Fan Liuxi glared angrily: "The fleet is my master!" I'm just trading with your Governor Recandu, Mr. Hessey, wield your artillery corps! ”

The foreigner named Hessey pursed his lips and shrugged, as if disdainful of arguing, and looked to the side to the front, where the two sprits were already turning their sails and slowing down. From a distance of three or four hundred yards, clouds of white smoke rose from the small hull of the other party's ship, and the rumbling of cannons followed.

A distance of three or four hundred yards was already the firing range of the Battle of Europa, but that was for the size of the battleship and the heavy guns of more than 20 pounds. The small boat cannon also opened fire from three or four hundred yards away, and Hessey laughed dumbly and Chinese his mouth...... There was a chaotic noise, the hull of the ship shook suddenly, the water column was pulled up, and large lumps of wood erupted from the side of the ship, mixed with the panicked exclamations of human voices. Then Hessey clearly felt a vibration pass through his feet, and he turned his head to look. But he saw a column of water rising from the other side of the ship.

"Fire! Fire! ”

Hessey was the commander of the artillery team invited by Fan Liuxi, and he felt that the round of artillery bombardment he encountered was too shocking, so he subconsciously opened his mouth and shouted.

At the bow of the "Big Lady", the No. 1 gunner looked at the muzzle of the gun with a suspicious face, and then looked at the enemy ship in front, scratched his head at the gunners of the Foshan Manufacturing Bureau and said, "Did you really fight out?" ”

A round of shelling on the side just now hit several shots of the enemy ship, and I saw a forest of miscellaneous debris flying around. Their "two-inch gun" was specially fired after the gunfire was completed, but they did not see any movement of the enemy ship, and to the gunners, who were accustomed to smashing fragments on the target, the shells seemed to be missing. "The muzzle must be high! Again! ”

The gunner tried the cannon at the shooting range, and he didn't know what the situation was in actual combat, so he pulled the bolt at the end of the gun, and the No. 2 gunner poked through the muzzle with a wet cloth mop and poked a yellow cylinder out of the tail of the gun. Then he wrapped the barrel in a dry mop again. Gunner No. 1 stuffed a shell with a brass base into the chamber and held a brass barrel behind the shell.

The gunners closed the bolts, turned the handles, and locked them tightly.

A feather tube was taken and inserted through the fire hole in the center of the bolt, penetrating the oiled paper in the center of the cartridge and the outer layer of linen cloth in the medicine bag, and became one with the gunpowder. Outside the eye of fire is a lion's head-shaped semi-ring, bending the tail of the pipe, pressing it into the lower edge of the lion's head's mouth, and the primer in the pipe leaks out a wisp, which is connected to the flint machine on the outside of the lion's head.

The water splashed in all directions, the hull of the ship swayed suddenly, it was the enemy ship that opened fire, and the gunners shouted to the No. 1 gunner: "Aim flat!" ”

The two sides are already close to sixty or seventy zhang, and if this distance is aimed straight and level, it will be replaced by an eight-pound gun on the upper deck, and the shells will still have to be fired into the water. The No. 1 gunner broke the canister and stumbled, and as he said, he aimed straight at the hull of the ship and pulled the gun rope sharply.

Engrossed in staring, I could vaguely see the remnants of the cannonball skimming through the air, touching the side of the opponent's ship, and then ...... No more, nothing seems to have happened.

The two gunners of No. 1 and No. 2 were stunned for a moment, and then jumped to their feet and said, "Are we fighting the fairy cannon!?" ”

Even the gunners who were scratching their heads, the three of them didn't know that at this time, in the gun deck of the Fan Liuxi ship, the gunners were dumbfounded and turned into puppets. On both sides of the hull are holes the size of two heads,

There were also two bloody corpses on the ground, one with half of his body and the other without a head, showing the price of blocking this strange power unmistakably, and the bloody flesh stained by the hole on the other side emphasized this point.

It was a very strange experience, and it was completely different from the shelling that had just blasted the gun deck with pieces of wood flying. It was like a bolt of lightning, and he didn't have time to react, and he didn't even see the culprit's face.

Before he could wake up from the shock, no more than half a minute later, there was a crisp sound of the wave, and a small hole opened in the side of the ship, and a black shadow penetrated the ship's board and landed on a 16-pound copper cannon, which jumped up from the gun carriage, knocked down a group of gunners around it, and then smashed heavily on the ship's board, and fell straight into the next cabin with a loud click.

The whole ship sank, and the gunners fell to the ground to the ground, and one of them threw himself on something, and was so hot that he screamed, and looked down like a large iron olive, which had been cut off from it and had its tail elongated.

"Fire! Full speed shot! ”

Hessey burst onto the gun deck and roared at the gunners.

"Fight hard! Don't let it breathe! ”

On the "big lady", Luo Wugui also shouted loudly, and at this time, the front and rear boats rowed in an arc, and both poured artillery fire on the other party's head boat. The four boats behind were struggling to catch up, changing the previous column into a horizontal formation. But because they were headwinds, before forming a siege formation against Luo Wugui's two ships, they also left Luo Wugui plenty of time to fight two against one. ,

"This is Boss Fan's fleet, do you want to raise your voice with them?"

The old subordinates who followed Luo Wugui into the navy were a little apprehensive.

"Whatever he does, Boss Fan, we're in the Navy now!"

Luo Wugui's voice was higher, but the frowning brows revealed his chaotic thoughts.

"Even if Boss Fan is on that boat, you have to take him down first, and then talk to him. It's the rules of the sea! ”

He gritted his teeth and whispered to his subordinates.

Luo Wugui studied in the Hong Kong Naval Academy before, and then he was busy pressing the boat, and he didn't care much about any newspapers, the sea was his world, so he naturally didn't know that the former leading brother had squatted in the prison of the Criminal Department.

The "eldest lady" and the "second grandmother" continued to flank the head ship for more than a quarter of an hour, relying on the dexterous control of the mast, always controlling the distance between 50 and 100 zhang, and smashed hundreds of 12-pound guns and dozens of eight-pound shells onto the ship, but they were only hit by a dozen or so 12-pound to 16-pound shells.

In this more than a quarter of an hour of artillery battle, the two "fairy cannons" of the two ships made a great contribution, and their bombardment hit almost all of them, and the planks nearly a foot thick were pierced neatly, causing a serious panic in the interior of the great ship, which was modeled after the Galen ship, with its hard sails, carrying four 12 to 16-pounder guns, and thirty or forty Francs and Daihatsu tributes.

However, the gunners of these two "fairy cannons" did not realize their merits, and they were extremely frustrated that they could only dig small holes in the board of the opponent's ship.

"Let's hit the waterline...... Let them separate people to scoop up the water..."The gunners cheered them up, and the gunners comforted themselves that they could be of some use.

After two or three shots, this opportunity was gone, and the opponent's rear boat had already pounced lightly, and Luo Wugui beckoned the wingman to sail and distance himself from the other party.

The operational thinking of the Anglo-Chinese Navy is closely related to the current situation of manpower, that is, it is not unnecessary, and it will never engage in broadside warfare. There were only more than 300 people on Luo Wugui's two small ships, and the other party estimated that there were so many people on one boat.

The two sea carp ships crossed the bottom of the arc, and then went upwind, side by side with the four sea fleets, and Huai Bei grabbed the upper hand again, drawing gourds in the same way, gnawing on a certain ship of this fleet, and continuing to fight more and less.

On December 8, the second year of the Holy Dao, the naval battle off Dongshan Island lasted for several hours, and the Fujian merchant fleet, which had almost been attacked before, sent a small boat back to Dongshan Island to report the police, while watching from a distance on the battlefield. Although their ships are large and they have cannons, they are thin-skinned and stuffed goods, and they can deal with ordinary small pirates, and this kind of naval battle is not capable of stirring up. At the same time, they can't avoid the battlefield and go directly, whether the Anglo-Chinese Navy wins or loses, which determines the safety and stability of this trip. The sound of artillery shook the sky, and the smoke of gunpowder floated on the sea like a cloud, and the audience felt that they were feasting their eyes.

Ying Tianfu, Bai Yanding stepped out of the prison of the Criminal Department, his thoughts were mixed, he didn't get into the carriage, he was dressed in civilian clothes, and walked around the streets of Guangzhou City with the guards. He is now in charge of the Kunlun detachment of the Nanyang Fleet, and this time he was supposed to return to Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, to inspect the gunning work of a group of warships. Taking this opportunity to take a leave of absence, Huaibei built a new house in Huangpu or Guangzhou City.

When I returned to Hong Kong, I learned about Fan Sihai, and I got the opportunity to meet Fan Sihai in person, and I had a conversation, and my heart was very heavy.

"Not to mention my friendship with Boss Fan, Boss Xiao also came to live with him. In the past, many of the large number of people recruited by the navy in Fujian and Nanyang were also taken care of by Boss Fan, I remember...... One of Boss Fan's hardcore brothers, named Wugui, was also cast into the navy...... Judging from the standpoint of our navy, Boss Fan can't really let the Chamber of Commerce and Industry make ...... it."

Bai Yanding took a walk, hesitating again and again, thinking about whether to move Boss Xiao and speak directly to the emperor.

The prison of the Criminal Department was the original Guangzhou government prison. Adjacent to the Manchu Qing Dynasty's Guangdong Governor's Yamen, now Yingtianfu Yamen. Unconsciously, Bai Yanding slipped to Yuexiu Mountain in the north, which has been turned into a public land for the citizens of the city to play.

"It's not about utilitarianism, it's about axioms! Kill people to pay for your life, and repay your debts for a long time! In the past, Deng Xiaotian was punished for breaking the law, and every day Fan Sihai must be punished, otherwise how can justice exist!? "Who can be outside the heart of the people!? The human heart is the axiom! ”

Fan Sihai raised righteousness to vote, and the matter involved Fujian, Taiwan and even Nanyang people's hearts! This matter should be judged in terms of the big picture, in terms of the righteousness of the imperial court and the hearts of Huayi! ”

"Even if Fan Sihai is guilty, he should only talk about the crime after the promulgation of the "Imperial Criminal Law"! With his deeds for righteousness, can't the merits and sins be compensated? Ask those who are clamoring for him to be punished, are you speaking for those profiteers? They don't want outsiders to endanger the Chamber of Commerce and Industry they control! ”,

"You are a punishing heart, not a gentleman's style! Let's talk about things, Fan Sihai is a sea owl! If he can not subdue to the law, and the small evil will be punished and the big evil will be forgiven, will he also encourage everyone to be the great evil? ”

The noisy noise poured into my ears, and in the wide field between the gardens, there were countless people debating, and although they sounded like two people, they had their own arguments, and it was obvious that they were from many factions.

Bai Yanding stood outside the arena and listened for a while, originally full of hatred for the person who advocated severely punishing Fan Sihai, but after listening to it, he felt a little reasonable. But at the same time, the people who defended Fan Sihai were also reasonable, and their hearts were in chaos.

Not only was he confused, but the onlookers and listeners were also confused, and they didn't know which side to agree with, and it seemed that they were all right.

This is also a common situation of public opinion in Britain and China, that is, the noise was more prevalent in the past, but the position of the government and the opposition has become more and more chaotic. For example, in the case of Fan Sihai, it was the Confucian Party and the Sages who ran out to complain, and it was industry and commerce that shouted and shouted and killed.

This situation is directly related to the release of the Dao Party at the end of last year. These open-minded young people, coercing Chinese and Western learning, are like a torrent pouring out, washing over the hearts of a country. In fact, the ideological division of Taoism, virtuous and industrial and commercial schools has long been gone, and the virtuous and Confucian clinging to the ancient sayings of the sages advocated by the Taoist Party have undergone a difficult transformation. Confucianism, Huang Lao, Bawang, Renfa and other schools of political science have arisen one after another, and Western studies have become the ideological weapon held by industry and commerce, and have derived a utilitarian school that integrates the writings of Yang Zhu and Guiguzi with the writings of Westerners.

However, the distribution of ideas and the actual performance are chaotic. Fan Sihai's matter, just like the stirring stick in this confusion, gave the vortex a specific flow direction, and thus divided the two camps of whether to adhere to justice first or insist on utilitarian first. The strange thing is that while the industry and commerce held up the axioms, the earlier Confucian sages and others, especially the literati and Confucian scholars, insisted on utilitarianism first. It is hoped that the imperial court will take into account the overall political situation of the whole country, and justice will also be compromised.

Both sides insisted that what they advocated was the way of heaven in the world, and looking at the situation in this garden, they were obviously not satisfied with spitting in the newspapers.

"Boss Fan is really wronged, looking at this situation, it is clear that the gods are fighting, and he is pulled to test the knife and gun......"

This war of words also caused people's heartstrings to sway, and Bai Yanding sighed helplessly.

(To be continued)