't really blow up, even he piggybacked! In that case, he would be wronged!

And Ma Biao didn't dare to slack off after leading people to fill the bowl mouth gun at the stern, and quickly ran to the bow of the boat and began to fill another bowl mouth gun......

(Today's second chapter!) Please pass by friends, collect it first, if you are too thin, you can fatten up and kill it again! At the same time, please leave your precious red ticket in your hand, and the cold wind is here to say thank you! ）