"Junior Brother, the people on the island don't seem to welcome us. There are quite a few of them, and if we approach rashly, we'll probably be riddled with bullets." Zhu Qiuyu gazed in the direction of the island. Martial artists have excellent eyesight, and even without binoculars, they can vaguely see what's happening in the distance.
"I reckon it's just a group of pirates gathered together, with at most a thousand people. We have the numbers, so we don't need to be afraid of them." Zhu Lin's prediction was quite accurate, but for safety's sake, they didn't let everyone land on the island head-on.
They stopped where they were and didn't move forward. After observing for a moment, the boy ordered all the boats to turn around and go around to the back of the island before going ashore.
"Miss Heng, it seems they've left." The pirate leader came over and reported, looking completely bewildered.
Chiyo Yokoyama continued observing through her binoculars. She lowered her eyes and pondered for a long time until the ships disappeared from sight before she realized, "This is bad. They're not leaving, but trying to circle around to the back of the island and land there. Send people to guard the back of the island immediately and don't let them get here."
However, apart from the beaches at the front and back, the island is surrounded by steep cliffs on both sides. The mountains on the island are not very high, but they are very dense, making it difficult to cross from one side to the other.
"Miss Heng, let's take a boat and chase after them. Crossing the mountain is not a wise move." To put it bluntly, the mountains and forests are not safe. There are wild beasts and all sorts of dangers. If they themselves perish in the forest, who else can they stop?
“That’s right. Have the second brother take five men to chase after them and try to hold them off. We also need to arrange for people to keep watch here in case anyone else comes.” This Miss Heng, who had traveled from the modern world, didn’t seem very bright, but she clearly didn’t realize it herself.
The second-in-command was the pirate leader's second-in-command. She called the pirate leader "boss," and so on, with the others being the second, third, and fourth...
These pirates numbered only a little over 1,300, not a large number, but they were extremely vicious, and each of them was armed, so they were very influential in this sea area.
However, merchants of the Great Jin Dynasty did not sail to foreign lands or the East Sea. They only traveled between a few prefectures or between the north and south. Pirates could not find an opportunity to rob those merchants unless they were close to the inland, but there were too many officials and soldiers in the inland to make a move.
So they mostly only harmed some fishermen. Of course, they also robbed a foreign merchant ship once, but the foreigners only came once every few years, and they have only robbed it once so far. Later, the foreigners who were robbed probably did not return safely, so the foreign merchant ships never came again.
After watching the second pirate leader lead his men onto the ship and leave, Yokoyama Chiyo did not linger on the shore. She returned to the island, where many ragged people were working.
Some of them were clearing land for farming, while others were cutting wood to build houses. The skilled fishermen would go out to sea to fish every two days. These people who did the work were originally residents of the island. Later, pirates came to the island, killed some people, and left the honest and obedient ones to help with the work.
These are the island's native inhabitants, as well as a group of workers who specifically help Yokoyama Chiyo produce weapons. They were conscripted by Yokoyama Ichiro when he massacred fishing villages in the interior.
These able-bodied men didn't receive such good treatment. They not only had to work day and night, but they also suffered beatings and hunger. If they couldn't endure it, they would be dragged away and buried.
Furthermore, to ensure that the production process was not leaked and to prevent these people from escaping, Yokoyama Chiyo had the pirates sever the Achilles tendons of these fishermen, crippling their legs.
Normally, these fishermen would walk no more than a hundred meters. They were confined to the same large house, working in two shifts. They ate, drank, and relieved themselves in a large house a hundred meters away. The house was only covered with some dry grass, and when shifts changed, everyone would lie on the dry grass to rest.
In Yokoyama Chiyo's eyes, these workers were already dead. From the moment they were captured, they were destined to be silenced. They could live until her cannon was built, but once it was completed, they would all die.
She was determined to be a transmigrator and couldn't remain unknown. She was determined to conquer the Great Jin and the Eastern Ocean, and felt that she had to create cannons and fire engines to be befit her identity.
But I never thought about whether she could succeed. She's not a military expert; she's just a plastic surgeon who returned from studying abroad. Yet she insisted on setting up an arms factory to manufacture cannons. I really don't know what she was thinking.
Chiyo Yokoyama was also very irritable. She only knew how powerful those cannons and chambers were, but she didn't know how difficult the manufacturing process was. She had clearly drawn up the blueprints and modified them according to the principle of the chamber, so why was she still unsuccessful?
If it weren't for the iron and silver mines on the nearby deserted islands, she would have had a hard time just finding the materials. Right now, she doesn't lack materials, but she lacks the technology, which is really frustrating.
Especially after seeing the imperial court find the island today, she became even more anxious. If she had had cannons back then, she could have blasted all those people to death immediately, instead of just watching helplessly with her inferior binoculars.
She only has two fire-breathing guns at the moment, and their range is limited. If the enemy is too far away, she can't hit them at all, making them quite useless.
This won't do. Who knows when this cannon will be built? She should think of another way to quickly build a weapon that is also effective.
So she stayed up all night and finally came up with a solution: extracting medicinal herbs. Those herbs were powerful enough that they could explode once the fuse was lit.
Most importantly, the production process is much simpler than making cannons. Yes, she first had someone make a batch of extract for emergency use, at least to get rid of those people in the imperial court.
At this moment, large waves surged on the sea, and the sound of the waves roared like a ferocious beast. The pirates had more than thirty ships. Although the ships were not large, they were fast enough. They quickly caught up with the last large ship and began fighting as soon as they boarded.
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