Chapter 959: The Empty-Ship Stratagem? (Please Subscribe)

"... Our Father, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen!

For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen!"

As the flag of Saint Andrew streamed from the masts of twenty-nine Spanish armed galleons formed in a single column, the officers and men of Spain's Eastern Invincible Armada had already taken their stations and begun reciting the Lord's Prayer in unison.

Though the glory of God-favored Spain had dimmed, and Spain's maritime hegemony had ceased to exist after the Battle of the Downs more than ten years before, the Spanish people's resolve to fight for the Heavenly Father had not wavered in the slightest.

And they still believed their nation enjoyed the Heavenly Father's favor!

Because divine favor remained, the twenty-nine Spanish warships dared, in the hai hour of the deep night of the third day of the eighth month of the ninth year of the Ming Hongxing era, by a little moonlight and starlight and a sea breeze blowing from the northeast, to charge without hesitation through the channel between Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands into the Dinghai anchorage, which had long since fallen into slumber!

Although as these Spanish warships passed through the channel between Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands and charged into the anchorage, warning rockets had risen one after another from Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands and burst violently in the darkness, turning into countless sparks.

Yet in the eyes of Admiral García and de Velasco, who commanded the Pacific Star as the first ship into the anchorage, these warning rockets were no more than fireworks welcoming the Spanish fleet!

For the suddenness of the surprise attack had been achieved; the Chinese warships had long since furled their sails and dropped anchor, and most of their crews were not aboard—and even if they were, in the deep night approaching dawn they were sound asleep; how could they so easily rise and enter combat readiness?

One after another, the Spanish warships all passed at high speed through the channel between Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands and burst into the Dinghai anchorage.

Past the channel between Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands, the Shenjiamen docks appeared directly north of the Spanish fleet. Though it was now deep night, the harbor and merchant quarter of Shenjiamen still glittered with lights, faint and indistinct, and a small commotion seemed to have broken out—someone must have seen the warning rockets launched from Greater and Lesser Moshi Islands.

But everything was already too late!

For all twenty-nine Spanish warships had already released the fireships they carried. Though the wind was now from the northeast, it was also the time of the rising tide, and the tide would carry the fireships into the Shenjiamen docks where the Ming warships lay moored.

This operation had been meticulously planned: when to raise the Saint Andrew's flag, when to form the single column, when to charge into the Dinghai anchorage—all had been calculated, not only to catch the Ming navy completely off guard, but also to seize the opportunity to use the rising tide to send the fireships into the Shenjiamen docks.

These fireships could not only disrupt the movements of the Ming navy's vessels, but also provide illumination for the gunboats.

After releasing the fireships, the Spanish fleet's single column immediately dissolved, and all the warships began fighting in disorder.

This, of course, was also part of the plan!

Although fighting in formation was the standard tactic for fleet gunnery battles, in actual combat nine times out of ten it degenerated into chaos—even in the Anglo-Dutch War of 1652–1654, the English and Dutch fleets had often fought in disorder.

The hastily assembled Spanish Eastern Fleet was far inferior in organization to the current home main fleets of England and Holland, and keeping formation in the middle of the night was simply impossible, so they might as well fight independently!

In any case, once the surprise attack succeeded, was there any fear of losing?

Admiral García and Captain Barbosa of the New Spain stood shoulder to shoulder on the New Spain's sterncastle, staring fixedly toward the Shenjiamen docks, their hearts in their throats.

The surprise attack had succeeded!

But whether the Ming warships at the docks might happen to have gone out on some errand was very hard to say. If they were not at home, any future surprise attack on them would be difficult!

Moreover, the two of them were also hoping the Ming shore batteries would open fire!

Not, of course, because they wanted to be hit, but because they wanted to determine the enemy's positions by the muzzle flashes—by day one could see twenty or thirty artillery emplacements through a telescope, but now they were invisible, and a dozen or two coastal heavy guns of unknown location were always somewhat worrying.

Furthermore, none of the twenty-nine Spanish warships on the sea had shown any lights, so the Ming batteries presumably could not see them. Thus if the Ming batteries opened fire now, they could only shoot at the fireships. And the fireships were all small—what accuracy could smoothbore cannon have? So firing would merely waste ammunition.

And once the Ming guns fired, that would basically show the gunners' standard was not very high.

But if the Ming guns could keep their nerve and hold fire—that would be truly worrisome!

"Admiral, Chinese warships sighted!" Captain Barbosa's voice rang out with barely concealed delight.

Admiral García muttered under his breath: "Looks like a ship of five or six hundred tons, hard to make out... why have the fireships stopped moving?"

Barbosa said uncertainly: "Perhaps they're caught on something?"

He did not know that the Ming navy had a device called a "fire-defense ship cable," nor did he know which naval officer well-versed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms had invented it: ropes wound with specially made iron hooks, with both ends tied to wooden buoys and the middle cast into the water, used to snag the bottoms of fireships. The buoys were anchored to the seabed, so once the hooked ropes entangled a fireship, the fireship could no longer advance.

However, these buoy ropes were not very far from the dock where the twelve Ming warships lay moored, so by the firelight García and Barbosa could still make out the outlines of the Ming warships.

These warships were all utterly silent, showing no reaction whatsoever—it seemed the surprise attack had truly succeeded!

Barbosa excitedly shouted to García: "Admiral, shall we charge in and fire incendiary shot?"

The so-called incendiary shot was simply a heated iron ball, separated from the powder by a wooden board, rammed together into the gun barrel, then used to bombard enemy ships, the iron ball's high temperature igniting the enemy vessel's timber and canvas.

"Wait, wait a little longer." García shook his head and said, "We'll watch from behind and let the other ships go in. If those ships truly have no sailors aboard, or only a few, we may be able to seize some of them."

The New Spain was simply too precious: over 1,000 tons burden, armed with fifty-four 12-pounder short guns and six 24-pounder heavy guns. On paper, she was an invincible presence in East Asia.

So García did not dare risk this ship.

Boom, boom, boom...

At that moment, the guns of several Spanish warships opened fire!

They were firing incendiary shot, targeting two light galleons of the two-hundred-ton class.

These two galleons seemed to have no sailors aboard, showing not the slightest reaction after being struck by incendiary shot; the red-hot shot pierced the hull planks and tumbled about inside these two "small ships," quickly igniting the timber aboard. Flames and thick smoke poured from the hulls, and in the blink of an eye the fire grew larger and larger, about to engulf the two wooden ships.

Two Ming warships were burning, yet the other Ming warships still showed no sign of movement—it seemed they really were all empty ships!

"Colonel, they really are empty ships—let's close in and seize them!" The first mate of the Pacific Star, standing beside de Velasco, could no longer contain his excitement.

Not counting the two warships already burning, there were still ten ships here in the Dinghai anchorage, all good vessels seventy to eighty percent new. If they could be taken back to Manila, the size of Spain's fleet in the East would immediately grow by a third!

Then would there be any place along the Ming coast the Spanish fleet could not go?

"Good!" De Velasco nodded heavily, then raised his hand and pointed at a 600-ton Ming galleon. "That one—we go and seize it for the Spanish Empire. I will personally lead the boarding party. The Heavenly Father will protect us!"

The first mate likewise shouted: "God save the King, God save Spain!"

(End of Chapter)