Because the Endeavour was larger, the height of the upper gun deck was slightly higher than that of the Resolve. www.biquge.info After several rounds of shelling with solid shells knocked out the remnants of the "Resolve's" self-defense firepower, the "Endeavour" took advantage of its condescending superiority to wash the entire upper deck of the "Resolve" with grapeshothulet, and hit many sailors who were in charge of sailing. Without these sailors, control of the Resolve became clumsy, and the time was ripe for a jump to capture it.

The Endeavour continued to approach the Resolve, and the distance between the two sides was only a few meters. Looking from the deck of the Endeavour, there was not a single living person on the deck of the Determination. Several sailors threw their hooks at the Resolve, and the sides of the two ships were next to each other.

"Marines, board and search!" An officer shouted.

Song Ran was the first to jump onto the deck of the Determination with his flintlock pistol loaded with his bayonet attached, followed by the other soldiers. Song Ran looked at his squad, then made a gesture, and several soldiers immediately unfolded into several triangles. Looking at the appearance of the ship, there will be no platoon of guns firing, and there are probably only a few Spaniards who are lucky not to be killed. Therefore, forming a skirmish formation should reduce the chance of casualties.

The soldiers silently searched the ship, the deck empty, except for the overturned guns, the mess of ropes, and the bodies that collapsed on the deck and the canvas that fell to the ground. Just as Song Ran's leather boots stepped on a severed mast, several Spaniards suddenly appeared from behind a pile of canvas, and they raised their hands towards Song Ran.

"Bang" The gun went off, but it was Song Ran who shot first. He didn't have time to see the results of his shooting, so he made a forward roll to the front right according to the habit he had formed during the usual boarding and search training. At this moment, the opponent's gun also rang out, and several bullets flew whistling past Song Ran's side.

At the same time, on the mast of the "Resolve", the canvas covering it was lifted, and several Spanish soldiers opened fire on the Marines on the deck. Several Marines were knocked to the ground.

However, the Marines were not slow to react, and they quickly returned fire. The mast was small, and the Spaniards who were hiding there had nothing to hide, and in the blink of an eye they were killed by the constant bullets.

The Spanish soldiers, who were hiding behind the canvas, also knew that they had absolutely no chance of reloading and shooting, so they all drew their bayonets and inserted them into the barrels of their guns (the Spaniards were still using insertion bayonets, which would not allow their guns to shoot if they were loaded). Therefore, the bayonet can only be loaded after the bullet is fired, which will naturally cause slow movements), and then rush towards Song Ran, who is getting up from the deck.

However, at this time, the other marines on the deck of the "Endeavour" had already reacted, and their guns were loaded with bullets, and suddenly a burst of guns passed, knocking them all to the ground.

Song Ran stood up and looked around, there were no more Spaniards around who could stand and shoot at them. Song Ran looked at his soldiers again. In the attack just now, two of the ten men in his squad fell, and one of them was shot in the chest, and by this time he was dead; There was also a shot in the leg, the bullet broke his calf directly, and now he is lying on the ground screaming. Over there, a medic in a white helmet was running towards him with a medicine box on his back.

Song Ran greeted the remaining soldiers, and then continued to search. There were no more Spaniards left alive on the upper deck. And Song Ran and the others have also found the hatch leading to the lower deck.

Song Ran motioned for the others to get ready, and then slammed the hatch open.

"Bang, bang!" Two bullets were fired. However, several people were prepared but they were not hit, and then several people slammed a few shots inside, and faintly heard the sound of people falling to the ground and screaming. Then there was a voice shouting something.

"Zhang Chao, what are they shouting?" Song Ran asked. Before the war, Song Ran and the others also learned a few words of Spanish by surprise, which was nothing more than "surrender the gun and don't kill" and the like. However, Song Ran was not very serious when he was studying, so he couldn't understand what those Spaniards were shouting now.

The people inside shouted a few more times.

"Probably, I guess I want to surrender." Zhang Chao listened for a moment and said uncertainly. Then he shouted in Spanish inside: "Shoot or kill!" ”

"That's not what you say, is it?" Another soldier said, "Something doesn't seem right." ”

"Then you come and shout." Zhang Chaodao.

Then the soldier shouted twice.

"You don't seem to be like this, if you want me to say ......," one soldier said.

At this time, someone below suddenly threw a gun up, and then another, and then a lot of swords and so on.

"Looks like one of you is right." Song Ran said, "Zhang Chao, go and call two sailors who really speak Spanish, Taixi to come and help!" ”

……

There were indeed not many people left on the "Resolve", only a doctor, and a dozen or so wounded. The captain, first mate, second officer, three blessings, and boatswain all died, and the rest of the people naturally surrendered. The Endeavour left a group of soldiers and some sailors to control the ship, put the Spanish doctor and a dozen wounded in a relatively intact cabin, and then sped off to the other side.

Old Jack looked at the sun in the sky, which was already obviously westerly, and couldn't help but scold: "Damn it! Can't you just slow down? He even regretted now that he had the idea of capturing the opposing warship.

"It's such a waste of time!" Old Jack said to himself in his heart.

At this time, the one who had just been shelled by them and broke two masts appeared not far from them, and on that boat, the blood-red St. George flag was also raised.

"Crazy! Ignore them, they are missing two masts and can't run far. Old Jack exclaimed, "They just want to delay us until dark, so that the ships carrying the silver will have a chance to escape." We're not going to be fooled, let's go and destroy the merchant ships that transport silver! ”

The helmsman gently turned the wheel, and the Endeavour made an arc, bypassing the enemy ships, leaving behind the Spaniards, who were determined to fight to the death, and slaughtered the silver fleet.

At this time, on this side, the battle was also fierce. Two Spanish cruisers, which had lost more than half of their speed, were already dying, one of them had lost another mast, and the sails on the remaining masts were in tatters. The boat was completely incapacitated and could only float with the currents. While another Spanish cruiser was repeatedly hit by arson shells, one of which even hit a powder keg, which led to a fire. Although the ship is still floating on the sea, everyone can see that the fire is out of control.

The other eight armed merchant ships also suffered certain losses, but because the fleet was concentrating on attacking those two cruisers just now, the losses of these eight ships were not too large, at least, there was no loss of navigational ability.

And the Zheng family's fleet was not without losses, a cruiser lost its foremast, and was hit by several guns on the side, and the damage was not light, and an armed whaling ship caught fire, although the fire was finally extinguished, but she still withdrew from the battle because of serious damage.

"These stupid things!" Old Jack scolded, "What are you still entangled with those two warships!" First of all, the ship carrying the silver will be paralyzed! Immediately send them a flag message. Let them leave those two warships alone, change all the chain bombs, and cripple those Spanish silver ships for me! ”

The Endeavour took the lead and swooped down on the silver ships first. Those silver ships only had 12-pounder guns, and they could not pose any threat to a giant ship like the "Endeavour", so Old Jack commanded the "Endeavour" to advance all the way to a distance of only ten meters from the Spanish ships, and then opened fire on their masts, breaking all three of their masts in one go.

Before the sun sank to the bottom of the sea, the Endeavour and the other ships finally paralyzed all eight silver ships. Now the white flags of surrender are flying on those ships. Marines also began to board the ships and keep the crews on guard.

At this time, the battle was basically over, so Old Jack finally remembered that he should release Zheng Sen, who was being closely protected.

……

The canopy of the cabin was opened, and several sailors lowered a ladder and looked inside. I saw that under the yellow light of the candle, Zheng Sen was leisurely playing Go with Gu Jiang.

"Major General. We won, we captured eight Spanish silver ships, two Spanish battleships. A Spanish cruiser was sunk and one was damaged, but they couldn't escape. A sailor went down to the cabin and reported to Zheng Sen.

"Very nice. I knew you could defeat the Spaniards. Zheng Sen picked up a chess piece, went down to the chessboard, and then said to Gu Jiang: "Brother Ningren, look, now we can go up." ”

Gu Jiang stretched out his hand and stroked the chess pieces on the chessboard and said, "You won this game." Let's go up. The two looked at each other and smiled, and stood up.

……

"Captain, what are we going to do? We only have one mast, and we can't run away. On the Spanish cruiser, which was ignored and left behind by Old Jack, the third officer, Carvalho, said to Captain Franco with a sad face.

"Normally, we can't run away." "Even if we run a little farther away at night, they can catch up during the day." Their ships are much faster than ours. It's not completely impossible, though, it's just a bit of a risk. Carvalho, let's go south! ”

"To the south?" Carvalho hasn't figured it out yet.

"Yes, to the south, towards the equatorial windless belt. Only there is no difference in speed between us and them. ”