The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 722 Annihilation of the Grand Fleet
At a distance of less than a hundred yards, for the giant ship cannon, it was simply blasted against the face.In such a close situation, even the strong hull of the Shaoxing could not withstand the direct hit of the heavy artillery, and the hull was torn out several times.

Zheng Chenggong was still standing still. He knew very well that the "Nelson's method of warfare" taught by the emperor was extremely dangerous to the ship at the front of the column, and would suffer concentrated shelling from enemy ships on both sides.

You must know that in the historical Trafalgar naval battle, although the British fleet did not lose warships, their commander Nelson was killed by a shell because he was on the flagship that rushed to the front.

However, as long as they can persist until the moment of inserting into the enemy's battle line, the two units of the Ming army will cut the enemy fleet into three sections and form a T-shaped horizontal head on the enemy ship.Especially the enemy ships in the middle section will be attacked by the Daming Navy from both directions.

Soon, the Raozhou, which followed the Shaoxing, also entered the range of fire from the enemy ship, but the Helan people were obviously a little flustered by the Daming navy who rushed up desperately, and the shells that hit it were far from hitting Shaoxing. There are many numbers.

At the same time, the bows of the Shaoxing and the Guangzhou have been affixed with the battle lines of the Helan people.

It wasn't until now that Bess finally panicked.Completely different from what he had expected, the enemy was very cunning and chose to break through at the junction of their own battle lines, so that not a single ship could shoot at them with all their firepower.Moreover, the Dodrechet, which has the most powerful firepower on its side, can only watch helplessly—if it turns its head to help the battle at this time, it will not have the slightest effect except that it will disrupt its own formation and crowd the battleships together.

At the same time, the people of the Ming Dynasty were also extremely decisive, quickly inserting full sails, and didn't care about the loss of the sails at all, so the cannons on their side only fired less than [-] rounds before they were rushed to the battle line by the enemy ships.

Coupled with the fact that the enemy's huge ship, which was not inferior to the Dodratchet, was extremely sturdy, it seemed that it hadn't received a fatal blow.Even though the enemy fleet on the east side was at the front of the ship, although it was covered with more than a dozen bullet holes, it was far from being sunk.

He shrank in his heart, according to the current trend, in a while, it will become an enemy ship with its side facing the bow of his own people!

He had never encountered such a situation, and he had never even thought about it!
There was cold sweat on his forehead, but the situation did not allow him to think about it.After a while, he turned around and shouted at the herald: "Raise the flag. Order the front team to turn around for reinforcements, and the rear team to keep fighting!"

"Yes!"

Just as the Dodrecht turned around awkwardly with five warships, the side of the Shaoxing was already on the same level as He Lan's battle line.

Zheng Chenggong spit out two words coldly, "Fire!"

"Yes!"

The drums on the Shaoxing were loud, and the gunners on the two gun decks seemed to have suppressed it for 1000 years, and immediately completed a series of actions such as aiming and shooting with the most skilled movements.

The 25 cannons on the starboard side spewed out volcanic flames in an instant. In such a close situation, they almost missed every shot.

Seventeen shells accurately hit the stern of the nearest ship, the Marya, and immediately the sky was filled with broken wood and flesh and blood.The entire poop was blown away by the huge impact of the shells, and the third mast fell on the deck together with the sails, crushing more than a dozen sailors to death.

A moment later, the second round of shelling struck.

This time the Maria had very bad luck.A 24-pound heavy gun was shot along its longitudinal axis, smashing the winch controlling the rudder, and then penetrated into the second gun deck, and bounced the deck twice back and forth, crushing the gun cabin with meat mud everywhere. and blood.

The Shaoxing then deflected slightly to the right, giving way to the shooting angle, and began to bombard the side and rear of the Maria.

Almost at the same time, the troops on the east side of the Ming army also broke into the Helan battle line.The damage of the Guangzhou was much more serious than that of the Shaoxing. There were only four guns left on the starboard side, so the ten guns on the port side had to be used to attack the Eck at the tail of the blue team.

The entire battle line of Helan was blocked by people and could not continue sailing. The warships behind either slowed down desperately or turned sharply to both sides, and suddenly huddled together.

Warships that have lost their speed are no different from targets on the sea, but the Ming army's fleet is still two neat battle lines.

As more warships of the Ming army inserted into the battle line of Helan—in fact, it was no longer a battle line at this time—the sound of artillery on the sea shook the sky, and the flames continued to shine like stars.

First, the Maria couldn't resist the fierce artillery fire from the Shaoxing, and began to tilt to the left, revealing the Ankewen and Egret in front of it at the same time.Immediately the shells began to fly towards their tails.

On the other side, the two [-]-gun warships Hector and Raozhou began to engage in hand-to-hand combat, but the former pointed its bow directly to the port side of the latter, and the outcome can be imagined.

Cesareo desperately commanded his men to turn the ship, intending to aim at the enemy ship with the starboard side, but before he could complete the turn, he had already received eight or nine rounds of shelling at close range.

Before the poor Helan gunners had time to show their virtuosity, several shells hit the Hector's helm in succession, and another chain shot from an eighteen-pounder accidentally knocked her mainmast and The third mast was snapped off at once, turning the nearly [-]-ton battleship into a "giant block of wood" floating on the sea in an instant.

The seven ships that were originally located in the middle of the Helan battle line completely lost their combat effectiveness in less than 10 minutes under the front and back attack.The densely packed bullet holes on the ship made them look like huge beehives. The sailors on the ship were killed and injured countless times, and they didn't even have the ability to withdraw from the battle.

Immediately, the Shaoxing led the western unit to turn to the rear of the Helan battle line.After nearly half an hour, they finally completed the turn and began to sail towards the seven warships of the Helan Rear Team—in fact, they should be counted as four ships, so that the three ships were either lost power by the Guangzhou and others, or were seriously tilted. Not far from sinking.

Of course, even the four remaining ships were riddled with holes, but they finally aimed their sides at Guangzhou and more than a dozen Ming warships, ready to fight to the death.

But at this moment, more than a dozen warships of the Great Ming Navy passed by their south side, and the port side was facing their bows.

After several rounds of fierce artillery fire, the four scarred warships could no longer hold on. Two of them had their mainsails destroyed and were spinning on the water, while the other two fled desperately towards the southeast.Immediately, four light frigates of the Ming army followed behind.

When the six warships that were originally at the front of the battle line, including the Dratchet, the Tabert, and the Naldon, rowed a large circle on the sea, and went to support their rear team at the fastest speed , the fighting there has basically ended.

The 24, [-] and [-] small warships headed by the Shaoxing, a total of [-] warships, have rearranged into a neat battle line, and are waiting for the upper wind.

Brahm saw this scene through the binoculars, and looked at Bess with a pale face, "General, there are too many enemy ships, we... let's retreat temporarily..."

"Retreat? Fujian is behind us, and Zhejiang is further north. Where can we retreat?"

Bess straightened his collar, raised his head and said, "Command, Battle Sail, prepare for a decisive battle."

(End of this chapter)