Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 166 The Battle of Baleen Whale Harbor

Rewind time to New Year's Day in 1637.While the Second Escort Squadron was sailing hard in the warm waters of Cape Verde, in the rainy and snowy Baleen Whale Harbor (formerly Sullivan's Shelter Bay), more than 200 residents were watching in panic. A sailing fleet of unknown origin.

Li Yi, the captain of the "Eagle of the East Coast", who was mooring in the port and was preparing to load construction materials, also looked solemn.Since the East Coast Republic of China officially declared the Falklands as its territory and built a baleen whale port on the basis of the former secret supply point of the Navy in Sullivan Shelter Bay, although there are often some whaling ships, fishing boats or merchant ships from various countries passing through the Strait of Magellan. Come to the port to avoid bad weather or supply supplies, but this is the first time that four warships come at a time.

"It's not good." Li Yi held a 20 times military telescope produced by Henan Glass Factory, and said to Lieutenant Huang Yang, the acting captain of the "Galicia Flying Fish" beside him.

Huang Yang also held up a binoculars to watch: "All of them are three to four hundred tons of small warships or armed merchant ships, generally equipped with 16 to 22 cannons, and the cannons seem to be mostly small and medium-caliber, and I guess the largest will not exceed 18 pounds. And there are very few of them.”

Li Yi calculated that if he took the "Eagle of the East Bank" to force his way in at this time, he probably wouldn't be able to get out.Baleen Whale Harbor was built in a estuary in Sullivan Sheltered Bay. It would be great to have such a port sheltered from the wind, but it was time-consuming to get in and out of the port.Now there is a fleet of obviously not good people on the sea, and if you leave the port slowly there, you will probably be bombarded miserably by other people's cannons.

Therefore, Li Yi and Huang Yang quickly reached an agreement, resolutely being a turtle and not going out.Spend it first, see what these people want to do, maybe they are just here to escape the storm.

The purpose of this group of people soon became clear.I saw many small boats on the four warships. The sailors on these small boats wore oilskin raincoats and took tools to measure the water depth on the sea surface.

"Sir, these people want to land, Sergeant Mathias asked me to ask if we want to shoot?" A panting Charuya ran over and asked.

Huang Yang also looked at Li Yi.Li Yi is a lieutenant of the navy, the highest-ranking person here, and also the temporary Falklands garrison officer appointed by the Ministry of the Navy (responsible for transferring supplies to South Africa). The order to fire can only be given by him.

"Shoot as a warning first, and if the opponent still does not retreat or fight back, let all the coastal defense guns fire together." Li Yi ordered without hesitation.

The fort of Baleen Whale Harbor was built on the right side of the river bank, with two 18-pounder cannons, four 12-pounder cannons and four 8-pounder cannons.There are more than 30 gunners, all of whom are local residents, and they usually train frequently.Although the level is not as good as that of the Navy's ship gunners, it is not too far behind. There is no problem at all in operating fixed coastal defense batteries.

The city of Baleen Whale Harbor is a small castle with a circumference of not more than 400 meters. Two cannons are placed in each direction at the head of the city.At this time, all male residents in the city were mobilized, and even some strong women were assigned tasks, and they would go to battle when necessary.There is no way, the population of Baleen Whale Harbor is too small, so we can only use everyone's strength as much as possible.

The Spanish and British pirates who were captured and exiled here have already put on their navy uniforms and returned to Dongfang Port to enjoy themselves, but the Charuya gunners who replaced them are not idle.After being fed by a large number of live ammunition, they showed their superb strength. A small 8-pound iron ball flew out of the muzzle and landed more than a hundred meters in front of the enemy ship.

This is an obvious warning shot.But these unknown enemies were obviously unmoved. The sailors who were measuring the water depth in the traffic boat ignored them and continued to measure, but it could be seen that the movement was obviously accelerated.

The four enemy warships on the sea also moved. They lined up in a horizontal line, leveled the side of the ship with the port fort, and then sailed from east to west.

"Boom! Boom!" The first enemy warship that passed the front of the fort fired a round of salvos from its twelve guns on the sides.The dense shells crossed the sky filled with sleet, most of them landed on the sea and river, and only a few landed in the mud near the fort.The muddy ground absorbed the remaining kinetic energy of the cannonball well, and the cannonball came to a standstill after a few hops on the ground.

The enemy moved like this, and the fort would naturally not be polite anymore. Mathias, a big German from Pomerania, immediately gave the order to shoot.

The gunners quickly stuffed the propellant packs into the barrel, then stuffed the rusty iron bullets in one after another, and then rammed them hard with a cleaning rod.After carefully observing the positions of some enemy ships, the gunners adjusted the angle of the artillery and fired.

The enemy ships used burst fire, that is, four warships lined up and fired one by one.After the first battleship finished shooting, it drove away, and the second battleship then came up and fired, so as to maintain continuous firepower to suppress the fort.

But their efforts are doomed to have little effect.The ten cannons on the fort outside Baleen Whale Harbor are all semi-buried and semi-enclosed forts, with only a small shooting window exposed to the outside, and the outside is all surrounded by thick brick walls.Moreover, the position of each gun has been carefully considered to form crossfire with each other to ensure that no shooting dead ends are left.

Therefore, after the two sides fired at each other for more than half an hour, none of the ten coastal artillery bunkers were damaged, but several enemy warships on the sea were actually hit by more than [-] shells, although they did not cause any damage. Casualties, but morale is completely low down.

The two 12-pound howitzers on the head of Baleen Whale Harbor also began to shoot towards the sea, and their targets were the enemy traffic boats that were measuring the water depth.However, with such a long distance and such a large range, it is really hell to be able to hit those traffic boats. All they do is to add a little psychological pressure to the enemy.

The "Eagle of the East Coast" and the "Galicia Flying Fish" were moored by the Hanoi pier and did not participate in the battle.And because of the terrain, the artillery of enemy warships on the sea could not shoot at the pier.At this point in the battle, both sides understood that the navy alone could not solve the battle, and the army still had to decide victory or defeat.

The fighting ended briefly in the afternoon.The sleet is also getting heavier and heavier. It rains or snows 365 days out of 265 days in a year in Mashima, and there is a westerly wind above level [-] or [-] all the year round.Fighting in this environment is a test for both sides.

The next day, maybe last night after the surprise measurement of the water depth, the four enemy ships on the sea surface began to approach and shoot at the fierce gunfire of the turret early in the morning.At the same time, a large number of small boats were put down on the ship, and the small boats were full of sailors equipped with various weapons.Even in this bad weather, these sailors still wore only a tattered linen blouse.With nothing left, they drank strong wine and cursed the enemies on the shore with vulgar English slang.

The artillery on the top of the city finally showed its power at this time.The gunners estimated the time and distance, shortened the fuze of the explosive bomb, and then stuffed it into the barrel, only to hear a "boom", and the light explosive bomb exploded in the sky above the landing ships.Nails and scraps of iron in the center of the shells flew in all directions, and some unlucky Brits were injured in an instant.

A total of more than a dozen small boats were put down from the four British warships, carrying about a hundred sailors ashore.These sailors lined up in a relatively dense formation under the command of the officer, and attacked the flank of the coastal defense fort that was firing fiercely at the warship.

At this time, the "Eagle of the East Coast" and the "Flying Fish of Galicia" moored in the pier of the river port finally opened fire, and the dozen or so cannons on the two ships launched a fierce attack on the poor English sailors on the shore. shelling.Dense grape bombs and explosive bombs shot straight at them who had no cover at a distance of two to 300 meters, plowing blood paths in their formation.At the same time, the two 12-pound steel cannons on the top of the city were still firing non-stop, and some musketeers also fired at the English sailors a hundred meters away with their flintlock rifles.

The English had only landed for ten minutes, and the more than 100 sailors quickly collapsed.Thirty or forty corpses were left in the empty triangular area between the city wall, the dock, and the fort, as well as a large number of wounded lying on the ground crying.

"The battle is over." Li Yi threw the binoculars to Huang Yang, and then said: "It is already a luxury to have two hundred combatants on four small British warships. I am afraid that the more than 100 who went ashore just now can go back standing up." Less than half. In addition to the losses caused by the current confrontation with the fort, they confessed at least 80 people here yesterday and today. They are not stupid. Although Baleen Whale Harbor is not a tough place, it is obviously not a small arm and calf. They can take it. Look, the weather outside is so bad, maybe it will be evacuated tomorrow. There are many places to make a fortune, why bother here and us."

"Hehe, yes." Huang Yang echoed, "However, the defense of Baleen Whale Port still needs to be strengthened, and there are too few manpower. If there are more ships from the British next time, it will be captured if they don't keep them all."

"Don't think about it so much." Li Yi said, "At present, it seems that Baleen Whale Harbor is not the focus of the British attack at all. Their target is probably still in the mainland. The Second Escort Squadron has gone out and has not returned. Now the family can In fact, there are only two battleships, the 'August [-]th' and the 'Beagle', and there are so many sea areas to protect, it is really too busy."

As expected by the two, after seeing that there was no advantage to take, the four small warships dragged their broken bodies out of Baleen Whale Harbor that afternoon and entered the vast South Atlantic Ocean.

(End of this chapter)