Admiral Bing looked at the Awe not far away with dream-like eyes, watching the battleship with more than sixty guns turn into a pile of burning wreckage in an instant, and watching it and the more than five hundred sailors on it begin to sink to the bottom of the sea at a breakneck speed. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

That's when ......

"Boom!"

Horrific explosions rang out again.

"Damn, it's the Terror!"

There was a scream of pain beside him.

The 3rd class battleship Terror, which had 56 cannons, was also struck by a mine, and like the Awe, it was blown into a pile of burning wreckage in an instant, and quickly sank with nearly 500 sailors on it.

In fact, there are anchor mines with chains falling everywhere under the water around them, and these monster-level weapons weighing thousands of pounds are filled with a full hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder, using the most classic tentacle fuses and chemical battery ignition devices, even if the steel battleships of later generations collide, it is very likely to hit the soul with one shot, such as the classic bold thunder sinking, for these wooden sailing ships with a maximum displacement of only more than 2,000 tons, the power is really brutal.

But the nightmare of the British was not over.

"Fire, aim point!"

Fang Hong said with satisfaction.

Twenty eighty-pound cannons suddenly erupted into blazing flames.

At this time, the distance between the two sides was less than five thousand yards, and they were just outside the range of the British forty-two-pounder guns.

In the first round of shelling, a shell hit the side of the second-class battleship Royal Catherine, and the actual weight of ninety pounds of piercing shells instantly pierced the two-foot thick planks, and then a full thirteen pounds of wet cotton gunpowder was detonated by the disc fuse. Marshal Rook's flagship turned into an erupting volcano, and the smoke of flames, mixed with broken wood, corpses, and even artillery, slammed into the blue sea, and then the fire erupted from inside.

"Turn around and retreat!"

Aboard the Neptune, Admiral Bing yelled desperately.

Suddenly, something seemed to flash in his sight, and he hurriedly grabbed the telescope and looked at the sea, thanks to the almost unpolluted sea water of this era, he could vaguely see that he was less than two hundred yards away under the water, there seemed to be a black shadow, and his heart immediately moved, but at the same time he also saw that the battleship Giant was turning, and it was crashing straight into this black shadow.

"Edward, right full rudder!"

He yelled madly at the captain of the Giant.

The latter looked at him blankly.

But just then, the starboard side of the Giant collided with the shadow.

Admiral Bing felt the air around him freeze instantly, and he almost forgot to breathe, staring there, the black shadow visibly shook to the side, and just as he thought he had a false alarm and let out a sigh, a strange red fire suddenly shone underwater. At the same moment a huge wave rose into the sky, and with the scream of the Giant's being thrown away, an explosion like a shattering explosion reached his ears, and then the stirred up waves crashed like a wall, and in an instant he crashed into the Neptune, and in the violent shaking and ferocity of the battleship at his feet, Admiral Bing watched in anguish as the Giant followed in the footsteps of the Awe and the Terror.

Fortunately, by this time, the Neptune and most of the battleships had also completed their turn.

However, the Royal Catherine and another third-class battleship, the Conqueror, could not do this, they were both hit by the Ming army's eighty-pound cannons, although they were not completely destroyed, but they were all blown off the mast, the fallen mast and sail were dragged to one side to make them all tilt sharply, it was impossible to do anything else without leaving these deadly burdens, in fact, at the same time as the main fleet fled, the white flag had been raised on the two battleships.

In the process of escaping from the range of the Ming army's shore defense guns, Admiral Bin lost another third-class battleship, and was hit by two shells at the same time, and was directly blown to pieces without even waiting for the powder keg to be killed......

He didn't even shoot a single shell!

Such a battle can no longer be described as shameful, looking at the wreckage on the sea in the distance and the red fortress, Admiral Bing has the heart to commit suicide.

"I drove this road, I planted this tree, I want to fight here, leave the money to buy the road, go, send a telegram to call two tugboats, hurry up and tow these two away, good guy, this has to be a second-class battleship, right? It looks like it's almost time to catch up with the Hongwu! ”

On the fort, Fang Hong said proudly with a teacup.

Soon, under the sad and indignant gaze of those British sailors twenty miles away, two tugboats drove from Coconut City and drove into the battle zone against the mines, and then a group of Ming soldiers boarded the Royal Catherine and the Conqueror respectively, knocked off the broken mast, and tied the cable like a mountain king who robbed a woman, and dragged the two battleships away triumphantly, and shouted to the south with a wicked sense of humor when leaving......

"Anything else? A few more! ”

The Ming soldiers stood on the two battleships and shouted.

Of course, not for the time being.

Admiral Bin is not stupid, this Sunda Strait is absolutely impossible to open, the Ming army's coastal defense artillery not to mention for the time being, those terrifying weapons under the water alone are not something he can deal with, and even the Neptune he was riding on almost hit one when he retreated, who knows how many such things there are in this strait? If he didn't know the layout plan or completely cleaned up all these things, then he would never be able to go through this strait.

But where else can you go without going through the Sunda Strait?

Walking the Lombok Strait? But in that case, he would have to go around another circle of more than a thousand nautical miles. Alternatively, he could cross the Lombok Strait and head north directly into the Kassi Strait, but in that case, he would have to face the Ming Nanyang Fleet.

But no matter where he goes, he needs to solve an important problem next, he must get supplies, fresh water, food he lacks, he set off from Mumbai in Cochin for the last replenishment, until now it has been more than 20 days in a row, this huge fleet is not only the navy, there is also a brigade of marines, even if there are a large number of merchant ships carrying supplies to follow, at this time must also rest, according to the original plan is to open the Sunda Strait to Batavia, but now this is no longer possible, He had to seize a stronghold on the shore.

Fortunately, it was at this time that an ally who had been contacted for a long time appeared.

"Sir, the British fleet is gone."

In the Coconut City's Economic Envoy's Mansion, Chief of Staff Wu Peng said excitedly.

"Where did you go?"

Chen Tai said while sipping tea.

"To the east."

Wu Peng said.

"Well, it seems that our Highness the Sultan of Mataram has taken over the job."

Chen Tai said.

This guy has long been convinced that the defense of the Sunda Strait is absolutely foolproof, so the British can only choose another route, but no matter which route they choose, they must first replenish, even if it is the British, they must board the land to rest after more than 20 days of sailing, otherwise they will not be able to hold out no matter where they go, but such a huge fleet, it is not just a casual bay, there must be a port.

But the main ports are under the control of the Ming army, even if they are not under the control of the Ming army, they are within the range of the Ming army's attack, and the British army in that brigade is definitely useless.

So that they need allies.

And they do have natural allies here, that is, the monkeys who rebelled against the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Especially now the leader of the Javanese resistance, the former Mataram Sultan Amenggula III, this guy and Sulabati led the resistance army to hide in the mountains and fight guerrilla warfare with the Ming army, because the terrain is complicated, and they have the support of the common people, the Ming army has never been able to exterminate this guy, and even he made a base in the south, Chen Tai is to use the British to attract them out of the mountains and forests.

The British wanted to force the Ming navy to fight a decisive battle with them, no matter how much they tossed in the Spice Islands, it was useless, as long as the Ming troops retreated into the fortress, they would have no fun.

Only into the South China Sea.

Only by threatening the Ming mainland can the Ming navy be forced to fight a decisive battle.

But if you want to threaten the Ming mainland, it's useless to go anywhere else, it's too far, whether it's the Small Spice Islands, the Lombok Strait, or the Xijiang Strait, they all belong to the kind of routes that are tired to go out, and there are only two roads, Malacca and Sunda Strait, so the British must open the Sunda Strait. In the case of attacking from land when the sea cannot be opened, it can be said that the best way is to capture the coconut city directly, as long as you capture the flank batteries, you can blast the batteries on the island of Sanguiang, as for the mines, it will take a while, and in this way you can also get a solid forward base.

But the British were short of troops.

There is still a military headquarters and two infantry brigades on Java Island, plus three garrisons, which is also 20,000 Ming troops, how can you fight without 50,000 or 60,000 British troops? But fifty or sixty thousand British troops are certainly impossible, so arming the monkeys and letting the monkeys be cannon fodder is the best choice.

And that's exactly what Chen Tai wants.

Those monkeys are hiding in the mountains and forests and it is difficult to clean up, but if they go out of the mountains and forests, they will purely send people to the Ming army, and without external support, they really dare not come out, after all, they all know the horror of the Ming army's combat effectiveness, but what if there is support from the British? Their dream was nothing more than to drive the Ming army out of the land, but guerrilla warfare could never achieve this goal, in fact, with the Ming army capturing slaves and cleaning villages, with the sharp decline of the population of Java, the Ming rule here will only become more stable over time.

In other words, they also wanted to come out to conquer the city, but they didn't dare.

What if the British give them courage?

Although the Ming army knew that the British were useless, those monkeys didn't know!

"Anyway, now it's up to the British to cooperate."

Chen Tai said sinisterly. (To be continued.) )