Chapter 45: 0044 Hunting grounds
Naturally, anything that could make Carmen so anxious could only be bad news.
At an upper-class ball in Bilbao, she inquires about a startling piece of information.
The chambers of José and Calma of France, Jodl of Holland, and Herrera of Spain, formally signed an alliance, in which they were prepared to set up a hunting ground in the Cantabrian seas, and to target the English merchants, in order to expel the enemies of the kingdom completely from the French and Western offshore.
The matter is important, Carmen did not inform Lorraine at the first time, but spent more than a month to confirm the authenticity of the intelligence, and the results ... were not optimistic.
The intel is real.
These four chambers were all veteran offshore privateer chambers, each owning over twenty merchant ships, each a behemoth to the current Drake Chamber.
They had already formed an alliance and had many secret meetings in France.
The Drake Chamber of Commerce was there in person and on the ground, and Carmen had tried everything she could think of, and still had no key information about when the hunt began, how long it lasted, or the size of the fleet involved.
The enemy is dark, but I am light; the enemy is strong, but I am weak; the enemy is many, but I am few ...
Looking at such an urgent letter, Lorraine couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
He asked himself, can Spain give up?
Can't.
Spain was the only country in the whole of Europe that had a vast and well-established overseas colony and at the same time did not have an adequate domestic market because of the economic depression.
She was the core place for the Chamber of Commerce to obtain cheap New World and Asian-African goods, and the profits associated with it accounted for seventy percent of the Chamber's total profits, and without wanting to be relegated to mediocrity, Lorraine didn't have any reason to give it up.
So can the Cantabrian route be abandoned?
The answer ... still doesn't seem to be possible.
The Cantabrian route was Britain's only landward sea route to Spain, and its loss left Lorraine with only the Celtic Sea as an option.
Although the Celtic Sea is adjacent to the Cantabrian Sea, the hydrographic environments of the two are very different.
It is already part of the Atlantic Ocean.
The water is deep and the waves are high, right up to Cape Bares in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.
For Lorraine to choose this deep-water route would mean a huge detour every time she went to Bilbao, which would greatly affect the Chamber's logistical efficiency.
Not to mention that's not the only price the Chamber has to pay.
The wide-bottomed Kirk type is not adapted to deep-water conditions, and in those hydrographic conditions the ship would be at risk of capsizing at any time.
Only abandon the Kirk type.
But by abandoning the Kirk type all at once, the Chamber of Commerce can't come up with enough capacity to keep up with the demands of profit growth.
The Lucky Straw was never to leave the Second Fleet.
The calmness of the North Sea was due to the deterrence of the Lucky Grass, and by transferring her out hastily, Lorraine did not see how she could hold on to the Spanish routes, and would only lose even the stable but low-producing North Sea routes as well.
What to do?
He had a long night's examination, and it was not until the sun rose the next day that he finally put pen to paper and wrote back.
Carmen. Miss Xavier:
The letter has been received and I hope to keep poking around.
I will be at sea, waiting to see what happens.
Your friend, Lorraine. Lorraine Arnason. Drake.
...
The Chamber of Commerce declared a state of war.
Lorraine canceled all seafarers' and sailors' rotations at the first opportunity.
He went to Plymouth and bought eight nine-pounders on one side at a cost of £2,800, replacing the six-pounder medium guns on the Lucky Grass, and used them to arm the Attis Beauty and the Beverly Merchant.
On the one hand, the number of sailors on the Buttercup was raised from the bottom 20 to 120 to ensure that its powerful firepower could be fully utilized.
The First Fleet posed to grab the shipment.
The Spanish branch did all it could to collect merchandise, while the three ships made frequent trips through the Cantabrian route at an average frequency of one trip a week, and actually made the profits for the month of August skyrocket far beyond what had been previously anticipated.
That was, after all, just a surprise.
In the third week, when the First Fleet was out of port from Gijon and traveling offshore one hundred and twenty kilometers west of Belle Isle, France, Pierce finally spotted the smoke of battle.
"Brother! There's a naval battle at two o'clock, distance ten kilometers!"
Lorraine leapt violently from the deck, "Transfer the flagship's cargo to the vassal ship, the Buttercup, lightly loaded, and sprint!"
Ten kilometers equaled about 5.5 nautical miles, and with an incomplete headwind, Buttercup left behind two fully loaded Kirk-types and crept closer to the battlefield downwind after just over an hour.
The smoke billowing from the sea gave Lorraine maximum cover.
Neither side of the battle had spotted the Buttercup, and Lorraine stood in the foremast's secondary lookout, binoculars held high as she surveyed the battlefield.
The battle was about two kilometers away from them, close enough that even with a headwind, the Buttercup was sure to be in attack position within fifteen minutes.
Lorraine observed a total of nine ships.
The attacked party flew the British Chamber of Commerce flag with a unicorn in its face.
They had four ships, two Kirks were slowly sinking in flames, and two mixed-sail Skooners were trying to escape south, only Lorraine couldn't see any chance of success.
Because the attacking party was so much more powerful than them.
Their flagship, a Brigantine gunboat of the same class as the Buttercup, had its guns at full blast and was in hot pursuit on the flanks.
There were four mixed-sail skooners under command, only one of which was temporarily at anchor for reasons of fire, while the other three were arcing across the sea, ready to cross over to the British ship and form a packet.
Lorraine leapt down the cable as the seamen gathered around.
"Pierce, I need you to return to port position and keep me informed of the enemy flagship's position."
"Haina, go around to the windward side from the west, cut across the enemy ship's bow and grab the T-head. They don't have lookouts deployed where the battle is raging, so you just need to keep the distance at the current two kilometers."
"Ramos, get your gunners ready, we're going to fire on both sides."
"Keren, puff up the sails, top speed."
"Noah ... lets sailors know that fate has chosen us."
He walked to the bow of the ship, looked at the seamen, and with a huff removed the tarpaulin covering the harpoon gun.
"I see tremendous opportunity ..." he said, "Chamber of Commerce flag flying high! The Buttercup, enter the war!"
Following Lorraine's orders, the Buttercup raised its massive sails.
With the bowsprit, catching sails, and mainmast longitudinal sails drummed to maximum at the same time, the slender hull drew a huge arc across the calm sea, crossing the wind belt, and going upwind from the side winds into the downwind heading position.
The deck was busy.
One six-pounder gun was pushed out of the bowsprit, and placed at such a distance as one to each side, and the gun-decks were fully opened on both sides.
Ammunition was loaded, fires compacted, and the blackened barrels stuck out of the portholes.
At the back of the hull, five sailors were attached to each side of each gun, each with full attention and fists.
Pierce gave one last briefing on the enemy flagship's position, and Lorraine asked him to secure himself before taking a deep breath and sitting down in the harpoon gun firing position.
Lorraine shouted, "Left rudder 15 degrees! Full sail! Grab the wind!"
"Left rudder 15 degrees! Full sail! Grab the wind!"
"Full sail! Grab the wind!"
"Grab the wind!"
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