It is said that Lord Nelson, the great general who laid the foundation for the British Empire for a hundred years, before the last and most glorious battle of his life, before he made the decision to fight to the death in the face of the combined French-Spanish fleet that outnumbered him, said: "Of course we may lose this battle, but even if we fail, the enemy will not be able to do anything for a long time to come, and England will be able to do a lot in such a time." Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

Now, looking at his broken fleet, Zheng Sen couldn't help but think of this sentence, if the remaining battleship of the Spaniards was not too badly damaged, if it could be repaired in time, then even if only this battleship could go to sea to fight, it would be very dangerous for the Zheng family to increase troops to Luzon.

Fortunately, Zheng Sen's fast transport ships did not join the battle (these ships were not armed at all, so naturally they could not participate in the battle), so they were not damaged, and with their high speed, they could basically ignore the threat of any Spanish warship. Therefore, Zheng Sen immediately sent the "Blue Bird", "Jiguang", and "Ghost Car" to chase those Spanish warships. Zheng Sen's order to them was: on the premise of ensuring safety, to determine as much as possible the loss of these Spanish ships. Provide a basis for subsequent decisions.

After sending these three ships out, Zheng Sen led the fleet to turn and prepare to return to Beigang. Several captured Spanish battleships were among them. At the same time, Old Jack also came to the "Endeavour" by boat and discussed follow-up matters with Zheng Sen. After all, he was more experienced than Zheng Sen in dealing with these things.

The first important thing to do is to repair the damaged ship as much as possible with what you have on hand.

The sailors of the Endeavour tied the cable from the bow mast to the foremast, so that the spinnaker was re-opened and the Endeavour regained some of its ability to sail against the wind. Other ships have undergone some emergency repairs. Of course, the most serious problem was the Spanish warships they captured, these warships not only suffered a lot of shells, but also many of them had fires, although the fire was finally extinguished, but the degree of damage to the ships was far greater than those of the Zheng family. An even bigger problem is that these ships are now severely understaffed.

A large part of the reason why these Spanish ships surrendered to Zheng Sen's fleet was because their losses in naval battles were too great. In the case of the captured ships, for example, about a third of their crews and soldiers were generally killed in battle, and if we add the wounded and temporarily incapacitated, the number of people who could work on these Spanish ships was less than a quarter of her original number. Of course, it is not enough for such a small number of people to work, and the Zheng family can't come up with any manpower to help them repair the ship, and even need to consume manpower to take care of them. The ships were of course in even worse condition, and before it was completely dark, they simply nailed up some of the holes that had been knocked out by the cannons and were close to the water. And some guys from the Zheng family even sent people to take away some of the supplies from the captured Spanish ships in order to repair their warships. Therefore, after emergency repairs at sea, these Spanish ships can only be said to be barely navigable. Of course, because of manpower, materials and equipment. Even if it is the Zheng family's ship, the emergency repair at sea can only be a temporary response.

The fleet returned much slower than when they came, not only because of the direction of the wind, but also because most of the ships were damaged to varying degrees.

By the time the battle was over, it was already nearly evening, and by the time the fleet had begun to turn around and sail back, the last rays of sunset remained.

The fleet entered the night voyage, and the warships relied on signal lights to communicate with each other. In this era, there were no incandescent lamps, and of course there were no xenon lamps and LED lamps, only whale oil lamps that were much darker in brightness. So sometimes, it's easy for the lights to drown in the stars. At other times, there is a little fog on the sea, and the lights are even more invisible. Today, however, there is no need to worry about these problems, because there are no other threats around, so the ships can be connected in a more obvious way - using fireworks.

After the fleet entered the night voyage, Zheng Sen entrusted the command of the fleet to the officer on duty, and then went to sleep in his cabin. Even though he was physically and mentally good, he was still a little tired from a day of fierce fighting.

Zheng Sen is now at the age when it is easy to fall asleep, so although when he went to bed, he was still thinking about things such as what he should do if the few warships that the Spaniards jumped off were not too damaging, but when the candle in the cabin was extinguished and his head touched the pillow, he fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Zheng Sen was suddenly awakened by the sound of a knock on the door, and with the knock on the door, there was also Liu De's slightly anxious voice: "Major General, Major General." ”

"What's wrong? What's going on? Zheng Sen woke up, and as he sat up, he hurriedly asked, and at the same time he also felt that the "Endeavour" seemed to be shaking a little more than during the day.

"Major General, we are in a storm, and we may not be able to avoid it." Liu De's anxious voice came from outside the door.

"Hell!" Zheng Sen woke up all at once. The whole time, if this scarred fleet were to run into another storm, it would be nothing short of ...... If you don't get it right, those Spanish warships that you have captured with great difficulty will be completely destroyed.

Although the losses in this battle were not small, it was still very satisfying for Zheng Sen to capture so many Spanish warships, especially two battleships, once these warships were repaired, the Zheng family's sea power would be able to make a big leap, and there would be no one in the Far East who could compete with it, and it would be easier for Zheng Sen's colonial plan to be implemented.

However, if there was a storm, the Spanish warships, which were already badly damaged and lacked enough manpower to maintain them, were likely to sink in the storm.

Zheng Sen had already gotten up and dressed at this time, he opened the door and saw Liu De carrying a glass wind lamp and several people were already waiting outside.

"Let's go up to the deck and have a look." Zheng Sen said.