With the release of “Pirates of the Caribbean 5”, China once again set off “Caribbean fever”. In “Pirates of the Caribbean 3”, the pirates dared to face off against the main fleet of the East India Company. So in history, are these pirates really that powerful?
In the early 19th century, when the British Royal Fleet sent Governor Woods Rogers to Nassau (now the capital of the Bahamas in the Latin American island country and once a settlement of the British) to suppress the growing pirates, only 100 were allocated to him. Navy soldiers, two light frigates and two cruise gunboats.
In the Caribbean at this time, pirates have already been rampant. According to conservative estimates at the time, there were more than 6,000 pirates in the entire Caribbean. However, when Woods Rogers headed to Nassau with a mortal determination, he found that there were only a thousand little criminals left on the entire island. The pirates were shocked by the news of the Royal Navy’s arrival. Most pirate giants fled every day, and a few pirate veterans expressed their willingness to retire and surrender. Only the pirate Charles Fann chose to resist, but he only sent a fireboat to attack Woods Rogers’s ship. After the failure, he let out “retaliation in the future” and fled. In this way, the pirate base camp returned to the hands of the British government without a bloody sword.
The pirates are so weak, in fact, they are doomed from the beginning. The difference between them and the regular navy is too big. First of all, there is no loyalty among the pirates. If the majority of crew members confirm that the captain can no longer bring them rich spoils, then it is imperative to vote to remove them. The pirate team is also very loose. After each looting, they will choose to disband some of the less powerful pirates to save costs.
Unlike the Royal Navy, which is shown in the movie, occupying an absolute numerical advantage, the pirates are the one with the numerical advantage. They usually squat in the open waters of the trading port, searching for prey back and forth with a light sloop. The slave ships that sailed from Africa and the treasure ships that set off for Europe are excellent prey for pirates. The pirates who rob ships usually rely not on courage and combat power, but on numbers. A frigate-level pirate ship will carry more than two hundred pirates during robbery, while slave ships and treasure ships have only 20 to 30 crew members. Therefore, once they encounter pirates alone, the comparison of numbers will become prominent.
However, when the captain of the slave ship and the treasure ship made up his mind to resist, the trouble of the pirates came. First of all, the firepower of slave ships and treasure ships prevailed. Because pirates are afraid of damaging the cargo on the target ship, they generally do not use artillery to bombard the target easily. Instead, they choose the ancient and outdated naval warfare method of ship-to-board warfare. Secondly, even in the case of fierce deck-to-board battles, although the pirates have an advantage in numbers, they do not have any commendable effective tactics other than crowded tactics. As long as the resisters use proper tactics, such as shooting outwards from the tightly closed cabin, the pirates will be helpless.
Of course, in piracy, there are few opportunities for this level of fighting. Once the target ship is aware that the target ship has a resolute will to resist and has a certain degree of resistance, the pirates will immediately set sail and flee, and never do more entanglement.
But the navy is different. They are employed by the country and have strict training and fixed staffing. As long as they enter the battle, everyone knows their position and what they need to do.
The most notorious pirate Blackbeard in the history of world navigation (Edward Titch is nicknamed Blackbeard, is the prototype of the villain in “Pirates of the Caribbean 4”) once took the initiative to challenge the regular navy. He broke the delicate symbiosis between the pirates and the government in the past, chose to besiege the port, kidnap parliamentarians, and demand ransom. He was eventually searched by two pirate arrest ships. Blackbeard’s 189 sailors launched a gang jump on a British boat with only 34 people. As a result, 10 people were killed and 24 were injured in the navy; 10 pirates were killed and 9 were injured; because Blackbeard himself was killed by the British army Kill, and all other pirates surrender.
Since pirates are not powerful, why do they give the government a headache? The reason is simple: a den of police and criminals. At that time, Britain did not have systematic anti-corruption measures, and the large and small colonies all over the world were typical of the emperor. In order to pursue political achievements, colonial officials acquiesced to the pirates to sell the looted proceeds in their own jurisdictions to stimulate local economic development, and even acquiesced to the establishment of casinos, brothels and other filthy places within the territory to help the pirates carry out logistics; What’s more, after the officials have received enough benefits, they will give the pirates “gentleman status” so that they can legally sell the stolen goods. Some pirates married ladies in the colonies and became good citizens of the British Empire, only showing the hideous features of pirates when they went to sea.
In this case, many British government officials and even soldiers have become pirates in order to obtain windfall. Woods Rogers, who wiped out the pirate lair mentioned above, was a pirate. There are also children from wealthy families who join the ranks of pirates due to factors such as rebellious families and the pursuit of excitement.
The existence of pirates not only benefits the governors and civil servants of various places, but also the navy. Although the navy does not directly collect money from the pirates, if a merchant ship wants to sail normally in the Caribbean area full of pirates, the navy escort fleet is indispensable, and merchants often need to pay high protection fees for this. After learning of the “small business” of his fleet, the King of England ordered the navy to ban additional fees. As a result, after the ban was issued, the Royal Navy changed to help merchants to transport goods, and the benefits were even greater.
In the end, the unbearable maritime merchants wrote a joint letter, risking revenge by pirates, and appealed to the British King who was thousands of miles away. The British government was also not polite to the capitalists. It only gave four ships and a hundred soldiers, but it did not expect to win the pirate base in one fell swoop. Facts have proved that as long as the British government has a little bit of a bit of a bit of annihilation of pirates, the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean will be reached.
