Meanwhile, inside the naval port.
After the first round of artillery fire, the Yan soldiers did not stop for a moment and immediately launched a second round of firing. From this round onwards, they also changed their firing method, and the artillery fire would be carried out in an intermittent manner in order to ensure the continuous firepower.
Although the enemy fleet deployed a large number of cannons, it was not incompetent. Their warships were quite large, comparable to Fujian ships. In addition, and most importantly, the enemy had a large number of warships, so continuous bombardment was necessary to inflict sufficient damage on them.
The soldiers are now busy loading shells into the barrels. The chambers are already filled with gunpowder. With the fuse lit, the shells are launched from the three-meter-long barrels with a loud bang!
"Bang bang bang!"
Another barrage of shells rained down on the sea!
In land-to-sea warfare, the Yan army's greatest advantage was not the power and quantity of its artillery, but rather the fortifications it was in.
Although this naval port was built in recent years by the previous dynasty, it is indeed sturdy enough. The outer walls of the complex are constructed with a large amount of bluestone mixed with glutinous rice paste and lime mortar.
Furthermore, since it was an offshore fortification, moisture protection was taken into account before it was reinforced and expanded. Therefore, most of the buildings in the naval port were constructed using dry, hard stone, with very little use of wood and even less use of ironware. However, the strength of these brick walls was far greater than that of cast iron.
With the thick and sturdy walls providing cover, the gun emplacements inside only had their barrels protruding, greatly enhancing the safety of the gunners. At this moment, cannonballs fired from the sea were constantly bombarding the city walls, but they could not shake them in the slightest, only causing a little bit of plaster to fall off.
Of course, some long-range shells also flew into the air above the naval port in a parabolic trajectory, but the troops on the outer edge of the naval port had already withdrawn. The Yan soldiers stayed in the bunkers to fire, but there were also cannons on the outer edge. Once the enemy's firepower was suppressed, the Yan soldiers would push the cannons to the outer edge to fire.
What we need to do now is to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy ships!
Unlike the scene of continuous artillery fire outside, there was not much noise inside the naval port. The soldiers were very calm, simply loading and firing in an orderly manner, repeating the process.
Although not every cannonball fired at sea will hit a warship, as long as there are enough of them, it will still bring about a qualitative change.
Unlike the Yan army, although the number of warships of the various nations at sea was large and most of them were highly defensive, they could not compare to the sturdiness of the buildings on land. Therefore, in just a short while, after the Yan army fired tens of thousands of cannonballs, some warships had already begun to tilt.
Those were warships of the Sea Lion Fleet. One of the warships was extremely unlucky, and was hit by twenty or thirty shells in succession. That would have been fine, as the shells would not have sunk in a short time even if the damage to the hull was severe, unless they hit critical locations. Unfortunately, some of the shells entered the hull and, by sheer chance, hit the powder room on the second deck.
Each of these main warships equipped with cannons has a gunpowder chamber in its hold. Soldiers need a large amount of gunpowder to replenish when firing cannons, so the gunpowder chamber is of utmost importance. When the gunpowder chamber was blasted open, although it did not burn immediately, gunpowder was scattered everywhere.
The gunners on the lower and middle decks were still firing with fuses lit when, by some careless mistake, a spark was accidentally dropped, which immediately caused a large fire.
Gunpowder instantly ignited inside the ship, causing the sailors in the lower cabins to flee in droves. The watertight compartments at the bottom of the ship were also burned through, leading to the collapse of the entire hull. In addition, cannonballs were constantly being fired from outside the ship, and the warship gradually sank.
With the ship sinking, the only option for those on board was to jump overboard to escape. Thus, a spectacular scene unfolded on this second-class warship belonging to the Hungarian Empire: hundreds of people jumped into the sea like dumplings being dropped into boiling water from the blazing warship. Desperate cries echoed throughout the ship, as jumping overboard was by no means a safe escape route, as the ship was still three or four nautical miles from the shore, or more than five thousand meters away.
Even if they could swim to the shore, it would be a certain death sentence.
Naval warfare has always been like this: the sinking of a ship means the death of hundreds or thousands of people. The nations on this expedition had a total of a thousand warships, but at sea, it was equivalent to an army of a thousand men.
While aboard the [Vienne Pearl], Augustus received a report from his subordinates that several of their warships had begun to sink. Some were on fire, while others had suffered too much damage to their lower hulls, causing seawater to flood in and sink. One piece of bad news after another shattered Augustus's ambitions.
His face was deathly pale as he paced back and forth in the cabin, unsure of what to do.
In fact, he was unwilling to withdraw just like that, after all, the naval port was nearby, and other fleets were launching a fierce attack. Perhaps once the enemy's firepower was suppressed, they could rush ashore in one fell swoop.
But bad news kept coming, and Augustus was like a grasshopper on a hot plate, extremely anxious. In a moment, he suddenly remembered the Rose Fleet that had been evacuating.
"damn it!!!"
"Why didn't you say so sooner, you sea cucumbers?!" He roared, his face flushed red.
——
"Marshal...you...you have indeed considered everything very thoroughly."
"I didn't expect Da Gan to have deployed so many cannons at the port. Judging from the density of the firepower, if we hadn't evacuated, we would probably be in real danger."
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