PS: There is a mistake ahead, the number of warships of the Nanyang Naval Division is not thirty-one, but twenty-one, and now it has been corrected. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Although John Powell led his fleet to surrender, the British Royal Navy after the battle still had nearly 180 warships, and Zheng Chenggong's sailors could not take over at all.

In the end, Zheng Chenggong ordered that all the officers on John Powell's flagship be escorted to the General Xuanwei, and the rest of the British warships, after sending the captains of each ship as "hostages", continued to maintain their independent rights and interests, and actively carried out water rescue work...........

John Powell, who boarded the General Xuanwei, looked at the craters on the ship and the steel exposed after rubbing off the waterproof paint, and couldn't help muttering: "Iron ......... It's all iron! This is actually a steel battleship, no wonder the artillery can't hurt the other side at all! ”

The R&D personnel of the General Xuanwei, in order to make this battleship achieve an unexpected effect, used waterproof paint that was the same color as the wooden warship, so it was not until the end of the battle that the British boarded the warship that they figured out the whole story.

"What is this guy talking about?" Zheng Chenggong basically couldn't understand English.

The only thing I have learned is simple military terms such as "surrender the gun and not kill" and "surrender to avoid death".

"If you don't let Zuo Hongyu come over, he is the envoy to Europe this time, and the dialogue with the ghost is usually solved by their Ministry of Foreign Affairs." A staff officer proposed.

Previously, in order to avoid the leakage of the combat power of the General Xuanwei, even the personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who were proficient in foreign languages were not allowed to board the ironclad ship.

After all, there are many people, and there is more than one Foreign Ministry official on this trip, Zuo Hongyu, in case the people below are drunk and talked to by that group of Westerners, who can guarantee that the secret will not be leaked?

Zheng Chenggong didn't really want to hide his strength, otherwise Li Hongfei would not have sent an ironclad ship to visit Europe in the first place.

But because once the Nanyang Naval Division left the Strait of Malacca, it entered the colonial sphere of influence of European countries and exposed its strength in advance, who knows what kind of stumbling block these colonists will make to Zheng Chenggong's fleet in the colonial ports along the way?

Now that it has successfully arrived in Europe and clashed with the British Royal Navy, it is naturally time to show its true strength.

The Europeans do not feel sorry for the colonies, even if they are broken, it doesn't matter, but they still attach great importance to the security of their homeland, and after this war, in the European region, there is no 100% certainty, no matter which country, they do not dare to easily attack the idea of the South Sea Fleet.............

Soon Zuo Hongyu's mission boarded the ironclad ship, accompanied by the British envoy Joseph Holaff and his party, as well as members of the Dutch mission.

General Xuanwei shows his might, who of these Europeans can still sit still?

However, the first time Joseph Horaff boarded the battleship, he took the initiative to find John Powell, who was in custody.

"Bump!"

As soon as the two met, Joseph Horaf punched him straight and shouted loudly: "Powell, you bastard, I gave you a flag before, why didn't you respond?" Why are you still attacking? You bitch, do you want to bury all the young men of the empire on this sea! ”

Joseph Horaff was indeed furious this time, and Powell's unauthorized attack made him miserable.

Moreover, at this time, he must make a gesture, otherwise the "Far Eastern Dragon" will be angry, give up neutrality, and directly bypass the British Empire, and instead help the Dutch Navy, with this steel giant under his feet, he can contain half of Britain's sea power.

At that time, will the Anglo-Dutch battle still have to be fought?

Joseph Horaff had no doubt that, with the ability of this fleet under his feet, he would be able to break through the blockade of the British fleet in the English Channel with ease and reach the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is most famous for its Dutch province, so the Netherlands (Netherland) is often known as the Netherlands in the world.

"I'm sorry, I found out that there were a lot of Dutch people on the battleship before, and I thought it was Dutch reinforcements, so I ordered to intercept them." John Powell was positive in admitting his mistakes.

In this case, he couldn't help but be inactive, after all, he had thought of the wording before surrendering.

This pot had to be thrown to the Dutch...........

"Do you think that with General Zheng's wisdom, he will believe your excuse to deceive children? The flag that General Horaff played at that time may not be incomprehensible to our friends from the East, but that does not mean that we cannot understand it. Admiral Horaff has unequivocally ordered your fleet to stop advancing, and what have you done? You're provoking a war! "The Dutch added fuel to the fire.

"You don't want to talk nonsense! If you hadn't stood beside Horaf and mistaken me for the Dutch fleet, how could I have ordered an interception and inspection, thus causing a misunderstanding? It's all up to you! John Powell pointed to the group of Dutchmen in front of him and argued loudly.

He didn't dare to say that he gave the order to "open fire", anyway, it was not they who fired first (the range of the artillery was a hard wound), but he insisted that he just wanted to board the ship to check, which would help to minimize this "misunderstanding".

"Humph! Boarding the ship for inspection, have you ever played this kind of flag? In European countries, even if you want to inspect the merchant ships of other countries, you have to inform each other in the flag language in advance! "The Dutch continue to fan the flames.

“...........”

In this way, first Joseph Horaff staged a bitter plan, and then John Powell threw the pot to the Dutch, but the Dutch did not accept it, and tried their best to raise this conflict to the level of "undeclared war", wanting to usurp Zheng Chenggong to deal with the British fleet.

Zheng Chenggong and Zuo Hongyu and their entourage, under the help of several translators who are proficient in Western, enjoy this "dog eats dog" farce...........

"How's it going, have you counted the battle damage?" Taking advantage of the fact that the envoys of the two countries and a prisoner were arguing on the ship, Zheng Chenggong turned his head and asked the official in charge of counting the battle damage.

"The casualties were: 47 killed, 26 seriously wounded, 152 lightly wounded, and most of the casualties were in the final battle."

"The losses of the battleship were: one was seriously damaged, hit by a shell on the steam power system, and at the moment, it seems, without suitable parts, cannot be repaired. In addition, the cabin has been flooded with a large amount of water, although the situation has been temporarily stabilized, but the power is almost completely lost, and it must rely on towing to sail, and at the same time have to go to the nearest shipyard for maintenance, otherwise it will not be able to withstand the wind and waves at sea. ”

"In addition, including the General Xuanwei, a total of three warships were slightly damaged, but fortunately, the superstructure was basically damaged, and it did not affect the navigation." The official in charge of statistics explained them one by one.

The British used solid projectiles, and unless the battleship was directly sunk, the lethality to the sailors on the ship was not too great.

If Zheng Chenggong hadn't finally ordered the implementation of the string battle, the number of casualties in this battle should have been kept within 20.

But this is not absolute, who knows if the British will go completely crazy after sinking the flagship of the British?

Therefore, a quick victory and a quick decision to control the casualties within a hundred people can be regarded as a very small loss.

After all, there are nearly 400 sailors on a battleship, and sinking one casually is a huge loss for the Nanyang Naval Division.

As for the damage of the battleships, it seems that there are only four, but it is equivalent to one-fifth of the battle damage of the entire fleet.

This is also the main reason why Zheng Chenggong is reluctant to expand the scale of the war, the number of warships they sent on this trip is too small, and the Nanyang Naval Division cannot even withstand such a big battle twice.

The situation cannot continue to expand, otherwise Zheng Chenggong and his party will have to retreat to Asia.

Thinking of this, Zheng Chenggong finally said to the envoys of the two countries who were arguing in front of him: "Okay, don't quarrel one by one!" It doesn't matter if it's a misunderstanding this time, the key is whether you want this misunderstanding to continue! ”

Zheng Chenggong's meaning is obvious, since the battle is over, it doesn't matter if it's a misunderstanding.

It is important whether the British want to continue this "misunderstanding".

What is important is whether the British have the sincerity to properly resolve this "misunderstanding".

"General Zheng, don't worry, I'll send someone, don't ........ I personally travelled to London to meet His Majesty the King and pledge a satisfactory settlement of the matter. Joseph Horaff hastened to speak.

After Zheng Chenggong spoke, the stone in Joseph Horaf's heart finally landed, and it seemed that everything was still salvageable.

He believes that after this war, the guys in China should have enough understanding of the strength of the "Oriental Dragon", and maybe they will rely on their local advantages to "bully" the other party's labor expedition before.

But now that it was at war with the Dutch, the British Empire did not dare to make enemies easily, let alone a fleet that could hold half of the British Royal Navy.

"If General Zheng is not at ease, he can ask Mr. Zuo to send a messenger to go with him, and first, with your envoys, solve the problem, and try to solve the problem according to your requirements. Second, I can also complete the task of Mr. Zuo's trip by the way. Joseph Horaf added again.

His idea is good, since the incident has happened, then simply be generous, let Zheng Chenggong send someone to accompany him, and mention any requirements himself.

In addition, he also wanted to take the opportunity to turn "bad things" into "good things", one step ahead of the Dutch, and reached a cooperation intention with the Ming Dynasty.

"You British people are really sincere. Just now you attacked General Zheng's fleet, and now you want to trick the envoys into your national territory. When the time comes, do you want to send a larger fleet to catch them all? Sure enough, when he heard that Joseph Holaff had invited the Ming envoy to England with him, the Dutch immediately quit.

It's okay to let the British eat deflated, and let them get benefits from the Ming Dynasty people, which is absolutely impossible.

"There's also a Vice Admiral of the Royal Navy here, and more than four hundred naval officers stranded on the ship, do you think my British Empire would do such a reckless stupid thing?" Joseph Horaf asked rhetorically.

"This can't be said, just a lieutenant general, can it be compared with the envoy of the Ming Empire?" Not to be outdone, the Dutch were not to be outdone.

At this time, in order to win over Zheng Chenggong, the Dutch almost shouted "Heavenly Envoy" directly.

"Okay, I'll discuss this matter later, what this officer is most concerned about now is the few wounded warships of our army, one of which must be immediately towed into the shipyard for maintenance, but this is thousands of miles away from the Far East, dare to ask you, there is a solution." Zheng Chenggong said.

In Zheng Chenggong's opinion, the most important thing now is to quickly restore the combat effectiveness of the fleet.

The battle just now was not too fierce, and the consumption of ammunition was not serious, only by repairing the damaged warships as soon as possible and keeping the fleet at its peak at all times, then the next negotiations would have enough guarantees.

"General Zheng can go to Plymouth Harbour, where there is the shipyard of the British Empire, and it is only 50 nautical miles (92 kilometers) from here, and it can be reached in half a day." Joseph Horaff hastened to speak.

"General Zheng, beware that this is a trap for the British, let's go to the shipyard of our Kingdom of the Netherlands, where there are the best warship repairers in all of Europe, and we are guaranteed to repair your warship completely. The most important thing is that we will never do anything that is not good for our friends. "The Dutch played the emotional card.

It is definitely a great thing to be able to convince Zheng Chenggong's fleet to go to the shipyard in his own country for repairs.

After all, when engineers repair a battleship, they inevitably come into contact with the core part of the battleship - the steam power room.

It can be said that whoever has the opportunity to repair this time is equivalent to having the opportunity to observe the steam engine up close.

Neither the British nor the Dutch were willing to give up this rare opportunity.

For the maintenance of the battleship, in fact, Zheng Chenggong was also very helpless, not to mention the steam warship with damaged power, even if it was several others, including the General Xuanwei, they had to be repaired, because the battleship was injured and sailed on the ocean, and its danger was no less than experiencing a naval battle.

Moreover, now that the Nanyang Naval Division has arrived in Europe, before completing the mission, Zheng Chenggong also needs a suitable port, as a place to stay, and at the same time, it can also carry out the necessary maintenance and maintenance of these warships, so as to ensure that there will be no mistakes on the way back to China in the future.

However, when faced with the choice of which country's shipyard to carry out maintenance, Zheng Chenggong was a little difficult.

Geographically, Plymouth Harbour by Joseph Horaff is the best choice.

But this is just a battle with others at sea, Zheng Chenggong said that it is impossible not to be guarded, and it has been at sea, the British may still be afraid, but once they enter the port, it is still the port of the British, who knows what moths they will make?

From the point of view of safety, it is more reliable on the side of the Dutch.

It's a pity that the distance is a bit far, and Zheng Chenggong doesn't know if the steam battleship that has lost power can survive the territory of the Dutch.

Just when Zheng Chenggong was secretly worried, and the British and the Dutch were fighting openly and secretly for this opportunity to repair, news came from the lookout post on the deck: a fleet of about 100 warships entered this sea area.

"Are British reinforcements coming?" Zheng Chenggong asked.

It should not be the Dutch fleet that can sail in this area.

"Look at the other party's military flag, it shouldn't be." The herald replied.

"It's not these two countries, is it the Portuguese, or is it the Spaniards?" Zheng Chenggong asked again.

"No, the naval flags of Portugal and Spain are all known to each other." The herald said.

"This .......... How many countries are there in Europe? Zheng Chenggong was also a little confused.