Tao Donglai weighed it again and again, but he was still reluctant to use the service life of the steam engine as the price of blocking the Spanish fleet. The steam engines installed on these warships are worth thousands of dollars, and the production capacity is extremely limited, and it is very troublesome to repair and replace them, and the ship has to be towed into the dry dock for operation, which is time-consuming and laborious, and will affect the normal deployment of the navy, which is not small. Moreover, there were only a few warships equipped with steam propulsion devices in the fleet led by Tao Donglai, and it was indeed a little difficult to let them break away from the large force to intercept dozens of Spanish warships that were eager to get out.

Although they could not intercept all of them, there were still some seriously damaged ships in the Spanish fleet that would run slower and slower and eventually be caught up by the Haihan fleet.

After the Haihan Navy chased out about 30 nautical miles in one go, and forcibly left a few Spanish warships, Tao Donglai ordered Mingjin to withdraw his troops. Out of humanity, the two fleets slowly recovered the surviving Spanish sailors at sea, avoiding the end of their feeding of the fish in the sea.

In addition, in the final pursuit, four Spanish sailing ships were hopeless to get out because of the damage to the hull, and chose to stop the ship and surrender, and the Haihan Navy sent people to board the ship to take over, and after inspection, it was found that the hull of two of the ships was too badly damaged to sail back to Sanya, and after transferring the personnel and important items on board, it sank into the sea, including the American Fleet Pioneer "Martin" that escaped from the battlefield.

The more than 60 surviving Spanish crew members of the "Martin" stood on the deck of the Haihan warship and witnessed the whole process of their sailing ship sinking into the sea, and some of them silently took off their hats to pay silent tribute to the sailing ship that had carried them halfway around the world. For some of them, the sinking of the Martin meant the end of their crew's lives. They were relatively lucky, as the ship had left Manila with more than 200 sailors, and now the survivors are only a fraction of what they set off, most of whom have died in today's battles and will never return to their homeland.

Had it not been for Louis's decisive choice to turn around and retreat, the Spanish fleet's suicidal charge against Port Victory would likely have resulted in total annihilation. This is also considered to be the immortal Spain, giving them a chance to escape. The two fleets fled eastward for a day and a night, and after confirming that they had completely escaped the pursuit of Haihan, they stopped to count the battle damage.

The "Martin" incident was only a microcosm of the Spanish fleet's damage in this battle, a quarter of the more than 40 warships were permanently left off the coast of Sanya, and 10 supply ships also failed to leave the battlefield with the fleet.

During the charge, the American fleet, which was closer to the coastline, suffered even heavier losses, especially galleons with a displacement of more than 500 tons, which completely became the key targets of shore fire protection. Of the eight ships of more than 500 tons belonging to the American Fleet, only three managed to escape, and the five armed sailing ships, including the "Martin", were not spared from becoming the ghosts of Haihan.

Although the Manila fleet led by Louis was in slightly better condition, it was only a few fewer ships destroyed by the Haihan, and the battle damage was still not optimistic, and even the side of his flagship "San Diego" was riddled with bullets, and five or six eye-catching holes were punched by shells. Fortunately, the gunpowder on the ship was not hit and caused an explosion, and the impact point of these bullets was much higher than the waterline, so there was no risk of capsizing in the water.

Almost none of the ships in the entire Spanish fleet were withdrawn intact, and most of the ships had to be repaired immediately upon their return to Manila. However, the two commanders now had to consider not how much it would cost to repair the ships, but how to explain to the governor of Manila, Aragonés, the actual situation of the battle with Haihan. The dignified Spanish fleet went on an expedition to Haihan, but was beaten to the ground by the opponent at home, and almost couldn't escape.

The last time the Spanish fleet suffered such heavy losses in battle was in the European theater of contention among the great powers, and never before had it suffered such a great loss in the Far East. Not to mention the two commanders, even with the Governor of Manila, may not be able to shoulder this responsibility. For now, the only way to do this is to rush back to Manila with the remnants of the horses, and then work out with Aragonés how to report the news back home. But in any case, the responsibility of the two main parties is estimated to be unshirkable, and their career as a soldier is likely to come to an end after this defeat.

Haihan collected his troops and returned to the camp, so he naturally had to count his own losses. Compared with the scattered Spanish fleet, the losses of the Haihan Navy in the two days of fighting were extremely limited, although more than a dozen warships were more or less light or heavy, but only three warships were really damaged, and they were all still repairable, but they must be sent to the dry dock for overhaul immediately after returning to port.

As of now, more than 40 people have been killed or missing, including several senior naval officers, and this number is probably not the final result, because there are still many ships participating in the battle that have not yet completed the personnel count. Despite the obvious superiority of the navy in terms of equipment and tactics, it was inevitable that there would be a large number of casualties in such a naval melee, where artillery bombardment was the main means of attack - yes, yes, for the Haihan army, more than twenty casualties in one battle could be defined as "massive".

Although the number of dozens of people is not large, the training cost and cycle of Haihan soldiers are far from comparable to ordinary sailors in this era, and officers who can hold command positions on ships need to go through several years of service before they can accumulate enough experience to get promotion. Therefore, for the Haihan Navy, these casualties are not just a string of cold numbers, and the combat positions left by the war dead may not be filled by later generations. For the vacancies of these dozens of people, it may be necessary to recruit ten or even dozens of times as many sailors in order to select enough qualified people to replace them.

The search for the belligerent area and nearby coasts is likely to continue for another three to five days to ensure that all survivors, including Spanish sailors, can be found in time. This was, of course, mainly for security reasons, to avoid further trouble if Spaniards who had fallen overboard during the fighting had sneaked ashore. However, the follow-up search will not have to rely solely on the military, and some militias will be mobilized to carry out such time-consuming and laborious tasks on their behalf.

During this period, the state of siege on Hainan Island will continue until the military determines that the Spaniards will not conduct any further military operations against Haihan, and the state of war will cease. In the near future, foreign ships entering and leaving the major ports of Hainan Island will be more or less affected by this, and there will inevitably be many inconveniences. Of course, no one should put the accounts on the head of Haihan, and Spain, which is the last to leave a mess, will be the main object of complaints.

However, the local population, mainly Haihan nationals, had little to complain about the war, and thousands of people watched the battle for hours on the high ground along the Sanya coastline, either clearly or vaguely, and the victory celebration ceremony had already begun with the U-turn and evacuation of the Spanish fleet.

At first, the people who watched the battle on the Yulin Peninsula found that the Spanish fleet had turned around and retreated, and the news quickly spread to the city, so that the Haihan people who had no chance to go to the coastal heights to serve as spectators also learned the news of the enemy's panic flight at the first time. They may have been apprehensive by the rumbling of artillery outside the port, but when the news of the victory came, the people immediately shouted loudly to vent the pressure in their hearts.

"The navy only dispatched more than 10 ships in total, chasing 50 or 60 ships on the sea, and that scene was ...... Tsk tsk!"

"I heard that this group of pirates came all the way from Luzon, this is really a way in heaven if you don't go, and hell has no door to rush in......"

"This time the navy has made a great achievement, let me tell you, just now from the port of victory, I see that the faces of the army soldiers stationed on the shore are not very good-looking, this time there is no meat left for the army......

This battle, which did not last very long, soon became a hot topic in the streets and alleys of the city, and the people knew that the Haihan army had won another battle, and there were even good people in the teahouse who had made a bet on whether the prisoners of war would march in the streets tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. In recent years, not to mention wars, even military exercises have become less and less frequent, and occasionally there is such an exciting activity, which has fully mobilized the enthusiasm of the people.

Liu Shang's mood at this time was more complicated, as a temporary cadre of the Youth League, he also had to show jubilation like the people around him, but he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in this result in his heart. He didn't expect the Spanish fleet to really enter Sanya and destroy the Haihan people's lair, how powerful Haihan's defensive means were, he already knew before the war, and he also understood that the Spaniards could not break through the many defensive lines set up by Haihan in Sanya in one fell swoop, but he had heard inside information that the Spanish fleet was menacing, and he felt that he should at least be able to create some trouble for Haihan.

It's just that the Spaniard was too uncompetitive, and he hurriedly appeared off the coast of Sanya, and launched a charge before he could gain a firm foothold. That's not all, if the assault is successful, at least one word of courage can be said to be commendable, but before they even rushed into the harbor, they were already bombarded by heavy artillery on the coast. This kind of combat effectiveness is not to mention causing trouble for Haihan, from Liu Shang's point of view, it is simply brushing up the achievements of the Haihan Navy for free. In the end, he was driven away by the Haihan army and fled, without any dirt in Sanya, and such a sneak attack can be said to be a complete failure.

However, although Liu Shang despised the performance of the Spaniards in this battle, he actually understood in his heart that this enemy army was not a weak army, and the main reason for their poor performance was because the opponent they chose was the powerful and perverted Haihan.

When Liu Shang was studying various materials in the Sanya Library, he once read a document about a meeting of the colonial authorities in Manila to discuss how to conquer the Ming Dynasty. The meeting was held in April 1586, nearly fifty years ago. At that time, the Manila authorities, on the premise that the participants were fully in favor of the conquest of the Ming Dynasty by force, drew up a specific plan of action including 11 paragraphs and 97 articles, and led by the Philippine governor and bishop, gathered dozens of local magnates to sign and submitted it to the king of Spain.

The plan of action envisaged the dispatch of 12,000 Spanish troops, the recruitment of 6,000 Japanese mercenaries, and the use of servant troops in countries and regions such as Portugal, the Americas, and the Philippines. This detailed battle plan has even been counted for military spending and supplies, and the Manila authorities will enter the implementation stage with the approval of the Spanish king.

Liu Shang also broke out in a cold sweat after reading this document that he had never seen in Daming, knowing that it was unlikely that Haihan would falsify on this kind of document that outsiders could not see, and it was probably true. The reason why the Spaniards did not carry out this terrible plan in the end was because of the great defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 when they invaded England - yes, the same English who had been crushed by the Haihan army at Star Island in the South China Sea a few months earlier. This defeat left Spain held back by the European powers and had no time to advance eastward, and the Ming Dynasty was lucky enough to escape a catastrophe.

Of course, there had been no large-scale military conflict between the Ming Dynasty and Spain before this, so it seems that it is difficult to determine which is stronger and which is weaker, but at the end of this information, there is a comment from Yan Chujie, Minister of Defense of Haihan, that Qi Jiguang had just died, and Qi's army was transferred to the northern border town to deal with the Mongols, and the southern garrison of the Ming Dynasty was in a rather fragile period, and it was very likely that it would lose some coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian under the invasion of Spain. With only tens of thousands of troops, it was possible to invade the Ming Dynasty, which is known as a standing army of two million, across the sea, which is enough to see how big the gap in military strength between the two sides is.

However, the Spanish army, which was highly praised by the Minister of Defense of Haihan, was completely out of temper by the Haihan army that fought more with less in the battle of Sanya, how big is the difference in strength?

(End of chapter)