"Heavenly Father bless the King, Heavenly Father bless Spain, Heavenly Father bless us. Amen! Come on! ”

De Belasco's Pacific Star has already docked a 600-ton Ming warship, more than a dozen ropes have been thrown up, and dozens of Spanish Navy soldiers with guns in one hand and knives in the other are ready to jump into the gang! Colonel de Belasco was their leader, and after shouting a lot of blessings from the Father, he bit the scimitar with his mouth, then grabbed a rope and began to climb.

"Heavenly Father willing, Heavenly Father willing......" De Belsco prayed to Heavenly Father in his heart as he climbed - don't stick a row of flintlock pistols out from behind the plank above!

Not to mention, the Father is still very powerful tonight! Until Deberasco took the lead and climbed onto the empty deck of the Ming ship, not a single flintlock pistol opened fire on him.

Is this really an empty ship? A 600-ton Galen-style warship was captured by himself like this? It's too easy, right? De Belasco was still a little incredulous, and his eyes widened and he looked around.

At this time, several Spanish sailors who had boarded the large ship of the Ming army had lit the torches, and De Velasco hurriedly withdrew the scimitar from its scabbard, took one of the torches, and then held the torch in one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other, and beckoned a dozen more people, and strode to the stern......

......

"Commander, one of our ships has been captured by the Spaniards!"

"I know, it's the Anyuan, which has a load of 600 tons and 28 cannons...... But it doesn't matter, they can't drive away, the sails have been removed and repaired. ”

"But they were still able to burn the ship with a single fire...... That's a big loss! ”

"That's not our fault...... Dinghai is not suitable for a fleet anchorage at all! There is air leaking everywhere here, let's just 12 guns, how to defend it? ”

"But I don't necessarily think so, I'm only afraid of ...... this year's assessment."

"When is it, and do you still want to take the assessment? Let's get to work, be accurate with Lao Tzu! If you don't sink a few Spanish warships, you don't have to wait for the year-end assessment, and Lao Tzu will be able to remove you from your post tomorrow! ”

"How many ships have been sunk? The total soldier has only 12 24-pounder cannons! ”

"But you have the wooden bullet you just sent! The power of this kind of artillery shell in the last battle of Beijing was quite amazing...... So you have to give Lao Tzu a good fight! ”

At an observation post in the Shenjiamen Fort, while watching the "robbery and sabotage" incidents that were taking place on the sea, it was Yuan Ruofei, the chief soldier of the Dinghai Navy, and Yang Weiming, the garrison of the Shenjiamen Fort of the Navy, who were talking.

Yuan Ruofei was born in the Liao army, served as Wu Xiang's family, and followed Emperor Zhu to Dingjiangnan, and was always responsible for the garrison of the fort, and then turned into the navy. However, he did not know how to operate a ship, and he had no experience of serving at sea, and he was a land navy guarding batteries.

Under the Navy Department of the Generalissimo of the Ming Army, there are now several positions of "Navy Commander-in-Chief", that is, the commander of the base. Because Yuan Ruofei was old enough and his work was relatively reliable, he became the chief soldier of the Navy Dinghai, responsible for the garrison of the Dinghai anchorage and the defense of Zhoushan Island.

Yang Weiming was born in the artillery class, he was a native of Jiangnan, he was admitted to the Nanjing Lecture Hall, repaired the artillery department, and worked as an artillery soldier for seven or eight years, and then also transferred to the "Army and Navy" and became the garrison of the Shenjiamen Fort, in fact, he was a battalion-level commander. There were four companies under his command, one fortress artillery company, one field artillery company, two flintlock gun companies.

Among them, the fortress artillery company was equipped with 12 24-pounder cast-iron short cannons - if this artillery was placed at Wusongkou, it would be able to withstand the enemy fleet that tried to invade. But here in Dinghai anchorage, it is really not enough to see, and it can only be concentrated near the Shenjiamen Wharf to cover the naval berths.

But how powerful can 12 24-pounder guns be? And not an expensive long-barreled gun, but a cheap cast-iron short cannon - this artillery is more like a howitzer than a cannon.

In those years, naval battles were fought with hundreds or even thousands of guns, and even the 29 warships of the Spanish Oriental Armada, which was under-strengthened, were equipped with nearly 800 cannons, of which no less than 30 were 24-pounder guns.

The 12 24-pounder guns of the Shenjiamen Fort, if they played normally, would have severely damaged one or two small Galen of two or three hundred tons.

It is possible to sink one if you hit a big luck - it is impossible to sink a solid bullet, you have to fire an arson shell into the gun compartment to ignite the gunpowder, and then the fire gets out of control to sink a Spanish warship.

In terms of probability, it is negligible...... With only 12 guns, there are only three or four hundred rounds in the whole battle, and it is very good to be able to hit ten rounds.

However, the Shenjiamen Fort received a revolutionary cannonball in March of the ninth year of Hongxing - Mutuo flowering shell!

This kind of shell appeared long before the siege of Beijing, and it is said that it was designed by Emperor Zhu himself! It is to fix a cast-iron flowering shell on a wooden tray and stuff it into the barrel of the gun in its entirety. And in the front part of the flowering shell there is an opening that allows a wooden fuse tube to be stuffed. Before firing, the gunner ignites the delay lead in the fuse tube and then stuffs the fuse tube into the opening.

Because the wooden tray can stabilize the direction of the spherical flowering projectile in the barrel, and can also play a role in holding the breath and increasing the initial velocity of the projectile, the flowering projectile fired with the 24-pounder short-barreled gun is both accurate and far. And because the shell does not roll, it is not easy to shatter, and it does not prematurely ignite the gunpowder in the flowering shell, causing the shell to explode prematurely.

The woodpipe fuse also plays a role in reducing the probability of premature explosion or even in-chamber explosion of the shell.

The combination of a wooden tray and a woodpipe fuse makes the flowering shell a truly practical and incredibly powerful shell.

And this wooden pallet can be used not only to bombard the enemy's army and castle, but also to bombard the enemy's wooden battleships!

As long as this flowering projectile can penetrate the shell of an enemy warship and then explode inside, it can do amazing damage!

......

"Admiral, we have captured three Ming warships! Big win......"

"Boom ......"

Captain Barbossa had barely finished his sentence when the 12 24-pounder cannons on the Shenjiamen Fort roared in unison.

"They opened fire...... 10 to 12 doors! Admiral Garcia muttered, "The target was the Manila, and it missed." ”

The 12 24-pounder guns of the Ming army were all aimed at the original flagship of the Philippine fleet, the 500-ton Manila, and this warship did not go to capture the Ming warships, but sailed in the direction of the Shenjiamen commercial port, as if it wanted to bombard the commercial port, and the result happened to pass near the Shenjiamen fort.

Captain Barbossa smiled: "No problem, 12 24-pounder guns can't defeat the Manila, it's very strong!" ”

Boom......

As soon as his words fell, the Ming army's 12 24-pounder guns fired a second salvo.

Because the distance between the Manila and the battery was relatively close, and the speed was relatively slow, in the second salvo of the Ming artillery, a 24-pound wooden pallet flower bomb impartially drilled into the thin stern of the Manila. The stern was not a big deal, and there was no gunpowder storehouse, so both Garcia and Barbossa breathed a sigh of relief.

But at this moment, the "butt" of the Manila suddenly exploded! The stern of the Manila trembled violently a few times as a ball of fire erupted, and then flames erupted.

What's going on?

How did the butt of the boat explode?

What did that shell hit?

Could it be that there is a compartment in the stern of the Manila that is used to store gunpowder?

Just when Garcia and Barbossa were dumbfounded, the 12 24-pounder guns of the Shenjiamen Fort roared again, and this time two more 24-pounder shells concentrated on the Manila, one of which smashed the not very strong board of the Manila, and rushed into the gun deck where more than a dozen 6-pounder guns were in a hurry, crashed into a 6-pounder gun, and finally landed in the middle of a pile of gunpowder packs, followed by a loud bang......

The belly of the Manila was blown up!