open sea

Chapter 985
The fleet with crane-winged sails sailed northeast along the Bay of Biscay. After just one day and night, they could already see land in the distance before noon the next day.

Chen Jiujing sailed very carefully. This was not the first time he came to the coast of France. The last time he came, he led the fleet to Brest, which was an important military fortress in the northwest, but the result was naturally defeated.

Having learned the lesson from last time, he lowered his goal this time.

Naturally, there are also gains. There are almost no enemies on the coast, and only one Calais patrolling during the voyage. As a result, there is no doubt that the kind of galley that is full of the heads of the oarsmen from the bow to the stern is not at all. Not an opponent, the mast was damaged by the heavy artillery of the Liujia battleship from a distance, and the oarsmen rowed for a long time, but they were surrounded before they could escape to the shore.

Juan and Franco's two battalions of mercenaries disembarked at the designated target. One led three companies with a huge team of nearly a thousand people and scattered to the north and south coastal villages. Head east to the main road to find villages and monasteries.

With a Liujia ship as the core, five thousand-ship escorts, and more than [-] large and small shark ships, the fleet carried the Baishan Battalion, Xiguo Siyong Battalion and more than [-] troops to continue sailing northward.

During the next half day, they attacked and burned two small shipyards; destroyed a dozen large and small civilian ships, merchant ships, and warships found along the way. The castle garrison on the cliff found it, and then the Liujia flagship and five thousand ships fought back against the fortress.

The fortress's coastal defense stone-shooting guns and mortars are very powerful, but the range is not as good as the sixteen heavy guns installed in the bottom warehouse of the Liujia ship. On the contrary, he was at a disadvantage.

In the dark night, Chen Jiujing couldn't even see the whole picture of the fortress clearly. He could only think that it was smaller than the acropolis commonly seen in the south of the Ming Dynasty and about the same size as a Japanese walled city, so he tried to use the broadside Five rounds of salvo were fired.

After he realized the reality that even if he bombed the fortress, his men would not be able to climb the cliff to capture it, so he stopped wasting ammunition and procrastinating time, and continued heading north.

The fortress will surely send riders galloping through the night, and more and more enemies will receive the news, which is not good for his attack.

However, on the third morning, the castle ushered in another wave of people who wanted to try their luck, Juan's mercenary regiment of Xiyong Bing Battalion under Chen Jiujing's command.

They plundered all the way, sent the harvest to the ship with a cart, followed Chen Jiujing by land and water, and found an earl's castle where half of the wall was blown down. ten people.

They caught up with the good times. Most of the Protestant nobles in this territory died in the Sixth Religious War. The young heir was summoned by the third son to Paris to join the Knights of the Holy Spirit. in the dinner party.

The defenders surrendered before the siege began.

But on the other side, in the seaport west of Bordeaux, the siege was only just beginning.

"The enemy received the news earlier than we planned. We have seven ships that took away half of the enemy's fleet in the Gulf. Aji, you disembark from the land to support Carlos, Guzman, and Salazar on the land. Make some movement outside the port, let their sailors leave the ship, and we can take the port in one fell swoop."

The battle for the port has already begun. The urban area of ​​Bordeaux is connected to the northern seaport. It takes a [-]-mile-long channel of the Gironde River to go to sea, but there is another bay port in the west of the urban area, only [-] miles away from the urban area. Miles.

This is the port that Chen Jiujing wanted to attack. In the south of the port, he put all the mercenaries on board except Aji and let them attack the port by land. Suddenly, for unknown reasons, the French had stockpiled thirty warships and armed merchant ships in this bay.

Taking advantage of the telescope, the Grand Fleet turned around far to the west, and only assigned a thousand ship to lead six shark ships, large and small, to approach the bay. After a brief engagement, they fled westward.

A dozen French warships obediently chased them out.

Then he returned and unloaded the Aji mercenaries on the shore, and sent more than a dozen ships with only sailors and no passengers to support the advance fleet, while most of the sergeants waited overnight in the offshore.

Early the next morning on land, Carlos divided his troops into two groups and dug trenches around the bastion for a long time to form a long-term siege. After more than half, the message was sent to the fleet docked offshore.

The flagship led the army into the bay, rammed and burned the warships, and bombarded the defenders with naval guns.

But I didn't expect that the French also built a wall fortress on the coast.

In terms of building fortifications and making artillery, the French are no weaker than the Spanish, and even the craftsmanship of artillery is more serious than them. The reason why they lose so many battles and win less is that there is a problem with field battles. According to Carlos, France has only recently begun to learn from Switzerland. , Spain, and Portugal formed the Phalanx Legion.

It's not that the French themselves don't know how to use phalanxes, mainly in the soldiers. Their soldiers are different from the Spanish Legionnaires. The infantry is trained around the core knights of the battle, not the professional soldiers as the core of the legionary infantry. The cavalry is supplemented by the combat method, and the infantry does not have professional phalanx training, so the knights are always bullied by the phalanx composed of muskets and spearmen when fighting.

Although the status is noble, if the iron-clad knight meets the huge number of light cavalry honed by Spain in the Moorish War on the battlefield, it may not be able to win steadily.

But they still have enough ability to defend a place.

In the artillery confrontation the day before, because Chen Jiujing's men rushed too close, six of the small shark ships were sunk, and two of the big shark ships were injured, so they had to withdraw from the range of the shore artillery. The land was chased by ships and returned, and then was flanked in the bay by front and back.

The fleet was destroyed and their morale was severely damaged. Seeing that the heavy artillery unloaded from the ship on the third day of the siege was transported by mercenaries from the coast, the defenders planned to break through.

If things go wrong, it's because of breaking out of the encirclement, the force is not superior, and you can still hold on to the fortress. Isn't it possible to go out of the city and get beaten?
As a result, more than 400 people were defeated outside the city, and the more than 300 defenders who remained in the castle were completely hopeless. The Baishan Battalion on the bay also disembarked to coordinate the attack, and took the port without any effort on the fourth day of the attack.

However, within two days, before they had time to load all the georgette, cured meat, wine raisins and some weapons and equipment that were ready to be shipped out of the port, Franco of the Xiyong Camp in the east sent his elite cavalry back - Bordeaux The defenders are here.

They asked to see the commanders of these mercenaries by name.

The Ming army immediately prepared for war, and set up three lines of defense on both sides of the [-]-mile road between the port and the Bordeaux reinforcements. Ann and Salazar's two thousand mercenaries were twelve miles apart on the left and right with the road as the central axis, leaving the middle empty.

The front line of defense was naturally Franco's [-] or so men. It would be foolish for Chen Jiujing not to go and see the French in person.

He just asked someone to fetch the flag of the ship that sank the French pirates in the Caribbean Sea, and sent his cronies to send it over, asking him to tell the French commander: send this flag to Paris, and let Henry III know that it is the enemy of the Ming Empire's Eastern Army. Retaliation for the actions of the French islands, let's not talk nonsense, and call if you have the ability.

At the same time, someone sent an order to Franco: "Xi, run."

(End of this chapter)