I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 862: The First Battle of Rushou Sea

The captain's room was silent for two seconds, and then there was the sound of chewing. Everyone consciously speeded up, stuffing the remaining breakfast into their mouths, swallowing it into their stomachs, and drinking a cup of boiled goat milk.

They wiped their mouths and stood up in a hurry. With the creaking sound of seats and thumping footsteps, more than a dozen officers quickly ran to the deck and the poop, leaving the chef and the cooks to clean up.

As they walked up the stairs to the deck, Wang Fengju and Zhu Jingfa put on the sky-blue, red-rimmed, round-top hard-brimmed hats they were holding in their hands, and tied the elastic straps under their chins.

There will be a war later and the wind will be strong and the waves will be high, so don't let your hat get blown off.

Zhu Jingfa went up to the deck, turned around, walked up the stairs to the stern deck, and ordered the entire ship to prepare for battle.

Wang Fengju stood on the deck and raised his head and said, "Captain Zhu, signal with the flags, and deploy the entire fleet. The six frigates, Kingfisher, Black Goose, and Goat, will advance forward.

Jianxin, Wukang and Kaifeng were in the front line
Pingliang, Xichong and Zitong squadrons led the battle
Changsha, Qujiang and Longyan were in the rear, protecting the armed sailing ships.
The frigates Zhaozhouqiao and Golden Leopard led six cruisers of Sika Deer to cover the left wing, while the frigates Baiyangdian and Maijishan led five cruisers of Whitehead to cover the right wing.
Each team spreads out, seizes the upper hand, and pays attention to maintaining a three-three combat formation
This is our first battle in Xunzhou, I wish you all a successful start!

Ming Dynasty is victorious!

The Ming Navy will win!"

Zhu Jingfa responded loudly: "Great Ming wins! Great Ming Navy wins! Communications officer, immediately send flag signals to all ships to convey the admiral's order!"

"Yes!"

After giving the order, Wang Fengju walked quickly along the deck to the bow, leaned against the oblique mast, and observed the distance with a telescope.

In the rear, Zhu Jingfa's orders, the responses and commands from the boatswain, the gunner, and the first mate came in the sea breeze.

"Full sail to tack!"

"Turn left fifteen degrees!"

"Artillery ready, single shells loaded, ready to fire at any time!"

With a creaking sound, the bow of the Pingliang slowly turned to the left.

With a bang, it broke through a wave, stirring up thousands of white waves. The sea water slapped over and hit the side of the ship, making a loud bang.

The Pingliang was lifted up by the waves, and its bow suddenly rose up, leaping from one wave crest to another. The ship's hull, weighing more than 2,000 tons, was as light as a feather and skimmed gently over the waves.

But when it fell into the waves, its heavy weight hit the waves hard, smashing the hill-like object into pieces.

With a loud bang, white waves flew out from the bottom of the boat and splashed into the air along both sides of the ship's side.

But the waves were not convinced and struck again with all their might, lifting up the Pingliang, which was like a hill castle, and throwing it towards the waves in front. Then there was another loud bang, and the Pingliang shattered a new wave and leaped forward a step.

The bow of the Pingliang was bobbing up and down in the waves. Wang Fengju held the reins tightly with his left hand and held binoculars in his right hand, observing the movements ahead.

Wang Fengju is different from Zhu Jingfa. He is the commander of the Second Squadron and needs to pay attention to changes in the entire battlefield, send signals to each formation and ship at any time, and adjust the deployment.

"Report! The Swift has sent a signal. There are more than ten enemy ships flying the Spanish flag!"

More than ten nautical miles ahead, you can see four flares rising into the air, dragging long tails and flying towards the northwest. Each tail is a different color, alternating between red, yellow and blue.

From left to right, the first two shots are blue and yellow, which means that the number of ships ahead is in the tens, but no more than twenty.

The third shot is red, which means it is an organized naval enemy ship.

In the Rushou Sea, the only organized enemy of the Ming Dynasty was Spain.

The fourth flare is blue, which means that the enemy has also discovered us, is afraid to fight, and is turning around to run away. The direction of the flare is exactly the direction pointed by the flare.

"Communications officer!"

"exist!"

"Send flares and flags immediately. The front team should speed up and rush forward to engage the enemy as soon as possible.

The squadron turned left and joined the penetration of the enemy ships. The left and right wings expanded the coverage and formed an outer encirclement.

The rear team follows the route of the front team, keeping a distance, as a reserve team! "

"Yes!"

More than a dozen flares soared into the air above the sea. At the same time, the communications officer climbed up to the lookout post on top of the main mast of the "Pingliang" and supervised the flag signalman to convey the orders, and then promptly verified the confirmation information sent back by each ship after receiving the orders.

After more than an hour of tackling the wind, Wang Fengju could see the shadow of the Spanish ship through his telescope.

In the swaying circle of light, the first four three-masted sailing ships appeared, which were typical Carrick ships.

War makes people grow.

Spain has been chased by the Ming Navy in recent years and is building ships frantically, while also gaining experience, updating technology and ship types in shipbuilding.

If you don't try harder, you'll be completely doomed.

The main warships manufactured domestically by the Spanish Navy have now been upgraded to the galleon type, with a lower stern and a more slender hull.

However, most civilian ships, as well as ships built in the New World, still used the Carrick model.

There is no other way. It is not easy for the Spanish shipbuilding technology to evolve to this stage by learning the Portuguese carrick ship type.

Not everyone has an emperor with extraordinary talent who can directly take a fully-fledged model of a sailing ship to the shipyard for copying.

After reform, the Daming Shipyard has the strength of a factory for the Industrial Revolution.

First, they manufactured a large number of Wusong ships, which were a hybrid of Fu ships and Carrick ships, with the number exceeding 5,000, and accumulated very rich experience.

Then skip over the Carrick and Galleon types and move straight to the Trinity, Victory, Marseilles and Shortshirt types.

After actual sailing and naval combat practices with test ships of different types, the Ming Shipyard abandoned the Trinity, and the naval battleship imitated the Victory and the armed sailing ship imitated the Marseille.

Coupled with the technological and process innovations of the Industrial Revolution and the continuous cultivation of scientific and technological talents, the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty developed rapidly, and its manufacturing capabilities and manufacturing technology were enough to make outsiders despair. No matter how hard the Spaniards tried, it was in vain.

These thoughts flashed through Wang Fengju's mind. The bow of the Pingliang sank, and cool sea water splashed out. Some of it hit his face, which stimulated his brain.

After wiping the sea water off his face, Wang Fengju continued to observe the Spanish ships more than ten nautical miles away.

These four Spanish galleons should have been built in the New World, possibly in the port of Obsidian Land or in the shipyards of the ports of the large islands in the Spanish Harvest Islands (Cuba, Jamaica).

The length of these four sailing ships should be more than 40 meters, and the weight may be more than 600 tons. Judging from the portholes, they may be equipped with about 24 guns. There should also be an unknown number of rotating guns on the deck.

Although the Spanish and Portuguese navies opened the prelude to the bombardment naval battle, the final naval battle still had to be ended through boarding battles.

The same is true for the Ming Navy.

Therefore, it was very normal for some Spanish and Portuguese sailing ships to be equipped with rams on the bow and rotating cannons on the deck for washing the ground during boarding battles.

Behind them were six three-masted sailing ships, about thirty meters long, weighing three to four hundred tons, and equipped with about twenty guns.

The ten ships had three square sails on the fore and mid masts, which were called topsail, mid mast and mainsail. The rear mast had a huge triangular sail, a typical Spanish sailing style.

The strong wind blew all the sails into balls, pushing the ship towards the northwest.

However, their sails are not designed perfectly and they do not fully utilize the wind. Even with full sails, their speed is still around eight knots.

Their own fleet was also under full sail with the wind, but at a speed of ten to twelve knots, and was slowly catching up with them.

Based on the previous experience of our colleagues fighting with the Spanish fleet in the Red Sea, this fleet should be fully loaded with silver from Obsidian Port, or depart from Havana or Santiago Port in the Western Red Sea Islands, fully loaded with sugar.

Both of these are treasures that the Spanish royal family urgently needs.

However, they still needed to go south to Cartagena, the northern port of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, where they would load another batch of emeralds, gold, silver, sugar and cocoa beans.

After the Spaniards were driven out of the western coastline of Genzhou and Xunzhou by the Ming Dynasty, they gradually lost the isthmus areas such as Panama, as well as the western areas of the Viceroyalty of Peru such as Quito and Lima.

There are many silver mines there, which is one of the important sources of income for the Spanish royal family.

The Spanish moved to Bogotá, where they established the Viceroyalty of New Granada, administering the northern and northeastern colonies of South America (eastern Colombia, Venezuela, and Guyana).

The Spaniards suffered successive defeats in the New World and suffered heavy losses, but King Philip II of Spain still had to act as the protector of the Christian world in Europe and needed a lot of money to maintain his Invincible Armada and the Spanish Grand Phalanx.

The Viceroyalty of New Granada then worked hard to exploit the local gold, silver, gemstones, copper, cocoa beans and sugar.

According to Spanish prisoners, cane sugar and cocoa beans first became popular among the Spanish royal family and aristocracy. Now it has become a fashionable food pursued by royal families and aristocrats across Europe, and also one of the new sources of wealth that Spain has worked hard to develop.

Therefore, the Spanish fleet had to go to Cartagena, the port in the north of New Granada, load some goods, and then set sail directly to the Spanish mainland.

As a result, he was hit by the Second Squadron of the Qinglong Fleet led by him.

Wang Fengju moved his telescope backwards and saw four two-masted carracks. These four ships were about 20 meters long and had a tonnage of less than 300 tons. They were behind the main force of the Spanish fleet and seemed to have been abandoned.

"Tell the communications officer to send a signal. The right wing frigate will make a detour and outflanking move. Our target is the last four sailing ships in the Spanish fleet."

"Yes!"

No matter how thin a fly's legs are, you can still get a few grams of meat out of it.

If you bring such a large fleet out to patrol the sea, you will gain as much as you can.

The formations of both sides were fully deployed. The Spanish ten three-masted sailing ships were lined up in a row, one in front and one behind, three or four nautical miles between the head and the stern, and rushed towards the northwest.

There were four more ships behind, five or six nautical miles away, and the distance was getting farther and farther.

The Ming Navy was divided into four sharp knives.

The two in the middle were the sharpest, the front team and the middle team, one in front and one behind, rushed towards the main Spanish fleet.

The faster left-wing frigate fleet made a large circle and rushed in front of the Spanish main fleet.

The right-wing frigate fleet circled to the right, targeting the four Spanish ships.

The rear team fanned out at the back, providing support and pursuing the enemy.

The Ming fleet was as powerful as a tiger, ready to swallow all fourteen Spanish ships in one gulp!
After two hours of chasing, the "Golden Leopard", which was in the front on the left wing, caught up with the first Spanish ship, the "Kyrenia".

The "Golden Leopard" took the upper wind position and moved obliquely towards the "Kyrenia". When it was at a certain distance, it immediately turned around and corrected its direction, moving parallel to the "Kyrenia", passing through the waves and gradually approaching.

When they were more than forty meters apart, the starboard gun of the "Golden Leopard" fired in turn. Twenty shells whizzed across the sea, passed through the flying waves, and flew straight towards the "Kyrenia".

Some flew over its deck.

Three shells flew through the busy sailors, causing a bloody storm, leaving three bloody grooves and a field of broken limbs.

Four shells swept across the equipment on the deck, the side of the ship, wooden boxes, and fixed wooden stakes, causing wood chips to fly like snowflakes. The sailors nearby were hit by the flying debris and wood splinters, and their faces were covered in blood.

Five shells penetrated the mainsail and the mizen jib, making holes in them and breaking the cross-spreads of two masts.

Six of them hit the hull, three of which hit the tall poop. Four irregular holes can be seen under the hull and poop of the Kyrenia.

The remaining force of the iron bullets and broken wood fragments flew across the cabin, making the sailors who were preparing for battle inside scream in pain.

The two projectiles only made two deep dents on the side of the "Kyrenia" and did not penetrate the planks. However, the huge impact force shattered the wooden boards inside, and sharp wood splinters flew around in the cabin, hitting several sailors' faces with blood.

The "Kyrenia" fired back, and six of their shells caused damage to the "Golden Leopard", killing and injuring several sailors, but the damage was all on the open deck, and only a few dents were made on the hull.

But just over a minute later, the sound of the "Golden Leopard"'s guns rang out again, and the starboard guns fired in turn, with twenty shells pouring towards the "Kyrenia" which was less than thirty meters away.

The captain and sailors of the "Kyrenia" were all stunned. You Ming people not only have strong ships and powerful guns, but you also fire so quickly. You really don't leave us any way to survive!
(End of this chapter)