Chapter 961: God in Heaven, We've Run Into a Military Revolution!

The massive explosion of a twenty-four-pound explosive shell in the gun deck of the Manila instantly turned a place packed with powder bags, ropes, planks, firewood, and other flammables and explosives into a burning hell. Blazing flames darted everywhere, and the air was thick with choking, poisonous smoke — there was simply no way to breathe.

The flames bursting from the explosive shell first ignited the powder bags, and the fire blazed up in an instant. The Spanish gunners and sailors, knocked sprawling by the shockwave of the shell's explosion, had never encountered a fire that spread so fast. Faced with a scene straight out of hell, they had no idea how to respond and could only scramble and crawl their way out of the gun deck.

The fire quickly raged completely out of control. On a wooden sailing ship there was flammable material everywhere — first the scorching air dried out the moisture, then the flames swept over it, and it turned into a mass of fire.

The Spanish sailors who rushed up onto the deck, to avoid being swallowed by the blaze, had no choice but to abandon ship. Like dumplings dropped into a pot, they leaped into the sea with splash after splash.

A light galleon of two or three hundred tons cruising near the Manila had not realized the danger — at this point the Spanish still had not grasped that their fleet was being pounded by enemy explosive shells — so it closed in on the Manila, which had already burned into a fireball, in an attempt to rescue the crew in the water. But the moment it drew near the Manila, it was lit up by the firelight and became the second victim.

The Ming army's twelve 24-pounder cannon quickly trained their muzzles on this light galleon, and in no more than three salvos, a 24-pound shot smashed into the galleon's forecastle deck.

With a thunderous "Boom—", the galleon's "head" burst into bloom, erupting in a great mass of fire.

"This is..." Admiral García stared at the galleon with its "head" on fire, his mouth gaping wide enough to stuff his own fist into.

First it was the "ship's rear," now the "ship's head" — neither of these parts was flammable or explosive, so why were they both blowing up now? Could the crew of this little galleon have stacked powder barrels on the forecastle deck? Spanish sailors couldn't be that stupid, could they?

"Boom—!"

While Admiral García was still dazed and bewildered, another explosive shell burst on the sterncastle of this small galleon whose bow was already burning.

"Admiral... the Chinese are firing explosive shells!" Barbosa had caught on. "God in Heaven! They've got a reliable explosive shell! How did they do it? God in Heaven, how did they do it?"

Of course someone had been given a golden finger! Zhu Cilang did not have a superhuman memory, nor had he been a skilled worker or manufacturing engineer in his previous life, so the golden fingers he could deploy were few.

But he still knew the concepts of the socket bayonet, fixed ammunition, the Minié ball, fuse tubes, shell fins, and pointed-nose shells. Of course, knowing a concept and producing a reliable product were not the same thing. Some concepts were just a layer of paper — once pierced, there was no great difficulty. For example, the socket bayonet, fixed ammunition, and the Minié ball were not hard to make.

These three things had been produced by Zhu Cilang very early on. Among them, the socket bayonet and fixed ammunition had long since become widespread, while the Minié ball had been ordered shelved by Zhu Cilang because the Ming ironworks still could not mass-produce reliable rifled muskets — in this era Europe already had fairly dependable rifled guns, the most famous being the Minié rifle. Zhu Cilang had already ordered them copied, but mass production had not yet succeeded, so the Minié ball could not be brought out either, because copying the Minié ball was far easier than copying the rifle.

The fuse tube, shell fins, and pointed-nose shell were all meant to improve explosive shells. The fuse tube had long since been worked out, while the shell fins had been revised again and again until they finally became a wooden sabot — the thinking was much the same as with the Minié ball, except that this wooden sabot had to be fixed onto the shell. The pointed shell nose, however, was still not mature because of casting problems.

But in actual use, the improved explosive shell still ran into the problem that the shell casing was easily crushed by excessive bore pressure, so it could not be used in long-barreled cannon. For this reason, at first this wooden-sabot explosive shell was not widespread and could only be used in mortars. It was not until just before the siege of Beijing, with the appearance of the Hongxing Year Six Model 24-pounder short-barreled gun — actually a kind of howitzer — that the problem of the wooden-sabot explosive shell having no gun to fire from was solved.

And the battle in which the wooden-sabot explosive shell shone most brilliantly was, without question, the Battle of Dinghai Anchorage, fought in the early hours of the third day of the eighth month of the ninth year of Hongxing.

The Spanish fleet that had successfully launched a surprise attack on the anchorage should have won a complete victory, but now it had tragically become a living target for twelve 24-pounder short-barreled guns. In a very short time, it had lost two galleons, one of them a medium galleon of considerable value, and several hundred sailors whose fates were unknown — the loss of sailors pained the Spanish even more than the loss of ships.

"Admiral! We cannot let the fleet remain a living target!" Colonel Barbosa, realizing that the enemy had new-model explosive shells, knew the curse of the Invincible Armada's defeat was about to strike again, and said urgently to Admiral García, "Give the signal to withdraw!"

"No!" García immediately rejected Barbosa's proposal. "We must destroy those twelve galleons, or else we will have to retreat from the western shore of the Pacific — and we will not be able to stop them from entering the New World!"

"But the enemy's explosive shells—"

"Signal: fall back first, then reform the line!"

Boom—! Boom—!

Just as García was giving the order, another galleon of four or five hundred tons was struck in the sterncastle by an explosive shell, and fire burst from the ship's rear. But this ship was far luckier than the previous two, because it was hit while withdrawing. The northeast wind was blowing at sea, so this sailing ship could flee with the wind and soon left the effective range of the 24-pounder short-barreled guns. And since there was not much flammable or explosive material in a galleon's sterncastle, as long as they fought the fire with full effort, the ship could still be saved.

De Velasco, who had just seized a medium armed galleon, now had no choice but to abandon the prize he had only just won.

But he would not hand this warship back to the Ming forces intact. Before withdrawing, he ordered his men to set fire to the most flammable ropes on board. Burning ropes would not necessarily start a fire big enough to destroy the whole ship, but the light they gave off would still make the sailing ship a target for incendiary shells.

Although the Spanish had run headlong into a military revolution at the Battle of Dinghai Anchorage and become targets for explosive shells, from the tactical level, the surprise attack had still succeeded.

In the age of sailing ships of the line, Dinghai Anchorage was indeed a terrible choice for a naval base — too many channels in and out, too many islands blocking the line of sight, impossible to defend against every approach. Moreover, it was an important trading port and a necessary passage for merchant ships coming from the south before entering Shanghai Harbor. Too many merchant ships of every nation came and went, and secrecy was simply impossible.

If the Ming forces had not possessed revolutionary explosive shells, the Battle of Dinghai would certainly have ended in a crushing Ming defeat.

But tonight, the new weapon changed the outcome of the battle.

Boom—!

At the same instant as the thunderous blast, De Velasco, who had been standing on the sterncastle deck of the Pacific Star, was hurled into the air by the shockwave and then slammed heavily onto the deck amidships. Not only did he see stars, but every bone and every muscle in his body trembled as if he had been shaken to pieces.

The Pacific Star's rear had also been blasted and set ablaze.

But this sailing ship had already completed its turn and unfurled part of its sails, and could now use the northeast wind to quickly put distance between itself and the terrifying explosive shells.

As long as they could get a little farther away, the Spanish Invincible Armada of the East could salvage some face.

After all, the enemy did not have many heavy guns. They were shooting so accurately now only because the range was short. Once they were farther away, they could use their absolutely superior number of guns to fire incendiary shells and should be able to burn all twelve Ming navy warships at the docks.

But after burning the twelve Ming warships — would García, having won the naval battle, still dare return to Manila Bay?

The terrain of Manila Bay was actually not much better than Dinghai Anchorage. The entrance to the bay was too wide — relative to muzzle-loading smoothbore guns — and could not stop a Ming fleet equipped with explosive shells from breaking in.

(End of Chapter)