Chapter 1363 New Ships and Muskets in Tiewan Town, an Important Town in Cuba!

It takes more than a thousand miles to sail from Gabi to Tiewan Town. It takes ten days for a paddle boat to sail, but only four days for a caravel to sail at full speed. Ten days later, the supporting paddle boat team arrived at Tiewan Town. The two caravels had already been resupplied and went to patrol the island of Haiti again.

Of course, the two patrol caravels have another mission, which is to guide the tribal chiefs of the island of Haiti to Tiewan Town to participate in the New Year's Festival in late January and participate in the grand festival where all tribes gather. Unknowingly, the warm wind of January blew, and it was already a new year!

After the fleet arrived at Tiewan Town, the chief priest Tomat held a welcome ceremony to appease the hearts of the warriors who arrived. The priests and warriors of the kingdom of Tiewan Town were also excited about the complete opening of the Maya-Cuba route!

Of the three hundred warriors brought by Copil, one hundred have been settled on the northern coast of the island of Cuba, and one hundred will remain in Tiewan Town to further strengthen the military strength of this important place for Cuban snakeheads. The remaining one hundred will be gradually transported to the southern coast of the island of Cuba after the New Year's Festival, and stationed in various Taino tribes to cooperate with local priests to speed up the conversion of various tribes.

The island of Cuba is currently in the process of rapid missionary work and assimilation in the kingdom, and a new order relying on the Lord God is being established with almost no obstacles. As long as the priest Tomat is supported once or twice and given another year or two, Cuba will become the most stable fortress of faith for the Lord God in the East China Sea!

When this fortress is stable, the power of the kingdom can further radiate to the island of Haiti, the island of Jamaica, the Bahamas, Valiant Island (Puerto Rico), and the eastern island chain (Lesser Antilles)...

"May the Lord bless you! The kingdom's operation in Cuba is centered on Tiewan Town and Xishan Tribe. The two missionary areas in the east and west extend to the middle and will soon be completely connected! The kingdom sends priests, station warriors, and converts tribes. After a whole set of processes, the core area that can effectively mobilize the tribal manpower and material resources is roughly Cuba's eastern coast is a thousand miles long, and the western coast is six or seven hundred miles long. Priests have been stationed along the thousand-mile coast of central Cuba, and warriors will soon be added! "As for the vast inland of Cuba, we have to wait a little longer, waiting for more manpower support before we can truly begin assimilation! However, all tribes have nominally obeyed the kingdom's ruling and participated in the trade of Tiewan Town, in the trade circle established by the kingdom..." The main temple of Tiewan Town is a special red color, but a lot of local nickel soil and iron stone were used in its construction. Chief Priest Tomat stared at the statue of the main god, and unfolded a roughly drawn latest map of the East China Sea in his hand. And this hard-won map is also the most accurate sea map of the entire Caribbean Sea in this era! "Four circles... The kingdom has established a core circle of rule, which is about half of Cuba. The kingdom's missionary and arbitration influence is the 3,000-mile island of Cuba. The extended circle of trade exchanges includes the island of Haiti, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. Finally, the scope of exploration and dissemination of the evil prophecy, eastward across Haiti, to the heroic island, and some eastern islands..."

"Well, the situation in the north has been explored. It is a large barren peninsula with swamps and dense forests, plus a Bahamas... and further north, it should be the east coast of the northern continent! Your Majesty has According to the prophecy, there are frequent divine disasters there, cold waves come south from time to time, and water freezes in winter... The local tribes are struggling to survive, and the demons can't stand at all, but there is no need to rush there! ..."

"The only thing that is still unclear is the southern coast... According to the prophecy, it is long and winding, and should be connected to the southern continent! ... But it seems very far to sail directly from Cuba to the southern coast, two or three thousand miles? The kingdom's paddle boats have difficulty going back and forth, and only light sailboats can make another trip! ..."

The chief priest Tomat stretched out his finger and circled on the vast East China Sea map. The East China Sea map was able to explore the general situation so quickly, thanks to the two captured demon speedboats. This kind of ship does not require rowing hands, although it is complicated to operate the sail, but it is extremely efficient in using wind power, and it is as flexible and light as a flying bird!

"Lord God! If there were more of these caravels, the vast East Sea would be able to communicate quickly and quickly become one!... What a pity! What a pity! The kingdom did not capture the experienced shipwrights of the demons, and now these craftsmen can only build a strange small boat at most... Well, it is flexible and easy to use!..."

The chief priest Tomat wanted to replicate the captured caravel caravel, but the captured white-skinned craftsmen shook their heads. Even if they had corn and cobs, they did not have the technical ability to build a large ship and could not build it at all.

However, carpenter Antonio racked his brains, and with the help of two experienced boatswains and Columbus's brother-in-law Arana, they worked together to create a most common and easy-to-use small boat in the Mediterranean, called the "Arabic dhow".

As the name suggests, this kind of boat has only one middle mast, a slender triangular sail, a low side, and can be equipped with emergency oars. The length of the boat is about two to six meters, the draft is half a meter, and the load capacity varies from one to several tons, depending on the specific shape.

The biggest advantage of this sloop is that it is easy to manufacture and very flexible to sail. Just dismantle and piece together the existing canoes in the kingdom, erect a mast, hang a triangular sail, and you can easily sail in the offshore! As long as the wind is right and the sail is adjusted, its speed is much faster than that of a paddle boat or a canoe, and at the limit it can even be twice as fast!

Of course, such civilian boats near the coast do not need to consider fighting, because they have no fighting power at all. Once they encounter the enemy, they can just flee in all directions.

"The secret of the demonic ships seems to be the masts, cables and sails! Even if the original paddle boats are replaced with this elongated triangular sail, the speed can be greatly improved!... Well, Tiewan Town has built a new small shipyard, which is mainly used to manufacture sails and masts, and then to rebuild the existing large and small ships... And the cotton thread collected from various Cuban tribes has also been used for a key purpose!..."

The chief priest Tomat walked to the door of the temple and looked at the seashore in the north, where there were more than a dozen white-sailed boats. These boats fish along the coast, and with the power of the sails, they can go deeper into the sea.

And these local Taino fishermen who fished originally had no experience in sailing. They all received a few days of training from the white-skinned sailors in advance before they could barely get started. However, Taino fishermen do have a good talent for sailing and fishing. In just two months, they have mastered most of the sailing. The counterpart is the Taino musket militia trained by the kingdom. They have been training for three or four months, and have a practical shooting every few days, but they are still barely able to compete with the skilled white-skinned sailors...

"Well, including the original captured and newly made ones, Tiewan Town has thirty matchlock guns, which can form a small musket team... This weapon is indeed very armor-piercing and powerful, far better than bows and arrows! But the disadvantage is that as long as it is a little far away, it has almost no accuracy, and the hit depends entirely on the number or the blessing of the main god... And once you take the musket, you can't take a shield or a long weapon, at most you can be equipped with a short knife... These musketeers actually have no melee ability, and they don't need melee ability!..."

"The number of warriors in the kingdom's headquarters is limited, and they are all good at close combat. They should be armed with heavy armor and long weapons as much as possible! The newly formed musket team is selected and slightly seen. Taino militiamen with good blood and courage will serve... Shooting at a distance does not require as much courage and morale as close combat. And using this so-called "matchlock gun" is not as difficult as archery, which requires years of training..."

"The Lord God witnesses that the selection standards can be lowered and more reserve musket militias can be trained! Although the number of muskets is limited, if the musket militia is killed, the weapons are still there, and they can be replenished in time... With the number of Taino tribes, even if three Taino militias are used to exchange the life of an evil warrior, it is worth it! These Taino tribes are not good at close combat. If they want to play a role on the battlefield, musket shooting under the cover of warriors seems to be the best way! ..."

Thinking of this, Chief Priest Tomat lowered his eyes slightly, and seemed to hear the sound of muskets in training shooting. Of course, in the entire Tiewan Town, the most common sound is the "ding-dong" sound of iron forging. The ironware produced here, especially the cheap logging iron axes, almost supplies the entire East China Sea Islands. Practical and durable ironware is also the most important reason why many Taino tribes travel thousands of miles, even from the eastern sea, to trade with Tiewan Town!

"Time, the kingdom's business development in the East China Sea still needs more time! This East China Sea is so vast, from the west side of Cuba to the East Frontier Islands, it is a full five or six thousand miles! And the more distant north and south continents are almost endless... In such a vast area, have the white-skinned demons arrived? And where will their fleet appear again?..."