"Sir, I hope your decision just now will not be misunderstood by Captain Collina." Alfaro looked at the six Spanish warships rushing out of the formation with a livid face, and said in a cold tone: "The 'Book and Sword' flag on the opposite side has been Obviously, as the Jinghua Company that can take the initiative to come to Manila to conduct direct transactions with us, I cannot predict what attitude they will adopt to face us in the future. I also cannot predict that if they adopt a hostile attitude, the Governor of the Philippines How the government should complete the trade tasks entrusted by His Majesty the King in the future."
"Your Excellency, President, I fully understand your concerns and fully believe in your previous analysis." Sir Diego smiled slightly, still looking at the six large Galenic ships that broke away from the formation and headed towards the Jinghua Fleet, and shrugged. Said: "However, I also need to remind the President of one thing: the upcoming commemorative gold coin of the Kingdom of Castile has shown that His Majesty the King and the Royal Government cannot ignore anyone's hostility - the Spanish Navy will not We will tolerate any provocation and will not show weakness to any enemy."
"But they are not enemies of Spain, and they are not necessarily provoking the Spanish navy. On the contrary, they are Spain's largest trading partners in the Ming Empire!" Alfaro retorted.
"Maybe you are right." Sir Diego still maintained a gentlemanly smile on his face: "But I still need to tell them that Spain may like Ducat and Florin, but even our trading partners cannot Any act of hostility toward the Spanish Navy at sea, including voyeurism."
Ducat and florin are two kinds of gold coins. The former is minted in Venice, and the latter is minted in Genoa and Florence. They are widely circulated in Europe. These two words are basically symbols of wealth.
"So you just ordered them to be deported instead of sending people to inquire and communicate with you with a little restraint?"
"No, Sir, I have exercised great restraint." Sir Diego said calmly: "If it weren't for your previous introduction, or if this was Europe, the order I just gave would not have been to expel, but to sink .”
Alfaro narrowed his eyes slightly: "If the other party was the Portuguese fleet, would you do the same thing?"
Sir Diego frowned, was silent for a moment, shook his head and said: "No, because the Portuguese fleet is now His Majesty's fleet, just like I cannot order the sinking of Aragon's fleet or Naples' fleet. , it is impossible for me to order the sinking of the Portuguese fleet unless the other party dares to fire the first shot."
Alfaro looked at Sir Diego and shook his head for a while: "I hope this conflict will not affect the kingdom's eastern trade, and I hope this conflict will not become an obstacle for us to spread the gospel of the Lord to the east."
Sir Diego did not answer Alfaro directly. There was an unspeakable enthusiasm in his eyes, and he said with emphasis: "Másgrande!"
“Másgrande”, Spanish: “The Lord is more glorious.”
While Sir Diego was talking to President Alfaro, the Spanish destroyer fleet commanded by Captain Collina had already rushed towards Takagizo's formation with full sail, and the distance between the two sides was shortening.
The six battleships of the Jinghua fleet had gathered together after receiving Gao Jing's order. Seeing the six large Galen formations rushing towards them with great momentum, Gao Musan took a deep breath and ordered: "Order, all ships in the formation immediately Adjust the course, use our ship as the axis, set up a long snake formation, and use the left string to meet the enemy!"
Then he added: "Be sure to keep the mainmast and mizzen mast full of wind to maintain speed. Pay attention to the foremast to adjust the direction of the wind and keep the bow slightly to the left. Prepare gunpowder and shells, and maintain three bases on the deck. The gunner and the delivery of powder The crew members and artillery delivery crews are in their respective positions, waiting for orders!"
After the order was issued, the six armed transport ships quickly began to adjust. When the Spanish destroyer formation approached a distance of about six miles (there was no such thing as a nautical mile in the Ming Dynasty), the overall adjustment of the Jinghua forward formation had been completed.
At this time, the Jinghua fleet was facing the Spanish formation on the left side, and at the same time, it was moving forward at a small angle to the left.
Takagi San held a monocular and watched the Spanish expulsion formation charging straight at full speed in a cone formation. He couldn't help but snorted: "Want to collide?"
The bow of the Spanish Galen ship not only has a gorgeously decorated icon, but also has a huge ram covered with thick copper, which is designed for impact at first glance.
Jinghua's armed transport ships do not have such thick copper skin bumpers. According to Gao Pragmatically, this thing is "expensive and useless" - of course, the absence of thick copper skin does not mean that there is no bumper design, because this kind of The design can still play a certain role when facing small pirate ships that are much smaller than itself.
It’s just that the Ming Dynasty lacked copper (to be precise, these used relatively corrosion-resistant bronze), and the iron rams corroded too quickly. Therefore, Jinghua’s armed transport ships only had wooden rams, which were only used to deter and attack pirate boats. It is obviously meaningless to face a big guy with the tonnage of Spanish Galen now.
However, Takagi San did not intend to let the opponent simply rush over and hit him. He ordered the artillery to prepare, preparing to launch the first round of calibrated bombardment when the opponent's ship entered about five miles from his side.
However, unexpectedly, when the two sides were still about six miles apart, the Spanish fleet fired first!
A few lights flashed, the roar of cannons sounded, and the Spanish fleet fired its first shot.
Takagi San was taken aback and immediately squinted his eyes and stared at the surrounding sea to observe the power and accuracy of the Spanish naval guns.
However, the effect of the Spanish shelling was not good. Only one of the dozen or so shells landed half a mile away from the Takagi three-seat ship, and the landing point was also very biased. It was completely impossible to tell where the gun was originally intended to hit.
But even so, Takagi San still clearly felt that the people around him were starting to get nervous - although the Spanish naval guns were facing them longitudinally and could not use the side string artillery, resulting in sparse gunfire, they might occupy a little bit of range. The only advantage is that our own side was not hit by the bullet, and we still don't know the size of the opponent's shells.
Theoretically speaking, of course, the cannonballs should be lighter and hit farther, but the design of the artillery is a project that must be considered comprehensively. The opponent obviously will not design the kind of small cannonballs that can hit a huge distance but have no lethality.
Takagi San calmly ordered: "Order each ship to allow free bombardment after the other party enters a five-mile range."
In the era of wooden battleships, artillery fire was mainly based on free fire, because the deck and the hull had relatively limited endurance. Although it was not impossible to fire salvos, it would still risk damage to one's own warships, so Takagi San ordered free fire. Order to bombard.
Of course, there is another reason here, that is, in an era when the command system did not have radio bonuses, it was difficult to carry out synchronized bombardment of the entire fleet.
The Spanish fleet had no intention of slowing down, and the Jinghua fleet was facing the enemy from the side. The distance between the two sides was naturally closing faster, and the "five miles distance" was quickly satisfied.
The "Civet Civet" at the head of the Jinghua fleet fired the first shot. Of course, this wave actually fired more than a dozen guns in succession - Jinghua's armed transport ship was equipped with 28 guns, but there were two guns at the front and rear. It is impossible to fire to the side, so there are 24 guns in the side string. At this time, it was impossible for the 12 guns on the right string to fire, so the total number of naval guns that actually fired were the 12 guns on the left string.
This round of shelling by the "Civet Civet" also failed to score a hit. Only one shell landed near the stern of a large Spanish Galen ship, barely forming a near-miss.
Unfortunately, the artillery shells of this era were solid shells, and there was no point in firing near-miss shells—near-miss shells, that is, bombs or shells that exploded on or in the water near the ship during naval battles. After artillery shells developed into the era of high-explosive shells, the impact produced by them also caused certain damage to ships, but it was not the same as the destructive power of the center ship.
Since water is denser than air, a near-missile bomb exploding in water can cause more serious damage to a ship than an explosion in the air. Especially when a heavy bomb explodes nearby, it may cause damage to the hull in the water.
However, today's solid bullets do not have this effect, unless the angle of the shell falling into the water is very tricky, and it actually hits the hull of the ship in the water after falling into the water - in short, the shells of this era can only cause direct damage.
But this "nearly missed bomb" is not meaningless. Its appearance proves that Jinghua's naval guns can hit a distance of five miles, and the accuracy may be higher than the Spanish naval guns-the reason why "Maybe", because the naval artillery battle is affected by too many external factors, and maybe the opponent's round of shelling just now was just bad luck.
Takagi San also observed the shot just now. He measured the distance and shouted: "The enemy ship has entered the effective firing range of five miles. The gunner can observe and fire by himself!"
Perhaps the nervous gunners had been aiming for a long time. As soon as this order was issued, Takagi San's ship "Trichogramma" opened fire immediately.
The same twelve cannons roared one after another, bursts of fire flashed, and streams of white smoke rose from the muzzles of the deck guns, and were then blown away by the sea breeze.
The thick smell of gunpowder smoke can be smelled on the entire deck and bridge.
Takagi San usually likes to smell the smell of gunpowder smoke, but at this moment he was not interested in "tasting" it. Instead, he nervously held up a monocular to observe the effects of the bombardment.
"Bang!" A cannonball hit the deck of a large Galen ship, smashing a big hole in the deck. The broken boards that flew away split the head of a Spanish sailor diagonally open on the spot. The unlucky guy became He was the first person to die in this naval battle.
Takagi San did not expect that the "Trichogramma" would be so lucky, so he shouted excitedly: "Hit the deck with a shot!"
In the era of solid bullets, since it was basically impossible to hit the opponent with fire and smoke, it was actually difficult to observe whether the opponent was hit or not five miles away. Everyone could only rely on the lookout on the observation deck or the captain with the telescope. .
At this moment, Takagi Sanyang roared, and everyone around him became excited, sending curse words to the other side and saying words of celebration to each other.
However, Takagi San knew that this was far from the time to celebrate, because the impact of solid bullets on enemy ships was very limited. Let alone one shot, even if it hit ten shots, it was basically impossible to sink it - wooden warships are not that good. Easy to sink?
There are rumors in later generations that the Spanish "Holy Holy Trinity", the largest sailing battleship in history, was hit by hundreds of cannonballs. Although it was scarred and the crew suffered huge losses, it was unable to fight anymore and surrendered. However, the ship was also It didn't sink, but it was hit by a storm while being towed away.
Although the Spanish Galen in front of him was far inferior to the "Holy Trinity", the effect of this cannon was obviously not very great, so Takagi San did not relax at all, and ordered to continue pouring cannons on the opponent while carefully arranging them. Formation heading.
The situation that unfolded next was that the Jinghua fleet fired wildly at the Spanish formation while trying to open or maintain a distance from the opponent; while the Spanish fleet fired back with much smaller bow artillery while accelerating desperately towards Jinghua. The fleet approached in order to achieve the purpose of ramming first and then joining the gang.
As the Spanish fleet was hit more and more often, the distance between the two fleets had been shortened to about three miles. At this time, the Jinghua fleet also began to be hit by the Spanish, with four of the six ships being hit.
Among them, the "Civet Civet" took one shot, and a hole was made in the side string, so two of the guns could not continue to fire. Fortunately, the side strings of seagoing ships in the sailing era were relatively high. This hole would not cause seawater to pour in, but would occasionally cause waves to pour in. The captain of the ship has ordered temporary repairs to be carried out as soon as possible.
As for the temporary flagship of the formation, the "Trichogramma", although it hit the two Spanish Gallens with at least a dozen cannons, it was also hit by concentrated fire from the Spanish fleet because it was the flagship. Unfortunately, it took two cannons. The positions where these two cannons were fired were not particularly dangerous.
One of the shots damaged the ramming angle of the bow of the ship, but the hull was not damaged. It had basically no impact on Takagizo, who did not consider the ramming tactics at all. The other shot was more troublesome, hitting the sail surface of the mizzen mast. Make a hole in the sail.
Fortunately, Jinghua's horizontal sail is a "Gao's hard sail", which is not like a Western soft sail. Sometimes a hole is broken and the strong sea wind pulls it, and the hole becomes bigger and bigger.
The main body of Jinghua's "Gao's Hard Sail" is still made of woven strips, but due to Gao Jingqing's experience in Guangxi, these woven strips are now joined by some untold secrets of the past of the Guangxi chieftain wolf soldiers, some like The manufacturing process of the legendary "rattan armor" has improved the sail's strength—to be precise, its toughness—by more than one level.
Hard sails are not very afraid of breakdown in the first place, because their breakdown injuries are generally not worsened by sea breeze and other reasons, and this "Gao's hard sail" also strengthens the toughness and takes this strength to a higher level. Therefore, the main injuries caused by this shot are that it looks a bit miserable, and it is difficult to change the sail during the battle, which will affect the wind-eating effect to a certain extent.
However, contrary to what laymen believe, repairing hard sails is actually easier than soft sails, because strips are necessary on the ship, and many sailors have mastered the technology of weaving strip sails.
In fact, as long as you withdraw from the battle and remove the hard sail, the damage caused by the shot just now can be completely repaired in two or three hours at most, and it will not affect subsequent use at all.
On the other hand, if a Western soft sail is damaged, even if it is repaired, it will seriously affect the subsequent maximum wind-taking ability. The best solution is to directly replace the sail. This is why later generations often say "As long as a Western soft sail has holes, it will be scrapped." " reason.
Of course you can directly replace the sail when it is scrapped, but the problem is that the sail surface of the soft sail is very expensive because of the high material requirements, much more expensive than the hard sail - the hard sail uses strips, even if it is soaked and tanned in tung oil The quality of the strips is only a technical issue. In fact, how much is it worth in terms of value alone?
Therefore, at this point in the fight, Takagi San was still relatively calm and continued to implement the previous tactics unswervingly, trying to increase the distance while continuing to fire the artillery.
He has already seen that his own battle line tactic is indeed very effective, especially when the opponent always insists on colliding with each other and engaging in a side battle - the side string firepower is obviously much stronger than the bow firepower.
Unlike him, Captain Collina, the commander of the Spanish formation, was furious at this moment. While urging the entire formation to continue accelerating, he cursed the opponent's commander as a "coward without courage." In this kind of confrontation between knights on the sea, "You don't dare to fight me head-on"!
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