The second round had a hit, which greatly boosted the morale of the Spaniards, so they quickly fired a third volley, this time hitting a fireboat again. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 But the Spaniards also knew that such a hit rate was far from enough to stop these fireships.

Amid the sound of a terrible siren, Captain Arroyo's patrol boat left the dock. In the military port of Cavite, apart from the cruiser "Santiago", which is under repair, there are only four patrol boats that can barely be called warships. These patrol boats, which had a displacement of only a few tens of tons, were not equipped with artillery, so the Spaniards urgently sent the soldiers of the army to the ships, and the flintlock pistols in their hands would provide the output firepower for these patrol boats. Considering that if the Chinese sailors on the fireship could be effectively killed, they would be able to prevent the fireship from launching an effective attack, and such firepower was barely enough.

It's just that these patrol boats have a huge problem at this time, and that is that their speed is too slow. If it weren't for the little wind in the harbor, the patrol boats could sometimes run to eight or nine knots, a little faster than the fireboats, but the low hills and trees on the hills around the harbor blocked the sea breeze, making the harbor calm. Under such circumstances, Arroyo's patrol boats could run at most three knots, which was much slower than those fireboats.

"Hurry, hurry!" Arroyo shouted, "Their goal is the Santiago, and we're going to get between the Santiago and them!" ”

Arroyo knew that his ship would not be able to play a chase game with those fireships, and that he could only drive his ship to the path of the enemy's ships, acting as a second floating battery to intercept the enemy.

Arroyo's patrol boat and three other patrol boats came about a kilometer in front of the USS Santiago, a distance that would prevent the ships from interfering with the firepower of the USS Santiago itself.

"Sail down! Anchor! We're here, we're not moving! Arroyo shouted.

When the sails are lowered and the anchor is lowered, the ships lose the ability to move completely, which makes the ships themselves vulnerable to attack, and a small boat like Arroyo's patrol boat, loaded by a fireboat, is sure to be doomed. But this can provide a more stable firing platform. Today, this is more important than protecting yourself.

"Everybody checks the guns and gets ready for battle." Calles, a second lieutenant in the Spanish Army who had been assigned to the patrol boat, shouted as he looked at the approaching shadow of the sail.

The soldiers began to examine the guns, reload the bullets.

At the same time, a large number of Spanish soldiers were sent to the upper deck of the "Santiago", and they were to protect the ship in the form of a platoon of guns. The guns on the "Santiago" on the other side of the sea were all open, and the gunners were ready to shoot.

"When the enemy ship is in range, first fire two rounds with ordinary shells, then immediately change to grapeshot for one round, and then change to shotguns!" First mate Drogba is delivering instructions. Grapeblaze and shotgun, which can perform an area attack, are the most suitable for fireships with an exposed crew, but the range of shotguns is too close, and grapeshots are slightly farther away, but the distance is limited, and the coverage area is not as good as that of shotguns.

Of course, if the side that launched the fireship attack was the Spaniards, and the defensive side was the Zheng family, it is estimated that there would be one more kind of shrapnel that can take into account both range and range of damage in the weapons used by the cannon, which is the most effective type of ammunition against small boats such as fireships, but at this time, the Spaniards did not have such a thing in their arsenal.

At this time, the fireship team had already crossed the blockade of the battery, and when passing through the blockade area of the battery, a total of six fireships were hit by the battery and lost, but such a number, compared to the huge number of fireships, is not worth mentioning at all.

"Raise your gun! Aim! Ensign Calles shouted as he took aim at a approaching fireboat with a flintlock pistol.

"Don't paddle, steady, don't paddle!" On the other side, on the Zheng family's fireboat, the helmsmen in charge of the sails were also shouting. Don't paddle until you're very close to the target, it's been a pre-established practice. Paddleing can greatly increase the speed of the boat, and at this time, the higher the speed, the safer it is. But man is not a machine, and man's physical strength is limited, so he paddled hard, and when he really needed the most speed, that is, when the fireship entered the killing distance of the "Santiago" grapeshotfire and shotgun, it would have to be unable to row because of the exhaustion of physical strength.

The fireboat was getting closer and closer to the Spanish patrol ship, but Ensign Calles did not give the order to open fire until the two sides were approaching no more than sixty meters, and Calles shouted: "Fire!" At the same time, he fired the flintlock pistol in his hand.

More than a dozen bullets swept across a fireboat in front of him, and Calles could see the sailors on that boat twitch and twist under the bullets, and then the ship suddenly lost control. Just then, Calais saw a fireboat a little farther away with a sudden flame on the bow of the ship, and then slammed straight into the patrol boat.

"Quick, shoot the one who lit the fire!" Calles shouted.

There was another volley, and Calles saw that the sailman in the boat was planted headlong into the sea, losing control of the sails, and the speed of the fireship dropped sharply. However, Calles didn't have time to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw another fireship rushing straight up.

"Quick, reload!" Calles shouted. But in this era, the speed of reloading flintlock pistols is not much faster than the speed of cannon reloading, and the more urgent people are, the more likely they are to panic, and as a result, the speed of reloading has decreased, and some of them barely complete the reload on time, but many more are still busy.

"Free Fire!" Seeing that the enemy's fireships were getting closer and closer, Calais didn't care about organizing a salvo, although the salvo was more sure of the hit rate, but it was too late in time.

"Smack, smack, smack." The Spanish soldiers fired their guns in a panic, but they failed to hit the target, and the orange-red flame suddenly rose from the bow of the fireship, and it hit it straight and straight, and just as it was about to collide, several sailors jumped from the fireboat into the sea.

The fireboat slammed into the starboard side of the patrol boat, and the grappling hook in the bow pierced straight into the hull of the patrol boat, firmly holding the two boats together, and the flames flew over at once.

Sulfur and other things are added to the fuel of the fireship, which in addition to supporting combustion, also has the effect of producing a large amount of toxic smoke. These pungent toxic fumes make it very difficult for anyone to come up and put out the fire. The flames soon ignited the patrol boat. At first, Calles also tried to direct the soldiers to continue firing at the other fireboats, but the fire suddenly grew bigger, and the soldiers did not care about Calles's command, and threw away their guns and jumped into the sea.

"Don't run!" Calles shouted.

"Second Lieutenant Calles, it's no good, let's get out quickly!" One shouted, grabbing Calais. Calles was about to curse, but when he turned around, he saw that it was Captain Arroyo.

"Second Lieutenant, this ship is no longer working, run away. You know how to swim, right? Captain Arroyo said, handing him a plank, "Hold this and jump into the sea!" ”

In this short period of time, several other patrol boats also caught fire, four patrol boats successfully intercepted about ten fireboats, and the remaining fireboats rushed over the wreckage of the patrol boats still floating in the sea, and rushed in the direction of the dock.

"Boom! Rumble! "The guns of the "San Diego" opened fire on the approaching fireship, and the first round of shelling did not hit any targets, only a few shells missed. In the era of blasting projectiles, a close miss that exploded in water could sometimes cause more damage than a direct hit. But in this day and age, the near loss is just the near loss.

The Spaniards were quick and soon launched a second volley, this time with two wins as they got closer. Then the artillery fire on the "San Diego" fell silent for a while, and the Spaniards were changing their ammunition.

The sailors of the fireship began to paddle rapidly at the whistle of the sailor, and the speed of the fireship began to increase rapidly, and the fireship swooped down like arrows on the cruiser "Santiago".

"One hundred and fifty distances, twelve elevations, fire!" In the gun compartment of the "Santiago", the Spaniards were ready, two gun decks, sixteen cannons took turns firing.

Grapegres from sixteen cannons rained down on the fireships.

Grapeshells were much more effective than solid shells, and in this round of shelling alone, five fireships were hit and out of control. But more fireships sped up.

The Spaniards hurriedly cleared their chests, loaded the shells, reset the cannons, and fired another salvo, this time with shotguns, and at a closer range, so the hit rate was higher, and ten fireships were hit in this round. However, by this time, a large number of fireships were already only a few dozen steps away from the "San Diego". The ignition on the fireboat has also been ignited.

"Aim! Fire! On the upper deck of Santiago and the Spanish soldiers standing on the docks opened fire on the fireships with flintlock pistols in their hands, and many of them were hit and lost control. But more fireships rushed up, and even if all the sailors on board were killed at such a distance, the fireships would still rush by inertia. Soon, the first burning fireship crashed into the side of the "Santiago", then the second and third......