Chapter 90: Ghostly Creature
When Lin Qian initially assigned positions, he had Lei Sanxiang serve as the Boatswain.
This was a foreign term. Great Ming sea ships originally had no corresponding position, and it was awkward to pronounce. The crew members called it back and forth, gradually coming up with the title “Boatswain”.
Similarly, Chen Jiao’s First Mate and Zhou Xiucai’s Accountant were also given Great Ming versions, respectively called “Helmsman” and “Accountant”.
Lin Qian felt the crew members’ titles were more in line with an Eastern temperament, so he changed to using them.
The crew member should go out.
Lin Qian sat down by the Round Table to eat breakfast.
Today’s breakfast was thick Rice Porridge, radish pickles, steamed fish, and one egg.
According to Lin Qian’s Rules, all crew members’ breakfasts were the same. Not only did they need to eat their fill, but eat well too, with the Food Expenses standard set quite high.
After all, food was the guarantee of combat effectiveness; they couldn’t skimp on anything else but the stomach.
When Lin Qian went to Shen’ao Port, he had seen the Garrison Soldiers’ food: basically rough rice gruel with salt-water pickles every meal. The soldiers weren’t full at all, and everyone had a sallow complexion.
With such food treatment, for them not to flee the island was already a testament to Huang Hetai leading his troops well.
Of course, the high Food Expenses standard also had drawbacks: the Cost was too high.
On the Santa Ana, the crew had currently been expanded to four hundred people. Monthly consumption was one hundred eighty shi of Rice and Flour, six thousand jin of various meats, and salt, sauces, vinegar, vegetables, oil, Alcohol, and other sundries were not cheap either.
Calculated, just the Food Expenses on the ship each month would cost nearly six hundred taels of Silver.
This was still in the relatively prosperous south; if in the Nine Garrisons area, Great Ming generals’ Food Expenses for Household Retainers and Private Soldiers were even higher.
However, compared to Galleon repair fees, Dry Dock Construction fees, Gunpowder Cannon procurement fees, the Food Expenses was a drop in the bucket.
If including future talent cultivation, metallurgy development, Shipyard Construction, and building sail battleship fees, the Food Expenses could almost be ignored.
Naval affairs were all money-devouring behemoths, piece by piece.
Later generations often said “century navy,” meaning the navy, unlike the Army, could not be achieved overnight. The entire nation had to tighten its belt, through a century of sustained Accumulation, to form an army.
And for Lin Qian.
A century was too long; he only seized the day.
After eating breakfast, Lin Qian returned to the table and began drawing the second revision Blueprint of the Santa Ana.
For this revision, he planned to divide the Cargo Hold into two: the upper level as a new Gunpowder Deck, the lower level continuing as Cargo Hold.
This was an extremely complex and intricate matter, requiring Massive Amount of deduction and calculation.
It had to consider Hull strength, Ship’s Body weight distribution, and also Speed and maneuverability.
It felt quite like doing temple rites inside a conch shell when writing eight-legged essays.
Once the design was wrong.
Either a Vasa—sinking on its first launch.
Or a Santísima Trinidad—a live target on the Sea Surface.
So Lin Qian drew the Blueprint very slowly. Of course, even if he drew it now, there was no Dry Dock to berth the Galleon for construction.
For now, he still needed to first make a sum of Silver, then build the Dry Dock, before he could inspect the captured ships and refit the Galleon.
Lin Qian had just drawn two strokes when a crew member knocked and entered.
“Helmsman, the Navigator Bai asked me to deliver this to you.”
Lin Qian took it; it was Xie Er’s newly drawn Lin Mansion Map, not much different from the previous version, and should be close to the real situation.
Lin Qian placed the Blueprint on the table: “Continue drawing.”
“Yes.” The crew member acknowledged and withdrew.
By dinnertime, Lin Qian’s table already had five more Blueprints piled up, each with slight differences.
But Lin Qian had seen too many design Blueprints; he could distinguish which were pen errors and which were deliberate alterations.
After a day and a night of torment, Xie Er’s map no longer had traces of deliberate tampering.
Lin Qian used ruler and brush to redraw one based on Xie Er’s map. Not only was it clearer and more intuitive, but it also conveniently fixed several of Xie Er’s errors.
At this time, another crew member knocked and entered: “Helmsman, dinner is ready.”
After the crew member placed dinner on the Round Table, he prepared to leave.
“Wait.” Lin Qian called him back.
“Helmsman.” The crew member stood still.
“Notify all the On the Ship supervisors that after dinner, meet at the Officer’s Restaurant. Also bring the one drawing maps in the Cargo Hold.”
“Yes.”
……
After dinner.
Officer’s Restaurant.
Longjing Tea steaming hot had already been set on the table.
Chen Jiao, Zhou Xiucai, Lei Sanxiang, Bai Qing, Bai Langzai, Zheng Zhilong sat on both sides of the dining table.
Xie Er squatted in a corner of the Restaurant, already somewhat dazed from the torment.
Lin Qian entered, and everyone stood up to greet him.
Lin Qian had everyone sit, spread out the Blueprint he drew on the table, with no preamble, cutting straight to the topic.
“Taizhou Prefecture Huangyan County, Lin Mansion, covering more than twenty mu, near the Yongning River, accessible by waterway. Based on the number of ships, the Silver in the manor is around fifty thousand taels, hidden in various places.”
Then Lin Qian dipped a Bamboo Brush in cinnabar and lightly dotted several places on the Blueprint: “It should be in these locations.”
Fifty thousand taels was only Lin Qian’s minimum estimate based on the Lin Mansion’s private ships; the actual amount should be much higher.
Xie Er found it unbelievable upon hearing this. He didn’t even know how much Silver was in the manor; how did this bandit leader know?
And boldly circling and dotting on the map, treating himself like a fortune-telling immortal?
Xie Er was curious inside and leaned toward the table. He froze at a glance, thinking: “This isn’t the map I drew either.”
He looked at the map carefully again, and cold sweat broke out. Not only was the map straighter horizontally and vertically, more intuitive, but it was also more accurate to reality, with more detailed annotations, just like the drawer had actually been there.
In a day and a night, he had drawn countless Lin Mansion terrain maps and knew them by heart.
At a glance, he saw that this map on the table had changed several door and window orientations, well positions, and a few road directions.
Most crucially, all the changes were correct, exactly matching his memory.
Even more terrifying was…
All the places circled and dotted by Lin Qian’s cinnabar brush were key critical spots in the manor.
Under the main bedroom couch, under the stove, Main Hall wooden pillar, study floor tiles, garden rockery…
Compared to that, even the account room wasn’t circled.
These were positions that Lin Qian knew wealthy households commonly used to hide Silver.
Xie Er felt cold sweat soaking his whole body. He secretly glanced sideways at Lin Qian, thinking darkly: “Is this really a person? Could it be a malevolent ghost incarnate, come to claim his life?
Heavens! The immoral deeds Master Lin did have nothing to do with me at all…
Um, there is a connection, but not much. I was just a lowly maid in the manor, insignificant and soft-spoken. If Master wanted to do it, I couldn’t dissuade him.
The guilty have their heads, the debts their owners. Heavens wants to punish, go punish Master Lin. Don’t trouble a lowly maid like me anymore…”
After Lin Qian finished dotting, everyone looked up at him.
Chen Jiao vaguely worried: “Helmsman, after all it’s on Shore, are you confident about this?”
Lin Qian said: “No rush, let Bai Langzai speak on the guard situation first.”
Bai Langzai continued: “Guards in the manor: twenty, robust servants fifty, outside the manor clan militiamen over two hundred.
The Guards are retired Soldiers, strong and sturdy, very loyal, no Armor, no Crossbow Firearms…”
Xie Er slowly came back to his senses. These were all things Bai Langzai had forced out of him during the day, all things he had said, nothing out of line.
This being the case, this cold-faced Sea Bandit wasn’t a ghost after all.
At this point Lin Qian spoke: “I’ll add one point: no Crossbow is just what Xie Er said. These are all prohibited items, deeply hidden in the manor normally and not shown. Once we attack, they might bring them out. Need to prepare countermeasures in advance.”
Hearing this, Xie Er felt the cold sweat uncontrollably breaking out again.
