"Fire, fire!" Lin Feng licked his lips bloodthirstily, holding the railing with one hand, and shouted loudly to the gunners below: "Stuff the shells into their assholes!"

This vulgar remark surprised the newly arrived Coast Guard gunner, but it was only right! In this sea world of blood and fire, there was no room for delicacy and elegance!

Besides, it is particularly exciting to listen to a beautiful woman swearing.

The gunners responded with a loud bang, as if they had been injected with chicken blood, and quickly loaded and fired!

Cannons roared, white smoke rose, and countless shells flew towards the enemy ships!

Pepper's fleet was stunned by this sudden blow. The gunners fought back in a hurry, but the shells only splashed up streams of water and did not hit the enemy at all.

"Shoot, shoot, keep shooting!" Lin Feng whipped the horse whip with a crackling sound, making the gunners feel like they were being whipped themselves... It was so exciting.

Half a minute later, the second round of shelling sank an old warship and several others were seriously damaged and disabled.

Although Pepper was cunning, he was also an experienced sea lord and knew that it was too late to escape. I was afraid that by the time they turned around, half of the warships would be in trouble.

"Go ahead! I also have a black-tailed boat, let's see who can ram whom!" Old Hu Jiao roared and ordered the gunner to hold steady and continue shooting!

As the distance between the two sides shortened, they were about to enter the pirate ship's firing range!

At this time, an amazing scene appeared. Lin Feng's bow suddenly turned from southwest to south. Under the influence of the strong sea breeze, the galloping warship actually drew a long white wake, drawing a graceful arc, avoiding the face-to-face with Huo Jiao Lao's fleet.

If the Portuguese were here, they would certainly be surprised at the high maneuverability displayed by Lin Feng's fleet, which is no less than that of their caravelles.

Unlike the caravel, which mainly relies on the high maneuverability of its ship shape, Lin Feng's subordinates are only operating ordinary wukong boats, which are not even as maneuverable as the Fu ship of the same size.

Lin Feng's fleet can make the Wuwei ship feel like a caravel with just the sails and two oars on each ship. It can be seen that her invincibility on the sea in the past few years is indeed not exaggerated.

Huo Jiao's subordinates did not have this technology, and could only watch as the enemy's fleet was lined up in a single column and passed by the side of their own fleet, which was also almost in a straight line.

"Fire, fire!" Lin Feng waved her whip excitedly, and the 150 guns on the side of her fleet fired at the same time!

Over the past month and a half, she has been eagerly learning from the Coast Guard, and has become very clear that shelling will replace boarding combat and become the mainstream of future naval battles.

How to hit the enemy as much as possible while preventing the enemy from hitting you has become the key to future naval battles. Therefore, in battle, the fleet commander should make the ships connected end to end, line up in a straight line, and bombard with the side cannons. At the same time, keep the enemy fleet as vertical as possible to make it difficult for the enemy's artillery to shoot. This is the top priority of the fleet commander in naval battles.

In fact, Zhao Hao's people never told her about such tactical concepts as seizing the upper hand and fighting for the "丁"-shaped formation, for fear that she would learn by imitating others in a short period of time and lose what she knew, which would put her in danger on the battlefield.

But once a genius is awakened, he will automatically understand what to do. Lin Feng has superhuman acumen in naval battles and figured out this set of tactics by himself.

What's even more terrifying is that she can actually use it...

Amidst the earth-shaking roar, Lin Feng's fleet fired the first round of salvos, stirring up a forest of water columns on the sea.

Seeing that only a few shells hit the enemy ship, Lin Feng felt disappointed. It seemed that even for the coast guard's gunners, the hit rate of this kind of long-range bombardment while moving was extremely pitiful.

However, the gunners were very calm. They used a simple optical rangefinder to measure the distance and direction of the impact point and immediately calculated the shooting parameters with a pencil.

Then they adjusted the guns according to the results and made the next round of revised designs. They did not seek to hit the enemy ships, but to cross fire - the scattering area could cover most of the targets in the enemy fleet. The more guns fired in a salvo, the easier it would be to cover the enemy fleet within their own firepower range, which was called "cross fire".

According to the "Ballistics" compiled by Hua Shuyang, maintaining a straddle shot on the target can achieve the maximum probability of hitting the target.

So Lin Feng was surprised to find that after five or six rounds of salvos, the hit rate of his own artillery had greatly increased, and he estimated that it could hit two or three out of ten!

If it were her subordinates, they would be lucky if they could hit one out of ten...

This is also the reason why artillery has not been able to play a leading role in naval battles. Because it is simply not accurate, and hand-to-hand combat is required to solve the problem!

If they could maintain a stable hit rate of 10%, no one would engage in hand-to-hand combat. That would not only risk the lives of their men, but also their own lives.

Moreover, the gunners shot quickly and accurately, and nature worked miracles.

Round after round of cross-fire baptism caused Pepper's fleet to suffer heavy losses. Half of the ships sank or were seriously damaged, and the sailors jumped into the sea to escape.

There were less than ten ships left, all of which were made of ironwood. Although all of them were damaged, the hulls were still intact, and there were still watertight compartments. They barely followed Old Huo Jiao and sailed westward back to the messy main camp, finally escaping from the battlefield.

Lin Feng did not pursue him, but continued to move south and then circled back to a favorable position, waiting for the next opportunity to attack.

~~

Zeng Yiben also led the remnants of his defeated troops and retreated from Qing'ao Bay.

When the sea lords gathered their breath, they realized that they had suffered three defeats today, losing more than fifty ships and more than two thousand brothers. Even Da Jin Ya, the most capable subordinate of Zeng Yiben, was killed by the enemy's artillery.

"Their cannons were really too weird." Zeng Yiben seemed to have been drained of energy and sat dejectedly on the chair. He said to Lin Daoqian who was sitting next to him: "I now believe that the people who fired the cannons at the Hanjiangkou were not your people."

"Yes, I was framed." Lin Daoqian cried out, "It wasn't me who swept the Fujian coast in August. They were the ones who wanted to alienate us brothers, so they kept putting the blame on me."

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" the sea lords couldn't help but complain.

"I told you it wasn't me, but you didn't believe me!" Lin Daoquan spread his hands.

"What's the point of saying this now?" Old Pepper said sullenly, "That's it for today, what about tomorrow? Brothers, you have to come up with a set of rules."

In this era, naval warfare, whether it was maneuvering or firing artillery, was all done purely by manpower, which consumed a lot of crew members. They would have to give up after only a few rounds a day.

"Damn it, the red-haired devils and the traitors are so unkind. They make us bear the brunt and bleed in the front, but they disappear without a trace!" A sea lord spat fiercely.

"That's right. We can't just be cannon fodder for them. Anyway, our mission is to harass them, so we shouldn't be too serious." Another sea lord said, "I think starting from tomorrow, we have to change our strategy and try to hide as much as possible to prevent them from firing at us."

"That makes sense." The sea masters were all bullies who only bullied the weak and feared the strong. Now that they saw that the idea was so difficult, they had already become timid. They were just waiting for someone to break the window paper first.

"That's right. At this moment, only the Portuguese can break this game." Zeng Yiben also admitted his weakness and said, "Let's not show off."

As the sea masters were talking, they suddenly heard a deafening gong sound outside. They hurried out of the cabin and saw a fleet of fifty large Fu ships slowly approaching from the north.

Someone recognized that it was the Royal Shipping's southbound transport fleet. Although they were just armed merchant ships, their fierce firepower had taught many sea lords a lesson.

"Retreat, retreat quickly!" Unexpectedly, the consensus just reached would come in handy in the blink of an eye.

After a period of chaos, the huge fleet finally began to retreat southward. They retreated to the sea more than ten miles away from Qingao Bay, and only stopped to catch their breath when they saw that the Royal Shipping fleet had not caught up.

That's because Chen Huaixiu's purpose was only to drive them away, and he had no intention of pursuing them relentlessly.

They were originally in the same industry, so how could Chen Huaixiu not understand the sea masters' intention of "surviving"? I believe they will also understand from their actions that Master Zhao does not intend to kill them all...

In fact, before the uprising at the mouth of the Pearl River, several sea owners had secretly contacted Nan'ao Island, hoping to surrender to the Jiangnan Group. In order to disintegrate the enemy, Zhao Hao naturally accepted all who came, and promised them high positions, generous salaries and a bright future. Then let them continue to follow the Portuguese - if the Portuguese had the upper hand, Zhao Hao did not expect them to turn against them. But if the Portuguese were at a disadvantage, like now, they would come in handy.

Just now on Zeng Yiben's ship, they were the ones who took the lead in shaking the morale of the army. Seeing that Chen Huaixiu had not caught up, they took the opportunity to tell the sea lords that it seemed that the Jiangnan Group did not intend to kill them all, so why not secretly send someone to contact them and see if it was possible to avoid fighting?

Zeng Yiben and the others all looked hesitant, but unexpectedly they were harshly rebuked by Lin Daoquan.

"How foolish! Jiangnan Group has occupied Nan'ao Island, which is equivalent to strangling the throat of the sea area of ​​Fujian and Guangdong. How are we going to make a living in the future? The only way is to surrender to him!" Lin Daoqian said angrily: "I, Lin Daoqian, am a real man, I will stand tall and upright, and I will never recognize anyone as my master!"

Then he stood up suddenly and said, "Whoever dares to surrender must pass me first!"

After saying this, he ignored the sea lords who were looking at each other in confusion and walked away.

~~

When it got dark, the Portuguese fleet, far northwest of Nan'ao Island and deep in the ocean, received the news of its defeat in the first battle.

Domingo was not surprised by this. That mob was expendable, so he was not surprised by any fight they had.

The messenger also described in detail the behavior of the sea lords on Zeng Yiben's ship. The description was vivid, as if he had seen it with his own eyes, and it was obvious that there were some of their people among the sea lords.

Domingo was very annoyed when he heard that the sea owners were planning to slack off after only one day of fighting.

However, Lin Daoqian's performance was more or less beyond his expectations, so he apologized to Lin Hongzhong and said, "My brother, you know Lin Daoqian better. It seems that he is indeed not from Jiangnan Group."

"Yeah." Lin Hongzhong nodded and said, "This is not surprising. He is the one who is most affected by the Jiangnan Group's occupation of Nan'ao Island. Although the governor intends to move him to Tuen Mun, it is not that easy for a fierce dragon to cross the river. Lin Daoqian will not be unable to see Zeng Yiben's fate."

"But the most he can do is hold them back and prevent them from escaping. If they want to slack off, there's nothing he can do about it." Lin Huanong sighed softly.

"We still have to rely on ourselves!" Domingo drank the red wine in the glass and said fiercely: "I have decided to go into battle tomorrow to stabilize the morale of the army! Let's see if we can force the main force of the Jiangnan Fleet to come out!"