The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 439 Beat Them

Without a second thought, Li Bao immediately ordered, "Lower the flag!"

Yang Tian: "Huh? Why are we lowering the flag?"

Li Bao: "Our Northern Song and Southern Song are currently in a state of peace negotiations and truce. If we raise our flags, it will be inconvenient for us to interfere in the internal affairs of the Southern Song."

Yang Tian suddenly realized: "So, we have to pretend to be river bandits?"

"Water bandits sound awful," Li Bao chuckled. "Pirates! Doesn't this sound much cooler?"

Yang Tian shook his head: "I don't feel that way at all."

As the two were talking, the Spanish galleon had already lowered its flag.

Meanwhile, the two Southern Song fleets, one chasing and the other fleeing, were focused on their opponent and neither noticed that a giant ship in the vast sea had been flying its flag earlier.

Li Bao, a man who thrived on chaos, laughed loudly, "The flag has been lowered! Old brothers, hide well, and leave Yang Tian and Yang Xiao's men in conspicuous places."

Yang Tian: "Hey! Hey!"

Li Bao: "Now you are the captain of this ship."

Yang Tian: "Hey, hey, hey!"

Ignoring his protests, Li Bao quickly hid in the cabin.

Yang Tian was both amused and exasperated: "My men are struggling to keep their balance on the boat, what do you want us to do?"

Li Bao: "You don't need to worry about me, just stand there."

After saying that, he ordered the old sailors, "Go and meet the Southern Song people. All men, prepare for battle."

"Oh oh oh!"

"Hahaha!"

Li Bao's soldiers were excitedly shouting and yelling. After joining the Northern Song Dynasty, they had made very few contributions, only having the "merit of capturing the town" when attacking Tonghai Town. They hadn't gained any other merits since then. This group of people was already impatient and wanted to do something crazy.

The Spanish galleons, braving the raging winds and waves, charged towards the two Southern Song fleets...
-
These two fleets of ships from the Southern Song Dynasty were the fleets of Xu Wen and Zhu Shimin.

Xu Wen had only a few hundred trusted old subordinates and ten ships.

Zhu Shuaimin, on the other hand, had several thousand regular Southern Song naval troops and dozens of ships.

Xu Wen panicked and disregarded the strong winds and waves, hoisting the sails and charging wildly northward.

In strong winds, the disadvantages of stiff sails become apparent: they catch too much wind and are easily broken in high winds. Experienced sailors would lower the sails in such situations, but Xu Wen dared not lower them when he was escaping and had to keep them fully open, which caused a lot of trouble. Several stiff sails were damaged by the wind, and even the masts were broken.

Fortunately, the pursuers behind him faced the same situation: they all had stiff sails and couldn't withstand the strong winds.

Zhu Shuaimin's boat was also badly damaged by the wind, with several masts broken.

Zhu Shuaimin didn't really want to chase after them. This chase and escape took them further and further away from the sea areas actually controlled by the Southern Song Dynasty. He was really worried that something might happen. So he had to set up hundreds of men on the boat and shout in unison against the strong wind: "Xu Wen, don't run away! The Emperor only wants to ask you a few questions. He didn't say he would punish you. Come back with me obediently and explain yourself. Everything will be fine. Don't make a mistake."

The wind was blowing from the north, and the howling wind carried its sound far northward. Not only Xu Wenbu heard it clearly, but Li Bao, Yang Tian, ​​and the others also heard it.

Li Bao's eyes lit up: "Xu Wen, isn't he the general of the Southern Song navy? Hey, Zhao Gou has become suspicious of him? Interesting, interesting! Xu Wen is from Jiaodong, we can win him over. Brothers, get ready to rescue him."

Xu Wen wasn't stupid. He ignored Zhu Shuaimin's pleas to surrender, knowing that arousing the emperor's suspicion would lead him to believe it rather than not, and returning would mean certain death. He wouldn't listen and continued his northward escape. Just then, Xu Wen's men shouted, "General, a strange ship has appeared ahead! It's huge!"

Xu Wen shielded his eyes from the fierce wind and looked ahead. Sure enough, a huge, strange ship was sailing in, cutting through the waves. The ship's design was quite different from that of the Song army's vessels; after all, Chinese and Western styles are very different. Of course, in Xu Wen's opinion, the Chinese style was definitely more beautiful and elegant.

He was stunned: "What a huge ship! Its sails are also strange, why are they made of soft cloth?"

However, being a renowned naval commander, he quickly realized after a brief moment of surprise that soft sails were clearly more useful in such windy weather. Unlike rigid sails, soft sails are not as strong, and their flexible structure can mitigate the rage of the wind, making them less prone to damage or breakage.

"It's coming towards us?"

"No, no, it was clearly not aimed at us, it was aimed at Zhu Shuaimin."

The soldiers discerned his true target from the subtle bow angle of the Spanish galleon.

The ten Xu Wen ships in front immediately parted to allow the Spanish galleon to pass by.

The Song soldiers on board curiously observed the giant ship passing by...

But after the giant ship passed through Xu Wen's fleet, it immediately pulled sideways, turning one side of its hull towards Zhu Shuaimin's fleet behind it.

Zhu Shuaimin looked completely bewildered: "Where did this ghost ship come from?"

In Zhu Shuaimin's view, the Western style was as ugly as a ghost ship.

At that moment, Li Bao was giving the order: "Open all gun ports and fire a salvo from the ship's guns to wake them up."

This prototype Spanish galleon was over thirty meters long and had fifteen cannons mounted on one side of its deck. This firepower was extremely powerful. When Ma Sheng and Zhang Wei attacked Tonghai Town, they only brought two cannons. Yet, a single naval ship had fifteen cannons on one side of its deck. It is no exaggeration to say that the equipment of the navy and the army was not on the same level.

Of course, the army used the red-coated cannon, while the navy used the breech-loading cannon, and there was a certain difference in the caliber and power of these two cannons.

Li Bao's sailors happily loaded fifteen cannonballs into the cannon barrel...

The style of these naval artillerymen was completely different from that of Zhang Yong, who was trained by Napoleon. They were trained by Zheng Chenggong, and what was Zheng Chenggong's style? Pirate style.

The artillerymen, looking rather grotesque, were grinning slyly. The Manichaeans nearby, watching with curiosity, couldn't help but ask, "Why are you putting this big iron ball into this big pipe?"

Artilleryman: "You'll soon find out what it's for."

"ignition!"

"beat!"

Li Bao shouted excitedly, "Send them to see the King of Hell!"

One of his men said awkwardly, "Boss, there's no King Yama in the sea, only the Dragon King."

Li Bao: "Who cares? Let them go to sea. What they see is none of my business."

Amidst the laughter and chatter, the booming sound of cannons erupted as fifteen naval guns opened fire in succession, sending plumes of white smoke billowing into the air…

At this time, the wind and waves were strong, and the ship was rocking violently. The cannonballs fired had no accuracy whatsoever and flew around wildly.

A large iron ball flew with a "whoosh" and landed on the sea surface about ten meters away from Zhu Shuaimin's flagship, splashing out a huge white column of water...

(End of this chapter)