Liu Guangting immediately turned his head and looked to the starboard side. Directly in the smoke, a fleet of more than 20 ships was rushing over quickly. The flag was that of Li Dazui's team, and Li Dazui was personally leading the team!
Liu Guangting's heart sank when he saw it! He quickly calculated in his mind that if he didn't change his course, Li Dazui's fleet would definitely attack his side! It is possible for him to escape by then, but the newly opened breakthrough will definitely be blocked, and the breakout plan will completely fail!
Thinking of this, Liu Guangting shouted loudly: "With full right rudder, cut past him! In addition, I signaled and asked the fleet behind me to separate four ships to follow me to stop them, and the remaining ships continued to break through!"
After the order was passed on, the flagship, which was traveling at top speed, trembled violently and began to tilt to the right! Then he rushed towards the opponent's fleet! And four ships rushed out of the fleet following the flagship and turned to the right to face the fleet attacking from the side!
The fleet rushing over from the side was a group of people led by Li Dazui! He had long guessed that Liu Guangting and the others might break out, so when everyone else rushed up, he took half of the fleet to the west along the edge of the battlefield, and blocked Liu Guangting!
Seeing Liu Guangting's flagship turning around and heading towards him, Li Dazui grinned and loudly ordered: "Leave ten ships to block the Yankees, and the other ships continue to spread out to the west to block all the ships that want to escape behind." !」
Li Dazui's fleet was well trained. As soon as his order was given, a large number of ships continued to move diagonally towards the west, intending to block the breach! The ten largest ships rushed towards Liu Guangting's fleet! It seems that they are preparing to use the two-on-one advantage to defeat Liu Guangting!
At this time, the distance between the two sides was already very close. Liu Guangting's ship had just leveled off, and the artillery fire from both sides started almost at the same time! Iron balls as big as fists and dense slugs hit each other across the sea!
Because the distance between the two sides is really too close, the hit rates of both sides are frighteningly high! So the cards on both sides' ships were beaten to pieces! After all, this kind of insert card itself is used to prevent lead bullets from arrows and fire guns, and it is completely powerless against artillery!
At this time, you can see the benefits of having a golden finger! On Liu Guangting's fleet, all the gun positions were surrounded by sandbags to form a semicircular low wall. This low wall was not high, but it was enough for the sailors to kneel on the ground and cover their whole bodies when they lowered their heads! So as long as they see the flash of artillery on the opposite ship, as long as they dodge in time, the probability of being injured is very low!
But Li Dazui can't do it! Their gun positions are bare, so they can't dodge attacks no matter which direction they come from! What's more, the artillery position itself is the focus of the opponent's care, so after four rounds of shooting, half of the artillery on Li Dazui's pirate ship was still firing, and the rate of fire was extremely slow! Even many reserve gunners did not dare to step forward when they saw the bloody gun positions!
When Li Dazui's fleet approached Liu Guangting's fleet at the cost of a certain amount of casualties, Liu Guangting formed a horizontal formation of five ships in order to block Li Dazui's team as much as possible! What they hope most is to use artillery and firecrackers to inflict maximum damage on each other when the two ships are crossing each other!
Li Dazui naturally understood and heard the idea, but he had to form a horizontal line to deal with it! Because in this way they can take advantage of their large number of people and ships! So when the ships of both sides were about to stagger, all the artillery that could be fired in the two fleets fired desperately, hitting all kinds of cannonballs on the ships of both sides!
As soon as the artillery fire from both sides ended, more than a dozen flying claws flew over from Li Dazui's boat and clenched it on the side of Liu Guangting's boat! Without waiting for Liu Guangting's command, Liu Ming had already ordered the sailors to fire a volley of fire cannons at the opposite side, knocking the pirates who were fixing their flying claws off their feet!
Then some sailors with big axes rushed over and slashed at the rope behind the flying claw! Li Dazui and the others now have a numerical advantage, so they must not give them the chance to lock him with their flying claws! Otherwise, if there is a boarding battle, Liu Guangting will suffer a loss!
Seeing the opponent cutting off the flying claws, the pirates were naturally unwilling to fail and began to fight back one after another! However, their weapons are very messy, including bows and arrows, crossbows, firecrackers, and even throwing knives and axes at them! So the sailors on Liu Guangting's ship also fell down
Seven! Moreover, the pirates were not willing to lose such a good opportunity, so they took the opportunity to fight back and threw another batch of flying claws!
The sailors on Liu Guangting's ship fought back resolutely with muskets and crossbow arrows, while the sailors hiding behind the cards worked hard to cut off every flying claw stuck in the ship! In the short period of time when the two sides passed each other, there were two fierce attacks and defenses. Twelve or thirteen people were killed or injured on Liu Guangting's ship, and the casualties on the opposite pirate ship were at least twice as many as theirs!
Just when the ships on both sides were about to stagger and separate, Liu Guangting's cannon on the ship was finally loaded! Just shoot at the opponent's stern!
This time they did not use shotgun shells, but solid bullets, aiming at the most vulnerable stern of the opponent's ship! So this cannonball lived up to its promise and opened a hole the size of a washbasin in the opponent's ship! The sea water immediately rushed in with the waves!
In fact, the role of artillery in naval battles at this time was not as great as imagined! On the one hand, the black powder commonly used by everyone now has insufficient propulsion power. In addition, the sealing of the smoothbore cannon is not enough, and the initial velocity of the cannonball is not enough. It is also difficult for round cannonballs to penetrate thick ship plates!
Therefore, it often happens that two fleets fight against each other for a whole day, but not a single ship is sunk! Things like this were not uncommon during the European colonial era! For example, when Spain and Britain went to war, in the first few days of the war, the entire fleet ran out of gunpowder and cannonballs, and not a single ship sank!
Therefore, shotguns and chain rounds are more likely to cause damage to opponents! They are extremely lethal to people and sail masts. This is the true use of artillery! So in this era, boarding battles have begun to decline. But it is still one of the main tactics of the navy!
Only in the later period of the sailing era, with the emergence of larger-caliber artillery and explosive shells, did artillery have the ability to truly destroy enemy ships! But even so, the thick side of the ship is still difficult to break during a sea battle, so both the enemy and us will try their best to target the opponent's weak point, and this weak point is usually the stern of both sides' ships!
