Chapter 99: The Great Ming Pirate Ship

This was the transmigrators’ first naval battle, and the captured pirate ship gave them an opportunity to glimpse the specific equipment of the Chinese pirates who had once dominated the southeastern coast at the end of the Ming Dynasty and whose fame had spread far and wide in Southeast Asia. Not long after the ship was towed into the harbor, a joint survey team composed of the military, intelligence, industrial, agricultural, and other ministries came to Bopu by car to conduct an on-site inspection of the entire ship.

The intelligence group once again confirmed that this ship was indeed a type of “Guang boat,” which indicated that the pirates were likely from Guangdong, rather than Fujian, the main area of activity of “Yiguan” (Zheng Zhilong). This made the Liu Xiang gang highly suspect.

The hull inherited the usual advantages of Guang boats, using very hard wood. At first, no one could identify what kind of wood it was. Later, Fa Shilu from the agricultural group identified it as lychee wood, which is very hard. In 1927, the Red Army on Hainan Island had used lychee wood to build all-wood muzzle-loading cannons. If it hadn’t encountered the anachronistic combination of the SKS and M43 rounds, the small cannons and muskets common at sea in this era would have had a hard time penetrating it.

There were a total of 16 cannons on the ship. It was difficult to identify the specific type of these cannons. By European standards, they could probably be considered 4-8 pounder cannons. The cannons were crudely cast, mostly from various types of pig iron and scrap iron. One was even a simple iron-barreled wooden structure. It was clear that the people who cast the cannons basically did not understand cannon casting technology: the casting was so rough, the structure so simple, not to mention techniques like boring the cannon barrel, just the countless air holes on the cannon body made the people from the mechanical group gasp—using this thing in battle, the chance of blowing yourself up was much greater than killing the enemy.

The cannons were simply mounted on wooden frames, with a gunport cut into the bulwark and tied down with ropes. There were no devices for moving or adjusting the position of the cannons, nor were there any aiming devices. The only way to aim the cannons at a target was to constantly move the ship and get close enough. This is also why the ship was equipped with more than 8 oars—besides serving as extra power, they also played a role in quickly adjusting the ship’s position.

After live-fire tests, using the transmigrators’ modified fine-grain gunpowder, the largest 8-pounder cannon could fire an iron ball over 500 meters. With an increased elevation, it could probably go further, but the crude structure of this cannon meant it could not be loaded with too much gunpowder. The fact that not a single shot in the battle exceeded 200 meters showed that the pirates were well aware of the quality of their own cannons. The inferior ammunition further reduced the effective range: besides a small amount of lead shot for muskets, the main cannonballs on the ship were actually stones, with some small iron balls. In 1840-1842, when the Qing army’s forts bombarded British warships at the mouth of the Pearl River, although “the cannonballs fell like rain,” no amount of stone cannonballs could do much damage to the oak hulls of the British warships.

The quality of the gunpowder on the ship was even worse. It was completely powdered, with a high sulfur content. When test-firing with this gunpowder, it produced a large amount of thick smoke and had very weak explosive power. In contrast, the gunpowder captured in the first anti-encirclement battle was of the best quality, obviously because it came from the official arsenal. The gunpowder seized from the Gou family was of slightly inferior quality. It seemed that this group of pirates’ gunpowder was privately made in an underground workshop. The lack of saltpeter probably explained this.

Besides the cannons, there were also more than a dozen different matchlocks. Some were clearly obtained from the Portuguese or the Dutch, while others were local knock-offs. There were also fowling pieces and hand cannons with one to three barrels—probably obtained from the Ming army. These guns were rarely maintained and didn’t look very usable. Even the weapons enthusiasts of the mechanical group, known for their fearlessness, did not dare to test-fire them. According to their estimates, the best quality original Portuguese or Dutch-made matchlocks, with good ammunition, would have an effective range of no more than 50 meters.

The cold weapons seized on the ship were very rich and varied. Some things everyone had never seen before. The intelligence and information department organized various historical experts to come and identify them before they could roughly figure out what these complex things were.

The most common were bamboo spears, with a bladed spearhead attached to the top of a bamboo pole, with a length of 5-6 meters. There were many of these spears, far exceeding the number of bodies found on the ship. It was later learned through prisoner interrogation that besides being used for fighting, they were also used as javelins.

Another type of spear was made of wood, with a spearhead at both ends, used for close combat. The most commonly used cold weapon by the pirates was a short waist sword that looked like a machete, with a total length of no more than 50cm and a very sturdy blade.

There were also a large number of pear-head darts and small darts for throwing, hooked sickles and grappling hooks for securing enemy ships… a wide variety of things. Finally, they also found a large number of fishing nets and rawhide—these were used to be installed on the bulwarks to resist the enemy’s light projectile weapons and also to defend against boarding battles. They were only taken down this time to disguise the ship as a fishing boat.

As a common naval weapon, two types of incendiary weapons were discovered: a throwing torch made of a bamboo tube with a greased wooden block inserted at the top, which was lit and thrown like a stick grenade; and another was pottery jars of various sizes, filled with incendiary materials such as gunpowder and sulfur. The top of the jar was concave and used to hold charcoal fire. When used, it was swung from a rope on the mast to smash on the enemy ship’s deck.

“It’s really too rich.” Yu E’shui, ignoring the congealing and stinking blood on the weapons, looked around excitedly. “With just these things, I can write three or four papers. Getting them published in a core journal would be a piece of cake.”

“That’s right. You can also interrogate real 17th-century Chinese pirates. What historian can compare to you in this advantage!”

“Yes, yes.” Yu E’shui didn’t catch the teasing tone and continued to take pictures and make notes on the messy scrap metal.

Wu De sent a group of commune members from the commune to clean up the bodies and washed the deck with seawater and fine sand. By evening, the ship was washed clean. Except for the dense bullet holes on the bulwarks and the deck, and the shattered deck awning, there were no signs of battle.

Wu De looked at the ship with mixed feelings. He was also a former navy man, and now he was a commune secretary! He had done this kind of task of driving a fishing vessel to protect fishermen countless times in the army, but it was snatched away by Chen Haiyang, who came from a frigate background. Jealousy, oh jealousy!

Jealousy is jealousy, but work is work. He examined the things unloaded from the ship. It was basically empty, and even the sails had been taken down—completely destroyed. The commune members were still squatting on the deck, concentrating on picking out the lead bullets embedded in the wood with iron picks.

“We are really poor,” he couldn’t help but sigh. Lead, no matter what, could not be said to be very valuable. One only had to look at the composition of the ubiquitous inferior Ming Dynasty coins to know that lead was a standard base metal. The stinginess of the industrial department was also forced upon them. The ancient mining and metallurgical industry was too small compared to the huge appetite of the transmigrators. Once the new army that was being planned was established, hundreds or thousands of muskets would all need lead bullets…

“Chief Wu, the navy has handed over eighteen prisoners. Please advise on how to deal with them,” Fu Youdi reported to him respectfully.

Fu Youdi had become a cadre again. Wu De had taken a fancy to his style of being domineering and strict with his subordinates. As soon as the public security crackdown at the Dongmen Market Police Station ended, Fu Youdi, who had been anxious and angry because he had not been promoted to a leadership position, was appointed by Wu De as the captain of the labor reform team.

“All of them are to be assigned to the labor reform team. They must be strictly guarded!” Wu De ordered. “The chiefs of the security group will interrogate them at any time. Don’t send them too far away when assigning work.”

“Yes.”

After a progressive inspection of the ship’s structure, the joint survey team believed that the ship was quite well-made and that it would be best to repair it for their own use. Whether as a fishing boat or a transport ship, it could be of great benefit.

The damage to the ship was not great, and the basic structure was intact. It was just that there were too many bullet holes in the planks, and water would pour in when the waves tossed it. After an on-site inspection, the ship was still found to be of value and could be repaired and continue to be used.

To repair a ship, it involves docking the ship. This is a rather complicated matter, but it is unavoidable for ship repair and shipbuilding. According to the navy’s idea, it would be best to build a dry dock directly. The Navy Department proposed a plan to excavate a simple dock in a sheltered bay at Lingao Cape, digging a channel 40 meters long, 12 meters wide, and 2.4 meters deep, with stone walls on all four sides. Then the water would be drained, and the ship would be repaired in this dry dock. After the repairs were completed, the water would be let back in, and the ship could sail away. In the future, a lock gate could be manufactured and installed, which would also allow for the construction of new ships.

This plan was rejected by the Planning Committee, which estimated that the investment was too large. The people from the construction engineering group proposed another simple plan to replace the huge and expensive dry dock—a simple slipway.

A simple slipway uses a wooden slipway and a large amount of grease to complete the docking and launching of a ship between the water surface and the building berth. The advantages are that the equipment is simple, the operation is convenient, and the pressure resistance requirements for the shore and the foundation soil layer are not high. For ships under 500 tons, when docking and launching, it is only necessary to level the original ground, add some crushed stone and ballast, and roll it flat. Moreover, because the structure is simple, it is very convenient to assemble and disassemble. If relocation is required, it can be easily moved. In the past, many small and medium-sized civilian shipyards in China used this kind of equipment.