Although Wallace was the owner of the Scottish ship, since the family took the right team in 1485, Wallace, who was only 19 years old, entered the English Navy. Although he usually traveled to transport and entered the naval sequence during wartime, over 20 years, Sir Wallace, who was already 39 years old, was also very familiar with naval warfare.
The French naval battle idea is to collide head-on by hard bridges and hard horses, which is completely a sea version of knights' charge. But the problem is that the knights on land can attack the enemy's formation faster than infantry. But at sea, your ship is not faster than others. How can you ensure that you will definitely hit the enemy ship?
The English were much more experienced. Under Wallace's command, 54 large English ships scattered. Moreover, they all rushed to the west first, instead of facing the French fleet in the south...
Why is this? Because the British want to "snatch the wind"...
The so-called "strong wind" means to seize the upper hand. Warships in this era are all sailboats, mainly relying on wind to drive ships. When the wind is on the wind, the speed will naturally be faster.
At the same time, after occupying the upper vent, the sailboat can not only move faster, but also be beneficial to shooting. Of course, the so-called shooting at this time does not refer to the shooting of artillery, but to the shooting of bows and arrows. The flying speed of bows and arrows is slow and is more affected by the wind. Therefore, seizing the upper vent is very beneficial to long-range attacks on the enemy.
The 54 main warships, under the attention of the French, first turned to the west collectively, and then rushed to the southeast with the west wind...
"Not good, transport fleet!"
Valgery, the French commander-in-chief of the French army, who originally commanded more than 100 main warships and wanted to confront the British fleet head-on, was shocked when he saw the direction of the main warships in England. Because the direction of the main warships in England happened to be the most densely packed French medium-sized transport ships... There, those Kirk sailing ships were loaded with war horses, artillery and other supplies, which was very important...
So Count Valgery ordered loudly:
"Turn left rudder! Backward! The back team turns into front team! Be sure to intercept the English pirates!"
Then, the messengers on the ship shouted loudly, singing folk songs to convey the orders of Count Valjeri...
After a while the order was passed to the last French warship. Then the French warship formation began to turn clumsily backwards and sail southward, intending to stop the British warships rushing towards the transport fleet.
At this time, some people in the transport fleet were also panicked. Seeing the main force of British warships rushing towards the transport fleet cluster, the people on the French transport ship were a little panicked. However, in the vast sea, they dared not run around. After all, this place is too far from the French mainland. Even if they want to retreat and escape, it is too late.
The front was closer to the English land, but Sir Wallace placed all the remaining forty small and medium-sized warships in the northeast direction and stared at the transport ships. If any ship dared to force its way to the English land, they would go up and fight...
These transport ships lacked protection for guards because the French placed most of the soldiers on the 100 warships. Those transport ships lacked combat power. Therefore, even if they encountered small and medium-sized English warships, these transport ships might not be able to fight.
The French commander General Valgery seemed to have thought of this, so he divided 20 warships to attack the small and medium-sized warship formation in England to open a passage. After all, the main purpose of the French was to cross the sea for the fleet, rather than to fight sea battles.
Unfortunately, those small and medium-sized English warships were all light and flexible boats. They were not at all anxious when facing the main French warships rushing over. Under the command of the commanders, these small and medium-sized English warships took advantage of the advantage of "small ships are easy to turn around" and circled the sea with the 20 French warships. But no matter how they went around, those small and medium-sized English warships did not give up the road to England's land. Because Sir Wallace once issued an order - a French transport ship would never be allowed to dock, otherwise the captain would deal with the military law...
As a last resort, the captains of these small and medium-sized English warships played the flexibility of small and medium-sized ships, and circled the sea with French warships, but refused to give way.
French warships also complained. Their 20 ships were all big ships of two or three hundred tons, and it was much more difficult to turn around than those English boats. Therefore, playing around with English boats is not what they are good at. Therefore, no matter how they rush, they can't catch those English boats and cannot solve their opponents by plating battles.
In desperation, the French captains had to order the crossbowmen on the ship to use crossbows to shoot the English sailors on the English boats that were circled around.
But when sailing at sea, the stability of the ship was too poor. The French crossbowmen clearly aimed at the Englishmen on the small English boat passing by, but as the hull swayed left and right, they all shot the ashes...
When it comes to long-range attacks, who have the English people ever been afraid of? So, the sailors who were good at archery on the English warships took out the English longbows and arrows and began to fight back...
It is very difficult to accurately aim the enemy and shoot on a boat that is bumpy left and right. Therefore, the English are very pragmatic and do not aim accurately, but follow the feeling. Anyway, just shoot arrows on the deck of the French warship, and there is no question of aiming or not. The only requirement is to be fast to form a dense rain of arrows...
This move really worked. Compared with the French crossbowman's flat shooting aiming, this kind of rapid shooting with a shooting nature is not high, but it is better than the dense rain of arrows. The French warships are already crowded on the deck. Faced with the dense rain of arrows, except for the knights in plate armor, those sailors who are not plate armor were affected...
"Ah, I'm hit by an arrow!" A sailor who was controlling the sail was unfortunately shot by the English sailor's arrows and fell off the mast.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! The French commander quickly sent soldiers to rescue him, but more than one or two sailors were shot. Many sailors and French soldiers who were not wearing full set of plate armor were all affected. The difference is that what part of the body was shot into the arrow...
If the key part is shot, it will be done. If the general part is shot, pull out the arrow and bandage it, it may be cured. However, with the treatment level of the French army in this era, even the fabric for bandaging the wounds for soldiers was black and pulled casually. Whether the person who was shot in the arrow survived in the end depends on the will of God...
There are also unlucky men in England who were caught by the French crossbow arrows. After all, although the French army is not very good at using crossbow arrows on ships, they are lucky and can always catch a unlucky man. But in general, the British army suffered much less casualties than the French...
The boat here is entangled with the French warships, and the main warships there are also not vague...
When the 80 main ships of the French fleet stood in front of the French transport fleet, under the command of Sir Wallace, the British army suddenly turned the rudder and no longer attacked the French transport fleet head-on, but turned to the northeast...
In fact, this was just a means for Wallace to avoid the main force of the French fleet, but French commander Valgery was frightened. Because, in the northeast, there were 20 French warships fighting against English boats...
So General Valgery immediately lowered the speedboat from the ship and asked them to rush to the northeast, allowing the 20 French warships to retreat, so as not to be surrounded and annihilated by the 54 major warships of the British army.
But in fact, Sir Wallace had no intention of besieging the 20 French warships that left their own formation. When he "passed by" the French main fleet, tens of thousands of arrows were fired on the side of the British main warship, and sneaked out a wave of French troops, taking away many French sailors and soldiers.
But then, when he saw that the French warship was about to rush up to take the boarding battle, Wallace ran away again with 54 British main warships...
Chapter completed!