Going forward to the location of Hongmen, most of the soldiers of the Satsuma Navy, including Shimazu Hisao, were a little apprehensive in their hearts.

Even if they knew that they had an advantage in strength at this time, and after the two fleets of Hongmen converged, the size of their fleet was still less than 40, a difference of nearly 30 warships compared with the scale of their own nearly 70 warships, but everyone still felt that the outcome of this naval battle was undecided, and it must be an extremely difficult battle.

Li Jin and Wang Sanbao, the pirates who belonged to them, also fought with the Hongmen at the beginning, and they naturally knew how powerful the Hongmen were, otherwise they would not have gotten to the point where they would have begged for a living under the command of Satsuma.

After being mentally prepared, the Shimazu sailors struck a fierce blow, but finally hit the air, except for a few cargo ships with a large difference in speed and flexibility, Hongmen's fleet fled without a fight, which made Shimazu Hisao and others stunned.

Before Shimazu Hisao's psychological changes changed, suddenly the alert warships in their rear team sounded the alarm, and a large group of sea ships approached the remote sea area where they were.

"Prepare for war! Prepare for battle! Although Shimazu Hisao was not flustered, fortunately, he knew that his opponent was Hongmen, and he had not been careless, and it was not surprising to him that the rear was attacking at this time.

The Satsuma Sailors were originally in a group, and at this time, an unknown fleet came to the rear, and the speed of reinforcement was also very fast when the front was alerted. It's just that when they see the opponent approaching from the rear completely in front of them, everyone is surprised, but they don't think it's so surprised.

The fleet that came from behind was naturally the target that Satsuma wanted to chase on this trip, the Hongmen fleet headed by Lu Yu.

Lu Yu's idea was to listen to the advice of the Participating Department, first avoid its edge and weaken its sharpness, and then kill it from behind, and hit it by surprise, although it did not achieve the most perfect effect in the end, but judging from the subsequent engagement, the effect was still good.

Took the initiative to discard a few dragged supply ships, and Wu Shu's dozen or so warships that came to converge were also the elite divisions of Hongmen, three of which were still under the command of Wu Shu's "Yang Fan" warships, which was equivalent to thirteen "Yang Fan" warships under the command of the Hongmen fleet at this time, and their strength was not much better than the strength of the Dutch expeditionary fleet!

Lu Yu knew in his heart that since they had taken the initiative to attack Samoto this time, they would not be able to achieve the goal of making the Samobans take the initiative to sue for peace just by harassing the other party's merchant ships and warships by the seaside. If you want to rely on this Hongmen disciples, who are only in their early 3,000s together with Wu Shu, to attack its city, it is like hitting a stone with an egg.

In particular, they came from afar this time, fighting a protracted war with other people's head snakes, and a logistical supply alone was a big problem, and only when their own strength was at their peak, they would start a decisive battle with the other party on the sea, and cut it neatly at sea, so that the Satsuma people could be afraid and retreat.

The long snake formation had already been lined up before the Satsuma fleet reacted, and Lu Yu and the others took great pains to expose themselves and let Shimazu Hisao chase after them, in order to take the lead.

Generals who have not actually been on the battlefield will never know what it means to be a pioneer in a naval battle, especially when there is a strong gap in the tactics of naval warfare between the two sides.

Shimazu Hisao has always used the "Yang Fan-type" battleship in the original Amami naval battle as a reference object, thinking that no matter how you look at it, his own strength cannot be too far behind the Hongmen fleet, not to mention that he is now on his own territory, and he has already issued an order to assist the inland coast long before launching the attack.

Due to the limitations of the environment and materials, the number of warships built by the Japanese people in recent years has grown slowly, but there are not a few boats that are generally used as fishermen to fish and go to sea.

As the son and son of the daimyo who had the right to inherit the Shimazu clan, and the commander of the Daimyo who personally appointed the hanger to kill the Hongmen, Shimazu Hisao wanted to mobilize the coastal city supplies and fishing boats to assist him in the battle, and no Satsuma official dared to slack off.

At this time, I am afraid that a large number of large and small sea ships are rushing towards this place to assist Shimazu Hisao in the battle.

Not only did the Ming Dynasty think of using tactics such as self-destruction of small boats and entanglement of fishing nets against Western warships, as a weaker country, the Wa Kingdom actually suffered from the arrogant and arrogant way of opening the door of the Wa State by Westerners, and at the same time, they have also been fighting fiercely with Westerners with warships inferior to Western warships, and it is not strange to have developed clumsy methods to deal with Western warships.

However, when the long snake formation was set up and the Satsuma warships were officially reached the effective range of their own side, the long-range firepower displayed by the ten "Yang Fan type" led by Lu Yu was completely beyond Shimazu Hisao's imagination.

In one round, it was really just a round of artillery fire, and more than ten warships of the rear team of Satsuma were sunk by the Hongmen fleet, and three other warships were in danger and had lost their combat effectiveness.

When Shimazu Hisao's cheeks were pale and his heart ached but he was helpless to continue to order the fleet to charge at full speed, the Hongmen fleet turned its bow unhurriedly, and the thirteen "Yang Fan-type" warships separated from the Hongmen 400 warships, and at the same time looked for an angle, aiming at the other side, which had already been filled with ammunition, at the approaching Satsuma fleet.

"Boom! Boom! ”

A succession of shells tore through the air, and with a terrifying whistling sound, they continued to pour out towards the warships of the Satsuma fleet, and from time to time there was a loud bang or a column of water rushing into the sky in the front of the opposite fleet.

This is a sharp weapon created by Li Tianyang to gather all the potential of Hongmen for more than ten years, and it is the first time to show his existence to the world, or it will not be long before its reputation will shock the entire South China Sea!

In order to arm ten "Yang Fan-style" warships, Li Tianyang collected all the high-powered artillery that could be used in the Hongtang fleet, installed them, and together with dozens of cannons produced from the cannon foundry, he created such a powerful fleet that was not inferior to the Westerners.

This is also the first actual combat of the steel cannon produced by the Hongmen Cannon Foundry, from the actual combat results, the power of this batch of steel cannon is more advantageous than the cannon purchased from the Westerners at a large price!

The weight is too light, which means that the gunners are more flexible and convenient in aiming at targets and loading ammunition during battle, and can hit the enemy more accurately and quickly.

The weight of the cannon was reduced, but the power of the steel-cast cannon was also not weakened, and the twenty or thirty pound-heavy shells, under the burning of the black particle gunpowder developed and prepared by Hongmen himself, were like an invisible black shadow, shooting out in a straight line more than two hundred zhang away, but all the obstacles in front of it had only a fragmented ending.

(End of chapter)