As if sensing a great threat, the ships of the coalition fleet, which retreated at full speed or fled in all directions, finally made the necessary decision in a critical situation, and while operating the sails with all their might, and even throwing away a lot of supplies and other burdens on the ship, they concentrated all the mortars behind the hull and fired one after another with heavy mortars.

The continuous loud explosions once again exploded from the sea in a continuous stream of huge white flowers, and the mortars that fired about 300 pounds and contained about 150 pounds of black powder were smaller in size, and each warship was equipped with as many as 16 guns on average, and when it did not seek too high precision, it could fire about 30 heavy bombs backwards every minute on average, and the explosions continued to sound in the stern of the ship.

Originally designed to defend against the threat of impending blasting from small boats, these mortars were not too large, and most of them weighed less than three hundred pounds. Although it is convenient to concentrate fire in one direction, the disadvantage of insufficient range is also manifested in this continuous fire. Although firing from behind against the pursuing enemy has a considerable advantage in range, it is only a wave in front of the enemy ship.

When these problems were discovered, the captains of the ships had to risk increasing the charge by fifty percent or more, so that the range of the projectile grenade could be increased to about one hundred and fifty yards to two hundred and fifty yards.

Unlike the heavy bombs on the heavy mortar projectiles led by Wang Yuan, which only relied on the lead to open after flying into the air, and accurately detonated by the action of inertia when they fell on the water, the blasting shells fired by the coalition fleet, which were only half the size of the explosive projectiles, did not have inertial fuses, and were often some time fuses, and about one-third of the projectiles exploded or did not explode when they fell into the water too deep, and more of them exploded violently in the air, which also seemed to bring a lot of threat to the ships. Especially when those more than ten or dozens of pounds of fragments hit the deck, they can often hit the same from the deck to the bottom of the ship, bringing a lot of bloody rain and quickly making the whole ship enter a dangerous situation on the verge of leakage. The heavy bombs that continued to explode in the air also had a serious impact on the sails of many ships, and although not many armored ships were completely sunk in the next quarter or so, many suffered heavy damage and serious damage.

Of course, in the course of the pursuit, many ships broke through the continuous barrage of bullets and approached to the effective range to launch a salvo, sending the enemy ships into the water with a fierce salvo of heavy explosive shells.

After about a quarter of a heavy pursuit, the various ships also entered an area within a radius of about twenty miles while pursuing the enemy ships, and both the fleeing coalition fleet and the pursuit fleet composed of fifty-four armored ships led by Wang Yuan became extremely loose.

Of course, the battle situation still seemed to maintain the initiative at this time, and after successive strikes, the capital ships of the once large main enemy's main ship group of 90 or so had lost about two-thirds of their ships at this time, and only 30 or so ships were left that could effectively maintain their mobility, and because many ships were damaged one after another in the pursuit operation, there were still 42 ships that were able to maintain effective action.

While the pursuit battlefield spread across the sea to a wider area, another round of sea encounters began to erupt fiercely in the original position not far from the battlefield. The twelve sea-going ships that had been left behind by severe damage to their sails or decks also began to face a siege from about one hundred and fifty small ships that had not suffered much damage in the previous engagement.

Wang Yuan had actually thought of this when he decided on the battle plan before the battle, but in order to deal the greatest possible blow to the enemy army, leaving more enemy ships behind, he had to adopt some risky tactics at this time to attract the enemy who might have been frightened back.

While the capital ships on the outskirts of Kandu had gradually disappeared near the sea antenna during the pursuit, the twelve ships that had been gradually left behind to a certain extent also confronted the enemy's small boat group.

Because they knew the horror of the blasting bomb, not many small boats dared to approach too close at the beginning, and most of them launched a series of shelling at a distance of about a mile or more.

Thousands of 12-pounder or 18-pounder medium and heavy guns fired more than 40 rounds of fire in an hour or so, firing as many as 40,000 shells, and although the firing of these small boats at sea may have been due to the quality of the gunners, the hit rate was also not high, but in the continuous shelling more than 1,500 shells also hit the hulls of the armored ships.

Although these medium-sized naval guns did not pose much of a threat to the armor at a distance of about a mile, many shells passed over the armor and landed on the deck or mast at an oblique angle, aggravating the damage to many ships.

At about the same time, the light steel-clad rifled guns on the ships also engaged the enemy ships, but in the pre-battle battle plan, in order to avoid the large number of enemy boats from escaping because of the obvious threat of fire, such fire was often carried out only by arranging a limited number of a dozen rifled guns at a more cautious rate of fire. At the same time, the accuracy of shooting seems to be much lower than in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

"At this distance, the shelling of those armored ships does not seem to have any effect at all, and the gunners of those ships seem to have been greatly discounted, it seems that this is the time for us to make a contribution!" The captains of many small and medium-sized sea ships also saw the fighters at this time.

Of course, unlike the armed merchant ships that belong to the serious navy or the upper echelons, these small fleets of cannon fodder do not have such a high level of consciousness, and most of them still choose to carry out shelling from a safe distance.

When some of the adventurous boats approached within a hundred and fifty paces, only to suffer some inaccurate attacks, and the success rate of explosion was not very large, the captains of the ships who saw the battle clearly decided to lead the ships to join the attack.

Although these heavily armed enemy ships do not have much wealth value, if they obtain these armored ships and even many of the firearms on them, there is no doubt that the status of many forces can be substantially changed.

(End of chapter)