Yu Tongyuan quickly put the telescope in his eyes and looked in the direction pointed by his observation hand. Sure enough, he saw a line of sail shadows on both sides of the northeast and northwest!
He knew that they were two quite large fleets.
"Drumming!" Marquis Nan'an immediately gave the order to prepare for battle. No matter whether it is an enemy or a friend, be prepared first!
The banging of war drums resounded across the sea. The sailors on each ship who had been beating wildly just now seemed to have changed their minds when they heard the sound. They quickly put on their helmets and leather armors, and loaded the bows, arrows and crossbows on the ships.
Lift the gunpowder barrel out of the cabin and load the cannonballs on the bow of the ship.
At the same time, put down the caltrop net to prevent climbing, prepare fire-proof sandbags, hemp...
Everything is orderly and well-trained, and there is no trace of panic. They are the invincible Chaohu Navy!
When the soldiers were ready to meet the enemy, the enemy ship was already close to one mile away.
"Twelve large ships with two thousand materials for Xun's position, and thirty-six fast ships, all of which are Guangzhou ships." Liao Dingguo appeared next to Marquis Nan'an in neat clothes. Listening to the latter's solemn tone, he said: "Twelve ships with two thousand materials for Kun's position.
Big ships and forty fast boats are all blessing ships."
"What a huge formation." Liao Dingguo gasped. These ten of them were all made of thousands of materials. Not only were the ships smaller than others, they were also very few. "How many people do they need?"
"When heroes from all walks of life join forces, they want to show us how powerful they are." Yu Tongyuan said solemnly: "And I saw that when they were marching, the distance between the ships was kept perfect. They are obviously not just a mob."
"Well, it's obvious at first glance." Liao Dingguo nodded and said, "Both of these two sides should have been formally trained navy officers, but I don't know whether they are Fang Guozhen or Chen Youding's old subordinates."
"Looking at this scale, it's hard to avoid it." Yu Tongyuan said bitterly: "A hard battle is inevitable."
"Then come on, we have never seen anything before." Liao Dingguo was still full of confidence at this time.
~~
As both sides entered artillery range, the cannons on the bow began to roar.
Not only were those pirate ships equipped with artillery, but the twelve ships were actually equipped with reflux cannons, a type of small trebuchet.
The return cannon projects egg-sized shotshells, twenty or thirty at a time, wrapped in kraft paper. When launched into the air, the paper breaks into pieces and scatters rocks, and can attack a large area. Once it falls on the ship, it will cause damage to the sails and personnel.
A lot of harm.
This made it impossible for the municipal fleet to maintain a distance and take advantage of artillery as before. It had no choice but to get close to the enemy ship - although the enemy ship's side was much higher than our own, at least it could avoid being attacked by returning artillery.
But Yu Tongyuan and Liao Dingguo didn't expect that this would play into the thieves' plans.
On the high-altitude pirate ship, the pirate soldiers stretched out their bows and arrows, and fired rockets with flaming arrows at them!
"They are going to burn our sails!" Liao Dingguo saw those rockets shooting towards his own sails, and he couldn't help but said anxiously: "Damn it, hurry up and get closer!"
"The side of their ship is so high, how can they jump into the gang?" Yu Tongyuan stopped him and asked.
"If you're afraid of a ball, just throw the hook and climb up. It's not like you've never climbed before!" Liao Dingguo shouted with red eyes.
"If we try to climb up, the losses will be too heavy..." Yu Tongyuan disagreed.
"Then we can't lose, we haven't lost yet!" Liao Dingguo roared.
"No, our ship is too small to hit a rock with an egg!" Yu Tongyuan and his father and brother have experienced countless naval battles since they were young. They are very aware of the advantages of a big ship against a small one.
"Ming Jin!" Then he made a prompt decision and issued a retreat order.
Yes, he didn't intend to fight head-on at the beginning. But escaping would give the enemy ships in the distance enough time and space to adjust their direction and intercept them.
Now the two sides are only a hundred steps apart, the bows of the ships are facing each other, and the commercial fleet is upwind!
From the rhythm of the gong, each ship heard the command of the commander, and immediately raised the full sail, allowing the ship to rush towards the enemy ship!
Amidst the screams and curses of the pirates, the helmsman carefully steered the ship and steered it past the enemy ships...
When the two sides meet, they can see each other's faces clearly.
Naturally, they didn't care to appreciate the other person's dignity, and they all tried their best to greet each other with their bows and crossbows.
The difference is that the sailors of the city fleet are shooting at the pirates themselves. But the targets of the pirates are still the sails of the city fleet.
The sailboat was very cumbersome to maneuver, and it was impossible to control its trajectory accurately. As a result, several commercial ships came too close to pirate ships...
Seeing that the two sides were so close, the pirates simply took out the half-burned firewood from the brazier and threw it directly towards the sails of the ships.
The sail, which was already on fire and smoking everywhere, completely burst into flames.
By the time the two sides broke away from contact, the masts on the ships had been burned into torches.
The sailors desperately cut off the cables and the burning mast to prevent the entire ship from burning.
On those ships whose sails were not on fire, the sailors also used full power and threw away all cargo, artillery, spare sails and cables without hesitation... and threw everything they could into the sea to increase the speed as much as possible!
After the sailors had thrown away everything they could, they looked back and saw that the four ships with their masts cut off were already lagging behind.
The enemy ship was desperately trying to turn around.
Those fast boats that are easy to turn around have almost completed their turn.
"Leave them alone, or none of them will be able to leave!" Yu Tongyuan once again rejected Liao Dingguo's suggestion to turn around and go back to pick up the people, and resolutely issued the order to move forward at full speed.
They were all veteran members of the Chaohu Navy, so they naturally had orders and prohibitions. The soldiers could only look at the four ships with tears, getting farther and farther away from themselves, getting closer and closer to the enemy ships, and finally they were surrounded...
~~
"Those pirates didn't let us go, and they chased us until we reached the mouth of the Yangtze River..." At this point, Yu Tongyuan burst into tears. He knelt down to apologize and said, "It's all because of the family that caused such a big loss.
Please punish me severely for your sins!"
As he spoke, he drew out the sword from his waist and raised his hands above his head. "I am willing to die to thank the brothers on the four boats and Mr. Wang for crossing the river..."
Zhu Zhen looked at the hilt of the sword that was already patinated, then reached out to take the sword and put it on Yu Tongyuan's shoulder.
But he looked past him to the sailors standing on the bow of the ship, and asked loudly: "The Marquis of Nan'an wants to die to apologize, do you agree?!"
"I don't agree!" the sailors shouted in unison: "Your Highness doesn't know something. The enemy ship is too big. Our ship can't handle it. If we fight hard, the whole army will be annihilated!"
"Yes, Your Highness, the four ships had lost their masts and could not go away. If we wanted to save people, we had to turn around and go back against the wind. Wouldn't that be a recipe for death?" the soldiers shouted one after another.
"Then are you still willing to accept his command?" Zhu Zhen asked in a deep voice.
"Yes!" the soldiers replied in unison.
Zhu Zhen then lowered his head and looked at Yu Tongyuan and said, "Did you hear that? You have already let down one group of brothers, are you going to let down another group again?"
