Bright Spring

He waited and watched for a while, then turned his head and said: "Order, the starboard side is ready for battle!"

The generals around him immediately shouted loudly, repeatedly shouting the general's military orders.

People waited and watched on the deck for a long time, and the leading ship of the Ming army was getting closer and closer.Neither side launched an attack. The artillery of the Ming army seemed to want to launch closer, while the Chenla army mainly relied on bows and crossbows for long-distance. Now the enemy ships are still out of range.

The enemy ship approached from the starboard side of the Chenla people, heading due south.The general raised his head and glanced at the weathervane. The wind at this time was still northeasterly.

The warships of the Ming army are roughly located in the windward position.

There came a short blast of a horn.After a while, the distance between the two sides was only more than 100 steps away.The general heard the rapid beating of the small drum on the opposite side. The sound of "dong dong dong" was not loud, but the rhythm was very fine.

The boat of the Chenla people was also full of noise, and the skin drum played a generous and brisk rhythm.Someone shouted "Archers light oil cloths", someone shouted for morale.

The general's ship was a big soft-sailed ship, and the soldiers were also the king's most elite team. Their morale remained very good and there was no sign of retreating.

"Boom boom boom..." The sound of huge intensive artillery finally sounded, and a row of flames flickered under the side of the Ming army.The general felt the vibration of the deck and heard the sound of the iron ball breaking through the plank.

Immediately afterwards, there was a burst of crying-father-yell-mother screams. The damage on the deck was not serious, but there were ghosts crying and howling from the cabin below.

Today's sea breeze is light, and the water waves are very small.In such a climate, the enemy's heavy ships did not turbulent much; relying on the fact that the Chenla army had no artillery and the enemy's firing distance was very close, most of the shells hit the target.A calm battlefield is of great benefit to the Ming people.

After a while, a general reported: "The iron ball pierced through the starboard side and collapsed back and forth in the cabin. Our army suffered heavy casualties!"

The general replied with a livid face, and said, "Repair the damage quickly to prevent the seawater from pouring in." After he finished speaking, he still looked towards the starboard side.

After the Ming army's artillery fired in unison, the roar stopped, but thick white smoke filled the air from the upwind position, and the general couldn't see anything for a while.

The Chenla people began to fight back from the deck, throwing arrows with lit oilcloths into the depths of the smoke.The strings on the deck sounded like "thunderbolt, bang bang".

At this moment, many and small flames in the smoke flickered densely like fireflies, and there was a tooth-piercing scream in the air.Countless rockets, flames spraying gunpowder, flew over like locusts in a mess.

Among the dense rockets, there are some crow-like wooden birds, also flying randomly from the air in the smoke of gunpowder burning.There was a gorgeous light on the sea, like a lot of fireworks.

Several of those wood crows burst into bloom in the air, and some fell to the deck and burned.Two more flew right onto the canvas and exploded, causing the sails to burst into flames.There was shouting on the deck, and people were clamoring to climb up to fight the fire.

A general stepped forward and whispered: "The sail is broken, we can't get away for a while, the general should go first."

The general didn't say a word, but he agreed with the general's statement that the ship has temporarily become a living target that is difficult to control.

The gunpowder smoke soon began to disperse in the wind. The enemy ship left from the front right just now, but a long column of giant ships behind it was coming here one after another along that route.

In critical times, the general, who had always been quite calm, finally murmured at this moment: "What a shame, I would rather not fight this battle."

Because a piece of the sail was burned, the Chenla boat slowed down.The second enemy ship easily approached the starboard side.

The enemy repeated the old trick, and only started firing with heavy artillery salvos when they were more than a hundred paces away.But this round was different from just now, the iron ball fired by the Ming army was red-hot!

The red-hot iron ball failed to penetrate the hull of the Chenla people (in order to prevent the high-temperature iron ball from misigniting gunpowder, a layer of soil was placed inside, and for the same reason, the iron ball was slightly smaller than the gun barrel, and the airtightness was worse) , but when the iron ball hit the deck, the rolling-hot dark red iron quickly ignited the board.

Smoke billowed from the deck, and the fire was growing.People panicked and carried wooden barrels to fight the fire everywhere. The choking soot and steam permeated the deck, and the ship was in chaos.

At this time, the envoy of Mancika had already called his followers and put a small boat into the sea from the port side.The messenger is climbing down, ready to escape.

Several small warships of the Chenla Army in the vicinity finally completed their turn and came to this side for reinforcements, surrounded by a giant Ming army ship from several sides.

A small boat sailed in front of the enemy ship, and the two ships were about to collide.Many Chenla people leaned on the railing, staring at the suffocating scene on the starboard side.Sure enough, within a short while, there was a huge impact sound in the wind, as well as the "click" sound of the wood breaking.

The boat of the Chenla Army was knocked off course, and the hull seemed to be leaking.The enemy ship was not affected in the slightest, not even changing its course.

The starboard side of the enemy ship heard a huge roar of cannons, as well as a continuous stream of gunshots as dense as fried beans, and was attacking the small warship of Chenla over there.The smog filled the air, and the general Chenla couldn't see clearly what happened to the distant ship, but he had already guessed the danger from the battle.

Several small boats of the Chenla Army besieged the enemy ship, like a mouse crawling on an elephant, and did not resist the advance of the enemy ship.The Chenla people wanted to fight from the side of the enemy army, boarding the ship, but they couldn't do it. As soon as they approached, they were half-sinked by the guns and artillery.

At this time, if you continue to organize the siege and jump off the ship, you may succeed, because the artillery of the Ming army is very slow to reload.But the general has already lost control of the fleet, unable to organize specific tactics in time... because they didn't prepare for this in advance.Originally aiming at a surprise attack, how could such a tactic be negotiated?

"Boom boom boom..." The huge enemy ship approached the starboard side of the general, and immediately fired a salvo of heavy artillery.The deck of the Chenla ship was once again shrouded in gunpowder smoke from upwind.

It was even worse in the cabin below deck.The impact angle of some solid iron balls was right, and they directly smashed through the cracked hard wood of the hull.The force of those cannonballs lost most of their strength, but they did not stop, flying into the narrow cabin, bumping and bouncing back and forth on the wooden boards on all sides.A soldier fell to the ground, his skull was shattered, and the red and white ones flowed all over the board.

The crowd seemed to have seen a ghost, and everyone cried heart-rendingly.

The Chenla soldiers ran around, seemingly instinctively trying to escape the repeatedly bouncing iron ball; some people stepped on the wet blood stains on the ground while running, slipped and fell, and all struggled and shouted in the pool of blood.

The air was filled with a strong fishy smell and stench, and the chaos was like hell.

"Fix it..." Suddenly a person above stretched out his head and shouted, but his expression changed immediately, and he froze there before he finished shouting.

The hull on the right side was damaged in many places, but most of the problems were not serious. Only when the hull was bumping from side to side, sea water would pour into the hole.But there is a hole that seems to be very close to the waterline, and the sea water is constantly pouring into the cabin.

The man above finally found the hole, pointed there again and shouted, "Block it with wooden boards!"

But no one listened to him, the carpenter and the soldiers fled to the deck.The shouter had no choice but to rush into the cabin. He searched everywhere and finally found a piece of wood, and then pressed his hands on the hole.But without hammer and nails, he went on shouting.

At this time, a dark man covered in blood crawled over and said, "General, hurry up and order the things in the ballast to be thrown out! The more water there is, the heavier the ship will be, and the leak will be even more unstoppable."

"Hold it!" said the general.Then he scrambled and left here.

However, nothing could save the flagship of the commander-in-chief of the Chenla Army.Because the sails were burned and the fire could not be stopped in time, and one of the masts was scorched by the fire crow, the huge hull had already slowed down, and it was repeatedly subjected to heavy artillery salvos from the Ming army columns.The flagship has already begun to roll, and there is more and more sea water in the cabin below.

The Chenla soldiers climbed up from the cabin one after another, and the entire warship completely lost control.

Someone persuaded the general to leave the ship and escape.He sighed and said, "Order the whole army to abandon the ship."

Chapter 889 The mast and scull are wiped out

The waters in the bay are very wide.The depth of the coalition formation and the warships in the rear have all turned to the southwest and retreated towards the exit of Saigon Bay.

The Ming army's treasure ships and Mengchong warships formed two columns and shuttled among the enemy's formation; the two armies maintained the same course, with little difference in speed.Two long dragon-like white smoke clearly distinguish the fleet of the Ming army.

The sound of cannons on the water hardly stopped, and warships near and far were firing their cannons one after another.Between the clear sea and the sky, it seemed to be shrouded in thunder.The wind is mixed with the sound of drums and trumpets, and the noise of people's voices.

Most of the warships of the coalition forces were evading the Ming army's attack; therefore, where the shelling occurred, most of the Ming troops took the initiative to move closer.Therefore, most of the warships of the Ming army chose to fire on the port side. This direction was roughly in the upperwind position of the enemy ship. The billowing smoke would blow the enemy ship and affect the opponent's sight.

Under the coach Chen Xuan's ship, the noise in the cabin suddenly decreased.The sergeants checked the tinder in their hands and waited with bated breath and concentration.

A military general supported the ship wall with his hands, bent down and put his face next to the wooden hole, staring intently at the enemy ship slowly appearing outside.Without looking back, he raised his arms and said, "Hold on... get ready, click!"

The smell of gunpowder smoke in the cabin was suddenly pungent, and the primer line made a "squeak" sound.After a while, the deafening cannon roared.The hull swayed, and the soldiers who were squatting on the ground and covering their ears were stunned.The "Tian" brand Hanwang Cannon, which weighed three to four thousand catties, was pulled by the huge recoil force, making the iron chain "crash" loudly, and the thick wooden floor was almost torn.Gunpowder smoke shrouded the port side, and it was a vast expanse of whiteness.

A shout came from the square wooden hole above: "Pack-drug immediately!"

"Sweep the sparks and charge the medicine immediately." The general in the cabin repeated.He is not only responding to the military orders above, but also ordering the soldiers around him.

The volley of multiple heavy cannons had a recoil, and even changed the course of the treasure ship slightly in an instant, but the treasure ship was facing the enemy ship sideways, and was still approaching in a diagonal line.

The general on the deck raised the Yanling knife, pointed to the port side, and shouted: "Let it go!"

A row of Chunhan heavy guns mounted on the firing holes on the ship's side exploded "crackling", and a white smoke rushed out of the ship's side.There were also a few cannon shots, which were the muzzle guns on the deck followed by firing.