The other pirates looked through their binoculars and found that, just as their captain had said, three ships stood side by side, and behind them were three more ships lined up in a long queue.
The pirates had never seen such a foolish tactic before. Everyone mocked the people of the Central Plains for their weak coastal defenses, saying their naval combat capabilities were comparable to those of an infant.
"That's utterly idiotic!"
"It seems that the Central Plains people's fighting strength is not only a problem, but their intelligence is also a problem!"
"My grandfather once said that the people of the Central Plains were not good at the sea but were very powerful. It seems that they were indeed not good at the sea, but they were by no means powerful!"
"A bunch of pigs! They're obviously just making themselves our targets! As expected, the Central Plains people who dealt with Scott's two ships were the last of their elite forces!"
"Quickly set sail our warships and let these Central Plains pigs learn their lesson!"
Joseph was still smiling contemptuously, and one of the pirates beside him was mocking him. Three ships had already fired the first shots.
The shells hit the first three ships, instantly igniting flames and smoke, but the ships continued to move forward.
The pirates shouted wildly as they fired their cannons furiously: "Fire!!"
The first three ships were about to sink when they got within ten meters.
"What a fragile wooden boat!!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the three ships behind him opened fire again. The three ships, positioned side by side, fired eight shells, all of which hit the ship where Joseph was. Nearby ships were also hit by several shells.
Even an iron ship, under constant bombardment from so many cannons, began to sway and rock on the sea.
Although the iron ship did not sink, the deck was filled with black smoke.
At this moment, one of the pirates coughed violently, cursing as he did so: "Damn Central Plains people, what kind of inferior cannonballs are they using?!"
"I'm choking! These Central Plains people's weapons are just shoddy stuff!"
However, with the shells continuing to be fired, only two of the ten ships remained in place to draw fire, while the other eight had already sailed to both sides to create an encirclement to surround the twenty ships.
Eight warships sped forward and quickly surrounded... ten ships?
Joseph led his men around to the back and only then did they see the cunning of the Central Plains. The Central Plains people used ten ships placed side by side to create the illusion that they could not form a formation, thus making them think that the other side was a novice.
Even Joseph, looking ahead, could see that there were ten ships, with the ships getting smaller the further away they were. And the ships at the back weren't small because they were too far away; they were genuinely small boats.
The people from the Central Plains used this visual illusion to deceive his eyes. Joseph immediately regretted not taking a few more glances before issuing the order.
Now that the ships had been dispersed, he sent a pirate to the lookout tower to wave a flag and instruct the crew to slow down.
The pirate had just climbed onto the lookout tower when a cannon suddenly fired, blowing him and his flag into pieces.
Just then, the four ships on the left circled around to the back of the wooden boat. As they approached, they discovered there weren't many people on board, only a dozen or so gunners. Behind them were small boats of varying sizes, getting smaller as they went further back.
Until the next ten ships officially opened fire on them with thirty cannons per minute.
Boom boom boom!!!
Boom boom boom!!!
Boom! Boom! Boom! — The shells rained down relentlessly on the four ships in an orderly fashion.
Even if the iron sheet couldn't be destroyed, the same crater was hit by cannonballs from different artillery paths hitting the same spot. As the four pirate warships were shrouded in black mist, flames continuously burned within the black mist. The pirates on the deck suddenly went black, their bodies caught fire, and they screamed as they fell into the sea.
With a barrage of cannonballs, they bombarded four iron ships, forcing them to fire indiscriminately, with one shot even hitting their own ship. In an instant, they sank one of the pirate ships.
The four pirate ships were repeatedly hit by the ten ships behind Xie Lanzhi, taking countless hits until the entire ship was riddled with 1,500 rounds. The cannons became too hot to use.
The four pirate ships were riddled with shell craters, beyond recognition, and even their cannons were destroyed. The thick smoke from the cannonballs directly choked the three thousand pirates to death.
The four pirate ships were no longer able to fight back.
Joseph and the remaining six ships were immediately taken aback, but then the contempt in their eyes vanished, and they responded seriously.
Joseph continued to bombard the large ships, sinking ten ships in an instant. The ships that followed, having finished firing their cannons, were also destroyed.
Only the gunners' bodies and the wreckage of the ship remained floating at sea.
"Damn those Central Plains people! It was my carelessness!" Joseph looked at the four ships on his left with a pained expression. People were constantly climbing off the ships and falling into the sea. He wondered what deadly contaminants were mixed in with the Central Plains people's cannonballs.
Actually, it was mixed with iron and lead ash left over from the Ministry of Works' experiments. Occasionally, one shell would contain only semi-finished iron and lead ash, which is iron filings.
Inhaling iron filings can cause severe coughing. In severe cases, it can lead to massive pulmonary hemorrhage, a potentially fatal injury.
No matter how advanced the pirate ships were, gas masks and dust masks had not yet been invented at that time.
Now all twenty wooden boats are gone.
Joseph breathed a sigh of relief, but a sense of fear slowly grew in his heart. He no longer dared to underestimate the people of the Central Plains. At least, he dared not underestimate them in his heart.
Although they didn't show it on their faces, the other pirates, seeing so many people die, weren't blind and naturally knew how many of their men had been killed by the Central Plains people.
The remaining pirate ships dared not advance rashly.
"Retreat to the islands in the delta and immediately set up a defensive formation!" Joseph proceeded cautiously.
No sooner had he finished speaking than small boats, densely packed together, surged forth from the Deer Canal once more, each carrying a cannon like worker bees. A total of two hundred and eighty cannons.
Moreover, among these cannons were twenty long-range cannons. They fired shells spewing iron filings at the remaining six ships from two kilometers away.
The two sides were exchanging fire, and it was a matter of who would die first. However, the small boats were too far apart, and some of them even circled around the six boats for two kilometers, so that they would be hit by a single bomb.
Joseph simply lined up six ships together, positioning them in four directions for defense, and then opened fire. This tactic was undeniably effective, instantly blocking the wooden ships that surrounded them from all sides.
Those wooden boats were also very strange; they had no steam, yet they moved so fast on the sea!
The warships' chimneys emitted a constant whistling sound, billowing black smoke, as the pirates continuously added firewood to the stoves. The six ships' gun emplacements were engaged in high-intensity combat.
The attack lasted for an hour, during which all the small boats at sea were destroyed. The densely packed cannons continued firing until the boats were sunk.
Looking at the countless shipwrecks, Joseph had managed to defeat the second wave of attacks, but his scalp was tingling and a chill ran down his spine.
He was scared.
He was inexplicably afraid!
He was afraid of this unexpected attack! Although he had the upper hand, he was terrified of such an unknown attack, because these attacks could always sink his ship somewhere.
Joseph looked at his six ships; two more had sunk. Only four remained, with only one able to watch out in each direction.
He swallowed hard, fearing another round of this kind of land reclamation-style attack.
Now he only has four ships left out of ten!
"Quickly, get on high alert! Then retreat!"
At this moment, a member of the Imperial Guard, who was lurking in the water, quietly swam away.
After the soldiers of the Imperial Guard landed, they immediately reported to Ma Hu: "General, they have indeed gathered together just as the Marshal said, with each ship facing a different direction and the ships alongside each other."
Ma Hu was instantly thrilled. He delivered his final punch: "Action!"
A thousand men went into the water, each dragging a straw cage with chains, and tied it with a cannon wrapped in iron sheets. They swam towards the remaining pirate ships. Then they tied bundle after bundle of cannons to the bottom, wheels, and hull of the ships.
One soldier even witnessed the Beijing garrison strapping at least three hundred mortars to a ship. Those three hundred mortar bundles were attached to the bottom of the ship like leeches with wire. No matter how smooth the bottom was, there was a large magnet sticking them there.
Xie Bing's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Even he himself was afraid of this fighting style.
Five hundred cannons were piled together, and then a thousand men quickly retreated. When Ma Hu sailed out a small boat, he personally aimed the Changhong cannon at the pirate ship.
The pirate ship also aimed at him. Both sides fired simultaneously.
Bang! The careless boat was blown up and sank, and he himself fell into the water.
However, a loud bang echoed from the pirate ship's side, and the shockwave from the explosion created a huge wave that blasted the four ships together, causing them to collide. Some pirates tilted inwards, while others overturned, getting stuck on another ship. One ship sailed away, and the last ship, its mast caught between two other ships, managed to stay afloat.
The ship was almost blown up.
The spray reached at least five meters. A thousand cannon shots blasted three ships to their sides, and because the four ships were so close together, they collided with each other after the explosions. The normally impregnable ships were instantly dented upon impact with ships of the same class.
One ship's deck collapsed. Another ship's bow was dented, and the last ship's mast was sandwiched between the two, with the entire weight of the ship pressing down on the other two, making it impossible for them to move.
The middle ship completely trapped the other two ships.
The pirates on the ship were all shouting for each other to turn the engine up and separate, and soon, the Jingwei Army launched a barrage of catapults.
The cannons kept falling on the ship, and the bombardment resumed.
The remaining five hundred shells bombarded the three ships, scaring the one that had escaped into abandoning the delta and leaving without a second thought.
Joseph was on that ship.
Joseph was terrified. He was breathless, almost panting, his chest heaving. He shouted to the sailors, "Run! Run! Forget about them!"
"They're beyond saving!!"
"Damn it, damn it, these people from the Central Plains are just too powerful!!"
"If I don't leave now, I'll die here! I can't die. I am Joseph Astray, the fearsome god of the West! I can't die, I must live to rebuild my army!"
Joseph was so frightened he couldn't speak coherently, and the other pirates were equally terrified, fleeing at breakneck speed, running and running. Until they encountered a ship belonging to the Anro people.
The pirates hurriedly sought help from the Anro people!
However, the sailing ship recognized the opposite vessel as a pirate ship, which was now rushing towards them in a hurry. The Anro people thought the pirates were going to rob them!
Finally, the Anro people ordered the ship's cannons to be fired!
Ten cannon shots blasted the pirate ship to smithereens.
The Anluo people originally wanted to go to the East to see the Central Plains, the land of gold, the country of silk, and the great porcelain-producing nation that their Anluo ancestors had praised for generations.
As a result, they encountered pirates.
There happened to be a man from the Central Plains on the ship. He had good eyesight and noticed that in the distance, there was thick black smoke that lingered in one corner of the sea for a long time, as if the sea had just been ravaged by war.
The man from the Central Plains couldn't help but say, "I haven't been back for many years, and my country has developed to such an extent."
Looking at the thick smoke in the distance, Anluo asked in confusion, "Li, what are you saying?"
The Central Plains man was unaware of how fierce the battle had just taken place, or how Xie Lanzhi had turned the tide of the war. He also had no idea about the state of firearms in the Central Plains. He naively believed that the people of the Central Plains were as clever as he was and would eventually invent powerful firearms.
If not, Li intends to bring powerful Anluo firearms to the Great Jin.
Li said, "That pirate ship must have been driven away by my countrymen! Look, that's the smoke and fire of war. Only when there has been a war would it be so chaotic."
Anluo looked in the direction he was pointing, and the man's expression immediately changed. He quickly ordered the helmsman, "Turn around immediately! Don't go any closer to the Central Plains, lest the people of the Central Plains mistake us for pirates!"
At this point, a crew member who had been watching the sinking ship through binoculars thought it looked familiar, and finally identified the pirate ship by the mast that was visible above the sea.
"Captain Venice, we just sank the infamous pirate ship of the Godas Legion in the Western Ocean!"