"Your Royal Highness, the westward direction is a headwind, and our ship is turning very slowly......" Hearing the Prince's order, the first mate beside him hesitated a little. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"The opponent's fast ship, flexible steering, and powerful artillery can fight far away, and they refuse to approach us, so they can only stretch the battle line, compress their movement space, and increase the difficulty of their control of distance. As long as they make mistakes, our chance comes. The prince did not reprimand the first mate for not obeying orders, but gave him his reasons for doing so.

The first face-to-face, Hong Tao let the other party taste the taste of real naval warfare, and it was not for nothing, it was necessary to pay tuition, and the three sailing ships that had lost their combat capability were the first tuition. The tuition was worth it, because just when Hong Tao turned around with the fleet, the opponent's formation also changed. Instead of waiting for himself to sharpen with a protruding arrow, he stretched the formation very long, turned it into a slightly concave arc, and pushed it flat towards him.

"Keep course, full speed!" What the other party is going to do, Hong Tao has already seen it. They're waiting for themselves to catch up, using numbers to make up for the speed disadvantage.

As long as their fleet is on a slightly deflectional course, it will get closer and closer to them, and the vanguard fleet to the west of them will turn due north, and then use crosswinds to block their way. Even if their ships are fast, they are not so fast that they are not doubled, and if they can't get the ships at the tail of their fleet, they will cut off and surround them. Melee and melee combat are exactly what they want, they must not give, they can't fight, can't I still run?

If this naval battle had been made into a movie, it is estimated that the box office would have been very dismal, because from the time the sun rose in the morning until the sun set, there was not a single head-on contact. Both fleets had already gone more than a hundred kilometers north from the mouth of the Rhine, and none of the naval guns of the Flemish Hanseatic fleet had fired much.

The seven Exocet-nimble melees always found the furnishing corners of the fleet, then used their speed to sweep across the bow and shoot at the defenseless galleons with their deadly guns at close range. As long as the hull of the ship is hit, in the case of such strong winds and waves, whether it is near the waterline or not, it will cause great trouble to navigation, and if the hole is not good, it will be torn open by the waves.

The other warships nearby could only watch the seven ships pass by from outside the range, at most throwing down some wood and planks at their comrades who abandoned the ship and fell into the water, and did not even dare to approach the rescue. The big waves will bring people and objects overboard to the heights, and then crash heavily on the hull of the boat, and then get close not to save people, but to harm people. Of course, it didn't help if they didn't get closer, at most they wouldn't let the poor sailors die immediately, but they still ended up dying, the water temperature in the North Sea winter was too low.

By this time the battle had been fought, most of the Flemish Hanseatic captains had already understood that this was a battle that could never be won. They can only watch as they wreak havoc in front of them until they light up the shells, or the sky darkens and no one can see anyone. However, he could not retreat, and no commander could give this order, otherwise he would become a joke in the courts of all Europe when he returned, and the daimyo would even spread to Byzantium and the Great Cannibals. For nobles who have no reputation and no status, it is better to die than to disgrace the family.

By this time, the high-spirited Prince Albert III had already taken off his chain mail and threw his sword on the deck. Even the cannons can't reach the opponent, and it is better to expect a sudden tornado to blow off the enemy's warships than to use a sword to cut off the enemy's warships.

He thought that he and Lord Jiang had learned the essence of naval warfare in the East, and Lord Jiang, who had always been honest, also commented on it. But today's encounter has made the **** of the principality know what shamelessness is. How shameless it is for someone to invent such a tactic, and to design a battleship and a cannon that conforms to this tactic, God has probably never seen such a person!

The only thing that **** can do now is to slowly take back all the new warships with strong combat effectiveness, and then let those merchant ships and old North Sea warships go to the front to serve as cannon fodder. Although it is not honorable to do this, it is much better than letting the family use up their main force little by little.

The Earl of Nassau is a living example of this, who did not listen to his own command, but insisted on rushing forward with the forward fleet. The result? In less than three hours, there was only a small half of the fleet belonging to the Earl of Nassau, and it was all merchant ships. The scumbag commander on the opposite side seemed to know very well which ship was more valuable, and then concentrated his firepower on these ships, which could not be sunk at one time, and then came back in half a circle and continued to fight, until all of them were sunk.

"I hate the sun!" Albert III hurriedly gave the order to return to the sea, and let the main fleet of Flanders and Hanseas, led by himself, withdraw first, and the other counts brought ships to help. Now that there is not much to care about the reputation, it is the greatest victory and honor to be able to bring the remaining twenty or so new warships back to the port of Behenopzom safely.

From after noon, Hong Tao could see the trick of the commander on the opposite side, he was using these broken merchant ships to consume his own ammunition. It doesn't matter, you have fewer guns but more shells, reduce the frequency and frequency of fire, and it's over without a salvo. Even if all the shells are gone, there are still four armed cargo ships to the south, they are pot-bellied men, and the shells are enough. There were not only naval artillery shells, but also mortar shells. Think you're satisfied with naval battles alone? If you don't blow up all your ports and shipyards, and grab all the craftsmen and skilled workers, you will write the word backwards!

"Want to run? Grandmother! Give me a chase, go around them to the west, don't waste shells on these broken ships, just hit three masts, and don't fire without a single mast! Seeing that the enemy's fleet was going to take advantage of the darkness to evacuate, Hong Tao of course did not agree. When to fight and when to stop on the sea, you have to decide for yourself. It's hard to get you out so far, and you want to go back steadily? It's easy to come out, but it's hard to go back!

Night is not a forbidden place for sail warships, as long as there is a mast light, Hong Tao can still carry out a limited attack, which is the experience summed up in the naval battle of the Three Kingdoms with countless lives. The solution was simple, first overtake the enemy's fleet, then block in front of them and shoot at the mast light with the tail gun. If the moonlight is bright enough, you can also add a gunwalstick half-sideways. Even if you can't hit the other party, it will affect their course.

With such a large fleet, still sailing at night and under constant shelling, as long as a timid captain turns or extinguishes the mast lights, the show is played, and you can collide with your own ship. Once there was a collision, panic would spread like a plague. Without an effective night command system, this chaos could not be saved, and could only escalate into a commandless rout, with no more than half of the ships able to return to port safely.

Hong Tao didn't think that these European sailors could be much stronger mentally than the sailors of the Mongol Empire, they had been tortured all day, tired, hungry and afraid, and the home port was in front of them, who didn't want to get out of this hellish torture early? Who wants to stay on the sea and sail slowly according to the order of formation, with shells that can't figure out when they can send themselves and their ship to the bottom of the sea? If he can, Hong Tao will immediately negotiate peace, and he must ask the commander of the other side for advice on how he trains people into machines, this topic is too advanced.

A hundred kilometers of routes laid with human lives and ship boards! This is the description of the final outcome of this naval battle.

After the Flanders Hanseatic fleet turned from retreat to rout, nearly a hundred ships fell into a panic, no one could effectively command and communicate, and everyone did not want to command and communicate anymore, they had only one thought, that is, to return to the port as soon as possible and escape from this cannibalistic waters.

Under the domination of this kind of thinking, many people will be overly sensitive. They will think of all the low-stature ships as enemies, and if there is a mast light in front of them, they will also be suspected of being enemies, and even a stray bullet will fall near the hull, which will immediately cause two adjacent ships to start to suspect each other. As a result, artillery attacks were used to attack each other, and all the frustration and fear that had been accumulated for a day were vented.

As for who they're fighting, they don't really care. It's like using wine to drown your sorrows, knowing that getting drunk won't help, but it seems that you can be relieved a lot after being unconscious. This is also a weakness in human nature, escape!

There were also some of the more clever captains who chose to break away from the large group and approach the coast, trying to navigate the shadowy coastline under the moonlight, and by the way, to shake off the haunting shells. Although navigating close to the coastline at night is a dangerous activity that requires great skill and luck, it seems that it is not safe to sail in the middle of a group of companions who may collide and shoot at each other at any moment.

"Let them go, we don't have to play with them, such a strong westerly wind will blow a lot of ships up the reef and smash them into pieces. Don't expect to wipe out people with just a few ships, that's unrealistic. The ship's lookout had long spotted some of the enemy ships approaching the coastline, and Karl was certainly not idle, he was alerting Hong Tao to the ships that had ventured to escape. Hong Tao is reluctant to really work hard, close to the coastline in this weather, he is not a god, and he has to die for a lifetime, and he can't play with his life.

"It's a pity, these are the essence of Europe, and you knocked out most of them at one time, I don't know if they will have the courage to face the sea again in the future." Carl was conflicted. Unlike Cixi and Medini, he did not have a sense of national belonging, and he always regarded the land of Europe as his homeland. Seeing that the forces that could threaten him were annihilated, he began to be hypocritical again, feeling sorry for them.

(To be continued.) )