The strongest, the fastest update of the latest chapter of the rise of the Ming Dynasty 1646!

The four warships under Liu Guoxuan's command had been folded into battle sails, lined up in a straight "one" formation, and quickly passed between the two rushing ships of the Qing army.

At the moment when the sides of the two ships staggered, bursts of fierce fire broke out on the side of the Ji'an and other ships, which had already been prepared, and the sea suddenly rose with gunpowder smoke, and more than 20 shells roared towards the enemy ship.

At this time, the two sides were less than a hundred paces apart, and even the lowest level of training gunners had a good hit rate. When the Ji'an sailed away from the enemy ship, it had completed exactly two and a half salvos, and a total of more than twenty shells hit the enemy ship.

Due to the limitations of the number of gunners and the space in the gun holds, the sail warships usually fired only at one side, so the captured ships on the west side that were "taken care of" by the Ji'an were already full of holes, and the bow was almost completely destroyed, and the deck was even more horizontal.

And the firepower of the other three corvettes was even worse. Although they concentrated their artillery on the east flank, they left less than ten bullet holes in the ship, and the two main masts of the enemy ship were still intact, and they were hurriedly turning their heads to return fire.

Liu Guoxuan glanced at the battle situation, pointed to the large number of enemy ships moored in front of him, and said in a loud voice: "Order, turn due east at two chains away from the middle ship in the harbor, and maintain a speed of less than two knots." Leave the Lee Kwang-pil to take care of the two enemy ships behind him. ”

The "chain" is a commonly used nautical unit, and one chain is equal to one-tenth of a nautical mile. The two chains are about 370 meters, and when they turn 90 degrees, they are almost attached to the face of the enemy ship.

As the standard-bearer issued his order, the three warships, large and small, led by the Ji'an, quickly arrived at the deepest part of Laizhou Harbor. At a distance where the sailors' clothes could already be seen on the deck of the anchored captive ship, they turned to the east side with the left rudder in succession, lined up in a line, and pointed the enemy ship on the starboard side.

Then Liu Guoxuan easily ordered: "All ships are free to fire cannons." ”

It was only at this time that the Qing troops in Laizhou Harbor jumped on their own warships under the alarm of the sound of artillery. The soldiers on duty on the ship ran to their posts in a panic, hoisting the sails and lifting the anchors, and were busy with a mess.

But, apparently, it was already too late.

The three ships of the Ming advance sailed slowly in front of the moored Qing warships, and shells rained down on the outermost enemy ships.

For a time, countless whizzing iron balls left holes of different sizes on the captive ship, and at the same time, a large number of broken wood pieces burst out and shot at the Qing soldiers on the ship.

These pieces of wood are extremely fast under the tremendous impact of the shells, and they are no less powerful than the guns. Even though the enemy ships that were shot were in a wail, a large number of captives with wooden stubble on their bodies and heads covered their wounds or ran aimlessly for help, or fell to the ground and rolled and groaned.

Whenever the Ji'an and the others sailed past an enemy ship, the blood flowed on that ship, and it became like a purgatory on earth. Under such a fierce blow, where can anyone continue to prepare for war? All the soldiers hurriedly fled to the boat parked on the inside through the cables, and some even jumped directly into the sea to escape.

Liu Guoxuan's warship sailed east for about a mile, then collectively turned around and switched to the port side to face the enemy, and began the next round of strafing.

When the Ji'an turned to the west, Liu Guoxuan heard the rumbling of cannons on the sea not far away. He looked around through the smoke blown away by the sea breeze, and saw that the other raiding detachments of the sailors had also arrived at his predetermined position.

According to the established plan, the "U" shaped area for berthing in Laizhou Port is divided into six large blocks, each less than a mile wide. Each large ship of more than 300 tons with three to five corvettes was responsible for attacking one piece. The main task of the raid is to incapacitate the enemy ships on the periphery, so that the ships parked on the inner side will be blocked and unable to sail out, and can only be used as targets.

Liu Guoxuan, as the vanguard, was responsible for the deepest part of the port, that is, the southernmost enemy ships, and most of the auxiliary ships were stationed here, so the number of warships he brought was also the smallest.

On the northwest side, the fourth-class cruiser Guangzhou, led four light frigates to open fire first, and Zheng Zhilong's seven thousand-material ships were parked here on the outermost periphery, and there were four other ships of the same kind on the inside, as well as nearly 40 warships of various sizes, ranging from large canisters to shuttle ships.

The 18-pounder cannon carried by the Canton was truly amazing, and the gunners on this ship were also more experienced, and with only two salvos, two holes with a diameter of three feet were torn out near the waterline of a large ship of more than 400 tons, and seawater continued to pour into the middle bullet with air bubbles.

Before the corvette behind could "mend the knife", the ship had already begun to tilt badly, and it was hopeless.

Subsequently, the Zhangzhou, Fuzhou, Guangchuan, and Jianning also began to dump shells at the enemy ships in Laizhou Harbor, and until this time, not a single Jianyu warship had sailed out to meet them.

Liu Guoxuan had a full view of the battle situation, and immediately said to the adjutant: "Order, the No. 4 gun position will be changed to chain shells, and the other twelve-pounder guns will all fire scorching bullets!" ”

"Yes!"

His order was quickly passed into the gun compartment, and the gunners immediately got busy.

When the Ji'an entered the attack position again, the heavy cannon in the middle of the port side was the first to fire, and what flew out of the muzzle was not an ordinary cannonball, but two iron balls tied together with a three-foot iron chain.

The two iron balls began to rotate irregularly under the pull of the iron chains. When it flew past the mast of an enemy ship, the chain went around the middle of the mast. Then, the tremendous impact of the two shells was completely applied to the mast by the iron chain, and the mainmast of a seven-hundred-weight ship was easily broken into two ends like a matchstick. The upper part of the mast even flew out of seventy or eighty meters under the coercion of the chain bullet, and landed on a sentry boat parked inside, and three people were immediately smashed into pulp.

In addition, the gunners of the Ji'an carefully loaded the red shells into the prepared charcoal stove, burned them to a red state, and then stuffed the muzzle into a cake-shaped wooden mat.

The igniter was very skillful and immediately pulled the cannon rope - if the movement was slow, the gunpowder would likely be ignited by the scorching shell. The red-hot cannonball roared out of the muzzle and hit the side of the opposing enemy ship, tearing a large hole in the deck and whizzing into the hold.

Immediately, there was a scream accompanied by the smell of burnt flesh. The cannonballs, on the other hand, relied on their extremely high temperatures to ignite all wood chips, cloth, and even gunpowder they came into contact with.

As the scorching shells fired by the four twelve-pounder guns in front and behind the Ji'an hit one after another, the outermost captive ship began to smoke and catch fire. There was even a ship whose gunpowder was ignited, and there was a terrible explosion, and the deck of the ship flew more than four feet high under the impetus of the huge air current!