"Dangdang!" The clear sound of the copper bell woke up Xu Mo from his sleep, and he opened his bloodshot eyes and looked around blankly. However, Xu Mo quickly came to his senses, rolled over and got out of the hammock, and ran out of the cabin. He was so excited last night that he fell asleep very late.

Running up to the deck, Xu Mo breathed a sigh of relief, the naval battle had not yet begun. Walking to Gerhardt's side, Xu Mo asked softly, "Your Excellency Gerhardt, how is the situation with the ship on the other side?" ”

"It is indeed a merchant ship of the Hanseatic League, and the sign should belong to the Shupaia Chamber of Commerce in Copenhagen, and the Admiral has just ordered the standard-bearer to warn them to stop the ship." Gerhardt said as he handed the monocular to Xu Mo.

Xu Mo raised his binoculars and looked at the merchant ship not far away, only to see that the merchant ship on the opposite side was about the same size as the Vestelos, and it was also a three-masted sailing ship. The men on board were dressed in coarse undershirts, and there was a lot of canvas-covered cargo piled up on the deck, and they were running around busily maneuvering the sails, trying to get as far away as possible from the Swedish battleship.

Looking at the situation in the telescope, Xu Mo frowned, feeling a little wrong, but he couldn't say what was wrong. Xu Mo knew that this was because he had too little experience in naval warfare, but when he thought of Gerhardt and Hedlam, he was relieved again. These two buddies are not naval war children like him, so they shouldn't need to be reminded by him.

As the battleship approached the merchant ship, the sailors on the battleship began to shout loudly with a reel horn, demanding that the merchant ship drop anchor and stop sailing. The faces of the people on the merchant ship opposite were already faintly recognizable. Looking at the faces of the many sailors on the merchant ship opposite, a flash of inspiration suddenly flashed in Xu Mo's mind, and he couldn't help but change his face and turned his head to look at Gerhardt.

Unexpectedly, Gerhardt also turned his head to look at him at the same time, his face was extremely ugly, and both of them confirmed their thoughts from each other's eyes in an instant. Immediately turned around and shouted at the sailors beside him: "Prepare for battle!" ”

At the same time, the two of them discovered that the merchant ship of the Hanseatic League on the other side was an armed merchant ship, not an ordinary merchant ship as they had thought at first. However, the reasons for the two found out were different, Xu Mo felt that the sailors on the ship were too calm and did not have the slightest consciousness of becoming prisoners, but Gerhardt found anomalies from the many cargoes covered with canvas on the deck of the ship.

Unlike ordinary merchant ships, armed merchant ships carry a large number of guns and armed sailors just like warships. Of course, there is a difference between armed merchant ships and warships, the difference is that armed merchant ships will not be equipped with heavy artillery in order to carry more cargo.

They were mostly armed with short-barreled guns, which were light in weight and had a short range, which could not be compared with the range of the cannons or long and heavy guns that battleships were equipped with. Moreover, because the armed merchant ship is loaded with a lot of cargo, it has a deep draft and slow speed, and once it encounters a warship, it is generally impossible to engage in long-range artillery combat with it.

It's just that the situation is different now, the Vestelos is extremely close to the armed merchant ship, and the biggest gap between the battleship and the armed merchant ship has been filled. And in order to board the merchant ships, the Vestelos is now not following it, but almost beginning to run parallel to it, which makes it even more convenient for the bombardment of armed merchant ships.

In the blink of an eye, the roles of prey and hunter were reversed, and the Vestelos was in danger.

Hedlam's reaction was extremely fast, and since he was standing on the back deck, he didn't look at the situation of the merchant ship on the opposite side as carefully as Gerhardt and Xu Mo did. But when he heard the roar of his first mate and first stormtrooper, as well as the second stormtrooper, if he was still at a loss, then he would not be worthy of the word admiral.

"Poof!" Hudram drew his sword and shouted at the whole ship: "All men ready to fight, deck guns ready to fire, sink them!" ”

Ben Rambo Sean smiled coldly, and the Swedish warship on the other side seemed to notice the strangeness of his ship, but it was too late. The difference in preparation between the two was enough for them to open fire first, and as long as a round of shelling at close range could break the main mast of this battleship, they would become a live target and would definitely be defeated.

Ben Rambo Sheen was a mercenary in the Danish Navy, skilled in gunnery, and experienced in naval warfare as a stormtrooper captain on a Danish capital warship. After retiring from the army, he was recruited by Shupaiya to become the captain of this armed merchant ship, and his mission was to conduct trade in the North Sea, and by the way, to combat Sweden's weak maritime power.

"Click, click, click......" The gun doors of the armed merchant ship opened one after another, and the ship's short and heavy guns were rolled out one after another, and the muzzle of the black hole was aimed at the Vistellos.

"Boom, boom, boom......" The earth-shattering cannon sound sounded one after another, and as the cannon was discharged, flames came out from many cannon muzzles, and at the same time spewed out several meters of white smoke, and the heavy smell of gunpowder smoke suddenly enveloped the two ships.

Wood splintered on the right side of the Vistelos, and more than a dozen large holes appeared on the side of the hull.

"Bang!" The side of the boat where Xu Mo was standing suddenly exploded, and the splinters of wood rushed towards his upper body. Xu Mo only felt a shock under his feet, and the whole person immediately stood unsteadily, fell to the ground, and slammed his forehead on a piece of wood on the side of the deck.

Xu Mo propped up his body with his hands and looked around blankly, his mind was blank, and his dilated pupils did not have any focus. There was a buzzing in my ears, and the figures around me were longing, but I couldn't see clearly, and it seemed that there was a voice coming from a very distant place, and I couldn't hear it very clearly.

After a few seconds, Xu Mo's consciousness seemed to return to his body, his sight and hearing became clear again, and his brain began to run rapidly. The Vistelos is a battleship, and there are many combat sailors on the ship, even if they are preemptively fired by armed merchant ships, they still have no advantage in the broadside battle, so they can only continue the artillery battle.

However, armed merchant ships will not be able to defeat the Vistelos in pure artillery unless they can use their full firepower with the T-head, and the Vistelos can only return fire with bow or stern guns. Then it must first paralyze the Vestelos, to paralyze a ship, and seize the T-head, there are two ways, one is to destroy the stern rudder so that it cannot turn, and the other is to break its mainmast.

Now that the Vestelos is parallel to the armed merchant ships, and it is not feasible to destroy the rudder, then they have only ...... Thinking of this, Xu Mo looked up at the main mast, only to see that the main mast of the Vistelos was full of potholes, and it was full of bullet marks, but it was not broken yet!

"Protect the mainmast!" On the other side, Gerhardt, who had already stood up, yelled at the deck sailors.

Xu Mo saw that there were already sailors holding sandbags and rushing towards the main mast, and turned his head to look at the armed merchant ship again, and suddenly at a glance, Xu Mo's pupils shrank. Armed merchant ships have just carried out a round of artillery bombardment, and it will take time to reload again.

Unlike warships, armed merchant ships compensated for the lack of firepower by placing several light guns on their decks. At first, the armed merchant ship was covered with canvas on the sides of the merchant ship in order to disguise the guns, which is one of the reasons why Gerhardt found out that it was wrong.

Now the guns on the left had been fired and were being loaded, and they were pushing several 8-pounder guns on the right side of the deck towards this side of the ship. At the same time, there were several sharpshooters on the mast of the armed merchant ship, who were shooting at the sailors who were protecting the main mast of Vistellos with sandbags, and the sailors on the Vistellos fell to the deck with their body parts clutched to the guns.

The Vestelos is in danger!