Chapter 560: The Zheng Family's Ambition
When Zhao Lie's ship Di Qing also broke into the enemy's battle formation, the warships on both sides were catching and killing each other, of course, the warships of the Broken Army behind were all invincible, because there were not so many warships of the coalition army, and it was impossible to stop the warships of the Ming people one by one. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
Therefore, the Di Qing did not have a chance to engage the enemy ships, but only drove eastward under the escort of two warships around it, of course, there was still a fierce battle ahead, and their speed could not be too fast.
Zhao Lie stood on the deck of the Di Qing and observed the battle situation around him with a telescope, he wanted to assess the battle damage for the Broken Army, and along the way he saw five patrol ships withdraw from the battle, either because the sail lines were damaged or badly damaged.
If the sail rope is damaged and can be repaired for a while, it can be returned to participate in the battle, even if the mainmast is damaged in two hours, Zhao Lie believes that the soldiers under his command will definitely return to the battlefield as soon as possible.
The three Tang-class warships were also heavily damaged, among which the Zhang Yichao spewed a large stream of black smoke and flames from the lower deck, which was caused by the enemy's heavy artillery shattering the medicine pack.
The Song-class battleship Yang Yanzhao was really unlucky, two of his four mainmasts were knocked down, and the ship's speed dropped to a very low level, allowing the passing coalition warships to take the time to strike, as a result, the four mainmasts were destroyed, and there were more than a dozen large holes in the side sides, and the gunners on the artillery deck were extremely injured, leaving only half of the combat power, and they were urgently repairing the mainmast on the side, even if there were two mainmasts, it was stronger than drifting with the wind.
There were also many ships with damaged sail mainmasts, but they still held on to the battle, erupting anger and projectiles at the enemy.
On the whole, there are more than ten warships and less than twenty warships damaged by the Broken Army, and they are trying their best to repair them, some hoping to catch up with the battle behind, and some simply not sinking in the sea.
Of course, some warships have minor damage and can only be fought while resting by sailors, and the number of these warships may be quite large,
Of course, there are more wrecks of the coalition warships around, there are more than 100 tons and more than 200 tons of Douding battleships, and now many of them are paralyzed in the sea, or drifting with the tide or slowly sinking.
There were also five or six hundred ton warships drifting silently or blazing, and some sailors were jumping from their warships into the sea, which was still warm.
Three Dutch and Spanish warships of eight or nine hundred tons were sinking, which showed the achievements of the Broken Army.
There are nearly 30 warships in these forests that have lost their combat power, which has a great impact on the strength of the coalition forces, and now the coalition forces are struggling to support, in order to win the hegemony of the sea areas in this area, in order to finally open up the sea trade with the rich Ming, these costs are worth it.
Zhao Lie looked east and north with a telescope, he hoped to see the figure of the Zheng family fleet, he believed that the Zheng family fleet was coming soon, otherwise the coalition army would be unable to support it.
Finally, a large sail shadow appeared in the northeast direction, and two flying clippers came back to report that countless Zheng family warships were surrounding here, and they were in a fan-like formation.
After Li Hu received the report, he immediately understood that this was because the Zheng family was afraid that the Ming fleet would escape the decisive battle with the Zheng family, so it was very likely that the net would be wider to prevent the captive army from escaping.
Li Hu raised the flag with a red eagle head on a black background, and the warships raised the battle flag after seeing it one after another, this flag was to indicate that the battle would be fought to the death, and the latter would be killed.
Even Li Hu has to obey the orders of this banner, and he can't retreat, otherwise it will be the end of his head falling to the ground.
All the soldiers of the Breakers knew that the time had come for the final decisive battle.
Of course, not only the Broken Army, but also the Coalition Army knew that success or failure was in this move, and their remaining warships did not retreat because of the inferiority of numbers and heavy artillery, but continued to frantically entangle and fight with the warships of the Broken Army, waiting for the arrival of the Zheng family's fleet.
The vanguard of the Zheng family's fleet rushed from the northeast under the command of Zheng Cai, and Zheng Cai's ship was a large fortune ship, with a body of more than 300 tons and ten artillery pieces on it.
Now the Zheng family's warships are also equipped with a large number of artillery, after all, in the past few years, with the extermination of a large number of enemies, the Zheng family has basically controlled the waters of Fujian, and all the merchant ships passing through here have to pay taxes, which has given the Zheng family a large amount of silver, and a lot of silver money is spent on the mansion built by the Zheng family in Anping, his hometown.
But there were still a lot of silver coins that turned into artillery to arm the ships.
If it is only a Chinese-style sea ship, regardless of the Galen warship, the Zheng family is a well-deserved first sailor of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, many of them are small boats that can only operate in the offshore waters, but there are nearly 1,000 of them, these ships are inconspicuous, but they are indispensable for controlling the entire Fujian and eastern Guangdong waters, and their flexibility in the offshore waters is incomparable to that of large ships, and there are few people on board, and the cost is small, which is exactly what the Zheng brothers need.
However, in this ocean-going battle, these seagoing ships were too slow and were abandoned.
The Zheng family dispatched 200 gunboats and more than 500 fireships, each of which has eight to more than ten cannons after improvement, although there is no special artillery deck, the protection of the guns is poor, and it is easy to be attacked or affected by the weather, but the attack power is not a little stronger than the average Chinese sea ship.
It can be said that even the sailors who met the Ming Dynasty were also wiped out, which is also the reason why Zheng Zhilong'an was stable and peaceful, and the Ming Dynasty only had Huairou to appease, otherwise this Zheng family could cause trouble in the entire Southeast China Sea Frontier, and now the Ming Dynasty is no longer able to raise troops again.
Although the Zheng family has such a strong sailor, Zheng Zhilong and his brothers know where their Zheng family is strong, that is, the number of their ships is too large, and the power of the fireship fleet.
The last time the Dutch tried to capture Fujian with huge ships and cannons, imitating the Portuguese in Macao, their plot was crushed by the Zheng fleet, and the two armies fought a decisive battle in Liaoluo Bay, when more than 100 Zheng fireships besieged more than a dozen Galen warships, the Dutch people immediately collapsed, and finally burned several warships, and fled back to the city of Geranza in embarrassment.
In the end, the Dutch people had no choice but to accept the Zheng family as the spokesperson of the Dutch coastal maritime trade in Fujian, and gave a large share to the Zheng family, so that the Zheng family could lead a large number of maritime merchants to the city of Geranza for maritime trade.
Then the Dutch Galen battleship can't help but say that it is very strong, it is really called a strong ship and a sharp cannon, but in the result, it is still defeated, of course, it is not defeated by the Zheng family's gunboat, and a gunboat like the Zheng family is really not enough to see the Dutch Galen battleship.
But the Zheng family's fireship fleet is really huge, which makes all the Xiyi people frightened, and it will also give this Ming people a headache in their minds.
This is the reason why they tried their best to win over the Zheng family.
Of course, the Zheng Zhilong brothers are also well aware of this, and now they are fighting against the common enemy Jeju Mingren, but once the Jeju Mingren are defeated, the Xiyi people may unite to put pressure on the Zheng family, wanting to open the sea in Fujian or eastern Guangdong.
Therefore, the Zheng family is also deeply afraid of these united Xiyi people, to be honest, Zheng Zhilong is not too afraid of the power of a single Xiyi people, but these Xiyi people gathered together will give the Zheng family a great headache.
Therefore, Zheng Cai knew the inside story here, and on the way to attack the Ming people, he deliberately controlled the speed of the fleet, not to outflank it too quickly, the purpose was to let Zhao Lie's troops fight with the Xiyi people for a while.
It is best that when both sides are defeated, the Zheng family will enter the enemy formation again, so that the Zheng family will have great benefits after the war again, and neither the Xiyi nor Zhao Lie's troops can threaten the Zheng family's maritime supremacy.
There were less than ten miles before they arrived at the battlefield, and Zheng Cai was observing the battle situation on the battlefield with a telescope.
I saw that the sea in front of me was full of warships of the two sides that were fighting, and it was quite chaotic.
Even if they were miles away, they could hear the roar of artillery, as if it had not stopped, and he had never seen this kind of scene before, because when they fought with the Xiyi people, it was not mainly an artillery battle, and the two armies in front of them were fighting each other with huge cannons, until one of them fell.
As a sailor's general, Zheng Cai did not have the slightest fear and retreat, on the contrary, he was extremely excited, he couldn't ask for such a big scene, and he Zheng Cai was proud to be able to participate in such a naval battle.
Of course, before all of them were put into the battlefield, he also had to estimate the situation on the battlefield, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that many Ming warships were mixed up with the allied warships, losing the protection of their own formations, and many of them were fighting alone in twos and threes.
Zheng Cai immediately made a decision, raised the flag and urged the fleet to immediately rush to the battlefield with all its might, this is a great opportunity, and it is really not to be missed.
The Zheng family fleet, which had just sailed slowly, was now sailing towards the warships, and the scale of the three hundred warships was also violent, and the warships covered the eastern sea.
Zheng Cai hoped that his fleet could completely disrupt the battle formation of the Ming people, and the fleet of more than 400 warships led by the head of the family who broke through from the east took advantage of the chaos to defeat Zhao Lie's troops.
Of course, we must first defeat Zhao Lie's department, otherwise everything is illusory.
Lan Xiang led a lot of lucky ships Haicang to move forward with the main force of the Broken Army and Sailors, they are like servants who follow the knights, and the things that have the limelight are the business of the knights and nobles, their Chinese fleet can only look up from the side, and it has nothing to do with them, they don't carry weapons such as artillery, even if they want to help, they have nowhere to start, they just follow the team honestly.
But to say that they are all useless is a burden, and that is completely wrong.
At least Lan Xiang knew the heavy responsibility of their fleet, which Lord Zhao Lie Zhao had high hopes for, and whether this expedition could return with a great victory depended on their humble old-fashioned fleet.
When the Zheng family's overwhelming warships appeared in the northeast, Lan Xiang knew that their fleet was finally not idle, and their work was coming.
Lan Xiang immediately sent people to the old-fashioned sea ships scattered everywhere, and the Zheng family warship came. (To be continued.) )