"Toast and don't eat and drink!"

Zheng Cai sneered and watched as the ship of King Gui's envoy sailed towards the shore.

The county seat of Xin'an is clearly visible in the distance.

However, at this time, between him and the coast, there were still six armed merchant ships of the Dutch and dozens of old warships of the Gui Army's naval division.

The former is based on Hong Kong Island.

After more than a year of construction by the Dutch, the originally inhospitable island had become quite prosperous, with more than 1,000 permanent East India Company employees, and many more Cantonese merchants who were employed by the East India Company and set up warehouses to trade. Every year, a large number of merchant ships arrive here, or supply northward or direct trade, and wait for the tide to go to Guangzhou City, Guangzhou Customs also has a customs office on Hong Kong Island, and Xin'an County also has a patrol stationed on Hong Kong Island to be responsible for public security. After being violently beaten by the Ming army once, the Dutch were very honest in Daming, just like the Portuguese who committed crimes in Macau were beaten by Xiangshan County, and the Dutch in Hong Kong who committed crimes were also beaten by Xin'an County.

But it's a small thing.

It's easy to get a little money.

And those old-fashioned warships belong to the Gui Army, at this time, the sailors to which Nantouzhai belongs, the base is Tuen Mun Ao, but they are all old-fashioned warships and even have centipede boats with oars.

As for the main force of the Gui Army's naval division......

On the north side of the Ming fleet, hundreds of cruisers, armed merchant ships, and old-fashioned gunboats densely covered the channel, and once the battle began, they would go down the river and rush straight to the Ming fleet. In the left rear of the Ming fleet, the sails of several Portuguese armed merchant ships could be faintly seen. In a sense, the fleet of the Nanyang Naval Division is now surrounded, surrounded by the three partners of Gui, Dutch and Portugal on the Lingding Ocean. Guangzhou Haiphong Sanmen, Humen, Macau, Yamen, plus Tuen Mun, which is second only to Sanmen, this Nanyang naval division is now sandwiched between three of them.

Of course, a tiger surrounded by a pack of huskies is nothing to be afraid of.

Zheng Cai's feet were battleships.

Even a 64-gun third-class ship is a battleship, and the oak planks more than a foot thick are not something that can be shaken by the twelve-pounder guns of an armed merchant ship, and likewise the shells of a 32-pounder gun are not the thin planks of an armed merchant ship can withstand them.

"Rule, the tide is rising!"

An officer on the side of the ship said, looking at the sea.

The other officers immediately turned their eyes to Zheng Cai, and the envoys of King Gui did not explicitly refuse to pay, they only said that they would play the emperor, because the land of Guangdong was narrow and the people were poor, and they could not come up with such a huge amount of silver, so they asked to reduce it to 200,000 taels. Of course, if the emperor did not agree, he would ask them to take two million, and the people of Guangdong should do their best to meet His Majesty's demands, but if His Majesty agreed, then the Nanjing Prison State would not have the right to ask for so much......

Of course, this is all.

They tossed around, estimating that there would be no results in the summer, and in the summer, the Ming army would have to brave the typhoon and go against the monsoon flow when they moved south from Xiamen.

Then you can't play.

Besides, that's not the style of the Ming army.

But at least from the point of view, there is nothing wrong with King Gui's reply, he is not in charge of Nanjing, and he has not seen the emperor's decree for this kind of thing, but it is only the request of Nanjing to supervise the state, so it is reasonable for him to ask the emperor first, at least Zheng Cai can't beat him directly for this reason......

"Send a signal to the marines to prepare for a landing attack on Xin'an."

Zheng Cai said.

"The vassal king has no diplomatic power!"

Then he added.

Those officers instantly perked up, this is completely reasonable and legal, the vassal king has no diplomatic power, the Portuguese forget it, this is allowed to live in Macau, but the Dutch are different, King Gui fornicated with the Dutch, this is at best a crime of conspiracy to rebel, since it is no problem to fight like this. In other words, since you want to fight, you will always find a reason, and if you can't find it, you can create it yourself, even if there are no Dutch, not to mention that now the Dutch are fighting side by side with the Gui army, which can be said to be King Gui's intention to rebel.

The flag of the Ming army was immediately issued, and a communication ship behind it immediately sailed to Daxi Mountain.

That is, Ohori Island.

At this time, the name was Daxi Mountain, and the Marine Brigade that had rested there for two days had re-boarded dozens of troop transports and assembled in Tung Chung Bay to wait for orders.

"Prepare for battle, cut through the battle line, all the ships set fire to the Dutch!"

Zheng Cai shouted on the flagship.

Immediately after the drum beat beside him, at the same time, the signal corps waved its flag, and took advantage of the tide to push all the battleships to anchor, with two battleships as the vanguard, and the two columns quickly converged into a column, and under the impetus of the tide behind, they directly attacked the enemy ships facing their backs to the Nanshan Peninsula. The main force of the Gui Army's naval divisions in the distance was in a chaotic manner, but at this moment they needed to withstand the tide when they went south, and it was obviously impossible to seize the front, but the Portuguese warships behind also started, cutting horizontally towards Tuen Mun by the tide, trying to cut off the route of the Ming troop carriers. The six Dutch armed merchant ships and those Gui warships lined up on the Nanshan Peninsula did not move, but launched all their cannons, and more than 20 shore defense guns raised their muzzles on the small Nanshan Mountain behind them.

Zheng Cai looked at the fort, which had been built for less than a year, indifferently.

The battleship at his feet continued to approach.

In the open starboard gun door, a 32-pound or 24-pound short heavy gun was quickly rolled out, and all the gunners behind the cannon pulled the gun ropes from the gun door to keep an eye on the Dutch armed merchant ships......

The naval guns of the Ming army used flintlock machines.

That is, the kind in the movie Angry Sea Battle, the reliability is not as good as direct ignition, but on the undulating battleship, the delay of direct ignition is also very bad, and the flintlock machine is much faster, as for the land, there is no such problem, so until the invention of the fire pipe, the army artillery was ignited, and the flintlock machine was mostly used at sea.

"Two hundred zhang!"

The officer holding the sextant in the overhead mast shouted.

"Go on!"

Zheng Cai said indifferently.

The battle line continued to move forward, closing the distance between it and the Dutch armed merchant ships, and the main force of the Gui army in the distance also continued to move forward, closing the distance between them and the rising tide of the sea. On the battleships on the opposite side and on the Xiaonanshan Fort, those Gui Jun and Dutch sailors looked at the battleships of the Nanyang Naval Division equally nervously.

"One hundred zhang!"

The observing officer shouted.

The sextant range measurement needs to be calculated, and there must not be a hundred zhang at this time, in fact, the soldiers on both sides behind the gun door can basically see each other.

"Go on!"

Zheng Cai shouted.

"Our draft is too deep!"

An officer reminded him.

"Wouldn't I know the depth of the water here?"

Zheng Cai said.

Indeed, would the core figures of the Zheng family not know the depth of the water here?

The officer quickly shut up.

The two sides continued to close the distance, and soon they were already moving towards seeing each other's faces clearly, but neither the Guihe battleship nor the shore defense artillery fired, and they did not dare to give the Ming army an excuse to fight, but all the artillery was indeed aimed at the Ming warship.

In the blink of an eye, the distance was less than two hundred meters.

"All fire!"

Zheng Cai said with a smile.

"All fire!"

The officer next to him yelled as he leaned on the intercom tube.

The brass pipe quickly transmitted his voice to the two gun decks below, and at the moment when the guns on the top deck fired first, the gunners on the two decks pulled the gun ropes one after another, and as the flint machines fell, the gunpowder ignited by the flint quickly ignited the propellant, and the flames and gunpowder smoke sprayed wildly on the starboard side of this battleship. In less than a second, the twenty-four pounds of solid ammunition flew over a distance that even a musket could reach, and accurately hit the side of an armed Dutch merchant ship, whose planks could not withstand such shells, and the shocking holes made it look full of holes in a very short time. Fierce shells swept across the Dutch in the cabin with shards of wood like cannonballs, and then through the entire cabin, they smashed the planks on the other side and flew to the sea on the other side......

There was a scream on the sea.

But the sound of artillery drowned out these incredible exclamations.

Because the second battleship likewise spewed flames.

The Dutch merchant ships, which were its opponents, also erupted in flames at the same moment, and the shells of both sides hit the side of the other almost simultaneously, but one was thirty-two pounds and the other was twelve, one was an oak plank more than a foot thick, and the other was just a thin skin and a large filling.

This is the suppression of rank.

And it's more than two levels of suppression.

The Dutch's counterattack only made bullet marks on the side of the Ming battleship, but in the blink of an eye, it was beaten into a sieve, and the thirty-two pound shells that ran through the entire ship continued to fly out from the other side, and then stirred up columns of water like a show off on the sea, and some even landed on the old battleships of the Gui Army, and the fight was chaotic. But the nightmare of the Dutch was not over, because just behind these two battleships there were cruisers that could not be seen at a glance.

What happened to the twenty-four-pounder gun?

Can a twenty-four-pounder cannon be ignored? It is said that the vast majority of the battleships of this era in Europe were twenty-four pounds, and the cruisers lining up the battle line were pushed forward by the tide, constantly spraying flames to the starboard side. Twenty-four, twelve, and even six-pound shells whizzed across the sea, easily smashing the thin planks of the Dutch's armed merchant ships, and smashing the cabins to the ground with scattered pieces of wood. At the same time, the entire fleet, led by the two battleships, was also completing an outward turn, and gradually began to cross in front of the approaching main force of the Gui army, and the muzzles of a thirty-two-pounder gun were aimed at the latter.

Gui Junshui turned without hesitation.

This can't be beaten!

The strength of their cruisers was no stronger than the armed merchant ships of the Dutch, and at most the planks were a little thicker, and the result was definitely killed in seconds, not to mention that the Nanyang Naval Division still had an absolute advantage in numbers.

Moving on is tantamount to suicide.

At the same time, a troop carrier in the distance started, also on the battle line, all the gun doors were open, and a twelve-pounder gun was pointed at the Portuguese armed merchant ships.

The latter also did not hesitate to turn around......