Yes, there is a ship that is sinking rapidly. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info even if you don't need to look carefully with a telescope, Zhang Haogu is sure that the ship was not sunk. In this era when explosive shells were not widely used, solid shells fired by artillery could often punch enemy warships everywhere, causing huge casualties to the enemy, but it was very difficult, even delusional, to sink ships. Because of the angle of incidence, it is difficult for ordinary shells to hit the underwater part of the ship, (because the shells will bounce on the surface of the sea, as if they are drifting), and occasionally the shells that do not bounce will also slow down sharply in the water. By the time they hit the underwater part of the ship, their kinetic energy would probably not be enough to penetrate the ship's planks. Even if the side that fired the cannon was lucky, and the shell penetrated the plank of the underwater part of the enemy ship, it could only make a fairly small hole, and it was generally not difficult to plug it. So, in this day and age, it is almost impossible to sink enemy ships by relying on shells.

And the ship was not actually hit by the shell just now, and it can be seen from the speed of its sinking that it is not the effect of a small cut in the shell. From the binoculars, Zhang Haogu could see that the Spanish sailors on board did not make any effort to save the ship, but they had a good time to drop anchor, lower the sampan, and then they all got on the sampan and rowed out to the open sea. Apart from them, there were no other people on board, or, more definitely, no imaginary Spanish Army men running out of the cabin and jumping into the sea.

"That's not right!" Zhang Haogu said to himself.

Immediately afterward, after the second boat passed the slowly sinking ship, it also lowered its sails, dropped anchor, and then lowered its sampan, and then, Zhang Haogu saw that the boat also shook a little, and then began to sink. Apparently, the ships were intended to sink here.

"They all deliberately installed such long masts, this must be ......" Zhang Haogu suddenly understood the Spaniard's thoughts. The Spaniards wanted to sink these ships here and use them to block the shipping lanes. He snapped to an incident from a few months ago.

On that day, a Spanish merchant ship loaded with struvite entered the harbor, and after the ship docked at the pier, several Spanish sailors rowed around the channel under the pretext of going out fishing, secretly measuring the depth of the channel. As a result, he was discovered and arrested by vigilant model army soldiers. The Spaniards arrested at the time only admitted that it was an act of espionage for commercial reasons, and it now appears that, at least since then, the Spaniards have been under the guise of clogging the harbor shipping lanes with sunken ships.

The captured Spanish sailors were later exchanged for Chinese who had been arrested for getting too close to the Manila fort. In retrospect, the exchange may not have been a good deal, even though the Spaniards had only a limited number of locations to detect before they were captured.

"The reason why those ships have so many masts is probably to make it easier to create obstacles!" Zhang Haogu thought. He knew that Zhenyuan Harbor was a deep-water port, and the water depth of the channel on both sides of the central fort was very deep. Simply sinking a ship may not be able to block the channel, and even, if it is a lucky ship, because the mast is relatively low, even if it sinks, ordinary ships can still sail out of it. Therefore, the Spaniards also deliberately equipped these ships with high masts that did not have sails at all, to ensure that they could effectively block the shipping lane.

"All artillery, change the chain shells at once and strike at the enemy's merchant fleet! Break their masts! Zhang Haogu immediately gave an order. If they can break the masts of enemy ships before they reach the right position, making them incapacitated, it will be difficult for them to sink the ship exactly in the right position, and their blockade of the port will be easier to break.

However, there are actually very few chain shells on the turret. This is due to the higher cost of chain bombs and the limited production of them. And these shells were always given priority to the fleet rather than the batteries. The second reason is also that in general, the battery does not need chain bullets very much, the range of chain bullets is relatively short, and the flight trajectory is not very stable, or the accuracy of long-distance shooting is not good, a little farther, the hit can only rely on faith. The center line of the channel is not too close to the battery, and the use of solid shells is enough to ensure the hit rate of the shot, but if you use chain bullets, although it is not impossible to hit, it is too much of a test of character to hit.

As a result, only three salvos were fired at the battery, and almost all the chain ammunition was consumed. And the result of the shot, as expected, was only one shot. And this lucky shot failed to break either of the masts. Zhang Haogu was dismayed to realize that he had in fact not had an effective means to prevent the Spaniards from blocking the shipping lanes with sunken ships.

Under the desperate fire of the battery, one merchant ship after another moved to the right position, then dropped anchor, lowered the sampan, and sank the ship, before the sailors rowed away with the sampan.

"Why aren't we equipped with shrapnels!" Zhang Haogu couldn't help but complain in his heart, "If we have shrapnels, we can at least kill a lot of Spanish sailors." In the East, Spain's human resources were quite limited, and every Spaniard was precious, especially those sailors with specialized skills. ”

The Spaniards sank all the ships according to plan. Their four cruisers were still firing at the batteries to cover the retreat of the sailors on the sampans. Of course, because of the nature of the mission, these Spaniards also did not care at all whether their shelling really brought any losses to the battery. Now that the ship that should have been sunk had sunk, and the fire on the batteries had refocused on them, they naturally cared less and less about how well their guns were blowing, but only how to avoid the shelling on the batteries.

The Spaniards' sampans are now paddling backwards against the wind. It will take quite some time for them to draw out the range of the artillery. Such a target as a sampan is small, and shelling such a target, even for a battery, the hit rate is not necessarily very high. But a hit, or even a near-miss, can tip these little sampans over. But at this time, Zhang Haogu had some other ideas. In his opinion, his defeat in this battle is already irreversible. Even if a few more Spanish sailors were killed, it would be useless. However, if he can destroy or severely damage a Spanish warship, it will save some face.

"Commander, I think we should shell those sampans first." Mo Huaiyuan said that his 18-pounder gun was placed on the highest part of the island, so he was next to Zhang Haogu.

Zhang Haogu did not speak.

"Commander, let's ignore those warships for now, and concentrate our firepower on those sampans. The enemy's warships are not retreating now, they must be trying to attract our firepower to cover those sampans. They are now cruising at high speed in the distance, and it is not easy for us to hit them, and at such a distance, even if we do, we may not be able to hit them hard. I think to hit them hard, we need to seduce them a little closer and slow them down a little bit. Let's concentrate our fire on the sampans first, and if they want to cover, they have to get closer and really hit the shells on the batteries to be of some use. At that point, we turned our guns and slammed them down, which gave them a better chance of inflicting heavy damage. Mo Huaiyuan continued.

"Well, that's right!" Zhang Hao said, "That's it!" Brother Huaiyuan, do you have any other tricks? ”

"It's best, it's better to let those two boats in Yangdu Harbor get out. Both of his boats were small and had a shallow draft, so they should be able to get out. Although the ship was no match for the Spanish corvettes, it was still enough to bully the sampans. If they get those two boats out, the Spaniards, if they don't want their sailors to be prisoners, will have to come closer, slow down, and drive our boats away with artillery fire, and then they will become our targets. ”

……

The Vespa and the Dragonfly patrol boats had already left the dock and were on standby in the harbor behind the battery, ready to cooperate with the fireships after the enemy fleet broke into the harbor. Now that he received the order of the flag, he immediately drove forward. By this time, many ships had sunk in the middle of the channel, and some of the masts of some ships were still half exposed on the water. If it is an ordinary ship, it is difficult to get in and out at this time. However, the "Vespa" and the "Fly Tiger" were both small boats, and the draft was shallow, and those slightly shallower places at the edge of the channel, those ships used to block the channel could not go, and naturally it was impossible to block this place.

The presence of these two boats was a great mess for the Spanish sailors, who were still wielding their oars desperately on the sampan, their warships still in the distance, while the enemy patrol boats were catching up quickly.

The Vespa first caught up with a sampan with more than a dozen sailors on it, and although they were all rowing desperately, the sampan was quite slow in the headwind. The Vespa, on the other hand, is a schooner, which is best suited for windward sailing. So almost in the blink of an eye, the "Vespa" caught up with the sampan. The Vespa didn't shoot at the sampan, she just hit it directly from the side and back, and with a slight touch, the sampan fell upside down, and the Spanish sailors fell into the sea like dumplings.

However, at this time, the "Vespa" did not pay attention to them, and continued to chase after the other sampans in front of him.