At this time, San Miguel Island had not developed at a high level, and there was only a port city in Ponta del Garda, located at the southwestern end of the island. Although San Miguel Island is the largest island in the Azores and is nearly twice the size of Tesera Island, the third largest island, it is a volcanic island with many earthquakes and small-scale volcanic eruptions. In addition, the island's terrain is rugged and the proportion of plains is not high. Therefore, the Portuguese focused on the development of Tesera Island.
But no matter what, the island is still very valuable for development. After all, there are still many places to be used on the 759 square kilometers of island. For example, planting sugar cane, grapes, etc., can also grazing cattle and sheep.
For the Portuguese native nobles, although the earthquake on San Miguel and the eruption of two volcanoes are terrible, the fertile soil produced by the eruption is also excellent farmland. Therefore, some Portuguese nobles recruited some farmers on the island to plant sugarcane and grapes here to supply sugar and wine to the local area. Anyway, even if the San Miguel earthquake or the volcano erupts, only the subordinates and farmers will die, not the nobles themselves. Perhaps, those nobles who own large tracts of land on San Miguel will never set foot on this island for the rest of their lives...
But it is undeniable that because of the high sugar price and the importance of wine in Europe, this island is still very valuable. The only port on the island, the port of Punta del Garda, is also an important export port for sugar and wine. It is related to the interests of many nobles, and Portugal cannot give up here.
When six British Kirk sailing boats arrived at the port of Punta del Garda, the locals were not aware of the danger. After all, it was rare for an island in the Atlantic Ocean far from the mainland of Europe to arrive with foreign ships.
But when six British Kirk sailboats raised the pirate flag, the port of Punta Delgada suddenly became in chaos...
The fishermen and sailors at the port abandoned their boats and landed on the shore, hid in the city of Punta del Garda, trembling in the city walls. This small island town is not big, but it is still solid. At this time, due to the threat of pirates, more than 2,000 residents inside and outside the city hid, making the city particularly crowded.
With the terrified eyes of the residents in the city, more than 300 "pirates" were sent on the six ships to land on the shore and loot all merchant ships and fishing boats outside the city, and looted several villages outside the city.
However, for some reason, those "pirates" did not destroy the ships on the dock...
After looting several villages near the port of Punta del Garda, the pirates began to siege the city of Punta del Garda. However, the pirates did not attack the city, but chose to use the 6-pound cannons on the bow of the ship to slam the gate of Punta del Garda. The 6 6-pound cannons on the bow of the ships all together bombarded the south gate of the port of Punta del Garda, making the south gate look a little crumbling.
At the critical moment, Feng Seka, the lord of Punta del Garda, ordered the use of bricks and stones and staff to block the gate of the south gate to prevent the enemy from breaking into the gate after the gate was bombarded.
Punta del Garda is a small town in remote areas, so the city gate naturally cannot be an iron gate, and there is no nail on the iron sheet. Therefore, the oak city gate cannot withstand the long-term bombardment of artillery.
Fortunately, the 6-pound cannon used by the pirates was not a powerful cannon, and it could not break the oak door in a short time. Therefore, before the oak city gate was smashed, the residents of the city finally blocked the city gate hole.
In the evening, the pirate fleet temporarily left the port of Punta del Garda for some reason and ran to other places to rest. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Lord of Fonseca ordered 20 sailors to go out and sneak into a 100-ton merchant ship at the port, and drove the ship. He left the port of Punta del Garda at night and went to Hero Port on Texera Island for help.
They didn't know that in a hidden place outside the city of Punta del Garda, two Beihai spies responsible for monitoring the movements of the city put down their telescopes, smiled and high-fives, and said:
"It's done!"
In the next few days, six "pirate ships" shot the south gate of Punta del Garda City step by step, and seemed to be in a hurry at all.
...
Three days later, Rui Silva, the Governor of Azores, received a letter of distress from San Miguel, about 300 kilometers away...
"What? San Miguel Island was attacked? English pirates?" Rui Silva was a little confused.
"Is it a pirate in England?" Rui Silva asked in disbelief.
"Confirm! Governor, our Lord Fonseca said that those ships were English sailboats, and their attacking orders were also in English!" said the sailor who came to report the message.
"Why did the English pirates come here to make trouble? Haven't they always attacked the French?" Rui Silva couldn't understand.
In fact, if it were the famous generals who were deeply influenced by strategies in ancient China, they would probably be able to guess the strategy of "trancing the tiger away from the mountain". After all, this kind of thing was very common in the ancient Chinese wars.
However, this is ancient Europe, and strategies are not popular. Rui Silva was not a very smart person, so he didn't see the trick.
He dared not not rescue the island of San Miguel. You should know that there are many manors of the powerful Portuguese nobles, and even several royal manors.
He could not afford to offend any of these big guys. If he didn't rescue him, he would be the governor. Therefore, he had to decide to send warships to rescue him.
"By the way, how strong are those pirates, such as firepower?" Before the rescue, Rui Silva asked about the strength of the "pirates".
The sailor who came to report the news thought for a while and said:
"There were more than 300 pirates who came to the shore to loot the village, and there were probably hundreds of people on the ship. As for the firepower, they used 6 cannons to attack the city. However, the city lord said that each of them should have three cannons on each ship, which were arranged at the bow and stern..."
"More than four hundred people...hiss--" Rui Silva took a breath after hearing this.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! You should know that the seven warships under him, Governor Azore, only have 420 sailors. If he simply fights on the shore, Rui Silva would not be confident that he could beat those pirates. You should know that England wants to have a tradition of pirates, and the ability to fight on the shore is much better than ordinary sailors.
Although Portugal is a maritime power, he has never done much with pirates. The Portuguese sailors mainly attacked the west coast of Africa, mainly engaged in trade and landing to attack black villages, and were really not good at platoon battles. They didn't want the English to attack French and French ships all day long, and they were familiar with the battles.
Fortunately, the Portuguese also knew their weaknesses, so they later focused on developing the naval battle mode of artillery bombardment and achieved success. A few years ago, the Spanish were the main force, but it was also a great success in the naval battle of artillery.
Although the Azore fleet only has 7 small warships, each ship has at least seven or eight artillery pieces. In terms of vitality, it is definitely stronger than the pirates.
To be on the safe side, Rui Silva decided to send 6 warships to fight, leaving only one warship to protect Hero Port...
This news was discovered by the spy sent by the North Sea Kingdom in the Azores. Then, it was transmitted overnight to four warships two hundred kilometers north of Tsera Island...
"It's hard to deal with this..." Teral, the commander of the four warships, scratched his head. The four warships he brought were also modified British Kirk sailboats, with the total number of artillery on the four ships being only 12. And the Portuguese warship left behind in the Port of Heroes, the number of artillery on the ship was 10...
If the two sides confront each other, they will certainly have a chance of winning, but they will definitely not have a good time. After all, the Portuguese warship with 10 artillery will definitely make them suffer.
Chapter completed!