"Sir, I hope your decision will not be misunderstood by Captain Collina." Alfaro looked at the six Spanish warships that rushed out of the formation with a grim face, and his tone was cold: "The 'Book and Sword' flag on the opposite side is already obvious, as the Jinghua company that can take the initiative to come to Manila to conduct direct transactions with us, I can't predict what kind of attitude they will adopt to face us in the future." Nor can I predict how the Philippine Governor-General's Office will in the future fulfil the trade tasks assigned to him by His Majesty should they adopt a hostile attitude. ”

"Your Excellency, I fully understand your concerns, and I fully trust your previous analysis." Sir Diego smiled slightly, his eyes still looking at the six large Galen ships that had broken away from the formation and headed for the Jinghua fleet, and shrugged his shoulders and said: "However, there is one thing I also need to remind Your Excellency that the Kingdom of Castile's upcoming commemorative gold coin has shown that His Majesty the King and the Royal Government cannot ignore anyone's hostility - the Spanish Navy will not tolerate any provocation, nor will it show weakness to any enemy. ”

"But they are not enemies of Spain, and they are not necessarily provoking the Spanish Navy. On the contrary, they were Spain's largest trading partner in the Ming Empire! Alfaro retorted.

"Maybe you're right." Sir Diego still maintained a gentlemanly smile on his face: "But I still need to tell them that Spain may like Ducat, Florin, but even our trading partners cannot make any hostile moves, including peeping, towards the Spanish Navy at sea. ”

The Ducats and the Florin are two gold coins, the former struck in Venice and the latter in Genoa and Florence, which are extremely widely circulated in Europe, and these two words are basically symbols of wealth.

"So you just ordered them to be expelled, instead of sending people to inquire and communicate with a little restraint?"

"No, Your Excellency, I have been very restrained." Sir Diego said lightly: "If it weren't for your previous introduction, or if this was Europe, my order just now would not be to expel but to sink." ”

Alfaro narrowed his eyes slightly: "If the other party is the Portuguese fleet, will you do the same?" ”

Sir Diego frowned, was silent for a moment, and shook his head: "No, because the Portuguese fleet is now His Majesty's fleet, just as I cannot order the sinking of the fleet of Aragon or the fleet of Naples, I cannot order the sinking of the Portuguese fleet, unless the other party dares to fire the first shot." ”

Alfaro looked at Sir Diego and shook his head for a while: "I hope that this conflict will not affect the kingdom's eastern trade, and I hope that this conflict will not become an obstacle for us to spread the Lord's gospel to the east." ”

Sir Diego did not answer Alfaro directly, an unspeakable frenzy welled up in his eyes, and he said in an accentuated tone: "Másgrande! ”

"Másgrande", Spanish: "The glory of the Lord." ”

While Sir Diego was talking to President Alfaro, the Spanish destroyer fleet under the command of Captain Corina was already rushing towards Takagi's formation with full sails, and the distance between the two sides was narrowing.

The six warships of the Jinghua fleet had gathered at this moment due to receiving Gao Jing's order, and seeing the six big Galen formations rushing towards their own side with great momentum, Takagi San took a deep breath and ordered: "Order, all the ships in the formation immediately adjust their course, take our ship as the axis, set up a long snake formation, and meet the enemy on the left chord!" ”

Then he added: "The mainmast and the rear mast should pay attention to the full wind to maintain the speed, and the foremast should pay attention to adjust the direction of the wind and keep the bow slightly to the left." Gunpowder and shells were prepared, and three bases were kept on the deck. The gunner, the medicine delivery man, and the gunner are all in place, waiting for the order! ”

After the order was issued, the six armed transport ships soon began to adjust, and when the Spanish expulsion formation approached a distance of about six miles (Daming did not say nautical miles), the Jinghua forward formation had been adjusted as a whole.

At this time, the Jinghua fleet was facing the Spanish formation with the left chord, and at the same time it was moving forward to the left at a small angle.

Takagi San held a telescope and watched the Spanish expulsion formation rush straight at full speed in a cone formation, and couldn't help but snort coldly: "Want to collide? ”

The bow of the Great Galen Sea ship in Spain not only has a richly decorated icon, but also has a huge ramming angle covered with thick copper skin, which at first glance is designed for ramming.

Jinghua's armed transport ships do not have such thick copper ramming angles, which, according to Gao Shipra, are "both expensive and useless" - of course, the absence of thick copper does not mean that there is no ramming angle design, because this design can still play a certain role in the face of small pirate ships that are much smaller than their own.

It's just that Daming lacks copper (to be exact, these are relatively corrosion-resistant bronze), and the iron ramming angle is rusting too quickly, so Jinghua's armed transport ships only have wooden ramming angles, which are only used to deter and attack pirate boats, and now it is obviously meaningless to face a big guy of tonnage like Spain's Big Galen.

However, Takagi-san did not intend to let the other party rush over and ram him so simply, he ordered the artillery to be prepared, and prepared to start the first round of artillery bombardment with a school fire nature when the opponent's ship entered about five miles to his side.

However, unexpectedly, when the two sides were still about six miles apart, the Spanish fleet was the first to fire!

A few fires flickered, rumbling cannons rang out, and the Spanish fleet fired the first shots.

Takagi was taken aback, and immediately squinted his eyes at the sea around him, to observe the power and accuracy of the Spanish naval guns.

However, the Spanish shelling was not very effective, and only one of the dozen or so shells landed on the three ships of Takagi half a mile away, and the landing point was also very biased, and it was completely impossible to see where the artillery was originally intended to hit.

But even so, Takagi San clearly felt that the people around him were starting to get nervous - although the Spaniards' naval guns could not use the side-chord guns because they were facing them vertically, resulting in sparse artillery fire, they might have a slight advantage in range, but because they were not shot, they still couldn't figure out the size of the opponent's shells.

Theoretically, of course, the shells are lighter and can hit farther, but the design of the artillery is a project that must be considered comprehensively, and the other side obviously will not design the kind of small shells that hit a huge distance but have no lethality.

Takagisan calmly ordered: "Order all ships, and allow free shelling after the other side enters the five-mile range." ”

In the era of wooden battleships, the shelling was mainly based on free fire, because the deck or the hull were relatively limited, although it was not impossible to fire a salvo, but after all, it was necessary to risk damage to his own battleship, so Takagi San issued an order for free shelling.

Of course, there is another reason for this, that is, it is difficult to carry out any fleet-wide simultaneous artillery bombardment in the era when the command system does not have radio bonuses.

The Spanish fleet did not mean to slow down at all, and the Jinghua fleet was facing the enemy from the side, so the distance between the two sides was naturally relatively fast, and the "five-mile distance" was quickly satisfied.

The "civet cat" in the first position of the Jinghua fleet fired the first shot, of course, in fact, this wave fired more than a dozen guns in a row - the armed transport ship of Jinghua was equipped with 28 guns, but there were two guns in the front and rear that could not fire to the side, so there were a total of 24 guns on the side chord. At this time, it was impossible for the 12 guns on the right chord to fire, so in fact, the naval guns that fired were a total of 12 on the left chord.

The "civet" also failed to hit this round of shelling, and only one shell landed near the stern of a certain Spanish Great Galen, barely forming a close miss.

It is a pity that the shells of this era are solid shells, and it is meaningless to hit close misses - near misses, that is, bombs or shells that explode on the surface or in the water near the ship in naval battles. After the development of artillery shells to the era of high-explosive bombs, the impact force generated by them also caused certain damage to ships, but the nature of the destructive power was not the same as that of the middle ship.

Since water is denser than air, near-miss bombs exploding in water can cause more damage to ships than explosions in air, especially when bombshells explode nearby, which can cause damage to the hull in the water.

However, the current solid shell does not have this effect, unless the shell falls into the water at a very tricky angle, and actually hits the hull of the ship in the water after falling into the water - in short, the shells of this era can only cause direct damage.

But this "near-miss" is not meaningless, its appearance proves that Jinghua's naval guns can completely hit the distance of five miles, and the accuracy may be higher than that of the Spaniards' naval guns - the reason why it is "possible" is because the naval artillery battle is affected by too many external factors, and maybe the other side's shelling just now is simply bad luck.

Takagi San also observed the cannon just now, he looked at the distance, and shouted: "The enemy ship has entered the effective firing range of five miles, and the gunner will watch and fire the cannon on his own!" ”

Perhaps the nervous gunners had been aiming for a long time, and the order had just been given, and Takagi-san's ship, the "Red-Eyed Bee", immediately opened fire.

The same twelve guns roared one after another, bursts of fire flashed, and puffs of white smoke rose from the muzzles of the deck guns, and then were dispersed by the sea breeze.

On the entire deck and on the bridge, you can smell the thick smell of gunsmoke.

Takagi usually likes to smell the smell of gunpowder, but at the moment he is not interested in "tasting", but nervously holds a telescope to observe the effect of the shelling.

"Bang!" A cannonball struck the deck of a large galenic ship, smashing a large hole in the deck, and the flying splinters of wood split the head of a Spanish seafarer diagonally on the spot, and the unfortunate man became the first person to die in the battle.

Takagi San didn't expect the luck of the "Red-Eyed Bee" to be so good, and he yelled excitedly: "Hit the deck with a shot!" ”

In the era of solid bullets, because it was basically impossible to hit the opponent with fire and smoke, it was actually relatively difficult to observe whether the hit was five miles away, and everyone could only rely on the lookout on the lookout or the captain with a telescope.

At this time, Takagi Sanyi roared, and the people around him became excited, and while sending scolding words to the other side, they said words of celebration to each other.

However, Takagi San knew that this was far from the time to celebrate, because the impact of solid bullets on enemy ships was very limited, let alone one shot, even if ten shots were hit, it was basically impossible for the opponent to be sunk - how could wooden battleships sink so easily?

Later generations had rumors that the largest sail battleship in history, the Spanish "Holy Trinity", was hit by hundreds of shells, although it was scarred and the crew suffered huge losses and could not fight again and surrendered, but the ship was not sunk at that time, but was sunk in a storm in the process of being towed away.

Although the Spanish Grand Galen in front of him was far worse than the "Holy Trinity", the effect of this cannon was obviously not very great, so Takagi San did not relax at all, and carefully arranged the course of the formation while ordering to continue pouring shells at the other side.

In the next situation, the Jinghua fleet frantically fired at the Spanish formation, while trying to pull away or keep a distance from the other side; The Spanish fleet, on the other hand, responded with much smaller bow guns while desperately accelerating towards the Jinghua fleet, in order to achieve the goal of ramming first and then taking on the gang.

As the Spanish fleet was hit more and more often, the distance between the two fleets had been shortened to about three miles, and at this time the Jinghua fleet also began to be hit by the Spaniards, and there were four guns in the six ships.

One of the "civets" was hit by a cannon, and a hole was punched in the side chord, so that two guns could not continue firing. Fortunately, the side chord of the ship in the sail era was relatively high, and this hole would not cause seawater to pour in, but there would be occasional waves spilling in, and the captain of the ship had ordered a temporary repair of the gag as soon as possible.

The temporary flagship of the formation, the "Red-Eyed Bee", although it hit at least a dozen guns of the two Spanish large Galen in its shelling, it was also hit by the Spanish fleet because it was the flagship, and unfortunately ate two cannons, but fortunately, the position of these two shells was not particularly dangerous.

One of the shots damaged the ramming angle of the bow, but the hull was not damaged, and it basically had no effect on Takagizo, who did not consider ramming tactics at all; The other gun, which was much more troublesome, hit the sail of the aftermast, making a hole in the sail.

Thanks to Jinghua's sail, the sail is a "Gao's hard sail", which will not be like a Western soft sail, sometimes a hole is broken and then pulled by the strong sea breeze, and the hole becomes bigger and bigger.

The main body of Jinghua's "Gao's hard sail" is still made of strips, but due to Gao's experience in Guangxi, these woven strips are now added to some of the secrets of the past of the Guangxi Tusi wolf soldiers, some of which are like the legendary "rattan armor" production process, which makes the sail strength - to be precise, the toughness has increased by more than one grade.

The hard sail is not very afraid of breakdown, because its breakdown injury generally does not worsen due to sea breeze and other reasons, and this "Gao's hard sail" also strengthens the toughness, and makes this strength to a higher level, so the injury caused by this cannon is mainly because it looks a little miserable, and it is difficult to change the sail in battle, which will affect the wind effect to a certain extent.

However, contrary to the layman's understanding, it is actually easier to repair a hard sail than a soft sail, because it is necessary to have a sliver on board, and many seafarers have mastered the art of weaving a sliver sail.

In fact, as long as you withdraw from the battle and remove the hard sail, the injuries caused by this cannon just now can be completely repaired in two or three hours at most, and it will not affect the subsequent use at all.

On the other hand, if the Western soft sail is damaged, even if it is repaired, it will seriously affect the subsequent maximum wind capacity, and the best way to deal with it can only be to change the sail directly, which is why later generations often say that "the Western soft sail will be scrapped directly as long as it is broken".

Of course, you can change the sail directly, but the problem is that the sail surface of the soft sail is very expensive because of the high requirements for the material, and it is much more expensive than the hard sail - the hard sail is used for the strip, even if it is soaked in tung oil and tanned, it is only a technical problem, in fact, how much can the value be worth?

Therefore, at this time, Takagi San was still relatively calm, and continued to unswervingly implement the previous tactics, while trying to close the distance, while continuing to bombard artillery.

He had already seen that his own battle line tactics were indeed very useful, especially when the opponent insisted on ramming over and fighting the gangside - the sidestring firepower was obviously much more powerful than the bow firepower.

Unlike him, Captain Collina, the commander of the Spanish formation, was already thunderous at this moment, urging the whole formation to continue to accelerate, while cursing the commander of the other side as a "coward without courage", and in this kind of battle of sea knights, "he did not dare to fight me head-on"!

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