Chapter 960: Why Did the Ship's Rear End Explode? (Please Subscribe)

"May the Heavenly Father bless the King, may the Heavenly Father bless Spain, may the Heavenly Father bless us. Amen! Charge!"

The Pacific Star, on which De Belasco was serving, had already come alongside a 600-ton Ming warship. More than a dozen ropes had been thrown up, and several dozen Spanish naval fighters, each with a musket in one hand and a sword in the other, were ready for a boarding action! Colonel De Belasco was their leader. After shouting a great many "God bless" invocations, he gripped his curved blade between his teeth, grabbed a rope, and began to climb.

"God bless, God bless," De Belasco prayed inwardly as he climbed — please, don't let a row of flintlocks appear from behind the bulwarks above!

And indeed, the Heavenly Father was very much on their side tonight! Not a single flintlock fired at De Belasco as he led the charge and climbed onto the deserted deck of the great Ming ship.

Was this really an empty ship? A 600-ton galleon-type warship, taken just like that? Could it really be this easy? De Belasco still could not quite believe it, and stared around with wide eyes.

By this time several Spanish sailors who had boarded the Ming ship had lit torches. De Belasco quickly sheathed his curved blade, took a torch, and then, holding the torch in one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other, called over a dozen men and strode toward the sterncastle.

"Regional Commander, one of our ships has been taken by the Spaniards!"

"I know. It's the Anyuan, 600 tons burden, carrying 28 cannons. But it doesn't matter — they can't sail her away. The sails have been taken down for repairs."

"But they can still set her on fire. That would be a heavy loss!"

"Then it wouldn't be our fault. Dinghai simply isn't suitable as a fleet anchorage! It's exposed on all sides, and we have only 12 guns. How are we supposed to defend it?"

"But the higher-ups may not see it that way. This year's evaluation, I'm afraid..."

"What time is it, and you're still thinking about evaluations? Get to work and aim true! If we don't sink a few Spanish warships, I won't need to wait for the year-end evaluation — I'll have you dismissed tomorrow!"

"Sink a few? Regional Commander, your subordinate has only twelve 24-pounder short guns!"

"But you have the wooden-sabot explosive shells that were just issued! Those shells showed astonishing power in the last battle at Beijing, so you'd better shoot well for me!"

The two men talking while watching the "robbery and destruction" unfolding on the sea from an observation post at the Shenjiamen Battery were Yuan Ruofei, Naval Regional Commander of Dinghai, and Yang Weiming, Garrison Commander of the Naval Shenjiamen Battery.

Yuan Ruofei had come out of the Liao army and had once been a household retainer of Wu Xiang. After following Emperor Zhu to pacify Jiangnan, he had been responsible for battery defense, and later transferred to the navy. But he did not know how to handle a ship and had no sea-service experience — he was a "land navy" man who defended batteries.

Under the Naval Division of the Ming Grand Marshal's Office, there were now several "Naval Regional Commander" posts, which were essentially base commanders. Because Yuan Ruofei had sufficient seniority and was reliable in his work, he had become Naval Regional Commander of Dinghai, responsible for the defense of the Dinghai anchorage and the defenses of Zhoushan Island.

Yang Weiming, on the other hand, was an artillery specialist by training. He was from Jiangnan, had entered the Nanjing Military Academy, studied artillery, served as an artilleryman for seven or eight years, and then also transferred to the "land navy," becoming Garrison Commander of the Shenjiamen Battery — in effect a battalion-level commander. Under him were four companies: one fortress artillery company, one field artillery company, and two flintlock companies.

The fortress artillery company was equipped with twelve 24-pounder cast-iron short guns — if these guns were placed at the Wusong mouth, they could hold off a large enemy fleet attempting to invade. But here at the Dinghai anchorage, they were truly inadequate, and could only be concentrated near the Shenjiamen docks to cover the naval berths.

But how much power could twelve 24-pounder guns have? And they were not the expensive long-barreled guns, but cheap cast-iron short guns — these were more like howitzers than cannons.

In naval battles these days, hundreds or even thousands of cannons fired at each other. Even the Spanish Eastern Invincible Fleet, which was not at full strength, had nearly 800 cannons on its 29 warships, and no fewer than 30 of them were 24-pounders.

The twelve 24-pounder guns of the Shenjiamen Battery, if they performed normally, could at most badly damage one or two small galleons of two or three hundred tons.

Only by extraordinary luck could they sink one — solid shot could not sink a ship; it would take an incendiary shell penetrating the powder magazine and igniting the gunpowder, with the fire then raging out of control, to sink a Spanish warship.

In terms of probability, it was minuscule. A mere twelve guns, firing three or four hundred rounds over the course of an entire battle, would be doing very well to score ten hits.

But in the third month of the ninth year of Hongxing, the Shenjiamen Battery received a revolutionary type of shell — the wooden-sabot explosive shell!

This shell had appeared even before the siege of Beijing, and was said to have been personally designed by Emperor Zhu! It consisted of a cast-iron explosive shell fixed onto a wooden sabot, the whole thing rammed into the bore. At the front of the explosive shell was an opening into which a wooden fuse tube could be inserted. Before firing, the gunner would light the delay fuse inside the fuse tube, then insert the tube into the opening.

Because the wooden sabot stabilized the spherical explosive shell's direction as it left the barrel and also acted as a gas seal, increasing the projectile's muzzle velocity, explosive shells fired from the 24-pounder short guns were both accurate and long-ranged. Moreover, because the shell did not tumble, it was less likely to shatter, and would not prematurely ignite the powder inside the shell, causing it to explode early.

The wooden-tube fuse likewise reduced the probability of premature explosion or even an in-bore detonation.

The combination of the wooden sabot and wooden-tube fuse made the explosive shell a truly practical and astonishingly powerful projectile.

And this wooden-sabot explosive shell could be used not only to bombard enemy armies and fortresses, but also to bombard enemy wooden warships!

As long as such a shell could penetrate the hull of an enemy warship and then explode inside, it would produce devastating casualties!

"Admiral, we have already taken three Ming warships! A complete victory..."

"Boom-boom..."

Captain Barbosa had barely gotten halfway through his words when the twelve 24-pounder guns of the Shenjiamen Battery roared in unison.

"They've opened fire — ten to twelve guns!" Admiral García muttered. "Target is the Manila. No hits."

The Ming's twelve 24-pounder guns were all concentrated on the former flagship of the Philippine fleet, the 500-ton Manila. This warship had not gone to seize Ming warships, but was sailing toward the Shenjiamen trading port, apparently intending to bombard it — and as a result happened to pass near the Shenjiamen Battery.

Captain Barbosa laughed: "No problem. Twelve 24-pounder guns cannot break the Manila. She is very solidly built!"

Boom-boom—

His words had barely faded when the Ming's twelve 24-pounder guns fired a second salvo.

Because the Manila was relatively close to the battery and moving slowly, in the Ming gunners' second salvo one 24-pounder wooden-sabot explosive shell flew straight and true into the Manila's thin sterncastle. The sterncastle was not a critical area, and there was no powder magazine there, so both García and Barbosa breathed a sigh of relief.

But at that very moment, the Manila's "rear end" suddenly exploded! As a ball of fire shot up, the Manila's stern shuddered violently several times, and then flames leaped up.

What was going on?

Why did the ship's rear end explode?

What had that shell hit?

Could it be that some compartment in the Manila's stern was being used to store gunpowder?

Just as García and Barbosa stood dumbfounded, the twelve 24-pounder guns of the Shenjiamen Battery roared again. This time two more 24-pounder explosive shells struck the Manila. One of them smashed through the Manila's not particularly sturdy planking and burst into the gun deck, where a dozen or so 6-pounder guns were in utter chaos. It knocked a 6-pounder flying, and finally landed amid a pile of powder charges — followed immediately by a thunderous roar...

The Manila's belly had been blown wide open!

(End of Chapter)