Those foreign merchant ships could not receive raw silk and silk, and no one bought the raw silk and silk produced by local people.
You must know that there are not many grain fields in these places, and most of the grain relies on external transportation. The people produce raw silk, silk, sell it for money, and buy grain.
And as this industrial chain broke down, the people became miserable. Many people starved to death while holding inedible raw silk and silk.
Therefore, a wave of refugees that was rare in the past also appeared here.
But here comes the problem. In order to prevent the refugees from turning into bandits, the local Qing army guarded the checkpoints and resolutely did not allow the refugees to pass!
This move is a bit cruel.
The reason why those refugees want to leave their hometown is not because they have no food. Now if the intersection is blocked, won't they starve to death?
But those Qing troops would not care whether these refugees starved to death. Any refugees who dared to break through would be given a white knife to enter and a red knife to come out.
Well, if you die, you won’t be hungry anymore.
The spies of the Zheng Jiajun contacted the anti-Qing rebels lurking in various places and incited them to launch attacks on the Qing troops everywhere.
Obviously, no one in this world is a fool.
In response to the spies' fanning, the leaders of the anti-Qing rebels just laughed.
Although they couldn't stand the Qing troops doing evil in their hometown, so they raised the flag of rebellion, but this did not mean that they would directly confront the Qing troops!
Who is willing to do something that is not beneficial?
The information was fed back to the Xinghai Kingdom. Zheng Jiajun said that he could support the rebels with some ships, but there were no more, and the landlords had no surplus food.
What's more, my family still owes a lot of loans to Xinghai Kingdom.
But these are all minor problems for Xinghai Kingdom.
Good thing, right?
Give!
Soon, on a dark night, on the coastline near Zhoushan Island, the rebel representatives who had been waiting for two whole days finally saw a merchant ship coming from the opposite side.
As soon as the ship docked, the Star Sea soldiers unloaded hundreds of boxes from the ship.
When they opened the box to inspect the goods, the rebel representatives couldn't see it.
What is this?
It’s round and half the size of a palm. What is this thing?
The rebel representatives looked eagerly at the Star Sea officer opposite.
The Star Navy officer did not whet their appetites and introduced them directly: "This is the latest cantaloupe thunder produced by our country. Here is the safety plate buckle. As long as the safety plate buckle is pulled off, the cantaloupe thunder will explode after 8 seconds. Causes shrapnel damage within a radius of 15 meters..."
Well, although those representatives of the rebel army were more or less educated, they were unable to understand most of what the Star Marine officers said.
Fortunately, the Star Navy officer then gave a demonstration, took out a cantaloupe thunder, pulled off the safety plate buckle, and then threw it into the sea.
A few seconds later, there was a loud bang, and a huge wave suddenly rose in the sea, shocking the rebel representatives to the point where they almost peed their pants.
But the next moment, their eyes glowed.
This is an artifact!
If such a thing was thrown at the Qing army, the effect would be astonishing!
In fact, the decision to give cantaloupe thunder to the anti-Qing rebels was made after a period of discussion by the staff room of the Ministry of Military Affairs.
Previously, some elders suggested directly sending Thunderbolt 1646 improved export rifles to arm the anti-Qing rebels.
But this suggestion was immediately rejected by the Ministry of Military Affairs.
Are you kidding me?
Although the fighting spirit of the anti-Qing rebels was pretty good, they were still just a bunch of rabble.
Their predecessors were either group trainers or bandits, etc.
And it is impossible for Xinghai Kingdom to send a team of instructors to train them for the time being.
After all, Xinghai Kingdom did not want the officers it had worked so hard to train to be lost in the Qing-occupied area.
It is conceivable that after those anti-Qing rebels obtained the improved export version of Thunderbolt 1646, they may not be able to win the battle, or they may even lose the battle accidentally and give the weapons to the Qing army.
It just so happened that a new product was successfully developed by the military research group of the Ministry of Industrial Affairs.
This is the cantaloupe thunder.
To be honest, someone had suggested developing this thing before.
However, considering that there are already weapons such as grenades, it does not make much sense to develop a close-range offensive and defensive weapon like the melon thunder, so no one studied it later.
However, after the battle in Malacca, Cantaloupe was mentioned again.
After all, this thing is still very useful in trench warfare. Whether it is defending the trench or killing enemies who rush into the trench, the effect is outstanding.
Because of this, the military research team has just continued to study this thing.
Of course, in fact, the technical content of this thing is not high, and it is not difficult to research.
The original version developed actually had an explosion radius of 25 meters.
But this is equipment for Xinghai Kingdom’s own army.
An export version like this, as usual, naturally needs to be castrated.
Moreover, the cantaloupe mines are gone once they are used up, allowing Xinghai Kingdom to easily control the amount of cantaloupe mines flowing out, so as to avoid scheming against the enemy.
There were only about 2,000 melon mines in more than a hundred boxes, and they were distributed to various rebels. Each rebel army only had more than 300 mines.
But these cantaloupes played a huge role in the subsequent anti-Qing operations.
Near a checkpoint guarded by a Qing army, several rebels in rags were observing the situation from a distance.
There were only more than thirty Qing troops on the checkpoint, and they looked relaxed.
After these volunteers encouraged each other, they staggered over carrying a bamboo basket containing eggs, looking as if they were about to fall down at any moment.
Seeing these people coming over, the Qing soldiers showed excited and bloodthirsty expressions on their faces, and they reached out and touched the handle of the knife at their waist.
To them, these refugees who try to pass the checkpoint are toys that they can kill at will. They may even be able to get some scraps of silver from the corpses and make a small fortune.
But what they never expected was that when the distance between the two sides was less than thirty meters, the refugees reached out and took out something from the bamboo basket, and then threw it away.
stone?
Resist? !
This move made the Qing soldiers laugh, and they were not alert to the danger at all.
Those objects fell to the ground, and smoke came out. A Qing soldier reached out and picked one up, thinking that it was made of metal, and he should be able to sell it for a few bucks.
But the next moment, there was a loud bang, and the cantaloupe thunder exploded, hundreds of fragments splashed out, turning a radius of more than ten meters into a killing storm.
Because the Qing troops stood too close, the three cantaloupe thunder swept them away, and each one of them fell to the ground covered with fragments.
"Success!"
Several anti-Qing rebels who were originally somewhat suspicious of Xianggua Lei suddenly became excited.
