"We can't continue the fight here." Karl pulled out his telescope and watched the formation carefully. In this round of fighting, the Zheng family suffered a loss. The losses were mainly due to shortcomings in three aspects.

One is the cannon, the iron-moulded cannon is still inferior to the carefully built cannon, and the second is the gunners. These Dutch people came from tens of thousands of miles away, and the manpower on the ship are all elite troops.

Especially the gunner.

However, the Zheng family's gunners had not experienced this battle, so they inevitably lacked experience.

The third one is the boat.

Already said this before.

During a war, a slight difference would be a problem, let alone a difference of three points. In this case, the problem is whether the Zheng family will suffer a loss during the war.

If this place was in a wide ocean, Karl would definitely maintain his formation, retreat back, keep a distance from the Zheng family, and then use artillery fire to focus on each ship and paralyze them one by one.

In this era, it is very difficult to sink a ship. Firstly, there is a problem with the power of artillery fire. Secondly, various protection measures are very strict.

Even though the Zheng family's ship is slightly less sturdy, the layers of sealed cabins can provide enough buoyancy, and experienced sailors have been repairing the ship.

It's not easy to think about it.

But it is not difficult to lose the ability to move.

It's just that the sea area is not wide, which becomes the problem.

After all, the sea area between Penghu Island and Xiyu Island is not very wide, and there is not much room for maneuver for these dozens of ships in this narrow sea area.

On the battlefield, they are the ones who suffer.

Therefore, Karl decisively ordered a retreat. It was not because he was timid, but because he wanted to choose a more suitable battlefield in the wider sea.

Zheng Chenggong understood Karl's purpose very clearly. He directly ordered three warships from the south to line up and block the way, in order to contain the Dutch in this strait.

If you look down from the sky at this moment, it looks like there are two long snakes between Penghu Island and Xiyu Island in the west. At this moment, one of them suddenly broke into pieces and wanted to separate the other one.

But I didn't want to take the other one, swinging to the east and then heading south.

Whoever wants to realize his strategic intentions will have to rely on his subordinates to see the truth.

At this time, the most intense fight was not on Zheng Chenggong's side.

In order to cover Zheng Chenggong, Liu Guoxuan rushed in front of Zheng Chenggong, almost risking his own life and rushing forward despite the artillery fire. But unfortunately, it was only Zheng Chenggong who wanted to fight. Although Carl was not afraid of Zheng Chenggong, he had no intention of fighting here for a long time. They all

retreat.

For a time, Zheng Chenggong was unable to catch up.

The most intense place is the southernmost part of this short strait.

A Zheng family warship blocked the Dutch warship tightly.

The Dutch did not want to fight in the north, but this position was a battleground for the Dutch. Therefore, the Dutch offensive was quite fierce, almost beating the sailors on this ship until they could not lift their heads.

.

The commander of this ship is named Chen Rui, and he is also a general promoted by Zheng Chenggong. He is young and has a tigerish spirit. The Chen family is also a wealthy family in the south. There are many people in Zheng Chenggong's direct army named Chen, and Chen

Rui is one of them.

At this moment, Chen Rui was facing countless artillery bombardments. There was only the roaring sound in his ears, and the harsh whistle-like sound was constantly circling.

The latter was not a sound, but the tinnitus in his ears.

Chen Rui shouted loudly, his voice was hoarse, as if he didn't know how loud he shouted, and he wanted to make his throat bleed. Only in this way can he convey his order in this chaos.

"Fire. Fire."

Amidst the roars, the Dutch also suffered a big blow. After all, the Dutch's cannonballs can kill people, and the Zheng family's cannonballs are not fireworks. The distance was a little farther before, and the gunners were inexperienced and the hit rate was not high.

Now the distance is getting closer. Some boats are even farther away, and they are only a hundred meters away from the Dutch.

A distance of more than a hundred meters is quite close. In addition, the ship is more than ten meters long and it is not a person. The target is so big that if the target is not accurate, there will be no reason to die.

Under this situation, although there are some who miss, after all, people often cannot play normally before facing death, but there are very few of them.

After all, they are the elite selected by Zheng Chenggong from the entire Zheng family, and will be Zheng Zhongjian's team in the future.

As a result, the casualties between each other greatly increased. This kind of fighting style, which was almost like lining up to shoot, was a test of willpower.

Liu Guoxuan only felt a heat on his face, and when he touched it with his hand, there was blood. He didn't know what kind of debris just flew by and flew out after wiping his face.

But he didn't really care.

Because at this time, on the battlefield, only blood is the main color, gun smoke is the real flavor, and the rest is waiting for a while.

Not only did the gunners at the Zheng family suffer heavy casualties, but he also found that the Dutch on the opposite side also had a problem with insufficient firing rate. The reason was simple.

That means the gunners suffered a lot of casualties.

"Let's see who is not afraid of death." Liu Guoxuan thought to himself. He then said loudly: "Lean over." As he said this, he took off a robe on his body. He only took a shield and a long knife. He led dozens of

A man was hiding under the side of the ship. He was holding his head tightly, and there were ropes coiled around him. One section of this rope was tied to the ship, and the other end had an iron hook, which was used for gang jumping.

.

With a sound of "Boom.", a cannonball suddenly exploded.

It hit the side of the ship and penetrated the side of the ship. Several soldiers behind this section of the side of the ship were injured or killed.

Needless to say, the one who died was not even a whole corpse. Speaking of which, there was no need to suffer. There were several injuries, some were minor injuries, and some were missing their entire thighs. The wounded man kept shouting. As for what he was shouting,

, amidst the chaos, it was impossible to hear clearly.

Liu Guoxuan listened indifferently, holding the wounded man's neck with one hand and holding the knife with the other, and shouted: "Brother, I'm sorry."

With one swing of the long knife, the aorta in his neck was severed.

Because Liu Guoxuan knew that there was no way he could be saved.

With a broken leg, in such an environment, it is usually impossible to stop the bleeding. Even if it is stopped, there is no telling how long this battle will last.

By the time I have the energy to take care of him, it will be a few hours later and there will be no way to save him.

Instead of watching him suffer from life-and-death pain, it would be better to give him a happy life.

After Liu Guoxuan finished all this, he rolled and climbed back to the side of the ship, waiting quietly to get closer.

With Liu Guoxuan's actions, the rest of the restless soldiers calmed down.

It was as if the tragedy he had witnessed had no impact at all.

A sharp whistle sounded, followed by a dense rain of bullets and a volley of muskets. Fortunately, no one raised their head, otherwise they would have been beaten into a hornet's nest.

However, Sergeant Zheng immediately returned the favor. The two sides went from artillery fire to musket fire.

It's just that the Zheng family's muskets don't seem to be as good as the opposite muskets.

This is also something that can't be helped.

There are two sources of firearms for the Zheng family. One is purchased from the West by oneself, and the other is purchased from the manufacturing bureau. However, the former was no longer feasible due to the war with the Dutch.

The reason is very simple. Even if other Westerners did not help the Dutch, their wait-and-see attitude was very clear, and they would naturally not provide firearms to the Zheng family. Moreover, the number of firearms purchased from the West has never been large. However, the number of firearms produced by the Xia Dynasty was quite large.

Large. Therefore, the Zheng family purchased a large number of firearms from the Xia Dynasty, which Zhang Xuan acquiesced to.

After all, Zhang Xuan can also get a share of the Zheng family's overseas business. However, the Xia Dynasty's firearms production volume was large, but it was not the most advanced.

Needless to say, artillery, after all, being able to produce it on a large scale is the biggest benefit. Others are less important. Quantity can be used to supplement quality.

Without this method, the artillery of the Xia Dynasty would not have improved so much in a few years, but the technology of the firecrackers lagged far behind.
Chapter completed!