Chapter 403: The Vanishing Fleet

In the 16th century, the main method of warfare was to attack each other with fireships, and no matter how large the ship, it was also made of wood, and it was ultimately afraid of fire.

There is always some black oil storage for making asphalt on the warships of the Jiang family's navy, which are all collected at the expense of Shaanxi, which is also one of the few instructions from Jiang Feng to the navy. However, this kind of black oil is a trouble for the navy, black oil is easy to burn, but it is not very useful in water warfare, but it is more effective to set fire on land, so it has not been used.

On the contrary, it was used in the harbor, where the fences on the edge of the wharf, which were filled with scraps of wood and firewood, were scattered and dumped into the sea, and in these fences there were also large vats of black oil, and the fire of the small cannons was not enough to burn them, but they could break the barrels.

Now there were sawdust and straw floating on the sea covered with black oil, and of course the debris of the ships was also among them, but the warships in the harbor were there desperately firing back, and no one had the heart to watch what was happening in the sea until the rockets were fired into the water.

Two of the three 500-ton ships were already surrounded by oil slicks, and after the fire was ignited, it decided their miserable end, and the ships on the periphery were desperately heading towards the sea, not daring to approach the burning sea in the harbor.

Although Jiang Feng did not know, the Spaniards had read about similar wars in their history books, the Roman Empire fought against the Vandals in North Africa, and in the Mediterranean, they were set on fire by people at sea with ships filled with black oil, and more than 100,000 troops were wiped out.

By the way, black oil is oil, and during the Ming Dynasty, the Yan'an area of Shaanxi Province can be seen on the surface.

When Spain arrived, there were five 500-ton and 10 400-ton sailing gunboats, and thirty armed merchant ships, but at this time there were already two sailing gunboats, two of which had been sunk and two were burned by fire, and four or five armed merchant ships were either sunk in the artillery battle or were burning.

The remaining fleet was so frightened that it did not dare to approach the port, but since the Count Sandino fell on the dock, the fleet's attention has been focused on the dock, and there are endless tricks on it that make these people tremble, for fear that there is something else that they do not know.

So there was a fleet slowly approaching, and they didn't notice. The vengeful Spaniards' remaining eleven gunboats slowly unfurled, ready to deliver a devastating blow to those who dared to do so on the docks, and now they didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting their own ships.

The Yizhou fleet has always stayed in a place that cannot be seen in the port of Malacca City, and the order given to them by Lin Zhi is also very simple, it will appear again an hour and a half after the appearance of the Spanish fleet, if everything goes well on the dock, the appearance of the Yizhou fleet is just the right time, if it doesn't go well, it is rescue.

Now it seems that it was just right, the appearance of the Yizhou fleet caused great panic to the Spaniards, they did not expect such a sea force to appear on the sea here, and the frightened fleet commander - according to the rank substitute, turned to the formation of the fleet with a loud order.

The Jiang family navy does not have a shipyard, and the ship type that combines the Eastern and Western ships and makes more full use of the wind makes the sails of the ships much faster and more flexible than the Spanish ships.

The armed merchant ships of the Spanish fleet were full of soldiers, and each ship was about ten small cannons, which had no effect on the attack on the docks, so they all watched the battle from the periphery. These armed merchant ships were the first to be unlucky, and the charges of the guns of the Shunfeng and Huifeng were the applied granular gunpowder, which was much stronger than the opponent's artillery in terms of range and power, and even without these gunpowders, their firepower was far superior to that of the other side.

In the first round of salvo, four armed merchant ships were driven to the bottom of the sea, and at this time, only two ships of the Spanish fleet adjusted their direction, they besieged the docks, and there were armed merchant ships on the periphery.

If the Spanish fleet in the inner circle wants to open fire, the armed merchant ships on the periphery will definitely be hit by mistake, but the Yizhou fleet has no such care, they pour artillery fire mercilessly, at this time the Spanish sail gunboats on the inner side found that if they were in the direction of the dock, there was a raging fire burning there, and there were dozens of armed merchant ships in a mess on the periphery.

After the seventh armed merchant ship sank to the bottom of the sea, the replacement fleet commander finally gave the order, ignoring the ships on the periphery, and directly opened fire, otherwise the sail warship would not be able to be saved.

For the navy, sail warships are more valuable assets than armed merchant ships used to carry people, and armed merchant ships can be requisitioned and issued casually in the Atlantic.

A short moment on the battlefield can change the outcome of the entire battle, not to mention that this Spanish commander, who does not have much experience in commanding fleets, has been delayed for so much time, the main gunboats of the Jiang family's naval army are already in a curved arc on the sea, and the Spanish fleet is wrapped in the ground.

Now all they have to do is to keep loading and firing, eleven against sixteen, sixteen ships still have an advantage in tonnage, and occupy a favorable position, in the naval battles of this era, it is basically possible to draw conclusions about victory or defeat, as for the armed merchant ships sandwiched in the middle, the one-pound and two-pounder guns on their ships cannot even penetrate the board of the Yizhou fleet, and can only be used as targets.

The battle lasted for two hours, the sky gradually darkened, and the end was not outstanding, the remaining four sail warships and ten armed merchant ships of the Spanish navy chose to surrender, the Yizhou fleet had two 400-ton gunboats sunk, three lost their combat capability.

This result was not perfect, but Lin Zhi, as the commander of the fleet, knew that the Jiang family's naval army was too dominant in the seas of Asia, so it had little combat experience, while the Spanish navy had incomparable combat experience in the Atlantic.

If it weren't for the fact that so many traps and layouts were set up on the dock on the sea this time, and if they were to face each other the sea, although it would be very good to win by virtue of their advantage, it would have been difficult to completely annihilate the other side and not let the news spread.

After the fire burned for several hours, it was finally extinguished, and the ships of the surrendered Spanish fleet leaned against the already battered docks, where two thousand soldiers of the Jiang army, six hundred of whom were Dutch, awaited them.

The Spanish expeditionary fleet numbered more than 3,000 people, but less than 1,000 survived.

Because he did not get Jiang Feng's specific orders, he still had to wait for news about the disposal of these prisoners, and after the items that could be moved on the Spanish ship were removed, Lin Zhi directly ordered the ship to be burned, so as not to leave any traces of the Spanish expeditionary fleet having come to Malacca.

After a few days, there was no sign of the battle except for the occasional sight of broken wood or floating corpses on the sea.

In addition to sending ships to send a letter to Jiang Feng, Lin Zhi temporarily stationed the Yizhou fleet here, as the commander of the fleet, he was born in a pirate family, and he discovered the huge value of Malacca City at a glance, and now the people of Yizhou are close to 400,000, and there is no big problem with self-preservation.

As long as he guards Malacca City, he is optimistic about the gateway for Jiang Feng. The Spanish and Portuguese captives originally thought that after surrendering, they would have the opportunity to wait for redemption, but first, the Jiang army did not lack this little money, and secondly, the thousands of holes on the wharf needed labor to repair, and it cost money to hire local Han people and natives after all, so these captives were driven to work as much as they could.

Although there were nearly 3,000 people sunk to the bottom of the sea and dozens of warships were burned in the city of Malacca, a battle of this scale can be said to be a sea battle in Europe, but everyone did not want the news to spread, except for Goa, where this fleet had docked, there was no one in the whole of Asia until this incident, the Yizhou fleet would not say, the prisoners in prison would not say, and the governor of Luzon, Revere, had always claimed that he had not received any letterhead and news from the royal government.

The disappearance of the fleet became a mystery in Spain, and it was not until thirty years later that a freed sailor answered the answer.

In this era, it took eleven months or a year for the Spanish ships to come to the East, and it took two years for the transmission of news back and forth, in two years, the city of Malacca had been operated by the Jiang army into an incomparably strong fortress port, and when the results of this battle reached Jiang Feng's hands, it was already the winter of the eighteenth year of Jiajing, and this victory was the first time that the Jiang navy faced an enemy of the same magnitude, although there were also great losses, but this result was extremely important.

Jiang Feng's reward was also extremely generous, he replenished all the shortages and ships to Lin Zhi's fleet, and transferred 2,000 from the regimental training in Yizhou to garrison it, and awarded Lin Zhi the official title of Xingzhou Jiedu, allowing him to manage Malacca on his own.

It is too far away from Huazhou, if Lin Zhi is not given the right to make his own decisions, there will be trouble at that time, and everyone has no objection, but it is strange why Jiang Feng made it 'Xingzhou'.

When he wasn't crossing, Jiang Feng made a fried rice dish called Singzhou Fried Rice, which is said to have come from Singapore......