The pirates on the island were not fools, they had long expected that the huge "Wei Signal" would not run aground at the risk of running aground, so they also organized some archers and musketeers to use a limited number of buildings on the dock as a cover, trying to snipe a wave of coalition boats near the shore to investigate the water.

Even if this tactic could not prevent the coalition forces from landing, it at least had a chance to inflict some casualties on the coalition forces, and it could still play a small role in boosting the morale of the Eighteen Zhi side. However, these pirates are non-professionals after all, and the experience of fighting this kind of ambush warfare is obviously lacking, when the combined fleet sailed into the harbor, Shi Diwen had already found the sneaky figure on the dock from the telescope, it is obvious that these people have not received relevant training, and they do not know that Haihan has this kind of sharp weapon that can conduct reconnaissance at a long distance. Before the two sides made contact, they had already revealed their combat intentions, leaving too much time for the opponent to react.

Shi Diwen put down the binoculars and asked Xu Yuzhuo next to him, "You attacked Nanri Island a few times before, did you encounter resistance when you landed?"

Today, Xu Xinsu personally supervised the battle and led the Ming army to deploy on the periphery of Nanri Island and be responsible for maritime vigilance, so he sent Xu Yuzhuo to act with the Haihan militia, and he could also coordinate the cooperation of the two armies nearby while observing. Xu Yu replied: "The pirates will set up a defensive line near the dock to hinder the landing, and our army generally uses shields as a cover and shoots at them with bows and arrows. ”

Shi Diwen nodded and said, "But you are on the ship, and they are on land, so this will be a bit of a loss." ”

"Casualties are inevitable. Xu Yuzhuo readily admitted Shi Diwen's statement. Even if the individual military quality of the Ming army is slightly better, it is difficult to maintain the accuracy of the use of long-range weapons on the ship, and in this part of the battle, the Ming army will suffer a small loss every time.

The Ming army will suffer such a loss because they do not have strong firepower to cover, but the Haihan militia is different, and the fire strike from sea to land to cover the landing of troops is one of the compulsory courses for naval gunners. Shi Diwen gave an order, and the two slightly smaller "Expedition-class" warships slowly crossed over in the harbor and aimed their side at the dock. Then the gun window opened, and the black hole barrel reached the window, aiming at the few bunker buildings on the dock.

Navy Lieutenant Xie Li served as the commander of the landing vanguard, and he had already served as the first mate on the "Expedition-class" warship when it was first put into use, and two months before this mission to Fujian, he had just been promoted to captain of the "Red April," the No. 5 warship of the "Expedition-class" warship, and he could be regarded as one of the officers with a higher rank among the naturalized civilian officers.

However, Xie Li is not particularly satisfied with his current position, because he joined the Haihan People's League later than him, and Wu Sen, an officer of Annan descent who was not so pure, because he followed the fleet to attack the Anbuna Islands in the South China Sea last time, and has now been transferred to the "Majesty Class" The first ship "Majesty" as a senior officer. Although the two have the same rank and Xie Li still has a captaincy position, according to the development speed and law of the Haihan Navy, after two or three years, the number of "Majesty-class" warships will increase, and there will definitely be naturalized officers as captains, and Wu Sen will obviously have more experience advantages than the captain of a second-level warship like Xie Li.

In order to catch up with Wu Sen's promotion speed, Xie Li must seize the current opportunity and make more achievements. In yesterday's naval battle, the "Red April" under his command hit a total of 20 enemy ships, and the results were still very good. And the attack on Nanri Island is also another good opportunity for Xie Li to make meritorious contributions. Before setting off, he had already prepared the gunners on the ship to carry out artillery strikes on land, and he wanted to impress his superiors with his excellent performance on the battlefield.

The battle plan formulated by the Haihan militia before the battle was very detailed, so the time between Shi Diwen's order and the first shell was fired was less than two minutes, so fast that even the pirates in ambush on the dock did not realize what was happening, let alone have time to move.

A dozen shells from the first round of shelling whistled towards the buildings on the dock, piercing the wooden walls like a layer of tissue paper, and human voices could be faintly heard in the debris splashing. These wooden houses are just storehouses for the temporary storage of supplies transported by pirates on the island, and they are still useful for blocking arrows and lead bullets, but they are completely ineffective in the face of cannonballs.

After three rounds of shelling, Shi Diwen signaled a ceasefire to observe the results. Several of the wooden houses were battered and crumbling, and it is difficult to call them bunkers anymore. The two "Expedition-class" warships lowered their dinghys, and the soldiers rowed their dinghys to the shore and lowered long ropes tied to the plumb sinkers to measure the depth of the water in various parts of the pier. This is to be able to find a suitable berth so that the largest "Wei Signal" can dock.

During this time, the pirates who were ambushed on the docks failed to launch a sneak attack as expected, because most of them had already been killed or wounded in the shelling just now, and the few lucky ones who were unscathed were only lying on the ground and shivering, and they could no longer muster up the courage to rise again.

Several soldiers in the dinghy had already climbed the pier with rifles on their backs, and their task was to check the pier and dock for anything else to clear the way for the next landing on the shore. When the group reached the end of the trestle, they encountered the first pirate to jump out of their hideout, but the unfortunate unfortunate man had only an ordinary waist knife in his hand, so before he could get close, the four soldiers at the head took their rifles and fired at him from a distance of ten meters, two of which hit him directly in the torso.

This man was tenacious, and he didn't fall immediately after being shot twice, but still tried to attack. The soldiers, as they were trained to do, did not reload at this time, but rushed forward with their rifles in hand and stabbed the pirate to the ground with their bayonets.

The dozen or so soldiers who were the first to board the pier quickly cleared the shore and killed four or five recalcitrant pirates, and only one of them was injured by the pirate's arrows, but he did not fear for his life.

Xu Yuzhuo used the Guò telescope and Shi Diwen's walkie-talkie on the "Wei Signal" to observe the whole process of cleaning up the wharf by the Haihan militia regiment, this kind of artillery washing the ground, and the infantry then advancing in the combat mode, he had also listened to the instructor explain when he was studying at the Shengli Port Military Academy before, but he had not witnessed the actual combat examples, and today it can be regarded as a small eye-opener.

Xu Yuzhuo couldn't help but ask: "If there are strong fortifications such as fortifications on the shore, how should they be attacked?"

Shi Diwen explained: "If it is a battery, then the power of the artillery on the 'Expedition-class' warship is slightly worse, but our ship does have large-caliber guns that are specially designed to deal with the battery. In fact, the core idea of artillery warfare is only one - fire suppression, and it is not too difficult for us to achieve this. On this point, you will feel it more intuitively when we attack Nanri Village. ”

After the infantry had cleared the dock area, the "Wei Signal" slowly leaned towards the dock, unhurriedly unloaded soldiers and heavy weapons from the ship, and began to prepare for the attack on Nanri Village. From the high mast of the "Wei Signal", the lookout could clearly see the situation in Nanri Village, three miles away, so the Haihan militia almost did not need to rush to arrange a beachhead and defensive forces at the landing site, because the opponent had no intention of going out of the village to fight.

"You see, they're already cowardly before they even start. Shi Diwen unceremoniously belittled his opponent: "But they made a wiser decision to do so, if they want to pull it out and confront us head-on, they will only lose faster." ”

From the landing dock to the Nanri Village in the south, the terrain in the middle is very flat, and there are no scattered dwellings on this island, so there is almost no bunker for the people of Eighteen Zhi to set up a defensive line. If Eighteen Zhi dared to gather troops to fight head-on on this battlefield, then Shi Diwen would use Haihan weapons to tell him what military technology was crushing.

After capturing the dock, it took more than an hour for the Haihan warship to complete the baggage landing. However, this is already very fast, after all, these warships are not specially used for landing, and there are no special booms on board to lift heavy objects, and those guns weighing hundreds of pounds and tons of shells are unloaded onto the dock, almost all of which are carried by human hands.

Thankfully, there is also a dirt road from the wharf to Nanri Village, which is only four feet wide, but it is better than nothing. In this way, it will be much easier to transport the heavy artillery to the outside of Nanri Village.

Xu Xinsu very thoughtfully prepared more than 40 mules and horses for this island attack operation, and specially used two boats to transport them from Dongqiao Bay to haul the weapons and ammunition supplies used by the Haihan militia. After the landing troops had completed their build-up, they began to march south along the dirt road.

Located at the northern foot of a gently sloping hill, Nanri Village is built according to the topography and is divided into four layers of defense from bottom to top. The walls are all made of solid rock, and there is even a small arrow tower on the gate of the outermost wall. In terms of the military level of this era, this kind of walled fort was indeed a fairly strong island stronghold.

Of course, in Shi Diwen's opinion, the sturdy Cheng dù of Nanri Village just looked more powerful, and they brought two of the latest 48-pounder siege guns this time to deal with all kinds of dissatisfaction. At present, this kind of gun has only been routinely used in Shengli Harbor, and it is the first time that it has been put into use on the battlefield, and the military also hopes to take this opportunity to accumulate some experience for the use of this new type of weapon.

About 500 meters away from Nanri Village, the Haihan militia stopped and began to arrange forward positions. Although he knew that the opponent's strength was weak, he still prepared for the battle in accordance with the combat regulations. The infantry was responsible for guarding the perimeter, and the snipers were assigned to the left and right flanks of the position, using several wooden ladders to build a simple high platform to kill the pirates on the city. The artillery was divided from the middle of the position to the sides, from heavy to light fire.

"Morgan, are you going to have fun?" Taking advantage of the fact that the position was not fully arranged, Shi Diwen sent a mention to Morgan, who was gearing up.

Morgan smiled and replied, "You still know me!" Then I'm welcome, maybe I'll be lucky enough to kill the bandit leader with one shot, and this battle won't have to be fought." ”

"Good luck then!" Shi Diwen patted him on the shoulder and blessed him.

Morgan carried his pouch to a makeshift platform that had just been erected, and motioned for the soldiers to give him their place. Although the platform is only about three meters tall, the extra three meters will greatly increase the sniper's field of vision. Morgan slowly climbed onto the platform, crouched down to open the pouch, and pulled his babe Cheytacm-200 out of it.

This sniper rifle is designed to kill soft targets at a distance while being as light as possible, and the dot 408 ammunition it uses can maintain supersonic speed after flying out of the chamber for 2,000 meters, and its huge kinetic energy ensures that it still has great lethality at long distances. Although the magazine capacity is only 7 rounds, in the low-intensity warfare of the 17th century, the user did not need to worry about the small capacity and the need to reload frequently - in fact, due to the limited and unreplenishable ammunition, Morgan used the gun very little, and the last time he used this treasure was back in the Annam Civil War.

Morgan opened the gun carriage and set up the rifle, slowly lying down on the platform, and then began to adjust the sighting device on the gun. He only had ten rounds of ammunition with him this time, so he had to save a little. However, shooting at this distance, Morgan still has a lot of confidence in himself.

Xu Yuzhuo saw this scene for the first time, although he also went to the shooting range to shoot live ammunition during his training in Shengli Port, but they were all models of Haihan's mass-produced rifles, and he had also seen the kind of special rifles equipped by Haihan snipers. And the big gun in Morgan's hand obviously has many differences in appearance, and it looks very powerful.

"Mr. Shi, the gun Mr. Morgan used is ......" Xu Yuzhuo couldn't help but ask Shi Diwen.

Shi Diwen responded: "This gun is a unique high-grade weapon, which we brought from our distant homeland. Its performance is so good that it can blow a target's head out with a single shot from four miles away!"

"Four miles away!" Xu Yuzhuo was so frightened that his jaw almost dropped. In his cognition, Haihan's sniper rifle that does not sell out can shoot a range of more than a mile is already a very scary weapon, but he didn't expect that there are still weapons in this world that are several times stronger than it.

Of course, Shi Diwen didn't tell him that what he said was just a theoretical number, and the probability of hitting the target's head from four miles away was actually very low, so low that Morgan would never waste a limited number of bullets in pursuit of such a shooting record.