At 16 o'clock in the afternoon, the purpose of all the actions of the Aussie and Song fleets was already clear.

The reason why it has been kept in a straight line, the reason why there is no attempt to seize the T position, the reason why the fleet is divided into two sections ... All this was to lure the Portuguese to turn forward, and before they could complete the transformation, use the fast fleet to cut off the Portuguese fleet from it, and change the "T" to "ten".

Captain Velasker stared fixedly at the rapidly approaching ship, and said nothing. What a huge warship it was, he couldn't feel it from a dozen kilometers away, but at this almost face-to-face distance, he could clearly feel the coercion of such a behemoth.

That could be two thousand tons, he thought.

He had never seen such a tactic before, so much so that when he understood, he could even clearly see the iron hull painted with wood on the surface of the Aussie Song battleship with the flagship's flag.

He moved his lips, closed his mouth again, and did not speak. But in the end he gave the order.

"Let the lads prepare, start the salvo at 300 yards, no more chain bullets, change to solid bullets."

This simple sentence used up almost all his strength, so he took a few tired steps back, let the first mate take over the rudder, and sat himself in the captain's chair, his hands on his face and did not speak.

"It's too fast, it's too fast...," muttered Major General Francisco on the right. He looked at the approaching Ao-Song warship with an expressionless face, and kept repeating.

The captain took his hand away and looked at the sluggish and overwhelmed rear admiral. For a moment, he felt like he was sitting in a circus in Madrid, watching the red-nosed clown twist left and right in the center of the arena, and the audience erupted in unbridled laughter.

"If this guy goes to the circus, he'll be able to squeeze that clown out." The captain suddenly thought a little wantonly.

He's kind of letting go now. All the decisions he had made before were in line with the status of a competent captain. In the European theater, even if it cannot be considered a stroke of genius, there will be no mistakes.

It's just that this is the Indian Ocean, and I'm not facing the British or the Dutch.

Such tactics would never have appeared on the seas of Europe, because no ship could cut off the fleet of the T-line, and the salvo of seven or eight capital ships would smash the interspersed fleet into a sieve like a storm destroying rotten wooden houses.

Besides..."Why are they so fast?" ”

Aosong is indeed too fast. If someone could look in the sky, he would see the Portuguese fleet like a north-south direction")", turning 90 ° in the middle while the wings were still in the process of turning around, in an awkward position.

And the Austro-Song fast fleet relied on its sudden acceleration, like an arrow, about to cut the Portuguese fleet in half.

"Fire!"

Liu Siqi roared and waved his flag, and the eight 155 mm smoothbore guns that had been concentrated in the bow of the Xihai through the orbit simultaneously spewed billowing smoke, and eight iron balls weighing more than 25 pounds flew over a distance of 400 meters at a speed barely visible to the naked eye, slamming into the stern of the battleship Tulip, stirring up large pieces of broken wood.

The cables tied to the hull and the ship's side were strained by the recoil with a soft "boom" and then slackened again, and the slightly sloping deck allowed the cannon to slide forward a short distance.

The members of the artillery crew quickly stepped forward, and one of them grabbed a mop soaked in strong vinegar and stuffed it into the muzzle of the gun and twisted it back and forth, on the one hand, to extinguish the gunpowder inside, and on the other hand, to roughly clean the gun chamber.

While he dragged the mop, another man covered the cannon with a wet cotton cloth, and the cannon heated by the gunpowder deflagration evaporated the cotton cloth with a faint vapor.

After the mop was pulled out, the long-waiting partner immediately stuffed a medicine bag wrapped in silk into the muzzle of the gun, and then put a wooden plank, and then one of them carefully held up a red-hot iron ball with a special tool, and pushed the back of the gun chamber with a ramrod.

Subsequently, after each artillery group completed its preparations, artillery second lieutenant Liu Siqi shouted again: "Open the artillery!" ”

The artillerymen drew their iron drills, which had been burned red by the fire, and pierced them through the small opening at the end of the barrel.

The fiery iron brazing pierced the silk medicine bag, and ignited the granular gunpowder with the heat of the gunpowder.

"Bang!"

Less than a minute later, another round of shelling was carried out, and the stern of the Tulip was again filled with an extra row of bullet holes.

At this time, the bow of the Xihai was less than 250 meters away from the Portuguese battle line, and with the order of the gunners of the Portuguese ships, more than 300 cannons of various calibers were fired in turn, and the heavy smoke completely covered the four Portuguese warships close to the Xihai.

In the captain's room of the Xihai, Wang Haomin clutched the railing with both hands, looked at the white smoke that suddenly appeared next to the Portuguese warship, and subconsciously closed his eyes.

The hull of the ship shook slightly, and a series of thumping sounds were heard. In a trance, Wang Haomin felt that he was in a steel processing plant, and a water-driven giant hammer was forging a steel plate.

Soon, he came back to his senses, a little annoyed that he had closed his eyes.

There were cheers around him, and the Xihai was very little damaged in this salvo, at least everyone in the captain's room did not see the Xihai damaged, only saw the cannonballs that were bounced off by the steel armor and splashed the sea next to the ship.

Colonel Hu Yi was not distracted to care whether his ship was damaged. He gripped the rudder tightly and watched intently at the gap between the two Portuguese battleships, carefully fine-tuning the direction of the warships.

He had less than 300 metres of space to intersperse, and the Portuguese were rapidly shrinking as they noticed their tactics. He must ensure that he can cut off the opposing fleet first.

If the opponent blocks the gap in time, or if they make a mistake and do not cross the battle line, their four ships will have to engage the Portuguese in a very passive position, and too close will make the steel armor covering the outer layer of the battleship meaningless.

At this time, in the cabin of the Xihai, Sun Pang and several comrades-in-arms lifted the broken wooden planks and rescued a suppressed comrade-in-arms below.

Their position was hit by a heavy shell, and the steel armor and fir were pierced by the shell. Heavy shells flew into the ship's hold, shattering one of the hapless crew members to pieces and shattering one's left arm, causing him to faint in pain.

Several others were killed and wounded by the splintering pieces of wood and steel, and almost a gun crew was reimbursed.

According to later statistics, the first round of shooting by the Portuguese penetrated 16 places, killing and wounding more than 40 people.

"Sun Pang!" The leader of the other artillery group shouted, "Come here and help, we're about to fire a salvo!" ”

Sun Pang agreed and said to his comrades-in-arms; "You move the wounded to the infirmary." Then he quickly ran to the undamaged gun crew, grabbed the mop and prepared to clean the gun chamber.

Half a minute after being shelled, the gun crews on the deck fired a salvo of chain shells. The shattered shell after the disembowelment separates the two iron balls, which are restrained by chains and cannot fly completely freely.

The chain bullet spun and flew over the Earl, the main mast was unfortunately tied by the chain bullet, the two iron balls rotated in opposite directions under the action of inertia, and the huge pull force broke the mast from it, and the white sail fell overwhelmingly, and the Portuguese sailors at the lookout post screamed and fell with it, and fell heavily on the water.

Almost at the same time, the string guns that had obtained enough angles of fire completed the first round of counterattacks, 28 42-pounder guns, 28 24-pounder guns, and 28 12-pounder guns at the same time spewing billowing smoke, 84 cannons venting gunpowder anger on the Tulip and Earl on both sides, and the iron balls in the sky smashed into the wooden battleship, breaking dozens of large holes.

At a distance of about a hundred meters, no matter how good the wood is, it is no different from paper paste in front of the ship's guns.

As the Xihai got closer and closer, the warships on the battle line gradually lost their firing range, and they could only turn their guns to bombard the second ship of the Austro-Song Rapid Fleet, the Haitao.

"Impact!" Hu Yi shouted, and the Xihai successfully passed through the gap between the two Portuguese battleships, and the Tulip and Earl protested in despair with the four guns fixed in the bow and stern, which were responded by 46 already loaded cannons, and the bow and stern were beaten beyond recognition by the dense close-to-face shelling. A bow gun that had been hit head-on by a 12-pounder gun exploded into pieces and flew into flames, stabbing several Portuguese gunners into hedgehogs.

Rear Admiral Francisco ventured out the window and watched as the flagship of the Au-Song swooped into his fleet, deeper and deeper, until only one stern remained. Two of your battleships were smashed into the sky by string cannons, waving handkerchiefs like bitches in Lisbon welcoming their clients.

"It's over." He thought in despair, his body completely losing strength, and he sat on the ground against the wall, his eyes lifeless.