Thirty warships were blocked outside the port of Manila, surrounded by thirty six-hundred-ton warships to escort them, and thirty-six three-hundred-ton warships and armed merchant ships were cruising around, and the others were several nautical miles away to be on guard, Zheng Zhi was not the first time to fight this kind of naval battle, he also knew that the enemy's strength and warships were much greater than his strength, so he came here purely to give it a go, and he had to die with the Spaniards.

Thirty warships on the sea opened fire together, each with eighty-one guns, and twenty-four guns that could be used to attack the shore, ten ships were two hundred and forty, and thirty ships were seven hundred and twenty.

The first thing they attacked was the river bay battery that stretched outside the port of Manila, and the river bay battery was the cannon erected on the high platform of several castles similar to the ancient tun fort style, according to intelligence, he knew that these shore guns were all 18-pounder and 12-pounder guns in the Spanish past, and later added 20-pounder guns, there were only 30 guns in total, divided into three shore gun groups.

Thirty battleships are divided into three parts, each attacking a group, 240 guns against the enemy's 10 guns, this is a sure win, but the guns on the battleship are not as accurate as the guns on the high platform on the shore because of the waves and muzzle storms, and the enemy has the castle wall as protection, and the hull of the battleship is wooden, and there are many masts and sails, and the size is much larger than the shore artillery fortifications.

The two sides are separated by two nautical miles, nearly five miles, bombarding each other, although there are many artillery here, but the accuracy rate here is not very high, many shells have hit the perimeter of the shore artillery fortifications, destroying some houses, residences, trees built around, the shells hit the other side's castle wall, it looks vigorous, but it did not hurt the artillery operators in the shore artillery fortifications of the other side, the other side fiercely returned fire.

Although there were only ten cannons, but the shells gradually approached the convoy from near and far, and the flotilla opened fire while passing through a small area of the sea, and in the first quarter of an hour, neither side achieved anything, but after a quarter of an hour, the fire of both sides gradually became more accurate, and the shore artillery was more accurate in comparison, and one shot knocked out the foremast of a battleship, opened a few small holes in the hull, and killed more than a dozen sailors and soldiers.

However, this did not affect the continuation of the shelling mission of the battleship.

The bombardment lasted for an hour, and ten ships were damaged, but they were able to continue sailing and carrying out their tasks, and the batteries were also riddled with holes, but in comparison they were only wounded, killing and wounding some artillerymen, and Spanish soldiers, without reducing their threat to the ships at sea.

After an hour and a quarter of an hour, the warships guarding there had already mingled with the allied warships of the various countries that had rushed out of the harbor, and there were casualties among each other, and finally the fort was severely damaged, one battery was destroyed, all ten guns were lost, and nearly 100 Spanish artillerymen were killed and wounded.

The two ships on this side were badly damaged and had to retreat to the farther sea to repair, and the remaining battleships continued to attack the Spanish batteries, and after half an hour, the more and more accurate artillery finally destroyed all three battery groups in the river bay, and inflicted heavy damage on the garrison in the river bay, but at the cost of fifteen ships wounded, two sunk, and two seriously wounded.

The wounded battleships continued to fight with the enemy warships and warships that rushed out of the bay, and the battleships rushing up from behind shelled the enemy's shore artillery groups on the high ground of the harbor inside, where the enemy's fortifications were better, and the battleships had to pay more time and cost to destroy the enemy shore artillery fortifications built on the cliffs with covered roofs.

The artillery at the head of Manila also shelled the fleet that rushed outside the harbor and was within range of the shore artillery.

In the dark night, the sea breeze is gusting, but the smoke is confused, the fire is soaring, the sea is full of boats, the warships rushing out of the port want to escape, and those who come in from the outside must be desperately blocked, the sea surface in the port is not big, but only three or four miles, but there are nearly five or six hundred ships inside, one ship next to another, for the naval fleet of the Nanyang Kingdom on the sea, as long as it rushes up, even a hundred-ton warship can make achievements, even an armed merchant ship can hit the enemy's ships, because the enemy is too dense.

The two-hour naval battle had already caused heavy losses to the fleet of the Tessie coalition forces, although they also inflicted heavy losses on the other side, sinking ten of the opponent's warships, severely damaging ten of them, and wounding five of them, the other side had only five warships left, leading a few seven or eight six-hundred-ton warships, a dozen three-hundred-ton warships, and more than a dozen armed merchant ships to block the entrance to the sea.

But no matter how you look at it, there seems to be no winner in this battle, twenty armed merchant ships of the Poles were completely destroyed, fifteen of the Swedes were sunk and five were seriously wounded and were unable to fight back, thirty armed merchant ships of the Italians were seriously wounded and fifteen were sunk, and five of them desperately broke out of the sea to meet with the thirty warships of the Nanyang Kingdom that the French broke through, and the fifteen damaged warships and five seriously wounded warships of the Nanyang Kingdom that attacked and shelled the shore artillery fortifications, and they were surrounded by nearly thirty armed merchant ships of the Nanyang Kingdom.

The attacking shore guns had always maintained a number of thirty ships, and they had destroyed many of the batteries on the hills, destroyed as many as two hundred of the enemy's shore guns, and attacked the cliff batteries in the last harbor, which were also the strongest and largest in caliber, with the largest number of shore guns, as many as a hundred guns, and had to cope with the fire of the batteries above the castle of Manila, which were getting closer and closer.

Zheng Zhi dispatched all the warships patrolling the periphery to break into the port, and laid down the landed troops in the river bay, and laid down 50 of the 200 merchant ships, nearly 8,000 soldiers and horses, 5,000 musketeers, 1,500 cavalry, 1,500 artillerymen, and 2,000 civilians accompanying the army, and laid down a large amount of supplies.

After the fourth hour of the battle, the army drove out of the barracks and was attacked by a thousand soldiers and horses sent by the Spaniards, and the two sides lit torches in the dark night, lined up each other to shoot, and the five thousand soldiers and horses quickly crushed the enemy's counterattack with the support of artillery, and then advanced to the city of Manila, and on the way were besieged by 30,000 natives around Manila, and the battle was fought here into a war of attrition, which went on.

Thirty warships with thirty wounded armed merchant ships burst into the harbor and the bay, destroying all the enemy's merchant ships and the warships inside, and then in the harbor full of sunken ships, they followed suit, braved the artillery fire from the city and the coastal defense batteries, covered the landing of fifty merchant ships, lost more than a dozen armed merchant ships, seven merchant ships, and three warships approached the pier, and laid down two thousand soldiers and horses on the pier, and they were attacked by the combined Polish and Italian soldiers and horses, with the support of the guns of the warships, It took two hours to lay down five thousand soldiers and horses, three thousand musketeers, one thousand cavalry, one thousand artillerymen.

The soldiers and horses braved the enemy's firepower to clear the remnants of the enemy in the port, but ushered in the cavalry attack of the Swedes, and the three thousand cavalry almost wiped out all the five thousand, but in the end the Nanyang Kingdom won the final victory, and the only more than 1,000 soldiers and horses could only retreat to the port, and when Zheng Zhi knew, he sent another road of soldiers and horses who had just defeated the indigenous coalition army and two thousand French soldiers and horses to rush to the aid here, and the two soldiers and horses were combined together, and there were only 500 cavalry, 2,800 musketeers, 800 artillery, and 600 people.

The Spaniards' cliff batteries were really difficult to fight, fifteen battleships were sunk, fifteen warships were sunk, thirty armed merchant ships were sunk, and two merchant ships that rescued people were also sunk, only to destroy about half of the enemy's firepower, the enemy's coastal defense batteries were still firing, and Zheng Zhi's losses increased every passing hour.

Zheng Zhi's heart was dripping blood.

(End of chapter)