It took several days for General Howe to complete preparations for the withdrawal, during which time the Continental Army did not continue shelling Boston. www.biquge.info The British army had nearly 10,000 soldiers and thousands of royalist residents to evacuate, and their organizational skills naturally could not be compared with those of the Tang people, and in fact, even centuries later, countries like John Bull were far inferior to countries like the Celestial Empire in terms of human organization.

The British are preparing theirs, and the Continental Army is preparing the Continental Army. Jiao Qiang is preparing his Li Wenzhong, and he will lead this frigate to take on more than a dozen British ships, including battleships. Jiao Qiang was not particularly worried, because he didn't have to leave all the fleets of the Royal Navy behind, and he could sink a limited number of ships. Washington demanded that the Continental Army soldiers be able to occupy Boston as soon as the British left Boston, so that the British would return to Boston to resist when attacked.

When the British boarded the ship, the Li Wenzhong had already been ambushed in the open sea of Boston dozens of nautical miles. As soon as Hao's armistice letter arrived in Washington's hands, Washington discussed with Guo Xin the use of the Tang Navy to attack the retreating British fleet, and he ordered the messenger to send the information to New York Harbor quickly, and the Li Wenzhong also set sail immediately.

After several days of waiting at sea, the Li Wenzhong finally waited for its prey to be completely withdrawn from Boston and boarded the Royal Navy ship.

Jiao Qiang couldn't see the situation on Boston's side, but he had completely mastered the strength of the Royal Navy's Boston fleet, the level and name of each ship.

"The Royal Navy was undoubtedly relatively weak during this period, and it has not recovered from the severe wounds of the Seven Years' War. And also caught up with the question of the choice of materials for shipbuilding. The battleship had an extremely low rate of attendance. There were also few decent ships in the North American colonies, and last time there were third-class battleships, and this time the strongest ship was actually only a fourth-class battleship with fifty guns. Jiao Qiang said with some dissatisfaction.

Although the British fleet in Boston was quite numerous, most of it was frigates and small warships of the Sloop-of-War class, and the flagship HMS-Chatham was only a 50-gun fourth-class battleship, which was lighter than the previously captured Hercules.

In fact, at the beginning of the war, the Royal Navy had as many as 131 battleships, the most in Europe. Most of them were battleships of the third rank. However, these ships were mainly built during the Seven Years' War to quickly replenish the fleet, so the construction period was short and the quality was poor. An even bigger problem was that in order to build sailing ships quickly, British shipyards chose North American oak, which looked like English oak, and did not wait for the wood to dry naturally. As a direct result of this, these ships were able to dismantle them in a medium-sized storm twenty years after they were launched.

At the outbreak of the war, the British army had only 39 battleships in a state of readiness. The others did not even dare to go directly out of the port to fight. The well-known Admiralty, Lord Sandwich (who invented the sandwich), had an ambitious plan to upgrade the Royal Navy, but the war broke out too quickly. The Royal Navy was also not ready at all. Britain's trade interests needed to be maintained by the Royal Navy, and the Mid-Atlantic routes needed to be guarded by the Royal Navy. Moreover, Britain needs a large number of capital ships, so the Royal Navy did not invest much resources into the war after the war began. The main role of the Royal Navy was also no more than to carry out the transportation of personnel and to carry out a limited nuisance along the coast. Ships are also dominated by frigates and small sloop-of-wars.

"Captain, we have received a radio from the military advisory group, the British Navy has set sail from Boston, northeast, and we are expected to make contact with it within half an hour." Each ship has its own radio communication device, and a special person is in charge.

Jiao Qiang nodded and said, "Order all the personnel of all departments and departments of the ship to be ready for battle, and let's give the enemy a lesson that will last a lifetime!" ”

The political commissar smiled and accosted: "It may also be their last lesson in this life!" ”

After a while, the vague shadow of the sail appeared in the sight of the crew on the Li Wenzhong, Jiao Qiang held the binoculars, looked at it for a while, and said: "The formation is relatively loose, and some unarmed sailboats are also in the formation. ”

The commissar asked: "Then what shall we do?" ”

Jiao Qiang didn't think much about it, and said directly: "Unarmed ships will not attack, they are basically civilians on them, of course, it is not ruled out that there are ships carrying British soldiers, and we will deal with these things later." The first thing to deal with is the warships of the Royal Navy, select the ships on the periphery to attack, and if you can sink one by one, you don't have to pick the big one first, start with the one that is easy to start. ”

When the Li Wenzhong also appeared in the sight of the British, the British were still a little incomprehensible, because almost everyone did not know the type of the treasure ship. The naval commander Shu Dehan also had this insight and said: "Where did this sailing ship come from, it looks like a wooden box with a square head, and the sails are so strange that it does not look like a European or an Arab." And why does she keep emitting black smoke outside, is it on fire? ”

Someone said: "I didn't see the fire, but if I didn't see the fire, would it be the ship of the Orientals?" ”

"Orientals, it shouldn't be possible, it's so far from the Far East, separated by the Pacific Ocean and the American continent." Shu Dehan hesitated.

They didn't know about the defeat of the Royal Navy fleet outside New York by the Tang Army, and during the siege of Boston, their news was relatively closed, although Shu Dehan could send ships to many places by sea, but they had not contacted the New York fleet recently.

"That's a warship, I'd like to see a cannon port on it." The ship's first mate said.

Shu Dehan's face was solemn, and he said: "Appearing near us at this time definitely doesn't look like he has any good intentions, but is this guy here to send him to death?" We have more than a dozen ships here, and although this ship has a relatively large tonnage, it doesn't seem to have many guns, and there is only one way out for us to besiege it. ”

The first mate suggested, "Then let's take her over, this ship we haven't seen before, maybe we can get some good information." ”

"Yes, that's it!"

The British Navy, which was taken as a prey, felt that it could show its skills at this moment. Since the time of Drake, the British have been robbers at sea, and they are full of hegemonic consciousness, and they do not feel that there is anything wrong with dealing with a foreign warship at sea. (To be continued.) )