According to Wu Yuanzhou's informant, the Fujian Navy Division had no more than 50 boats. If they don't know what to do, and fight fiercely with these captured warships in front of them, I am afraid that before they can destroy a few enemy ships, the main force of Kaha will have already arrived, and it will be too late to leave by then!

Lu Si also said anxiously: "General, we have no ships in our hands......

Hearing this, Ruan Jin looked at the surrounding waters, and only one of the three warships that had been following him had a broken mainmast floating not far away, and the other two were in flames, slowly sinking.

He waved his hand decisively and said, "Let the messenger boat go down!" ”

"This, General, this is too dangerous!"

The communication boat was used for communication between two large boats, and it was no more than a foot and a half long, and could only carry six or seven people to paddle forward. This boat is usually only used for short distances, and there is a danger of capsizing if the waves are a little bigger, and the Fujian sailors are still at least four or five miles away, and it is a life and death to row this small boat.

In addition, even if they could get close to the Fujian warships, it would be difficult for anyone to notice a single leaf of the boat when the two armies were fighting, but any shell on both sides could smash them to pieces.

"Less verbose!" Ruan Jin had already gone to untie the rope that tied the boat, "If I don't believe it, the thief will really be blessed!"

"Wucaoyu is gone, we can't let the last bit of my Han warship be destroyed here!"

"Subordinates, obey!" Lu Si solemnly summoned a few soldiers to help put the boat into the sea.

When Ruan Jin descended to the boat along the rope, and just picked up the oars to row, he suddenly heard a thunderous cannon roar in the distance.

"Why, how did it hit so quickly? Could it be that there is an ambush for the thieves? ”

He hurriedly raised his eyes and saw that on the sea two miles away, a group of Fujian naval warships with high masts and white sails with five large ships as the core, lined up in a horizontal formation and went straight to the north side of the Jianyu battle array.

The latter is obviously in the process of turning its head to the northeast, and it should be that before it can reach the upper hand, it has been intercepted by the Ming army, so it has to turn its head in a hurry to meet the battle.

Ruan Jin was greatly surprised in his heart, the two armies were still at least five miles apart, how could the Fujian warship arrive in the blink of an eye?!

Naturally, he did not know that in the case of the wind direction behind the side, the soft sailing ship had the best wind effect, and could even exceed the speed of eight knots, that is, nearly thirty miles per hour.

He gritted his teeth hard, the muscles on his arms bulged, and he paddled: "Paddle hard, maybe it's still in time!" ”

……

Niu Bin was obviously even more surprised! From the moment he spotted the enemy ship at the outpost, he did not hesitate to sail upwind, but before he could turn two miles away, the other party had already galloped more than five miles and pressed on his north side.

In naval warfare in this era, whoever takes the lead in occupying the upper hand will occupy the absolute initiative. Until the advent of the "Nelson tactic", this was the absolute "golden rule" in naval warfare.

First of all, the ship, which occupies the upper hand, can use the sidesail to achieve a very fast speed, and the high-speed movement can effectively avoid being hit by the enemy's artillery. The downwind position is awkward, because the engagement is always headwind, and the speed of the enemy ship is almost like a stationary target.

In addition, the muzzle velocity of the 17th-century smoothbore guns was low, which caused the sea breeze to affect the speed of the shells. In other words, the range and power of the cannon in a downwind situation are not small advantages in a headwind situation.

Finally, due to the very large smoke of the black powder when it was fired, the smoke drifted to the opposite side after the cannon was fired from the upwind port. The gunners downwind would be enveloped in smoke from the guns of both sides, which would greatly interfere with aiming, and it was not uncommon for them to be so smoked that they could not open their eyes.

However, due to the distance of the first round of artillery bombardment of the Daming Naval Division, and the fact that the gunners were a little nervous in the first actual battle, the accuracy of the hands was reduced by five or six percent, so although nearly 20 heavy guns were fired in unison, only one twelve-pound shell hit a small ship, shooting its side out of a huge transparent hole.

The huge roar of the artillery salvo surprised Niu Bin again, although he did not see any warships destroyed, he still cautiously ordered his officers: "Order, the whole team retreats, be careful to avoid the enemy!" ”

Although he was frightened, he was not afraid, and as early as the beginning of the discovery of the enemy ship, he had already sent a sentry ship to the direction of Wucaoyu to inform Lord Kaha.

In two hours at most, nearly 200 warships will be pressed over with a dark cloud, and these 50 or so warships will be wiped out immediately.

Fifty warships? His heart suddenly moved, it is reported that this is the number of warships from Fujian, and there is no fleet of this scale near Zhejiang, could it be that this is a ...... Fujian Sailor?!

No, it can't be! Zhoushan is more than 200 miles away, how can it be less than a day to go upstream?!

He shook his head vigorously, put all his doubts behind him, and looked at the enemy ship, but he was shocked again.

He formed a formation called the "Xiongguan Formation". All ships of more than 400 materials were close together, in two horizontal rows, staggered in the front, and the other small ships were divided into two columns to cover the two wings. There were also several ships roaming in front of the battle formation.

This formation is extremely defensive, with large ships blocking the front like a city wall, and carrying the enemy's fire. If the ships of the first row were destroyed, the ships of the second row would be replaced at once. The small warships on both wings mainly prevent the enemy's clippers and fireships from sneaking attacks, which can be described as airtight.

Since the Junk ship type commonly used in the Ming waters can only be equipped with small cannons on the side, in the face of this formation, it can only choose to use the large ship to attack head-on and fire at each other with the bow cannon. Even with only two twelve-pounder guns in the bow, it often took a long time to sink the enemy ship.

Niu Bin originally planned the same, even though the enemy ships were more than sixty percent more than his own, it was not difficult to survive two hours.

However, the warships on the opposite side did not attack head-on with large ships as usual, but the large and small warships lined up in a long snake formation end to end, and the bows of the ships pointed south-west, and rushed diagonally towards him.

At the same time, these boats are extremely fast, and they are even more accessible in the blink of an eye with a tailwind. Before Niu Bin could come up with a reason, dense flames suddenly flashed on the enemy's long snake array.

The distance between the two sides was only 400 paces at the time of this firing, and even the four-pounder guns on the Ming warships were already within range, and a full sixty cannons fired one after another, bursting out with an extremely terrifying momentum.

Niu Bin felt the warship shake violently under his feet, the clattering and screaming of cannonballs piercing the ship's planks were incessant, and the sawdust was all over the sky.

When the noise finally subsided, he looked up tremblingly, and saw that the foremast of his ship had been broken by the barricade, and the shells had not abated, and a huge hole had been smashed in the stern, and more than a dozen broken corpses were scattered all around.

He swallowed hard and spat, if the shell was a few feet lower, he was afraid that he would have turned into a puddle of flesh at this moment......