Chapter 95: Sailing To Huangyan
“Hiss.”
A very brief sound of gunpowder igniting rang out, and in an instant, the powder on the blade was fully ignited, bursting with blinding white light in the shack.
Lin Qian signaled Bai Langzai to avert his head and not look directly at the light, as a “hissing” sound reached his ears.
After a moment, Lin Qian sensed with his peripheral vision that the glow had dimmed, turning into orange-red light.
After a while longer, Lin Qian looked back and saw the blade tip still clamped between the stone and rag, with the hilt safely placed on the table.
The blade itself had been burned red-hot, as if just taken from the forge.
At the edge, reduced lead had gathered into liquid, slowly dripping onto the table with a sizzling sound; the spot where the lead met the table was also set alight.
As more lead dripped, the table burned through, and the lead fell straight onto the sand, melting the surrounding grains red-hot.
The fire on the table grew larger, gradually igniting the surrounding curtains.
In short order, the entire shack was enveloped in flames.
Though the power exceeded expectations, Lin Qian was prepared; the powder keg and other items were kept far away and unaffected.
There were no other combustibles around the beach, so after the blaze consumed the shack, it gradually died out.
At that moment, many passersby by the dock were looking over in surprise.
A rare shocked expression appeared on Bai Langzai’s icy face, and he stood frozen in place.
Lin Qian said to Bai Langzai, “Go ask the people by the dock what they saw.”
Hearing this, Bai Langzai snapped back to attention, ran to the dock, spoke with several people, and returned.
“They all said they saw firelight.”
“No one saw white light or heard any sound?”
Bai Langzai shook his head.
Lin Qian felt greatly reassured; this method would work.
Next to address was the problem of affixing the powder to the water gate.
Lin Qian led Bai Langzai back to the Santa Ana and, at the navigation table in the captain’s cabin, took one blueprint from among many and handed it to Bai Langzai.
Bai Langzai opened it and saw a drawing of a cylindrical pottery jar about forearm-sized, with three holes: one at the top, one at the bottom, and one on the side.
The pottery jar was split in half from top to bottom, with grooves connecting at the break.
This was Lin Qian’s method for fixing the powder.
“After reaching Lin Mansion, find a chance to approach the water gate, take clay on-site to model the shape, then have a potter make these jars—one for each iron bar. Got it?”
“Understood.”
Next, Lin Qian had Bai Langzai fetch a chair and sit, then carefully explained the pottery jar’s design intent, the purpose of each feature, how to assemble it, how to use it, and so on.
He particularly stressed using high-quality heat-resistant clay for production.
A long while later, Bai Langzai put away the blueprint. “Helmsman, I understand.”
“Good. This afternoon you and your sister head to Huangyan. While there’s still time, go rest first, and have Lu Zhou come see me.”
Bai Langzai acknowledged and withdrew.
Moments later, Lu Zhou knocked excitedly and entered. “Helmsman, you wanted me?”
Lin Qian was writing at the desk and looked up. “Is your injury healed?”
Lu Zhou smiled. “Thanks to the helmsman, it’s fully healed.”
Lin Qian said, “Show me the wound on your leg.”
Lu Zhou assented, stepped forward, rolled up his trouser leg, and revealed the scar.
The scar was reddish-brown, protruding from the skin, surrounded by tiny depressions like centipede legs.
It looked ferocious, but it had indeed healed closed.
“Didn’t go to have the stitches removed?”
“No, just as Doctor Su said—the wound healed and the stitches dissolved on their own.”
Able to use absorbable sutures for wounds, with anesthetic capability too, Su Kang’s medical skill truly impressed Lin Qian.
Kidnapping him from Guangzhou back then had been a great idea.
Lin Qian signaled Lu Zhou to lower his trousers and said, “Navigator Bai is out on business; these next few days, you help me relay orders.”
Lu Zhou was thrilled, immediately clasped his fists, knelt, and flushed red-faced. “Thank you, Helmsman, for the cultivation!”
Lin Qian told him to stand and half-jokingly said, “Relaying orders for me is no easy task.”
Lu Zhou clasped his fists. “I am willing to serve the helmsman loyally!”
Seeing he spoke somewhat literately, Lin Qian asked, “Studied books?”
“Replying to Helmsman, no. As a child I loved hearing storytellers; picked up these phrases from them.”
Lin Qian asked a few more questions afterward, getting a clear sense of Lu Zhou’s background.
“Starting today, collect graphite and cinnabar from on the island for me, deliver to the team leader at the captive camp, have him grind them as last night, bring the ground powder to the dock for mixing—ask the navigator for details on how.”
“Yes.”
“Go.”
Because the carbon heat agent required extremely fine grinding and thorough shaking to mix, it demanded massive labor.
Thus over several days, the captives labored without cease day or night, tormented unbearably.
Lin Qian had Lu Zhou find an unoccupied beach, erect a laboratory there, and repeatedly test power outcomes from different material mixes.
Tried combinations like adding nitrate, adding sulfur, adding sugar, adding oil, and more.
Also developed a solid version from sugar water dried and solidified, plus a semi-dry viscous version from oil and sugar.
These were Lin Qian’s contingency measures in case the pottery jar smothering method failed.
During the days rushing the carbon heat agent, Chen Jiao obtained ample contraband equipment from Huang Hetai.
Twenty rattan shields, ten sets of leather armor, twenty crossbows, four hundred crossbow bolts, and one hundred sabers.
According to Garrison Commander Huang, these rattan shields and leather armor were manufactured by the Ministry of War when Zhang Juzheng served as Chief Grand Secretary in Wanli’s ninth year.
Nearly forty years later, still serviceable—truly impressive.
The crossbows were also from Zhang Juzheng’s time in power, but so poorly preserved that most strings were broken.
By comparison, the sabers’ quality was even worse.
Lin Qian casually picked up one; the spine was bent, edge dull, blade blackened—definitely an inferior weapon.
All newly forged in recent years; no doubt Garrison Commander Huang deemed the sabers useless and offloaded a hundred on Lin Qian.
Great Ming’s Miao sabers, Qi family sabers, and wild goose feather sabers all had excellent designs, with combat performance no worse than katanas.
Yet Ministry of War standard-issue weapons were all crudely made, of shoddy materials.
To the point that in the Jiajing era against Japanese pirates, Jiangnan troops were outmatched in weapons alone.
Hence nowadays Great Ming sea bandits overwhelmingly favor katanas.
Lin Qian had Mute Huang lead the carpenter to an open area on the island to build a one-to-one “Lin Mansion” using wooden boards and cotton thread, as a training ground.
Also had Lei Sanxiang select over a hundred crew members, distribute armaments, divide into left, center, right flanks, and drill them there.
Lin Qian planned for only seventy-five crew members to ultimately join the action, so twenty to thirty of these over a hundred would be cut.
Those cut would have trained in vain, let alone miss out on post-plunder shares—that meant losing a fortune in silver.
Thus the crew trained with utmost effort.
……
Tides rose and fell.
Several days passed in the blink of an eye.
The Santa Ana set sail from Nan’ao, bound for Huangyan.
Seven bird ships followed behind.
