"Cai Lian!" A great pirate in the history of the original plane. Crisscrossing the sea of Fujian and Zhejiang, he killed Li Changgeng, who was then the commander of the Zhejiang Navy, as well as many general soldiers and deputy generals of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. And now he is the admiral of the American Fleet, a colleague of Li Changgeng, and the commander of the previous fleet.

"Guan Tianpei!" The heroes in the first opium war in history are only inferior to Lin Zexu, and their fame is higher than that of Chen Huacheng, who insisted on Wu Song, and the three general soldiers who died in Dinghai.

And now he is the deputy commander of the advance fleet, the rising star in the Chen Han Naval Division, and the part-time pipe band of the Egret. His deputy's name was Zhang Bao, a native of Xinhui in Guangdong Province, a person who Chen Ming suspected of being Zhang Baozai.

Zhang Baozai was a big pirate in the middle of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and his main activities were in the ocean of Guangdong Province, and he was implicated in history with the Six Banners Gang, the Red Flag Gang, Zheng Yi's sister-in-law and other figures. Zheng Yi, the boss of the Red Flag Gang, is the son of Zheng Lianchang, and the former boss Zheng Qi is the son of Zheng Lianfu. This Zhang Baozai is Zheng Yi's godson, and after Zheng Yi's death, he was mixed with Zheng Yi's sister-in-law, and he was almost a character at the same time as Cai Yi. However, compared with Cai Lian, who said that Wang Jianzhi provoked the banner of 'anti-Qing and Ming restoration', he sank on the ship, and his family died without a place to be buried, but Zhang Baozai chose to surrender after several big victories over the Portuguese fleet of the Manchu Qingshui Division and even Macao.

Chen Ming didn't dare to guarantee that this Zhang Bao was Zhang Baozai, otherwise Zhang Bao, who was only three years younger than Guan Tianpei, would not be a right lieutenant now, and he had just been promoted.

But regardless of whether this Zhang Bao is the Zhang Baozai in history or not, as long as he performs well in the next naval battle, Chen Minghui can only be vigorously promoted.

And if a person like Guan Tianpei who focuses on cultivation is unsatisfactory in the naval battle, Chen Ming will not really turn a blind eye and still push him to a high position.

As for Cai Lian, he is a person who has already proven it in previous naval battles.

Chen Ming looked up at the southeast, if the time was not bad, now at this time, the naval battle would begin.

Recalling the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Strait in his mind, Chen Ming was not even the slightest bit sure in his heart. He was confident that Chen Han's naval warships were not weaker than the Europeans, but he was afraid of the stormy seas there.

Although history is made by people, it is clear that natural storms can occasionally leave a strong mark on the history books.

It's like Kublai Khan's two conquests, like the Dunkirk retreat in the original time and space.

In 1274, Kublai Khan sent more than 30,000 troops of the Mongol-Han Goryeo coalition army to launch an offensive against Japan, and the initial progress was very smooth, but an unexpected typhoon blew over more than 200 ships of the Yuan army, and the Yuan army had to retreat back to China with the remaining ships.

Seven years later, Kublai Khan amassed a stronger force of 140,000 troops and 1,400 ships to subdue Japan in one fell swoop. But a typhoon, which lasted for two days, hit the Yuan fleet and destroyed most of the ships. The surviving Yuan army was simply unable to compete with the relatively well-prepared Japanese.

At the beginning of World War II, the Axis powers won a series of victories in various theaters. The Anglo-French lines nearly collapsed under the rapid offensive of German mechanized troops, and more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were trapped in the English Channel next to the city of Dunkirk. The German army pressed on Dunkirk from the west, south, and east, and the Anglo-French forces were in a dangerous situation.

To make matters worse, effective rescue was almost impossible – the Luftwaffe was far superior to the Royal Navy, and the ships that came to the rescue were doomed to be destroyed. However, despite the fact that the German tanks were only 20 miles away from Dunkirk, what Winston Churchill called "God's deliverance" just happened. It was a beautiful day, when the clouds were low and the rain was continuous, and the Luftwaffe was forced to land. Even better, the sea was thick with fog and the English Channel was unusually calm – all of which was favorable for the Allied retreat.

Nature is so magical!

Chen Ming is now afraid that his fleet will encounter a big storm in the Strait of Magellan or the Strait of Delek, and then the elite navy that Chen Han has accumulated for decades will be destroyed.

boat, Chen Ming doesn't care; people, Chen Ming cherishes them very much.

……

At the exit of a bay in the western part of Estados, a shadow of sails slowly rose from the sea level, and then a wave of sails, eleven capital warships of the European Drake Strait Fleet rushed out of the bay, facing the sunset, one first-class sail battleship, six third-class sail battleships, four fourth-class sail battleships, plus four cruisers roaming the outer sea.

The entire Drake Strait fleet was all in line, and one by one the sails were spread out, heading straight west.

But the entire Drake Strait is in the western prevailing zone, where the currents and waves are all from west to east. Although this does not mean that the sail ships cannot operate from east to west, then this place and the Strait of Magellan, which is a little north, would not be a sea route connecting the east and west coasts of the Americas. But the wind, waves, and currents did affect the speed of the fleet!

If we take the Egret at full speed now, for example, the three sailing ships of the latter are fully twice as fast as the Drake Passage Fleet in Europe.

And in naval battles, running fast is always a very good attribute. I can't beat you, I can still run.

With three sailing ships that had reached the speed of ten knots and were rapidly 'sprinting' towards the western tip of Estados, it was not long before the two sides met. After all, the entire island of Estados is only a hundred miles. The speed of ten knots is more than 35 miles an hour.

Guan Tianpei looked at his watch, it was 9:18 in the morning.

When the two warships on the sea discovered each other almost at the same time, Guan Tianpei and them were only an hour away from the time of departure.

"Attention all! Attention all! Our ship is about to enter the range of enemy ships! The pipe wheel is waiting for my order and is ready to accelerate. All gun emplacements are ready—" Guan Tianpei shouted loudly.

By this time he could clearly see all the enemy, and if he looked at the time, it was 9:35. Guan Tianpei was very nervous, and the significance of this battle to the country and himself was extremely huge. He clenched his fists tightly, the joints of his fingers were clenched white, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Attention Pipe Wheel! Our ship came into the enemy's range, listened to my orders, and when I counted to ten, I immediately accelerated the right full rudder. "The good thing about this is that the speed of the sailboat after a direct turn will slip from the peak, but it will not fall to the bottom. Moreover, Chen Han's sailboats are now hard sails, which are easier to adjust and more adaptable to different wind directions than soft rice. You don't need to pull the sails hard to increase the speed. Even if the sailboat suddenly changes direction, the pressure on the hull will increase sharply due to the force on the sails, break the ropes, and shake the hull, which is not false. And what about the schooner? Although the speed of the wind and water is not fast enough, that is, the force on the sail surface is small, but when the hull suddenly turns, the tearing force of the sail on the hull will naturally become smaller. Coupled with the quick adjustment of the angle, the side effects of hard sails are much smaller than those of soft rice.

To put it in two words, soft rice is extreme, and hard sail is mean.

"Attention front gun, ready to fire! One! Two! Three ......" Guan Tianpei's eyes were firmly fixed on a US warship that had entered a distance of 2,000 meters, and every count seemed to be a desperate roar.

There were no warships in the Drake Passage Fleet flying the British flag, and the latter had become lighthouses.

"Boom!" With a bang, a huge splash rose on the sea surface forty or fifty meters to the left of the Egret, and Guan Tianpei had just shouted six at this time. Through the binoculars, he saw that the muzzle of the bow gun of the US warship on the opposite side had not yet dissipated.

After the widespread use of hexagonal guns, the old smoothbore guns were replaced on European warships, including bow and stern guns. All they lacked with Chen Han was a turret!

The enemy's artillery fire did not mess with Guan Tianpei's rhythm, and when he shouted ten, the whole Egret was like a nimble fish, and opened up the distance between it and the enemy warship to the south.

"Fire!" Guan Tianpei yelled.

The cannons of the Europeans have been played, and so has Chen Han's cannons.

Although with the accuracy of the hexagonal cannon, the distance between them is more than 1,500 meters, and whether or not it can hit the moving target really depends on God's mood, the distance within 2,000 meters has indeed entered the range of the hexagonal cannon.

The Egret is moving at a speed of 10 knots per hour, which is equivalent to 18,000 meters per hour+, which means that it can run 300 meters per minute. In this era when the time to shoot a cannon is measured in minutes, this is a very, very terrible speed, and even the advance amount needs to be prepared before the cannon is fired.

The sailing direction of Chen Hanji's sailboat is in an 'S' curve. This adds to the difficulty of hitting. Of course, if the sailboat was exposed to the side of the enemy's battleship and dozens of hexagonal guns were fired at the same time, the sailboat would be hit no matter how fast it ran.

Therefore, the current combat mode of the sailing ship is to occupy the 'T' position as much as possible, use its speed advantage, use its steering flexibility advantage, and wear out the enemy little by little, just like grinding. If it's a two-sided battleship heads-up.

Otherwise, just like now, if the enemy has 15 large and small warships, and only 3 of them have only 3, and using 3 sailing ships to 'grind' 15 sail warships of different sizes is equivalent to a small black donkey dragging a large grinding disc weighing ten tons.

Therefore, before fighting the final naval battle, it is necessary to transfer the enemy's troops with the strategy of dividing the plum blossoms.

Therefore, the cannon roared loudly, but neither of them hit, and neither side could well grasp the speed and movement of the countermeasures, and the distance between the two sides was more than 1,500 meters, and the huge first-class sail battleship looked like just a fly. At this time, the cannon was really inaccurate.

Before there was no breakthrough in optical instruments, it was still the eyes that relied on the guns.

In the era of the sudden emergence of rockets, in naval battles, the distance between each other was only more than 500 meters, and it was not pulled to 1,000 meters, or even 1,500 meters. However, if that is done, the security of the Navy's warships will be safe, and the efficiency of the war will be greatly reduced.

Even in the second half of this century, in the Battle of Lisa after the Second Crow, when the distance between the two sides was close to 900 meters, the Italian warships opened fire first, but it did not work. The Austrian warships reached about 270 meters and fired back. It can be said that except for the bug of rockets, the optical instruments fifty years later have advanced a little compared with the current ranging technology, but there has been no substantial progress.

So, firing at this distance of 1,500 meters + is completely a matter of chance.

Cannonballs continued to fall around the perimeter of the three sailing ships, including the Egret. The nearest one was only twenty or thirty meters, and the shells fell into the sea and splashed all the water on the deck of the Egret. However, the distance between the warships of the two sides has always hovered between 1200 meters ~ 1500 meters.

Whenever the European fleet was about to approach, Guan Tianpei would command the three sailing ships led by the Egret to open the distance, and the battle lasted for more than an hour, and at least half of the sidestring guns of the 18 warships present had not been fired.

The clock has come to 11 o'clock.

The Egret was also shot.

With a "boom", a big hole was smashed out of the deck of the ship, Guan Tianpei and Zhang Bao felt the battleship under their feet tremble violently in the sound of cannons, and they also clearly heard the sound of the wooden shell cracking in the loud noise.

"Check, check now."

Guan Tianpei is not worried that the Egret will be pierced by one shot, no matter how powerful the hexagonal cannon is, it will not be able to reach this level. But the internal structure of the battleship is complicated, and the devil knows where that hexagonal shell will fall.

The other Swift was hit twice in succession on the side chord, and it was not far from the waterline, and the nervous pipe band yelled at the brass in the command platform: "Check the damage, see if the ship's side is flooded?" ”

There was also the fact that the front turret of the Egret was hit. At that time, Guan Tianpei was all on the Swift, the latter had just sent a signal, and the speed of the ship had not slowed down, Guan Tianpei was relieved in his heart, and he heard a loud sound of "boom-", and then Guan Tianpei felt a shock under his feet, and everyone had to kneel on the ground. I saw a cloud of green smoke rising from the main turret directly in front of the bow, and through the green smoke, Guan Tianpei could see the hexagonal cannonball embedded in the iron shell on the outer wall of the main turret.

"Blocked!?" What's more, not long after the turret was hit, Guan Tianpei saw with his own eyes that the bow of the ship shook, and the cannon inside the turret roared again.

Luck so good? Not only did it block the hexagonal shell, but the latter's impact on the outer wall of the turret did not shatter the liner inside?

If the liner really shattered, Guan Tianpei didn't think that the cannon could still be heard in the turret.

The rear door of the turret was opened from the inside, and two gunners with blood on their shoulders walked out first, and then a gunner with his eyes closed was lifted out of it. This is the lethality caused by that hexagonal shell, one dead and two wounded.

Guan Tianpei and Zhang Bao glanced at each other, and they could see the smiles and endless surprises in each other's eyes. What a surprise.

"Attention Pipe Wheel! Full right rudder, accelerate to the southeast! ”

By 11 o'clock, three sailing ships were arranged in a triangle, enveloping the Drake Passage Fleet. This is a formation that has to be changed during the non-stop voyage of the warships of both sides.

The Europeans constantly divided warships into flank attacks, encirclements, rounds, and detours in order to force the Chinese warships out of the 'T' position. And Guan Tianpei had already encountered this situation in the previous time. But at that time, Guan Tianpei did not choose to 'divide the troops', and the battle had only been going on for less than an hour at that time, and 'forced division of troops' seemed too fake. But now, Guan Tianpei thinks it's okay.

After the Egret raised a wave of red, green and yellow flags, the Swift was the first to fly the black flag. At the same time, the Swift slowed down a bit. At this moment, the Swift, located in the south-east, began to turn to the right, and at the same time opened up the distance from the Europeans, overtook and rushed forward to make a round with the Egret.

But the speed of the Swift slowed down imperceptibly, and twenty minutes later, when the overtaking Swift was less than five miles away from the Egret, a Spanish warship was only two miles away from it due north.