nucmednet Chapter 222 Sneak Attack on Zhongzuosuo (3)
Chapter 222 Sneak Attack on Zhongzuosuo (3)
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After the message was relayed to Gao Jie, he understood what these people were desperately rowing to. He knew better than anyone the power of the Caron cannon at close range, and he didn't want to experience the power of 32-pound shot—the high command of the Qiongzhou camp knew that the cannons sold to the Zheng family had a reduced service life, but their power had not.
"My God, notify all ships to concentrate fire and sink these damned little boats! We can't let them mount an effective counterattack!"
Despite the sailors desperately signaling to the other warships, naval warfare in this era clearly couldn't achieve perfect discipline. Poor communication meant Gao Jie's orders wouldn't reach the other ships immediately, and the remaining warships continued attacking their chosen targets. Meanwhile, more and more people on the dock broke through the artillery barrage in sampans, suffering heavy casualties before finally some climbed aboard the large blue-headed ship.
The port was in complete chaos. Due to the suddenness of the attack, the Zheng family was on the defensive and unable to retaliate. After enduring half an hour of shelling and sinking more than a dozen armed merchant ships, the Zheng family's main warship, the Daqingtou, finally fired the first shot of its counterattack.
The closest ship, the "Danzhou," was the unlucky one. A large shotgun shell exploded in mid-air, shattering into countless grape-sized pellets that whizzed towards the deck. Several sailors who were operating the ropes were riddled with bullets, their flesh and blood falling onto the deck. Liu Yishou, the first mate directing operations at the bow, was also hit in the left arm by a shotgun pellet. He screamed and fell to the ground. His men quickly dragged him into the cabin. Upon closer inspection, they found that his left forearm was torn open, exposing the white bone. It was unclear whether the bone was broken or not.
Immediately afterwards, several large blue-headed ships opened fire in succession. The booming sound of cannons filled the air as grapeshot rained down on these "foreign deck ships." Caught off guard, several Wuyi-class warships were hit, suffering casualties of varying degrees. Fortunately, the grapeshot only killed the personnel exposed on the deck; the gunners were on the lower decks, and the main combat force was unharmed.
Even so, the Zheng family's change from being completely on the defensive has excited the onlookers at the dock, who are shouting, "Fire and kill these thieves!"
Zheng Hongkui also breathed a sigh of relief. These expensive short heavy cannons were indeed powerful and worth the price. Otherwise, faced with such a premeditated sneak attack, the Zheng family would not have had time to organize their preferred fire ships and boarding hand-to-hand combat tactics, and would have been forced to watch helplessly as they were passively attacked.
After being shelled, the remaining seven warships of the Qiongzhou Camp reacted and, following the flagship's signal, began to concentrate their fire on the large blue-headed naval vessels. This was the first proper artillery battle since the establishment of the Qiongzhou Camp Navy. The two sides exchanged blows, the cannons booming, and all eyes in the entire Zhongzuosuo port were focused on this.
Gao Jie rushed into the cabin from outside and asked Liu Ye for instructions: "General, our side is starting to suffer casualties. Should we retaliate with shotgun shells?"
In close-quarters artillery battles, where neither side can sink the other's ships in a short time, using shotgun shells to "cleanse" the other's decks is a very efficient option. Moreover, this mode is more advantageous to the Qiongzhou Camp Navy—their gunners are all on the gun deck in the middle layer and will not suffer fatal damage, while the enemy's guns are all mounted on the open deck. If they are hit by cannonballs, they will either be killed or injured and have to withdraw from the battle.