"Everyone pay attention to dodge! the shelling is about to start on the other side, do you want to compare with the cannonballs to see who is more beaten!" Mary shouted the order, directing the sailors to find cover on the deck in order to avoid the shelling of the three-masted armed merchant ships, Mr. Captain can now only be reduced to Mary's "first mate", the last siren banshee attack not only shocked all the crew of the Maria, but also made these men at sea have an inexplicable dependence on the three of them, as long as they are there, things will be fine.

After the foremast sail accelerated again, it took less than 20 minutes to go around a circle and reach the front of Maria, Frank still had two strokes, and the three-masted sailing ship made a pretty beautiful track on the sea, and finally landed firmly in front of the bow of Maria, which was the most conducive to naval battles in the "T" shaped firing position.

But during this trip, three more sailors on the Golden Lion died from the strange musket fire from the Maria, and Frank was so angry that when his ship entered the right firing position, the usually calm captain couldn't help but roar hoarsely.

"Shooting, port gun left deck gun salvo. ”

The distance between the two ships was now less than 280 yards, and the Maria was still moving towards the Golden Lion, and at this distance, Frank had a strong confidence in his gun commander, and he didn't need to shoot with a ruler, just hug his head and shoot to the death.

Although it is still nominally called a merchant ship, the total number of one-sided gunwales and deck guns has been as high as 12, and with the sailors on the deck joining in the lively musket fire, it still created a lot of momentum.

"Boom!" The Golden Lion was instantly enveloped in gunsmoke, and hot three-pound iron balls flew out of the cannon muzzle and slammed into Maria.

Maria had bad luck and the Golden Lion had a first-round salvo with four hits.

First of all, the bow of the Maria, the bow of the goddess of bounty, was directly hit by two shells, turning into crushed wood crumbs, and two other three-pounder shells smashed into the deck, halving several unlucky sailors who had been hit directly and forming ricochets, all the way forward, finally breaking through the stern railing and falling into the sea.

"Don't move, hide behind the sandbags as much as possible, keep your body down, don't stand up and run around, otherwise you will be more likely to be hit!" Mary shrunk tightly behind a sandbag on the deck, the selector is not a god, this three-pounder cannon that has been modified by random space, if it hits directly, Mary's body will not perform better than those sailors.

Now you know that feng shui takes turns, right?

Seeing the bombardment in full swing, Frank slapped the steering wheel hard and shouted excitedly, "Clear the chamber, reload, and hurry up to give the Dutch bed bugs another round." ”

The excitement did not make Captain Germain completely lose his caution, and after giving the order to continue the shelling, Frank said to the first mate who was watching the sea with a telescope: "What do you see? ”

The first mate was specially arranged by Frank to pay attention to the movement of the brig, and in the naval battle, he must pay attention to the six directions and listen to all directions, otherwise the battle will be fought on a whim, and it is very likely to be defeated and lost.

"Captain, the clipper is coming up, but I think they have very few guns, maybe the whole ship is four three-pounder guns, and I suspect they are going to prepare for a broadside battle. The first mate's eyes did not take his eyes off the binoculars, and he replied loudly to his captain.

"Broadside, how many people can an average brig clipper carry, 12 or 15? If you want to take overboard, then let them come up, Adrian should have itchy hands a long time ago!" Frank sneered: "Sailors, what are you waiting for?

The distance between the Golden Lion and Maria was close to 200 yards, and the armed merchant ship deliberately lowered its sails to ensure that it could stay in the shelling position for as long as possible and make a few more rounds.

In fact, Frank did not fail to think that this Dutch merchant ship might not be armed, and her flank position was actually just as capable of attacking, but the nature of the Germans still made him not choose to take risks, and he still continued to maintain a "T" position, striking the enemy at the safest artillery point.

"Boom, boom!" the Golden Lion fired another salvo, this time with greater accuracy, and the cannonball whizzed and hit the left foreside of the Maria.

The loss of the round-bellied merchant ship was even greater, the entire bow of the Maria was broken, the speed had slowed down, the sailors were busy blocking the water, barely controlling the danger, and the main mast was also narrowly grazed by a three-pounder gun, taking away a large piece of wood, almost crumbling, it was the captain himself who led the sailors to go into battle and reinforced it with iron sheets and planks, so as to stabilize the situation, but the Maria was still at sea, and it was still tenacious and unsinkable.

"I don't know what you think, Miss Hunt, but it's best to start now, and I dare say that if we are shelled again, the beautiful Mary will have to be Poseidon's mistress, and we will all be her dowry. The captain shouted as he led the team to make repairs.

"In that case, I wish you had enough insurance, and now, with our gifts ready, we can talk to the three-masted ship. Mary laughed, her voice sounding a kind of provocative excitement.

Hearing this, the captain also cheered up and shouted: "First mate, take a few good guys to the foredeck and take out the prepared things." ”

The sleek first mate hurried to the foredeck of the ship with a few men, lifted a few waterproof felt blankets, and revealed what Mary had made a gift within—two large-caliber shotguns, which had relatively thin walls and poor accuracy, but when stuffed with grapeshot, this terrible big-mouthed guy could set off a storm of flesh and blood at close range, similar to the current Kasumi shotgun.

It is no accident that the Maria has been able to survive until now, and a considerable part of the deep draft is caused by the temporary sandbags on the ship, which have already been thickly padded in several layers where the planks are weak, so that after the shot, one slows down the speed of sinking seawater, and the other effectively counteracts the kinetic energy of the cannonball, so as to avoid further killing and injuring the sailors in the cabin after breaking the hull.

The Golden Lion slowed down in order to prolong his attack and bombard the enemy more effectively, but this also created the fact that they would be more likely to be hit, which effectively compensated for the lack of accuracy caused by the Maria's sailors' infrequent cannons.

Mary squinted at the armed sailboat, about 120 yards, which was almost out of the bow of the ship, and to her eyes it was already visible from the ship opposite.

On the opposite deck, the sailors were in a state of effective busyness, the reloading was complete, and they were proceeding with the refilling process, believing that it would not be long before the last round of shelling to decide the life and death of the Maria would come, and by that time no sandbags would be of any use.

"Enough is enough, return fire!" Mary shouted, the shotgun was a pre-prepared trump card, the firing process was very short, and at Mary's order, the two cannons roared in unison, raising the smoke of gunpowder, and returning the new and old hatred of the Maria to the Golden Lion.

"Damn the Dutch moths, they actually hide such disgusting and despicable tricks!" Frank actually reacted the moment the waterproof felt carpet on the Maria was lifted, and the experienced naval combat master immediately understood the disgusting intentions of the other party.

Originally, killing enemy sailors with grapeballs was also a common trick in naval battles, so be prepared, but anyone who was bitten back while fighting a rabbit would not feel comfortable, and the dog-skin plaster-like brig clipper was getting closer.

"Watch out for enemy shelling, dodge grape projectile scattering, prepare to transfer the wounded, empty decks, get ready!" Frank ordered loudly, naval battles are like this, orders must be given by roaring, and the old captain is basically hoarse, this is the reason.

"Boom!" The bombardment of the Maria sounded at this time, and the hanging grapeshot shells were angrily discharged, and then immediately broke free from the raw cowhide that had bound them together, and the two cannons sprayed a total of nearly 60 high-temperature iron balls the size of quail eggs, and the metal storm swept directly on the deck of the golden lion, Frank and the first mate who was responsible for observing the sea situation around him both fell on the deck, only to feel that there was a hot air flow in the back, and the ship was suddenly quiet for a moment, and then there were all kinds of heart-rending screams.

Frank got up quickly, the grapenail shot was too close, and the ship's casualties were estimated to have reached ten figures, which was already a very large battle damage for the Golden Lion, which was worth a hundred sailors.

The deck was a bloody mess, with severed limbs and groaning wounded soldiers who fell to the ground abounding on the deck, Frank held back the anger in his eyes, and calmly observed it, the injuries were about the same as his estimate, Captain Germain took a deep breath of the air full of gunsmoke, which made his throat and eyes hot, but the desire to fight was stronger.

"Sailors, continue my orders, transfer the wounded, clear the decks, gunner, continue the attack, we don't want any more trophies, send me this hateful Dutch ship to the bottom of the sea!" Frank ordered, shaking the dust off his body, and then picked up his binoculars and continued to observe the battle at sea, which was beginning to get complicated.

When he looked again, the brig that had been at about 400 yards had now cut up so quickly, how could it come up so quickly in such a short time?

What does this mean? Is it really a broadside battle to get close to oneself in such a completely unflattering position, and if you think about it this way, it can be explained that the merchant ships cooperate with the firing of grapeshothureal bombs to clear the sailors and create chaos on the deck, but it is still not right.

Who would choose to fight as broadside as possible in naval battles?

It is those reckless men who are not good at gunnery but are good at close combat, but, judging from last night's surveillance and the current draft of the ship, not this clipper, that is, these two ships together, are only less than 50 sailors, and these people can't all come to the side of the battle, there are up to 30 people who can attack the deck of the Golden Lion, what is the use of such a number, the number of pure combat sailors of the Golden Lion is close to 50, led by the strong man Adrian, the enemy and us are on the side, it is possible that the Germanic sailors of the day are sheep？

Want to come up, well, I'm waiting for you!

Frank made up his mind and exclaimed, "Half sail!" Speed up, dodge the shelling of the Dutch merchant ships, and prepare to meet the enemy, no matter the artillery battle or the port, the bugs are no match for the Germanic lions!"

It's just that it's hard to say whether the Germanic sailors are sheep or lions, but the opponents who are about to get on board are definitely not lions and tigers, they are the selectors...

"Miss Lilu, I think we're here, let your seamen start working. Takenaka said this to Lilu Argoth at the beginning of Mary's bombardment, and his connection with Mary was through the team channel, and his grasp of the fighter could not be more accurate.

The young Dutch girl also let go, gritted her silver teeth and said to the three sailors: "You three go up, let the enemy see our Dutch wind-stealing technology!"

The three young sailors gave a cheerful whistle, and excitedly ran to the position of the mainsail with a few sailors, all the sailors at sea knew how to rush the wind, but it was only the Dutch who could really teach the wind as a skill passed down from generation to generation, and in the sour words of other sailors, "the more you run for your life, and naturally know better how to make the sail." ”

Three sailors, who had mastered the essence of wind grabbing, skillfully controlled the sails, and took advantage of the bow to the wind, quickly unhooked the mainsail and loosened the spinnakers on both sides.

Xiaofei changed the course, from the course facing the Golden Lion to the arc tangential to the Golden Lion, Lilu's first mate personally took the helm and returned the rudder, two of the three wind grabbers pulled the mainsail inward at the same time, and the remaining one pulled the foremast sail to assist in steering and stabilizing the balance of the ship, and the remaining crew immediately changed their position according to the new route, rushed to the other side of the ship, and went to the new windward side to press the strings to ensure that the hull was restored to the horizontal position in time to avoid capsizing.

The clipper boat crossed the Golden Lion at high speed diagonally, and Lilu was surprised to find that, as Mr. Van der Kamp Jr. said, the other party did not have time to open fire interference, the distance between the two ships was only less than 30 yards, and they could see each other clearly, and the starboard side on the opposite side was understaffed, and did not make effective artillery fire at all.

This fast passage through the right side of the Golden Lion took a few tens of seconds at most, and the two ships would stagger if they were a little sluggish, but at this moment, two figures who had been preparing for a long time jumped off the side of the small flying ship, and then threw out the hook lock in their hands to hang on the railing of the Golden Lion, like a light seabird, and jumped onto the deck.

"Adrian, do you see?" exclaimed Frank, "There's a Dutch borer on the Golden Lion!"

The Germanic man, known as Adrian, roared loudly, ripped off his seaman's shirt, revealing his strong chest muscles and palm-wide heart hair, and brandished a heavy axe at the two newly embarked figures.

Coincidentally, the other party also has an axe.