The Endeavour continued its voyage. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoAt this time, the formation of the two sides has formed a situation of two horizontal and one vertical crossing, and the two sides are perpendicular to each other. But because the Zheng fleet was divided into two detachments, their queue was much shorter, and in comparison, the Spanish fleet queue was much longer in length. As a result, the angle between the ships at the bow and tail of the Spaniards' fleet and some of the Zheng ships was very unfavorable to them, and they could barely fire at the Zheng family's ships, which could constantly fire at them.

Because the "Endeavour" and "Brave" used their sturdy hulls to cover the other ships and act as magnets for fire, the ships that followed them did not suffer any blows, and they also fired at the Spanish warships with full firepower.

The Spaniards had already found that the situation was not in their favor at this time, but because there were no flags, shouting and the like might still be somewhat useful in peacetime, but in today's conditions where cannons are roaring everywhere, this primitive method can be said to be of no use at all. The phrase is, "If you shout in your throat, no one can hear you."

Therefore, the Spaniards' ships were chaotic when dealing with such a situation, some ships wanted to circle back and form a situation of sideways shooting with the Zheng fleet, and some were in a hurry to escape from the firepower network of the Zheng fleet, and turned to the outside indiscriminately, and the whole formation suddenly became a mess.

The "Endeavour" is now a little forward, and the firing angle is no longer particularly good. Zheng Sen then ordered the ships to turn to the left and catch up with the Spanish battleship that had just been fired several volleys from the tail. Zheng Sen estimated that those few salvos should have dealt a very heavy blow to the Spanish battleship, and at this time, the Spanish battleship should have lost most of its firepower, so he should seize this opportunity to paralyze the Spanish battleship in one fell swoop.

The "Endeavour" quickly drew an arc on the sea surface and approached the "Ferdinand" in front.

In the shelling just now, "Ferdinand" suffered a heavy blow, with nearly 200 casualties, which made the ship even have the problem of difficult handling caused by the lack of sailors, so soon, the "Endeavour" caught up with her.

The "Ferdinand" fired first, but this round of shelling suddenly reminded Zheng Sen of Liu Zongyuan's "The Donkey of Qian".

"The donkey is angry, and the hoof is angry." This is Zheng Sen's evaluation of the round of shelling of the "Ferdinand" just now. There were originally more than thirty cannons on the starboard side, but only a dozen of them were fired in the shooting just now, which means that the ship lost more than half of its firepower in the shelling just now.

"Close to the past! We completely dumb it with a salvo! Zheng Sen ordered.

The Endeavour continued to approach the Ferdinand, like a smirking gangster approaching a delicate Spaniard. The distance between the two sides quickly approached about 100 meters, and "Ferdinand" fired another volley, this time with even fewer cannons than the last time. The hasty firing before all the cannons could be reloaded, showed that the opponent was in fear and confusion.

These shells hit the side of the "Endeavour", and debris flew in an instant. However, the "Endeavour" still withstood this round of shelling, and the ship's planks were basically unharmed, and not a single shell successfully entered the cabin.

The distance between the two sides approached about 100 meters, and Zheng Sen gave an order, and the twenty cannons on the port side of the "Endeavour" quickly fired a volley, and the smoke of gunpowder suddenly obscured Zheng Sen's vision.

"Hurry up and reload!" There was a shout from the gun bay. The gunners began to quickly unload, reload, and reset the guns. Zheng Sen knew that the Spaniards must have been busy with these actions as well. However, the silk kit and the unpenetrated planks made the Endeavour reload significantly faster than the Spaniards, and when the Endeavour fired another salvo, the Ferdinand still failed to return fire.

After two rounds of shelling in succession, the "Endeavour" continued to approach the "Ferdinand", and the distance between the two sides was already only forty or fifty meters.

The Ferdinand's return fire was fired almost simultaneously with the third round of shelling of the Endeavour, but the lookout post observed that the Spaniard's return fire was already only five guns. And they also saw that the third round of shelling of the "Endeavour" hit almost all the targets, and the shells of the 18-pounder cannon easily tore apart the Spanish battleship. Based on this, Zheng Sen estimates that by the next round, there will be fewer Spanish cannons that can be fired.

"Let the cannons on the upper gun deck be replaced with grapeshotills and clean the decks of enemy ships. Prepare the Marines for broadside combat. Zheng Sen ordered.

"Major General, an enemy ship is approaching me from the starboard side!" A herald shouted at Zheng Sen.

Zheng Sen turned his head and turned the periscope to look to the right, and in the smoke of gunfire, sure enough, a Spanish battleship was approaching him, and on the main mast of this battleship, a rear admiral's flag was fluttering in the wind. Apparently, they found out that the "Ferdinand" was in danger and hurriedly killed it, preparing to rescue the "Ferdinand".

Zheng Sen frowned, obviously, continue to approach, and then launch a broadside battle, the action of the captured Spanish warship in front of him, which has almost been paralyzed, must be postponed, because when the two ships are close together, the speed will be very low, which reduces his reaction ability, and the broadside battle is bound to send a large number of marines to the Spanish battleship, and if at this time, another Spanish warship also comes close to play broadside battle, and he may face the problem of insufficient troops.

"Keep a distance from the enemy ship on the port side, and the starboard guns are ready for a salvo! The port side continues to shell enemy ships! The Marine Corps is on standby. Zheng Sen immediately revised his order.

The port side fired another volley, and the enemy ship was already scarred by this shelling, and Zheng Sen estimated that she might have lost nearly half of her crew. As long as there are two more rounds of firing, the battleship can be said to have completely lost its combat effectiveness.

The enemy ships on the starboard side continued to approach, and this time, the "Endeavour" opened fire on the enemy ships first. Before departure, the Endeavour was refitted, an important part of which was the replacement of the original 24-pounder gun with a long-barreled 18-pounder cannon. Compared with the original 24-pounder gun, the new 18-pounder gun has a longer range than the old 24-pounder gun because of the lengthened barrel and the use of more new technology to increase the muzzle velocity of the shell, and the penetration power has not decreased significantly, while the reloading speed and the speed of cannon reset are significantly faster.

Because of the distance, the first round of shelling did not hit many shells, only two of the twenty shells hit the enemy ship, and one of the shells made a small hole in the wooden hull of the enemy ship, but failed to penetrate the opponent's hull. The other shell had better luck and barely penetrated the hull of the Spanish battleship, but it also ran out of strength and did not bring much damage to the Spanish battleship.

However, at such a distance, the enemy ship's fire could still penetrate its own hull, which still surprised the Spaniards.

"General, the enemy hit us twice, one of which pierced the hull and wounded a sailor." José told Major General Duque that "the enemy's artillery is at a high level. ”

"Not bad." Rear Admiral Duke nodded, and the plight of the Spanish fleet now, as well as the rapid shelling of the enemy, showed that they had underestimated the Chinese before. These Chinese were well trained, at least their commanders and their gunners were not inferior to the Spaniards. (In fact, when the Spaniards thought that some Orientals were playing with European-style warships and behaved as much as they did, they already had a vague feeling that their opponents were actually significantly better than their own.)

"The enemy is well commanded and trained. Now that we are going through the usual artillery battles, I am afraid that it will be difficult to turn the situation around. Now the only way we can do this is to get close to the enemy ships as they try to continue attacking the Ferdinand, engage them in a broadside battle, and defeat them in the broadside! Duke said that nowadays, whether relying on formation tactics or artillery skills, he felt that it was impossible to take advantage of the Chinese, so he could only try to engage in broadside battles. In his impression, in the broadside battles at sea, the Spaniards still had a clear advantage over those non-European countries. Of course, the Chinese are not comparable to those barbarians, although they do not believe in God, but they are definitely civilized people. Therefore, it may not be reliable to infer from the situation of the barbarians, but at this time, Duke can only use this way to cheer himself up.

"Let the warships speed up and get closer, and let's use our bayonets to win more glory for the Spanish flag!" Duke ordered.

"If we continue to shoot now, after three rounds of fire, the enemy will be able to get close to a distance of about fifty meters from us, and at such a distance, the enemy will also have a chance to penetrate our hull." Zheng Sen observed the dynamics of the Spaniard's flagship and calculated in his heart, "However, the Spaniards' battleships only have a chance to penetrate our ship's 24-pounder guns on the lower deck, and the other 12-pounder guns are useless. At most, they only have 10 cannons that can penetrate our cannons, and we have 20 cannons that can penetrate their hulls at a greater distance, and with our faster rate of fire, they have no chance of firing anything. They must be trying to rush up and play broadside with us, right? ”

"Prepare to speed up, let's destroy the enemy on the starboard side before dealing with this dead fish." Zheng Sen ordered. In his opinion, the "Ferdinand", which had been subjected to many rounds of shelling, was already a completely dead fish.

But at this moment, a cannon suddenly rang out on the second deck of the "dead fish". It was only a 12-pounder gun, but it hit the front mainmast of the Endeavour accurately. Prior to this, the foremast had been hit by heavier shells, and although it had not been broken, it had already been wounded. Now after receiving this shot, the front mainmast finally couldn't bear it anymore, and it made a clicking sound and fell to the right.