The two fleets that were originally traveling opposite each other on the sea suddenly changed course: the Fu fleet from north to south began to turn to the right collectively.

On the right is the continent.

"Ran away, really ran away!" The port number is 301, and on the flagship of the task force temporarily named "Taijiang" within the navy, a group of melon-eating people with binoculars sighed at the same time.

And Liu Zhe, the real host of the fleet, didn't have time to take care of this gang of goods now, and he quickly issued a new order according to the opponent's actions: "Fill the engine room with coal, two-thirds speed." ”

"Yes! Three-quarter speed! Liu Zhe beside a short young man who was less than 1.6 meters tall, shaved and named Mao Wu, at this time, his feet together, after repeating the order loudly, he turned around and walked to the microphone with a standard pace, picked up the microphone and began to talk to the engine room.

Three-quarters of a speed is 18 knots: full speed is 24 knots.

This destroyer, a new product from the Crossing Forces, can run at speeds of up to 13 knots when the wind and water are smooth. And once the engine room at the stern starts working and the propellers spin, the speed of the fleet will soon soar from 13 knots to about 18 knots.

In fact, the full speed of the empty ship is 24 knots. However, it turned out that once the wooden ships exceeded 18 knots, the fleet was out of the safety line of "three-quarters speed", which was a bit more than worth the loss.

......

Historically, the famous clipper ship "Short Shirt", which is 64.6 meters long, 11 meters wide and has a displacement of 2,100 tons, has a speed of only 17.5 knots.

The "Taijiang", an all-wooden small sailing ship, was born with osteoporosis and could not be compared with the 19th-century iron-ribbed wood-hulled clippers. They cannot withstand long periods of high speed: at 18 knots, the waves become as hard as brick walls, without steel ribs for the skeleton, and over time, the ship will crack and leak.

In addition, high speed is also a nuisance. Just like flying up to 100 yards with a Poussin, once the speed is high to a certain level, the handling and stability of a sailboat like the Taijiang will be greatly reduced.

To a certain extent, the benefits of the propeller to the destroyer are more reflected in the lower limit of the ship: increasing the speed of the ship in headwinds, increasing the maneuverability of the ship in complex sea conditions, assisting the ship to enter the port, and so on.

As for raising the speed ceiling of the boat...... 18 knots is already a cordon, no matter how high it is, it doesn't matter. In addition, in the state of everyone tailwind at the same time, the speed of the Fu fleet at the moment is only six knots, and it is impossible to escape the pursuit of the fleet.

So, like Poussin chasing the pedal, the task force soon caught up with the Fu fleet.

It took less than 20 minutes for the two sides to go from spotting each other head-on, to turning almost simultaneously towards the mainland, to the slow Fu fleet being caught up by the fleet. And the Fu fleet, which turned to run, was chased without even crossing Cormorant Island.

A slender ribbon caught up with a fat carp from behind...... The analogy is inappropriate, but it is true: only a fleet with the ability to shoot broadside will pull out the battle line. In the 17th century, this group of pirate teams who played cold weapons and jumped to fight did not have the concept of battle lines, and the five sand ships at this moment put on a zigzag traditional formation.

As for the artillery fire on the Fu ship, in fact, it has no effect now.

In the Zheng fleet, the bow of each ship was equipped with naval guns sold by the Portuguese to the Zheng family. The five cannons were fastened to the bow of the ship in a variety of different copycat straps - the techniques of the turret slides were neither capable nor necessary for the pirates.

......

Stand a V-shaped bottom Fufune model on the table, then blow from the side and the model will topple over.

The Fukufu, which was designed to flexibly transport goods and eat the wind, was not originally designed to fight sideside guns. Mo said that these lucky ships do not even have ribs, even if they are equipped with enough ribs, then at the same time as the side guns are fired, the "V" shaped ship will capsize on the spot; At best, it will also transform into a park-like "pirate ship" and throw the sailors into the sea with a large roll.

In history, 20 years later, in the battle of the national surname to recover the Dayuan Merchant Mansion, the ships that could shoot the broadside guns were still the "U" bottom European-style ships purchased by the Zheng family.

The Zheng family's self-built ships, even the so-called "big green heads" with a strengthened hull structure, were essentially pointed-bottom hand-to-hand combat ships: only one gun could be installed in the bow, and then the longitudinal keel was used to dissipate the recoil of the gun. When firing, the artillery cannot swing its head from side to side, let alone shoot at the side of the ship, and can only fire the bow at the enemy.

This is the case now.

The line that caught up from behind at high speed was already about to be parallel to the Fuchuan array, and the Fuku fleet had no choice...... It is impossible for them to collectively turn around and go out just to blast an iron egg, not to mention that they can't: the parallel distance between the two sides is now 1,000 meters, and the side with the speed advantage is freely adjusting the distance between the two sides.

After 5 minutes, the line of battle had been adjusted to 500 meters parallel between the two sides, and then the fleet began to lower the sails and reduce the amount of gas delivered - the speed was too high for the launch, so everyone should move at the same speed.

...... Seeing that the other party actually lowered the sails in the naval battle, Zheng Zhilong no longer had any luck at this moment: he was now very aware of the speed difference between the tiger and the sheep, and he had worked in both Dutch and Portuguese companies, so he knew very well what the other party was going to do next.

So he could only give a painful command that was akin to giving up hope: turn to the charge.

At the same moment, the iron bullets fired by the 12 Napoleonic guns of the navy on the three destroyers also flew towards the Fu fleet in unison amid white smoke and roar.

The shelling, of course, was ineffective.

Even though the distance was only 500 meters, the iron balls sent by the gunners who had experienced actual combat for the first time on the bumpy deck were all empty without exception, and some of the iron balls even deviated from the target by a distance of 100 meters, splashing useless columns of water.

"That's a bit too bad, isn't it? Isn't it said that it is more accurate to take three guns? The melon-eating crowd began to express shock again. The people who said this did not know how to do it, but the army and marines who knew how to do it were also full of surprise, as if they had suddenly discovered that the navy was a moth of the people, and it was a shame to cross it.

Liu Zhe is no longer able to argue with these rotten people, he is holding a walkie-talkie at the moment and giving orders to the entire fleet: "Left rudder three, the speed remains the same, and the shooting is stable." ”

With Liu Zhe's order, the Zheng pirates, who had just turned the bow of the ship and made a difficult charging action, were surprised to see a beautiful tactical action: the three battleships with white sails were like springs, and the entire battle line moved outward for a distance of 200 meters.

This uniform tactical maneuver was a huge psychological blow to the pirates, because at the very same moment, they fired the cannonballs from the bow of the ship.

The five bow guns of Zheng's fleet were of different calibers: from 12-pounder to 16-pounder guns. As for the quasi-head...... This kind of dosing is estimated by the brain, the ranging is measured by the naked eye, and the aiming requires adjusting the whole ship to the shooting method perpendicular to the opponent, and at a distance of 700 meters, it is purely dependent on blindness, and it has no effect.

The second round of shells of the task force and the first round of shells of the Fukubune fleet were fired at the same time, and the iron balls fired from the muzzles of both sides staggered through the air, and no one achieved any results except for a splash.

And the third round of shells of the fleet quickly smashed over.

In the Civil War, a skilled Napoleonic artillery crew was four rounds a minute. And on the sailing ships of the 17th century, the basic requirement of the navy for the gun crew was 1 round per minute. This data is subject to change depending on the sea conditions: in high sea conditions, every 3-minute shot is allowed.

Today's sea conditions are normal, the wind is a little strong, and everything else is not bad, so the 12 artillery groups of the fleet fired a salvo at the normal training rate of 1 round per minute.

However, this speed is a bit fantasy in the eyes of the pirates on the other side.

You know, when they fired the first shot, the huge recoil caused the various rope skids that bound the artillery to fly away, and in the process of the hard men rushing up to reset the artillery, five more salves came from the opposite side...... There is no way, if you fall behind, you will be beaten, who let the pirates not have three-axis CNC machines and bearings, and they can't process a custom slide system that allows the artillery to be quickly reset......

......

In fact, when the Napoleonic cannon was fired to the fourth round, it was already open.

A 12-pound ball of iron swept across the surface of a lucky ship, knocking out a bloody alley for the pirates on the deck, who were still dreaming of hand-to-hand combat.

With the opening of the first cannonball, the next iron balls continued to hit Fufune, either smashing a hole in the board or killing the crowd on the deck, and the scene began to be tragic.

Slowly, the five fortune boats that charged in a zigzag pattern, the first three of which had slowed down due to the continuous blows. There is now a strange picture of the game on the sea: five neat Chinese boats are heading south in unison, while three Western-style boats have drawn an arc and quickly bypassed the front of the Fuku.

"Big brother, the momentum is not good, let's go separately." Seeing the opposite ship ignoring the direction of the wind and turning at high speed at will, even the sluggish pirate understood the essence of the problem: the sheep were being teased by the tiger.

This eerie combat mode confuses pirates who are used to jumping gangs. You know, even the arrogant Dutch not long ago lost their armor and fled in embarrassment under the pirates' ant colony tactics.

Today, however, the ant colony has in fact become sheep. In the face of the opponent's inexplicable speed and dense shells, the corsair suddenly found that it could not do anything, and even the speed of the inner U-turn could not compare to the speed of the opponent's circle around the outer circle, and it was purely a fighting posture of lying down and being hammered......

After hearing his brother's words, Zheng Zhilong, who was standing on the boat tower and kept watching, smiled bitterly at this time: "I don't want these people to be so good at boating in addition to their sharp guns, and they are not unjustly defeated today." Alas, give the order, go separately. ”