The big waves pushed the treasure ships onto the reef one by one.
Governor Ubia's flagship was also directly smashed and sank.
One of the treasure-carrying ships, the "Limauka", had the best luck. The commander desperately tried to make it run aground in a river mouth.
Although the ship was eventually shattered by the storm, at least it avoided the fate of sinking to the bottom of the sea.
In the end, 10 of the 11 ships were completely destroyed, and debris was scattered all over the seabed and beaches.
The only one who escaped this disaster was the French frigate "Griffin". Because it was flexible enough, it kept sailing at the front of the fleet and was lucky enough to escape the storm.
More than a thousand people, including Commander-in-Chief Ubia, died, and less than half of the remaining crew members could only huddle on an unfamiliar beach waiting for rescue.
After the Spaniards got the news, they immediately sent out a rescue fleet to search and rescue the sailors and salvage gold, silver and jewelry.
The news spread quickly throughout the Americas, and all the pirates, including former privateer captains and impoverished sailors, could no longer hold back and rushed over in their ships to participate in the battle for the treasure.
Of course the Spaniards knew the great temptation of these treasures, so they rushed to the scene of the incident as quickly as possible.
Those sailors who survived have been organized to salvage and protect the gold and silver in the shoals and offshore.
Before the pirates swarmed, the Spanish forced the slaves to dive into the water to recover as much damage as possible.
The diving technology at that time was very primitive. Divers took boats and rafts to the shipwreck site, took a deep breath, and then jumped into the sea holding a stone.
They can only stay on the seabed for a few minutes, pick up as many coins and jewelry as possible, mark the valuables, and then float to the surface to trade.
Soldiers would search them and then let them return to the sea.
If they encounter a large treasure chest, the divers will tie it up with ropes and let the crew above drag it up.
Of course, this kind of diving is very dangerous. Not only do you have to be careful about swimming sharks, but you also have to worry about decompression sickness and other issues.
In fact, the mortality rate of these divers was extremely high, but because they were slaves, no one cared at the time.
The Spaniards have transported back some of the gold and silver they salvaged, but a lot of it is still left on the bottom of the sea.
In addition, there are 350,000 eight-riel silver coins buried in the temporary camp, waiting to be transported away.
It was at this time that Henry Jennings, the famous British pirate in the future, arrived with two ships.
After Jennings learned about the Spanish temporary camp, he boldly decided to rob it.
So, he selected one hundred and fifty pirates, fully armed, and quietly rowed ashore in a small boat in the early morning.
At dawn, the two sides began to fight. Although the Spaniards had a few artillery, they were smaller in number.
Jennings also beat the drums at the same time. The Spanish soldiers thought that the opponent was outnumbered and fled one after another.
After taking control of the temporary camp, Jennings stole silver coins worth 87,000 pounds and returned home laden with money.
In addition to Jennings, more and more pirates gathered over this vast sea area to search for sunken treasure ships and salvage treasures.
In fact, with the salvage methods at the time, the Spaniards brought back about one-third of the treasure at most, and the pirates got even less.
The rest of the gold and silver jewelry lay quietly on the seabed of Florida, attracting countless salvagers for hundreds of years.
It is precisely because of the huge temptation of these treasures that a large number of pirates gathered, and a crazy and vibrant golden age of pirates came.
This incident was widely known and had a huge impact.
However, few people know that a series of naval battles followed.
It can be said that this Florida shipwreck was actually just a trigger.
So many pirates gathered but didn't gain much, how could they be willing to do so?
At the same time, they also saw the weakness of the Spaniards, that is, they are beyond their reach and unable to do anything at all!
Spain occupied too many colonies at that time, they were too extensive, and they were hated too much.
That is to say, from this moment on, every time their treasure ship moves, it will be besieged.
They had no choice but to change their route, from the short-distance Atlantic shipping route to the long-distance Pacific shipping route.
However, even this doesn't work.
Under the constant urging of the Spanish royal family, even though there were huge losses, the treasures fished out of Florida waters were still loaded onto ships and shipped to Asia.
The quantity of this batch of treasure far exceeds that of the previous fleet.
In fact, not all the wealth was gathered in the previous hurried transportation, and the treasure they salvaged was not one-third of what the outside world had speculated.
Therefore, this time, the transport fleet was even larger. There were eleven treasure transport ships, all of which were armed merchant ships, and the escort fleet reached sixteen.
Of course, the armed merchant ships here also wanted to trade with China, but their actions were still targeted by pirates.
And this time the pirates are stronger than ever.
There are more than fifty large warships alone, plus some other small pirate fleets. It can be said that there are hundreds of ships at a time.
Even so, the Spanish fleet did not suffer any defeat at first.
However, as time went on, the Spanish warships were still lost bit by bit.
This is a typical example of ants killing an elephant, and this seems to be the tactic of the pirates.
Traveling thousands of miles just for money, even if you are a pirate, you still have reason.
Therefore, the final decisive battle took place in a sea area in the southeast of the South China Sea, which is close to Southeast Asia, but still some distance away.
If a treasure ship is attacked in the middle of the Pacific and the treasure sinks to the bottom of the ocean, none of them will be safe.
Therefore, at the beginning, both sides had a tacit understanding to only attack the other side's warships.
However, the decisive battle finally broke out before entering Southeast Asia!
After a great battle, Spanish warships suffered heavy losses because they did not dare to abandon the treasure ship.
However, they are not unable to resist. Some treasure ships will choose to stay behind when they cannot escape.
In the end, they will make a choice and sink the ship to the bottom of the sea.
The places they chose were all outside the shipping routes. To the pirates, they were unfamiliar waters, but to the Spaniards, they were secret routes.
They know these places very well.
If the treasure ship sank in these places, the pirates would definitely not be able to salvage it in a short time.
And as long as the Kingdom of Spain is given some time, these treasure ships that sank to the bottom of the sea will still belong to them.
Unfortunately, despite their good calculation, they failed to predict that at the last stop, they encountered a storm again.
During that period, encountering a storm at sea was almost a near-death experience, not to mention that the wooden boats were still damaged.