At the same time, after Zheng Hongkui received Zheng Zhilong's order, he regretfully ordered the gunboats to suspend the pace of the shelling, spread out on both sides, and make way for Zheng Zhihu. A cronie www.biquge.info the pen "Fun" Pavilion came over and said: "Fourth master, it's a pity, if we continue to fight, not to mention that our gunboats will decide the victory, let alone sink three or four ships." Most of the credit will be taken away by the second master, tsk......"

Zheng Hongkui's eyes widened, and he shouted: "Shut up!" You dare to question the decision of the big dragon head, and it is natural for him to send the second master. ”

The cronie shrunk his neck and said resignedly: "Yes, yes, the little one said the wrong thing......

Although he scolded his subordinates, Zheng Hongkui thought so deeply in his heart. He looked at the red-haired warship that was overwhelmed by the arson ship, and sighed in his heart, although the eldest brother's move was to seize a few plywood boats and strengthen the strength of the Zheng family, but why not give the second brother a chance to make great contributions and make the second brother's position in the Zheng family more consolidated? The second brother has been close to the eldest brother since he was a child, and he is also the most favored among the brothers. But this is the battlefield, the fighter plane is fleeting, and the knife can solve the battle, so he switches to his fist, and the eldest brother is still a little too big.

On the outermost Qiongzhou battalion fleet, William watched the entire battle with a monocular on the flagship "Bofu", and when he saw the change in the tactics of the Zheng family, he shook his head regretfully, put down the binoculars, and said to Xia Nan: "Originally, Zheng Yiguan could solve the battle in one go, but he was very greedy, and it seemed that he wanted to capture the Dutch warships with a broadside battle, and this decision brought unpredictability to the battle—now I can't judge who the victory will belong to." ”

Xia Nan said lightly: "There is an old saying in China, greed is not enough to swallow an elephant. People's hearts will never be satisfied, Zheng Zhilong wants to maximize the value of the results, not only to defeat the Dutch and Liu Xiang, but also to have real Western-style warships - presumably to deal with my clipper guns in the future - too greedy will always pay the price. ”

"What shall we do now, General? Will it go straight to the war or will it continue to wait and see? ”

Xia Nan observed the battle situation with a telescope, and then replied: "The melee is not good for us, we can't participate in the war in such a situation, it's not time to bet yet, wait." ”

When Zheng Zhihu led the warships full of fresh troops to the inner battlefield, the Dutch fleet was already in chaos.

Of the thirteen Dutch warships, the armed merchant ship "Brock Hilwin" had been completely engulfed in flames, and any attempt to extinguish the fire was futile, and the sailors on board completely abandoned the ship and plunged to other ships, and it was only a matter of time before it sank; The "Villeganer" was badly damaged in the artillery battle, the mast was broken, the waterline was broken a few holes, the sailors on the deck were killed and wounded, and the ability to maneuver was lost, and only the gunners in the intermediate compartment continued to fire their guns to make a final resistance. The rest of the ships also suffered varying degrees of damage, either with fire in the bow and stern, or heavy bullets in their hulls, but not to the same extent as the "Brock Hilwin" and "Villeganer". The Dutch felt helpless and hopeless for the first time with their near-overwhelming superiority over the pirates of the Far East, with their ships and guns almost overwhelming.

The captains of each battleship desperately commanded their subordinates, while avoiding too many fireships to get close to them and extinguishing the fire that had already burned in time, and at the same time counterattacking the attack of the opponent's gunboats with artillery bombardment. Just when they were rejoicing, they found that a new force had joined the battlefield - dozens of medium-sized lucky ships rushed towards them, and even the naked eye could see the opposite bow full of pirates with steel knives.

Putmans saw all this with a clairvoyant mirror, and knew that after the fire attack and artillery battle, the next step was to meet the challenge of the broadside battle. He didn't know if Zheng Yiguan's offer of this trick would be an opportunity or a disaster for him - continuing to engage in artillery battles in narrow waters would only exhaust his last ray of life, and hand-to-hand combat was Zheng Yiguan's strongest link, but he could use less than a thousand soldiers in close combat - the only turning point was to hope that he could unite with Liu Xiang to break out of the other party's encirclement.

He took a deep breath and ordered: "Inform all the ships that all the soldiers who can pick up muskets are all on deck, we must keep Zheng Yiguan's men out of the deck, let these yellow-skinned monkeys board the ship, and we will be finished!" ”

The Dutch soldiers came to the deck with their arquebuses in a sad mood and checked their gunpowder and buckshot. Perhaps they should be grateful to Zheng Yiguan for no longer having to hide in the cabin of the ship's cabin to avoid the rainstorm of shotguns, but to be able to fight the enemy face to face like a warrior.

As the troop carrier led by Zheng Zhihu approached, the Zheng family's artillery fire had stopped, so as not to injure their own people by mistake. With the muffled sound of "bang bang bang", one after another the fortune ships crashed heavily into the Dutch warship, and the broadside battle began.

Because the Dutch warships were much taller than the medium-sized Fu ships, and they could not use the traditional way to build a springboard jump, Zheng Zhihu ordered to use the climbing method to fight. One by one, the claws flung out and hooked to the edge of the ship's side, and the wolf-like pirates pounced on it, swords in their mouths, and climbed up the ropes.

The arquebuses in the hands of the Dutch soldiers also fired, and the rain of lead bullets shot at the bow of the ship, and the pirates waiting to climb and board the ship screamed and fell to the ground. In order to make it easier to climb, the pirates were shirtless and densely packed together, with nothing to cover the buckshot, so they could only bear the rain of bullets with their flesh and blood.

However, in the face of pirates climbing at a vertical angle close to 90°, the soldiers had no other effective way - if the arquebus was fired vertically, the lead bullet could easily fall out of the chamber. They tried to remove the claws that were firmly attached to the edge of the ship's side, but the hooks were too deep in the planks to remove with their bare hands, especially if they were hanging from a string of pirates. Someone tried to cut the hemp rope that connected the claws, but the thick hemp rope was very laborious to cut, and although a few were cut, this speed could not keep up with the speed that the pirates could climb.

When the pirates appeared in the bow of the ship, the soldiers could only smash with the butts of their guns. From time to time, pirates were struck and fell from the edge of the ship screaming, but the overwhelming number of pirates climbed onto the bow of the ship one after another, jumped onto the deck and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Dutch, who were a head above him.