Chapter 80 Sweet Harbor Storm - Encounter at Sea
To the east, about six nautical miles away, a fleet of about a dozen ships of varying tonnage appeared.
Le Lin, the first mate of the Great Whale, raised her telescope and watched the course of the ship in the distance attentively.
The wind was gently blowing the two hard sails of the big whale, pushing the ship to move at a speed of 2 knots per hour. The first mate looked at his watch. The ship had left Hai'an Port for two hours.
The big whale entered Hai'an last night, and then unloaded the 200 shi of rice carried on the ship. Then, it loaded another 200 shi of sugar. In the original plan, the big whale did not load sugar. After all, its mission
It is used as a bait. There is no way to ensure the safety of the goods during the battle. Whether it is flooded, burned or contaminated by human blood, the sugar can never be sold. Moreover, sugar is also a very good burning agent. In case of battle,
Being on fire is no joke.
But if you don't pretend to be sweet at all, you won't be able to act as bait. Your opponent has placed spies on Hai'an Street.
Xi Yazhou raised his telescope and observed the voyage of these ships attentively. Because he deleted too many posts on Lingao BBS, his reputation among the masses dropped sharply, and in addition, he was exposed for the so-called "
The "deduction in the picture" is all about playing computer war games, and now I am eager to find an opportunity to perform meritorious service. This is a maritime operation, and the backbone of the navy has gone out for a lot of voyages. The whale is also responsible for the decoy task, basically preparing for bombardment.
For hand-to-hand combat, there is no problem in letting the army take command. Of course, the driving of the ship is still the responsibility of the navy.
"First mate," he turned to the first mate and said, "is this the pirate hired by Kai Yi Tang?"
"It's very possible," Le Lin replied, "but we can't see clearly yet. It will be clear when we get closer."
"Okay," Xi Yazhou said, "order to be careful and alert. Tell everyone to make necessary preparations."
Immediately, the order was immediately conveyed to the entire ship. All war preparation measures were immediately implemented. The number of lookout posts was increased to four.
"Send a report to detachment A that a suspicious ship has appeared 6 nautical miles away from our ship." Xi Yazhou stood on the stern, feeling a bit like a general in the movie, but the deck was full of straw bags, which looked a bit awkward.
Makes people feel boring.
Detachment A consists of two fishing boats and is responsible for direct cover of the big whale to prevent the whale from being outnumbered and raped. They are waiting 10 nautical miles south of the big whale and keeping a distance. According to the plan: in the event of a battle, Detachment A
Reinforcements will come. The task of detachment A is, if there are less than 4 enemy ships, cooperate with the whale to destroy them on the spot. If there are more than 4 enemy ships, use mobility and firepower to protect the whale and repel the enemy ships.
, while forcing the enemy to flee to Juhua Island - where an ambush circle has been set up.
The fleet is approaching at a very fast speed. The wind on the sea is not strong now, but the opponent's speed is obviously very fast.
"They are using oars," Le Lin said, "and they are chasing us desperately."
"Maybe someone tipped them off as soon as we entered the port yesterday. Otherwise, how could it be so accurate?" Xi Yazhou looked at the approaching fleet, thinking that there would be a fierce battle soon, and he was very excited.
Although he had been a soldier, this was his first time doing something like this with real swords and guns.
The fleet was approaching another two nautical miles. Lelin estimated that their speed was at least 4 knots. In addition to sails, each ship also used at least six to eight oars for rowing. Now, there can be no misunderstanding about the intentions of this fleet.
Already.
"They're pirates!" Le Lin put down the telescope
"That's right." Xi Yazhou replied, "Get ready for battle!"
The ship's bell on the Great Whale rang quickly, and the sailors came out of the cabin and ran to their respective fighting positions. Among them were Army gunners wearing gray uniforms and red artillery collars. They were accompanied by four guns
12 pounder cannon on board.
The sailors quickly transported the sugar bags piled on the outer layer down the cabin. There was no need to move the other straw bales. They were filled with sand and soil. They were mainly used as temporary gun bunkers besides pretending to be cargo. Four artillery and ammunition boxes were deep inside.
Hidden deep inside these bunkers, they were covered with straw mats. The sailors operated two water pumps to pump seawater up to wet the straw bags and decks to prevent the enemy from using arson tools.
It was Gu Dachun's fleet that came. Ten ships of various sizes set out from an island near Xuwen last night. Although there were only ten ships, seven of them were single operators who joined temporarily. These
The ship was all gathered together by Gu Dachun recently. The five thousand taels of silver given to him by Mr. Zhu, plus the candy money he grabbed last time, greatly cheered him up, and made him even more excited. This cheap brother-in-law had never thought highly of him in the past.
, and since he successfully intercepted Guang Bing and robbed two hundred stones of candy, his attitude towards him has changed drastically, and he can even be said to be very dependent on him. This makes him feel very proud. Naturally, his attitude has become more positive.
Seeing the strange-looking and clumsy-looking big ship in South China in front of him, Gu Dachun felt that victory was already in sight. He even felt that it was unnecessary for him to recruit these help ships - even three of his own ships would be enough to solve the problem.
.This time, Mr. Zhu sent a clear message to him through Qiu Han: grabbing sugar is a trivial matter. The key is that in the future, except Haiyitang’s ship, no one will dare to ship another ship of sugar from Leizhou.
Gu Dachun naturally understood the implication of these words. The previous words were just "let them know how powerful they are", but now the meaning is completely different - to make people dare not, the best way is to kill people and set fire. So.
This time, he made up his mind not to show mercy.
Zhu Sanye asked him to add more boats and artillery to expand his team. This is not difficult. Once he goes to Jiangping, he can recruit a lot of rough fishermen who are half fishermen and half gangsters. They live in this land where there is no care. It is neither Vietnam nor Vietnam.
The people were not from the Ming Dynasty. They were all impoverished and would participate in robberies at sea when they got the chance. Some even brought ships with them, which were regarded as their own production tools. Gu Dachun quickly recruited seven large ships, nearly six
Hundreds of men and horses.
It's just that cannons and gunpowder are not easy to make. Gu Dachun didn't use these things in the past. After finding some temporary connections, he found a workshop specializing in privately casting cannons and blunderbuss in the countryside of Qinzhou, and bought them for forty taels of silver each.
He bought more than ten cannons. However, gunpowder was difficult to obtain. Zhu Sanye helped him get a few barrels from the navy in Leizhou, and he managed to buy some himself. It was considered that all three of his ships were equipped. However,
They don't have qualified gunners, and the pirates won't wait for this thing. They are very wary of this kind of thing where the gun body will jump straight back when fired, and sometimes it will blow to pieces by itself, so the battle will still be a hand-to-hand fight with the jumping gang.
Lord. Now this group of pirates has gathered on the deck, holding all kinds of equipment in their hands, ready to join forces and fight as soon as they get close.
Whether the pirates were attacking the Great Whale head-on or engaging in a siege, this was bound to be a battle in which the strength of the two sides was extremely disparate. Lelin put down the telescope and felt a chill on the back of her neck.
Among the opponent's ten ships, three large two-masted ships can be seen, with three to five cannons installed on them. The remaining seven ships have single masts and double masts, but are smaller in tonnage and are similar to the common coastal fishing boats here.
There were no signs of artillery installation. However, the deck of the ship was densely packed with dark-skinned men. Although their expressions could not be seen clearly through the telescope, the gleam of the weapons in their hands in the sunlight was enough to make people
be terrified.
The opponent has eleven to fifteen cannons. The Whale has only four cannons to fight against. The more than one hundred sailors on the ship have to fight with seven to eight hundred people. It must be a battle with a huge disparity between the enemy and ourselves. Of course, the Whale enjoys a certain
The superiority of artillery fire is enough to deal a heavy blow to rash enemies - as long as you don't let them get too close and keep a certain distance. The whale can use accurate artillery fire to gradually eliminate them.
In short, the crossing force must do everything possible to avoid boarding combat. Once this happens, the number of people will definitely prevail in the end. When fighting at sea, once a hand-to-hand combat occurs, the number of people on both sides is more important than when fighting on land -
There is no escape from the battle on the ship. To escape is to die.
Almost half an hour passed, and it was obvious that the fleet had taken another step forward and was approaching the big whale. The big whale was still moving at its original speed. It seemed as if it had no idea of its own fate.
Xi Yazhou could not help but observe the pirates' actions. It seemed that the enemy did not realize that this was a trap. The battle preparations on the ship were quickly made. The sailors and gunners all stayed at their posts. The gunners were attentive.
Measuring the distance of the ship and adjusting the angle of the artillery; the sailors lurked behind the straw bag wall. Under the command of the officer, they hurriedly bit open the ammunition bag and loaded their mini rifles. Because this was a battle on the ship,
The bayonet was inconvenient to use, so all sailors and sailors were issued a machete.
"Send a report to Detachment A: Ten enemy ships are continuing to approach our ship, 1.5 nautical miles away." The second telegram was sent.
At about eight o'clock in the morning, the pirate fleet had moved one nautical mile to the windward of the Great Whale. Although the pirates were illiterate and had not learned any naval warfare tactics, they still knew the strategy of gaining the upper hand in naval warfare. They used large oars to row the ships closer to
Come over. The whale's head is facing south, maintaining this direction. Gu Dachun's fleet formed a formation and surrounded it and pounced on it: three big two-masted ships were in the middle, and the other seven were arranged on both sides, three on the right and four on the left, trying to get from
Surround the whale from the sides and surround it at the core. First use artillery bombardment to kill and injure the people on the deck, and then get on board to fight and seize the ship.
"We must not let them get close to our ship." Xi Yazhou said to Le Lin, "Concentrate all firepower to repel one of the wings first." He looked at it with a telescope, "All of them fired to the starboard side."