The moon is in the sky, the waves are not happy, the sea breeze is blowing, the phantom of the island in the distance is blurred, the waves are slightly lapping the hull of the ship, making a rattling sound, even the seabirds on the sea have not come out, the sleepiness hits in the early morning, the fishing boat swaying with the waves, in the fishy sea breeze, a three-hundred-ton armed merchant ship comparable to a mountain approaches, and the person who suddenly woke up on the fishing boat reacted and crashed into it.

The fishing boat, which was no more than ten tons, disintegrated in an instant, and then was crushed under the huge hull of the armed merchant ship, and the fishermen on the fishing boat were swept away by the waves without even having a chance to shout.

Fifty nautical miles, they were still at least three hours away from Palawan.

Dozens of armed merchant ships, Yang Fan, quickly rushed towards Palawan.

Along the road, they kept knocking over the fishing boat guard posts scattered all over the road, and when they were close to 20 nautical miles, they encountered the 180-ton warships and 90-ton patrol boats of the Huaxia Army's coast guard that patrolled the coast, although these ships were already very backward in the Huaxia Army, but they still had to rely on them for fishing and guarding the coast, so there were still a large part of these ships that had not been sold, and were still in service in various fleets, but the big ships had already been sold.

In the face of such an opponent, the sneak attack of the armed merchant ships and clippers can only dodge, fortunately the sea is still dark, they dodged most of the patrol ships, did not dodge also camouflaged, close to wait for the enemy to check, and then suddenly from the cabin poured out a lot of jumping sailors, rushed to the enemy ships, with cold weapons to solve the battle, in the face of the enemy's surprise attack, even if the technology of later generations developed, still hit, not to mention the historical era of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties on the vast sea.

So the Chinese army and sailors were defenseless, and when the enemy's fleet approached the coastline ten nautical miles at dawn, it was discovered by the lookout post on the island, and rang the big bell, which rang loudly throughout the island, and this big bell would only ring when a large number of enemies attacked, and as soon as the big bell rang, all the departments on the island rushed out of the barracks, ready to engage the enemy.

A few clippers rushed out of the harbor to reconnoiter the enemy's situation, in fact, there was no need to reconnoitre, the bright moon was in the sky, the next day must be a good weather, on the sea, different from the land, looking far away, the eyes could see at least thirty nautical miles away from the horizon of the mast sail shadow, not to mention that the enemy had already come to ten nautical miles.

In front were the armed merchant ships and warships of the Dutch, behind which were the fleets of the Spaniards, and the British fleets were still hovering twenty nautical miles away.

Preliminary statistics on the sea surface are about 600 ships, 30 oversized ships, nearly 200 large ships, 300 medium ships, and more than 100 small ships.

After several battles with the Zheng family and the Hong family, the three families no longer had many armed merchant ships available, as well as warships of small tonnage, so there were not many armed merchant ships coming this time, and there were not many warships, and there were only seventy or eighty warships of medium tonnage, and all of them were warships and warships of more than 800 tons, as well as sail battleships.

In fact, the Third Fleet Detachment is no longer here in Palawan Island, and the main force of the Third Fleet Detachment had already sailed out of the harbor and hid in the Indonesian Islands at dusk yesterday.

Kodak looked at the various ships that appeared in the enemy intelligence sent by the military intelligence department in the telescope, and gasped, "The enemy is pouring out of the nest, fortunately, there are precautions, otherwise the Third Fleet, even if it is all ironclad ships, it will take two hours to leave the port, which is enough time for the enemy to sink all the ships leaving the port in the channel with fierce artillery." ”

At present, there are only three warships and thirty frigates guarding the port, and when the bell is heard, the crew on duty has begun to raise the sails, and the crew who came from the barracks have boarded the ships one after another, and then, under special control orders, priority is given to those merchant ships from Manila, from Mindanao, as well as Cebu and Leyte, as well as from Australia and New Zealand, the Kingdom of the Ryukyus, the Kingdom of China, and Cambodia, and other places, and sailed out of the port with special channels.

At the same time, the merchant ships in the port began to be evacuated, those who had the ability began to break out, and those who were not able to move to the port covered by mountain cliffs, so that they could avoid some artillery fire, and those who could not let go of the evacuation to various places in the port, and could not gather together so densely, so that the enemy's shells could more easily hit them, and after the evacuation, they sent people to carry the goods and all valuable things on the merchant ships to the island to hide.

For the enemy may block the port exit and attack the port to deal with the Huaxia army is better than the Nanyang Kingdom and the Spaniards, compared to them, the Huaxia army, or the Huaxia Kingdom is more profound, is the system and the people's will, the national strength is strong, all aspects are better than the average small country, each does its own thing, and everyone thinks about their own affairs.

There are about 200 armed merchant ships rushing out of the port, these are about the original Manila, Australia, Xinlu country merchant ships, so far from equipped with a little firepower, really dare not run, as well as the Nanyang Kingdom and Manila ports, as well as the port of Gogong Island from the merchant ships, these are also armed merchant ships, regardless of the size of the merchant ships, no matter whether the artillery on them is advanced or weak, in short, there is combat effectiveness.

As the merchant ships rushed out of the port, the armed merchant ships of the Dutch began to intercept, on the sea of five or six nautical miles, nearly 400 armed merchant ships fought, the merchant ships here wanted to escape, the merchant ships on that side wanted to intercept, plus the surprise attack of the frigates and warships of the Huaxia Army, the armed merchant ships ignored it, followed the fleet of the Huaxia Army, and rushed to the sea outside the port in one breath.

With the cover of the Huaxia warships and frigates, the armed merchant ships and warships of the Dutch could not cope with it, and the Dutch sent more warships over, and there were nearly 600 ships fighting on the sea of nearly ten nautical miles.

The warships and port fire of both sides did not open fire, because this was not a level of battle, and the originally wide sea, now more than six hundred ships poured in below, and it was already crowded.

The fleet of the Huaxia Army struck at the enemy's left flank with armed merchant ships.

Even the ironclad ships of the Huaxia Army were smashed and staggered, and more than a dozen battleships of the enemy met them, followed by large warships of about 600 tons.

An hour and a half later, with the loss of three frigates and the wounding of the rest, the fleet broke out of the encirclement, and more than 100 armed merchant ships that came behind broke through the encirclement and fled with the fleet.

The enemy sent armed merchant ships and warships in pursuit, as well as a dozen warships on the left flank, nearly two hundred ships were pursuing two hundred ships, and the rest were lucky enough to break through from the right flank, some were captured, some were turned back to the port, and more were sunk by the Dutch and Spanish warships, and in two hours, in addition to the burning sunken ships on the sea outside the port of Palawan, the smoke of gunpowder in the sky gradually dissipated, as well as the wounded Spanish and Dutch armed merchant ships and warships that slowly retreated.

In this battle, the armed merchant ships and warships of the Spaniards and Dutch who were still outside the harbor were almost completely lost, and there were less than fifty of them in all, all of them wounded, and they had to return to Leyte Island to repair.

The Dutch and British, Spanish warships and warships outside the remaining harbor slowly pressed on the periphery of the harbor.

This time they already understood that a sneak attack was impossible, and they could only attack.

As soon as the Spaniards and Dutch came up, they used the battleships that arrived from the west, the third class and the second class battleships, although there were not many of them, but the firepower was great, plus the thirty second class battleships of the British, the third class battleships, the total number reached ninety.

They approached the harbor three nautical miles, then dropped anchor, adjusted the muzzles together, and aimed them at the batteries on the island of Palawan.

(End of chapter)