Continental Warriors Yoo Ma

Opposition to the Campofregoso family in the Republic is getting louder and demanding more aggressive tactics against the undead pirates.

The Adorno family seized this opportunity and launched an attack on Governor Tommaso, and finally contributed to the "Great Voyage to Egypt", and a member of his own family served as the commander-in-chief.

If the batch of grain can be successfully transported back to Genoa, the Adorno family will gain unparalleled prestige.With the support of the citizens, Rinaldo is likely to be the next Governor of Genoa.

Or simply think bigger and launch a coup directly to drive Tommaso out of power.

East of Alexandria, on the sea outside a small coastal village named Adai Baba, the Genoese fleet with white sails like clouds began to set sail.

Ambitious Rinaldo looked at the Kirk cargo ships full of grain, and couldn't help but have a longing for the future in his heart.

The time to defeat the old enemy Campofregoso family and monopolize the governor's throne is coming soon!

The Genoese fleet had a total of 130 ships, 82 of which were cork ships responsible for cargo.

This kind of ship originated in Northern Europe. It is an inconspicuous small transport ship. It was widely used by the Hanseatic League for maritime trade. Show your skills in naval warfare in the pre-artillery era.Nowadays, Kirk ships are gradually being replaced by carrack sailboats and caravel sailboats, but because of their low price and high quality, they are still widely used for sea freight.

Escorting these kirks were twelve light and nimble carravels, six carrack galleons, and thirty galleys.

Due to the large number of fleets and the different speeds of various types of ships, Rinaldo spent a lot of energy coordinating the unified actions of the entire fleet.

In this season, the westerly wind prevailed in the Mediterranean Sea, and the huge Genoa fleet headed westward against the wind. It took a full twelve days to finally approach the island of Malta.

The galley warships in the fleet are too heavily loaded and their supplies are consumed extremely quickly, so they need to be replenished on the island of Malta before continuing to sail north.

Since it has entered the maritime sphere of influence of the Seven Saints, the entire Genoa fleet has gradually relaxed.That night, Fleet Admiral Rinaldo ordered the ships to increase their food and wine rations for dinner, eat a big meal, make room, and go ashore to replenish fresh food.

After departing from the island of Malta, he will go north to enter the sea area where the undead pirates are active. He must be prepared for battle-maintaining the high morale of the crew has become a necessary measure.That's why he ordered dinner extravagantly.

After drinking and eating, Rinaldo suddenly received a message.There is an unknown fleet appearing behind.

According to the watchman's report, the three ships headed by this fleet were of huge size, with a displacement of at least a thousand tons, and their shapes and sails were completely different from those used by the countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

"Continue to observe and order the fleet to turn off all lights!" Rinaldo immediately ordered.

In this era, semaphore has not yet been invented, and the communication in the fleet is either very high-end - using messaging techniques, or very primitive - directly relying on roar, sending messages from ship to ship, or sending small boats dedicated to messengers.

The Genoese, who are good at sailing, have explored a set of high-low mixed communication methods for communication between fleets.

The capital ships in the fleet—that is, the six Karak galleons with a displacement of more than five hundred tons, were equipped with magic circles that could communicate with each other.Fleet Commander Rinaldo arranged six Carrack galleons, including his own flagship Odyssey, in fixed positions in the fleet as "signal towers".

After Rinaldo gave the order, he first transmitted it to the other Carak galleons through the communication magic circle.Then, the orderlies on the Carak galleon will use various manual methods to pass orders to other ships.

It took about half an hour before the Genoa fleet received the order. According to the commander's order, the lights on the ship were extinguished and they entered a state of readiness.And the mysterious fleet at the rear also extinguished the lights on the ship and shortened the distance between the two sides.

"This is not a good sign." The experienced Rinaldo immediately realized the danger.

Chapter 390 Three

When the distance between the two sides was reduced to three kilometers, the three strange giant ships headed by the fleet behind raised two flags.One of them is the sun and moon flag in red and yellow colors, which is very strange to the Genoese.On the other side is the Mulholland Star and Moon flag, which is very familiar to the sailors of the Seven Saints.

"Pirates! Damn Mulholland pirates!" Rinaldo immediately realized the other party's identity.He immediately ordered the fleet to prepare for the battle.

The Kirk ship carrying food continued to sail towards the island of Malta, and the remaining ships all turned to intercept the Mulholland fleet that was trailing behind.

Rinaldo arranged all the warships into two columns, and each column was headed by three Karak galleons, responsible for guiding the attack direction for the follow-up ships.

The Mulhollan fleet, on the other hand, was transformed into a horizontal fleet of parallel ships, centered on three exotic giant ships, heading towards the Genoa fleet.

These two formations are very classic, and they are the basic formations of naval warfare that have been in use from the ancient Greek era to World War II.

Rinaldo adopted two columns, hoping to take advantage of the large number of Genoa fleets and directly insert them into the enemy ship formation for melee.The horizontal formation adopted by the Mulholland fleet is to give full play to the advantages of long-range firepower.

The Genoa fleet turned 180 degrees backwards, and changed from a headwind state to a tailwind state, greatly increasing its maneuverability.The light is good tonight, and the outlines of enemy ships can be seen clearly. However, if there is no battle mage who can cast night vision spells, the accuracy of long-range bombardment may be greatly reduced.

This is why Rinaldo adopted a double column formation.

It's just that the Mulholland Fleet doesn't even seem to understand this simple truth, and they actually try to rely on their superiority in firepower to win.

This ridiculous behavior reminded Rinaldo of the kid named Andre from the Doria family.

I don't know if he licked the feet of Lady Luck, but the Doria boy escaped the massacre in Ajaccio.After he was rescued in Provence, he was favored by the Marquis of La Manche and became the admiral of the French navy.

Although France does not even have a standing warship now, as the admiral of a powerful European country, Andre is already on an equal footing with Rinaldo in terms of status.

This made the Genoese admiral very upset.

What made him even more angry was that Andre actually returned to Genoa last month, and then, as the French admiral, recruited sailors and officers wantonly.

Isn't this poaching the corner of the Republic?

Originally, Genoa lacked naval personnel to operate the newly-built ships, and the lack of manpower became even more serious after being dealt with by Andre.

If it wasn't for the fact that France was behind the opponent, Rinaldo would have sent someone to arrest him directly, charge him with treason, and kill him.

Moreover, after Andre recruited many Genoese captains with high salaries, he did not do business. Instead, he took the ship model every day and practiced the so-called "tandem tactics".He even preached that future naval battles will be the era of artillery.How to maximize the long-range firepower is the key to victory.

Rinaldo scoffed at that.

He secretly vowed that when he completed the great voyage to Egypt and returned to Genoa as a hero, he would sternly refute that whimsical young man, and then expel him from the Republic forever.

The Genoa fleet in a downwind state changed from prey to hunters, quickly approaching the Mulholland pirate fleet.When the distance between the two sides was within 500 meters, the Mulholland pirate fleet opened fire.

Except for Ma Youfu, I am afraid that in this era, when designing warships, no one puts the maximum firepower output on both sides.Almost all warships put the largest artillery on the central axis of the bow.

The ships in the Mulholland fleet are equipped with artillery ranging from three to twenty guns according to their displacement.Among them, the largest cannon installed on the bow was all super-heavy cannons commissioned by Ismaili who spent a lot of money and commissioned by Ottoman artillery craftsmen, which could fire fifty-pound stone bullets.

Although in terms of comprehensive performance such as cost, rate of fire, accuracy, flexibility, and durability, these stone-shooting guns are far from comparable to the new naval guns designed by Ma Youfu, but the destructive power of each shot is still quite terrifying.

However, due to both being at sea and at night, the hit rate of these artillery is quite unreliable.According to Rinaldo's experience, I am afraid that even a single shell will not be able to hit.

But this time, his previous naval battle experience didn't work.

It's not that the artillery technology of the Mulholland fleet is advanced, but because the opponent's fleet has the bug of "Prophet of Destiny" Ismail.

As a genius with the title of Mahdi (guided by the true god Ankabal), Ismail has inherited the power of the first prophet of Mulhollan, and is extremely good at using various divine spells of prophecy.Under his prayer, the artillery of each Mulholland battleship was blessed with the effect of "guided shooting".

During the time when the magic spell is in effect, the artillery will ignore the hit rate penalty caused by distance and other external factors.

As a result, amidst the orange flames of gunpowder deflagration and the green light of divine magic, a third of the salvo hit the target.

Including Rinaldo's flagship, three of the six Carrack galleons sailing in the forefront were severely damaged.

Fortunately, the opponent's heavy stone-shooting gun fired very slowly, and the Genoa fleet still had enough chances before loading the next round.Rinaldo ordered the battleship whose speed dropped due to the injury to leave the formation, and the other ships continued to attack.

With the help of the west wind, the Genoa fleet quickly narrowed the distance between the two sides to about 300 meters.

At this time, the Mulholland fleet began to change.All the ships turned to the north in unison, aiming their port side at the Genoese rushing up.

Another salvo.

This time, the firepower of the Mulholland fleet was much weaker.Because their warships are not the warships of the later generations that are designed according to the column tactics and strengthen the side firepower, only some small stone shooting guns are installed on both sides.

The only exception is the three exotic giant ships.Although their artillery is only the average technical level in the early [-]th century, each of them is a [-]-ton treasure ship with a displacement of [-] tons. Compared with other warships, they are huge in size and have much more artillery. , The damage caused is also very objective.

After a round of side fire caused some losses to the Genoa fleet, the Mulholland fleet began to flee backwards, and it also became a downwind state.

The distance between the two sides began to widen again.

When the equal distance was extended to about one kilometer, the Mulholland pirate fleet turned around again, and then repeated the previous operation, relying on the range advantage of heavy artillery to strike the Genoa fleet.

After repeating this twice, the Genoa fleet finally couldn't hold on.

Rinaldo gave the order to retreat after seeing that all six of his large carrack sailing ships were injured.This decision was so difficult that he hesitated for a long time before making up his mind.

Because this means that the thirty galley warships in the fleet will be abandoned, and then eaten by the enemy one by one.

Compared with purely sail-powered ships such as Karak sailboats and Racavel sailboats, galley warships have a slower conventional speed, and because they carry a lot of people, they consume a lot of supplies, and they often need to dock for supplies.The advantage of the galley warship is that it is more maneuverable and flexible in shallow sea and calm environment, and when the oarsman is working at full strength, he will temporarily gain a very high speed, which can make a quick assault and hit the enemy's ship.

However, in this battlefield environment tonight, the galley warships in the Genoa fleet, which had almost consumed supplies, would be in a terrible situation where they could not escape or hide from the Mulholland pirates who used artillery as their main weapon.

"Thirty galley warships are indeed a great loss, but as long as the Kirk ships transporting food can be protected and returned to Genoa, it is still a great victory!"

The galley warships abandoned by the commander seem to still retain the dignity of being a Genoese navy.They made a final charge against the Mulholland Pirates and were wiped out.

The main reason is that the three foreign warships at the front of the formation are too tall, like a sea fortress. Even if the single-deck galley warship rushes to the front and traps the opponent with a hook lock, it is difficult to climb to it. opponent's deck.

But the sacrifice of these galleys was not useless.They held off the Mulholland pirates and allowed the Genoese fleet to reach Malta smoothly.

After some repairs to restore all the damaged ships to combat effectiveness, Commander Rinaldo ordered to continue to set off.

Only this time, the morale of the fleet has dropped a lot.

Fortunately, the Mulholland pirates probably didn't want to enter the sea sphere of influence of the Seven Saints, or maybe they didn't want to meet those elusive undead, so they gave up their pursuit of the Genoa fleet.

But luck never comes, misfortunes never come singly. When Rinaldo's fleet sailed to the Tyrrhenian Sea, it was intercepted by a pirate fleet again.

This pirate fleet is smaller than the previous Mulholland fleet, with only twenty warships and only one large ship.

It's just that when the opponent's flagship launched a flag with a trident wrapped in sea fog, the sailors on the Genoa fleet immediately broke their defenses.

"That's the Son of Salt Fog! The Son of Salt Fog!"

"What, you mean the legendary pirate who can control sea water?"

"Not only can he manipulate the water, but he can also command fish and seabirds!"

"No matter how fierce and violent the sea is, it is also the home of the Son of Salt Mist. We can't win!"

Because of the defeat in the last battle and the abandonment of thirty galley warships, the morale of the entire Genoa fleet has been very low.The prestige of Fleet Commander Rinaldo has also suffered a major blow, and there have been several incidents of flagrant disobedience by the captain.The organization of the army in this era is not very good, so the navy cannot be expected to be disciplined and orderly.

First there was a fierce tiger chasing him from behind, and now he was met by a hungry wolf intercepting him in front.The fleet under his command is also in a situation of extremely low combat effectiveness and may collapse at any time.

Rinaldo was almost desperate.

Chapter 390 The Power of the Sea

Despite the despair in his heart, Rinaldo is also trying a last-ditch effort.It was only three or five days away from Genoa, and he didn't want to give up all his efforts at the last moment.

Knowing that the Son of Salt Mist possesses mysterious powers and can even control the sea, Rinaldo, who had suffered a loss of extraordinary power from the Mulholland Pirates before, still chose the conservative Strategy.

He arranged the most powerful ships in the fleet at the outermost edge to protect the Kirk ships transporting food, and made a defensive posture, and did not choose to gather the fleet to take the initiative to fight.

Eighteen warships have to protect more than 80 merchant ships, so they must take care of one thing and lose another, and the enemy will take advantage of it.But Rinaldo couldn't care less about that.Anyway, the Pirates of the Sons of Salt Mist only had about [-] ships, and it was impossible to eat the entire huge Genoa fleet in one go.

Even if a pirate ship can capture a merchant ship, the Genoa fleet will only lose a quarter of its food, because the high food prices in Western Europe this winter can still make a small profit.

Besides, those Kirk ships were not completely defenseless. They were also equipped with several artillery pieces, and the sailors also had weapons for self-defense.It's just that they are full of food, slow speed and poor flexibility, so Rinaldo did not count these ships as a reliable combat force.But it is not so easy for the pirates to capture a Kirk ship by jumping to the gang.

After confirming the battle plan, Rinaldo immediately issued orders to the ships.

However, when the Genoa fleet adjusted its formation and waited for the enemy to attack, the weather at sea gradually changed.

The sea fog is rising.Soon, the entire sea surface was shrouded in thick milky white mist, and the visibility did not exceed 50 meters.

"Not good! This must be the enemy's extraordinary power!" Scanning the whiteness in front of him, Rinaldo suddenly exclaimed.

Since the other party gave him the title "Son of Salt Mist", it was only natural that he could control the mist.