"It's almost night. I'll send a last signal to let the merchant ship owners hide in the cabin. The musket team and gunners are on the deck to watch, hurry up." Zhao Tianming's lucky ship was at the forefront, and was sending a signal to the Fu ship behind him with a flag.

"Boss Zhao, hurry up and hide in the cabin."

"If the pirate ship came over in the middle of the night, it would be unsafe on the boat building." A long-distance businessman advised him when he saw Zhao Tianming staying on the boat building.

"This pirate will most likely be touched in the middle of the night. I am the merchant ship owner, and I have to be responsible for the merchant fleet." Zhao Tianming shook his head. As the commander of the far sea, he could not be scared by mere pirates.

At night, the fleet is brightly lit, otherwise it would be easy to bump into each other if it was pitch black.

But now, the merchant ships with whale oil lamps in the dark night are particularly eye-catching.

You can even see the clusters of lights by counting miles away.

I don’t know whether it was luck or misfortune, but the pirate fleet led by Aha saw the looming light spots in the distance in the second half of the night.

But Aha, who was cautious, did not choose to attack suddenly. After all, it was dark. Who knew whether that merchant fleet was a Mingren's merchant fleet?

If it is the Spanish or East India fleet, it will be defeated.

The various types of artillery on the ship are enough to make Aha drink a pot.

Therefore, Aha, who was cautious, followed the rear of the fleet until dawn. After seeing the four-hais commercial flag of the merchant fleet, he allowed the pirate ship to surround him.

In the second half of the night, the Far Sea Merchant fleet naturally discovered the pirate.

The muskets and cannons on various merchant ships were also on standby, waiting for the pirates.

The Ming court intended to build Sihai into an armed merchant fleet, but was still worried about Sihai merchants, so they put strict restrictions on the number of artillery and the number of artillery sold.

At this time, each of the six Fu ships of the Yuanhai Merchant Vessel carried three three-pound Flang machine cannons and two six-pound stone cannons. Zhao Tianming's main ship had the best military equipment, with ten large and small guns, which was twice the number of guns from other merchant ships.

There were also ten teams of muskets on each merchant ship, as well as gunners and sailors holding swords and shields.

Most of the pirate ships under Aha were fast ships, and only five or six sailing ships were sailing ships. At this time, it was like a group of sharks sniffing the smell of blood quickly culled towards the far-sea merchant fleet.

The last lucky ship was soon caught up by the Pirate Clippers.

Fortunately, these pirates were too greedy and wanted to eat all six merchant ships in one breath.

Therefore, the pirate clutch that rushed over first chased towards the far-sea merchant ship further away and actually let the merchant ship go.

"Nimuqi, come so close, will you die long ago?" Seeing the pirate's greedy and arrogant behavior, the fire gun on the blessed ship was furious and immediately ordered the Fran aircraft on the ship to open fire.

"Wait, there are too many pirate ships. Since they want to eat our six merchant ships in one go, they can just disperse their troops and warships." The cannon leader shook his head and stopped the gunfire.

Just as the pirate Clippers were chasing the ship further ahead, Aha was looking at it with a proud look on his face.

"Aha, I didn't expect that your efficiency was so high, but I found the Chinese merchant fleet in one night." Behind Aha, an Espanyol looked at the pirate ship in front of me with great satisfaction.

"That's also thank you Spanish businessmen who stayed in Batavia." Aha looked at the Spaniards behind him with pride.

"After that being said, shouldn't Governor Juan in Manila do anything if these damn Ming people occupy the northern part of Luzon?"

"That's right, just a group of officials and masters can't do anything except hide in Manila to count the gold and silver rounds." Aha sneered.

"Do you think our Manila authorities have done nothing?" The Spanish businessman was furious after hearing this.

"The Manila authorities have sent fleets to Spain to ask His Majesty the King to send troops to Luzon." The Spanish businessman glanced at Aha who was a little domineering.

"In the near future, the invincible Spanish Navy will be able to come to Nanyang. At that time, the Luzon Ming court and the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce will all be wiped out if they dare to be enemies with Spain."

Aha, who was a little impatient to hear, waved his hand.

"I don't care whether you Manila can suppress the Ming people on Luzon."

"I want all the goods on the six lucky ships, silver." Aha pointed to the six merchant ships on the sea in the distance and said with a smile.

Suddenly, a water column was raised from the sea at his fingers, and then a cannon sounded.

A wisp of white smoke rose above the fleet in the distance, and Aha's face suddenly stopped.

"Damn, these Chinese merchants have artillery like this?"

Not to mention Aha, even the pirates on the pirate ship cruising near the far-sea merchant fleet were shocked by the gun.

"Damn it, how could there be artillery on these Chinese merchants' merchant ships?" A pirate who looked like a native of Southeast Asia looked at the lucky ship in front of him with a confused look on his face.

His pirate ship was not far from the Chinese Shang Fu Ship. When he was in Nanyang before, he had never seen a Chinese Shang ship carrying cannons. It would be amazing to be able to carry one or two muskets.

But the waves of white smoke rising from the huge lucky boat in front of him made his face twitch.

"Bang bang bang."

Suddenly, several grape bombs flew across the sea and rushed over.

Hundreds of lead bullets formed a barrage, directly covering the sea area.

"Ah!" Screams came one after another.

The unexpected Pirate Clippers were hit by dozens of lead bullets, and even the ship was hit by the lead bullets and the wood chips were splashed.

Grape bombs are the most common artillery shells in the Western Navy during this period of time.

It is different from the flowering bullets used by the Army.

Small lead bullets are packed into bundles and wrapped in a thin layer of lead shells.

Because it looks very much like a large bunch of grapes, it is named Grape Bull.

This thing is the same as the flowering bullet, with a very close range, but it can form shotguns at close range and kill large numbers of close range enemies.

The Chinese merchant fleet was equipped with artillery to resist the plunder of pirates, and grape bombs were quite suitable for the merchant fleet.

With the sound of this cannon, several artillery on the Fu Ship opened fire, and the pirate Clippers cruising beside them were caught off guard.

The Pirate Clippers were originally paddled by pirates, but they were killed and injured by grape bombs, and the speed of the ship dropped directly.

Looking at the scene in front of him, Aha's face turned ashen.

"You didn't tell me that these Chinese merchant ships would carry artillery." Aha looked at the Spanish merchant in front of him fiercely.

"Are you sure this is not a Mingren's naval warship, so how could there be such accurate artillery fire?"

Aha and several pirate leaders who were watching the battle outside naturally saw something was wrong.

The pirates did not expect that the merchant fleet would actually be equipped with artillery, and the artillery's accuracy was too accurate.

A round of artillery fired down, and three pirate clutches were hit by shells.
Chapter completed!