On June 13, the fifteenth year of Wanli, the Spanish authorities in Manila fired the first shot at the Ming Dynasty sealing fleet entering Manila Bay.
It should be said that the navy soldiers from Xiao Chongye and Xie Jie down to the lowest level were unprepared for the fact that Manila's "pilot ship" suddenly opened fire on them.
After the Ming Dynasty's navy first formed, he and Ling Yunyi went to Japan for an armed parade and fired two cannons at the Kagawa family's sampan in the Bungo Waterway. Other than that, they had not experienced any real naval battles for many years. Although he has done some work in clearing up pirates and assisting customs law enforcement in the past few years, he has never come face to face with an enemy ship - none of the pirates dare to fight against the hard steel of the navy.
As for the warships defending the harbor, they did not encounter any situation where warships from other countries rushed in carelessly. Firstly, there was no such a strong navy around the Ming Dynasty; secondly, the Ming Dynasty must have built a fort where the port was built. Before the navy was dispatched, the sound of cannons from the fort was enough to make the most rebellious "sea merchants" behave. Follow the guidance of the pilot boat.
From the beginning of its formation, this navy had little perceptual understanding of serious naval battles, and almost all of its combat skills came from exercises.
They have not experienced the baptism of blood and fire, so they cannot forge the habit of waiting for the enemy like the veterans of the Nine Borders; at the same time, because the salary is higher than that of the border soldiers, they do not have much desire to fight; what's more, they are in Manila at this time On the wide ocean at the entrance of the bay, there is neither a military port nor a fort. The fleet never imagined that they would be attacked by a small "pilot ship".
Yes, that "small ship" with only 1,200 pieces of material was regarded as the pilot ship by the Ming Dynasty's sealing fleet. Although they were still nearly a day away from Manila Port, the "pilot ship" appeared too early. But in the minds of the people on the fleet, when the Great Kingdom of China comes to the lower country, it is appropriate for the barbarians to go out to welcome them as early as possible.
But the sound of the St. John's cannon shattered their narcissistic dream, leaving everyone stunned and stunned. Although it is unclear why the ship attacked the blockade fleet, the exercises over the years have not been in vain. Following several sharp shouts, a dull drum beat sounded on the Shandong, bang! boom! boom!
As the drum beat, Captain Rodriguez of the St. John saw hundreds of sail ropes on the Ming Fubo ship being pulled by extremely complex operations, and the sails on the giant mast rotated slowly. The bow of a huge warship deflected to its left, making a "non-hostile" gesture.
The beard at the corner of Rodriguez's mouth curled up. See, as he expected, the Seris people were like sheep.
Their compatriots living on the north bank of the Passi River have long told themselves that the Saris people are inherently weak in character. Although they have stronger force than the colonists, a group of sheep dare not resist a lone wolf.
The Fubo continued to turn to the left, and its sailors jumped on the rope-strewn deck, waving their arms and gesticulating. Rodriguez seemed to hear their angry shouts, and his beautiful mustache rose higher.
He raised his arm, held the monocular telescope sold to him by the Siris merchant at a high price in front of his eyes, and looked towards the Fubo ship with a smile. Immediately, his smile solidified. He took off the telescope and shook his head, as if to get the scene he just saw out of his mind.
He took a deep breath, then resolutely put the telescope on the other eye, holding his breath and looking at it carefully for a while. Well, it's not wrong. The starboard side of the giant ship is densely packed with square portholes, and inside each porthole is a thick, black cannon.
"Dios mío! Dios mío!" His voice suddenly rose an octave, as sharp as a castrato in a choir. After continuously shouting "My God", the bone-chilling fear gripped Rodriguez's heart, preventing him from issuing any orders to his ship.
Because of the favorable wind, the St. John crashed headlong into the death barrage like a moth flying into a flame.
"Boom!" "Boom!" "Boom, boom, boom!" The first sound was a school shot. Then there was another sound, and it was still a school shot. Then, streams of continuous white smoke rose from the starboard side of the Shandong, and dense thunder sounded on the empty ocean.
The St. John is a typical "Carrack-type sailing ship". Its bow and stern are very high, which is helpful for observation and gang-hopping operations; at the same time, the two jibs at the bow and stern give this sailing ship extreme strength. The large power allows it to travel at extremely fast speeds when there is a tailwind.
Now these features have become its nightmare. The huge bow is almost at the same height as the gun muzzle on the third deck of the Shandong, which makes the gunner behind the gun window almost unnecessary to calculate when aiming. At the same time, the extremely fast downwind speed caused the ship to quickly grow in size in the eyes of the gunner, thus saving a large number of cannonballs.
When the St. John was ten feet away from the stern of the Shandong, there were only some horrific stumps and broken arms left on the deck. The huge bow and four masts have completely disappeared, making the Karak look like an enlarged sailless ship.
But the flying iron balls still did not let go of it, and continued to hit the remaining hull like a giant's fist, causing the sawdust flying and riddled with holes to make the warship crackle and shatter.
In the era of sailing warfare, it was very difficult to sink enemy ships with solid iron ball cannonballs that could not explode, because water is 800 times heavier than air, and the kinetic energy of round cannonballs decayed rapidly after flying hundreds of meters, making it difficult to penetrate the hull of a ship below the waterline. Make it lose its buoyancy.
But the St. John was very lucky. It encountered the fleet battle line in this time and space for the first time. As the Shandong passed by its left side, the huge sealing ship followed closely behind, followed by two other Fubo ships.
They drew a straight track on the left side of the St. John in a direction of about 35 degrees due north and west of Manila Bay, as if they were being inspected by Mr. Rodriguez, who was favored by the Lord.
As the four giant ships passed by, the remaining hull of the St. John was first shattered into pieces and turned into a pile of tattered wood chips floating on the sea; as the waves rolled, the pile of wood chips gradually dispersed and finally disappeared into the white surface of the sea. in the bubble.
The unknown St. John disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed in this world. Except for the few survivors who were floating on the sea holding wooden planks and crying heartbrokenly, no Spaniards knew what had just happened.
The good luck of these guys who survived the hail of bullets ended here, because the enraged sealing fleet even forgot to fish them out and ask for confessions. The proud envoy of the Ming Dynasty could not tolerate the offense just now - under Xiao Chongye's repeated urging, the sealing fleet did not delay for a minute, directly adjusted the sails and course, and headed straight for the city of Manila with great momentum.
(End of chapter)
