"Do you have to wait?" The person who was standing on the side and was in charge of contacting Liu Xiang opened his mouth, and it was a woman's voice.

Aragonés glanced disapprovingly at the woman beside him, wrapped in a black cloak like a monk, with long curls peeking out from the hood.

"Lee, I think I'm the captain of this boat. You're just a contact sent by Chief Liu. ”

"That's right. But in another 1 hour, the tide will change, and you will not be able to enter the port at high tide. It is not possible to take advantage of the low tide to leave the port. ”

Aragonés knew that the woman was right, for a clumsy vessel as the Spanish galleon, it was not easy to turn around and turn, although it could be towed by a rowboat, and it was still the best choice to get in and out of the bay by the tide.

He just didn't like it when a woman made irresponsible remarks about his command. Even though the woman is beautiful and speaks Spanish fluently.

"Let's get started." Aragonés ordered that after settling this place, he would continue to go north to find that Zheng Yiguan's bad luck.

Fifty sailors, who had been waiting on deck, climbed over the side of the ship and climbed onto the two rowboats. Most of these sailors were natives of Southeast Asia in the Malay Peninsula, and many of them used to be native pirates who rode canoes and waited for opportunities to rob merchant ships. The only Spaniards were gunners, and each rowboat had a 2-pounder light gun - Leader Liu seemed to be very afraid of the enemy's firearms, and insisted that the Spaniards have enough muskets and cannons.

On the boat behind them, Liu Xiang's subordinates also changed to sampans, and these dinghys were said to be the most Haode soldiers of the Liu gang leader. Aragonés was not interested in this, anyway, he was only cooperating with the Liu gang leader to seize a few of these people's clippers and capture some prisoners - the Liu gang leader was afraid of the enemy's firearms.

"Monkeys, let's serve the Catholic King." Aragonés made no secret of his contempt for these dark-skinned, sinister-eyed natives, and how could such inferior infidels be allowed on board if it were not for the fact that it was too difficult for Southeast Asia to replenish the Europeans, whose crooked yellow eyes always shone with cruelty and cowardice, and Aragonés knew that he was like a circus animal trainer, and that he had to keep his whip and candy in his hand at all times, otherwise he would be eaten alive.

In order to enter an estuary port like Bopu, the Spanish galleon had to ride the tide and be towed by rowing boats, which were in danger of sailors who were easily injured by artillery fire and smoothbore guns on the shore. If Aragonés was facing a fortified port in Europe or America, he would not dare to do so. However, the native sailors were cannon fodder, and he didn't care if they died, and this was China, and Aragonés was convinced that the Chinese did not understand naval warfare at all, let alone fortify ports. His predecessors had robbed ships in the Pearl River many years ago, crisscrossing the land as if no one was there.

The ship's gunners were now in place, the gunboats were open, and the black holes were pointed at several possible targets on the shore. He was fully confident in his superiority in artillery fire. Can those Chinese artillery also be considered cannons? It's a botched imitation of a century-old cannon.

According to Jihua, the Countess Scarborough will support Liu Xiang's landing operation with artillery fire in the bay, and Liu Xiang will use sampans to transport 500 people ashore, with the aim of seizing the 4 iron clippers moored on the shore, the combat effectiveness of these ships Liu Xiang has already known from the mouths of the people who defected to the Zhucai Lao, and it is obvious that this ship is extremely attractive to any pirate.

The naval battle between Zhu Cai Lao and the Traveler brought several basic impressions to Liu Xiang:

The Iron Clipper was very strong and could not be penetrated by ordinary artillery;

Agile and fast.

The people who drove these ships did not have cannons. The old man said that the ship was loaded with something similar to a large crossbow machine, and it was impossible to hit it at all, but they had a very powerful bird gun, and they could fight far and accurately.

With these impressions, the pirates will rely mainly on the artillery fire of the Countess Scarborough to suppress the enemy, and no matter how powerful the bird guns are, they are no match for the cannons. Supported by artillery fire, one group of pirates will make their way through the mangroves of Bopu and wreak havoc on the enemy camp to attract the attention of these Orientals, while another group of pirates will rush into the harbor and take at least one of the Iron Clippers anchored in the harbor. Liu Xiang gave instructions to his boss to make sure to catch a few "Australians".

To this end, the Spaniards sold them eight rowing boats and special towing equipment. When the pirates succeeded, they would drag the iron ships out of the harbor in rowboats, with the intended goal of taking at least one of them.

Aragonés had no objection to this jihua, but he could not quite understand the Chinese pirate leader's obsession with these iron ships. In his opinion, this kind of iron ship was too strange, and the boat that could move itself without sailing oars was either a miracle of God or a creation of the devil - the latter seemed to him more likely.

The rowing boat began to slowly drag the Countess of Caprolo towards the harbor, the bathymetric dinghy leading the way. Everything was calm.

"What I tell you," said Aragonés to Lisia, beside him, "my ship must leave at low tide, whether you take it or not. ”

"An hour is enough." Li Siya smiled faintly. Jihua is not a person who formulates it herself, but she is also involved in it. She was the only one of the pirates who had direct contact with the Australians. Last year's beautiful attack on Australians took a big blow to her self-esteem, during which even the officials became suspicious of her. In a fit of rage, she claimed that her ship was going to be repaired and returned to Macau. When she was in Macau, she sent people around to inquire about the people of Australia, who left behind houses, goods and slaves, but disappeared as if they had disappeared from the world.

It wasn't until not long ago that news came that a group of people, with short hair, and a huge iron ship, had appeared on the coast of Qiongzhou. The feature of the hair shorts made her immediately think of Wen Desi, wasn't this Australian maritime merchant a hair shorts back then?

In order to find out, she sailed out again, Zheng Zhilong was busy with Zhao'an in Fujian, so she joined Liu Xiang in Guangdong as a guest - Li Siya is a single household on the coast, although sometimes she also takes refuge in a certain big gang and pays protection fees. But she never participated in battles between gangs, only interested in robbery and adventure, and with her superior clippers and cannons, she always lived freely.

"Wen Desi, are you also on the shore?" She whispered, a chilling smile.

"Captain Lee?"

“？”

"Gang leader Liu Weishenme wants to send 400 people ashore during the day?" Aragonés had always been incomprehensible about the Chinese pirates sending 400 men ashore during the day. In his opinion, such an action is pure death.

"Let the Australians win." Li Siya said, "Although they claim to be from Australia, they do not deny that they are of Chinese descent." The Chinese have to drink and have fun when they win a war. ”

"We Spaniards are the same."

"When you drink and have fun, you don't feel so vigilant."

"To make them lose their vigilance, send 400 people to their deaths? Oh, God! ”

"Isn't it worth spending 400 piastes to get such a result?" Li Siya glanced at Aragonés, compared with the Chinese, the Spaniard who can make human meat barbecue is like a virgin in a convent. Even the lovely Italians know that those who do great things should not be bound by any moral code, only to consider whether the effect is beneficial, not whether the means are harmful. What's more, these cannon fodder actually thought that they were serving Zhucai Lao, and Zhu Cailao, a stupid person, was afraid that he would have a headache in the future, and she felt wonderful when she thought of this.

Aragonés was amazed at how much the pirate leader could not hesitate to treat his own people as consumables. And the woman in front of her actually only counted how much money was spent on recruiting them. In his heart he despised immensely. However, the life and death of the pagans had nothing to do with him, and the matter of saving souls was the concern of the clergy, and he Aragonés was the one who was the least willing to deal with them.

He suddenly remembered that the woman in front of him was half Portuguese blood: "Captain Lee, are you still the Lamb of Christ?" ”

"I go to church as often as you do." Li Siya replied with a teasing smile.

"There's a sampan!" The person in charge of observation pushed Xue Ziliang.

"Keep watching!" From the moment the ship began to turn in the direction of Bopu just now, Xue Ziliang knew that things were not good, and this sea attack might start soon.

"A lot of sampans!" The observer exclaimed, "Dense, innumerable—"

Xue Ziliang snatched the binoculars, and the scene in the lens was really spectacular, no less than 30 sampans were moving towards Bopu on the sea, and the big ship was following behind.

250 m ......

200 m ......

In the camera, you can already see the pirates shirtless and with knives in their mouths, and Xue Ziliang even feels that he can even see their cruel smiles.

"Report to Bopu, quick!"

"Report-Report-Captain," the team member who was calling suddenly panicked, "the phone doesn't work!" ”

The moon sank, and the water and sky became pitch black again, and Xue Ziliang hadn't heard the sound of the alarm in Bopu - I don't know if the guard on duty on the beacon had seen this situation, and seeing that the sampan was getting closer and closer to the port, he pulled over an SKS and fired a shot at the nearest sampan.

"Bang!" In the silence of the night, the sound of gunfire was particularly crisp, and a tracer bullet pierced the night sky, as fast as a meteor, and in this moment of lightning, there seemed to be a figure on the dinghy that shook and fell.

Li Di, who had long been a little drowsy, heard the gunshot and snorted - he almost fell asleep! He quickly grabbed his binoculars and looked in the direction of the gunshot, adjusted for a while, and suddenly the sampans and ships on the sea became clearly recognizable. He was so frightened that he almost didn't sit on the ground, and ran to the duty room on the beacon tower, where there was a hand-cranked alarm, which shook violently.