Chen Yue led thirteen Galen warships to threaten the city of Geranza, putting pressure on the Dutch, while covering Yang Zhengping's fleet to explore the Luermen Seaway.

Although Chen Yue knew that Zheng Chenggong entered the inner lake of the Taijiang River from the Luermen Seaway in later generations, Zheng Chenggong had a guide who was familiar with the Luermen Seaway at that time, but he did not.

The task of finding a guide was given to Liu Neng, and he took a few of his men to Dongfan Island in a small boat to find the Ming people living on the island. Among Liu Neng's men, there were Hokkien-speaking crew members who acted as interpreters in case the language was different. After all, most of the Ming people in Dongfan Island immigrated from Fujian, and they all spoke Hokkien, which is very different from Zhejiang Wu and even Ming official dialect.

Although he did not intend to pass through the main channel next to Dayuan Island, Chen Yue still ordered a tentative artillery bombardment of Dayuan Island in the distance, putting pressure on the Dutch and training his artillery skills in operating artillery.

Although the focus was on training artillery operation skills when training the students of the Naval Master Academy during the Wa Kingdom, Yang Zhengping also trained gunners when he was training troops in Zhoushan. However, it is very difficult to train qualified artillerymen in a short period of training! There has to be a lot of live-fire training.

After the capture of eight Dutch ships, there are now as many as thirteen Galen ships alone, and there are six or seven hundred guns loaded on them, and according to the fact that there are at least two gunners for one gun, the gunners alone need fifteen or six hundred men! Even if the entire Zhoushan Army is combined, it will not be possible to find so many gunners! There are more cannons than gunners, and what a painful and joyful thing!

Therefore, Chen Yue quickly understood that he couldn't pity the ammunition at this time, even if he used gunpowder, he had to pile up enough gunners!

In the sea area five miles away from Dayuan Island, thirteen Galen warships lined up, flanking towards the city of Geranza on Dayuan Island, firing fiercely!

Each ship had three to four decks, the second of which was loaded with artillery. All of them are installed on the gun carriage, with handles and latches, which can be moved back and forth, left and right, and rotated left and right, which is convenient for manipulation and adjustment of the firing boundary. The cannons of the Dutch were mostly twelve-pound guns, and the shells weighed twelve pounds (about eleven catties) of lead bullets, while the artillery was iron cannons, weighing as much as four thousand catties, which was not much different from the red-coated cannons cast by the Ming Dynasty.

With such a heavy artillery to adjust the firing range, to load gunpowder shells, and to clean the chamber after firing, such a tedious work is already the least for two artillery to operate one gun. Normally, one gun needs to be staffed by four or five gunners. However, now there are many artillery pieces in Zhoushan and few gunners, but there is no way.

The gunners were not very skilled, and the speed of firing the cannon was very slow, from cleaning the chamber, loading gunpowder, shells, to aiming and shooting, the time required for a shot was at least half an hour! And the accuracy is not flattering, according to Chen Yue holding a clairvoyant mirror to observe, most of the shells fell into the sea, only a few cannonballs can hit Dayuan Island, and even fewer can hit the Dutch castle.

In the face of the attack of the Ming warships, the Dutch batteries on Dayuan Island opened fierce fire and returned fire, and the two Dutch warships in the inland sea of the Taijiang River also sailed out of the bay and counterattacked the Ming warships under the cover of the batteries.

The artillery skills of the Dutch were much more powerful, and from time to time shells fell in front of and behind the Ming warships.

The shelling lasted for an hour, and the Dutch castle and battery were safe and sound, while the Ming battleship was hit by the Dutch battery with several shots, and the decks of the two battleships were smashed by shells with several large holes, and more than a dozen soldiers were killed and wounded.

Seeing that it was getting late, Chen Yue ordered a temporary retreat and repaired in a place far away from the city of Geranza.

In the south of Dongfan Island, except for the inner sea of the Taijiang River on the inner side of Dayuan Island, there is no port suitable for ships to berth, and more than 100 warships of the Zhoushan Army can only anchor in the open sea a few miles from the coast.

Fortunately, the northwest monsoon is blowing now, and the fleet is located in the south of Dongfan Island, with islands to cover the monsoon, and the waves are not too turbulent. In the summer, the waves are high, and there is a danger of capsizing when anchored in the open sea. But even now, the continuous waves have caused the ships to be in turmoil, and it is difficult to get a good night's sleep!

Therefore, even for the safety of the fleet, it is necessary to think of entering the inland sea of the Taijiang River as soon as possible in order to avoid the invasion of waves.

Yang Zhengping sent a ship to explore the Luermen Seaway, and found that the seaway was indeed very shallow, and there were too many reefs and silt on the seabed, so that small boats could pass unimpeded, and large ships such as the three-masted sea ship and the Galen ship were likely to run aground.

Chen Yue knew that Zheng Chenggong's fleet was passing through the Luermen Sea Road at night when the tide was rising. However, the tide rises differently throughout the year, and whether it can be passed directly now is still two theories, and the Luermen Seaway is five or six miles long, so if you want to pass safely, you must accurately grasp the situation of the seaway. Otherwise, if a ship runs aground in the waterway, the entire waterway will be blocked. It will be difficult to enter through the waterway.

It's best to find a guide who is familiar with the Kagomon Kaido, otherwise you can only measure it little by little. Now Liu Neng has taken people to land and has not returned, and I don't know if I can find a guide. In order not to delay things, Yang Zhengping sent several small boats to the Luermen Sea Road to watch the situation when the tide rose.

At night, a new moon rises on the surface of the sea, by the gravitational effect of the moon, the tide from small to large, surging rapidly, wave after wave of tide from the South China Sea, several feet high, the sea ship rises and falls with the tide up and down, flies to the peak and falls to the bottom of the valley in an instant, if there is no submarine anchor traction, I don't know where to drift with the waves.

The crew and soldiers on the sea ship grabbed the board of the ship around them one by one, and their bodies were firmly attached to the boat, for fear that their bodies would be thrown out of the ship and fall into the sea.

The Galen and the three-masted ship are okay, the ship is big enough to withstand the wind and waves, but those small boats are not good, and I don't know if they can survive such a big wave?

The night passed with such trepidation, and at dawn the tide receded, and the sea became much calmer. To Chen Yue's delight, no ship capsized in the night tide.

The ships sent to explore the Luermen Seaway also returned, and Chen Yue didn't need to listen to the report Chen Yue also knew that such a big tide at night would definitely be able to pass through the Luermen Seaway safely. At the height of the tide, the waves were five or six zhang high, and the average wave was more than three zhang, surging towards the Luermen Seaway, and there was no problem in holding up the big boat!

Chen Yue decided that when night came again, all the warships would take advantage of the tide to enter the Taijiang Inland Sea from the Luermen Seaway!

Today, during the day, while continuing to send people ashore to investigate the situation in the southern part of Dongfan Island, the mission also shelled Dayuan Island for military training.

However, before the convoy could sail to Dayuan Island, a small boat carrying the Dutch came from Dayuan Island, bringing news of the Dutch peace talks.