Plymouth Bay.

On the deck of the Galen ship, Drake climbed down from the mast with a frown, muttering to himself, "The wind is not going well today. ”

Offshore behind him, a fleet of Galen ships, armed merchant ships, and merchant ships was hoisting half-sails, ready to sail to the bay.

They had nearly thirty ships, of which there were not many main warships belonging to England, most of them were armed merchant ships, in addition to the merchant ships that Drake had borrowed from merchants and pirates along the way, four of which he had converted into fireships.

The purpose of the battle was clear: they stormed the harbor of Plymouth, and if the enemy was unprepared, they would take advantage of the situation to launch a landing attack, and take the town together with the army north of the city.

If the enemy is prepared, use fireships to burn the ships at the shipyard and in the harbor to create an opportunity for the next attack.

From this tactical point of view, the wind was not the worst today, and the southwesterly wind blowing at sea meant that ships would soon be able to approach the harbor and launch a surprise attack after entering the bay.

The disadvantage is that there are too many reefs in Plymouth Bay, and half of their makeshift fleet usually runs on the eastern route, and there are even two ships that have been trading with Muscovy in the Baltic Sea for several years and are not familiar with the reefs of Plymouth Bay.

As the fleet approached the bay, Drake leaned to the side of the ship and shouted to the sailors on the dwarf communication boat, "Tell the Count that I am prepared for the worst!" ”

The worst-case scenario was that the Ming army had many ships and was prepared in the harbor, and after burning the shipyard they could not return the same way because of the direction of the wind, they sailed into the Prim River downwind, relying on the narrow channel to get rid of the enemy - of course, no one wanted to do this, and if the situation got to that point, they might need to sink a boat or two in the river to block the river.

In fact, Drake has been complaining in his heart all the way, complaining about why the queen's cousin has to fight in concert with the army on the shore.

Two or three hundred years later, cooperative operations are a positive term, which means that different organizations and different forces work together in different fields to fight for a common goal. But in this era of extremely poor information communication, coordinated operations are a foolish idea, and often mean a chaotic disaster.

There is no voice in the dark, and communication depends on dreams.

As soon as the fleet arrived in the waters near Plymouth two days ago, the royal brother immediately unilaterally decided to have a coordinated battle with the Earl Charles on land, and sent someone to inform the earl of the besieging camp that the fleet would launch an attack on Plymouth Harbor today, so that the noble legions would be ready to cooperate with the attack.

There was nothing wrong with that, but yesterday the wind blew from the west, and all the ships were at anchor, and there was no way to reconnoiter the situation west of the bay; Today the wind finally changed a little, and the southwest wind blew, which was beneficial to the attack, but still failed to do a good job of reconnaissance.

But Drake can't say that the prince is not at all, he still has no knighthood, in the eyes of the great nobles of London, he is a warlike pirate veteran, the queen originally planned to grant the title, Plymouth happened to this.

In London, I heard Hawkins say that the queen had planned to grant him a knighthood before the war, but was mixed up by Yang Gao, who had just been released from his cell...... People throughout London said that the queen should not invite Yang Gao into the court at this time, even if he has cleared his suspicions, he is a Ming man after all.

But I can't stand Yang Gao's justifiable desire to justify himself, the Ming Empire almost broke our old leg, the scar is still there, where can we serve it again, now we are trusted by the Queen of England, and we want to contribute to England, and the first force is to support the queen to grant Drake the title and debate with a group of old nobles in the court.

The starting point is very clear, if Drake can be knighted for meritorious service, then England will be stronger than France, stronger than Spain, and if time comes, people who are not used in Spain and France will definitely come to England to try their luck - needless to say, this is the old and new rivals, and it will scratch the itch, just right.

Originally, Hawkins and Drake were quite happy to see the old man's appearance, and after analyzing it, they did feel that the old man was telling the truth, and he was saying that it was for Drake's good and England's good, but in fact, what he really wanted to say was heard by the two, and the meaning was still to let England reuse foreigners.

Who is a foreigner? Yang Gao is a foreigner, and if he understands this and then listens to what he said, he will understand the concept of Yang Gao's stealing: if Drake can be knighted today, then tomorrow he will also be knighted for his meritorious service.

Regardless of whether a foreigner is a foreigner or not, Huo and De really felt that Yang Gao and himself were of the same heart at that time.

As a result, the debate on the front foot was won, and Yang Gao on the back foot made a big stumbling block, and secretly told the queen that he was very supportive of awarding a hero title like Drake, but advised the queen not to confer a knighthood now, saying that what the knighthood is now, it is a teacher.

In order to be knighted, it is to be rewarded for meritorious service after the end of the war, so as to motivate other talented people to serve the kingdom in the future.

When the queen heard that this was the case, she immediately learned the advanced experience from the Ming Dynasty, and the matter of Drake's knighthood was put on hold.

There is no place to reason if the pirate leader was almost angry to death, so what if this battle is lost? If you lose, won't the title be gone? On the contrary, if he Yang Gao makes a meritorious service, he has already laid the foundation in the queen's heart, and if he can't get it, he will really be knighted.

Besides, the trick is that Drake has no title, he is respected in the army but has no real power, and everything has to be heard by the royal brother who has not fought a few battles - so can this battle still be won?

Defamation!

This old man is very bad, and he is slandering!

Seeing that the agreed time for the attack had arrived, Drake suggested to Brother Wang to delay the attack for the sake of caution...... Is it possible to postpone it? This is a coordinated operation, they themselves say it doesn't count.

If the navy does not attack, if the army cannot win the battle when it enters the city, it will be a loss of troops and a loss of troops, who wants to see such a situation?

The moment the battleship sailed into the bay, the wind blew cold on his cheeks, and Drake remembered a word that Yang Gao had mentioned when he was in London when he was analyzing the Plymouth Ming army for the queen, and it was difficult to ride a tiger.

At that time, he didn't quite understand, what can he do on the back of a tiger, should he come down or not?

Now he understood.

Clearly, sailing into the bay meant that the naval battle had begun, and everyone had to cheer up, and as the boatswain drew his rapier, there was a jolt on the port side of the ship in a continuous roar, and six Dutch forged steel cannons and twelve roundabout guns began to bombard.

They saw the Ming infantry on and off on the reef on the west shore of the bay, and they didn't know what they were doing, Drake squinted and searched, and he was relieved that he didn't see artillery on the reef next to them, but even if they saw artillery there, it didn't matter, the reef was too small and flat enough to be a battery for artillery.

But he still saw something unusual, the Ming army did not know what was arranged, and carefully pushed the wooden boxes into the sea, and swung towards the place where they had to pass with the wind and the water.

In order to avoid the reef, their fleet lined up, so that there would always be ships that would hit the wooden crates.

What's inside?

Hidden in each box was a Ming soldier with a hoe, intending to scuttle their ship when he got closer?