Chapter 48: People on Boat A
Then he found the Planning Institute and applied for lead, tin and antimony. [No pop-up novel website] These are the three necessary metals for casting lead type. Especially antimony. Without antimony, not only will the effectiveness of lead type be greatly reduced, but its lifespan will also be shortened.
"It would be better if there was bismuth." Zhou Dongtian vaguely remembered that this kind of thing was also needed to cast lead characters.
"Bismuth is definitely not possible. Lead and tin are OK. Antimony is a little more difficult." Wu De said.
The reason why it is difficult to say is not that China does not have antimony. On the contrary, in this time and space, China has a lot of antimony, both in the form of ores and metal products. The problem was that people at that time confused antimony and tin. The world's largest antimony mine - the tin mine in Hunan was mined in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, it was thought that it was a tin mine, so it was named like this.
Since there is no concept of antimony, Guangzhou Station can only say that it wants to buy tin when buying antimony. As for whether it is tin or antimony, it has to be shipped back for metal composition analysis.
"So far, we haven't bought antimony yet," Wu De said. "But Guangzhou Station has sent people to Hunan to buy antimony. If you are not too anxious, just wait a few days."
In addition to making lead type, antimony is also useful in making pyrotechnics. The combined demands of several aspects led the Guangzhou Station to finally send a special procurement team - and the remote exploration team also sent people - to Hunan. On the way, I will go to Jiangxi and Hubei to see if there are any non-ferrous metal minerals that have been developed in this time and space. Several provinces in the Huguang region are major mining provinces.
"Haha, why don't you just come to me directly? I have antimony here." When Zhou Dongtian came to the last stop - the Ministry of Metallurgy to talk about the casting of lead characters, Ji Wusheng smiled and patted his shoulder.
"You have?" Zhou Dongtian became more energetic.
"It is indeed a bit of a personal item." Ji Wusheng nodded, "The quantity is not much. This thing can increase a little every three to five, and the quantity is not large. I am too lazy to report it every day, so I thought I would just accumulate more and report it together. Anyway, antimony is not rare. No one suspects me of corruption."
He took him to a warehouse in the non-ferrous metal workshop of the Ministry of Metallurgy. More than a dozen pieces of antimony ingots were lying in the warehouse, and there were also about a dozen boxes filled with fragmentary antimony ingots that had not yet been remelted. They were all very small in size.
"Where did you get yours? Didn't you say you never bought antimony?"
"It's true that I haven't bought it, but there is antimony in the money." Ji Wusheng said.
The non-ferrous metal workshop under the Ministry of Metallurgy has a long-term task, which is to melt, refine and recycle copper coins and scrap metal objects collected from various channels. Whether it is copper coins or various scrap copper and iron, they are actually alloys, including various non-ferrous metals, which can be recycled after purification.
"The most recycled coins are various small copper coins cast privately. Locals say they contain a lot of lead. In fact, not only do they contain lead, but they also contain tin - and a lot of antimony as well."
As for daily utensils, most of them are pewter ware and tin ware, and many of them contain antimony mixed as tin. In this way, the antimony was recovered piecemeal.
"Although it's not much, it should be enough." Ji Wusheng said, "If you find it useful, I will report the number to the Planning Institute immediately. Once the procedures are passed, it will be done."
"It's a little less, but it's enough for the time being." Zhou Dongtian thought, since he has sent people to purchase the follow-up antimony, he will continue to arrive.
After solving the problem of type casting materials, he left the rest of the type casting process and printing press manufacturing to a group of engineers from the machinery factory - they would choose the optimal movable type printing press solution based on the data.
Zhou Dongtian only made one request: It would be best to design two different printing presses, a small machine that can be driven by workers' hands or animal power, and a large machine that uses machine power. The former he plans to put on the territory of Ming Dynasty to set up a printing factory in the future. Especially Nanjing. Zhou Dongtian was already preparing to re-enact the past events of Leizhou in Nanjing, overthrowing the engraving and printing industry in Sanshan Street, Nanjing, and establishing a new printing empire. The latter is of course used in the occupied areas of the traversers.
He asked the Planning Institute for a batch of "purified" apprenticeships and planned to send them to Hu Qingbai to study.
"This group of apprentices don't need to teach anything else. The key is to teach them how to read. It's not the end of the story after they learn 800 commonly used characters. They need to know at least 3,000 Chinese characters." Zhou Dongtian said, "And they need to know both simplified and traditional Chinese. "
"Good guy, your demands are too high. You need to learn so much in three months?" Hu Qingbai clicked his tongue, "You have to have a surprise education with cramming and corporal punishment."
"It's up to you. If the corporal punishment of female students can make teachers feel full in class, they can also choose female apprentices - they should be stronger. I'm still pointing them to type." Zhou Dongtian said, "By the way, you also need to understand Pinyin, Pinyin must be good.”
Knowing Pinyin is mainly to facilitate word recognition. If there is an all-in-one casting and rowing machine, this requirement is actually not required.
Without stopping, Zhou Dong rushed to Si Kaide and asked to sign up for the "Trade Inspection Group to Jiangnan." The purpose is naturally to investigate the printing industry in Nanjing.
"There is no inspection team to Jiangnan. There are only trade inspection teams to Liaodong and Southeast Asia. Those who go to Jiangnan are people who open trading stations. Are you going?"
"I want to go" Zhou Dongtian affirmed.
"Okay, but you should talk less when you go, and obey the instructions on everything on the way."
"No problem, I mainly want to go see it. I won't be here for a long time."
The news of the establishment of two trade expedition teams to the north and the south has moved the hearts of many people who are interested in overseas assignments. Many people are daunted by the training required to be sent to the Ming Dynasty, but there is no need to "become a Ming Dynasty" when being sent to Southeast Asia or Liaodong. Especially in Southeast Asia, not only can you enjoy the tropical style, but you may also be able to pick up a few foreign girls. Sign up to participate in Southeast Asia More than a dozen people from the expedition team came at once.
The purpose of dispatching the Southeast Asian expedition team is to conduct a thorough survey of the situation in Southeast Asia. Especially the case of the Dutch. According to the assessment of the Foreign Intelligence Service: the Dutch are the most threatening European opponents of the Crossing Group. Therefore, investigating the Dutch East India Company was made a priority.
Lando spat, and the spit flew to the dark sea, and disappeared immediately.
He was unemployed, and had been unemployed for a long time. Ever since his unsuccessful expedition with Aragones, he had found no new work.
After Aragones's ship reunited with Liu Xiang's fleet, they once again tried to gain a foothold near the mouth of the Pearl River. Geranzani instructed him to secretly obstruct them so that they could not succeed. There was no need to do anything. Liu Xiang just wanted to use the power of the Spaniards to attack Quanwen Zheng Zhilong and warned him not to "cross the line", and did not really want them to gain a foothold.
As a result, Aragones, as the main foreign aid in Liu Xiang's fleet, fought against Zheng Zhilong in a confusing encounter. In terms of performance, the Countess of Scarborough performed very well. With the help of the tall sailing ship and superior gunfire, Aragones fully satisfied his desire for combat performance and taught "China a lesson". Barbarian".
But when Zheng Zhilong's fleet began to release fire ships, Aragones had to turn around and escape. If he lost the big sailing ship, he would be finished. As a result, the assembled crew on the ship ran aground in the panic of the Countess of Scarborough, and was immediately besieged by countless "junk ships". The Zheng family's sailors swarmed forward and in a moment killed all the Malay sailors on the deck who had lost their fighting spirit. Just when Aragones was about to die, Liu Xiang's boat came up and finally saved his life. But the Countess of Scarborough, the luxurious "Spanish Lady", completely became Zheng Zhilong's prisoner after being trained to a disgraceful state by Bo Pu.
Lando almost died in the chaos. In fact, Aragones was able to get allies to come to the rescue only because of the vz68 submachine gun Lando had hidden on his body. He hid in the mizzen tower and kept harvesting the incoming Zheng with burst fire. As a sailor, the enemy was afraid of the fierce firepower and stopped moving forward. A group of Zheng family sailors then installed cannons on the deck and prepared to bombard the mizzen mast. Lando used a submachine gun to kill them one by one, and finally stopped this attempt.
After being saved, he thanked God repeatedly - Weiss Lando had never been a devout believer. In the more than ten years he had been a mercenary, he had never encountered such a dangerous and desperate situation. If Liu Xiang's men and horses did not come to the rescue, he would be stuck on the ship, and he would not be able to use his great skills. Either he would be cut into several pieces, or he would be forced to jump into the sea - and he would probably be drowned alive.
"If I had known, I should have gone to Manila to mess around."
Weiss Lando, an Italian-American, 35 years old, participated in the Bosnian War as a volunteer, first for the Muslims and then for the Croats. After the war stopped, he and a few partners started a small-scale arms smuggling operation. As soon as the business started to pick up, the deal went wrong in Iraq and most of the goods were lost. In the end, he was hunted in the country. In desperation, he took his last bit of goods and prepared to go to Thailand to sell to the local gangs.
Just one day before they were about to arrive, they were suddenly hit by a strange storm on the South China Sea - one minute it was clear and clear, and the next minute there was a sudden strong wind, and it felt like the ship was being sucked into a whirlpool. Lando even vaguely remembered that the sky in the distance was still blue and there were no storm clouds. Then they all lost their memory.
When they woke up, only three of the five people on the boat were left. One of them is dead. Lando tried to continue driving the boat, but found that the gp navigation system had become blank and all data had returned to o. All navigation equipment was useless, and even the radio was dead silent except for the hiss of electricity. Even maritime satellite phones lost signal.
The remaining two used the sextant test to prove that theirs had deviated from the original route by more than 500 nautical miles. This data surprised them - the chart showed that they had arrived not far from Dongsha Island.
This made Lando and others panic. Dongsha Island is the territory of the Taiwanese army, and there is the 6th Marine Corps on it. If your ship is inspected, no country's royal laws allow the smuggling of weapons. How can you get away with it? ? Moreover, Taiwan is more loyal to its own motherland than it is to its own motherland. If it is caught, it will definitely be transferred back. With several federal felonies and years of non-parole, he would have to wear an orange jumpsuit for the rest of his life.
I quickly started my engine and headed for the open sea, but the magnetic compass and TACAN navigation system were completely messed up. The pointer on the compass plate was spinning slowly in circles, unable to point to true north at all. Lando and others complained endlessly. In the chaos, the fishing boat sailed to a desert island and the oil was almost running out.
It was on this desert island that Lando first realized that he had encountered something strange or terrifying. He used his sextant and charts to make countless calculations and proved that he was on Dongsha Island.
But let alone the 6th Marine Corps in Taiwan, there is no trace that an army was ever stationed there - Lando has been to many deserted islands. As long as someone has lived on the island for a long time, there will definitely be traces left. If an army had been stationed, it would have left even more artificial traces - at least a reinforced concrete reservoir would have been left, and the foundations of the barracks and outposts would have certainly been preserved. But there are only some traces of local fishermen's presence here.
All electronic devices remain silent. The radar screen was completely blank - Lando knew that the Dongsha Island area was on the route to Taiwan, and there should be many cargo ships passing by. But the radar showed only a handful of small reflections that appeared to be fishing boats.
No one can explain this problem. Lando could only think that his sextant was inaccurate.
After some discussion, the two surviving people decided to abandon the ship - the fishing boat had no oil and contained some munitions. They first disposed of the bodies of their companions, then packed up the items on the ship, opened the sea valve, and carefully sank the ship. The location was carefully selected so that it could be easily picked up later - in his imagination, he would be able to come back in a few months.
Encountering wind and waves on the way, the rowing boat capsized, and was rescued by a group of strange fishermen. Their shabby fishing boats and strange appearances made him think that he was in a corner of Indonesia. In the end, he was confused and He was sent ashore, and was escorted by men holding spears and wearing armor. Only then did he realize that he had encountered something incredible.
After a series of twists and turns, he was finally handed over to a man who looked like a European priest. The priest asked him about his origins in several languages, and he finally understood one - Italian.
From Father Anders, Lando learned that this was "the 1627th year after the birth of the Lord Jesus." He screamed and fainted on the spot.
When he woke up, he had already arrived in Macau. After Lando looked at the street scene in a daze, he finally admitted the reality - a man with a gun to make ends meet will never give up to the environment. He immediately resumed speaking Italian, which he had almost forgotten. With his limited historical knowledge, Lando knew that this English-speaking person was not welcome among the Portuguese.
Lando slowly made a name for himself by running errands for Father Anders. He claimed that he was a descendant of a rural aristocratic family in Parma, Italy, and had served as a volunteer in the Balkans - the latter was true, and the former was not. Total bragging: Lando's grandfather was born in this village, and he was very impressed by a run-down aristocratic family in this village. He often talked about this family with little Lando. The so-called children of the Parma family that Lando invented were based on this family. Even the coat of arms was plagiarized and then slightly modified.
The only thing I have a problem with is my English that I often blurt out. Lando had no choice but to claim that he had been a prisoner of the British and had stayed in Britain for several years. As for how an Italian could become a prisoner of the British, Lando had no choice but to continue to make up nonsense that he had served the Catholic King of Spain - this was common among Italians, and he was captured during the campaign to support the Irish. The British caught him.
However, when talking about this issue, he firmly stated that he only went to war to make a living, not to admire His Majesty the King. He had a clear feeling that the local Jesuit leaders valued the interests of the Portuguese far more than their Spanish king.
But it is still difficult for a modern person to live in Macau in the 17th century. He has almost nothing. The most terrifying thing is that everyone doubts his origins.
Fortunately, Lando had some experience with historical issues. He had some experience of religious fanaticism when he was paid to fight in Bosnia. He knew that it was best for him to show some religious fanaticism appropriately, otherwise these priests would soon take him to barbecue because of his incompatibility.
So Lando had to go to church every week to attend mass - he had been baptized by Catholicism as a child, but had never been to church as an adult - and went to confession from time to time, and fasting on Fridays was strictly enforced. When the forty-day fast came to him, Lando experienced the feeling of extreme hunger for the first time. The days of eating only one meal from morning to night and not being able to eat meat were not something modern people could bear. For almost a month, he felt weak and had to live on a diet of smelly salted fish and eggs every day.
Apart from this fatal fast, life in the 17th century was a nightmare. There were nasty parasites everywhere, and it was hard to get a chance to take a bath - it wasn't even as good as the backcountry he'd been to in North Africa, where many small cities had good steam baths. There was no fresh food, and salted meat and fish formed the bulk of the meal. The red wine shipped thousands of miles away was scarce and expensive, and tasted like vinegar. He sometimes eats in Chinese restaurants - although the taste is completely different from what he eats in Chinatown, most of it is still fresh vegetables and meat.
The sanitary conditions were frightening, but luckily he was well-informed and tolerant. The most terrifying thing was the toilet. After going there once, Lando decided that he would rather go to the suburbs to find a place in the bushes than go to the toilet in the official residence. Moreover, he found that most people, whether Chinese or European, had no concept of toilet paper. He had to spend his earned money to buy paper to solve the problem - paper is very expensive here. x! ~!
