Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 182 The Collapsed Fort
"Go a little further!"

Captain Alvaro Biancasantis of the "St. Vincent" held up a monocular and kept observing the surrounding situation in the hope of discovering the location of the enemy's artillery.

However, the rugged sea rocks, dense trees, and lush weeds completely obscured the cliffs on the shore, making it impossible to find any clues.

As the ship continued to move deeper into the bay, Santis became more and more nervous.

According to the "confessions" of the captives, the pirate port was equipped with an unknown number of coastal defense batteries.

If the ship was suddenly attacked by intensive artillery fire from the enemy when it was slowly approaching the port, it would definitely be a disaster for them.

What made him even more uneasy was that the further the ship went, the narrower the bay became, and the more cramped the space they had to maneuver.

The mountains on both sides are towering and the view is wide. If artillery batteries are deployed, it will form a deadly crossfire.

If you are not lucky enough, you might die here.

The "St. Vincent" had traveled a long distance without being attacked, but this did not make all the crew members feel relieved.

Because the closer the distance, the greater the danger.

Through the telescope, Captain Santis could clearly see the specific situation in the port.

There were seven or eight small boats moored on the shore, but there was no one on board. They must have hidden themselves.

There are many buildings scattered on the shore. They look like wooden houses. I don’t know whether they are used to store goods or for living.

As for whether there is still anyone inside at this time, it is unknown.

Captain Santis hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to fire a round from the bow gun to see what the shore's reaction would be.

But this order was never issued.

In addition to worrying about the insufficient range of the artillery and that firing would be a waste of ammunition, they also thought that the other side allowed their ships to sail so close, and must be planning or setting a huge trap before launching a thundering attack on them.

In this situation, you should be cautious and observe carefully so that you can react (escape) in time if you are suddenly attacked.

The order given to them by Fleet Commander Calles was to conduct a forceful reconnaissance of the port to find out the strength of the pirates.

Santis secretly complained about this.

Isn't this using their "St. Vincent" as bait?
The question is, can we determine the strength of the pirates with just one ship?
Apart from knowing the deployment location and firepower of the enemy's coastal defense artillery, I'm afraid we can't find out anything else.

Your boat won't run ashore, will it?

Since they couldn't get ashore, how could they know clearly the pirates' specific strength, number of people, armaments, city defense deployment, and so on.

In fact, after capturing those native Indians and pirates and determining the specific location of the pirates, their exploration fleet's mission had been successfully completed.

Although these crew members could not communicate normally with the captives and could not get much information from them, they could bring them all back to Mexico and have them interrogate by those knowledgeable missionaries, and they would definitely be able to obtain more detailed intelligence.

Even if missionaries are powerless, that’s okay, there are other effective channels.

Some sailors who had been to Manila said with certainty that the two pirates must be Ming people, both in appearance and in language.

There seemed to be a few Ming people in Mexico, and we could recruit a few of them and interrogate the captured pirates in detail, so we could pry open their mouths.

Although the two captured pirates were of low status and we couldn't obtain much information, we should be able to get some basic information from them.

For example, how many ships do they have and how many young and strong men they have.

For example, what is their military strength and whether they have built defensive fortresses.

For example, have they set up other bases?

Look, it’s such a simple thing. Why would we need to risk being attacked by coastal artillery to investigate the pirates’ situation?

However, as the commander of the exploration fleet, Calles' orders had to be carried out. They could only bite the bullet and carefully sail into the bay and slowly approach the port.

After walking slowly for more than half an hour, Captain Santis felt his heart in his throat as he saw that he was less than 500 meters away from the port terminal.

At this distance, there is no need for 24-pound heavy artillery. Only 18-pound artillery can hit them.

But the pirates still didn't fire. The more calm and collected they were, the more frightened Santis became.

They are preparing to make a big move!
-
"Shoot?"

Several guns of the No. 1 battery were ready to fire. The gunner kept turning his head and staring at the gestures of the battery commander Wang Jiarong, waiting for his final order.

"I think the Spaniards probably only sent out this one armed ship." Mo Tianhai sighed slightly, feeling a little disappointed.

"Oh, they are quite cautious." Luo Zhenhui smiled and nodded to Wang Jiarong. "Since they only sent this one ship, let's try to keep it."

"Yes, Director!" Wang Jiarong saluted, then turned around and waved to several gunners.

"fire!"

"Fire!" After receiving the order, the gunner immediately waved the flag in his hand downwards vigorously.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!..."

The two 1-pound guns, four 2-pound guns and four 18-pound guns of the No. 4 battery roared violently almost at the same time. The huge projectiles whizzed towards the hesitant Spanish ship. In a moment, they hit the sea surface near it one after another, stirring up huge waves.

It has to be said that the first round of artillery fire was incredibly powerful and had a very effective buff, but the results were zero.

The luck was a bit bad, and none of the arrows hit the Spanish ship.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!..."

Just as Battery No. 1 was busy preparing for the second round of artillery fire, Battery No. 2 on the hill opposite the bay also fired a salvo after receiving the signal.

Again, there were no results and all the shells missed.

Luo Zhenhui, who was standing at the artillery command post, saw this situation and couldn't help but shook his head and smiled bitterly.

What a bunch of rookie gunners!
Although, after the artillery was deployed, this group of carefully selected gunners underwent rigorous training and fired a lot of live ammunition, they did not fully master the artillery shooting techniques.

You know, artillery is a high-tech branch of the military. If you want to truly master artillery firing technology, you must be able to do simple elementary school arithmetic, basic geometry (including plane trigonometry and spherical trigonometry), use theorems such as sine and cosine for triangulation, and also be able to apply algebra at the middle school level, as well as physics knowledge such as mechanics and conservation of kinetic energy.

In other words, a qualified artillery officer must basically have the equivalent of a high school level in later generations + basic calculus knowledge, and some calculations require a fairly high level of proficiency in table lookup.

But the problem is that even if we screen all five or six thousand people on Qiming Island, we can't find fifty artillery candidates who can master the above knowledge points.

With no other choice, the time travelers could only recruit some people with artillery potential into the artillery unit, teach them hands-on practical skills, and use their spare time to provide them with professional artillery knowledge training, allowing them to learn and practice at the same time.

At the same time, systematic and professional artillery teaching materials are also being compiled and improved, and incorporated into the training courses for cadets in the army and navy training schools.

At present, the more than 100 gunners in the two artillery batteries are only relying on the training experience of more than half a year to fire at the Spanish ships that have entered the bay.

But after the first round of shelling, no results were achieved, which made all the gunners blush with embarrassment.

At such a close distance, with such dense artillery fire and after such a long preparation, not a single hit hit the enemy ship!

It should be noted that in daily training, the two artillery batteries not only continuously strengthened their operating skills and learned a lot of artillery professional knowledge, but also carried out advance calibration of shooting parameters such as charge amount, impact point, curvature, and firing range according to the shooting training process.

But I never expected that the first "performance" would be a disaster.

Moreover, all the shells missed their targets in front of the director of the highest decision-making committee of New Continent China.

"A-type gun position is ready!"

"T-shaped gun position is ready!"

"The B-shaped gun position is ready!"

"..."

"fire!"

After all the gun positions were reloaded with ammunition and the firing positions were adjusted, Wang Jiarong waved his hand violently, then half opened his mouth and stared at the Spanish ship in front of him that was trying to turn around and escape.

I still don’t believe that I can’t keep you!

(End of this chapter)