Since he knew that this was a trap, no matter how sweet the bait was, it could not affect Van Basten's decision. He ordered all ships to leave the merchant ship immediately and launch a counterattack, and also sent arson ships, the kind that both were.

But they came easily, how could the hunters easily allow them to escape from the net? Just as the pirate Gott encountered, these merchant ships tore open the masks of kindness, revealing the cannons hidden in the cargo, and lifting the disguise on the muzzle of the ship. "These despicable Frenchmen!" Van Basten heard his patrol, the officer in charge of managing the gunners, and he thought so, but the worst problem arose. Except for the "William the Silent", most of the Dutch ships did not have enough manpower.

When we read the information at that time, we will see a very interesting data, that is, a cannon requires twelve people.

This is really confusing, but if you look closely, you will know that among the twelve people, only two people who actually carry out artillery firing, one person fills, one person fires, and the other ten people? They are to return the artillery to their original position. Unlike artillery on land, the artillery in the cabin needs enough distance to ensure that it can remove the recoil after it is fired, because it is absolutely impossible for the vessel to allow the artillery to pour on the deck - that will cause the deck to crack.

So before the "barrel retracted gun barrel" and other stabilization devices were invented, the cabin of the artillery would leave a long distance for the artillery to slide backwards to offset the recoil. Then, if it was to continue firing, someone would push them back to their original position. For such a heavy artillery, no one would want to push it back to its original position.

However, the load capacity of the ship will also be limited to the number of crew members. No matter how generous the captain is, it is impossible for a group of sailors to push artillery. Therefore, when the unarmed merchant ship begins to lose its ability to resist and can only wait for the ravage, there are not many Dutch crew members left in the ship, and less than one-tenth of the crew members who board the merchant ship can escape.

They could only struggle to get rid of the springboard and drive the ship, but it was completely impossible to launch a counterattack as Van Basten expected!

Van Basten commanded the "William the Silent" to fight those new armed merchant ships, while raising the agreed red and white rose flag, which means they need the support of the British, but the support has not come for a long time. "They can't come, sir, look!" The first mate ran hurriedly and said, "Look, those armed merchant ships... are also ironclad ships!"

What is ridiculous is that after the three originally arrogant iron-clad ships faced the same iron-clad ships, they actually raised the red, white and blue flags - the flags belonging to the Orange family, and asked the Dutch for help.

There seemed to be only one way left for Van Basten. No, not surrender, but breakout. He ordered all the arson ships to be released - without getting close to the enemy ships, just pushing in that direction. He and William the Silent, and several other ships with less severe losses remained behind and the other ships quickly retreated to the Atlantic Ocean.

"Don't you go to Portsmouth?" The first mate knew that he should not question the captain's decision, but it was obvious that Portsmouth was the most stable haven recently - it was the base and port of the Royal Navy, and there were also fleets stationed there.

"Toward the Atlantic Ocean." Van Basten said firmly.

His decision was correct, because in just one hour, Jean Barr's ironclad ship and two first-class battleships arrived from the Bay of St. Malo and joined the ranks of killing. The Dutch ships finally fled only one, and the other six were intercepted in the English Channel (Lamanche Strait). One of them exploded because they were hit by the gunpowder compartment and eventually sank. Van Basten was forced to surrender. He and the captains of the other five ships were "invited" to the French ironclad ship.

It was so close to the ironclad ship I had always dreamed of, but under such circumstances, Van Basten couldn't help but feel mixed feelings. They were temporarily placed in the cabin of the stern building, from which you can see the sky and the sea with the ironclad ships of the British. After the battle with the Dutch, Jean Barr did not hesitate to join the encirclement and suppression of the British.

"I hope Joseph is not too angry." Jean Barr murmured.

———————

Joseph Bourbon, a young man who may have passed his father in the future and obtained all his grandfather's inheritance (including the king's trust and connections). When he was studying in the Military Academy, he studied under the Duke of Luxembourg. People thought that he would start his military career from the king's land army, but he did not expect that the first battle of his life would actually be carried out on the sea.

This is because the king did not have enough generals on the sea. Joseph's grandfather, Duke Vandome, was an admiral of France. Although his father was too, the gentleman had no achievements. The gray-haired Duke Vandome, who defeated a Spanish fleet in 55 years. The Spanish fleet in 55 years cannot be said to be at its peak, at least it retains a brilliant afterglow. It is no wonder that Bishop Richelieu finally reached a reconciliation with the rebel.

Under the eyes of Duke Vandom, the young Joseph was actually not so unfamiliar with naval wars. When he quelled those small rebellions for the Sun King, he was also tempered with Jean Barr, but this time - it was impossible to say that he was not nervous: "I really don't know how His Majesty the King would like to say this..." He took a deep breath: "Absurd idea."

No matter how you say it, he also had 120,000 enthusiasm and expectations. If they won this battle, then the bone-bearing gangrene in Britain could not recur for fifty or even a hundred years, but if it could not... this war on inheriting the throne might be another hundred years of war.

When his Majesty was chatting with them, he mentioned that if possible, he hoped that such a war could be ended as soon as possible. Wars were never a good thing. Even if it was profitable, it would be able to torture a country or multiple countries to the point of dying during this period. The sooner the victory and the result was achieved, it would be the most powerful for the entire Europa - perhaps this is why His Majesty passed this proposal.

Jean Barr was worried about whether Joseph, who was on the ironclad ship facing the USS Charles I, would be angry at his intervention in his combat area? To be honest, no. After all, what they are seeking now is not simply to destroy this mixed fleet, but to-

To drive them away.

Cunningham lost his original calmness.

Why did Charles II and Leopold I go crazy and have to build iron armored ships even if they are in debt? There is only one reason. When facing the increasingly powerful artillery, wooden ships, whether they are third-level, second-level or first-level battleships, have increasingly lost their original advantages. Only ships covered with iron armor can withstand the bombardment of artillery. His initial confidence also comes from this. After all, the "Charles I" is also a giant covered with six-inch iron plates. They bombard each other, but there is no result for a few hours - if the shells were not exhausted and the barrels did not explode before this.

But the French shells were loading shells.

Since the existence of gunpowder and shells, there has been some attempt to merge the two, but there is only one problem, that is, the detonation of gunpowder. We can see in the movie how the gunner held the fuse hissing round shell, stuffed it into the barrel, and then fired it. However, there is a problem with such shells, that is, the problem of early explosions or delayed explosions from time to time.

Early explosion will destroy the artillery and gunners, delayed explosion, especially at sea, which is equivalent to dropping a solid stone bomb. But I don’t know how the French did it. They successfully solved the problem of "trust tubes". It can be guessed that those "trust tubes" rely on friction caused by collisions, or some other method to explode, because there are no shells, and they did not explode in the air.

The efficacy of the charge shells and solid shells is completely different. The armor hit by the former will be deformed and raised like fish scales. If it is concentratedly bombarded, the wooden boards below will even be exposed, while the latter will be just a few pits. The threat posed by the French ironclad ships is much greater than that of the "Charles I".

After several heavy blows in a row, especially after a piece of the armor plate outside the boiler compartment suddenly fell, "Let's go to Portsmouth!" Cunningham said gritting his teeth.

Although most of the Portsmouth fleets were loaded shells, it was a fleet of ironclad ships with a total of twelve ironclad ships, and the French had only five ironclad ships, and they had the advantage.

If you look down from the sky to the sea, you can see a scene like a group of killer whales hunting fish. After throwing the Dutch and pirates, the four British ironclad ships sailed towards the Isle of Wight in a mess, followed by the French ironclad ships and fleets. At that time, a seemingly loose but actually tight encirclement - the French ironclad ships were dominant in speed as Cunningham said. They controlled the situation steadily. When they were about twenty nautical miles away from Portsmouth, the net tightened again, surrounding Cunningham's fleet tightened again.

Cunningham had sent a speedboat to Portsmouth for assistance. At this time, the chief of Portsmouth was Admiral Sanwich, the British Admiral. He was old but experienced. However, because of his harmonious relationship with the Duke of York, he was not favored by Charles II. If it were not for the war with the French, he might have continued to retire in the countryside. He told him that he would rather retire. It was really uncomfortable to be sandwiched between the duke and the king. He was also sixty-five years old this year, and he should be at the age of sitting by the river fishing and dazed.

When the attendant came panting, the old man was about to have late breakfast. When he heard this, he lost his appetite. He threw the fork on the plate and made a crisp collision sound. He pulled his bedclothes away. The attendant immediately came up to help him change into his formal clothes. In this short process, the general kept staring at the chart on the wall, and even though Cunningham's messenger kept talking, he seemed to have not heard it.

As he left the room, he said to his deputy beside him: "Let all ships be equipped with the 'White Queen'."

———————

When he was about to see Portsmouth, Cunningham felt something was wrong. But at that time he didn't know what to do, so he could only hide his anxiety with anger - what exactly were they going to do? Had they achieved...the goal? He wanted to drive the ship to escape, or hit the French ship, but their mobility was completely incomparable to the French ships. After several conflicts, they were a little further away from Portsmouth. At this time, black smoke rose from the port and his rescuers came.

Cunningham didn't feel at all relieved.

The previous heartbeat appeared again on him. He stood in the forecastle, looking at the French who surrounded them like a cat playing with mice. If in this era, advanced detection equipment had been available, he could see his four ironclad ships being dragged to the south of the strait, which was close to the French territorial waters. However, at this time, the sea combat had to rely on telescopes, gazebos and human eyes, and he only knew that they were away from the coast.

But for the French fleet, this was normal. They made a gesture and increased their firepower, as if they wanted to capture or sink the four ironclad ships before the arrival of Portsmouth's fleet.

Admiral Sanwich saw through the French conspiracy with great sharpness, "a trap, a trap." He said, but he had to go into the trap as they wished, because these were four ironclad ships, one-sixth of the British Navy's ironclad fleet, if they suffered losses, Charles II would definitely send him to the guillotine, and his second son in the army and his eldest son in parliament would be affected by this.

Since Charles II had an heir, his temperament became more and more bizarre, and because of the previous Great Cleanup, as well as the Guards and Standing Army he had formed himself, he could barely sit on that throne-but his supporters had begun to be less than his opponents, so it was not so strange that the king could not hold a grain of sand in his eyes... But as an elder, General Sanwich had to say that Charles II might be a good king, as long as he was not too eager to compete with Louis XIV of France.

Charles II's knot may have been there before Louis XIV took power, but when he was in exile for several years, Louis XIV was like a puppet, and he could barely endure it. However, once Louis XIV took power, it flew straight to an untouchable altitude like a lion with wings, which made everyone look up to it. This made Charles II feel a little uncomfortable. Although they were different in age, when people mentioned the kings, Leopold I, Louis XIV and Charles II were often talked about.
Chapter completed!