"The Unicorn is on the lineup!"

"The Unicorn enters formation, reverts, clears. The Admiral ordered the current marching queue to be maintained, and ordered the Golden Deer to go six kilometers forward, with a two-hour alert period! ”

On March 24, 1780, seven high-spirited warships sailed at a speed of five knots on the verdant coastline of the Miskito kingdom with bright rice flags.

They were Nelson's Fleet of Marines.

The fleet on the move is in a loose and non-standard V-shape, with the HMS Hinchinbrook and HMS Prairie Lion cruisers falling side by side.

They were also the Admiral and Vice-Admiral of the fleet, with Nelson's Hinchinbrook on the left and the Prairie Lion of Cornwallis on the right.

On the port side of Hinchinbrook is the Golden Deer, which is two hulls out, and on the left is Pierce's Eros, and on the far left is the Cyclops, the speed benchmark for the entire fleet.

On the starboard side of the Prairie Lion is the Unicorn, Captain Collingwood, who has only completed a round of guard. The first three hulls on the right side of the Unicorn are the Black Goat, which acts as the closest inner defense to the coastline.

There was a tense atmosphere throughout the fleet.

Operation Lanhai began two weeks ago, and Lorraine sent Leif and Daniel, who had just joined the team, to draw two 15-metre medium-sized Slupp sloops from Olves, the Cactus and the Dahlia, together with the returning green dewdrops, to form the advance supply fleet.

They hired twenty young men on the island of Providencia and offered a one-year, non-discriminatory contract with the Chamber of Commerce, which moved the old chief of the indigenous village to almost cry.

Lorraine and Nelson looked at the young men, all of whom were sturdy young men between sixteen and twenty-four, with at least two years of fishing experience.

Although Leif and Daniel withheld most of the details from them, they were still optimistic and morale-high, and when asked what they thought of the action, each one was on the verge of going to the soup and was clearly satisfied with their contract.

That gave Nelson three points of confidence to the overall action.

So on March 20, the supply fleet, disguised as indigenous fishing boats, entered the San Juan estuary ahead of schedule. After waiting for them for four days, the Lanhai Fleet, which had not received any bad news, officially set sail and galloped to the landing area in battle formation.

This short route of more than 100 kilometers and no more than 12 hours of travel will be the key to the victory or defeat of the entire operation.

Standing in the bow of the Golden Deer in the sea breeze, Lorraine accurately heard the order of the messenger.

Guarding ahead is a regular action of the formation march, especially in the mixed areas controlled by the enemy or the enemy, or the complex sea surface of the islands and reefs.

The San Juan estuary was both, so Nelson was extra vigilant when it came time to arrange a vigilance.

The whole fleet runs in two-hour rounds, with the Cyclops, which is the most suitable for scouting, in charge of the first and last two shifts, the Eros, the Unicorn, the Golden Deer, and the Black Goat in the middle of the four shifts, and the slow-moving steppe lion and Hinchinbrook do not participate in the front flight, and the whole process is not chaotic.

The Golden Deer was the fourth shift, which meant that the fleet had been away from Lucifelds for six hours, approaching or even entering the Spaniard-controlled zone.

"The whole ship has entered the second level of alert, the personnel are on duty, and the sailors on duty are named."

Lorraine ordered slowly.

"Replying to the Admiral, the order was received, and the Golden Deer broke away from the formation. Inform the Eros that the Golden Deer is out of formation, and ask Vice President Artis to gather the formation. ”

"Golden Deer, full sail, Zhang Yifan, go five kilometers ahead, go!"

The order was given, and the whole ship agitated.

In the midst of a command, the half-closed sail was raised and rolled round against the wind.

The sail master on the boom untied the wings, and the attached sails, which greatly exceeded the width of the broadside, opened, lowered the sail cables, and tightened and straightened, as if giving wings to the Golden Deer, and the speed of the whole ship suddenly increased, and the waves broke through like arrows, and swooped straight into the wide sea in the distance.

Nelson and Major Spencer watched side by side as the Golden Deer moved away.

The major was dazzled and sighed softly: "I don't know if it's an illusion, I always feel that the Golden Deer is much faster than the previous Eros and Unicorns. ”

"That's not a delusion." Nelson scolded enviously, "Drake is an addict who is crazy about high speed and adventure life, and the Golden Deer was originally just an ordinary destroyer, but Drake gave her wings. ”

"Wings?" Major Spencer pointed to the flamboyant wingsails on both sides, "Are those unusual sails?" ”

"They are called wingsails, and they can greatly increase the speed of the ship at a specific wind cutting angle, but at the same time reduce the flexibility and stability of the hull."

"This is a crazy design that chases the wind or even the wind, and under normal circumstances, warships above the fifth level rarely adopt it." Nelson smiled helplessly, "In fact, the fluid of more than 40 ships pursues stability, and even the winged sail cannot greatly increase the sailing speed, at most, it can only make the winged sailing ship surpass the same type of ship in acceleration ability as just now." ”

The major looked blank: "Since there are fewer pros and more disadvantages......

"That's why that guy is an addict. The speed advantage of about 1 knot, the acceleration advantage of more than three times, these alone are enough to drive him crazy. ”

……

The Golden Deer is galloping through the wind.

After the initial acceleration phase, the Golden Deer's speed soon stabilized, maintaining a moderate speed of 8 and a half knots in a not too good wind environment, compared to the formation speed of 3.5 knots.

Nelson's order was to go forward 5 kilometers, so the Golden Deer was to maintain this speed for about 45 minutes, and then descend back to the same 5 knots as the formation, forming a relative stationary and bursting like an arrow at the front of the entire formation.

Because of her personality, Lorraine likes this kind of openness and heartiness without ships.

The landscape of the Southern Caribbean is very different from the northern seas that Lorraine is most familiar with.

On the right-hand side is a painting-like dark green of the Central American coastline.

Deep green is the color of the rainforest, an ancient rainforest that stretches from the east coast to Lake Nicaragua and is teeming with precious animals and plants that are worth more than gold, as well as deadly insects and beasts.

It was it that blocked the passage of the British from the Mosquito Coast to Managua.

The only way to reach the best of Nicaragua is to take a detour of South America through the San Juan River, which is controlled by the Spaniards.

On the left-hand side of Lorraine, the vast continental shelf is full of islands and reefs, many of which are sudden shallows and coral formations that are sporadically reflected on the sea, and occasionally islands, large and small, in rows and rows, all of which are strange peaks and strange rocks.

Turning Cape Moone, not far away is the Mais Islands, which hang overseas.

This archipelago is composed of two large and small islands of Mais and a contiguous reef, covering hundreds of acres of land and sea, which is only suitable for detouring and not crossing.

In the Royal Navy's charts, the archipelago is marked as an uninhabited island, and the original indigenous people were plundered by the Spanish more than 100 years ago, and no new people have moved in since then, and it has been deserted until now.

Legend has it that a Spanish treasure fleet sank in a nearby sea due to a storm, leaving hundreds of thousands of pounds of wealth buried at the bottom of the sea.

But hundreds of acres of sea area can be explored by non-human manpower, how deep was the fleet full of treasures blown by the wind, where did it hit the reef, and in which direction did it struggle to move forward?

No one knows.

Every drop of water in the Caribbean melts the story of shipwrecks and treasures, and it occurred to Lorraine that if there was a Nautilus, he might be enough to become the richest man in the world just by salvaging the wreck.

Just thinking about it, the wind direction changed abruptly.

The high mountains of the island of Damais block the wind band, and the wind goes around the side of the island with a declination of about 30 degrees.

The disadvantages of the wing sail are obvious, once the proper angle is lost, the cumbersome sail will not become a helper, but will affect the stability of the hull.

Lorraine frowned dissatisfiedly and ordered the left rudder 10 degrees to chase the wind around the island.

The wide open sea of Damaiz gradually unfolded before Lorraine's eyes, and on that sea...... There are boats!

"Encounter!"

Just as Lorraine spotted the ships facing the other side, shouts erupted from the lookout.

"At eleven o'clock ahead, I found the shadow of the ship, a fourth-class Galen cruiser, a fifth-class Galen destroyer, and a sixth-class high-speed Brig-shaped, detouring from the back of the island in a diagonal cruising formation!"

"Target flag confirmed, for the Royal Spanish Navy!"

"The other party has found us! Brig is charging at us, 3 kilometers away and at a relative speed of 15 knots! ”

"Contact in 7 minutes!"

"Enemy Attack !!"