Therefore, Hale hopes that the Zheng Group can regain its strength more than anyone else. [Read the latest chapter] For this reason, he hit it off with Zheng Zhifeng, who came to seek alliance. In his view, although Zheng Chenggong has the identity and appeal of the legitimate son, as well as the official support of the Ming Dynasty, and the decisive strategy revealed in seizing Anping makes his group not to be underestimated, but after all, it is the weakest - the most important ship. The team and business channels were divided up and could not play a big role. Moreover, he himself has no connection with the main members of this group, and it is unknown whether the other party can understand his power.
Zheng Zhifeng has cooperated with me for a long time, and he is the most powerful faction in Weitou Bay - his appeal is much greater than that of Zheng Gongcheng's group, which is the master of Shao Guoxin, and he obviously has many more ships and payment capabilities.
"Mr. Feng, you are very haggard."
Zheng Zhifeng took off his cloak, "The Zheng family is in dire straits, but the situation in Weitou Bay is so treacherous that I cannot sleep peacefully."
"Really. I think with your charisma and strength, you shouldn't have such troubles. You just need to be less decisive."
Zheng Zhifeng nodded silently and took the hot cocoa brought by Marcos. Did not continue this topic
"I want to get the goods, are you ready?"
"Of course. This is the product you want. Let's take a look at it first." Hale was still habitually efficient and had no unnecessary politeness.
In the air outside the thatched shed, there were piles of cylindrical objects tightly wrapped with straw ropes, nearly ten feet long, as well as dozens of large and small wooden boxes.
Zheng Zhifeng's eyes couldn't help but focus on the objects. As the packaging was opened, dozens of workers lifted up the thick scaffolding, then used simple iron pulleys to lift the long tubes out of the box and skillfully placed them on the already assembled Good gun carriage.
Zheng Zhifeng glanced back and forth at this novel weapon with greedy eyes. There are six fully assembled artillery pieces, two large and four small. The larger one has a diameter of about four inches (Mingzhi cun, approximately, and is more than eight feet long (Mingzhi, approximately 2.5 meters). The smaller one has a diameter of more than three inches (Mingzhi cun), and is approximately more than seven feet long (mingzhi). , approximately 2.35 meters.
These cannons are not the familiar red barbarian cannons of the Ming Dynasty, which are usually half snake guns or large snake guns. Instead, they are cannons made according to more modern techniques by casting the entire body and then milling out the barrel. After drawing out the rifling, they are already A very powerful front-mounted rifled gun. Hale was well aware of the flaws in his materials. So iron hoops were added to the cannon. Therefore the artillery appears very bulky. Fortunately, Zheng Zhifeng's main needs are naval guns and fortress defense, so it doesn't matter if it is bulkier.
As for the better-performing Dahlgren guns he made, there were very few of them, and he was unwilling and inconvenient to sell them to Zheng Zhifeng. However, even this modified version can still fight against Australian warships to a certain extent.
"Mr. Paul. Is this the kind of powerful artillery that you said is comparable to the Australians? Why does it look inferior to the Hongyi cannon?" Zheng Zhifeng asked suspiciously. After all, the artillery in front of him was the same size as Zheng Zhifeng had seen before. The massive 18-pounder redcoat cannon is different.
Hale's lips couldn't help but show a trace of contempt, and he said coldly: "Mr. Feng, you have reason to question what you saw. After all, not everyone understands cannons. Bigger cannons are not always better." He paused After a pause, he completely ignored Zheng Zhifeng's ugly face because of the ridicule, and continued: "I said, my goods will never let you down. If you had moved faster, maybe you wouldn't have lost in Xiamen. So tragic.”
Zheng Zhifeng was silent, indeed, if the artillery factory could start construction earlier. The "new guns" against the Australians are not just the cannons removed from the Australian ships. Throughout the battle, except for those "Australian cannons", none of the Zheng family's firearms posed any threat to the Australians. Whether on land or at sea, the Australians had the advantage in range, and the enemy even When there is no artillery support. He defeated his own gunners with muskets. The most frightening thing is that they shot with amazing accuracy - even the European gunners they hired could not achieve such accuracy.
The artillery fire of the massacre at Weitou Bay and Jinxia was deeply burned into his mind, making it difficult for him to sleep or eat well. Although he accepted most of the inheritance from the Zheng Group. It seems to be the largest powerful faction in Weitou Bay. But he knew that his position was fragile, and Australian two-masted clippers appeared from time to time off the coast of Jinxia. It seems to be declaring sovereignty over this sea area. The Lingqi, which once could be sold for two thousand taels of silver, has become unpopular because the Australian patrol boats will capture the Zheng family's Lingqi ships when they see them, and once captured, all the goods will be confiscated. So shipowners sailing to the Western Ocean began to fly the Australian flag instead. The escort patrol system established by the Australians makes them completely powerless in this regard. We can only sit back and watch this huge loss of revenue. Even some small forces that broke away from the Zheng Group began to buy flags from Australians.
There are powerful enemies outside, and there is no peace in Weitou Bay. The Zheng Cai brothers were entrenched in Xiamen and didn't buy into him at all. Zheng Chenggong occupied Anping and relied on official power, which also made him choke. As for the other small forces, although they are not in danger, they have already colluded with each other to help each other to avoid being annexed by the three major forces. Let him eat the small things first and then take the big ones, and his plan to reunify the Zheng family has repeatedly failed.
Zheng Zhifeng knew very well that the current silence of the Australians was temporary. They deliberately did not intervene in the disputes in Weitou Bay because they wanted them to fight each other to death, consume each other, and finally swallow them whole - not even the bones were left.
The only way to break the deadlock is to refresh armaments. The Australian's offense opened his eyes and really taught him a lesson about "gap". In the past, the Zheng Group also realized its own backwardness in ship artillery during armed conflicts with Europeans, so it introduced European ships, artillery and technical personnel. However, the gap between the two sides is not so large that the Zheng Group is unable to fight back. In most of the several conflicts along the coast of China, it was able to take advantage of geographical advantages to win. It is not that they have never heard of the Australians' strong ships and cannons, but due to lack of practical experience, the backbone of the Zheng Group had great objections to whether to cooperate with Hare to establish a new gun foundry - After all, this expense is too large and will inevitably affect the distribution of profits.
Zheng Zhifeng lamented more than once that too much time was wasted on the discussion. If the artillery factory could be put into operation earlier, although it would not be able to turn things around, at least it would not have suffered such a heavy defeat, and his brother would not have been brutally murdered, causing the current division. situation.
Now, his only hope lies with Hale. Zheng Zhifeng's men have traveled between Manila and Kinmen many times, bringing not only Hale's letters but also what they saw and heard in Hale's factory and dockyard. This made him more determined to refresh his armaments at all costs.
"As part of the original agreement, I will show you the power of this artillery. You will know that your money is worth it."
After that, Hale waved his finger and ordered the personnel to start manipulating the cannon.
"Do you want a target?" Hale asked. "I don't want to be accused of burying gunpowder in a mound." He handed over the telescope.
Zheng Zhifeng nodded, took the telescope and looked towards the island for a moment.
"Mr. Paul, I want your cannon to hit the dirt bag two miles away. Is there any difficulty?"
Hale picked up the monocular: the field of view was a thousand meters away. To be precise, from his professional perspective, there was a mound with a radius of about 9 meters around 1150 meters, standing alone on the corner, very conspicuous. If you look at it with the naked eye, you can barely see it clearly, but it is indeed difficult to aim the artillery.
"No problem." Hale said, "Marcos, you bring a few gunners to fire. All six guns will be fired together."
Marcos used professional means to first adjust the position and balance of the artillery and silently calculate the redundant compensation for the recoil distance so that there would not be a large error when the artillery was repositioned; then based on the results obtained from a large number of previous shooting experiments Based on the gun table data, the elevation angle was adjusted using the wooden quadrant inserted at the muzzle and the adjustable sight at the rear of the gun, and the directional shooting angle was determined by moving the rear bracket of the gun carriage;
The gunners then loaded the paper-wrapped powder bags and conical shells with copper bases using the charge calibrated by the gun table data;
All artillery were placed on an artillery firing line, and the four-inch guns were calibrated with serial numbers a1 and a2, and the three-point-two-inch guns were b1, b2, and b3. Each gun was 6 meters apart and aimed in place. After everything was ready, Hale first calibrated the A1 and B1 guns. After all, the artillery will definitely change from its original best condition after long-distance transportation and reassembly, so the newly assembled artillery must also be calibrated.
Under normal circumstances, the conditions of each artillery are different, and at least one calibration shot is required to determine the deviation compensation. However, Hale is very confident in the results of a large number of previous shooting experiments, and is also very satisfied with the professional quality of these assembly personnel. , so only one of the two types of artillery was selected as the benchmark for calibration.
After the two deafening blasts of "Boom, Boom", through the telescope, you can clearly see two points of smoke and dust raised by the calibration bomb at a distance of less than 30 meters from the front and rear of the small mound, and less than 15 meters from the left and right.
Hale nodded secretly in his mind. After all, it was a rifled gun. Its accuracy was far beyond that of a smoothbore gun, and it could achieve this accuracy in the first calibration test.
"Raise the muzzle two degrees!" Marcos put down the telescope and shouted the new command. The gunners immediately hit the wooden wedges with sledgehammers to raise the muzzles. (To be continued)
