Langgang Island.

On a sunny day, the waves here are amazingly large, crashing against the steep sea cliffs with a rumbling sound.

In the beautiful weather, the mood of the Dutch people such as Fries is not beautiful, just like the harsh climate and the ferocity of the poor mountains and rivers.

The water here is deep and the waves are big, people call the three feet of waves without wind, there are wind and waves over the post, it is really the viciousness, and away from the big island, the terrain is dangerous, it is called by the fishermen near the left, Langgang three mountains, it is really difficult to annoy up and down, there is thin porridge at home, never go up this mountain, even the fishermen are not willing to come here on weekdays.

Fries stood at the bow of Castelliku's ship, looked at the bored Ming sailors in the reef not far away, and said hatefully: "Nicholas is a vicious and cunning pirate, but his son is a scheming merchant, a wrecked ship, a wrecked ship that I don't even want to see." ”

This time, the Friesian fleet escaped smoothly, but had to agree to escort the eldest son of the Zheng family to study in the north, at first everything went well, and he was born in the Zhoushan area, and the Zheng family's two dhows deflected and arrived at this Langgang Island.

Zheng Sen had to go to the island to replenish fresh water, but a dhower was directly hit by the waves on the reef, so the fleet was moored and fell into a long time of repairing the ship, but it was busy for five or six days, not to mention repairing the ship, the dhower could not get out of the reef, and Fries could only wait.

"Your Excellency, Commander, there's a ship over there." The sailors standing on the mainmast gave a warning.

Fries immediately became vigilant, having never encountered a ship in the past few days, and he immediately asked, "What is it?" ”

"There were two, very spaced apart, and in front of them was a three-masted Ahat ship...... God, that's the company's ship. The sailor reported to Fries, and suddenly exclaimed.

Gangsas quickly rushed out of the stern, handed the Fries telescope, and looked into the distance, where the first ship could already see the whole picture, but the ship behind it was still far away, and only the mast could be seen, and the hull was hidden from the waves.

"It's our ship, if I'm not mistaken, it's the fleet between Nagasaki and Batavia, it's The Hague, or Malacca, and I don't know the one behind it." Gangsas said.

Gang Sas saw that the ship was flying the flag of the East India Company, and made a judgment.

If the last time the Hongyan went to Zhangzhou Bay to disguise itself as a Dutch ship, it was a temporary intention, then this time the Dongfang disguised as a Malacca was intentional.

The Malacca was a Dutch ship that visited Tamsui, about the same size as the Vostok, in order to imitate her, Lee Siu-ji not only had a mast shortened, hoisted the Dutch flag, and even had the same name as the ship, Lee Siu-ki dispatched English crews to work on the open deck, and even placed a few 'Dutch wives' in the bow to dry.

Fries stared at it for a long time, then said, "It's best that your guess is correct, but be careful, and order the Rose to anchor and put on guard." ”

Fries didn't actually see a flaw, but he was well aware that the Dutch fleet would only arrive in Nagasaki in July and August every year, and theoretically the Malacca would not appear in the East China Sea until two months later, and that the fleet would hardly sail along the coastline of the Ming Kingdom, but along the island chains of Oto and Ryukyu.

Gangsas immediately gave the Bannerman an order, and he immediately tried to use the Banner to communicate with the rapidly approaching Malacca, but the Bannerman of the Malacca seemed to be in an unreasonable position, and the foremast's undersail blocked part of him, making the flag unintelligible.

"It's a little weird, I'll send a boat over at once." Gonsas did not dare to slack off, ordered the sampan to be lowered, and sent a few of his men to sail to the Malacca in small boats.

On the Vostok, the English crew operated the ship, all the trading company crew hid behind the ship and in the cabin, and Lee Siu Ki stood on the lower deck, his tall stature and his head easily touching the ceiling.

"Double-loaded shells, we're going to hit them, I'm going to shove the cannon into the butt of the Dutch and then fire. A salvo is going to crush their butts and let these goofs go out into the sea to feed the fish. "The English gunner speaks broken Chinese, but when he swears, he is full of eloquence and neutrality.

Chen Liuzi has always been responsible for the control and training of the trading company's armed merchant ships, and he has always been bold in employing people, using the old British sailors to train a group of sailors who have mastered Western techniques, tactics and seafaring skills, and with his support, some English people who have passed the test can also serve on the ship, and even sit in important positions.

It was under his training that new sailors mastered the art of ocean navigation and warfare, and now this is their first actual combat after raiding the Hong Kong pirate anchorage.

The tactics devised by Lee were simple, disguised as a Dutch merchant ship to approach the sloop, inflict fatal damage on the enemy with a sudden fire strike, and then lay siege to another Yahat ship.

"Sir, the Dutch have sent a sampan." Aaron opened the deck door in a panic and said to Li Zhaoji, this English commercial attaché is playing the role of the captain of the Malacca at this time.

"Don't panic, Mr. Aaron. You have a couple of Dutch-speaking sailors, wait for them to get closer, fail to steer, sink them, and fish up the Dutch. Li Zhaoji said.

Aaron faithfully obeyed Lee Chiu-ki's orders, and as soon as the sampan approached, the Dutch-speaking English sailors on board greeted them loudly and whistled. The Dutch sailors did not know what to do and responded enthusiastically.

The English sailors threw down the cables, hoping to pull the Dutch sailors up and talk, but the waves were too rough and the operation was always bad, and the Vostok still approached the Rose at anchor at a relatively fast speed.

Until it could no longer be played, the Vostok made a sudden turn and crushed the sampan, but the Dutch sailors were rescued decisively and quickly, all of which was seen by Gonsas and Fries.

"It seems like an accident." Fries said lightly that if there is a problem with the identity of the other party, it will be seen when his sampan is close, and it should not be delayed for so long.

Gangsas stared at the Vostok, and then at the Lingding Island, which had fallen far behind, and suddenly said, "No, Your Excellency, there is something wrong with this ship, you can see their sails, they are too clean." ”

Fries immediately adjusted the telescope, looked closely, and immediately realized that something was wrong.

The sails of this ship should not be so clean after leaving Batavia and sailing thousands of miles, knowing that after departing from Batavia, the Dutch fleet will only be replenished in the port of Dayuan, and only on the return journey will the sails be replenished.

"Raise the sails and get our ship moving." Fries immediately ordered that at this time, there could be no more hesitation.

On the Vostok, Aaron said in a loud voice to Li Zhaoji, "Sir, they raised their sails and prepared to flee." ”

"Prepare for battle." Li Zhaoji immediately gave the order, and the sailors who had been gearing up for a long time on the Dongfang immediately entered the combat state.

The arquebusiers rushed out of the stern and lined up on the port side, the lower deck and the open deck doors opened, and the loaded guns were pushed out.

Since the problem of casting guns was solved, the Dongfang and Lingding Island took the lead in making improvements, adding six gun emplacements on each side of the lower deck, all of which were newly cast eight-pounder cannons, while the open deck still had four gun emplacements on one side, and a short-barreled large-caliber gun was added to the bow, so that the two Yahat merchant ships with a displacement of about 300 tons jumped from lightly armed merchant ships with eight guns to gunboats with 21 guns.

Although the cargo capacity was much less, it did not have much impact, after all, the two ships were bound for Nagasaki, and the goods carried were all high-value items such as raw silk, silk, medicinal herbs, and spices, so the cargo space required was not very large.

The Dutch flag was torn down, the trading company's blue dragon flag was hoisted high, and the Vostok's full sail went straight to the Rose.

The Rose was a sloop, also with a single deck and no stern, but it did not notice anything wrong until the Hahat merchant ship came in a hurry, and took off the flag of the East India and Du Company, and realized that something was wrong, and hurriedly hoisted the sails, ready to escape.

A shrill whistle tore through the air on the Vostok and drowned out the rumbling cannons.

The starboard gun deck of the Vostok erupted in clusters of fire, firing melon-sized shells at the Rose from a distance of less than fifty meters.

Solid shells sliced through the air, some smashing holes larger than a human head in the Rose, while others landed around the Rose, splashing columns of water higher than masts.

This salvo was immediately followed by a salvo of fire from the guns on the open deck, using chain and pole shells.

Chain bullets, that is, two shells with a slightly smaller diameter are tied together with iron chains, and after spraying out the muzzle, they will sweep everything they encounter, while rod bullets are two rods that are linked together, with snap links, and shoot out of the gun breech, which will expand under the action of inertia, and will also rotate and sweep.

Both of these are ammunition for destroying sails, and at close range, they are especially effective.

The blazing shells smashed everything they encountered, the deck was torn, the side of the ship was shattered, the canvas was torn open one by one, and with the sound of a whooshing sound, Li Zhaoji saw with his own eyes that the two support cables connected between the mast and the hull were broken, and he immediately gave the order: "Stop firing and change the target." ”

Even though his order was very timely, the lower gun deck still had an extra round.

Li Zhaoji's judgment was very prepared, the Rose is a single-masted schooner, this kind of ship has a mast, as long as the sail rope is broken, the longitudinal sail has no support, and the longitudinal sail is lost, and if it only relies on the mast of the oblique truss sail, the speed will be very slow, not to mention, the wide diagonal truss sail has also been hit a few big holes, and it can no longer hold the wind.

The schooner was the ship that Li Zhaoji had in mind, this ship was small and agile, especially fast, and could be used as a notification ship for transporting emergency supplies and letters, as an attack ship to disturb the enemy's routes, and even in regular naval warfare, it could also be used as a reconnaissance ship.

In the short term, trading companies were unable to build large Galen gunboats that would confront the Dutch and Spanish colonists, and schooners could use their speed to deter the colonists by going to enemy waters to engage in pirate warfare. Moreover, there is a great shortage of ships in trading companies these days, especially for ocean-going voyages, and any ship, even the dhow in front of us, which may not even have a displacement of seventy tons, is precious.

The Rose, as long as it survives this battle, will become a ready-made combat force for the trading company's fleet, and it can also become a sample for the trading company's shipyard to build schooners.

"Damn, it's a gunboat."

Fries saw the fall of the Rose with his own eyes, and he did not know if the weak and thin ship would survive such heavy fire, but he felt that if he did not flee quickly, he would be torn to shreds like the sails of the Rose.

"All the sails are raised, retreat." Fries ordered.

He did not retreat north along the island chain, but at the moment when he regained momentum, he turned to the southwest, and then, with a nice headwind, turned to the northeast, and drilled through the middle of the Dongfang and Lingding Island, but he was surprised to find that the Lingding Island, which had fallen behind, had also chased after her, and she had hoisted all her sails.

The brave sail at the top, the winged sails on both sides of the mainsail, and the sturgeon sails stacked between the masts, she was very fast, far ahead of herself.

Now, in the morning, not long after the day began, the opponent's ships faster than him took the upper hand, and Fries could not help but be a little desperate, and when he threw away everything unnecessary and took the helm himself, in the distance, two Yahat ships of the same size, the same super speed, came from the flanks.