On the third day of December, it was summer in the Strait of Malacca, and the scorching sun was naked on the hulls of the three steamers, making the sailors from Tianjin miserable. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

These three steamships belonged to the First Fleet, and at this time the captain of the ship was Captain Ishi Dingping.

This is a thin Tianjin man with a pair of small eyes that are bright. As soon as he spoke, the two mustaches shook and shook, looking like a master.

The ship's first mate, Ma Zhiqiang, wiped his sweat and said to Shi Dingping: "Captain, this time we have successfully purchased the rubber gum of three ships from the natives of 'Brazil', and we have made a great contribution, I don't know how the commander will reward us?" ”

Shi Dingping tilted his head back, squinted at the first mate, and said, "How do you reward us?" Do you still want to be a general soldier? ”

Ma Zhiqiang laughed.

"If you want to be promoted, you really have to wait." Shi Dingping sneered and said, "Let me tell you the truth, this time the prince has been crowned with six counts, and it is not the turn of our navy commander Lu Hu." ”

Ma Zhiqiang was stunned and said, "Our navy has not been assigned a single earl's title? ”

Shi Dingping touched his mustache helplessly and said, "It is said that our navy has only fought a few battles, and we have made few meritorious contributions. ”

Ma Zhiqiang sighed, as if he was feeling deeply helpless for Navy Commander Lu Huming.

But come to think of it, it's true that the Navy fights fewer wars. The army has fought many tough battles in the south and north over the years, and the four divisions are all iron troops that have experienced countless wars. In comparison, the navy has only fought two or three battles, which is completely incomparable.

Although the navy has 20,000 people, under the light of the army, the navy's combat exploits can only be said to be not dazzling enough.

The two were talking there when they suddenly heard a loud roar from the mast: "There is a battleship ahead!" ”

Shi Dingping was stunned, raised the telescope and looked ahead.

On the left is the Malay Peninsula, on the right is the island of Sumatra, and in the middle of the Strait of Malacca, a few dozen kilometers wide waterway is now horizontally several tall European warships.

One, two, three, a total of three battleships.

Shi Dingping was carefully observing the battleship with a telescope, but he heard the lookout on the mast shouting: "It's the Dutch!" ”

Shi Dingping smiled when he heard this.

Hearing the lookout's report, the sailors and soldiers on board became a little nervous.

The task of the fleet to Brazil was to transport rubber, so unarmored steamships were used. On the opposite side are three European battleships, and on this side are three unarmored steamers, and I don't know if we can win this fight. Ma Zhiqiang's face was solemn, and he said to Shi Dingping: "Captain of the fleet, let's withdraw, don't go through the Strait of Malacca!" ”

Shi Dingping looked at Ma Zhiqiang and sneered. "Don't go to Malacca? That's a 10-day detour! ”

Ma Zhiqiang was stunned and asked, "Could it be that we fight with steamships and battleships?" ”

Shi Dingping said coldly: "What our navy lacks is combat exploits, and now that the combat exploits have been delivered to the door, you have to escape!" ”

With a wave of his sleeves, Shi Dingping shouted: "Go up, Hongyi's fleet was wiped out last time was not painful enough, and this time he will blow up and sink his three battleships, and he will know how fierce our Tianjin King's artillery is." ”

Three steamers met them, and soon they were confronted by the Dutch battleships.

The so-called enemies were very red when they met, and they didn't need to say hello at all, and the two sides opened fire directly.

The Dutch battleships had more than forty heavy guns on each ship and sixty-seven heavy guns on the sides of the three ships, and the fire was very fierce. At this time, the distance between the two sides was about 600 meters, and the Dutch could hit Shi Dingping's steamer once with almost fifteen shells.

There was no iron armor on the outside of the steamer, the hull was not thick, and it was a hole when it was hit by a Dutch shell.

The Dutch, however, used old-fashioned solid bullets. Solid shells had limited destructive power and, although they made a few holes in the ship, did not cause decisive damage to the ship.

But rifled guns on steamships are completely different.

At this time, the steamers were all loaded with twenty-four pounds of front-loading rifled guns, using conical flowering shells with lead-shelled steel cores. The spinning shell could easily tear through the hull of the battleship dozens of centimeters thick and send a twenty-pound warhead into the interior of the battleship.

Every time a steamer fired a round of gunfire, a few sparks bloomed on the battleship.

The battle quickly turned into "who can't hold it first".

Shi Dingping stood at the top of the tail tower, sneering at the battleships opposite, looking at the huge sparks blooming from the hulls of those big European ships.

Soon the battle was decided. The Dutch battleships were apparently blown up even more badly by the shells, and after firing five or six rounds, the Dutch did not dare to cross the Straits of Malacca, but fled to their military port of Malacca.

Shi Dingping laughed and commanded three steamers to chase down the Dutch, shooting cannonballs at the stern of the Dutch one by one.

After chasing for seven or eight miles, when the Dutch were almost about to enter the range of the shore defense cannons in the port of Malacca, Shi Dingping's steamer sank the rearmost Dutch battleship.

The battleship was hit by more than a dozen shells, and a large hole was blown out under the waterline, and it gradually sank in the channel of the port of Malacca.

The red hairs on the ship jumped into the water one after another, grabbing driftwood to escape from the whirlpool of the shipwreck.

When the sailors on the steamer saw the sinking of the enemy ship, they were inexplicably excited one by one, raising their fists and shouting victory.

Ma Zhiqiang roughly counted the casualties, and came up and said: "Captain of the fleet, our casualties are very small, only thirteen people were slightly injured, six were seriously injured, and two were shot and killed. ”

Shi Dingping touched the mustache on his lips and laughed. He exhaled and said, "In this way, when the prince summons Commander Lu, he will also look down on our navy." ”

……

Finally escaping into the port, the Dutch captain looked at the Ming steamer that was showing off outside the port of Malacca, and his face turned pale.

I didn't expect that the Tianjin people, armed with new artillery, were so strong that steamships without ironclad could defeat the battleships of the Republic.

Suddenly, the first mate of the ship ran up and said, "Captain, there is a shell in the cabin that did not explode. ”

Shells that didn't explode? Cannonballs of the Ming people!

The captain's eyes lit up, and he shoved away the sailors in front of him, and rushed into the cabin.

The cabin was hit by several flowering bombs from the Ming people, and it was a mess. In the middle of the cabin, the gunners stood far away in the outer circle. The ship's gun commander squatted in the middle with a gunner, carefully observing a shell on the ground.

The Dutchman captain walked up to the cannonball and crouched down.

"Captain, it's a blaster!"

After looking at it for a long time, the captain boldly stretched out his hand and felt the rifling scratches on the shell.

"The lead-shelled steel core turns out to be the same as the Formosa rifle bullet!"