"Gunpowder, you say?"
Came Jikouji's question as he mused over the information Isabella had just given them. He had come to the cove to view the progress that was being made by the Morojo's, and, during his evaluations, Isabella had come riding with haste.
Their little cove was more like a proper port now. There was a jetty from which the ship could be disembarked and docked alongside. And there were two long cabins in which they could sleep.
A more permanent work area had been set up for the shipwrights, so that they could process logs more quickly, and carry out the repairs that were needed. All in all, they were performing their duties well, and he had no doubt Gengyo would find their progress much to his liking.
But now, they were all distracted by what it was that Isabella had shared.
"If you had cannons, or something of the like, then it would be better."
Morojo put in. For a commodity like gunpowder, it was better to save it for yourself rather than to sell it to others. Especially when your profession was as theirs was and secrecy was of the utmost importance.
"That's right. Shame we don't have a ship that we can fire stuff from. We've got enough ore to process and make into cannons, since we don't really need to coat the hull, do we?"
Rokkaku reasoned, looking around to make sure he wasn't saying anything stupid. In his eyes, crashing into other sh.i.p.s was the very thing they wished to avoid, so in coating the hull, they were merely allowing bad habits to propagate.
"Haha, maybe, but I don't think we should consider that. Me and the lads don't have a chance at making a decent cannon. Would be a waste of iron, and a waste of gunpowder."
"I agree with what's been said…"
Isabella began.
"But that's not the only thing I wanted to share: there are guard sh.i.p.s out on the sea all the time now. You won't have a chance at boarding it without a fight!"
Perhaps he was the wrong person to include in conversations like this, for Morohira merely tapped his tensed bicep and let out a rather aggressive proclamation.
"No worries! We'll just cut them to pieces, eh lads?"
It was only Sasaki who called out half-heartedly. It wasn't much of a plan. But if it were to come to that in the moment, then they would fight without complaint.
"I do not think that is a good plan, Miura-san."
Isabella said, a hint of worry in her voice.
"Eh? You don't think we can take them? They'll be wanting to board us as well. We just need to fend em' off whilst we're doing the loading."
"That's the thing: they won't be trying to board you. The guard's commander has ordered matchlocks to equip his men with – that's what the gunpowder is for."
The men's faces went dark at that, as silence lapsed over the cove.
"Eh? What's wrong?"
Rin asked, put off by the sudden change in mood.
"We've had to fight against the matchlock before. It was not pleasant."
Jikouji explained, stroking his short beard as he attempted to solve the riddle that was presented before him. He did not know it, but he was attempting to view the problem through a second lense – one that was not his own. He was trying to see the problem as Gengyo might.
"Oh…"
Rin muttered, realizing what was going on. It was the weapon that had caused such chaos amongst the ranks of the Niwa army. Still to this day – without seeing them fight once – she was of the belief that had they simply been men armed with spears, then the Niwa army would have cut through them easily, and her brother would be alive.
"Why don't we just bring our old friend back?"
Came Togashi's suggestion.
"Our old friend?"
Morohira repeated, his face contorting into a frown. He was not a man who enjoyed poetic speech, and was thinking of Togashi's words in a literal sense.
"Aye, one that we've neglected for a while – the bow."
A flash of realization went over their faces. It certainly was something they had neglected for far too long – and was something that Rin and Akiko were not even trained in at all. It had become redundant after their new path became one of raiding, for they simply needed to board the ship and flee.
"You think that's the only edge we need?"
Jikouji questioned, still rather doubtful.
"Aye. We can get some shields on the side of the ship. We hide behind those, and then after they've wasted their shot, we'll be able to loose three of our own – you all know how long it takes to reload one of those bastards."
"But is that really enough? How many sh.i.p.s are there, Isabella?"
The old man kept up his questioning. He would not permit such reckless action unless he was sure that their chances of success were high.
"I'd assume three, but it seems to change quite regularly."
It was not comforting information that she offered. If anything, it only made their anxieties worse.
"Damn it…"
Jikouji cursed. He recalled seeing Gengyo playing around with a matchlock of his own before he left – if only he had been able to find a smith, then they would have had no problem fighting back by themselves. They could even have cannons.
"Is there really no chance of putting a cannon on this ship of ours?"
He asked once more, turning to Morojo. It was the only hope they had. If they could get a single cannon – one that could be turned, and aimed with some degree of accuracy – then they would be able to crush the enemy without problem. A single shot was all that was needed to crush the flimsy wood, and send them sinking.
Morojo could very well understand the desperation in Jikouji's voice, and so, he paid it due consideration before he replied, and when he did so, he did so carefully, so that they could understand the essence of the problem.
"…When a cannon fires, it creates a certain amount of recoil. On those large European sh.i.p.s – they're so heavy, that the recoil means nothing. But on yours, it could capsize you, if it was not handled properly."
"A single row of cannons, fired from one side – probably 5 in total – if you fired those at once, then you would certainly be sent sideways. Unless you balanced it with firing another 5 on the other side, but I doubt you want to be wasting five cannon balls every time you fire – it's not sustainable."
He expected the life in Jikouji's eyes to dim slightly upon hearing that his idea was just not feasible, but on the contrary, he looked excited.
"What about a single cannon, at the front? One that we can alter, so that we can aim where we like? Would that be too much for us?"
Morojo raised an eyebrow, as he stroked his beard lightly.
"I wouldn't expect so… No. In fact, that's probably the perfect amount for your ship to handle. But to be able to change the direction of it – that'll be a difficult feat. Most cannons just go up and down."
"Good! We'll have that installed in future. Still, we definitely need to secure that shipment, simply to show that we will not be dominated. But after tomorrow, things will be easy. I'll find us a smith – that I will. And we'll blast the sh.i.p.s out of the water."
"Heh, so you're telling us to do that impossible? No problem!"
Morohira decided, sporting a ferocious grin. He appeared to be plenty excited by the idea of the impossible odds that were stacked against them.
"It seems we've decided on our course of action. But the specifics still need to be worked out. I'll leave the battle plan to you lot – I'll start thinking of a design for the cannon."
Jikouji proposed as the others nodded in agreement. The girls would not protest unless something truly intolerable was said – they were new to this life, and were wary of questioning the plans of someone older and far more experienced than them.
The old man, on the other hand, was rather excited in his own right. His interest in engineering had been raised as he saw Gengyo's approach to creation. He did not select pre-existing solutions in order to solve a problem, he merely allowed his imagination to take over.
Take the water wheel for example – that was an extremely inspired solution to the problem of flooding. But as of yet, Jikouji had not had the opportunity to solve a problem of his own.
'A cannon that can rotate, eh?'
He mused, sitting down by the fire, as he took up a stick, so that he might draw potential designs in the sand. A moment later, he looked up, to see another bearded face staring down at him.
"Mind if I join you?"
Morojo asked. He held an interest toward invention as well, and a cannon with the ability to rotate was something that he wanted to be part of. The Europeans had found their own solution, and that was simply to have more cannons. They would sail alongside the enemy, and unleash a volley.
But – to his knowledge – a rotating cannon had not yet been invented. Against Japanese sh.i.p.s, only a single well-placed cannonball was needed, and the ship would be sent sinking to the bottom of the sea.
"By all means."
Jikouji said without reservation, moving over in the sand, to allow Morojo room to sit next to him.
"That wheel in your village..?"
Morojo asked curiously, since they were on the topic of invention. He had spied it once whilst logging.
"The lad."
Came Jikouji's immediate reply.
"I thought so."
The shipwright said with a light chuckle. He was certainly an interesting fellow, that Miura Tadakata. But even he would be impressed if they managed to think through the design for a rotating cannon.
"The wheels on a cannon are to deal with that recoil, correct? So that the force does not get sent into the ship?"
"That's right, I'd reckon."
Morojo agreed. They did not realize it, but these were rather technical questions that they were pondering, and their understanding of mechanical physics – merely by observation and reasoning – was not something that could be looked down on, at least, not too aggressively.
"Simply having wheels on the cannon cart would not be enough, I'd say. We need to be able to aim it more quickly than that."
Jikouji decided, thinking aloud, getting the poor ideas out there, so that they could focus their concentration on something better.
"Aye. The best option for rotation would be to have it on a thick pole, where it can turn around freely. But the problem is how to handle the recoil force once it's fired."
Morojo put in, stating his line of thinking.
"Mm…"
The older man murmured as he attempted to imagine such a cannon in action, so that he could find where the problems lay. As soon as such a cannon was fired, it would shoot back, and bend the pole. Even if it did not disconnect completely – for the weight of a cannon was immense – then it would certainly be deformed permanently.
With a stick, he began to sketch the idea that Morojo had proposed, so they might be able to visualize it more clearly. He drew an arrow on it, to represent the direction in which the recoil force would be sent.
"A spring?"
Morojo muttered a word that Jikouji was unfamiliar with. A piece of metal that could bend to absorb a certain amount of force, and then spring back to its original shape. It was a common mechanism that was found in matchlock muskets, but even with that idea, he was finding it difficult to imagine it being made on the scale that they would need. Also, it needed to rotate along with the cannon somehow.