As night falls, the clear moonlight shines on the sea, reflecting a shimmering wave. In addition to the patrols and sentries on night shifts, the entire Port of Madras has fallen into a peaceful dream, while the Nightingale slowly sails into Port of Madras in the moonlight.

Because he had already been ready to make mines at night, Wuwei made people prepare in advance. The most important thing was to camouflage the Nightingale, tighten the sails completely, and then apply the outer deck of the entire ship with ointment mixed with asphalt and lime. All iron components were wrapped in felt strips, which not only prevented the shiny iron parts from reflecting light, but also avoided the sound during the ship's operation.

Ships like the Nightingale usually carry two small boats, but the Nightingale has four, two towed in front to let the Nightingale move, and the two are responsible for completing the mine laying.

The Nightingale was silent. First, the carpenters and engineers used components that had been prepared to install booms on the main mast. The navigator and experienced sailors went deep into the waterway under the command of Thomas. The mines in the United States were the most advanced of this era, but there was still no locking structure. That is to say, once they were laid, they could not be recycled. Therefore, the Nightingale could only go deep into the waterway and lay out mines from the inside to the outside.

The plumb was slowly lowered down by the Nightingale, and the water depth was measured with the bamboo poles on the mine-branch. The main waterways in Port Madras are located in the river, so the waterways are different in depth. Most waterways are eight to twenty meters deep. After measuring the water depth, the boom will lower the mines and chains. There are three types of mines on the Nightingale, such as sinking bottom pulling, anchoring lightning and floating lightning.

The first two types of waterways are arranged on the necessary waterways. The sunken bottom lafath is arranged on the waterways within a depth of ten meters, while the anchor lafath is arranged on the deep waterways.

The channel close to the port is relatively shallow, with a sunken bottom lava thunder. This kind of mine is shaped like an iron bucket, filled with fifty kilograms of black gunpowder, which can be thrown directly into the water and sink naturally to the bottom. However, generally speaking, the water ghost with rope tied to the bottom of the water is controlled by a water ghost on the bottom of the water. After the position is placed, the hair pull cable is tied to the fuse. The front part of this hair pull cable is a rope, but the back end is made of bamboo, which looks like a large open hand. Each finger has a large iron gripper. These grippers are about three meters underwater. Once the ship sails above it, the wire grippers will hook the barnacles, shipworms and other aquatic creatures at the bottom of the ship. After dragging the rope, an explosion will occur.

However, one disadvantage of the sunken bottom lava thunder is that its sealing cannot be placed on the bottom of water more than ten meters, otherwise a large amount of water will be injected. In fact, this is also the disadvantage of all the mines in the United States. The hand-cut spiral structure and sealing paste made of asphalt cannot achieve sufficient sealing. About 30% of the sunken bottom lava thunder that have been laid will invade water.

The deep-water channel is laid with anchor thunder. The anchor thunder is a sphere made of wood and iron sheet, filled with gunpowder. The lower part is a long iron chain, and the length is freely adjusted by the laid soldiers. It is generally anchored at a depth of about four meters in the channel. This depth is the draft of the main warships today. The four-meter depth is difficult to detect due to the turbidity of the water. The anchor thunder is the main weapon of the United States' mine troops because it adapts to most of the channel depths, but the arrangement of anchor thunder is relatively difficult.

After anchoring the anchor chain, the hanger first hangs the mine onto the boat, then gently twists the blow-off fuse, carefully takes it underwater by the water ghost, and hangs it on the anchor chain. If it is not operated carefully, it is easy to detonate itself and cause damage. There are two most elite groups of men from the mine force on the Nightingale, which took the longest time to operate together.

There were twenty thunders and fifty anchor thunders on the Nightingale. It was set up until the sky turned white. At this time, the Nightingale had reached the end of the channel. The shadow of the British turret could be seen in the mountains and forests on both sides. Wuwei was not a greedy person. Seeing that it was about to dawn in half an hour, he whispered to his subordinates: "Put the anchor thunder, throw the floating thunder, raise the sail, and set sail!"

The sailor and the soldiers climbed the shore along the rope, put away two smaller boats, and the other two were left alone. The sails rose and swelled up with the wind, and the speed quickly reached three knots. After using the speed measuring rope to measure the speed of more than three knots, the sailor nodded slightly to Wuweishi. Wuweishi said: "Take the floating lightning down!"

The sailors grabbed all kinds of objects on the deck and threw them hard. One person could throw the smaller barrels three feet away, and two people could throw away the wooden sticks with a thickness of their thighs. The rest were all kinds of strange things, including bags, suitcases, wooden boxes, water bags, and all kinds of things that were thrown into the water. These were the thunders prepared by Wuwei for the European fleet.

The U.S. mines were originally in a standard form. Although they had not been through actual combat, it was found during naval exercises that once the mine was discovered, these things floating on the water surface could quickly attract the attention of the fleet, and then they could be detonated at a long distance with a flintlock rifle. Therefore, the mine forces disguised the mines in various shapes, especially the garbage that often appeared in ports.

Of course, the floating lightning is not completely without technical content. In order to avoid such as anchor lightning, it is necessary to arrange carefully to avoid explosion. The engineers fired the insurance structure for the floating lightning. The fuse is similar to the flintlock machine of the flintlock rifle, but it cannot be fired. It needs to be hit hard before it can enter the waiting state. The second impact can be detonated. The sailor of the Nightingale threw the floating lightning into the water to remove the insurance structure so that it can explode when it hits the ship. Of course, this insurance structure does not have a high success rate, and the probability of failure is very high.

The sound of throwing things into the water attracted the attention of the artillery batteries on both sides of the channel. The early Dutch artillery discovered the ships galloping out of the port and fired immediately. The reason was very simple. There was no Ahat ship in the European Combined Fleet. The ship was either enemy or detained. Leaving the port, it could only escape.

After throwing away the thunder, the Nightingale went long and did not go south to Tingcomali, but chose to head north along the Indian coastline. Soon, the Dutch patrol ship patrolling outside the port discovered the Nightingale and the schooner began to pursue. The Nightingale did not resist much. Before being caught up, it ran straight to the coast. After everyone left, the ship was burned down with fire. Wuweishi led the sailors and soldiers and fled into the depths of the mainland.

Druittel was awakened by the sound of cannons. After hearing that it was a reconnaissance ship of Ahat, his heart fell slightly, but he did not continue to wait. After learning that most of the ships had supplied more than 80% of the supplies, Druittel ordered the last four hours to be replenished and must leave the port before dark.

pier.

The Ambon armed merchant ship was leaning against the dock, and slaves were working under the whip of the supervisor. They carried bags of dry cakes and bacon and stuffed them into the huge cabin. The Ambon was a Orange lion-class armed transport ship. It was built at the Rotterdam shipyard with a full load displacement of about 1,600 tons. However, the Ambon was not the same as other sister ships, and her fate was surprisingly good.

In the European Combined Fleet, only seven provincial battleships can face the battleships head-on with the United States. In addition, it is the large-scale armed merchant ship of the Orange Lions class. However, it has been proved in the Java Naval Battle that the defense, firepower and speed of the Orange Lions class are not the opponents of the United States battleships. In order to enhance their strength, they can only be transformed. The ship type determines that its defense and speed cannot be greatly changed. The only thing that can be enhanced is firepower. Druittel has rich combat experience. He knows that whether it is the Battle of the British-Dutch Navy or the Battle of the Chinese-Dutch Navy, it is difficult to play a big role in the open-air deck. Often, most gunners are attacked by shotguns in one encounter. For this reason, Druittel asked each Orange Hsiung class to add another layer of artillery deck under the artillery deck.

However, the newly added artillery deck is a temporary deck and support elbow, which cannot allow heavy artillery to fire at all. Especially when a large number of gun windows were cut on the side of the ship, the structural strength was even more severely reduced, so only twelve-pound artillery cannons were arranged, which led to the wonder of the artillery deck of the guns being eighteen-pound artillery and the lower level being twelve-pound artillery, but it also made its built-in artillery reach 60, which was enough to join the battle line.

Druittel's request was only partially met because his request was to defeat his opponent, but the seventeen gentlemen of the Netherlands still wanted to live after the war. After these armed merchant ships were modified, they could no longer engage in intercontinental trade, which was equivalent to being scrapped. Therefore, the six newly launched armed merchant ships were not allowed to be modified, and the Ambon was one of the lucky ones.

Six armed merchant ships, including the Ambon, became the supply ships of the European Combined Fleet, so they stuffed a lot of biscuits and bacon into their wide cabin. Two Dutch soldiers holding flintlock guns stood on the side of the ship and watched the slaves busy and smiled at the difference between greedy Indian slaves and black slaves. Suddenly, an oak barrel floated from a distance, attracting the eyes of the two. After the Druitle Prohibition for the Drum, the soldiers were about to fade out of their mouths.

"Yansen, there must be full of beer, sure, you know, that bunch of bacon got at least three hundred barrels of beer from the British merchant's warehouse." Brent licked his mouth and said.

Jansen shook his head helplessly. Druitel could not control the Spaniards. In fact, because he relied on the combat effectiveness of the Spaniards, Druitel turned a blind eye to some Spanish violations of military discipline. He said: "It must be thrown down after drinking all the bacon. Maybe there is a bunch of bacon. Don't drink bacon's urine, hahaha."

Brent's eyes didn't leave the barrel, and he said, "It must be wine. Look, the plug is still intact. I'll take it up, Jansen, look at me, I'll share you with a quarter, no, a third."

Brent, who put down his gun, drilled into the artillery deck. At this time, the barrel had already floated to the side of the ship, colliding with the teak board under the action of the waves. Even though it was almost full, the ambon deck door of the artillery deck was still three meters high from the water surface. This was not a distance that Brent could reach. He was hesitating, and Jansen's voice sounded from his head: "Use this, Brent."

As he said that, Jansen threw down a rope with an iron hook and hit the barrel with a bang. Brent scolded: "Jansen, you stupid pig, you will be gone if you smash it."

The two greedy guys didn't know that the impact of the iron hook directly allowed the floating lightning, which had not unlocked the safety lock, to unlock the safety lock. Brent tied the iron hook with a wooden stick, and the thin hook was hung in the gap of the barrel hoop. In this way, Brent couldn't help but feel proud. The gun door was very small, but only one meter square. Brent didn't need any force. He asked Jansen to pull it up, thinking in his mind that when passing the gun door, he carried it over to avoid being stolen by the country bumpkin. Soon, the barrel passed by the gun door. Brent stretched out his hand, but the barrel fell straight down. Jansen cursed on the deck: "Brent, you stupid."

Before Yangsen's scolding was finished, the falling barrel fell on the water. The strong vibration made the flintlock machine inside fire successfully, igniting the barrel with eight kilograms of black gunpowder. The strong explosion lifted Brent at the gun door and hit the cannon. Yangsen, who had half of his body exposed on the open deck, was shot to death by the ramming wood chips.

An hour after the explosion, the main generals of the Combined Fleet, including Druittel, appeared beside the Ambon. The ship had been stranded at the dock, and only part of the stern and mast were exposed on the water. The sailors drilled out from underwater and gestured at Druittel: "God General, there was such a large hole at about twenty-two Dutch feet from the stern of the starboard waterline. The ribs had blown up, causing the water inlet, which was equivalent to the size of two gun doors."

Raphael said from the side: "General, even a thirty-six-pound cannon cannot make such a big hole."

"Have you found traces of the British?" asked Druittel, who believed it was a blasting attack launched by British diving.

"No, sir, there is no one underneath." The sailor reported.

"It must be a British that is unwilling to give up, a deadly hard-working man like Norton!" said Raphael.

Druittel said: "The reconnaissance ship appeared this morning, and the British came to sabotage. It must be that the Chinese and the British contacted each other. Lord Raphael, we have been staying in Madras for too long."

The two looked at each other, and Druittel quickly ordered the anchor to set sail and leave the port. Large ships such as battleships and heavy armed merchant ships rely on their own sailing power to turn in a port full of ships, so they need to paddle a boat to drag the ship. When dragging the flagship Golden Lion, a towed boat exploded!

Druittel, who was on the Golden Lion, felt a strong blast, and coffee spread all over him. Druittel angrily shouted: "Let the sailors go into the sea, the British must be underwater, catch these smelly fish!"

Hundreds of sailors searched for the explosion site, but they did not find any diving water ghosts. What's even more terrifying is that a rumor appeared in the fleet. Some people rumored that the Easterners used magic to attack the joint fleet with fireballs, and the fleet was cursed.
Chapter completed!