Chapter 12: The Battle

The San Pablo is a large ship built by the Spanish royal family in the shape of a Galen, and the owner of this ship is the Spanish Emperor Philip II.

The sound of cannons roared one after another on the periphery, but the huge warship with a stable center of gravity would not be attacked in the slightest because of the escort of the outer fleet, and constantly counterattacked with the long cannons on board, of course, because of the distance, it also had little effect.

Alien to the outside world is the bow cabin, which carries several nobles, so the captain's room in the stern is not actually the head of the ship, and the passengers here have the absolute right to speak.

But now, heated quarrels are erupting in the lavishly furnished guest rooms.

"The Chinese, Chinese with a dozen ships, attacked in an orderly manner, shelling our cargo ships with artillery. Our huge warships are like turtles, they will only be beaten in circles on the sea, and will not crash into them and kill them. These idiots are going to break my glass! ”

The man who spoke was Fidel, who came from a family of naval officers, and his father's surname was Álvaro, a surname that gave him a privileged position on the ship. His distant brother was Bazin, commander of the Naples Navy and Marquis of Santa Cruz in Spain, who was ordered to join the Holy League and fight against the Ottoman Empire.

Fidel had also been a conqueror and had made a name for himself in the encirclement of Algerian pirates, but that did not prevent him from turning to the court to help the emperor with government affairs, making his theories of naval warfare obsolete.

Shoot guns, crash into them, throw soap at the opposing deck, and rely on the world's invincible sidewalks to achieve victory.

In this respect, he, like many Spanish captains of this era, did not resemble bullfighters.

Like a cow.

"We shouldn't continue to fight them now, their nimble ships don't allow us to win quickly, we have to retreat to Manila."

Fidel said this with a firm saying, pressing his fist firmly against the corner of the table he leaned on, and said: "This fleet is pitifully weak at sea, but they have five or six hundred men, a considerable number of artillery and muskets, and have sunk two communication boats and severely damaged the gunboats. ”

Fidel's words made many people in the room agree, and one of them said with a wine glass: "That's right, there are less than 3,000 Spaniards in the entire Philippine Islands, and even fewer of them are warriors, not to mention that they are fighting against the Luzons, if they are allowed to land on the island, they will loot our plantations and mines, and even destroy the shipyards and take away those Han boatmen, which will be detrimental to the next war." ”

"After the occupation of Cebu, we discussed whether to go north to attack the Ming or go south to fight with Portugal for the Spice Islands, now spices are not valuable in the Old Continent, not to mention that there are also spices in Luzon, we will not provoke Portugal, we will fight against the Ming Dynasty, we have prepared tens of thousands of servants, and the commanders of Manila are rushing to ship ships and artillery day and night, and arrange fortifications to prepare for the attack of the Ming Dynasty after October."

Hearing this, Fidel smiled and said, "That Chen Mu, maybe he is also preparing, worried that the fleet will suffer from storms when crossing the ocean. I heard that the Ming people were not keen on seafaring, that none of the Han Chinese in Luzon could go back, and that the best sailors and shipwrights were traitors in their country and would be killed along the coast. ”

"I'm going to tell the captain that we should sail back to Manila, after destroying their fleet." Fidel smiled and walked towards the hatch, "Manila needs our hundreds of fighters!" ”

"Nope." Fidel was about to leave when he was dragged by another man and said: "The treasure ship cannot dock in Manila in the summer, and if the storm comes, the ship will be damaged." ”

"We said no to the storm or not...... What's that? ”

Fidel looked out of the window halfway through the window, and after just one glance, he turned his head and ran out of the cabin. The people around him still didn't understand what was happening, and when they saw Fidel rushing out like a gust of wind, the people who followed the window exclaimed.

Two behemoths on the sea were rushing towards them with their fleets on their left and right, and at the same time as they saw them, the sound of earth-shattering war drums gradually reached their ears.

Upstairs in the general's room in the stern of the Chihai ship, the four huge war drums on the left and right were beaten by shirtless wrestlers, and through the binoculars, Chen Mu looked at the Spanish Galen ship with a huge relief on the bow like a fortress, revealing his covetousness - he wants this ship, he wants this ship!

Chen Mu didn't know how to describe this huge Spanish ship, which was more geometrically consistent than the Chihai ship, and its center of gravity was also wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. However, although there are twelve portholes on one side of the two-tier gun deck, it seems that the gun emplacements are not full of guns, and the caliber of the exposed barrels does not look exaggerated.

Four tall masts, with the first two masts hanging railing sails and the rear two masts hanging spinnakers.

In fact, the length of this ship is about the same size as the Red Sea Ship, but it is a little higher, and the reason why it is visually taller than the Red Sea Ship is that the bow of the San Pablo has a knight's relief six or seven meters high, and the knight's rifle in his hand is the mast in the bow, and each piece of the huge canvas is painted with the Burgundian character symbolizing the Habsburgs.

Obviously, it had a much stronger cargo capacity than the Red Sea, and there were many more sailors on board, as well as those intricate sail lines.

Chen Mu estimated in his heart that the non-combat boatmen on this ship might have to use more than a hundred people, but there were more than 200 people on the upper deck alone, and once they took overboard, they would probably need to face more than 300 heavily armed Spanish warriors.

Although the staff on the Chihai ship and the northern generals who had not fought in the sea had been transferred to other ships before the war, Chen Mu still did not plan to join the Spaniards, he only had more than 200 sailors on the Chihai ship, not to mention that the bow and stern towers were one or two floors lower than the other party, and the fight was completely bullied.

But in terms of the number and speed of artillery, the Red Sea ship was a cut above the San Pablo, and the Spaniards were too slow to hold the sea.

Retracting his gaze from the opponent's main ship, Chen Mu ordered the left and right flag men: "Let the two fleets go up and fight, pack up the small boat first, ignore the big ship, and stay away from him." ”

After that, Chen Mu shouted to the helmsman: "Go around, it's two miles away from it, and it's good to support if something happens." ”

The opponent of the St. Pablo was not Chihai, but General Deng's ironclad ship like a turtle at sea.

As the Chihai approached the Santa Pablo, they had two small shark ships sunk, a large shark ship that was knocked down by Clark and a bow tower, and another that was hooked by the Spaniards from Clark's ship and gradually pulled in and forced to fall into the broadside.

The Spaniards' two Clarkes played their part, but one of their two Caravel ships was sunk, the other had its mast deck broken and was gone, and a large house ship was set ablaze by a firearm and was trying to escape in the smoke of the sky, but was soon overtaken by several small shark boats.

It was only a matter of time before it sank.

Like a thunderbolt from the sky, Deng Zilong's ironclad ship led a large shark ship to rush towards the San Pablo diagonally, and did not fire until it was 500 meters away, and then gradually adjusted its direction nearly 300 meters, and knocked the ship sideways to face the Spanish treasure ship.

The first to fire the cannon was the San Pablo, the bow of the two huge guns bombarded when Deng Zilong turned the direction, one missed, and the other smashed through the sail of the ironclad ship's backmast, and the huge stone projectile almost tore the canvas from the top of Deng Zilong's head and tore off the sail bone, so shocked that everyone heard the cannon sound and reacted before they all bowed.

Deng Zilong looked up hatefully at the broken sails on the helm tower, and raised his knife to point directly at the enemy ship.

"Fire!"

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Throwing soap in naval battles, from the 1530 book "The Seaman's Treasure" by the Spaniard Aranzo de Chavez