Chapter 505: Confidence in Victory

"This is the Romani Cape and the terminus of the Titagini Mountains. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info Our convoy can no longer sail along the coastline, because there is the only reef area on the golden coastline of the sunny sea in front of us. So our convoy has to get back to sea. As soon as we pass this Romani promontory, we reach the edge of the Cristoir hills. It will take another three days to reach the port of Erniba and return to the bay of Zangjin in two or three days.

But the problem now is that the Nortons have gathered a large fleet and are in a position to fight us to the death on the sea route of Cape Romani. Obviously, their purpose is to intercept our convoy and prevent us from transporting supplies, grain, grass and reinforcements to the Zangjin Bay. After our fleet was attacked for the fourth time by the Norton guns, the brave Captain Prudden ventured to track down the evacuated artillery ships and brought us this information.

According to his reconnaissance, the Nortons had sixteen huge warships on the sea route, twice the size of the large ocean-going armed merchant ships, but not as large as our Sepnip warship. In addition to this, there are almost a hundred large armed warships. In the reef area near the Cape Romani, there are also more than forty medium-sized armed warships cruising. As for the dozen or so artillery warships that retreated, they cruised on the outer side of the sea route. ”

Viscount Penelope pointed at the charts on the wall with a thin stick, he was the commander-in-chief of the Invincible Armada of the Commercial Alliance, the commander of the First Fleet, and a second-class great swordsman. Sitting in the conference room were the high-ranking commanders of the Invincible Armada, the captains of large armed warships, and the captains of various formations.

The atmosphere in the conference room was very depressing, and Viscount Penelope secretly sighed in his heart, when had the commanders of the Armada been so depressed and lost their souls by a dozen enemy warships, and they no longer had a little temper. Back then, as long as I heard the whereabouts of the enemy's fleet, who of you didn't rush to be the first and volunteered to fight, for fear that I wouldn't have a chance to go to the battlefield......

But think about it, it's no wonder that this is the case, encountered four enemy attacks, the Invincible Fleet lost its troops, the two sub-fleets and the armed fleet of the Chikde Chamber of Commerce have lost more than 200 warships combined, although most of them are small rapid ramming battleships and medium-sized armed warships, but the enemy only has a dozen artillery warships, and the four attacks were unscathed. The Invincible Armada has always been at the point where it is unable to fight back after being beaten, and it is impossible to catch up if it wants to, and it is impossible to blame the high-ranking commanders of the fleet present who are all helpless, sighing.

When the two detachments had just met, who did not talk and mock the misfortune of the Third Squadron and the incompetence of the Fourth Squadron? The Third Squadron neglected to take precautions, and as a result, it was attacked at night in the port of Ernniba, and all the members of the fleet were turned into infantry with a torch. Although the Fourth Squadron claimed to have won the victory, the battle losses of seventy or eighty to six were really humiliating, until, when had the Invincible Fleet ever won such a victory? Moreover, after the victory, the remnants of the warships could only cower in the Zangjin Bay and did not dare to show their heads......

Although they all belong to the Invincible Fleet, there are still contradictions and rivalries between the four sub-fleets. The backstage of the first squadron is the Two-Headed Dragon Chamber of Commerce, while the second and third squadrons belong to the Chikde Chamber of Commerce, and the fourth squadron is a hodgepodge of sand that anyone can mix with sand.

Basically, the first three squadrons looked down on the combat effectiveness of the Fourth Squadron and considered the Fourth Squadron to be the biggest shortcoming of the Invincible Fleet. But now that the Third Squadron is unlucky, there is no way to say it, so everyone can only laugh at the achievements of the Fourth Fleet. Since the Fourth Fleet can sink the six warships of the Norton Family Fleet, the First and Second Fleets are out of the woods and can not be captured against the Norton Family Fleet, which has only a dozen warships?

Although they have some impressions of the long-range attack power of the Norton family fleet and the performance of the warships are very good in the battle report submitted by the Fourth Fleet, the senior commanders of the first and second fleets still don't care a little about it, no matter how powerful the long-range attack is, no matter how excellent the warship performance is, after all, there are only a dozen warships, and the Norton family fleet can be killed by the advantage of numbers......

So when everyone got together, they didn't discuss how to destroy the Norton fleet, but how to capture the island of Hilowas. The top commanders of the fleet, accustomed to the warm and bright sunshine in the southern seas, were not happy to go to the northern seas, where the wind and waves were high. All the speculation is which unlucky guy will be appointed commander of the garrison fleet after the capture of the island of Hilovas.

Until May 9, the night before the scheduled departure of the fleet, the harbor, where nearly a thousand merchant warships had gathered, was attacked by the Norton fleet. Fortunately, the harbor in the territory of the Chicked Chamber of Commerce was a little smaller, and more medium-sized cargo ships loaded with cargo were arranged outside the harbor, so as to block the Norton family warships that fired artillery, and the small rapid ramming battleship detachment in charge of patrolling reacted in time to counterattack the attackers at the first time, forcing the enemy's fleet to leave the harbor and avoid the tragedy of burning the port of Erniba again.

Although the night attack of the Norton family fleet was unsuccessful, the heavy losses they inflicted on the Invincible Fleet and the convoy finally woke up the minds of the fleet's top commanders. For the first time, they saw the power of the long-range artillery described in the report submitted by the Fourth Fleet, and in order to clean up the mess, they had to delay the convoy for seven days before setting sail, and at the same time changed the original formation and route, sailing along the coastline to avoid further attacks and losses on the convoy.

But the next three attacks of the Norton family fleet finally made the North Sea Fleet realize what is the difference in the performance of the warship, whether it is the operational performance, the flexible and fast artillery fleet makes the invincible fleet almost helpless, all the traps they arranged are ignored by the attacking enemy, the opposing fleet commander is obviously a cunning and cautious guy, he is indifferent to the transport fleet, just staring at the armed warships that are defending on the perimeter and bombarding them vigorously.

Originally, those small rapid ramming battleships still had some threats to the enemy, you must know that there were twenty-four fighting spirit cultivators on those small rapid ramming battleships, and in the calm and sunny sea, these twenty-four oarsmen combined with the sails could increase the sailing speed of the battleship in a short period of time, so that the battleship could speed up and hit the enemy ship.

However, the Norton gunners have found a weakness in the small rapid-ramming battleships, because these small rapid-ramming battleships are not equipped with any long-range fire weapons, and they use the sharp ramming angles in front of the battleship to pierce the enemy's ship wall, slowing down the enemy ship and waiting for the support of the follow-up fleet. Therefore, the artillery battleships of the Norton family let the small rapid ramming battleships of the Invincible Armada approach to within a hundred meters, and then lowered the muzzle of the guns, stuffed shotguns, and "boom", basically one cannon and one ship......

On the night of the night attack on the harbor, the artillery battleships still used iron projectiles to deal with those small and rapid ramming battleships, and three or four of the ten guns were already considered sharpshooters. But the second attack began to use shotguns against the small, agile and swift ramming ships. The same was true for the third attack, and by the time of the fourth attack, all the small rapid-ramming battleships of the Armada refused to fight. Because it was not called a battle, but was targeted, and more than 30 people in a boat were almost not spared with one shot. There is no such way to send death.

You must know that all the crew and sailors of small rapid ramming battleships are the bravest sailors in the fleet, and even they have no intention of fighting, you can imagine how low the morale of the entire Invincible Armada is now, and the battleships sent to the outermost defensive circle are equivalent to preparing to wait for shelling, and the crews are not preparing for battle, but first finding something life-saving for themselves, in case the battleship is sunk, they can get out of great trouble......

Viscount Penelope waited for a long time before anyone stood up to express his opinion, looked at the fleet officers who were full of room with their heads bowed, couldn't help but be furious, slapped his palm on the table in front of him, and roared angrily: "Aren't they all dead! Are you frightened by the enemy's artillery fire? Aren't you usually all very good, why are they all dumb now? The enemy has already set up a position in front of us and is ready to fight us to the death, but you are shrinking like quails one by one!" Should you just hoist the white flag and surrender to the enemy, anyway, you don't look like the warriors of the Armada!"

Viscount Penelope's anger finally aroused the self-esteem and shame of the fleet officers, and one by one the red-faced fleet officers stood up and expressed their determination: "My lord, since the Norton family is going to fight a decisive battle, then we will give him a decisive battle, and the Invincible Armada will definitely win!"

"My lord, please allow me to be the vanguard battleship, I will rush to the front......"

"My lord, even if I die in battle, I will pull the enemy to the end with me......"

"My lord, please believe us, we will not let the reputation of the Armada be disgraced for a hundred years, we can defeat the enemy, and we will definitely defeat the enemy!"

"Smack, smack, smack. A crisp applause rang out: "I believe in your courage and in the fact that the Armada will not fail." In fact, I don't think the Norton guns are that terrible, and they're not invincible. ”

The fleet commanders in the conference room all turned their heads to see who was so ashamed, after all, no one could come up with a way to deal with those slippery artillery battleships.

I saw a young man with a personable demeanor, a calm temperament, and a smile on his face walking up to Viscount Penelope's side. The commanders of the fleet all knew this young man, he was the eldest young master of the Chikde Chamber of Commerce, and Seriham, the commander of the armed fleet of the Chikde Chamber of Commerce.

"Master Sereham, is there any basis for what you say?" asked one of the fleet commanders in a loud voice.

Young Master Seliham smiled mildly and nodded, "Of course there is, everyone will know soon." If we don't count the night raid on the port, the Norton artillery fleet attacked us three times, and our fleet lost a total of two hundred and forty-three ships, of which one hundred and twenty-nine were small rapid-impact ships, eighty-six medium armed ships, thirteen medium cargo ships, and fifteen large armed ships.

There is a key point that you have noticed here, that is, the losses of large armed warships are much smaller than those of small and medium-sized warships. On the one hand, the fleet arranged small and medium warships to drive away the enemy and suffered heavy losses, but on the other hand, it showed that large armed warships had a great advantage in resisting enemy shelling. I found that a large armed warship could sail as usual after several shells from the enemy, but a small and medium-sized warship would be sunk and destroyed.

I don't know if you have noticed that when we were attacked for the first time, we lost seven large armed warships, but two of them were destroyed due to fire, and only five were sunk. The second time we were attacked, we had more large armed warships, but only five of them were sunk, and they were basically sunk after several rounds of concentrated fire attacks by the enemy. In the third attack, we only sank three large armed warships.

Gentlemen, do you remember the Flying Wing of our Chamber of Commerce's armed fleet, which was a large armed warship as the outermost defense during the third attack, and it was attacked by more than ten rounds of artillery from the enemy, but it kept floating on the sea, and almost all the walls of the ship were broken. Didn't you call it an unsinkable miracle after the war?

There is a mystery to this, and after the second attack, we found such a thing when we inspected the battleships that had been shelled. Because our warship was also tasked with transporting food and forage, while mending a hole that had been shelled, we found that an iron projectile fired by an artillery gun had penetrated through the ship's wall and had fallen into a pile of flour bags. Aside from roasting a circle of flour around it, the iron projectile only made a hole in the ship's wall and did nothing else.

So we did an experiment, we built a large bag of flour wall on all the inner bulkheads and the deck of the bottom of the battleship, and tried to fix it, just to see if the bag of flour had a cushioning effect on the iron projectiles fired by the artillery. As a result, everyone saw that the Flying Wing was not sunk, and after the war we collected almost forty iron projectiles in the ship's hold......"

The entire conference room erupted in cheers, if Young Master Sereham hadn't panicked, then at least everyone wouldn't have to panic in the face of the Norton family's artillery fleet. And the Norton family's artillery fleet must get closer if it wants to sink its own warship, which will give the invincible fleet an opportunity to take advantage of, and maybe use crossbows and catapults to counterattack.

Seeing that the atmosphere in the conference room was lively, Viscount Penelope smiled with satisfaction, first thanked Young Master Seliham a few words, and then asked everyone to be quiet.

"I don't think the Nortons thought we had found a way to deal with artillery, thanks to Master Sereham......, of course," Viscount Penelope applauded, and soon the applause ensued.

Master Seriham bowed to everyone, saying that he had only fulfilled his due responsibility, and that everyone's love was well deserved.

"Now that the Norton family is in a decisive position in front of us, what are we going to do?" asked Viscount Penelope aloud.

"Kill them!" Armada wins!" was a rainbow in the conference room.

Viscount Penelope nodded with satisfaction, and tapped the charts hanging on the bulkhead with the thin wooden stick in his hand: "They have set up a decisive battle at Cape Romani, perhaps they think that they can intercept our convoy with the long-range attack of artillery alone, and even think about destroying our Invincible Armada, this is actually just a dream!"

Our two detachments still have four giant ships of Septnim, more than a hundred large armed warships, more than a hundred small and medium-sized warships, and a total of more than three hundred warships, as well as more than a hundred armed warships of the Chikde Chamber of Commerce, and the battleships and strength alone exceed the Norton family fleet by several times, do they think that they can defeat us with just one artillery?

We will tell them what delusions are, and we will run over them like weeds in front of wheels, and Master Seriham has provided us with a way to withstand the shelling. We will use it to set up our ships, and then we will brave the enemy's fire and rush forward to the middle of the enemy's fleet and get closer, and when our stormtroopers at sea board their ships, I am sure that victory will soon fall into our hands like ripe fruit!"

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