Since the establishment of commercial relations with the sea wolves, the trade between the Portuguese and the sea wolves has been quite good, and many things that they could not sell before, now they have finally found a willing next home to take over, although the price is not too satisfactory to them, but it is better than asking them to continue to use only silver to buy goods, to a certain extent, the two sides use barter trade.

So the Portuguese are quite satisfied with doing business with the sea wolf, and also give the sea wolf a considerable discount, now because the Spanish and the Portuguese and even the Dutch in order to compete with each other, like the sea wolf in the past, the price of saltpeter has dropped by nearly forty percent, so that the sea wolf can buy more things cheaper.

But the Portuguese were also wary of the sea wolves, because while they were trading with them, they also found that the sea wolves never bought artillery, arquebuses and other things that were in good demand at the moment, and never bought any luxury goods from them, which made them very strange.

It stands to reason that now firearms are such weapons, because the Ming Dynasty has been fighting with the Jiannu in the north all the year round, and has to deal with the rebellion of luxury, there is a great demand for weapons.

This has also led to the fact that it is difficult for pirates to spend money to buy enough weapons over the years, especially heavy weapons such as artillery, and the supervision of the land government is relatively strict, and the quality of firearms in the Ming Dynasty is always inferior to the quality of firearms made by Western craftsmen, so it is something that pirates are eager for, and the price is very high.

It turned out that the Spaniards and the Portuguese had made suggestions to the Sea Wolves, willing to use the cannons and arquebuses they made in exchange for the Sea Wolves' goods, but they were all rejected by the Sea Wolves, and after seeing the firearms they made for sale, the Sea Wolves seemed to be a little disdainful.

This makes them a little strange, it stands to reason that sea wolves are also pirates, and they should like these things too, but why do they refuse to ask for them? Unless they have something better, there's no reason they shouldn't want these guys! Later, it wasn't until after the sea wolf and Chu Cailao fought that they heard that the sea wolf could cast the cannon by himself, and it was rumored that the cannon cast by the sea wolf was still a Western-style Hongyi cannon.

At this time, these Europeans were a little surprised, they didn't believe that a group of pirates could actually cast Western-style cannons by themselves, this thing to say that even if it was the Ming Dynasty, it was very difficult to imitate, there was no reason for a group of pirates to do this!

And the rumor also says that there are a lot of these Hongyi cannons of the sea wolf, which is even more incomprehensible, how difficult it is to cast cannons, they all know that the Western cannon casters in this era use the process is actually not better than the casting process used by the Ming craftsmen, and it is also the clay mold casting method used.

It's just that when the Western gunsmiths cast cannons, they have mastered some relatively advanced concepts, formulated some advanced specifications for cannon casting, formed a more systematic artillery casting technique, and deeply understood the relationship between some gunpowder and artillery, so that their artillery casting is better.

However, Chinese craftsmen have not formed a systematic concept of casting artillery, although now they are also learning to imitate Western-style artillery, and can even control the casting quality very well, but the concept has always lagged behind Western countries a lot, and can only follow the Western countries step by step, emulating them.

Therefore, these Europeans do not believe that the sea wolf will have such good means and can cast very good artillery, but they only think that the sea wolf may have mastered some cannon casting technology, and there are some craftsmen who can cast cannons, and can initially imitate some Western-style artillery, but it cannot be better than the artillery they cast.

For this reason, they also tried many ways, wanting to get one or two guns cast by the sea wolf, and make a comparison, but for more than a year, they have never been able to do so, the sea wolf has never sold artillery muskets to the outside world before, and no one has captured the sea wolf's warship, even if someone has robbed the sea wolf's merchant ship, but the sea wolf's merchant ship is only equipped with some light artillery, and there is no reason for it.

They had no choice but to give up on this matter and continue to wait for the opportunity slowly.

And Zheng Yiguan is now running to Entrenchment Jingao, looking for the Portuguese to buy artillery, also out of helplessness, recently Yan Siqi and he have fought many times on the sea around Penghu, Zheng Yiguan found that Yan Siqi's ships are equipped with some very powerful cannons, which can bombard his ships at a long distance.

He didn't have to think about it to guess that this must have been sold to Yan Siqi by Yu Xiaotian, Zheng Yiguan's subordinates took a great advantage when they fought with him after Yan Siqi's newly obtained cannons from the sea wolf, and with the help of these cannons purchased from the sea wolf, they could often win more with less, and even sank several of his ships at a distance of two hundred steps.

Zheng Yiguan realized at this time that if he wanted to compete with Yu Xiaotian and these peers at sea in the next step, if he didn't improve the quality of his equipment, he would definitely suffer, especially if he had to fight with the sea wolf in the future, if he didn't have enough decent cannons, then he would follow in the footsteps of Chu Cailao if he didn't get it right.

So he began to buy all kinds of cannons, some iron yards and iron casting workshops in Guangdong and Fujian, and now they have begun to imitate Western-style cannons, that is, Hongyi cannons, but these cannons are very close to the government, it is not easy to get, and ordinary people dare not sell them.

But the key is that Zheng Yiguan found a way to go on the land and take a look at the Hongyi cannons imitated by these Ming craftsmen, these cannons look similar to the shape of Western-style cannons, with cannon ears and aiming reticles, but there is a problem that these cannons are all heavy artillery, even if they are smaller, there are more than 1,000 catties, and the big ones even have seven or eight thousand catties.

Even if he could buy it, it could only be used on the shore, and very few of the ships in his hands could be loaded with these cannons, so he had no choice but to turn to the Dutch and the Portuguese to buy them.

But because Xu Xinsu broke with him, Xu Xinsu had a lot of face in the Dutch, controlling a large supply of raw silk, and the Dutch didn't want to offend Xu Xinsu, so they could only be sorry for Zheng Yiguan, so Zheng Yiguan touched a nose of ash in the Dutch, and only the Portuguese were left.

It is said that the people of the West also had an artillery field in Manila, casting artillery for sale or personal use, and they were quite famous in this era, which was often called Luzon artillery in later generations.

But because of Li Dan's relationship, they used to be very wrong with the Spaniards, Li Dan was once pitted by the Spaniards, so he later helped the Dutch deal with the Spaniards, but now Zheng Yiguan inherited Li Dan's mantle, and naturally became on the blacklist of the Spaniards, so if you want to buy guns from the Spaniards, there is basically no hope.

And Zheng Yiguan is very familiar with Macao, and he has also been baptized and believes in Catholicism, so after he put forward a request to buy artillery, the Portuguese did not refuse, and some time ago the Portuguese agreed to help Zheng Yiguan cast a batch of artillery.

This news is not good news, this news shows that Zheng Yiguan may improve some of his strength in a relatively short period of time, so next, Yan Siqi's side, I am afraid it will be more difficult.

So after thinking about it, Yu Xiaotian discussed it with Liu Laoliu, Ma Xiao and others, and decided to make another deal to Zheng Yiguan, and sell a batch of artillery to Yan Siqi in the near future, including Xu Xinsu's side, and also send someone to contact them to see if they can establish a cooperative relationship with Xu Xinsu.

Xu Xinsu has strong economic strength, but weak force, which is a very good thing to use, so Yu Xiaotian decided that this cheap can't be taken by Yan Siqi, if necessary, he can also provide Xu Xinsu with some help, whether it is to send ships to escort them or sell him some cannons, it doesn't matter, as long as he can make money at the same time, he is disgusting Zheng Yiguan.

In addition, now they have built a number of Feizi clippers, the number of such ships is not as scarce as the year before, and for more than a year, Seawolf has launched many Feizi clippers one after another.

These sloops themselves have a very strong ability to sail near the sea, and their firepower is also strong, and they have a one-sided advantage when dealing with their Chinese warships at sea, so Yu Xiaotian decided to draw a group of about five to seven flying dhows and send them to the ocean around Zhangquan to carry out activities.

The task of this fleet is very simple, that is, to find Zheng Yiguan's bad luck over there, like he did with Chu Cailao, to attack the ships of Zheng Yiguan's orders, like peeling an onion, and gradually weaken Zheng Yiguan's strength.

According to Yu Xiaotian's words, isn't you Zheng Yiguan developed now? I'm not in a hurry to have a big showdown with you, but I can slowly grind you and strip you naked little by little, as long as I, Yu Xiaotian, am still messing around on this sea, I can't tolerate you Zheng Yiguan still being as rampant as in another time and space in history.

However, unlike the privateers in Western countries, these Flying Clippers sent by Seawolf belong to the official behavior of Seawolves, not private armed ships, and belong to the official military actions of Seawolves, rather than spontaneous profit-seeking personal behaviors.

Some time ago, the sea wolf was only the instigator behind the scenes, manipulating Yan Siqi and Zheng Yiguan against him behind his back, but now Yu Xiaotian decided to jump to the front desk and personally participate in dealing with Zheng Yiguan.

Although the amount of effort he put into it was not large, he believed that his well-trained and well-organized subordinates, plus these sloops, were enough to give Zheng Yiguan a headache for a long time.