While Kanshu's flagship destroyed the half-crippled enemy ship, the Sea Shark-class ships No. 2 and No. 3 each targeted an enemy ship and were bombarding it from outside the enemy's range. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

And the enemy fleet was still struggling hard, carrying out useless counterattacks, and most of the enemy's artillery fell a few hundred meters from the sea shark.

However, suddenly, a huge cannonball flew out of one of the ships, grazed the sky over Sea Shark 2, and fell into the sea.

Near-arrow bullets, but also near-arrow bullets.

Although the enemy's counterattack did not really hit the Sea Shark II, as long as the enemy continued to fire according to the shooting data this time, it would definitely be able to cause damage to his own side.

This frightened everyone in the 101st formation, and no one expected that there would be artillery in the enemy's fleet that could shoot so far.

"Retreat 500 meters back to the formation."

Without even thinking about it, the captains of Sea Shark No. 2 and No. 3 immediately gave the order, abandoned the close-range shooting strategy just now, and immediately retreated 500 meters, reaching a distance of 1,700 meters from the enemy fleet.

In fact, this place is not so safe, because as long as it is a long-barreled heavy artillery that fires shells of more than 10 catties, it can basically hit about 2,000 meters at a high angle.

However, it was a parabolic shot, and if it was a rifled gun, it would be able to maintain its course in a spin during the parabola.

Well, the spherical iron bullet is a drunk flying around in the sky, and he can't tell where he will go.

And that's just on land, the result of being able to shoot steadily.

When you get to the sea, in the midst of the swelling waves, it is impossible to shoot at a target by means of projectile on a 500-ton wooden ship like this.

The ship shook slightly, and after the cannon flew out, it was already tens or hundreds of meters away.

Therefore, the naval battles of this era were basically based on direct fire, and later the British fleet, which crisscrossed the seas, was very fond of firing at the enemy's ships.

Just like their army, they like to run to a distance of 30 meters from the enemy to fire a salvo, and it is a virtue to crush the enemy army at once.

After running to a distance of 1,700 meters, with the technology of this era, if the smoothbore guns of Peter's fleet want to hit their own ships, they need the enemy gunners to have the luck of winning the first prize of the two-color ball, so that they can use the projectile method to damage the Sea Shark-class warships of the Xuan Army.

However, the rear-loading rifled guns of the Xuan Army, coupled with the most basic optical sights, the popularization of mathematical knowledge, the application of protractors and other tools, and the mass-produced and standardized manufactured cannons with fixed firing meters, can still maintain long-distance shooting accuracy far beyond this era at this distance.

Therefore, after the distance was opened, although the rate of fire of the artillery was slowed down due to the need for mathematical calculations and measurements, waiting for the opportunity for the waves to fluctuate a little, the degree of safety was greatly increased.

Just under the constant bombardment of three sea sharks, the enemy once again completely lost one ship, seriously wounded one, and slightly damaged one, Peter's fleet finally fully raised its sails and rushed out of the mooring.

Kan Shu immediately ordered the 101st formation to keep a distance from the opponent and continue to rely on its own artillery superiority to attack the enemy convoy.

It was 10 minutes since the battle began, and the 101 formation made a total of 4 ships of the enemy flotilla incapacitated, 1 ship was seriously injured and unable to return fire, and one ship was slightly damaged and slowed down.

However, of so many enemy ships, only one completely sank to the bottom of the sea, and the others, even if they completely lost their combat effectiveness, still floated steadily on the water.

This is the characteristic of wooden ships in the Age of Sail, and it has been recorded that two ships of this era fired hundreds of solid iron bullets at close range from each other, destroying almost all of the enemy's buildings above the waterline, but both ships sank.

From this record, you can know the helplessness of naval warfare in this era, no wonder gang jumping operations are still so popular, and this is also a helpless choice when the effect of artillery damage is not obvious.

Peter's fleet saw that his artillery could not reach the Xuan warship, so he had no choice but to speed up the charge as much as possible, trying to get close to the range of his own artillery.

However, the direction of Peter's fleet is not downwind, and how can Peter's fleet, which is completely sail-powered, surpass the 101st formation in terms of mobility, and can only be constantly attacked.

Fortunately, during the movement, Xuanjun's shooting accuracy dropped a lot, giving the people of Peter's fleet a little respite.

When they got out of the moored island and sailed into the deep sea, Peter's fleet did not need to be negotiated, and all the ships immediately adjusted their sails and ran in the direction of the wind.

The Kan Shu on the 101 formation was immediately stunned, wasn't he still charging to the death just now? actually said to run, how could there be such a shameless guy.

This is also the reason why they have no experience and have not fought several large-scale naval battles.

Every time they had cleared out pirates before, they had dealt with a small group of pirates with a few ships, and when the falcons spotted the enemy, they approached in the night, and when the sky was bright, a round of artillery bombardment could settle the battle.

Moreover, because they didn't have much to do with European colonizers, they didn't know that in this era, most of the European seafarers who went to sea to be seafarers, except for the poor who really couldn't survive, were hooligans, villains, gamblers, and scumbags.

Kanshu immediately ordered the formation to pursue, and at the same time, ordered the gun deck to begin adjusting the gun position, and pushed a 105mm howitzer back to the bow.

Although the 105mm howitzer is very powerful, in the rapid movement and the bumps of the waves, the accuracy of the gun is naturally much worse.

Moreover, the narrow bow can only accommodate one 105mm howitzer, and only three ships have three howitzers.

After chasing for a long time and firing dozens of shots, less than 5 shots were hit.

Seeing that Peter's fleet was constantly adjusting the sails, and with the assistance of the strong wind, the speed was slowly increased, and Kanshu could only helplessly order his own to raise the sails, and the steam engine boiler was slowly depressurized.

There is no way, although the steam engine of Xuanjun can work for a long time, the load of the ship with a displacement of 500 tons is limited.

A bulky boiler, a coarse steam engine, a complex gearing mechanism, a heavy propeller, a primitive steering wheel, 2 105mm howitzers, 4 88mm cannons, 8 40mm direct-fire guns, corresponding shells and gunpowder, three 40-meter-high steel masts, a large number of sails, and the living materials of more than 100 people on board.

With so much on board, how much coal can this ship hold? It's a very small number, pitifully small.

Therefore, Kanshu must be used sparingly, otherwise if there is no coal at the critical moment, the steam engine will be a decoration.

Moreover, although the current steam engine has much better operating hours than the original prototype, it still cannot run for more than 5 consecutive days.

This is why, with the steam engine, Chen Xin still has to use such backward things as sailboats.