Beneath the calm sea lies danger, the deepest fear of every seafarer.

Perrin now has a trace of worry, as the fleet advances, the more worried he becomes, especially the three reconnaissance ships going to Manila, he regrets a little that he did not bring which patrol ships and transport ships came, which ships are usually at the speed of seven knots, eight knots, and the maximum speed can reach ten knots or eleven knots when scouting.

Even in the case of such a light wind, there is a speed of eight knots, and some strong winds in other directions can make them go back and forth at a speed of ten knots, which is three to four knots faster than the speed of a six-hundred-ton warship, and although the six-hundred-ton warship is light, it can only provide them with a speed of one knot, which is not much more than the speed of a thousand-ton warship in their own fleet.

He had to keep the fleet at a speed of five knots or four knots slower waiting for them to return, and even if it was for His Majesty's safety, allowing your ship to travel at almost maximum speed of six knots would not make him feel at ease.

Because he had to keep moving at a speed of six knots, he would move farther and farther away from the three six-hundred-ton warships that had gone out to reconnoitre, and the six-hundred-ton warships would form an independent formation after the reconnaissance, and then follow them closely, and only when they had rested, they would be able to catch up, otherwise they would always keep a distance of dozens of nautical miles from them, because reconnaissance could not go too far, and even if one or two captains decided to run farther, or for other reasons they got lost, it was very likely that they would return soon, or they would lose contact with the home team forever. That's not good.

While he was thinking about the problem, Zhang Qiang walked out, yawned, and asked in a bit of confusion, "How far are we from Saigon?" ”

Perrin thought for a moment, "Your Majesty, at this speed we will reach a small archipelago at noon, where there are two hundred and eighty nautical miles from the Fifth Fleet, where we are now more than eighty nautical miles, at our speed, if we can catch up with the tailwind in the middle, it is very likely that we will reach somewhere, even if we can't reach anywhere, we will not be more than twenty nautical miles away, we can reach it in the afternoon, and then where we will rest, tomorrow at noon, we can reach the Fifth Fleet." ”

Zhang Qiang took the strong tea handed to him by the attendant, sat down casually, and the attendant brought him a soft chair, he sat on the bow deck, looking at the sea in the distance through the diagonal sail on the side of the bow deck.

Looking sideways at the standing Peilan, he was dressed in a Chinese Navy uniform, looking capable, handsome, mighty, with a flintlock pistol pinned to his waist that had been transformed several times, a double-barreled flintlock pistol, which could be contacted and fired twice, and a command knife hung on the other side, a bright Damascus command knife, of course, it was not a real Damascus knife, it was a sample imitated after the improvement of the steelmaking level of the Huaxia Army.

It is narrower and shorter than the Damascus sword, and wider and shorter than the Japanese Oriental sword, making it suitable for fighting in tight spaces on a ship.

Perrin has a copper whistle around his neck, a telescope, a whistle that allows him to summon soldiers to find his position at any time, protect him, and also allow him to immediately wake up the soldiers to fight can also be used as a tool for him to command the soldiers.

Soldiers are highly trained to know the meaning of his distinctive whistle in the midst of chaos, so they can spontaneously form resistance or carry out his orders.

The watchman's shout came from the watchtower: "An unknown ship has been found ahead, thirty nautical miles away, and the speed of eight knots is rapidly approaching." ”

Without waiting for Pei Lan to give an order, the lookout shouted loudly: "Three patrol boats flying the flag of our Huaxia Kingdom sailors, they seem to be injured. ”

Zhang Qiang and Pei Lan's hearts tightened, now at this time, the sailor ship of their kingdom was injured, what was going on?

The thought in my mind is that there is an enemy nearby.

Perrin shouted loudly: "Ring the bell, prepare for war, fourth-level alert!" ”

The captain of the Huaxia No. 310 beside him shouted: "Ring the bell, prepare for war, and be on alert at the fourth level!" ”

Not far away, the first mate who was observing the enemy on the other side of the ship repeated the captain's words, "Ring the bell, prepare for battle, four levels of alert!" ”

As his shouts fell, the crisp bell rang, and the ship was still chatting leisurely, while the sailors and gunners, as well as the miscellaneous servants, returned to their respective places, and left what they were doing to prepare for battle.

The handymen quickly tied up all the things that could move with ropes, and threw some things that were easy to run into the small compartment next to them, closed the hatch, quickly checked the cables around them, and then retreated to the cabin and stood by, while the sailors ran to their posts, some of them climbed the net ladder and climbed to the mast in full gear, and below they would be responsible for retracting the sails and releasing the sails in order to deal with the fierce naval battle, the gunners ran back to their respective gun positions, pushed the guns to a position suitable for combat, stuck the rails behind them, and lifted the muzzles, Prepare to be sent out of the gun window and bombard the enemy.

The gunner apprentices took out shells and gunpowder cartridges from the boxes on one side, and quickly wiped each shell, the shells of the Huaxia Army are all standard, even a little dust will affect the speed and power of the shells.

The marines on board carried all the cold weapons knives, machetes, swords, axes, and shields to every position, and then lined up with repeater guns on their backs, ready to deal with the enemy's gang jumping.

Another standard-bearer on the watchtower waved the flag, relaying the order to each of the ships in the fleet.

A trumpeter at the bow and stern climbed the rear mast and blew the horn vigorously representing a dozen alerts, and the sound propagated far more efficiently than the flag, day and night.

After the soldiers arrived at their posts, the lookout continued to report the movement of the ships in front, "The other side has five ships, and there are two six-hundred-ton warships behind, which seem to have retreated, and the two sides have gathered twenty nautical miles, which are also our warships, and the rear is the warships of the Fourth Fleet's detachment stationed on Qiong Island, and in front are the patrol ships of the Fifth Fleet patrolling this sea area, they are close, and there are still thirty nautical miles, they have increased their speed." ”

With the shouts of the lookouts, a ship heading in their direction appeared in the telescope held by Zhang Qiang and Pei Lan, and the speed of the other party continued to increase, and finally it seemed that it had reached a speed of ten knots.

For the ships of the 180-ton Huaxia Sailors, this speed was already their maximum speed.

It's going to disintegrate soon.

The marine timber of the ships of the Huaxia Sailors themselves is not up to standard, which is the sequelae of the Huaxia Sailors who do not look at the laws and blindly expand the scale of the Sailors.

But Zhang Qiang had no choice, because he wanted to expand rapidly, make the surrounding enemies tremble, and he didn't dare to harass the Huaxia Kingdom, so he used the scale to suppress the enemies who were about to move, after all, the Dutch, the British, the Spaniards and their sailors were all over the ends of the earth, every corner of the ocean in the world.

The quality of their sailors is much higher than that of the coastal fishermen of the Huaxia Kingdom, and their experience in manipulating warships and fighting naval battles is much higher than that of the Huaxia Kingdom, so the Huaxia Kingdom can only use quantity to pile up quality at first, but this is also much more advanced than Zheng Chenggong's blind small boat stacking enemy big ships, at least compared to the big ships, the firepower is more ferocious.

After 20 years of training, the Huaxia Kingdom Naval Division has developed its own group of experienced young naval officers and soldiers with the retirement of the old batch of pirate naval division officers and soldiers, and now Zhang Qiang is ready to launch new warships, making the Huaxia Kingdom Naval Division so much higher than the enemy.

After sailing for an hour and a half, the two sides finally approached ten nautical miles.

(End of chapter)