Chapter 376 Fierce Battle

  The salty sea breeze brings the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke.

  Horace Redwyne hadn't fully recovered from his senses, and what puzzled him even more was, what secret weapon did the enemy use?

  How could so many huge iron **** hit like a torrential rain all at once?

   And what is that thunderous bang? What are the circles of white flames and black smoke?

Sir Horace picked up the Myr lens again and looked at the Stormland fleet. He saw thick black pipes lined up neatly on one side of the enemy ship, and each black pipe had two or three sailors busy at the moment. Stuff something in it.

   Was it the sound and the iron ball made by this thing just now?

  The fear of the unknown grasped Horace's heart like a big hand, which made him wake up from the arrogance before the war, and finally realized that the enemy in front of him was different from all the enemies in the past.

   Not only Horace, but the entire Qingting Island fleet was frightened by this round of shelling.

Although the actual power of this round of shelling is actually not that great, no Qingting Island battleship was sunk, at most, a few holes were smashed on the ship's side on the deck, and a few unlucky ones were directly hit by iron **** , the end was quite miserable.

  But this unprecedented attack method has caused great psychological pressure on the people in Hewan.

   To make matters worse, the commander of the fleet, Horace, not only failed to make a stabilizing move at this time, but also fell into panic and helplessness.

  So the heralds waited for the new order, the drummers stopped beating the drums, and the oarsmen stopped paddling. The Arbor Island fleet just wasted precious time.

On the side of the Stormland Fleet, Lucas Dayne certainly would not waste time, nor would he show mercy to the enemy. Seeing that the enemy ship was stupidly being a live target within the range of the artillery, he immediately gave the order to fire again. .

  Boom! boom! boom!

  Accompanied by a series of white flashes and thunderous bangs, more than 300 artillery pieces on forty-two warships roared almost simultaneously.

   A series of solid iron shells shot into the formation of the opposite Qingting Island Fleet with a howling sound of piercing the air.

  Of course, most of the shells missed, but fell into the sea water, blowing up a huge water column.

  But the remaining half of the shells still caused a lot of damage to the enemy ship.

  The flagship Purple Grape was at the forefront and was the largest, so it was naturally the primary target.

  Dozens of iron shells made it riddled with holes, and the sailors on the deck fled into the cabin to hide.

   Horace Redwyne, who was still in a daze, was also pulled into the captain's cabin by the guards.

   "My lord, what should we do now? Should we continue to attack?" The first officer shook Horace's body, trying to wake him up.

"Of course we must attack!" Horace yelled reflexively, "We are the Arbor Island Fleet! We are invincible in the sea and have no opponents! Do you want to admit defeat to the Stormlanders? Pass my order! Go forward at full speed! Sink them!"

  This impassioned declaration did not receive an enthusiastic response.

  Horace looked around and saw panicked faces.

   "What? Are you scared?" He asked viciously.

   "Of course not." The chief mate said, "It's just... what kind of weapon did the Stormlanders use? Can they throw so many iron balls?"

   "It's nothing more than a trebuchet or something. There's nothing to be afraid of." Horace said, "You saw it just now, the power is actually just... average..."

   Speaking of this, Horace was also a little guilty.

  What kind of trebuchet can throw such a heavy solid iron ball so far?

  Moreover, the trebuchet is heavy and takes up a lot of space, and it is impossible to load so many on the deck.

   But he knew that he had to give an explanation at this time, otherwise it would only be worse to let the people below think wildly, and he must not expose his weakness, otherwise the morale of the fleet would be over.

"As you have seen just now, even if those iron **** hit a few hundred, it may not sink our large warship, so we can completely stare at the enemy's attack and rush towards them at full speed, knock them over with a ram, or engage in a boarding battle , this is the fighting method we are most familiar with, victory must belong to Qingting Island!"

   "Victory must belong to Qingting Island!" Finally someone responded this time.

  The herald also conveyed Sir Horace's order.

   woo woo woo —

  The sound of the horn, which symbolized the order to attack, echoed over the Qingting Island fleet, followed by the sound of rumbling drums.

  The oarsmen also took their positions again, paddling the wooden paddles following the rhythm of the drums.

  The huge fleet headed by the Purple Grape started again, splitting the huge waves and moving forward.

  Boom boom boom—

   Another round of bombardment, iron **** crashing down like a rainstorm.

  Based on the experience of the previous two times, the people in Hewan didn't panic much. The drums kept beating, and the wooden pulp flew up and down, slapping the water surface, and kept moving forward at full speed.

   "My lord, the Haihua is leaking!"

  Hearing the chief mate's reminder, Sir Horace immediately looked to his right wing, and sure enough, he saw the scarred Haihua stopped, and the semaphore officer on the deck waved the red flag vigorously.

   "The Qingteng and Glory are also dead." Someone reminded again.

   "Go ahead!" Horace swung his arm vigorously, as if to cut off all hesitation and fear.

"yes."

  The captain's cabin fell into an oppressive silence.

   Looking at the enemy ships getting closer, someone suddenly suggested:

   "My lord, at this distance, we can use the scorpion crossbow to fight back."

  In order to deal with Caesar's giant dragon, each battleship of the Qingting Island Fleet specially installed a large scorpion crossbow on the bow and stern of the ship. It was planned to fire a hundred crossbows at once to complete a dragon slaying feat.

   Unexpectedly, before encountering the giant dragon, he encountered such a weird warship first.

  To be honest, shooting a battleship with a scorpion crossbow is like shooting a giant elephant with a bow and arrow. It cannot be said that it is completely useless, but don't expect to win by relying on this.

   "Okay! Immediately use the ballista to fight back!" Horace still gave the order to shoot.

   Otherwise, being passively beaten all the time will cause a great blow to morale.

  The order was quickly conveyed, and hundreds of scorpion crossbows adjusted their angles and started shooting.

   Whoosh whoosh—

  Hundreds of crossbow arrows shot out from the Qingting Island fleet formation, like hissing poisonous snakes.

  A six-foot-long crossbow bolt sank deeply into the ship's side of the Storm's flagship Caesar's Hammer. The huge force collapsed a large part of the deck, and the arrow tail trembled non-stop under the effect of the remaining force.

  Lucas turned a blind eye to these crossbow arrows, even if the arrow just missed him by half a yard.

  He looked at the enemy ships getting closer and calmly ordered:

   "Change the explosive bomb!"

  (end of this chapter)