Chapter 194: The Police Are Here

Under the blazing tropical sun, with a strong sea wind and crystal-clear seawater, the ten crewmen aboard the Yuan Dou were leisurely firing volleys at the galleon beneath the blue sky and white clouds.

To avoid the gunpowder smoke from free firing and the loss of accuracy from the ship's pitching, the ten-man firing squad now fired simultaneously, and the squad leader only gave the fire command at the very moment the hull swayed to its highest point.

So, the scene on the sea surface now was this: roughly every half minute, a neat row of white smoke would rise from the sand ship's gunwale; half a minute later, the smoke would have long been blown away by the sea wind, and then the volley fire would sound again, repeating endlessly.

The only drawback of this method was the reduced rate of fire. The Type 38 Rifles, originally capable of firing eight to ten lead bullets per minute, could now only manage a crawling rate of one or two.

However, the Spanish aboard the Alicante did not see it that way.

In five minutes, just five short minutes, the strange ship possessed by devils on the opposite side had unleashed a maddening ten volleys of lead bullets. These terrifying bullets crossed the 400-meter distance, successively sending four crewmen to the West... no, to the hall.

As for the cannons the galleon fired in panic, after hastily adding extra powder, even the gunners had no idea where the iron balls had flown off to.

Ensign Sandoval, seeing the situation turning dire, once ordered his ship to close in on the opponent, but this strange ship, which occasionally belched a wisp of blue smoke from its stern, quickly relied on its bizarre speed and the wind-catching advantage of its rigid sails to reopen the distance between the two sides, widening the gap to 450 meters.

Traditional Chinese-style ships have a maneuvering advantage in chaotic wind zones, but due to the total area and deadweight limitations of rigid sails, ship speed is their fatal flaw. Yet the Yuan Dou, a devil ship that balanced agility and speed, left Ensign Sandoval feeling utterly powerless and at his wit's end.

Faced with this unprecedented and bizarre combat mode, the ensign, in a moment of desperation, issued an ostrich-like command: everyone hide behind the deck planks, and the ship continues forward.

The clever ensign had spotted the opponent's weakness: they relied on their advantages in ship speed and firing range and were unwilling to engage in close-quarters combat with the Alicante, which carried eight-pounder cannons.

Since that was the case, they would maintain the status quo: the galleon was now sailing straight under full sail; lead bullets could not penetrate the deck planks, so let them fire as they pleased—at worst, the sailcloth would get a few more holes...

The ensign's order quickly took effect. Faced with a deck that seemed completely empty, the opponent ceased their "bird blunderbuss" fire.

The next moment, a loud "thump-thump" sound suddenly rang out across the sea. The M2HB Heavy Machine Gun, with its flash hider removed, spewed high-brightness muzzle flame and fiery red tracer rounds even under the glaring midday sunlight.

The Spanish, poking half their heads out from the gunwale, easily saw the tracer trajectories—before they could comprehend what this meant, the 12.7-millimeter armor-piercing incendiary rounds slammed headlong into the galleon's sterncastle.

In the movie scenes familiar to later generations, there is always some cool pirate captain, drinking rum while suavely turning the wheel in front of him, steering the sailing ship.

However, such scenes did not exist before the 18th century.

Before the 18th century, helmsmen controlled a sailing ship's course by operating a horizontal tiller attached to the rudder stock. The entire system was a simple "7"-shaped horizontal lever; the helmsman operated the horizontal bar of the 7, while the stern rudder and rudder stock formed the vertical stroke.

This system was very primitive; in severe weather, it sometimes required four men to brace against the tiller's pressure. Moreover, this rudder stock was installed on the half-deck inside the stern cabin, unlike the wheel-and-pulley steering seen in movies, which is directly on the exposed deck.

By shifting his position just slightly back, Lei Jian, lying prone on the Yuan Dou's sterncastle, could clearly see the level of the horizontal tiller inside the galleon's sterncastle: because only this level's rear section was open.

So, the machine gun rounds, fired in constant short bursts, quickly probed their way to this rudder level.

Back when Lei Jian was in Africa, he often got to play with AKs. Later, during the training phase before crossing over, the fearless Lei Jian fired every kind of machine gun to his heart's content. Even later, after crossing over, he finally understood the sinister motives of a certain Chairman who had let him play with machine guns for free...

At a distance of 450 meters, the 12.7-millimeter warheads tore through the deck planks like tofu. The next moment, the wooden splinters and warheads, carried by kinetic energy, mowed down a swath of crewmen in the steering cabin.

The Alicante immediately veered off course on the sea surface at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The gunfire soon ceased, having used fewer than thirty bullets in total.

And Ensign Sandoval, who had almost instinctively bent over and run into the stern cabin after seeing the tracer trajectories on the sea, stood frozen before the carnage at this moment.

The floor was covered in human body parts and internal organs, vast pools of blood, and a brave soul who, missing his lower body, still persisted in crawling forward...

Blocking the crewmen who were rushing in behind him with one arm, the ensign had an epiphany at that moment: "Stop the ship, lower the sails, raise the white flag. We surrender."

An hour later, the Alicante set sail again.

The Exploration Team had naturally brought enough translators on this voyage. There was not only a Spanish translator but also two Fujian merchants who had previously dealt with the natives of Taipei.

When the translator, who had taken a boat to the galleon, told Ensign Sandoval about the Yuan Dou's origins and Exploration Team Captain Pan Mingzhong's demands, the Spanish man looked at the shattered corpses on the ground and had no choice but to bow his head and comply.

And so, the Alicante weighed anchor and hoisted sail once more, heading toward Dayuan, while the Yuan Dou naturally followed behind, beginning its journey of escorting prisoners.

There was no need to activate the Wood Gas Power System now, and in fact, the Yuan Dou could no longer play around—wood's energy density is far inferior to diesel and coal. After more than three hours of chasing back and forth, the fuel reserves in the cabin were nearly depleted. To continue this cat chasing mouse game, they would have to start burning the deck planks.

Next came the scene of the police uncle's arrival: two soft-sail schooners with hull numbers 301 and 302, soon after the galleon turned north from Kending Cape, arrived head-on with lightning speed.

Both police ships were modeled after 17th-century two-masted schooners, new-style sailing ships whose hull lines had been recalculated by a later-generation ship design company.

According to the Navy's naming conventions, these two newly launched sailing ships, due to their small tonnage, fell into the Third-Rate Destroyer class: the leading digit of their hull numbers was 3. As for when the larger-tonnage Second-Rate Cruisers and First-Rate Battleships would be commissioned, that was anyone's guess.

The No. 301 ship had a length of 30 meters and a displacement of 150 tons; its streamlined hull endowed it with the ability to shuttle across the sea at high speed.

The increase in Western sailing ship speed from the 17th to the 18th century mainly came from larger sail area—more and more sails, taller and taller masts... while progress in below-waterline design was very slow; the emergence of the clipper was a 19th-century affair.

As for the two verification-type destroyers newly built by the Transmigrators, their below-waterline sections had been optimized through later-generation computer simulations. Although they lacked the raked keel of a clipper ship, the new ships' speed was still very high; without activating the Coal Gas Power System, with a following wind and full sails, their speed could reach 13 knots per hour.

Additionally, the sail plans of the two destroyers had been modified: the mainsails on the fore and aft masts were all gaff sails similar to those on Chinese-style ships, except the rigid sails were replaced with pristine white soft canvas sails.

The top sails above the mainsails, whether square sails or triangular sails, were all eliminated.

Europeans needed to maximize sail area to gain ship speed, but the Transmigrators did not. The speed gains achieved by refining the hull form and adding auxiliary power far exceeded the benefits brought by those complex riggings and top sails.

Therefore, the newly launched cruisers did not install clumsy square sails suited only for charging with the wind, but instead mounted flexible and versatile gaff sails on the mainmasts. Furthermore, on the destroyers' long, sword-like bowsprits hung triangular sails suitable for sailing against the wind.

This simplified sail plan, combined with the application of pulley blocks, made the destroyers not only agile and fast but also required a very small crew: nine combat personnel plus one engine room crewman could meet all sailing needs. Even with two additional gun crews, twenty people would be the full complement.

As for the destroyers' armament, it consisted of two imitation Napoleon Cannons mounted on the fore and aft decks, equipped with rotating gun mounts and auxiliary aiming devices. One was a 12-pounder caliber, the other a 6-pounder.

Using 19th-century smoothbore cannons to contend with the ancient Red Barbarian Cannons of the 17th century—well, this was very bullying and very suited to the Transmigrators' style.

The Napoleon Cannon, like the Type 38 Rifle's prototype, the Sharps, belonged to the pinnacle of its field.

A standard 12-pounder smoothbore Napoleon Cannon weighed 556 kilograms. It could accurately hurl a 12-pound iron ball to a distance of 1,500 meters at a 5-degree firing angle. If the angle was increased to 10 degrees, the range could reach 1,900 meters.

Within a firing range of 1,500 meters, a Napoleon Cannon's shot could accurately hit an opponent's cannon, and there were many instances during the American Civil War of it hitting enemy soldiers.

The Napoleon Cannon's rate of fire was very fast; a skilled gun crew could fire four rounds per minute—this already surpassed all native cannons and firearms of the 17th century.

Thus, the Napoleon Cannon was a weapon with strong mobility, ferocious firepower, and was extremely simple and effective to manufacture and use. Compared to the primitive Serpentines and Red Barbarian Cannons of the 17th century, the Napoleon Cannon, perfected in every aspect through 200 years of development, could easily thrash its old predecessors.

Even the Transmigrators could now only make some improvements in metal smelting and could not alter the Napoleon Cannon's external form. In fact, the first batch of cast-iron cannons currently produced in the Kiln District had performance inferior to bronze Napoleon Cannons; it could only be said they were slightly more advanced than 19th-century cast-iron cannons.

In naval warfare of the Transmigrators' current era, including those giant cannons of 24 pounds and above, the effective engagement distance in practice did not exceed 700 yards.

Although the maximum range of many large-caliber cannons could reach over 3,000 yards, at distances beyond 700 yards, especially in naval battles where both sides' ships were in motion, the hit rate was abysmal.

If one wanted to achieve a barely passable hit rate on the undulating sea, captains had to shorten the engagement distance to within 400 yards, or even 300 yards.

In fact, later captains of the British Empire preferred to engage only at a distance of 150 yards, a range where even Brown Bess muskets could be effective. Some captains even clamored: ram the cannon muzzle against the enemy's face and fire!

Therefore, the Napoleon Cannons now possessed by the Transmigrators had both rate of fire and accuracy. Within a distance of 1,000 meters, the destroyer gun crews, equipped with optical sighting devices, could seize the initiative, using a high volume of fire to compensate for hit probability and bury the opponent's ships.

At noon the next day, the survey ship Yuan Dou, representing the Crossing Faction's first foray onto the shores of Taiwan's outer islands, had thus returned with a catch.