open sea

Chapter 712 Pirates
That's not Spanish.

On the contrary, the Spaniards wanted the head of the captain of the fleet very much.

In the early morning, when the light rain stopped, the sailors on the Golden Deer were diligently wiping off the water stains left on the deck last night. The value of the goods the ship gets.

That was a huge fortune, but it was commonplace for them, and no bumpkin would be surprised by it.

Captain Francis Drake sat staring at the thick dark circles under his eyes, sat on the chair in the captain's cabin with a pipe in his hand, squinted his eyes and carefully wiped a beautifully shaped black upper body plate armor.

There was a small dent in the chest of the plate armor. During the battle last night, the random lead flying out of the window of the Spanish ship hit him. He didn't even feel it at the time. It was only when he found it in the morning that he was shocked into a cold sweat.

Drake's boyhood was nothing special. His father was a devout Protestant. Later, he served as a temporary pastor to supervise the shipbuilding staff and sailors. As a boy, Drake traveled between France and the Netherlands on the ship to learn sailing. affairs.

At the age of 17, he became the captain of a small sailboat along the coast. After hearing that his distant relative John Hawkins had made huge profits from the triangular trade, he sold his boat and joined the fleet to start a new life.

His fame began with a failure. Their fleet was attacked by the Spaniards in the second year of Longqing and almost wiped out. After that, he and his cousin Hawkins began to sail to the Spanish-controlled West Indies, Central South The American colonies launched endless raids and plunder.

This is his new journey. Since he set sail in Portsmouth, London last summer, Drake, who has a letter of revenge issued by Queen Elizabeth I, led five small galleons to attack the West Indies, and then went south to the east of South America. coastal.

After the Spanish treasure fleet was plundered, a large number of ships were mobilized to form an encirclement, blocking its retreat from the West Indies, and blocking the narrow Magellan Strait in the south, forcing him to continue sailing south to bypass Tierra del Fuego.

Before Drake's desperate trip, people always believed that Tierra del Fuego was connected to the legendary southern continent, until he discovered that there was a vast strait leading to the China Sea at the end of South America.

For the Englishmen of this era, the vast Pacific Ocean to the west was called the China Sea.

His fleet was lost after bypassing Tierra del Fuego, leaving only the flagship Pelican. In return for the sponsor Sir Haydn, the ship was renamed the Golden Deer, the coat of arms of Sir Haydn.

Drake, who bypassed the Strait of Magellan and broke into the Spaniard's back garden, was very happy. Most of the ships here were armed merchant ships or merchant ships. Even if they encountered warships, they were only five or six hundred tons of Galen ships. They were completely gone. Those behemoths over a thousand tons in the West Indies.

Although the Golden Deer is only 150 tons, it has sixteen broadside guns, and with its unique side string attack, it is not at all inferior to armed commercial galleons under a thousand tons.

No, in the past month, his fleet has become five again. In addition to the Golden Deer, there are four Spanish ships ranging from 150 tons to [-] tons. Most of the sailors on board were liberated from the Spanish colonies on the coast.

He wants to go all the way and grab all the way, first go to the northern end of America to have a look, if there is no route to go back there, he will go west to complete the circumnavigation and return to England.

In his impression, the China Sea is heading west, as long as he does not go to the coast of the Ming Dynasty, no one can be his enemy on this route.

Of course, this is just the old almanac that he knows.

Drake sailed all the way north, using the brisk British Galen Deer to explore the way ahead, and four heavy and slow Western Galen ships loaded with spoils were delayed to deliver the cargo, and they traveled at a speed of nearly four knots overnight. After traveling for nearly a hundred and fifty miles, on the way, a small commercial station of the Spaniards along the coast was bombarded with ship cannons.

Shao Tingda drove the Liujia ship and slowly followed behind him, dragging for three to five miles at night, and ten miles behind at dawn, sailing northward with this strange fleet leisurely all the way.

He has already noticed that this fleet does not belong to Spain. All the Spanish ships he has seen have red cross flags on their sails, but this ship is flying a cross flag, which looks a bit like the Portuguese flag but Just similar again.

No matter who it is, Shao Tingda is happy to see a shit-stirring stick come to this sea area to attack the Spaniards at this juncture, especially if the shit-stirring stick seems to be very capable of hitting.

Drake is really good at playing.

With the help of agarwood binoculars, Shao Tingda clearly saw that when approaching the port of San Jose, Guatemala, the cross ship emptied the two captive galleons, some of the cargo was loaded onto the ship, and some of the cargo was simply thrown into the sea. Several sailors boarded with torches. Get on the ship and sail with full sail to the port where the Spaniards dock dozens of large and small merchant ships and cargo ships.

The Golden Deer followed closely behind. Gunpowder may have been sprinkled on the two ships near the port, and they burned blazingly. The sailors jumped into the sea and were picked up by the Golden Deer, and then continued to sail north without looking back.

Shao Tingda, who salvaged more than 60 boxes of soaked cotton cloth, tobacco, and some rum, looked at the port where the smoke was rising into the sky, and said to his adjutant: "This man is not a simple Japanese pirate. He must have enmity with the Westerners. He is at a disadvantage."

This red cross ship was nothing new to the Ming army. In Nanyang, it is rare to see such a person who dares to run so unscrupulously on the sea while driving a warship, whether it is a merchant ship or a seaport. No matter what, everyone dares to attack.

This is the case here.

As early as 50 years ago, the Portuguese were like this in Guangzhou at the beginning. Since they were beaten up by Wang Hong, they stopped in Daming.

As for the pirates of the Ming Dynasty, they did not have this kind of temperament.

The pirates here are like lone rangers. They target merchants, but the ones who dare to attack the navy are one in a million.

The pirates of the Ming Dynasty were more like the princes of the sea, not only because of the difference in ideology, but also in the environment.

Shao Tingda reaped great joy from peeping, and was never discovered by the Golden Deer. He sailed at full speed at night to overtake the backward Western-style Galen boat until he approached the confrontation between the Ming army and New Spain, and asked his subordinates to use bows and arrows. Shoot a letter written in Spanish at the opponent's mast.

"Going forward, there are warships assembled by the Spaniards, and there is a port in the northwest where you can dock."

The port on the letter was the camp of the Ming army on the demarcation peninsula. After Shao Tingda released the letter, he no longer took care of the fleet, and drove his ship all the way back to the port.

He has collected almost all the information along the way. If the ship goes to the boundary peninsula, he can get more information there. If the Red Cross insists on fighting the Spanish warship in front... what will it do for the Ming army? Why not?

(End of this chapter)