Chapter 67: A Pyrrhic Victory
"My lord, the battleship of the Franc robot is rushing towards us,"
Seeing the Spanish fleet coming, Xiao Wu smiled bitterly,
Although it was attacked by an arson ship, Terry's fleet suffered considerable losses.
But he also lost almost all the clippers,
At this time, there were only about ten of the more than 30 ships under his command.
"My lord, let's withdraw, there's no need to fight the sailors for the pirates." He Bin had a sad face,
"Yes, my lord, the purpose of the Franc machine man is to break through the blockade of the pirate group and rescue the main fleet, if we evacuate the battlefield at this moment, we can still retain a trace of the blood of the sailor." Several commanders also came close to each other covered in blood,
The two three-masted ships that were the core of the Naval Town were stopped in front of the Spanish fleet as the main force.
These large ships had fewer guns than any of the Spaniards' third-class warships, and their firepower was greatly reduced by their guns.
In the previous naval battle, a fortune ship had already been heavily damaged, and the mast was hit by a twenty-four-pounder cannon, and the speed of the ship dropped sharply for a while, and it directly became the target of the Spanish warship.
The hull was hit directly by several heavy cannon shells, and the cabin began to flood sharply,
Although the Ming soldiers on the ship resisted desperately, it was to no avail, there was no way to live, and it was only a matter of time before it capsized.
Looking at the large fortune ship that was about to capsize, Xiao Wu finally reluctantly gave the order to retreat,
Together with the pirate ships, a total of ten warships quietly sailed away from the battlefield and broke through to the west.
Terry did not pursue the fleeing Ming ships, but continued to lead four third-class warships into the pirate group.
Skoll's fleet, exhausted by the pirates' shark tactics, has finally received reinforcements from Terry.
When the four third-class warships entered the encirclement, the pirates finally broke down.
More than a dozen pirate coalitions fell apart in an instant,
began to flee in different directions,
Naturally, Skoll would not let go of such a great opportunity, and although his flagship also suffered a lot of casualties and several losses in the artillery battle, he still maintained most of his combat strength.
He directly targeted the main ship where Li Tianyou was, and killed violently,
Li Tianyou, who was targeted by Skoll, naturally stood on end,
But as a pirate, there is still some ruthlessness.
In the previous naval battles, as the main ship of the pirate coalition, he did not take the lead in rushing to the front line, but let different pirate forces rush to the front, of course, his Black Flag gang was no exception.
As a result, the main ship under Li Tianyou's feet did not suffer any losses, and the sporadic shell hits were only minor abrasions.
Seeing Skoll's flagship rushing towards him, Li Tianyou simply opened fire without hesitation.
As a pirate commander, Li Tianyou's main ship is naturally much larger than other pirate warships, which is why Skoll is eyeing Li Tianyou's main ship in the pirate group.
"Brothers, kill me, kill these red-haired ghosts." Li Tianyou personally stood on the ship's tower to supervise the battle,
The main ship also carried the most guns, especially heavy cannons, and it was also worthy in the face of the already wounded Skoll flagship.
The two sides shelled each other at sea level hundreds of meters apart, and then got closer and closer.
"Order the armed merchant ships in the rear to follow up and hunt down the pirates."
"Tell Terry to let the other pirates go and hunt down the pirate ships flying the Black Flag,"
On the flagship, Skoll kept issuing orders, since he could not wipe out the pirate group off the coast of Luzon once and for all, then he would completely strangle the largest group, and this naval battle would not be without gains.
This gave the other pirate forces a chance to escape,
And the leaders of the Black Flag Gang scolded one after another,
The Spanish warships did not chase anyone, but they caught up with their own pirate ships.
In just half an hour, several large ships of the Black Flag Gang were sunk or severely damaged by the Spanish Navy.
This made Li Tianyou furious,
"Red-haired ghost, you're so ruthless." Seeing his ships being sunk one after another, Li Tianyou was almost crazy.
Beside him, shells flew towards the ships from time to time,
Roars, screams one after another,
Although it is the main ship with the most powerful firepower configuration among the pirates, it still has a certain gap compared to Skoll's flagship.
Although in previous naval battles, Skoll's flagship also suffered significant losses.
For a time, Li Tianyou's main ship was suppressed by Skoll's flagship.
In the end, not to mention the bombardment, even the ship's speed was slowed down by the fact that the sails were hit by a chain bullet fired by Skoll's flagship.
Skoll's flagship is like a wounded lion.
Several nearby pirate ships that had rushed to support were also sunk or heavily damaged by their artillery.
That's not all, just now Terry's flagship was also hunted down.
It was in the direction where Li Tianyou's main ship wanted to escape.
For a while, one-to-one became one-on-two.
Li Tianyou's main ship itself did not have much chance of winning against Skoll's flagship.
At this time, with the addition of Terry's boat, there was no way to live.
However, the big pirate deserves to be a big pirate, and seeing that his way of life was cut off, Li Tianyou didn't run away.
Aimed all the heavy guns on one side of the hull at Skoll's flagship,
With a barrage, more than a dozen columns of water suddenly surged on the sea level near Skoll's flagship.
Several shells hit the gun compartment, and a twenty-four-pounder cannon was instantly blown into a pile of scrap metal, and the five or six Spanish gunners on the side also became a pile of blood clots.
Maybe Li Tianyou's life should not be extinguished.
The shell hit the gun compartment, not just the cannon that blew up.
At the same time, it also detonated several barrels of black powder and shells near the cannon, causing a series of explosions in an instant.
Skoll's flagship itself was a second-class battleship, carrying dozens of heavy guns, including twenty-four-pound or even thirty-two-pound heavy cannons.
Ships carried more black powder kegs as well as cannonballs than other ships.
Plus before. The pirates' clippers attacked and destroyed several important compartments on the flagship.
This led to a series of explosions throughout the warship.
The sudden explosion stunned everyone present.
The firelight was one step closer than the shock wave and the sound wave, and everyone felt the doom of Skoll's flagship.
An explosion even more terrifying than the previous detonation of the ammunition bay of the battleship Chris.
The flames and black smoke quickly engulfed the entire battleship, and the huge wave of air affected even the main ship of Terry, which was hundreds of meters away.
Spanish warships.
Officers, gunners, sailors and soldiers all looked at the scene in disbelief.
An invincible Spanish second-class battleship, the flagship of their fleet commander was blown up like this.
From being hit to being killed and then sinking, time is extremely fast.
The flames quickly dissipated at sea level, leaving only billowing black smoke still floating on the surface.
The Spaniards were stunned for a moment.
The Black Flag's main ship rushed straight from the side of Terry's flotilla and escaped from the Spaniards.