Chapter 552: Raising a large crew
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
Sheyan naturally remembered that the foremost quality of a leader was abiding by his words.
Even though Taitish was exceedingly cooperative, Sheyan ultimately did not forget to implement her punishment.
Her punishment was to strip naked before all the pirates and be hung on the mast, before flogging her viciously for five times with a whip made with shark’s skin!
To any woman, stripping naked and being hung would be a terribly dishonorable humiliation. Furthermore, her youthful and alluring bare body would have to suffer five lashes. One must understand, a whip made with shark’s skin would rip off a huge chunk of flesh when whipping a human’s body. The resultant anguish and pain would naturally be carved deep into her heart.
This was a lesson for every single pirate. Besides, commendations and condemnations were the best tool to protect one’s governance. Fortunately, Taitish’s body was like a fountainhead of vitality, where her wounds would swiftly heal without any scar.
Furthermore, she was definitely not a young virgin. Being a gypsy, what wouldn’t she have seen before? To her who had already become an old granny previously, this degree of humiliation and punishment was inferior to other scary judgements.
Hence, she could still accept this and grimaced while acknowledging her ill luck. Anyway, no matter how humiliating it was, it would still be better than carrying a grandmother’s face while being 18 years of age.
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Sheyan very quickly converged with the members on board the Hill Maiden. After concluding Taitish’s punishment, he ordered all hands to climb aboard the new ship. When those pirates that were left to safeguard the Hill Maiden saw such an indomitable 5-masted quasi-legendary warship, their morale naturally soared.
While Sheyan wanted his pirate crew to familiarize with operating on a large ship, he also urgently seeked to recruit more crewmates to accomplish his ‘Pirate Captain (advance)’ milestone. After inquiring with Ol’Seadog, they sailed towards a temporal pirate port not too far away, known as Trihorn Island.
At the same time, they would offload the vikings here. To compensate for their losses in battle, Sheyan had gifted to them his other 3-masted ship used for logistics.
That ship could obviously transport the commodities that supplied the vikings with, as well as other miscellaneous; allowing the vikings to save on ‘freight fees’. Sheyan’s other 3-masted ship was already remodelled as a transportation ship, and thus it wouldn’t be a problem for those vikings to return home with their goods.
The vikings were extremely satisfied with Sheyan’s generosity, and agreed to cooperate if they had the opportunity in the future.
Throughout their voyage, the Dingyuan offered immense stability to the crew; unmovable and unperturbed by the oncoming waves.
Sheyan had even experimented with a mug of water on his table. The outcome was that even when the waves soared as high as four metres, not a single drop of water was splashed out of the filled mug. Such was its firm stability!
As the pirate port, Trihorn Island, was only a day’s voyage from Port Royal, it was vastly inferior to places like Tortuga. Trihorn Island didn’t imply that the island was shaped like a triangle with three horns. Instead, it comprised of three islands shaped together in a ‘品’ character.
If the prosperity of Tortuga could be described as the provincial capital or a city, then Trihorn Island would be analogous to just a mere town. Furthermore, it was the rather deserted kind.
Buildings were built by the island workers with random kinds of rocks.
Back when Port Royal had not successfully quelled its smuggling activities, this island was essentially a forsaken deserted island. Even if one climbed ashore, the only activity possible would be to push down a random stone hut. However, ever since Port Royal had been eased of such smuggling activities, this island was revamped into a criminal paradise.
Sheyan rushing for Trihorn island was not without reason. He had received a report that after Norrington defeated Chevalle’s fleet, Trihorn island was merely a few hundred nautical miles from from their battlefield. If one’s travel was smooth, it would take a matter of hours to arrive here.
More critically, if the defeated pirates didn’t withdraw to Trihorn island, then they would minimally have to travel to Gainhorn, several thousand nautical miles from here, to replenish drinking water. That was not very realistic. Therefore, if there weren’t any incidents, Trihorn island should now be like a massive marketplace, filled with pirates who desired to sell their loots or themselves after their defeat. It would be the most suitable location for Sheyan to recruit crew members.
Although The Dingyuan had already become Sheyan’s flagship, he didn’t discard the semi-scrap Hill Maiden but hauled it behind. If his luck was good, it could still be treated as a fishing ship and sold off for several hundreds or thousands of guineas.
Upon reaching several nautical miles from Trihorn island, he dispatched several pirates originally from Chevalle’s fleet, to ride a single-masted ship out to survey the grounds.
Their main objective was to scout if Chevalle was present on the island. If he was, then it wouldn’t be good to seduce pirates away from his subsidiary fleets.
Besides, Sheyan’s ‘Worshipped’ reputation would still be incapable of rivalling the prestige of a Pirate Lord.
Secondly, it was to obtain first hand information, to understand the overview of the situation aftermath of the great naval warfare.
After a long while, the scouting pirates returned. Puffing and huffing, they rolled and scrambled into the captain’s cabin.
"Cap, cap’n!!! Might we be hasten. Chevalle’s been severely wounded and unconscious, his eldest son apprehended by Norrington. Dissent has ignited fierily amongst his pirate fleet, and the entire situation be chaotic to incomparable extents. This be the time to recruit scallywags."
Although Sheyan could roughly confirm Chevalle wouldn’t be on the island, he was still exceedingly elated upon hearing that report; thus immediately calling for a full speed ahead.
One had to admit; when Sheyan’s newly commandeered Dingyuan gently sailed into Trihorn Island, its uniquely lofty shape and the dragon jolly roger fluttering atop the mast released a thrusting impression to all onlookers.
Trihorn Island was truly a picture of disorder. Although the Chevalle pirate fleet was humongous, its organization composition was rather incohesive. In victory, it would be like a loose coalition without strong cohesiveness, relying greatly on the combined might of two of Chevalle’s 7-masted ships and eight 5-masted ships. When that core group loses its momentum, the entire fleet would unavoidably sink into a predicament of rats leaving a sinking ship.
When The Dingyuan anchored by the shore, it immediately attracted the attention of many others. Sheyan continued to hide himself behind the curtains, while he dispatched his underlings that were originally under Chevalle’s pirate fleet to survey for information; obtaining the prices of goods, and many other first hand reports. Only then, would he make a move.
Sheyan believed that once he showed himself, there would be multitudes that would wish to join his pirate crew.
Sheyan sternly instructed his pirates that they could speak of whatever father, mother wife tales they wished to. However, they were prohibited from speaking of a single matter about the internal affairs of the ship! Otherwise, they would face the consequence!
At present, the pirates on board practically deified Sheyan’s words. Naturally, they didn’t dare to spout any information in front of others. Yet on the contrary, this manner further piqued the interest of other pirates. After his scouting pirates gathered and summarized the information, Sheyan was amazed to discover that those incomparably advanced high-angle cannons mentioned before were actually sold in this place as well.
In reality, although these presently advanced weapons were difficult to obtain, money was all powerful and it wasn’t hard to imagine 1-2 being sold of in black markets. Nevertheless, to bulk purchase and install them onto a large fleet would be a relatively tedious task.
Many pirates that were residing on Trihorn island were those who felt their future was bleak.
Due to Norrington’s representation of the might of the Royal British Navy, notions of abandoning their lives of an outlaw welled up in the hearts of many pirates. Furthermore, the fate of their captain was unknown. Hence, those ununited pirates desired to sell of their items and share the booty.
As such, a total of 38 elite high-angled cannons were being sold off on this island. Numerous units of them were being sold off by over ten parties, and with the urgency of their situation, most of these cannons were assigned valuations that were much cheaper than the ones sold off at the auction.
When Sheyan got wind of this report, he ordered to purchase without hesitation. The current Dingyuan was now an abnormally shaped ship, and he even heard his pirates hailing it as an ‘unsinkable floating island’. Therefore, it would definitely occupy massive advantages in broadside cannon battles. As they saying goes, the future belonged to stable ships with devastating cannons!
Moreover, their current circumstances presented them the impossibility of contesting the speed supremacy of the Black Pearl. Therefore, the other perspective would be to consider lowering the speed of the enemy; employing cannon balls to assault the Black Pearl’s masts and sails in order to lower their speed. Furthermore, a solution must be devised to prevent them from mounting a naval boarding skirmish. This could still be considered as an acceptable approach. Except now, the requirements pertaining to artillery gunners would be immense.
After depleting roughly 30,000 guineas, Sheyan acquired 17 high-angled cannons. After a series of deliberations, Sheyan then decided to group them into four different rows. Following that, he discussed the principle and prospects of having a ‘draw sliding system’ with the carpenter Spike. If no unexpected variance occurs, the 17 high-angled cannons could bombard different directions simultaneously.
Even though the addition of new weapons was a cause for joy, it revealed newer problems as well. Though the threat of these high-angled cannons were tremendous, the manpower required to operate them was incredibly taxing.
Sheyan had formerly inclined with heavy emphasis on naval boarding battles, and his crew had been tempered towards that aspect. Therefore, he had a current deficiency of outstanding gunners.
This was totally different from sailing operators. An excellent gunner could only be moulded through experience. Adjusting the positions of the cannons during intense battles, and firing from afar without the usage of computerized correcting, could be described by the saying – a slight centimeter would be akin to a deviation of a thousand miles. Even if two cannons were positioned together, the shooting parameter and reloading of cannonballs would differ. In this current era, a good gunner could at most command 2-3 cannons at one go. Therefore, the more of such talents, the better.