Chapter 344: The Ship Model is Ready
Bai Yuan returned to the riverbank, found a small dirt pit a few hundred paces away, and settled into it.
His pristine white robe, a sorry sight, was now entirely caked in yellow earth.
He pulled out his flintlock rifle, fumbling with the loading and powder-tamping for a good while before he finally understood it.
By the time he was ready, the fleet had also reached Qichuan Ferry.
The few fishing boats that had been moored at the dock had long vanished, scattering to the winds, as the rebel fleet pulled up to the shore.
Bai Yuan's gaze immediately swept through the ships, searching for the "flagship."
He spotted it instantly: a tattered banner, emblazoned with a single character, "King," flapped wildly in the river wind from the mast of a medium-sized merchant ship.
"Aha, is Wang Jiayin here in person?" Bai Yuan's excitement surged. If he could take down Wang Jiayin with a single shot, the rebel army would surely descend into utter chaos, perhaps even weeping from sheer terror.
He took another closer look...
The figure standing on the deck looked remarkably familiar. Had he seen him somewhere before? Yet, he was certain he'd never encountered Wang Jiayin, which made the recognition all the more baffling.
Just then, a household guard beside him whispered, "Ah? Isn't that Wang Er from Baishui? I saw him once during the chaos in Chengcheng County."
Bai Yuan snapped his fingers in sudden recognition. "Exactly, exactly! It's Wang Er from Baishui! I saw him once in Gao Family Village; I remember it perfectly."
After a moment's thought, he lowered and then stowed away the firearm.
The household guard asked, "Hey? Master, why did you put away your gun? Aren't you going to kill Wang Er?"
Back when Bai Yuan had reinforced Bai Family Fortress, fending off Zheng Yanfu and Zhong Guangdao, he’d ridden alone to Gao Family Village to assist. His household guards hadn't followed him then. Later, to protect Gao Family Village from further trouble, Wang Er had deliberately spread a false story, claiming he'd sustained severe injuries during a failed assault on the village. Because of this, outsiders remained oblivious to the complicated history between Wang Er and Gao Family Village, a past even the Bai family's own guards were unaware of.
Bai Yuan let out a soft sigh. "Wang Er is a truly honorable man. I cannot bring myself to simply blast him with a rifle without knowing the full story. Let's observe the situation for now."
The rebel fleet docked at the pier, but none of its men disembarked. Wang Er seemed to shout a few commands at them, and the entire fleet obediently waited by the shore.
Wang Er disembarked from the boat, accompanied by only a small group of fewer than ten men.
First, he cautiously glanced left and right, then quickly headed west.
Watching this, Bai Yuan began to piece things together. He no longer remained hidden in the dirt pit; pressing his hands against the edge, he sprang swiftly to his feet.
Wang Er was hurrying along, his senses alert to his surroundings, when suddenly, a figure sprang out from a short distance ahead, startling him profoundly. He instantly drew the saber from his waist, but as his eyes registered the person before him, he paused, slightly bewildered. "Huh? Master Bai from Bai Family Fortress?"
Bai Yuan smiled, flicking open his fan with a flourish to reveal the characters for "Gentleman." "Indeed, it is I," he replied.
After a moment of stunned silence, Wang Er beamed with delight. "I was just on my way back to Gao Family Village. To stumble upon Master Bai here is a truly unexpected joy!"
He hadn't forgotten: when Zheng Yanfu and Zhong Guangdao had betrayed him, stabbing him and abandoning him in a mountain cave, it was Bai Yuan who had led men through miles of treacherous mountain paths, under the cover of night, to rescue him and tend to his wounds. The memories were vivid, evoking endless sighs of recollection.
Bai Yuan began, "Honorable Wang, you chose to leave Gao Family Village back then, to forge your own path in the world. Everyone respected your decision and allowed you to depart. So, why have you returned now, accompanied by Wang Jiayin's men?"
Wang Er replied, "I wanted to come back precisely to discuss this. It's wonderful that I ran into Master Bai here. Please, Master Bai, take me to Gao Family Village."
Bai Yuan said, "Very well! Follow me."
That evening, the doorbell rang, a persistent, jingling chorus.
It was dinnertime. Li Daoxuan, cradling a bowl of stir-fried instant noodles in his left hand and his chopsticks clamped between his teeth, used his right to pull open the door. Standing there was Cai Xinzhi, a wide grin on his face. "Hey, Daoxuan! The first ship model you asked me to commission is done! I brought it over specially, and I wanted to check out your new place too."
Li Daoxuan chuckled. "It's just a regular old house; nothing special to see."
"Tsk, a sprawling detached villa spanning three hundred square meters, and you call that 'nothing to see'?" Cai Xinzhi explored every corner, front and back, emitting sounds of admiration. He thoroughly surveyed the first floor, but when he made a move toward the second, Li Daoxuan seized his arm. "The second floor is off-limits."
Cai Xinzhi's face took on a knowing expression, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Did you bring some women home, then? Can't have me seeing them, can you?"
Li Daoxuan rolled his eyes. "Precisely. Fifteen naked women are currently holding an uninhibited assembly upstairs with me. If you dare go up there and witness anything you shouldn't, I'll be furiously jealous, and I'll have to gouge out your eyeballs."
Cai Xinzhi burst into laughter. "You can't even lie properly! If you really had fifteen women at home, how could you possibly be eating stir-fried instant noodles? If you'd opened the door holding a giant lobster, then I might believe you."
Li Daoxuan was speechless.
Cai Xinzhi waved a hand. "Alright, alright. The most important thing between brothers is to respect each other's privacy, so I won't go upstairs. I've finished admiring your grand mansion, now come take a look at the ship I made."
He opened the box he brought and took out a fifteen-centimeter-long ship model.
At Li Daoxuan's request, the ship was crafted from thick iron plates, its overall structure incredibly robust and its quality truly top-notch. For sun protection, a thin layer of composite material had been applied to both the deck and the ship's superstructure.
The ship's exterior mimicked the traditional style of ancient inland river vessels, with "wood grain paint" meticulously applied to the iron hull, making it strikingly similar to a wooden ship.
The ship featured a three-story superstructure, steeped in ancient aesthetics, boasting the artistic beauty of a traditional Chinese tower ship. The top deck even included crenellated firing ports, making it incredibly impressive—a perfect vantage point for raining arrows or musket fire down upon enemies.
It sported a bow cannon, a stern cannon, and two rows of cannons along both sides, though they were all mock-ups. Cai Xinzhi, after all, couldn't realistically craft two rows of functioning cannons; even miniature ones, if operational, would be quite illicit.
The small plastic-bead cannons that had been discussed couldn't be successfully integrated by Cai Xinzhi. The entire ship measured only fifteen centimeters in length, yet the cannons themselves were eight or nine centimeters long. Mounting them on the deck would have obstructed the superstructure, so the idea was ultimately scrapped.
Furthermore, the notion of using lighters as cannons was also abandoned, deemed too prone to accidental self-ignition.
Li Daoxuan counted: five cannons on one broadside, plus the bow and stern cannons, making a total of twelve.
The number of cannons wasn't particularly large!
After all, it was just a small ship model, only fifteen centimeters long.
If placed in the late Ming Dynasty world, it would be about thirty meters long.
Li Daoxuan mentally calculated: thirty meters was roughly the length of the earliest "Spanish galleons." Later, as the manufacturing techniques for Spanish galleons steadily advanced and matured, they commonly reached over fifty meters in length.
In other words, his ship was not as large as contemporary Spanish galleons.
At sea, this would be a very small ship.
But on the Yellow River, it would be a behemoth.
There was no need for a riverboat to be any larger; this size was perfectly fine. If he had to nitpick a flaw, it was that it hadn't been painted in the vibrant "Heavenly Lord colors."
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