The Red-Haired captain met a grim end.
First, the massive sum of two million taels sparked a sailors' mutiny after they had sailed just over five hundred nautical miles south.
The sailors demanded an equal share.
There were fifty people aboard, which meant each person could get forty thousand taels.
That was also an enormous fortune.
Enough for every one of them to buy ample land and live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
With the First Mate and several trusted men at his side, the Captain killed some of the sailors and recruited replacements, who knew nothing.
Then his trusted men rebelled as well.
All in all, there were three mutinies.
The Captain was wounded and lost a leg.
The First Mate lost an eye.
In the end, only five people still knew there were two million taels of silver aboard...
The five pirates divided the silver equally.
The new sailors knew absolutely nothing.
However, having lost their core sailors, the newcomers were unfamiliar with their duties.
As they passed through the southern strait, they were spotted by Rongyao Company personnel.
They were then intercepted and searched.
Because Jia Rong already knew that the Red-Haired People were colluding with the imperial court.
"A bunch of pirates!"
The Captain cursed furiously, then ordered them to flee.
The patrol vessel was a fast ship under sail.
His own ship had been fitted with a Steam Engine and should have been able to escape.
But the new sailors did not know how to operate it. Frightened and nervous, they shoveled in too much coal and blew the boiler...
That was the drawback of early steam engines: their failure rate was extremely high.
They had to be operated by skilled workers.
Thus, the two million taels all went to the pirates—Rongyao Company.