Another shell hit the stern of the Santiago, shattering the glass and leaving the captain's cabin in shambles.

"Your Excellency, the 'St. Nicholas' has withdrawn from the battle, the ship is flooding, and the situation looks difficult." A stack of anxious reports rang in Baron Guevara's ears, and Lord Baron, who had experienced the nightmarish naval battle of Downs more than seven years ago, pursed his lips tightly and said nothing.

In fact, there is no need for him to say anything more, the large-caliber artillery of the people on the east coast is unexpectedly numerous, and the power is unexpectedly great, and the business of their navy is also surprisingly professional, in short, in this battle, the Mediterranean Fleet task force, which has the upper hand in the number of ships, has gradually fallen into disadvantage, which is humiliating. Baron Guevara even involuntarily recalled that at the Battle of the Dons, the Spaniards, with 70 ships, initially faced an enemy (the Dutch) with only a dozen ships and inferior tonnage.

However, the Dutch were unexpectedly strong in melee combat, and in close combat, the Spanish navy was inferior in the initial battle with the Dutch due to the smoke of gunfire on the battlefield and the low visibility, coupled with their chaotic command and dispatch, and many Spanish ships were injured by the shelling of their own warships. At this time, their commander had an unforgivable wavering, and ordered the entire fleet of 70 warships to flee into the Downs anchorage in front of a dozen Dutch warships, and did not dare to order a breakthrough for the next few days, and sat back and watched as the Dutch ships grew to more than a hundred, and were finally struck by the Dutch fleet. Since then, the Spanish navy has lost the ability to take the initiative to attack, and the remaining navy can only barely hold the Caribbean, the South Netherlands and the mainland, and its strength and morale have fallen to the bottom.

And these years for the Spaniards. It was supposed to be a good time to clean up military discipline and restore strength. But since the Spaniards were deep on several fronts. The country's strength has been squandered. Coupled with the fact that the Genoese had been withdrawing money from the Spanish mainland for many years after 1627, Spain's economic situation deteriorated rapidly, and the government simply did not have much financial resources to rebuild the navy. In the past few years, only two or three ships have been sold every year, most of which are still not very good in tonnage and artillery, and there is not a single ship like the "Santiago" that can be used as the flagship of the navy. The glorious Spanish navy, with its military spirit, morale, and strength degraded to the extreme, always made its own people deplore and make the enemy applaud.

"Boom! Rumble! "The 24-pound, 32-pound shells tore through the air with a sharp cracking sound. Plunged into the "San Diego" immediately southwest of the "San Diego". Juan. The sides of the "Baptista". These four powerful battleships on the east coast not only sailed extremely fast and steered nimly, but also had a very powerful firepower, and the "St. Nicholas," a brig of more than 300 tons, was forced to withdraw from the battle with a single blow just now. The sailors on the poor Spanish warship were currently battling the growing sea water in the holds, but it seemed that things were not good, and they seemed to have difficulty plugging the hole before it sank.

The four "10 August"-class battleships were like ferocious hyenas on the African savannah, and they relied on their nimbly turn to begin to lay siege to the Spanish warships on the periphery, beating the enemy to the ground. After the enemy ships had fled, they did not pursue them, but continued to attack inward, after all, their primary goal was to ensure the safety of the merchant fleet. If the merchant fleet were wiped out, they would have wiped out the Spanish fleet. Then it was also a great failure.

After spending more than half an hour putting the "St. Juan. After the Baptista was out of battle and fled to the southeast, the four battleships paid no attention to the little shrimp. Instead, he relied on the advantage of the upper hand to seize the T-head, and then continued to fire at the "San Diego", the largest tonnage battleship on the battlefield today. At the same time, they also used their flexible maneuverability to repeatedly adjust the course, so that the "Santiago" was never able to meet the enemy with all its firepower, and could only meet it with some of its guns, which made the Spanish flagship, which had withstood fifty or sixty shells today, look precarious, as if it would be sunk in the turquoise Tyrrhenian Sea at any moment.

"Sir, the 'Cadiz Rocks' is entangled!" The Abbot was attacked by a Spanish brig and had been shot more than a dozen times, and Captain Assunço's Coldcurrent was surrounded by several galleys, which looked bad, and the Spaniards must have wanted to take the ship! They brought a lot of land forces, and they delusionally wanted to capture our transports in their entirety! Jiang Yaohui swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and his hands holding the telescope turned white because of tension.

"Use more blazing and chain bombs, speed up the process of taking out the Santiago, and don't have to pursue sinking, just force it out of the fight." Lu Ming put down the binoculars, and his face was not very good-looking. The tactics of forcing a breakthrough that they had developed before the war now seemed to be wishful thinking, the Spaniards had galleys that could sail freely in shallow waters, they were able to easily navigate the waters where the big ships did not dare to go, and then attack the merchant fleet, and now sure enough, two transports were already starting to get into trouble, and worse, this was just the beginning.

Jiang Yaohui was just about to say something, when a cannonball struck and hit the bridge fence firmly. The splashed sawdust hit Lu Ming's forehead, and a large stream of blood immediately flowed out. Jiang Yaohui himself also splashed some wood chips, and the oozing blood dyed his sky-blue military uniform a dark color, but he didn't dare to hesitate, and immediately climbed down to the deck with a rolling belt and began to give orders to the gun officers.

The "Santiago" saw that something was wrong early on, so it quickly adjusted its course and fled due east with all its might. Her first two masts were hung with sails, and she had not suffered major damage, so she ran quite fast, and in a short time she was in the suspected shallow water that the battleships on the east coast did not dare to approach.

However, the people on the east coast were not ready to take care of the "Santiago", and the most important thing now was to deal with the merchant fleet, which was gradually getting into trouble. The fleet that served as the rearguard was still fighting fiercely with the mighty "San Salvador" and the "Virgin Mary" with a spare canvas, and it was difficult to get out for a while. The five battleships, including the "Cadiz Rocks", which served as the assault fleet, were tightly entangled by the "San Miguel", "San Francisco", "Parma", "Neapolitan", and "San Pedro", and were now braving the heavy fire of enemy ships and began to turn with difficulty, preparing to move closer in the direction of the merchant fleet. But it looks like it's going to be difficult for a while.

"Turn! Rush over. Let those galleys know we're awesome. Lu Ming said behind him. However, after talking for a long time, he found that there was no response, and when he turned his head, he saw that the two trainee officers of the navigation school had both fallen in a pool of blood. It seems that a solid iron ball hit an officer standing not far behind Lu Ming, and then the shell touched the stern wall of the "August 10", which was rebounded by the extremely flexible Brazilian mahogany and hit an officer who was serving as a backup. Lu Ming, who knew that he had just been wandering around the Ghost Gate, sighed, and then ran to the second floor to give the order to the navigator in person.

The "10 August" led the way, and the other three battleships followed closely behind with their scarred bodies, approaching the merchant fleet in front of them at high speed. At this point, there were no Spanish warships left to organize them along the way, and four war behemoths with 264 high-powered guns rushed towards the low Spanish galleys.

The battle began more than ten minutes later. The two Spanish galleys on the outermost periphery withstood only a few rounds of shelling. The Spanish Army soldiers, who had already boarded the merchant ships on the east coast, cursed and killed the crew and ignited the flammable materials on board, and after killing the crew and igniting the flammable materials on board, they rowed frantically in several small boats away from the combat zone.

There was no suspense in the attack of the battleships on the galleys, and when they saw them coming, the small Spanish transports and galleys stopped fighting and turned to flee towards the shallow waters to the east. After defeating these little bugs, Lu Ming hurriedly glanced at it and found that the "Abbot" transport ship was seriously injured. The hull, canvas, and mast were damaged many times, but it seemed that it could barely sail. The sailors are currently working under the command of the officers to change the canvas and repair the planks that can be easily replaced. As for the Portuguese transport ship "Cold Current", which was chartered by the people of the east coast, it was already drowned in the raging fire, and Captain Asunção and the fourteen Portuguese crew members were probably more than lucky.

After clearing the galleys and small transports that threatened the convoy, the battleship formation did not pursue them in any way, but turned their heads and moved closer to several warships, including the "Cadiz Rocks", which were engaged in a fierce battle with five Spanish warships. Behind them, the four frigates of the rearguard fleet were still engaged with the two Spanish warships, and it seemed that they had gradually gained the upper hand, and the Spanish "San Salvador" and "Virgin Mary" had already shown defeat.

At this time, no matter which direction the battleship formation went to support, it could basically quickly help one direction to achieve victory, and then defeat the enemy forces in the other direction, so it can be said that the victory of the people on the east coast was decided at this time!

The battle finally came to an abrupt end after dark. The few remaining Spanish warships took advantage of the night to kill their lives, and Lu Ming, the commander of the escort fleet on the east coast, was concerned about the safety of the escort fleet, and categorically gave up the order to pursue, and instead began to count the losses, urgently repair the ships, and rescue the crew who fell into the water.

In this battle, the escort fleet on the east coast lost two flute-type transport ships and their cargo, and almost every naval warship was damaged in one way or another, especially the frigate gunboat "Salmon", which was broken through the side of the ship and entered the water strictly, and was already on the verge of abandoning the ship. The personnel losses in this battle were as high as more than 340 people, including more than 20 officers, and the casualties were not heavy. As for their opponents, the Spaniards, according to the statistics of the East Coast Navy that participated in the war, it was found that the enemy "San Nicholas" was sunk, the "Virgin Mary" was sunk, and the "San Pedro" was sunk, all three of which were brigs of more than 300 tons. In addition, the "San Salvador", with a displacement of more than 800 tons, escaped into the shallow water on the east side and sank without hitting the reef, which is the biggest victory of the people on the east coast in this battle.

The "Santiago", which had been hit by more than 150 bullets, actually dragged its wrecked body to the end, which made the East Coast Navy present regret it; In addition, "St. Juan. Five ships, including the "Baptista" and "San Miguel", as well as a large group of galleys and small transport ships, successfully escaped on the spot, but later the two small galleys ran aground and sank in the dark of night, and about 70 Neapolitan officers and soldiers drowned; Three small transport ships ran aground and were rescued only a few days later. All in all, the people on the east coast sank a transport ship and seriously wounded another; A frigate gunboat was seriously wounded and sunk, with more than 340 officers and men killed and wounded; The Spaniards, on the other hand, sank four warships and two galleys, killing and wounding more than 1,200 officers and men.

The number of sunken ships, as well as the number of casualties on both sides, aptly reflect the outcome of the naval battle in the afternoon. As for the impact of this naval battle, from a tactical point of view, the easterners were victorious, they repelled the Spanish interception, and kept most of the transport ships safe. But from a strategic point of view, they still face the frantic interception of the Spanish Navy, and the future is still difficult. (To be continued......)