From Chief to Ball

On the shaky deck of the Lanfang, the fleet intern Wei Yuan stood by the ship's side, with a half-rolled cigarette in his mouth, and helped Chen Jian, who had been staring at the sea, to confront him.

Amidst the smog, Wei Yuan suddenly asked: "Mr. Chen, you have already found the future, why don't you just return to the voyage and continue heading south?"

Chen Jian took a deep puff of the cigarette, staring blankly at the blue smoke, the corner of his mouth was not a smile, but a little tired.

"The future? Whose future? That piece of land is the future of the poor for the time being, but I haven't found the future of the rich. People are separated, and the future is naturally different. That piece of land of immigrants is the land I created for the new The future found by a part of the group of people represented by the Mexican Party. But as a collective member of the Progressive Alliance, I still want to find a future for this person who claims to make all people in the country better. Because since everyone , always include those rich merchants, big families, and big workshop owners.”

Wei Yuan lay on the side of the boat, threw away the cigarette butt, looked at the paper and tobacco leaves scattered in the sea, and sighed.

“Mr. Chen, could this future be the same?”

Chen Jian shook his head and said: "I don't know either. When the world is not just us, because our cotton cloth is cheaper than others', and when other people's workshops are working for [-] hours, we pursue an [-]-hour working system, and we will be punished. Convicted of treason. Don't know when I'll be charged with that."

Looking at the intern in front of him, Chen Jian seemed to be casually chatting with others and said, "Weiyuan, do you know? I made kerosene to find light. But there are always shadows under the light. Some workshops Extended working hours with kerosene lamps. Never light without shadows.”

Turning around, he asked again: "You have been on the ship for two or three years. As the first batch of interns, you have grown up now. Do you have a dream?"

Wei Yuan scratched his head, not knowing how to get back to the word dream, and he said after a long time: "I used to have it. I was poor, and my dream was to buy a lambskin knee pad for my father, because his knees always hurt; to buy some meat for my mother." When I was young, I was beaten for stealing lard at home. As for myself, I wanted to taste the taste of a woman. Later, I went to sea and got money, and all of this came true. As for now... I don’t know, it’s about Want to be better than before."

Chen Jian laughed haha, patted Wei Yuan on the shoulder, and his mood was much better than before.

"Yes, to live better, this is the dream."

After saying these words, he walked back to the cabin and continued to sort out the chart of this voyage.

Wei Yuan shrugged, and it was the first time he really thought about dreams.

He was on deck in the afternoon, and most of the off-duty men were having dinner and getting ready for the evening watch.

Suddenly, Wei Yuan heard a short whistle, which came from the mast.

"There is a boat!"

After understanding the meaning of the short whistle, Wei Yuan suddenly became excited.This place is in the tropics, and it is very far away from the homeland, so it cannot be my ship at all.

And because of the man named Yang Sen who was rescued before, the people on the boat were looking forward to meeting a real boat they had never seen before.

Barefoot, he quickly climbed up the mast and took a look through the binoculars.

On the sea in the distance, there was indeed a ship about 20 steps long with three masts, but it probably suffered some damage and sailed very slowly.

The style of the ship is a bit strange, it is a bit far away, and the light is not very good, so it is hard to see clearly.

According to the regulations on duty, if a ship of unknown origin is found, an early warning is required.

It was time for shift change, so Wei Yuan couldn't care less, picked up the gong on duty, and banged on it.

After a while, Chen Jian ran to the deck, took out the binoculars to look at it, and didn't know what kind of ship it was.

But just in case, an order for wartime preparations was immediately issued.

The bosun and the trainees immediately ran to the aisle of the cabin, shouting loudly, and all the people on board began to get busy.

The side portholes opened, and the gunners pushed the cannons out, taking care to stay out of range of recoil.Once fired, the huge recoil can smash people directly.

The rest of the helper sailors withdrew outside the gun bays, where there could not be a large amount of gunpowder, and they had to be taken as they were used.Their task is to pass the bales of gunpowder when needed.

Seamstresses and sailmakers also delivered gunpowder after the battle began, and carpenters and apprentices all ran up and down the waterline.With tools such as planks, hammers, and nails in hand, you are always ready to repair the boat.

Although after several years of training, this is the first time they have really faced war.The young people may be excited, but more people are afraid or flustered. Fortunately, the previous rigorous training has made them familiar with this chaotic situation, and the only difference is an actual battle.

Melee sailors and escorts climbed onto deck, loading flintlocks, or preparing shackles for a possible ensuing battle.

The gunners waited anxiously, unable to fire without an order.The reloading speed of the cannon is too slow, and it is difficult to cause too much damage to the enemy's ship if you can't seize the opportunity of approaching and fire a salvo.

If you are far away, you can't hit it, and you can't do too much damage if you hit it.If you are too close, if the enemy snatches the first round of shelling, the loss on your side will be too great.

An intern from a professional class who is in charge of commanding the battle is nervous. Although there is only one ship on the opposite side, although not all the ships have been taken away here, the main force is still there, but the first time is not a drill but a real battle. It's a little scary.

In the fleet, the four small boats opened their sails, and took advantage of their speed to go to the leeward direction first, so that they could block each other if they really wanted to fight.

Several large ships as the main force gradually formed a formation of a concave moon, and the sailors carefully controlled the direction and sail surface of the sailboats, trying to maintain the formation of the fleet as much as possible.

The distance from the ship was gradually approaching, and Chen Jian found that the opposite was a Galen, which seemed to be about [-] to [-] tons. The ship was not big, and it was estimated that even if it had [-] cannons at most.

I have an absolute advantage on my side. I don’t know the language and the flag is unclear on the sea, especially in this pirate’s utopia. It’s better to be careful.

It looked like the mast was damaged and the ship was going very slowly.

Chen Jian didn't intend to become a pirate, and even if he did, it wasn't now.Nowadays, a few nautical charts and the like are more valuable than the gold coins of a whole ship. Except for the Spanish ships, there are pirates or smuggling ships in this sea area at this time, and none of them are clean.

Before reasoning with this kind of person, you need to brighten your muscles first.

……

On the other end, the poor ship also noticed this strange fleet early on.

The crew was restless, and the ships were of an extremely strange shape, which they had never seen before.

In this sea area, and the nature of their work, it can be said that they are well-informed.However, such a fleet and ships really don't have much impression. They racked their brains and couldn't figure out how such a fleet could appear.

The flag on the ship has no impression at all, the only thing that is certain is that there are living people on board, and they seem to be extremely alert to their side.

Their mast was damaged, and they wanted to find a small island to stop temporarily and set off after repairing it, but they didn't expect to encounter a strange fleet.

Seeing the aggressive aura shown by the opposite fleet, the captain reluctantly gave the order to lower the sails.

Lowering the sails means surrender, or means not preparing to resist, and it is often used as a friendly expression when there is a language barrier.

The sailors carried out the order without complaint.

They know that no matter who the other party is, if the other party is hostile, it is impossible for their ship to win, and there is no second possibility other than being sunk.

The damaged sails were lowered, and the sailors had no other means but to say God bless them, and they could only hope that the other party was a group of hospitable and enthusiastic gentlemen.

If it's a colleague, it's not bad, at least you can show your surrender and join it.Especially such a large pirate fleet with more than ten ships is a powerful force.

On the Lanfang, Chen Jian noticed that the opposite ship had lowered its sails, and also slowed down his fleet.

The gunners are still on standby in case of fraud.The sailors and guards on the deck are ready to scratch the hook. Once there is any movement on the other side, they must be ready to hook the opponent's ship.

Two dinghies were lowered and rowed towards the Galen.There are sailors on the small boat, who can only speak a few words of simple Dutch learned from Jansen, and it is not known whether the other party can understand them.

Instead, they brought a picture, which meant that the captain of the ship came to this ship.

After the boat passed, the sailors of the Lanfang said in broken Dutch: "Peace, captain."

Unexpectedly, there were bursts of cheers on the boat. The people on this boat can understand Dutch because they are Dutch.