Chapter 231

Zheng Zhilong has been crisscrossing the sea for more than ten years, although he looks like he is hanging in this life, when he followed the sea merchant Li Dan, Li Dan died, Li Dan did not leave his inheritance to his son Li Guoqi, but left it to Zheng Zhilong and Xu Suxin, this is Li Dan's cleverness.

Zheng Zhilong did not eradicate the roots of Li Guoqi, but gave him extremely high treatment, but he had no real power, at least he could be rich and noble for a lifetime. Later, he married Yan Siqi and developed a master, and after Yan Siqi died violently, he inherited Yan Siqi's property as Yan Siqi's brother-in-law.

It is precisely with the huge inheritance of Yan Siqi and Li Dan that Zheng Zhilong has the capital to start a business, but the problem is that many people, whether it is a member of the Yiguan Party or Shibazhi, they are not convinced by him, he used to fight, and he has been fighting for more than eight years, which has become the king of the sea.

After the initial confusion and tension, Zheng Zhilong also quickly calmed down, the battleships of the Zheng fleet are not as fast as the battleships of the Ning Navy, and they are not as far as the naval guns of the Ning Navy, the range, accuracy and power of the naval guns of the Ning Navy are far superior to them, if they retreat, they will only be knocked out one by one by the Ning Navy Division as a target, the only way is to rush up, give full play to the numerical advantage to surround the Ning Navy Naval Division, divide it, surround it, and annihilate it one by one, this is the only way!

"Smoke boat!"

With Zheng Zhilong's order, more than 120 small boats rushed out of the huge Zheng fleet, and these small boats desperately seized the upper hand, and these small boats were loaded with sulfur, fierce fire oil, dry firewood and other fire-causing things.

These small boats were not designed to burn the warships of the Ning Navy, but to release smoke, and the small boats quickly burned to the sky, and then threw damp straw, quilts and other things on the fire, and then poured sea water, and each small boat produced a large amount of smoke.

These thick smoke shrouded most of the warships of the Zheng fleet in smoke, and as more and more warships or small boats rose up the smoke, a large area of dense fog appeared within a radius of tens of kilometers throughout the battlefield.

Some Zheng warships even burned with rubber, producing a lot of smoke, and I have to say that Zheng Zhilong's response was very correct and very effective.

"Zheng Zhilong really has two hits!"

Li Zhixiang carefully studied Zheng Zhilong, and found that this guy likes to win by surprise, good at using fireships, and when fighting bloody battles with powerful maritime forces such as Fujian Sailors, the Netherlands, and Portugal, he can always successfully paralyze the other party, and then take advantage of the other party's negligence to send fireships to burn the enemy warships in one fell swoop.

However, it is one thing to know what tricks the other party likes to use, and it is another thing to be able to prevent it, just like now Li Zhixiang did not expect that Zheng Zhilong actually formed his own barrier by slightly changing the fireboat.

Although the smoke at this time also had a great impact on the Zheng fleet, and many sailors were choked with tears and snot, the problem was that even if it was uncomfortable, it was better than being bombarded by the naval guns of the Ning Navy.

Ning Haijun tried to fire into the smoke, and after two rounds, it didn't have any effect, although Ning Haijun was rich, but no matter how rich they were, it was impossible for them to play with the precious flowering bullets.

Taking advantage of the protection of the smoke, Zheng Zhilong ordered to send a water ghost force to clear the mines.

Of course, in the face of the mines of the Ning Navy, the Zheng fleet had no better way, they carefully fished out the mines from the sea with ropes, and in just half an hour, more than 100 were fished out of the water.

Although more than a dozen mines were inadvertently touched and detonated during the salvage process, the Ning Navy actually suffered a loss by using this kind of small bird boat or speedboat to exchange for mines.

As the crisis of the mine was resolved, Zheng Zhilong, who was holding back the fire in his belly, ordered loudly: "The whole army attack, press up, and kill them!" ”

Originally, the smoke had just dissipated, and the Zheng fleet rushed towards the main fleet of the Ning Navy like an angry bull, and the Ning Navy warships at this time were scattered very widely, and some of the warships were very close to the Zheng warships.

Just when the battleships of the Ning Navy were methodically firing cannonballs and striking at the Zheng fleet, the fireships of the Zheng fleet began to appear.

Li Zhixiang looked at the fireships that came downwind with the help of smoke cover, and there were so many fireships rushing over, he couldn't help but be taken aback, and shouted: "Disperse!" Disperse! Don't get hit by these fireboats! ”

The fireship that appears now is actually a mother ship, belonging to a light ship, the mother ship is three feet and five feet long, the front is two feet, and the rear is one and a half feet, only the two sides of the gangway, the inner space, there is a small boat, there is a cover plate, there is a main mast, and there are four oars to row, and the rope is tied to the mother ship. The mother ship has firewood, oil, gunpowder and fire. During the war, the mother ship quickly approached the enemy ship, nailed it together, and set the mother ship on fire and the descendants returned in the sub-ship.

Due to the fire and smoke, it was also very difficult to attack the sailors and operators of the sub-ship. During the Battle of Wusongkou, the Ning Navy suffered a big loss from the fireships of the Zheng fleet.

Fortunately, Li Zhixiang expected in advance that the Zheng fleet would send fireships to fight, and they fought and retreated, especially when they saw the fireships rushing over, most of the main warships of the Ning Navy were advancing at full speed, and fortunately, the sea was wide enough, and the southeast wind direction was a tailwind for the Ning Navy that was retreating to the north.

With both sides in a tailwind, the Ning Navy sailors relied on the advantage in speed to gradually get farther and farther away from the Zheng fleet, and the Ning Navy battleships were bombarded by the stern guns of the Zheng fleet that caught up.

However, seeing that it was about to get rid of the attack range of the fireships of the Zheng fleet, a new problem arose in the Ning Navy.

"Turn the rudder, the right full rudder! What are you doing in a daze! ”

"Captain, it's not good, our battleship is stuck!"

"Stuck?"

"Yes, our rudder is entangled in a fishing net and cannot be turned, and if brute force is used, the rudder will definitely be broken!"

"If it's broken, it's broken, and we'll change the spare rudder!"

"It's too late!"

Li Zhixiang watched the four warships of the Fourth Fleet being entangled in the main rudder by fishing nets, he did not naively think that this was an accident, in this battlefield, it must not be an accident, but the counterattack of the Zheng fleet.

"Knock ......"

As the four battleships "Liaozhou", "Cangzhou", "Luzhou" and "Zezhou", which could not be turned, were hit by the fireships of Zheng's fleet one after another, the explosion of gunpowder caused these four battleships to be blown out of huge holes, and the sea poured into the cabin.

As a Sea Shark-class battleship with twenty-seven dense water tanks, although the dense water tanks are enclosed, the sea that can be poured into increases the weight of the battleship and makes the speed of the battleship drop rapidly.

More and more Zheng warships, like sharks smelling blood, besieged these four warships.

"The fourth detachment will immediately break away from the "Liaozhou", "Cangzhou", "Luzhou", "Zezhou" ...... "

"We have no tradition of leaving our brothers and running away!"

The commander of the Fourth Squadron was furious and shouted: "Fight with them! ”

Seeing that there was no way to escape, the four battleships simply lowered their sails and anchored to act as a sea battery, and the shooting accuracy of the ship's guns in motion was far inferior to that of the battleships after anchoring.

As the blood-colored battle flags were hoisted by the four battleships, the roar of more than a hundred guns on the four battleships shook the blood-like light in the sky, and the cannonballs smashed towards the Zheng fleet like a torrential rain.

Now Zheng's fleet is unlucky, unlike the Ning naval division who emphasized the bow and stern firepower from the beginning, the strongest of all the warships in Zheng's fleet is the gun's firepower, which means that they must cross the hull to aim the gunwales at the target before firing, so as to give full play to the gunwales' firepower.

And their gunfire is indeed fierce, a salvo will hit the Ning Navy with flesh and blood, but this also means that the bullet surface of those battleships has increased several times, and in the face of the shells smashed over like a torrential rain, the consequences can be imagined.

The sea was full of lightning, the waves were churning and roaring like crazy, and the water columns of the thickness of the water tank were not one or two, but rows and rows, and the water mist was flying into the sky. At the same time as the water column was rushed up a series of pillars of fire, which were larger, higher, and more deadly.

At this moment, Zheng Zhilong felt that the sky was about to collapse, the earth was about to collapse, and he finally realized the seriousness of the problem, and the gang-jumping combat he was best at was really lagging behind.

If you fall behind, you will be beaten, even if the main battleships of the Ning Navy are less than one-tenth of the main battleships of their Zheng fleet, if you count the small warships, the disadvantage of the main fleet of the Ning Navy is even more obvious.

But the problem is that with such a huge numerical advantage, they fought a very difficult battle, paying three or four thousand casualties, and sinking dozens of capital warships, while the Ning Navy has only four warships surrounded by them so far.

Even if they were surrounded, these officers and men of the Ning Navy Navy Division were very tenacious, all the naval guns opened fire at full speed, and the water force that tried to jump into a gang battle was shot into a sieve by the thunderbolts on the battleship.

Seven black-tailed ships with nearly 2,000 sailors attacked the Zezhou of the Ning Navy, and after fighting for half an hour, they never attacked, but instead killed and wounded eight or nine hundred people.

It's a shame.

"Da Xuan, we are developing in the wrong direction!"

Zheng Zhilong had to admit that in just three years, Ning Haijun's achievements were even more remarkable than those of his more than ten years.

Cheng Shijie is rich and will make money, but the question is, how can Cheng Shijie make money, will he be able to grab money quickly? Is it too much?

The answer is definitely no.

Cheng Shijie's main way to make money is to open factories and create wealth.

Zheng Zhilong, on the other hand, uses the method of transferring wealth, to put it mildly, that is, to transfer other people's money to his hands. Zheng Zhilong is not short of money, if he wants to build his own warship, whether it is technical reserves or funds, it is sufficient.

However, he felt unnecessary.

Because when Zheng Zhilong's more than 3,000 warships were mentioned, no one dared to have the courage to fight him.

Except for Cheng Shijie, of course.

In Zheng Zhilong's horrified gaze, the warships that attacked the Ning Navy with their gunwales were torn apart one after another and turned into a sea of fire......

He couldn't see the miserable appearance of his own fleet, but he could guess that the blow they gave to the Ning Navy Sailors was returned ten times by the Ning Navy Sailors!

The roar of the artillery, the ramming of the battleships, the fires one after another, the loud crashes of the battleships, and the terrible screams of the dying sailors have become the main theme of this blue world.

The Zheng fleet has many small roads, and they have launched fierce attacks on the Ning Navy sailors again and again, which is so fierce that it has a fight with the piranha that smells blood.

Compared with the Zheng fleet, the tactics of this young naval division were extremely monotonous and rigid, but when their naval guns roared, no one dared to question the power of this monotonous and rigid tactic.

Every salvo of fire is bound to have a battleship torn to pieces by them, and there is more than one! Zheng's fleet tried to ram and destroy the battleships of the Ning Navy Division with ramming angles, tried to disrupt the line of the Ning Navy Division with fireships, tried to outflank from both wings, all kinds of tactics were played, and the tactics that a fleet in the classical era could use were all used by them, but the Ning Navy Navy Division was like a reef in the sea, no matter how you collided, it was just motionless!

What made Zheng Zhilong extremely uncomfortable was that there were not many guns equipped on the main battleships of the Ning Navy, even if it was the Giant Shark class, there were only forty-eight guns, including thirty-six three-inch guns and twelve four-inch guns. For the same tonnage, Europa's warships were generally armed with seventy, eighty, or even eighty or ninety guns.

But the problem is that the rate of fire of the rear-loading smoothbore gun is too fast, and the time for the front-loading smoothbore gun to fire one shot is enough for the rear-loading smoothbore gun of the Ning Navy to fire five to six shots.

The sailors of the Zheng fleet are also well-trained, and their loading speed is among the best in the whole of Asia, however, the sailors of the Ning Navy are faster than them!

The speed of the Ning Navy's artillery is not that they are well-trained, if the Ning Navy is allowed to use front-loading smoothbore guns to fight the Zheng fleet, the Zheng fleet is estimated to be able to easily knock the Ning Navy out of.

The ancient gunwalten tactics also made the Zheng fleet suffer enough, they had to stop at a distance of about 300 meters, and turn the hull of the ship to let the guns on both sides fire, which made them a live target for the sailors of the Ning Navy.

The surface of the ship's side facing the enemy is several times that of the bow of the ship, and if you have to stop there, you can't get shot! And the high-explosive bombs used by the naval division of the Ning Navy also make it difficult for the battleship that has been bombed to have a chance to leave the battlefield again, it is good not to be hit, once the whole battleship is hit, it will soon become a sea of fire, no matter how it pounces, the only thing the sailors can do is to jump into the sea and escape before the fire ignites the powder keg!

Just when the Zezhou ran out of shells and was seriously injured and the Zezhou could not support it, the Ning Navy officers detonated the Zezhou, which was the first result of the Zheng fleet.

However, in order to sink the Zezhou, the Zheng fleet paid sixteen blacktail ships to be sunk, three junk ships to be sunk, and nineteen small warships to be sunk, and in terms of numbers, the battle was thirty-eight to one.

It's really out of the ordinary.

"Oh no, General Hong was shot!"

Zheng Zhilong was not happy yet, because the acquisition of sinking a battleship of the Ning Navy was the first result achieved by the Zheng fleet in more than six months since the war with the Ning Navy was torn apart.

No, it should be the third, because the Fuzhou and Gaizhou were also sunk by them.

This was the third ship lost by the Ning Navy.

But the problem is that compared to the losses of the Ning Navy, the losses of the Zheng fleet are multiplied by hundreds.

Shi Daxuan, who had a big cut on his forehead with sawdust, personally came to Zheng Zhilong's flagship: "Lord Admiral, you can't fight anymore, the loss of the brothers is too great!" ”

"Hold on a little longer, the naval guns of the Ning Navy should also be hot, as long as they ......"

Just when Zheng Zhilong personally bandaged Shi Daxuan's wounds, another battleship of the Ning Navy was sunk, this is the Luzhou, the Luzhou was hit by the fireship of the Zheng fleet on the left side, and when it hit and exploded for the third time, due to the large amount of water ingress, it overturned, and after a pillar of incense, the Luzhou sank.

Fighting with the Ning Navy makes the Zheng fleet extremely passive, this is not the combat method that the Zheng fleet is good at, what they are best at is jumping gang combat. However, after seeing the battleship full of armed sailors rushing up in an attempt to jump to the gang and be ruthlessly torn apart by the Thunderbolt, the Zheng fleet temporarily dismissed the idea of rushing up to hand-to-hand combat, and could only continue to carry it with a front-loading smoothbore gun that was inaccurate and reloaded at a dead speed.

In fact, the sailors of the Ning Navy were also dying, they only used a retreating artillery, and the barrels of the guns began to turn red. But the red-eyed gunner didn't care about it, and he didn't make a mistake, and when it was too hot, he carried a bucket of water and poured it on the gun.

With the sound of "Zi", the white water vapor rose, like a fog.

The gunners of the Ning Navy are also tired like dogs, you know, although the three-inch shells are not very heavy, each shell weighs 38 catties, but the problem is that the shells of the four-inch guns are very heavy, and one shell is 60 catties. But no one complained, because everyone knew very well that they were fighting for themselves.

If the Zheng fleet is allowed to continue to blockade, Liaodong will not be able to obtain raw materials, grain and cloth from the north and south of the river, and at the same time, the things produced in Liaodong will not be sold.

Because the soldiers of the Ning Navy Navy are most concerned about their military exploits, they used to be the infantry and cavalry artillery of the Ning Navy Army, and they received a large number of rewards, almost every Ning Navy soldier is a landlord, and some Ning Navy soldiers already own more than 1,000 acres of land. However, they Ning Navy sailors only receive dead wages, and occasionally have rewards.

They also want to earn a foundation for their families that can be inherited, shine on the lintel, and return to their hometown.

The casualties of the Ning Navy Naval Division were also very large, although the range of the guns of the Zheng fleet was not far, and the artillery was not too accurate, the crux of the matter was that the quantitative change would become a qualitative change.

Anything can happen on the battlefield, a Junk ship of Zheng's fleet, originally they wanted to hit the Chenzhou more than 500 meters away from them, but the Chenzhou did not have a, and the Lanling, which was located at least 2,500 meters away from the Zheng's Junk ship, was hit on the bow deck, two four-inch guns, two gun crews, and more than 30 people were killed.

Who should I talk to about this?

The gunners of Zheng's fleet were indeed very powerful, and they found that the battleships of the Ning Navy were too fast and too flexible to maneuver, so they changed their tactics one after another, attacking the rudder position with red-hot solid lead balls, and at the same time firing a large number of chain bullets to attack the sails.

As soon as the red-hot lead ball hit the wooden hull, it caught fire, and the chain bullets tore apart the sails' bodies at the same time, and the sailors of the battleships attacked by the chain bullets shattered, and the sailors fell to the ground in a pool of blood and writhed in pain.

"General Li, Li Yuan, the commander of the First Detachment, is injured."

Li Zhixiang said indifferently: "You are Zou Jing, the captain of the Guangning? ”

"It's Xiaguan!"

"Now you are the commander of the first squadron!"

"Yes, mission guaranteed!"

Now that the two sides are fighting real fire, no one is willing to retreat, even if the Zheng fleet has suffered heavy losses, but Zheng Zhilong is unwilling to retreat, who dares to retreat?

Don't look at Zheng Zhilong's usual smile, but the problem is that once Zheng Zhilong is ruthless, he will eradicate the grass and eradicate the roots, and if he kills, he will kill the whole family, who is not afraid of this?

When the Battle of Subic lasted from dawn to evening, Zheng Zhilong ordered a retreat when he saw that the Zheng fleet was demoralized and could no longer see any hope of annihilating the main fleet of the Ning Navy.

Zheng's fleet was pardoned and took the lead in breaking away from the battle.

However, when the Zheng fleet retreated, the Ning Navy did not retreat but advanced, and the artillery bombarded the Zheng fleet more fiercely, and the entire fleet was in chaos, more and more warships were shot and caught fire, and the sky-high fire and the red glow in the sky reflected each other, as if the sky was also burning.

Li Zhixiang watched the Zheng fleet retreating, and they retreated in a hurry, even the sailors who fell into the sea didn't care, it can be said that they fled in the wilderness.

Li Zhixiang put down the binoculars and breathed a sigh of relief: "Finally...... Won! ”

In this naval battle of Subic, the Ning Navy finally won the final victory and ended with the defeat of the Zheng fleet. In this battle, of the 625 main battleships brought by Zheng Zhilong, 161 were sunk, 25 were captured, and dozens were heavily damaged.

Zheng's fleet lost more than 300 small warships and more than 15,000 sailors, but the Ning navy only captured more than 2,700 people.

The losses of the Ning Navy were not light, four battleships of the Fourth Squadron were sunk, two of them were sunk, and two chose to sink themselves in order to avoid the Zheng fleet taking them.

The commander of the first detachment, Li Yuan, was seriously injured, and his left chest was hit by a lead bullet, but fortunately, this lead bullet was fired from the bowl, and the power was not too great, but Li Yuan's ribs were broken four times, and I don't know if he could survive.

The 1st Squadron lost one battleship, four were damaged.

The second detachment did not sink any warships, but eight warships were hit, and 465 people were killed, including Tian Simin, the director of the Ning Navy Naval Division, who was the highest commander in this battle, and the director was equal to Qianzong, but Qianzong was the rank of staff general of the imperial court.

This means that the Ning Navy lost one general and one general wounded, four generals were killed, and 1,633 soldiers were killed, of which five Sea Shark-class warships were sunk, eleven Sea Shark-class battleships had to be overhauled and temporarily lost the ability to continue fighting, and 14 battleships were injured to varying degrees.

The young naval master of the Ning Navy withstood the test and told Cheng Shijie with excellent results that they lived up to his trust and they were worthy of his love!

Li Zhixiang said lightly: "Tell the commander the battle report of the Battle of Subic, the whole fleet will return to Manila to rest, ask the commander, Manila will be renamed......"

(End of chapter)