"fire!"

"Fire the cannon!" As the gun captains issued an order, the Hongwu cannons and Yongle cannons installed on the six warships fired together!

Amid the earth-shaking sound of gunfire, rows of orange tongues spewed out from the cannon window, and white smoke instantly enveloped the Ming Dynasty's warships.

When shooting from behind, the gunners were blocked by smoke and could hardly see anything. They kept firing with the firing elements they had just calibrated!

Although the results of the battle were not judged for a while, the gunners were confident and were not worried about losing all their results.

First of all, although there is a level 4 east wind today, because it is fighting in the bay, the sea surface is still calm and waveless, which greatly reduces the difficulty of shelling.

Furthermore, most importantly, the gunmen in each gun team are at least level 3 policemen. This means that they have served for at least four years and have been trained at the Coast Guard School twice.

On average, each gun captain has fired at least five hundred shells, and the most are even thousands. It can be said that practice makes perfect!

This is simply unimaginable in Europe. In the West, due to the severe lack of gunpowder, the king was reluctant to let the navy start live-fire training. The captains used the argument that "it's impossible to shoot anyway, and it's useless to practice." Usually, they only practice empty cannons, and they can be proficient in their movements. As for where they can shoot when they are really fired, it all depends on God's intention.

Only a few captains who are both rich and pursuing will grit their teeth and pay out for gunpowder to train soldiers. But most captains still actively resist inversion and will never follow the trend.

The reason for this dilemma is that Europe lacks raw materials for making gunpowder. In addition to charcoal, they are both short of sulfur and sulphur.

Sulfur is better. There are volcanoes in Northern Europe, Iceland and Sicily, so you can always buy them if you spend a little more money. The most troublesome thing is saltpeter. This thing is not produced in Europe. Before the Spanish discovered Chilean saltpeter and the British discovered Indian saltpeter, they were all made by using human and animal urine to pile up nitrogen until the 18th century.

The Ming Dynasty was not much better. Although it could use nitroso soil to purify the tinea, the output was very touching. But since our Mr. Zhao promoted public toilets in Jiangnan, he has never had to worry about it again. It was the urine of tens of millions of people, and it was not enough for him to drink a pot?

Moreover, Jiangnan opened up the acquisition of tinder in the name of manufacturing fertilizers. Seeing that it was profitable, the southeast, Shandong and Jiangxi and other places have also begun to spontaneously build public toilets, and they have piled up compost. It can be said that they can provide one person with a supply of hundreds of millions of people, which has left Zhao Hao without the urgent need to go to Turpan or Bangladesh to find saltpeter mines.

The self-produced and acquired tinder coast guards, security teams and Jiangnan Chemical are ineffective in using them, and can even be used to make fertilizers, ice, and cold drinks.

This is the advantage of the only superpopular country in the world. The people who just give Mr. Zhao are more than the population of the whole Europe. This terrifying advantage is something that the red-haired ghost cannot envy...

~~

Well, when talking, the sea breeze finally blew away the smoke of gunpowder. The observers who had already locked the enemy ships with telescopes rushed to report the results!

"The left one bursts the tail several times!"

"Left second burst out the tail several times!"

"The right first bursts the tail multiple times!"

"A little bit of a second right poke!"

The so-called tailburn means that the shells shot into the stern of the enemy ship and penetrated the entire hull.

Correspondingly, there is also a headshot, but because the stern of the ship is the weakest protection part of all ships. Once the shell explodes on the stern of the enemy ship, in addition to a large number of flesh and blood bodies that have nowhere to hide in the cabin, it can also destroy a large number of equipment, such as the anti-retreat ropes and pulley systems, making the enemy ship guns unable to be reset, and may even break the mast, which will greatly weaken the combat effectiveness of the enemy ship.

Therefore, large sailboats pay great attention to protecting their chrysanthemums. Usually, small and medium-sized sailboats follow behind and block bullets for their elder brother at any time.

But Major General Nabamend only cared about his head and did not care about his butts, ordered all warships to line up in a column and pounced on the Ming fleet that they were driven to death by them, just like the formation set up in the Battle of Lebanto.

As a result, all Spanish warships, regardless of size, were all at the tail facing the coast guard's line.

What's worse is that they are still in the air...

Regarding this situation, Principal Zhao made a clear statement in the book "The Tactics of Sailing and Naval Battle" compiled for the Coast Guard School:

‘The top priority of naval battle is to grab the upper hand, and even give priority to the 'Ding' head. When the strength of the two sides is not much different, if the 'Ding Li' side is at a disadvantage, although it can gain temporary advantages, it is far less than the 'Ding Buli' side'' wind advantage. Because the fleet in the lower position will lose most of the maneuver space and initiative. Once the formation is broken, it will suffer greater losses and even lose the entire naval battle.’

When Wang Rulong took advantage of the enemy's sight to be disturbed by reflections on the sea, he sent destroyers and frigates to lure the enemy out of the upper vent. After he calmly led the main battleship into the shooting position of the upper vent on the battle line, the result was already destined.

‘In the age of sailing warships, the real challenge of naval tactics is whether the offensive can enter the firing position by risking artillery fire.’

This statement also comes from "The Tactics of Sailing and Naval Battle".

~~

For the Spanish fleet, what made it even worse was that their sailing ships were improved over the Carac ship... mainly because they greatly reduced the bow height, but because they were obsessed with platoon battles, the stern was still as tall as a building.

This made the Spanish sailboat perform much better than the Carac ship when moving straight. However, once it was about to turn, its clumsy and slow posture was revealed again.

The six seaview battleships on the battle line continued to pour shells onto their snail-moving buttocks, just like they were shooting targets.

Even destroyers and frigates that acted as bait could not hold back when they saw this. They took advantage of their range to shell the Spanish sailboat from afar, which caused several headshots.

However, because the bow of the sailboat is the thickest armor and is streamlined, the damage of the headshot is far from comparable to the tailshot.

Seeing this, Jin Ke, who was commanding the bait fleet, immediately hung up the flag and the fleet sailed south!

The bait fleet continued to sail along the Bataan Peninsula towards the entrance of the bay. Thanks to the Chinese sails that can be exposed to winds from all sides, these destroyers and frigates, which are already famous for their speed, are not slow at all!

This scene made Colonel Okken on the San Diego dumbfounded.

He rubbed his eyes hard, unable to believe that the Ming Dynasty warships could perfectly use the wind from the side to get a considerable speed.

'It turns out that they were not bait for sacrifice, but had planned the retreat route long ago and were confident that they could retreat...' Okantor's heart arose, and then he was covered in cold sweat.

Because he realized that although the scale of this battle was extremely small, the losses to the empire were minimal. Among the huge Spanish navy, the Philippine fleet was not even the top 20 fleets.

But this defeat is enough to reflect that the empire's invincible navy is lagging behind in all aspects in terms of ship design, artillery power, tactical ideas, and even navigation technology!

This thought flashed through his mind when a chain bounced the sail cable at the stern of the San Diego ship. A tight cable rebounded immediately. Colonel Okkend was caught off guard and was hit in the back. He immediately flew out, hitting the guardrail and bounced back to the frightened Major General Bamund.

The entourage quickly wanted to help him up, but his upper body turned into cooked noodles, which could not be straightened at all, and he vomited blood in big mouthfuls.

"The spine is broken..." Perhaps it was covered by the holy light of God, and he couldn't feel any pain at all. He could still say calmly: "General, the flagship is over, hurry up and go on the Calaville sailboat."

"I, why am I going back?" Bamend came to his senses and said in tears: "The honor of the family cannot be defiled by me, so it's better to die in the ship,"

"You can put all the blame on me, and the Governor will definitely be willing to help you." Okander gave him advice.

Bamend said it makes sense and said furiously: "You! Are you mocking me?"

"I'm dying, I don't have time to talk nonsense." Okendor glanced at the Santo Domingo, which was hit by the gunpowder depot, and had a big explosion. He used all his strength to say: "You don't have to feel guilty. I only ask you to do one thing, which is to go back and tell your father, Duke Alva, truthfully. He persuaded him to advise His Majesty and the Prince to stop going to war with the Ming people before the navy is completely reformed..."

"I'm just an illegitimate child..." Bamund lowered his head in shame, as if moved by Okand's noble qualities.

"The four large sailboats were sunk to attract the attention of the big men. We must learn from the Ming Dynasty and reform the sea..." Before he finished speaking, Okander tilted his head and died in his entourage.

"Cut off his head and abandon the ship!" Bamende never looked at him again, and hurried down the dangerous stern, surrounded by his followers and guards.

A full-body armored guard chopped off Okand's head with a machete, then put it in a cloth bag and quickly went down the stern.

After a few minutes of leaving, the mast collapsed with a bang, smashing the stern to collapse...

~~

In the end, Bamund, with his efforts to rescue him, boarded a double-brid Calavere sailboat called "White-Winged Bird". With its excellent crosswind performance and high operability, he escaped from the encirclement under the cover of night.

The "White Leaf" is also the only Spanish warship to escape in this Battle of Manila Bay...

The other small and medium-sized sailboats even launched a counter-wind charge at the Ming fleet because they had all their strength to cover the four large sailboats. As a result, they were easily blocked by the destroyers that had returned to their positions and were then destroyed or sunk.

As for the Spanish sailboat, in addition to the unlucky San Domingo explosion and sank, the other three ships suffered heavy losses and their sail masts were all destroyed, but they still floated tenaciously on the sea and refused to sink.
Chapter completed!