The Spanish Zamboanga fleet consisted of 6 Galens, 3 large and 3 small.

Juan. Morality. Chaves was the commander of the detachment.

The Spanish flagship navigator held up his binoculars and stared at the speeding cruiser on the opposite side.

"Sir, their ship is so fast, I've never seen a cruiser so fast."

Of course.

Most of the Spanish warships in the Philippines had to take care of cargo transportation, and the general feature was that they were fat, and of course fat people could not run fast.

The Federation Cruise Fleet was divided into two groups, with the Burenshire and Hyperion being the fastest, with 4 frigates inserted between the Zamboanga Fleet and the Manila Fleet.

The Raphael sailed slightly slower and headed south in a straight line with the other three frigates.

Chavis weakly lowered his binoculars, "We can't join the main fleet without a fight." ”

"Yes, sir. I would like to say that except for the two good-looking ships, our ships are bigger than theirs. ”

"But they have a lot of ships, and the combat effectiveness of those little friends behind us ...... Forget it, no matter how much. Turn left 4 compass points and we form a battle line. ”

Juan. Morality. Chaves' decision to open the passage through battle was immediately applauded by Allemand, a move that was in keeping with the sailor's vocation.

Chaves, Allemand, and Philippe were among the wisest officers in their respective navies.

Before Philippe arrived, Chaves temporarily had an advantage in size, firepower, and numbers, but he was at a disadvantage in speed and wind.

The Spaniards were sailing in a zigzag with the wind, and their main fleet had sailed out of Manila Bay, and it was impossible for Chaves to turn south and leave the battlefield at this time, and it was impossible for them to fight a naval battle against the wind.

Windy on the starboard side, Zamboanga's fleet headed west-northwest toward the open sea, overtaking Philip's second patrol fleet while gaining more room to maneuver.

The Federation fleet was in too much of a hurry to descend from the south outside the anchorage, probably due to Thomas Merlo's negligence, and between the two patrol fleets, a commander was not assigned.

As Philip approached the battlefield, the Raphael unfurled the Bellenchill with the signal flag that would later become famous.

"I obey your commands."

This did not hurt Philip in any way. Edward's honor, everyone knows that the 2 new cruisers in Allemand are the main force in the southern theater.

Forcing the Spaniards out to the open sea and closing the distance between them and the main fleet, Allemand paused slightly, turned with the wind, and changed the course from southeast to northwest.

Philippe took the opportunity to insert himself behind the Hyperion with a downwind change to form a battle line with Allemand. The ships are excellent, and these cruisers have some of the best officers and men of the Federation.

Juan. Morality. Chaves chose to meet the battle, and did not make more fleet maneuvers to delay time.

The Zamboanga fleet was in the downwind position and the Allemand was in the upwind position.

The two fleets approached and entered into an artillery battle in the same direction.

Brenhill and Hyperion showed good quality of their own shelling platforms, and after a few rounds of longitudinal fire, the Spanish battleship's sail line was badly damaged.

Chavis was determined to fight, and Allem and Philippe were fully engaged.

Soon, the sail lines of the two fleets were broken one after another, making it even more difficult to continue the complex maneuver.

So both sides rushed to the enemy desperately, and the battleship entered the side of the ship to fight against the side of the ship. Grapeball, even arquebuses, everything found its best home with the enemy.

The fastest Burrenshire, repositioned and attempted to fire a longitudinal shot at the enemy's lead ship, but the Spaniards skillfully dodged and got the two warships close to the distance between the trusses, and the bow of Burrenshire nearly collided with the fat Galen starboard side.

The battle unsurprisingly went into a broadside battle, with everyone trying to board the enemy ship on the opposite side.

The Spanish maritime infantry was elite, but there were more people in Allemand.

The Brenshire's new ship was new and weaponized, and the remaining 80 marines raised flintlock rifles that were not ignited by arquebuses to cover sailors armed with boarding axes, scimitars and grenades as they rushed onto the Spanish battleship. Soon, 1 frigate little guy came up to help, and Allemand proudly watched his men sweep the deck and enter the inner compartment.

The Raphael and Zamboanga's flagship, the San Justo, met directly, and the old rivals of Philip and Chavis met directly.

Unlike last time, Philip no longer worries about damage to the battleship, and the Raphael completely ignored its own casualties and got close to the fight. On the slipway of the Capital Shipyard, two new, larger cruisers have lowered their keels, which are his future ships.

The ships of Chaves were larger than the Raphael, and fierce battles with spears and muskets continued for a long time. The St. Justo's numerical superiority forced Philip to focus on defending his own deck.

Philip maneuvered a cannon to fire outwards from the window of the captain's cabin, with terrible results.

Gun-to-gun, gun-to-gun fierce battles continued until neither side could continue to maneuver the battleship.

2 frigates belonging to Philip approached, and the marines climbed aboard the Raphael.

The arrival of reinforcements boosted morale, and the number of men in the broadside was always king, and Philip fought back to the deck of the San Justo. Gun to gun, gun to gun.

The frigate carried away the wounded, and Philip led all those who could to seize the deck of San Justo.

Philip stood in front of the stern of the St. Justto and ordered a man to shout down.

"I'm Philip. Edward, as an honorable officer of the Union Navy, swear to treat you prisoners of war. General Chaves, lay down your arms and live. ”

These are the exact words that Chaves said to Philippe many years ago on board the Lima.

The flag of the San Justo was lowered, and Philip could not wait to raise the Union Navy flag.

The Galen's sailline was badly damaged, the trailmast was broken and the foremast was badly damaged.

Juan. Morality. Chaves was badly wounded and was carried onto the deck by his soldiers and became a prisoner of war for Philip.

Philip used 300 men to take over 250 unwounded prisoners of war and a Spanish Galen, which was 200 tons heavier than his original ship, and took it to safety. Brenshire dragged the war ship to the south to the island of Lubang, the first assembly point of the Order.

Zamboanga's fleet lost 3 ships, and the other 3 ships that were still able to sail turned south, one of which faltered.

The lighter Huberian and 2 frigates caught up and handed over the more seriously wounded Galen Jr. to the frigate, and Huberian soon crippled another Spanish ship.

Finally, Galen watched his comrades surrounded by light warships like wolves, and his comrades spewed out volcanic fire, but to no avail, and were fired at the stern, the sail lines were beaten bald, and then were reinscribed.

The Hyperion left the battlefield to repair damaged sail lines, repair knots, and replace spare sails.

Allemand transferred to the Hyperion, leaving three frigates for Philippe, and one of the best frigates into the storm.

If you run happily with the wind, you have to climb against the wind. For the time being, Orderly can't count on this convoy.

The little ones of the notification ships walked on the non-opposing side of the battlefleet, and the main fleets of the Federation and Spain remained in a state of standoff.

7 battleships, 1 Nanhai against 6 large Galen, 3 cruisers, the balance of strength between the two sides is very close.

In the afternoon, the wind direction changed somewhat, and the impact on the battlefield was relatively neutral.

Admiral López reels the sails to slow down and turn the rudder to the right to take a downwind position.

Changing sides in order, they marched side by side with him in roughly parallel columns on their respective courses, with the west ship on the left and the Federation ship on the right.

According to the most widely used convention in the era of battle lines, the guard should adjust the course until his vanguard ship faces the enemy avant-garde ship, and then raise the flag together to fight the enemy ship. But there was a drawback to such maneuvering, as the Federation fleet would sail to the front side, head forward to the side of the enemy ship, and could be fired by enemy forces before it could enter the firing position.

The final column, the battle line, was the inevitable result of the main fire of the battleship on the side side.

Unlike the dogfights of cruisers, battleship engagements are heavy and boring. No one doubts the value of the battle line, but since the day the battle line appeared, what to do after the battle line has been lined up is a question that no one can convince.

There are two options for ordering.

1. Insist that the fleet maintain a formation throughout the battle, forward to forward, rear guard to rearguard, catch and fight, until one side can no longer hold on, is defeated or withdraws from the battlefield.

The fleets of both sides were constantly maneuvering, the real exchange of fire was very short, and the battleships were large and thick, and it was difficult to inflict fatal damage on enemy ships. Such an engagement could last a day and not lead to a decisive outcome.

2. Disrupt the formation at the right time and defeat the enemy ship by concentrating the attack. This could lead to a scuffle. In a melee battle, this tactic can concentrate artillery fire on a certain target of decisive significance, and it is possible to form a greater artillery superiority.

The basis for this tactic was that in order to defeat an enemy equal in strength, it was necessary to concentrate more warships and divide a small number of ships from the enemy's column formation to encircle and annihilate them.

To achieve this, it is necessary to form a dense formation. That is, it is necessary to narrow the distance between the ships of the fleet, or to penetrate the enemy's columns, or to encircle the vanguard or rear forces in a roundabout way. This made it possible to flank the enemy ships that were surrounded by a roundabout part of the enemy from both sides.

López didn't want to take the initiative to provoke a fight, so the choice puzzle was left in the hands of Order.

Melo paced back and forth on the bridge, "Commander, let's focus on his rearguards. ”

"López's avant-garde U-turn, what are you going to do? Now that the wind is downward, he will turn around very quickly, and then the enemy ships will be able to counter-detour and counter-encircle us. ”

"Maybe it's worth the risk? Or as you did in the Battle of Eleuthera, with a full sail impact, close to the pistol range. ”

"My gut told me it wasn't a good idea."

"Why?"

Shou Orderly shook his head, "There's no reason. I just have the feeling that Admiral López across the street wants me to do that. ”

No tactic in naval warfare is immutable, and the all-sail assault and maintaining formation, concentrating forces and catching and fighting are both justified and flawed. Victory in battle depends on many factors such as wind direction, artillery, and even luck.

Orderly sailed through the enemy ship column from upwind, and López had at least two options. Reverse course in unison to turn their guards forward, or collectively turn downwind, exposing attackers trying to cross from both sides while avoiding longitudinal shots.

After thinking about it for a long time, he decided to keep it the same for now. "We'll stay in formation and wait. Unless the enemy ship turns around and flees back to Manila, we will accompany him like this. ”

The results of the battle of the cruiser came out, and it became pointless for López to continue to stay in the open sea without engaging in a decisive battle. Perhaps everyone was tired of waiting boringly, López turned to the wind and picked it up on the port side.

"Begin, Thomas, let's take the enemy in echelons."

The two tactics of the battle line are approaching the limit situation respectively, which are horizontal formation and single column, that is, multi-point attack and single-point attack.

A multi-point breakthrough may cause the formation of the own fleet to be untidy, and a single-point breakthrough is easy to be shot by the enemy fleet's side in the process of approaching, that is, it is hit with a T-shaped set of fire, and the lead ship is very risky, and it is also very likely to be divided and surrounded by enemy ships in the process of breaking through.

The sideside salvo of the battleship was not comparable to that of an armed merchant ship and a cruiser, and even if the lower deck was not penetrated, the upper masts would have been bald, and thus practically incapacitated.

So even though the Majesty is a Tier 3 battleship, the Order does not intend to lead the breakthrough. Unless under his feet was a first-class battleship as strong as the Victory.

The purpose of naval formation has always been to combine speed with powerful artillery fire concentrated at the point of attack. It is too difficult for a single column to break through a well-organized battle line, in fact, it is a bit like an army, where the advantages and disadvantages of the column and the horizontal column have been entangled for hundreds of years.

The column is easy to marshall, fast and has a strong impact, while the horizontal team is easy to exert firepower. In fact, the tactical idea of the battle line was indeed put forward by the British army generals at the earliest. The British Army controlled the country and could not stand the chaotic formation of the navy, so it used the idea of lining up to shoot the navy to rectify the navy, and the effect was surprisingly good.

The formation of the battle fleet was slightly changed, and the battlefleet used a fourth formation other than a single column, a double column, and a horizontal column to engage the enemy.

Specifically, the 3 Goddess-class ships of the second detachment of the battleship Stirling were kept in line and approached parallel to the enemy rearguard.

The avant-garde fleet continued to remain upwind, pulling outward in a diagonal line, with the foremost lead ship at the outermost, so that the formation formed an obtuse angle.

That is, the Majesty was in the foremost and outermost direction, the farthest away from the enemy's current column, and the rest of the battleships were deployed behind the starboard side in turn.

The Spaniards still put the strongest ships in the front guard, and the rear guard was weaker. Stirling's 3 new Goddesses have an advantage in firepower.

López has three options.

Turn against the wind to the rescue defenders; Collectively turned against the wind to rescue the defenders.

Steering downwind and heading south to get out of the battlefield.

It is not advisable to turn en masse, which could cause confusion in the formation.

Turning downwind doesn't change anything, and order is still in López's upper hand. All the Spaniards could do was drag until it was dark and return to Cavite. But now there was enough time left before dark, enough for Sterling to break the sails of one or two Spanish warships and slow them down, and López was running blindly, so the order would naturally laugh at the trophy.

In practice, Lopez made the most usual choice, turning against the wind and rescuing the defender.

The bow of the Spanish battleship ploughed the waves, hung the battle sails, and swooped down towards the center of the fleet.

"Thomas."

"Yes."

"The logbook was recorded, and at 14 o'clock, the enemy fleet reversed course in turn. May fate grant our country a great and glorious victory. ”

The Spaniards were very good at handling ships. Generally speaking, the fleet turns around in turn, and the distance between the two battleships will inevitably expand due to the relative movement of the two, resulting in the battle line no longer being close, which is not conducive to the battle of concentrated fire. The Spaniards quickly adjusted their ships and returned to normal.

Thomas Melo: "Commander, should we raise that flag?" ”

"Which one?"

"The rise and fall of the nation in this war or ......"

"Or do I expect you to do your duty? No need, the soldiers understand. ”

A more powerful tide came in from the north. The tides in the South China Sea are mainly influenced by the tides of the Pacific Ocean, which flow into the South China Sea from the Bass Strait north of the Philippines. It is becoming more and more difficult to continue to maneuver the fleet on a large scale.

The structure of the six Goddess-class warships of the Federation is the same, and in such sea conditions, they maintain good order and cohesion. The Spanish warships were mostly merchant ships and warships, and different warships had different sailing performance, and there was some small confusion in their formation. This has nothing to do with naval training, and oblique arrays are inherently clumsy and difficult to use after a long period of sailing.

The Majesty raised the signal flag and "followed the flagship to the port side to turn 2 compass points, and the sail was lowered and slowed down." ”

Except for the second detachment in the state of engagement at the rear of the palace, the remaining five battleships adjusted their bows and formed a single column.

The Majesty then hoisted the signal flags, "maintaining a position opposite each other." ”

The two fleets continued to approach, and the Union Navy fired at the enemy at a distance of 600 meters with broadside guns.

The hit rate was low, but 5 battleships had 13 24-pounder guns, 40 18-pounder guns, 36 12-pounder guns and 30 6-pounder guns on one side, and a total of 1644 pounder shots in a single salvo, and there were always shells that hit.

The enemy pilot ship was seriously damaged.

Admiral Lopez adjusted course and entered an artillery battle with the Federation fleet on the opposing battle line.

At the same time as the cannon was fired, Orderly and Collingwood raised the flag.

A large gap appeared in the enemy ship column, and the order was ordered to accompany the notification ship Lingjiang on the non-combatant side.

"Tell Collingwood that, if necessary, disband the formation and rush into the enemy's front guard."

The first mate of the Lingjiang changed sides and turned left and headed directly for Collingwood's flagship, the Axis.

The Axis then crossed the gap in the enemy fleet under heavy fire from enemy ships.

This was the end of the orderly tactics, and the battle lines of both armies were disintegrated, making the battleships look like wolves rather than formations. The overall unfolding impact is gone, and the scuffle begins.

The cannon roared, the sail shattered and the mast collapsed.

The Nanhai was set on fire by enemy ships and blasted to pieces.

The Axis disabled the enemy guard ship with a precise salvo.

The sky is getting darker, and the sun is shining yellow light on the sea.

In the sparkling waves, broken pieces of wood, and the corpses of sailors fluttered.

All the battleships were engaged in battle, and the notification ships were busy salvaging the surviving wounded in the sea.

The captains can only support each other and rescue each other with excellent dedication and superb gunnery.

That's all this smoky, almost suffocating evening can do.

It's a close fight, and both sides are tough opponents worth fighting.

Neither side had a clear advantage, and the Spaniards managed to win the respect of the orderly.

The battleship spews fire, like a dragon on the sea.

The first detachment of the battleships that fought the most fiercely and their opponents were no longer left with a single mast, and their hulls were bare. The Laxis became a wreck that could not take care of itself. The Spanish warships on the opposite side were each other.

The Majesty became the most powerful presence on the battlefield.

Cannonballs fluttered around him, and the order was ignored.

"Thomas."

"Commander."

"Since it will be difficult for us and the Spaniards to sink each other's warships, now it's up to us to see who can finally take control of the battlefield."

"Take control of the battlefield and reclaim the wounded ship."

"So, we're going to break their flagship."

The Majesty crossed the hull and fired at the Spanish flagship, the Nieduno, at pistol range.

With the exception of the very beginning of the battle, there is no more decisive moment.

Stirling's flagship, the Aglaia, sailed all its sails and burst out of the smoke.

What kind of sails are they, they're basically rags. It's like a death knight riding a nightmare and cloaked in tattered armor.

The Aglaia approached the Neduno from the other side, taking advantage of the downwind and flanking the Nieduno with the Majesty.

Also at the pistol distance, the chain bullets from the 18-pounder cannon whistled out, shattering all the canvases and trusses it encountered.

The Spanish battleship fell into disarray.

Orderly sat down on the stern.

"Thomas ......"

"Yes."

"Order the full sail to pursue."