The tenth day of February in the 11th year of the Ming Dynasty.

The Spanish Armada, which had been wandering for twelve days outside the open bay of Da Nang, finally began a tentative offensive. Eleven improvised East India Company gunboats, equipped with long oars, braved the strong westerly winds on the sea and took advantage of the last cover of darkness before dawn to break into Da Nang Bay. After a brief exchange of fire with several crab boats belonging to the town of Hoi Ninh in Da Ming, they turned around and retreated towards the mouth of the Khan River, located deep in the bay of Da Nang.

The exchange of light ships between the two sides was brief and not very intense. The navy in Huining Town is not a real navy, at best it is a role such as the coast guard or coast guard, and the personnel are not transferred from the navy, but the original Dahao "pirates" changed careers. Anti-smuggling and anti-piracy were certainly special, but they were no match for the Dutch East India Company navy. However, Yu Qilin and Zhu Qipao did not ask them to carry the Westerners' warships to death, and it was enough to play a role in early warning and reconnaissance.

The eleven Dutch East India Company gunboats followed the crab boats southward, and finally reached a small shallow bay near the mouth of the Khan River. By this time the pre-dawn darkness had faded, and the sky was beginning to brighten. In the light of dawn, the captains of the Dutch East India Company saw an incredible defensive system.

The entrance to the naval base, known as the "Sweat Battalion," was about a nautical mile wide, and was blocked by a chain of ships connected by two bow and stern lines, leaving only a rather narrow opening for a first-class battleship.

Among them, a chain of iron chain ships on the periphery is composed of sixty or seventy fortune boats, wide ships, and bird boats. Originally, these Fuchuan, Canton and Bird Boats were the favorite ships of the Nanyang Chinese maritime merchants, and they were cheap to build, and they needed few sailors to operate, and because they used hard sails that could be turned, they were very suitable for inland navigation in the wind.

However, after the Ming Dynasty was at war with pirate powers such as Spain, the Netherlands, England, and Portugal, many Westerners' privateers appeared in the waters of the South Seas! As a result, excellent commercial ships such as Fuchuan, Guangzhou, and Bird, which were not strong enough and had weak firepower, were gradually replaced by large old lock ships for military and civilian use.

The latter usually had a light displacement of seven or eight hundred tons, a sturdy hull, a double-decked gun, and was usually equipped with 28 cannons, half of which were 18-pound heavy guns and half were 12-pound cannons. This firepower, this tonnage is completely the configuration of a fifth-class battleship (cruiser)! If they form a fleet and set sail again, it is not something that the privateers of Western pirate countries dare to touch!

Many of the Fufunes, Cantonese ships, and bird ships that were temporarily eliminated were berthed in the trading ports under the Meiji Dynasty, and they were used to build floating water walls.

However, a chain of iron cables in the inner circle looks a bit extravagant. It was a floating city wall on the sea composed of a first-class battleship, a dozen fourth-class battleships, and a dozen large armed Galen ships!

What is this operation? Almost half of the strength of the Spanish Navy has become a water defense line? And what is the use of this line of defense? Are you ready to turn naval battles into positional battles?

Admiral Sabala, who received the report of the enemy situation from the Dutch gunboats, was also surprised, but then he figured it out. Although the Chinese have now learned to build and operate Western-style soft-sail battleships, they are not a maritime nation after all, they are a conservative continental people who only want to hold their own one-third of an acre of land - they even built a great wall that is thousands of miles long on the border with the northern Tatars!

Such a nation, even if it has a powerful navy, only uses it as a great wall to defend the sea, not a sword to attack the enemy's coast! Therefore, it is normal for them to use warships as stones in Da Nang Bay to build a sea wall.

However, such a "sea wall" has a fatal weakness, that is, it is afraid of fire attack! And the Dutch, who were part of the Spanish armada, were particularly good at fire attacks - Admiral Zabala knew this very well!

So Admiral Sabala immediately took charge of his Dutch deputy, Constantine, who was also the commander of the East India Company's navy. Together, Nobel developed a Spanish-Dutch version of the plan for burning serial ships!

In order to ensure the maximum success of the operation, they decided to take the lead with most of the light ships and twenty arsonboats at hand, and use the cover of night to break into Da Nang Bay and burn him first!

Then twenty more flexible fourth-tier warships followed in, taking advantage of the fact that the Ming naval fleet was messed up by the surprise attack of fireships to collect people's heads! In order to ensure the success of the raid, Admiral Sabala and Konstantin . Nobel also decided to send the Dutch fourth-class ships and the British fourth-class ships, which were the most capable of fighting under the Spanish Armada, out of the horse!

In addition, the Spanish first-class battleship "Our Lady of Concepción" will also sail into Da Nang under the protection of several Spanish fourth-class ships, and will be in command. The remaining ships of the Spanish Armada, on the other hand, will form a formation to patrol outside the Da Nang bay to prevent the Ariake warships from breaking through to the chaos - in this battle, the Spanish Armada must completely break the backbone of the Ming Navy's ocean-going fleet.

After the plan was formulated, it had been strengthened several times, and in fact it became a combined fleet of the West, Britain and the Netherlands, and the Spanish Armada, which had more than 100 ships, was wandering around the periphery of Da Nang, while "borrowing the east wind" - to burn the chain of ships, there must be an east wind, preferably a northeast wind, otherwise it would be a little difficult for the Arma to rush into Da Nang!

And the means of the Spaniards to "borrow the east wind" is, of course, to pray to God the Emperor the Father!

I don't know if it's because the King of Spain has been excommunicated by the Pope, so Admiral Zabala's prayers didn't bear fruit quickly. It was "borrowed" for more than ten days, and it was not until the night of February 21 that the northeast wind that Admiral Zabala wanted came belatedly!

After learning that the wind was turning in his favor, Admiral Sabala immediately gave the order to attack Da Nang. The first detachment, composed of dozens of Spanish, Dutch, and English warships and more than 20 arsonist boats, took advantage of the dark night to sail into the open bay of Da Nang, still with 11 Dutch gunboats as the vanguard.

As happened the last time Dutch gunboats entered Da Nang, these light ships with a displacement of only about 200 tons were still stopped by the Ming army's fast crab boats, and the fast crab boats were quickly repulsed.

Subsequently, the first detachment of the Spanish Armada, which rushed into the bay of Da Nang, took advantage of the favorable wind and followed eleven Dutch gunboats, and soon arrived near the camp at the mouth of the Khan River.

About a nautical mile from the camp at the mouth of the Khan River, the flagship "Our Lady of Concepción" stopped advancing. Admiral Sabala and his lieutenant Nobel stood on the aft deck, statues looking forward with binoculars, trying to gauge the situation on the Ming side from the flickering light of the darkness ahead.

I don't know how long it took for Admiral Zabala to put down his binoculars, take out his pocket watch, look at it, and then turn to Nobel and say, "Rear Admiral Nobel, the time is almost up, let's begin, may the Father bless the King of Spain and the Consul of the Netherlands and the King of England!" ”

Major General Nobel turned around and shouted to the staff officer next to him: "Signal rocket. Launch! ”

At present, the commanders of the Da Nang water battalion are Colonel Yu Qilin, chief of staff of the Da Ming Ocean Fleet, and Colonel Zhu Qipao, the town guard of Da Nang.

Lieutenant General Cotentan had already led 3,000 of his best officers and key sailors, riding horses and mules provided by Qiu Hui, to Thanh Hoa, where General Annam's shogunate was located, hundreds of miles away. There, they were to board four third-class battleships and 24 fourth-class battleships belonging to the Ming Nanyang Fleet, which had set off south from Guangzhou Bay (on the Leizhou Peninsula) - before the fleet led by Cotentan and Yu Qilin entered Da Nang, they sent a lightly loaded Galen ship to Guangzhou Bay at high speed, asking the Nanyang Fleet to quickly move south to Thanh Hoa.

After the battleships of the South Sea Fleet and the officer sailors brought by Cotentan converged, almost every battleship could be replenished with more than 100 experienced officers and backbone sailors!

This will greatly enhance the actual combat effectiveness of the South Sea Fleet!

In addition, Vice Admiral Ko Tang Tan will also temporarily serve as chief of staff of Admiral Chen Shangchuan, the commander of the South Ocean Fleet, and may also be in actual charge of command.

And there are more than 11,000 officers and sailors of the navy's ocean-going fleet who remain in Da Nang. There were already more than 3,000 people under Zhu Qi's gunners, and more than 5,000 people were temporarily recruited, and there were almost 20,000 people together!

On the night of October 21, when the northeast wind rose. Yu Qilin and Zhu Qipao both knew that the Spaniards were going to attack soon-they had all seen "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", what borrowed the east wind, what burned the serial ships, could they still know?

Besides, the Dutch have always been arsonists! The Downs Bay has burned the Spaniards, the Thames has burned the British, and the Galen ship that Zheng Zhilong built with great difficulty has also been burned in Xiamen Bay!

Yu Qilin has carefully studied these classic examples of naval warfare, how can he not be a little guarded?

Therefore, Yu Qilin immediately issued an order for the whole army to stay all night, and all officers and soldiers boarded the ship. When the early morning of the next day arrived, the vigilance was strengthened again, and all the officers and men entered their positions, their eyes wide open, and they looked at the dark sea in front of them.

More than a dozen crab boats under the command of the Da Nang town guard are also ready, and except for a few patrolling the entrance to Da Nang Harbor, the other fast crab boats are deployed between the two "water walls".

And at the mouth of the Khan River and the Chashan Peninsula - at both ends of the bay where the water village at the mouth of the Khan River is located, two carefully camouflaged artillery positions are also ready! On these two artillery positions, 18 and 28 kg heavy guns were moved from the Liaodong and more than two dozen other fourth-class ships, and the number exceeded 200!

As for Yu Qilin and Zhu Qipao, they sat in a small fortress near the mouth of the Khan River, quietly waiting for the decisive moment to come!

As time passed, as if nothing would happen on this night, a brilliant light like fireworks suddenly exploded in the night sky in the distance!

"Here we go!" Zhu Qipao stood up suddenly, and rolled up his sleeves, looking like he was going to pounce and cut people.

Yu Qilin calmly took out a pocket watch made in Foshan, looked at the time by the dim lantern light, and said with a smile: "It's four o'clock in the morning. It's a good time! ”

The sky is still dark, the northeast wind is getting stronger, and the most common morning fog in the bay has slowly risen, as if a thin veil has enveloped the whole Da Hyeon.

In this fog, more than 20 arsonist boats were silently drifting towards the Ming army's water camp with their sails puffed. Suddenly, one of the arsonist ships first burst into flames, and then another arsonist was ignited, and in a short time, more than two dozen flickering lights appeared on the originally dark sea!

With the help of these 20 or so fires, the officers and soldiers guarding the Ming army's water camp station vaguely saw the large and small "boat shadows" floating towards their side!

The cantons, fortune boats, and bird boats located in the outer circle of the Ming army's water camp are also equipped with artillery! Although the hulls of these civilian ships could hardly withstand the recoil of large-caliber guns, they were now "disposable ships" and did not need to take care of these.

The cannons mounted on these ships were also not high-quality and expensive bronze cannons, but cheap 12-pound cast-iron cannons. The breeches of all these 12-pound cast-iron cannons have been equipped with chain shells that specialize in hitting masts and sails.

As the commanders on these ships, fortune ships, and bird ships gave a loud order: "Release! ”

Hundreds of 12-pound cast-iron cannons showed their muzzles, and one by one the fuses were ignited, and each muzzle spat out tongues of fire!

A chain bullet was pushed out of the chamber by the gas released by the gunpowder deflagration, whistling, spinning and flying in front of the flickering fire! Those fireships were already very close to the Ming army's "water city", so they were also easy to hit. And the power of a 12-pound chain bullet is not small, enough to cut off the mast of a fireship! As soon as the masts of the fireships fell, the wind that pushed them weakened considerably.

In the first round of shelling alone, more than 5 fireships were hit, and as their masts fell down with a clatter, the speed of the ship also slowed down sharply, and it was obvious that it was difficult for them to hold out until they hit the "water city" of the Ming army!

Seeing that the firepower of the Ming army's "Water City" was so strong, the gunboats and fourth-class battleships that followed behind the fireships immediately lost their breath, and they turned on the spot one after another, changing from the bow to the enemy on the side of the enemy, and began to use the guns on the side to aim at the "ship wall" of the Ming army!

However, the artillery of the Ming army was still unmoved, but only covered their heads and fired chain bullets, not only at the fireboats, but also at the gunboats and fourth-class battleships that took the initiative to fire and expose the target.

Cannonballs came and went on the sea, and the smoke and fog were mixed together, and they were permeated in all directions.

On the fortress at the mouth of the Khan River, Zhu Qipao, who had seen this kind of scene for the first time, danced excitedly, shouting there: "Lose your mother!" Hit, hit hard."

And Yu Qilin has long been accustomed to seeing the explosion of artillery battles on the sea, so he is very calm now. Moreover, he did not expect to be able to block the attack of the Spaniards by relying on a "ship wall", and even the Liaodong first-class battleship and other fourth-class ships and armed Galen ships were all used to sacrifice and redeem.

Boat. It's nothing at all!

In the eyes of this amiable admiral, but his heart has become a little cold, it is just a bargaining chip and a pawn in the struggle for sea power.

As long as you can exchange the corresponding ships and personnel of Westerners, it will be enough.

What he really cared about was good, experienced naval officers and sailors who cared not for their lives, but because they were difficult to replace.

By this time, there was already a burning ship that had hit the "ship wall"! The fire swept towards the "ship wall", but did not immediately ignite the wooden hull.

This was due to the fact that the planks and decks of all the wooden ships that made up the walls were covered with a layer of fire-resistant mud, and sand and buckets were also prepared to extinguish the fires. In addition to gunpowder and the wooden ship itself, other flammable materials were removed as much as possible. There were no sails, no ropes, no flags on board. So these ships are not easily ignited

(End of chapter)