Daming pirates

The artillery fort was filled with dust from the enemy's shells, which made people cough and curse. However, after the experience of being shelled for the first time, this time the Seawolf gunners were not afraid of it.

Why are you so nervous? I kept scolding you, but my hand movements didn't slow down.

They still only used a small number of artillery, but the reloading speed was quite fast. They completed the reloading and artillery reset at flying speed, and once again aimed the cannon at the enemy ships on the sea.

As the orders to fire were sounded, the cannons of each fort roared again.

Once again, several balls of flames were seen flashing out from the forts on the shore, and the hot shells flew towards the Dutch warships as if they had eyes.

This time, each artillery base renovated the artillery again, making the accuracy even higher. None of the seven shells fired missed, all of them hit the Dutch warship, causing the Dutch warship to rise.

A bunch of debris.

Now Waite knew how powerful the Sea Wolves were. No wonder there were rumors everywhere recently that this group of Sea Wolves was very powerful. Just based on the performance of the Sea Wolves in the several forts on the shore today, they no longer dare to underestimate this group.

Sea Wolf, this is the first time they have encountered such precise bombardment in Asia. Dutch sailors who have participated in many conflicts with Chinese pirates and even participated in the Battle of Penghu have to admit today that they have encountered

A strong opponent has arrived.

For more than an hour, the two sides engaged in a long artillery battle back and forth. The Sea Wolf troops on the shore always adhered to the fort, and in accordance with the order, only used part of the artillery to counterattack, but still

It still caused considerable damage to the Dutch fleet on the sea.

However, because they were unable to use full firepower, although they damaged the enemy ship, they were still unable to sink the enemy ship with solid bullets. On the contrary, these Dutch fleets had an overwhelming firepower advantage and continued to attack the enemy ship.

A salvo was fired at several artillery forts on the shore. Although the solid bullets were not powerful enough, they could not withstand such a large amount of shelling. After the artillery battle lasted for an hour, several artillery forts were damaged to varying degrees.

One of the forts was finally destroyed by half of the Dutch cannonballs. The collapsed forts buried dozens of gunners. Fortunately, the shells in the Seawolf forts were properly stored and were not detonated by the Dutch cannonballs. Otherwise, this would have been the case.

The Sea Wolf tribe in this fort is expected to be completely wiped out.

It was only at this time that the artillery forts received new orders. An order came from Tamsui City behind, ordering all the artillery forts at the mouth of the river to cease fire and no more counterattacks were allowed.

Until this time, Waite outside the river mouth breathed a long sigh of relief. Today they fought against the Sea Wolf for the first time. Although the Sea Wolf's artillery was limited in number, it still caused a lot of damage to them.

Several ships involved in the artillery battle were all hit by varying numbers of shells, and dozens of sailors were lost on board.

Fortunately, their firepower always had the upper hand. After two hours of fierce fighting, they finally silenced the seawolf's artillery base on the shore, and finally achieved this first victory.

So Waite ordered all ships to put down their sampans, and dispatched sailors to start landing to check the situation of the Sea Wolf gun emplacements.

Looking through his telescope, the artillery forts set up by the Sea Wolves on the shore were riddled with holes after a burst of high-intensity shelling, and the artillery had completely stopped firing. It was basically certain that

, these forts have lost the ability to continue fighting, and the forts should have been almost destroyed by them.'

But Waite was still uneasy and wanted to send people ashore to check the actual effect, so several large ships put down sampans and selected a group of sailors to paddle the sampans towards the shore.

Through the observation windows and gun doors of the fort, the Sea Wolf sailors in the fort immediately discovered the actions of the red-haired man, and they all couldn't help but want to curse.

If they hadn't ordered a limited counterattack from above today and asked them to stop firing, although they couldn't say that they would definitely be able to destroy the few red-haired men's warships outside, there would be no big problem in at least severely damaging one or two of them. However, the military order

Rushan, although they don't quite understand what the superiors want to do, they can only act according to the orders.

At this moment, it seemed that their fort had been badly beaten by the red-haired men's continuous shelling. The entire fort seemed to have been turned over, and almost all the stones on the outside were destroyed. It looked lifeless.

From a distance, their fort seemed to have been destroyed.

But in fact, the damage to their fort was not as serious as it looked from the outside, because the main body of the fort was made of rammed soil, which has a strong ability to absorb impact, so the internal structure was not damaged and was still very strong.

Overall, the casualties were very small. Even the cannons were not destroyed. Only one fort was seriously damaged, and some of the personnel inside were injured.

However, after the rescue efforts of the personnel in the fort, many buried people were still pulled out. In fact, the ability to fight was not completely lost.

Although the navy is not equipped with Wolf Fang rifles for the time being, they still use the previous mass-produced short-barreled South Japanese flintlocks. However, this kind of flintlocks has technically exceeded the equipment level of Western countries at the same time.

So when they saw the Dutch trying to drive a boat ashore to inspect the destroyed fort, each fort was ready to respond. Some of the fort's sailors immediately picked up their flintlock guns, ran out of the fort, and entered the fort.

In the bunker outside, preparations for reloading began.

The Dutch did not know the situation of the forts, but from their perspective, these Sea Wolf forts had been badly beaten and should have been basically destroyed, so the sailors who were sent ashore were not very

Feeling scared, he rowed hard and sailed to the shore. He dragged the boat to the shore and began to land and walk towards the fort.

But as soon as they landed, they discovered that something was wrong. They heard someone shouting from the fort, and then there was a series of bang-bang-bang muskets.

The few Dutchmen who had just landed were immediately beaten until blood spurted out from their bodies, and they fell down on the shore. Only then did the remaining Dutchmen realize that there were enemies on the shore, and not all of them had been killed, so they hurriedly turned around.

They desperately pushed the boat into the water, and then paddled away from the shore with all their might. As they fled, several more were beaten to death.

Waite was always observing the situation on the shore on the ship. When he saw that the personnel sent to land to inspect the fort were repelled by sea wolves, he immediately ordered another bombardment.

Having just repelled the Dutch who were trying to land, Sea Wolf's sailors had not had time to cheer happily when they saw the enemy ship on the sea once again spitting out clouds of flames. Then everyone's expressions changed, and under the loud orders of the officers,

He fled back to the fort like flying.

In the blink of an eye, a large number of artillery shells landed among the Sea Wolf's forts on the shore. Gray stones flew everywhere up and down the forts. Some Sea Wolf tribesmen who were slow to react were torn into pieces by the cannonballs.

After another heavy bombardment, Waite saw that the forts on the shore had not fought back and were just passively being beaten, so he ordered the bombardment to stop with satisfaction.

However, he did not send people ashore again to check the forts that seemed to have been destroyed, because he also knew that it would be impossible to kill all the Sea Wolf tribesmen on the shore with cannons. He admired them very much.

Although these Sea Wolf tribesmen were subjected to violent shelling, they did not collapse. Even though their cannons and forts had been "destroyed", their personnel did not flee the shore, but continued to defend these areas.

The ruined fort.

This performance has exceeded Waite's expectations, so he still appreciates the courage of the Sea Wolf tribe. In this case, he will no longer send people to inspect these "destroyed" forts to avoid causing damage.

greater losses.

After all, his main purpose this time was to demonstrate. He had not made preparations to capture Tamsui City, and he did not bring many soldiers with him. If they were to land and attack by force, they did not have enough strength and it was completely unnecessary.

What they have to do now is to first destroy the forts guarding the mouth of Tamsui River by Sea Wolf, and then sail into Tamsui River to approach Tamsui City and bombard Tamsui City to force Sea Wolf to surrender to them and finally lift the blockade on the generals.

.

Now that the forts have been "destroyed", Waite is not willing to waste too much manpower and material resources here. In order to avoid unnecessary losses, he decided to give up continuing the landing inspection.

In the opinion of him and his men, the forts on the shore had been beaten to pieces by them. Even if they were not completely destroyed, they at least lost their combat effectiveness. Otherwise, for so long, they did not fire another cannon.

They fired back, so they all believed that these forts had been destroyed.

Although Waite was a little worried that the main fleet of Sea Wolf would suddenly return, in order to teach these damn Sea Wolves a lesson, he decided to take the risk and send a ship into Tamsui River, approach Tamsui City, and bombard Tamsui City.

However, in order to prevent the Sea Wolf's main fleet from suddenly returning and causing their ships to be blocked in the Tamsui River, Waite ordered four ships to stay outside the mouth of the Tamsui River and only sent three gunboats into the Tamsui River to bombard Tamsui City.

At this time, the time has entered the afternoon. Originally, Waite was hesitant to wait until early tomorrow morning before taking action. However, the captains of his ships thought that this was not necessary at all. They had full confidence in the firepower of their gunboats.

, even if Sea Wolf's fleet returns at this time, they believe that leaving four ships is enough to block Sea Wolf's fleet.

These captains believe that it will be more beneficial to them to end the operation here as soon as possible, because if they come to attack Tamsui City, if it takes a long time, it may cause Sea Wolf's main fleet, which is currently unknown, to get the news and rush to the city.

Coming back, if that's the case, would be even more dangerous.

Moreover, at this time, they had already obtained a copy of the hydrological conditions of the Tamsui River. They had previously arranged for personnel to sneak into the Tamsui River, and on the pretext of conducting transactions here, they secretly detected the hydrological conditions inside the Tamsui River mouth, and obtained the first

Hydrological information in hand.

Therefore, even if they break into the Tamsui River directly, there won't be much of a problem. In addition, they can send rowing boats to lead the way and continue to explore the hydrological conditions in the river mouth while traveling. The sooner they can launch an artillery attack on Tamsui City, the faster they can attack them.

The more beneficial it is.

(Thanks again to Brother Ying Zhiwu for the reward!)