"What's going on?"

"I don't know!"

Greco pondered: "Those Western European barbarians are not aligned, every time they fight, they are wolves and dogs, and they expect others to go up and kill themselves so that they can pick up cheap, are they coaxing again?" That's the only good news at the moment. If all goes well, four large ships will arrive in Clandia (Crete) next week, with a large amount of food and three or four thousand shells on board, which should solve the urgent needs of Gandia. ”

"It's good to be able to catch your breath!"

Lieutenant Commander Aberg, the Venetian naval commander in Crete, breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I hope we can get there...... Damn the Ottomans, it's getting tighter and tighter, if I have enough shells, with these eighteen ships, I can take out eighty or ninety of them. ”

Greco sighed: "Who left us without the means to produce such shells?" I hope everything goes well on Catherine's side, even if you can't say that the Ming Emperor can send troops, it would be good if she could buy a batch of cannonballs back! ”

Finally, the Ottoman emissaries arrived at the front, claiming to meet the Venetian commander.

Greco stepped forward and said, "I'm Greco, Lord of Gandia!" ”

The Ottoman envoy said: "My name is Mustafa!" ”

It originated from the Ottoman word for "excellence". Mustafa represents courage and strength.

Unlike other nations, the Venetians were mainly engaged in commerce and trade, and although they were soldiers, they were proficient in the various Chinese languages, while Greco himself, like Catherine, was fluent in Ottoman (not a typo, this is a forbidden word), Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and French.

Mustafa continued: "Our Admiralty Minister of the Navy has ordered a temporary cessation of fighting, hoping that you will exchange prisoners with us!" ”

"Swap captives?"

Not to mention that the Venetians couldn't figure out what was wrong, in fact, even the Ottomans didn't understand what was going on. The Ottoman Empire did not establish diplomatic relations with the Ming Empire, and at the same time, there was little communication between the two countries at the national strategic level.

The Ottomans did not take seriously the threat of war issued by the Ming Empire, in fact, they even wanted to send someone to inform the Ming Empire to stop supporting the Venetian city-state, as long as the Venetian troops could continue to get supplies from the Ming Empire, then the Ottoman Empire would never be able to suppress Venice, and the Mediterranean would never be able to restore calm.

It's just a pity that even if Catherine doesn't support the Ming Empire, Cheng Shijie will intervene in the war between the Ottomans and Venice, as long as this war is plunged into a long enough time, the Ming Dynasty can quickly complete the industrial revolution.

Because of the current Venice, because the country is too small, they themselves are the white gloves of the Ming Empire, and now the strength of the Ming Empire is enough to protect their white gloves.

It is naturally impossible to make Venice the hegemon of Europe, and Cheng Shijie's bottom line is to make Venice a-stirring stick for Europa.

Although the Ottoman Empire was very puzzled by the sudden withdrawal of its allies France and Great Britain from the battle, the problem was that with the withdrawal of the allies, the original strategic plan could not be carried out, and the war naturally could not be fought.

The Ottomans finally got the opportunity to gain the upper hand, and naturally wanted to swallow Venice in one bite, but the problem was that the ocean-going fleet of the Ming Empire was still in Madrid, but three days ago, this Ming fleet, which was even more powerful than the invincible fleet of the Spanish Empire, suddenly left the port of Madrid and began to sail towards Venice.

The abnormal actions of the Ming Empire's navy made the Ottoman Empire have to stop fighting, once the Ming directly participated in the war, then the Ottoman Empire would be as embarrassed as it was, without the support of France and Great Britain, the Netherlands and other countries, the navy of Venice alone could make the Ottoman Empire pay a heavy price.

What made the Ottomans even more angry was that although the Ming did not participate in the war, they sent their warships, more than sixty of them, to escort a fleet of Venetians to deliver supplies to Crete, and this supply fleet consisted of only fourteen thousand-ton merchant ships.

Merchant ships loaded with grain and cannonballs sailed to Crete. Two of the armed ships loaded with a large number of shells were the objects of key protection,

Before leaving, the consul had told the commander of the fleet that if he could not win the victory in the event of an interception by the enemy fleet, he could abandon the merchant ships transporting grain, concentrate on escorting the ships laden with cannonballs, and send the cannonballs to Gandia at all costs!

The fleet chose a hidden route, avoiding the more lively channel and sailing towards Greece, every step was cautious, now they no longer have a little arrogance, everyone only hopes not to be discovered by the enemy, and send ammunition and supplies to Crete safely.

However, the weather did not meet people's wishes, and halfway through, several French warships appeared and intercepted them. If it's just a few French battleships, the Venetians don't care about it, the French are not a naval power, and it's easy to clean them up.

But behind these sea warships, there were more than forty Dutch and Portuguese warships, and behind them, there were also more than twenty British warships!

The Western Europeans laughed as they looked at their prey surrounded by them, and from the sea breeze came their insolent shouts, which were nothing more than "Kill them!" Be careful, don't sink all the warships and take a knighthood from a gunner! ”

Venice these giant cannons from the East brought the fear of death to the enemy at the same time, but also attracted the coveted of the enemy, they tried every possible way to seize a few imitations of the past, but have not been able to do so, this ambush, not so much to destroy the Venetian fleet, but simply want to capture a Venetian battleship, get a few naval guns.

The Venetian sailors did not panic, the gunners took their places, and all eyes were on the flagship.

The commander of the supply fleet gritted his teeth and said, "Don't entangle with these Western European barbarians, concentrate your firepower to kill a piece of flesh and blood, and rush to Gandia as soon as possible!" ”

The flag was hoisted, the Snes fleet formed a double arrow formation, protecting the four merchant ships in the middle, the helmsman skillfully steered the steer, the fleet turned to seize the wind, the sailmen worked together to adjust the sails to make the battleships play as fast as possible, and the whole fleet rushed towards the thinnest British fleet like a huge iron arrow.

From a long distance, the three-inch front-loading smoothbore naval guns let out a terrible roar, and the shells burst out with sparks, whistling towards the British fleet, and immediately a British battleship burst into flames......

The British fleet opened fire hard, large and small solid lead balls and chain bullets flew like hail, hitting the hull of the ship and flying sawdust, the Venetian fleet did not care, sprinted at full speed, straight into the British flagship!

The French, Portuguese, and Dutch fleets rushed up and were blocked by four broken Venetian ships, and three were hit in an instant.

Thunder, swift and cheetah, the roar of the cannon made the Western European sailors terrified, all of which proved to the Western European barbarians that the Venetian navy was still the king of the Mediterranean!

It was a pity, however, that after about an hour of fighting, the first battleship of the Venetian naval supply fleet was forced to sink itself, because about three or four hundred Western European navies rushed onto the ship.

To the despair of the Venetians even more, the Venetian supply fleet, which had already fallen into disadvantage, found that about 200 Ottoman naval warships appeared in sight.

"It's over!"

When the Venetians were in despair, the Ming naval warships appeared, Deng Xianwu led the ocean-going fleet to visit Europe, and when France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal besieged Venice, Spain was actually the happiest, because in this way, the pressure on Spain was relieved.

They paid close attention to the situation on the battlefield, Deng Xianwu reported the intelligence of Venice to Cheng Shijie, and Deng Xianwu judged that without external support, the Venetians could hold out for three months at most, while Crete had already run out of ammunition and was estimated to be difficult to hold out for a month.

Cheng Shijie commanded Deng Xianwu, and according to the authorization of the Venetian consul, Catherine officially declared himself a vassal to the Ming Dynasty on behalf of Venice, and at the same time ceded half of Crete to the Ming Dynasty.

In this way, Daming has a permanent port.

Deng Xianwu led more than 60 warships to Crete, and happened to encounter the combined fleets of the navies of Western European countries preparing to besiege the Venetian supply fleet.

In the face of the sudden appearance of the Ming fleet, the warring parties subconsciously broke away from the battle, no one knew what the attitude of the Ming fleet was, but seeing that the three-inch naval guns and four-inch naval guns on the Daming battleship had already uncovered their gun coats, revealing the barrels with black holes, which made them extremely nervous.

The strength of the Ming navy was so strong that they didn't know it before, but in the exercise in the port of Madrid, the Spanish Empire captured a Dutch main third-class battleship, six British battleships of 600 to 1,200 tons, including the French battleships, a total of 19 capital warships of various countries.

These nineteen battleships were placed at a distance of eight hundred meters and served as target ships for the Ming warships, but at a distance of eight hundred meters, the Daming ocean-going fleet only dispatched twelve Seawolf-class ships, and killed four of them in a single salvo, and the other fifteen ships all became huge torches in a quarter of an hour.

Of course, this was a military exercise, and the officers and men of the Ming Ocean Navy were relaxed and played extraordinarily, plus Deng Xianwu also adopted a small trick at that time, and launched a water dragon when the naval artillery bombarded it.

The so-called water dragon is actually a fish version of the rocket artillery, which is relatively aggressive and stealthy, with a very short range and great power.

"Post the flag and let them retreat!"

Not a single shot was fired, the Dutch and Portuguese navies were naturally unwilling, in the Far East, they admitted that they could not beat the Ming, but in Europe, at their doorstep, they had absolute self-confidence.

But the problem is that Da Ming didn't pay attention to them, and more than sixty warships went straight rampage, and as the two sides got closer and closer, they were about to collide.

The naval observer reported the distance to Deng Xianwu: "1,000 steps, 800 steps......"

"Fire!"

The Ming naval soldiers, who had already been prepared, stuffed the cannonballs into the barrels, and then more than 60 ships with a total of more than 700 naval guns fired a salvo, emitting a heart-palpitating roar, and the muzzles of the black holes spewed out thunderstorm-like fire.

More than 700 incendiary bombs slashed through the air and smashed into the enemy ships 800 paces away, and three-quarters of the shells missed, stirring up high columns of water on the sea, but more than 100 shells still directly hit the enemy ships.

The enemy ship was hit by the Ming Navy and let out a huge roar one after another, the battleship was blown to pieces, and large fireballs were thrown everywhere. Flames swept across the deck, all the way up to the top of the mast, and the huge warship turned into a torch......

Countless sailors jumped into the sea......

The Venetians watched all this in amazement, they couldn't believe that such a powerful European navy was actually vulnerable in front of the Ming Navy.

The navies of European countries had to retreat in a hurry, and of course, the Ming navy did not pursue.

"Thank you very much for the support of the nobles!"

"You're welcome, now the Republic of Venice has officially become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty, as the suzerainty of Venice, has the responsibility and obligation to protect Venice!"

Deng Xianwu looked at the commander of the Venetian supply fleet and said, "Just last month, Catherine signed a contract with the Ming Dynasty on behalf of the Archon, officially becoming the Ming Domain, half of Crete, as our Ming station!" ”

"Great!"

The Venetians happily hurriedly found the dragon flag of the Ming Dynasty, the sun and moon flag of the Ming Dynasty, and hung them on the warships and merchant ships.

Deng Xianwu thought that the Venetians would resist, but he didn't expect that they would actually make the matter of submitting to Daming more happy than the New Year.

However, this round of firing also caused confrontation between China and the West, and the Western European Union immediately connected in series to make the most serious protest to the Ming Dynasty.

The ambassador of the Ming Dynasty to the Spanish Empire was Liu Lishun, the second Jinshi in the seventh year of Chongzhen, which is commonly known as the Bangyan, and was appointed as the Hanlin Academy to revise it, responsible for the "Living Note" and the management of the Six Cao Chapters. In fact, he was actually the champion of Chongzhen for seven years, but he was robbed by Chen Zilong and resigned to the list.

When Wen Tiren was preparing to commit treason to welcome the emperor Taiji, Liu Lishun was a student of Yuan Keli, and when he learned that Yuan Keli was seriously ill, he asked for leave to visit Guide Mansion, but he escaped this catastrophe.

When Cheng Shijie consulted historical materials, he found that when Liu Lishun was in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng entered Beijing, and Liu Lishun wrote on the wall that Chengren took righteousness, Confucius and Meng. Wen Xin practiced, why don't I kill myself after drinking alcohol. His wife Wan, his concubine Li and his son Liu Xiaolian, plus eighteen servants, were hanged behind closed doors.

So, Liu Lishun, who did not lose money on this festival, was reactivated, and accepted his fate as a member of the Dingxin Dynasty Rite Department, and when the Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs was established, Liu Lishun was promoted to the main guest of the Ministry of Rites.

Cheng Shijie became independent of the host and guest (diplomatic) affairs, and Liu Lishun became one of the three chamberlains of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because he was at odds with Li Xin and took the initiative to be released, and became the first diplomatic ambassador of the Ming Dynasty to the Spanish Empire.

In the face of the fierce envoys from European countries, Liu Liying reacted extremely flatly: "Venice is our Ming Dynasty's vassal state, and our Ming Dynasty naturally has the obligation and responsibility to protect the vassal state, who has an opinion?" ”

The Spanish Empire showed such an expression, they were actually the first countries to bear the wrath of the Ming Dynasty, they first invaded the Ming vassal state Luzon, then invaded the Dayuan, and then encountered the thunderous anger of the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at the surrounding diplomats with a disgruntled expression, Liu Li said: "This official is only responsible for foreign affairs, military affairs, you can find General Deng, he will give you a satisfactory answer!" ”

God is fucking satisfied, if they dare to find Deng Xianwu, he will definitely reply to them with a cannon. (End of chapter)