New Ming Empire mixed in America

A young man with blond hair put down his binoculars and asked his companion wearing an eye patch:

"Ellis, I think we may be in unnecessary danger by doing this."

The blindfolded man named Ellis also put down his binoculars, and when he heard this, he showed a confident smile and said:

"No need to worry, those two sail battleships have had almost all their artillery removed, and there may only be a few nine-pounders left on them."

"Those two outdated battleships now belong to the Orientals who occupied Los Angeles. Those monkeys who just came down from the trees may not even know how many turns the rudder should make when turning. We don't have to be afraid!"

The first sentence was meant to comfort the companions around him, while the latter sentence was deliberately spoken loudly for other people on the deck to hear.

The effect was almost as he expected. After listening to his words, there was a burst of laughter accompanied by whistles on the deck.

The two steam merchant ships were owned by Wells Fargo of San Francisco.

At this time, the business of Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco included: providing regular contact with customers, transporting important commodities, and transporting unprocessed gold to processing locations to be turned into gold coins, etc.

These two steam merchant ships were preparing to transport goods to the Santa Cruz dock, and they were loaded with supplies for construction workers.

At this time, the city of Santa Cruz was still a countryside composed of farmland and redwood forests.

The redwood tree has a wide range of uses, mainly used in construction, furniture, ships, boxboards, barrels, pulp forests, plywood and other materials.

So Wells Fargo in San Francisco invested in a large logging operation there.

The young people on board were all students who had just graduated from school last week.

Of course, the classmates of children from rich families are always rich, so Ellis's classmates are also children of the rich class.

Today, the main reason why these young people go to sea with Ellis is not to transport goods, but to take this opportunity to curry favor with Ellis, the son of the general manager of Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco.

Ellis, who was originally not very prominent in school, has risen in status because his father was suddenly promoted to bank manager a few months ago.

So among the stars, he is now very swollen.

Not to mention these two old-fashioned Spanish warships that were often encountered in the surrounding waters during this period.

Even if real warships appeared here, Ellis would dare not take them seriously based on his father's reputation.

Therefore, Ellis did not think about any dangers in playing tricks on those Easterners this time.

Ellis: My dad is the general manager of a bank in San Francisco! (Pinches his waist)

"Raise the remaining skull and crossbones flags, and then move closer. Let's scare those oriental monkeys into running away, haha..."

As soon as Ellis finished speaking, there was a burst of cheers from young people on the deck.

Looking at all this, the captain, who still had slap marks on his face, held the cross on his chest and prayed a few words silently in his heart.

Speaking of which, he was also unlucky. He had just resigned from that idiot Terrence, and unexpectedly he met the even more stupid second generation Ellis.

The remaining two skull and crossbones flags were also hoisted on the top of the mast used to assist navigation on the steam merchant ship.

Then the steam merchant ship accelerated towards the Oriental fleet that was heading towards them. The deck of the ship's bow was crowded with young students who were ready to watch the fun.

Ellis no longer wore a blindfold and pretended to be a pirate. Instead, like everyone else, he held up a telescope and observed what was going on on the ships opposite.

I hope to see those Easterners raising the white flag in panic as they expected. That would be interesting.

Ellis watched for a while and found that the Easterners on the opposite boat were in chaos as he expected, and some people began to run around on the boat.

He waved his arms vigorously and said loudly: "You have seen it, haha, we have scared the shit out of those Orientals..."

But this time his classmates did not continue to agree with him, because they were all staring at the gun barrels that slowly extended out from the deck of the Spanish battleship.

After seeing the gun barrel, the chief mate who was controlling the steam merchant ship immediately began to turn the rudder and deflect the ship's bow to the right, hoping to stay away from the Eastern fleet before entering the range of the artillery.

However, when he saw that the barrel of the opponent's artillery was pointing diagonally into the air, the first officer finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed that those Easterners just wanted to drive them away and had no intention of firing.

The hand holding the rudder was no longer as strong as before. He thought that he just needed to keep a little distance from the opponent's fleet and pass by.

But when their steam merchant ship and the Eastern fleet were about to pass each other, the first mate vaguely heard a shout from the other side's ship, 'Fire!'

Then I saw a burst of white smoke rising from the decks of the two Spanish warships on the other side.

The first mate's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously turned the rudder with both hands. But this is a ship, not a car that can be turned by just moving the steering wheel.

So he could only watch helplessly as bursts of fire exploded on the deck of the merchant ship, and countless steel balls swept across the entire deck after the explosion.

The young students who were crowded in the bow of the ship and pointing excitedly just now have now turned into pieces of minced meat on the deck.

"Shell attack...be careful to avoid it!" Only then did the lookout's shrill voice sound.

But it's too late...

More white smoke rose from the other side's ship, and bursts of explosions were heard on the sea around the steam merchant ship, on the deck, near the bridge, and even on the mast.

The lookout who had just sounded the alarm has now disappeared from the mast, and wood chips are flying on the deck.

Several mortar shells penetrated the wooden deck and exploded in the cabin.

With just three salvos, the two steam merchant ships of the San Francisco Bank turned into large coffins floating on the sea, emitting puffs of black smoke from time to time.

In a rare actual combat exercise, Wang Chuan used almost all heavy mortars. The salvo of more than 300 mortars was still very scary in this era.

After ordering the artillerymen to fire three rapid-fire rounds at the bows of the two steam merchant ships that had lost power, the Xinming Empire's fleet resumed speed.

After another half an hour, the six surviving sailors on the merchant ship came out of their hiding places one after another.

Looking at the messy deck, the captain's hand holding the cross trembled slightly.

When they walked along the side of the ship to the bow of the ship, which was the focus of the attack, they could no longer hold back and vomited out.

At this time, the bow deck looked like it had been painted over with red paint.

A pile of rotten flesh with no visible human form was scattered around the deck. This hellish scene made everyone who saw it tremble in their hearts.

"Ship...Ship...Captain, what should we do now?"

A sailor who was tired from vomiting asked with a pale face:

"These students from wealthy families are all dead now. We will definitely have to be buried with them when we go back!"

The captain held the side of the ship and took a few breaths of fresh air before saying:

"You can't go back to San Francisco. Judging from the direction of those Easterners sailing, the war...has already begun!"