Zheng Zhilong turned his head to look at the Qiongzhou battalion fleet in the distance, they stopped there quietly, as if they were outsiders watching the incident. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

At the beginning of the battle, Zheng Zhilong was in high spirits, feeling that the Qiongzhou battalion was just coming to fight soy sauce and could be used as a surprise soldier if necessary, but the situation deteriorated so quickly that it was too late to use this surprise army. And the Qiongzhou battalion sat back and watched the Zheng family from gaining the upper hand to being in decline but always indifferent, which made his confidence begin to waver: who is the enemy and who is the friend? Can you still hold this force?

He closed his eyes and fell into deep thought.

Seeing this, the people next to him didn't dare to come over and disturb him, for fear of becoming the punching bag for the second master's death.

Not far away, there was a lot of artillery fire in the sky, and the sound was like thunder, but Zheng Zhilong was like a statue, not affected by the outside world at all, standing quietly on the bow of the boat. At this time, it was already mid-afternoon, the sun had already set in the west, and the afterglow of the setting sun shone on him, as if it were a portrayal of his dark mood.

After a long time, Zheng Zhilong raised his head and let out a sigh: "Come on, send a message to the Qiongzhou battalion and ask them to join the war." The Zheng family is willing to cooperate fully to defeat Hongmao and Liu Xiang. As long as I can get Liu Xiang's head to pay tribute to my second brother, any conditions can be discussed. He deliberately pronounced the word "please" heavily, which made his subordinates feel very strange - before this battle began, wasn't the Qiongzhou battalion an insignificant guest army and the followers of the Zheng family, why should they be so polite?

However, they didn't dare to question the words of the big dragon head, so they quickly turned around and passed the word.

Soon after, this sentence was brought to Xia Nan word for word.

"Here's your chance!" Xia Nan said to William in high spirits, "Zheng Zhilong has paid the price for his stupid command, the second elder of the Zheng family is dead, and the Dutch have found a way to deal with him - and now he has turned around and begged us to fight." ”

William asked: "Then we will go to war now to help Zheng Yiguan fight the Netherlands?" ”

"Zheng Zhilong is always a native of the Ming Kingdom, even if we are bound to meet each other in the future, this is still an internal contradiction among the people!" Xia Nanzuo was awe-inspiring, "The contradiction between the Dutch and me belongs to the contradiction between the enemy and me - beat those sea coachmen for me and go to war!" ”

Although he said that Wei Guangzheng was right, the real reason was not Huayi at all, but the situation on the battlefield - although the Zheng family suffered a heavy setback, in addition to the loss of a general, it did not hurt the vitality, the main force was still there, and the losses of the Dutch and Liu Xiang's allied forces were relatively more fatal, so it was clear which water dog should be beaten.

The Qiongzhou battalion fleet, which had been recuperating for a long time, officially joined the battlefield, and they passed through the Zheng family's fleet and went straight to the fleet of the Heliu coalition army.

Although the displacement of the Wuxiang class was inferior to that of the armed merchant ships of the Dutch and comparable to that of the Zheng family's Daqingtou, the structure of the Western-style hull and Chinese sails gave it superior offshore sailing performance: in offshore waters such as off the coast of the island, the Lao-lock ship was both faster than the Daqingtou and more agile than the armed merchant ships with complex soft sails.

When the fleet of the Qiongzhou battalion shook off the big green head fleet that followed behind and rushed towards the Dutch-Liu coalition army, Putmans was dumbfounded - he had never seen such a strange clipper, obviously the hull of a common European patrol ship, but they used the hard sails that only Junk ships had, and the worst thing was that they were extremely fast, more than twice as fast as the Junk ships of the Zheng family.

The captain of the "Fort Middle" Van Bommel sensed danger with his military sense of smell, and without receiving an order from Puttmans, he subconsciously issued an order for the "Fort Middle" to fire and stop the strange ships. The rest of the warships also followed in the footsteps of the flagship and opened fire one after another.

"Boom, boom, boom", the cannon that had made the Zheng family suffer so much opened fire again, pouring shells towards the Qiongzhou battalion fleet.

However, unlike the clumsy big Qingtou gunboats, the Wuxiang-class patrol ships are extremely mobile and flexible. Under William's command, the fleet drew a long zigzag, made an evasive maneuver that only Western navies would use, easily avoided this round of shelling, and continued to move closer to the opponent at high speed, most of the 18-pound solid bullets fell into the sea, and there were few concentrated targets.

"God, there are still people in the Far East who can use tactical evasive maneuvers, and their ships can do such a maneuver?" Putmans' eyes were about to bulge out. The entire Dutch East India Company's armed merchant ships could not do this - the pot-bellied version of the Galen, designed for cargo transport, was still not a professional warship, more than enough to deal with pirates, but it was clearly lagging behind in the face of the ideas designed for the next century.

Soon, 13 Wuxiang-class patrol ships approached the Dutch fleet, and the Dutch had not had time to reload their shells to start a second round of shelling - their cannon rate of fire and hit-and-run tactics, although effective against the clumsy and slow big green heads, were no longer advantageous against the old lock ships.

Although the Qiongzhou battalion fleet still uses the same Caron cannon as the Zheng family just now, the way of fighting is completely different. The fleet turned at a distance of two or three hundred meters, parallel to the opponent, lined up in a line, the gun windows opened one after another, and the dark muzzles of the 32-pounder guns were aimed at the target, as if the monster had opened its mouth to devour.

Before the Dutch could scramble to fire the second shell, all the Wuxiang-class patrol ships opened fire first.

"Boom, boom", the 32-pound solid bullet flew to the opposite side with teeth and claws, smashed open the thick hull, and drilled into the mezzanine where the cannon was located, many 18-pound and 24-pound cannons were hit, and the gunners who were loading shells and ignited powder were smashed into flesh on the spot by the cocked barrels.

The surviving Dutch gunners insisted on reloading their shells, lit the fuse one after another, and launched a counterattack against the enemy. Several Wuxiang-class patrol ships were hit by shells, several Caron guns were reimbursed, and the gunners were killed.

In the first round of shooting, although the Dutch also counterattacked, they suffered a big loss in battle. Armed merchant ships were equipped with only about 10 cannons for the purpose of carrying goods, and no more than 6 guns on each side; Although the tonnage of the Wuxiang class is small, it is a professional gunboat, equipped with 12 Caron guns as standard, and 6 guns on each side, the two sides are equal in number, but the Wuxiang class has the absolute upper hand in terms of caliber, plus the first attack, it takes a great advantage.

The design concept of the Qiongzhou battalion fleet was a century ahead of the concept, and the advantages of being more professional were more vividly reflected in the following artillery battles. The Caron cannon, which was easier to reload and had a faster rate of fire, completely overwhelmed the opponent, and by the time the Dutch finally fired the third round, they had already fired four rounds. Their armed merchant ships were battered, their gun emplacements were knocked out in half, and the firing points on this side facing the enemy were largely abandoned.