open sea

Chapter 1297
Plymouth Sound.

On the deck of the Galen ship, Drake frowned and climbed down from the mast, muttering to himself, "The wind direction is not good today."

Off the coast behind him, a fleet of galleons, armed merchant ships, and merchant ships was half sailing, ready to sail into the bay.

They have nearly [-] ships, of which there are not many main warships belonging to England, and most of them are armed merchant ships. In addition, there are merchant ships that Drake borrowed from merchants and pirates along the way, and four of them were taken away. He transforms into a fireship.

The purpose of the battle was very clear. They rushed into Plymouth harbor in a surprise attack. If the enemy was unprepared, they would take advantage of the situation to launch a landing attack, and cooperate with the army in the north of the city to take down the town.

If the enemy is on guard, use the fireboat to burn the shipyards and ships moored in the port to create opportunities for the next attack.

From the perspective of this tactic, today's wind direction is not the worst. The southwest wind is blowing on the sea, which means that after entering the bay, the ship will soon be able to approach the port to launch a surprise attack.

The downside is that there are too many hidden reefs in Plymouth Bay. Half of their impromptu fleet usually travels on the eastern route. There are even two ships that have been trading in the Baltic Sea with the Principality of Moscow for the past few years. not familiar with.

The fleet was approaching the bay, and Drake leaned on the side of the ship and shouted to the sailors on the small communication boat: "Tell the Earl, I am prepared for the worst!"

The worst plan is that the Ming army had a lot of ships in the port and they were prepared. After burning the shipyard, they could not return to the same route due to the wind direction, so they sailed into the Prim River with the wind and relied on the narrow river to get rid of the enemy. Of course, No one wants to do that, and once things get that bad, they may need to sink a boat or two in the river to block the river.

In fact, Drake has been complaining in his heart all the way, complaining about why the queen's cousin insists on fighting with the army on the shore.

After 300 years, coordinated operations are a commendatory term, which means that different organizations and different forces work together to fight for a goal in different fields; but in this era of extremely poor information communication, coordinated operations are a silly idea. Often means a mess of disaster.

There is no voice in Kaihei, and communication depends on dreams.

The fleet had just arrived in the waters near Plymouth two days ago, and the younger brother immediately decided unilaterally to conduct a joint land-sea battle with Earl Charles on land, and sent someone to inform the Earl of the besieging camp that the fleet would launch an attack on Plymouth port today. , so that the noble legion is ready to cooperate with the attack.

This is not a problem, but the westerly wind was blowing yesterday, and all the ships were anchored, making it impossible to detect the situation west of the bay; today the wind direction finally changed a little, and the southwest wind was good for the attack, but it still didn't work. Can do a good job of scouting.

However, Drake can't say that the king's brother is not right at all. He has not yet been knighted. In the eyes of the nobles in London, he is a veteran pirate who is good at fighting. Originally, the Queen planned to confer a knighthood, but this happened in Plymouth.

In London, I heard from Hawkins that the Queen planned to grant him a knighthood before the war, but Yang Gao, who had just been released from prison, disturbed him... People in London said that the Queen should not invite Yang Gao at this time Entering the court, even if he has been cleared of suspicion, he is still a man of Ming Dynasty.

But Yang Gao couldn’t stand it and wanted to justify his name. The Ming Empire almost broke our old leg. The scar is still there. How can we work for it? Now that we are trusted by the Queen of England, we have to contribute to England. The first force is to support the Queen's award of the title of Drake, and to debate with a group of old nobles in the court.

The starting point is very clear. If Drake can be honored with meritorious service, then England will be better than France and Spain. In time, people from Western and French countries who are not valued will definitely come to England to try their luck—not to mention anything else Well, the old and the new are deadly enemies, and they just scratched the itch, just right.

Originally, Hawkins and Drake were quite happy to see the old man’s appearance. After analysis, they really felt that the old man was telling the truth. What he said was for the good of Drake and England, but in fact he really wanted to say From the perspective of the two, it still means that they want England to reuse foreigners.

Who is a foreigner?Yang Gao is a foreigner. If you understand this and listen to what he said, you will understand the concept of Yang Gao's secret exchange: If Drake can be knighted today, then Yang Gao will be knighted tomorrow for his meritorious service.

Regardless of whether foreigners are foreigners or not, Huo and De really felt that Yang Gao was of one mind with them at that time.

As a result, the front foot debate won, and Yang Gao made a big stumbling block on the back foot. He secretly told the queen that he was very supportive of conferring the title of a hero like Drake, but suggested that the queen should not confer the title now, saying that what is the title now, is it? The teacher came out of no name.

To confer a title, it must be rewarded for military exploits after the war, so as to inspire other talented people to serve the kingdom in the future.

When the queen heard that this was the case, she immediately learned the advanced experience from Ming Dynasty, and the matter of Drake being knighted was shelved.

There is no reason to make the pirate leader almost die of anger, so what if he loses this battle?If you lose the title, don't you lose it?On the contrary, if he, Yang Gao, made a contribution at any time, he would have already laid a foundation in the queen's heart, and if he couldn't do it well, he would really be knighted.

Besides, the key point is that Drake has no title, is respected in the military but has no real power, and he has to listen to his brother who has not fought a few battles to have the final say-then is there any chance of winning this battle?
calumny!

This old man is very bad, slanderous!

Now that the Army has received the news from Brother Wang, they are afraid that they will not dare not to attack. Seeing that the agreed time for attack has come, Drake suggested to Brother Wang to delay the attack in order to be cautious... Can it be delayed?This is a coordinated operation, and what they say doesn't count.

If the navy does not attack, if the army enters the city, if they cannot win a battle, they will lose their troops and fight in vain. Who would like to see such a situation?
The moment the warship sailed into the bay, the wind blew cold on his cheeks, and Drake remembered a word that Yang Gao mentioned when he analyzed the Plymouth Ming army for the Queen in London, riding a tiger is hard to get off.

At that time, he didn't quite understand what it would be like to ride on the back of a tiger, should he or should he get off?
Now he understands.

It is clear and clear, sailing into the bay means that the naval battle has already begun, and everyone must cheer up. As the bosun draws out his rapier, there is a vibration on the port side of the ship amidst continuous roars, and the six Dutch gates Forged steel cannons and twelve swivel cannons launched a bombardment.

They saw Ming army infantry intermittently on the reefs on the west coast of the bay. They didn’t know what they were doing. Drake squinted his eyes and searched. It didn't matter if you saw the guns, the reef was too small and uneven to be a battery for the guns.

But he still saw something extraordinary. Those Ming soldiers didn't know what they were arranging. They carefully pushed wooden boxes into the sea one by one, followed the wind and current, and swayed towards the place they must pass.

In order to avoid the reef, their fleet lined up, so that there would always be ships that would hit those wooden boxes.

What will be in there?

Hidden in each box is a Ming army soldier carrying a hoe, who intends to scuttle their boat after approaching?

(End of this chapter)