Struggle in the Steam Age

The finishing work only took about an hour, and the old-fashioned sailboat completely lost its salvage value because the keel was blown off. Just at that moment, the whole ship had tilted seriously due to the water ingress, so that the topmost gun porthole on one side had been soaked in water.

This in turn speeded up the water intake of the ship, and the pirates on that pirate ship began to jump off the ship and swim towards the coast after discovering that their ship was not worth saving.

After all, for them, the deputy head of the pirate group is now on the shore. It would be better to escape there than to be captured by Lawrence and the others. And this place is only a few hundred meters away from the coast, there are no dangerous creatures underwater, and the seawater in tropical areas is not cold. As long as they are normal pirates, they can swim to the shore.

Another steam sailing ship whose bow and mast had been blown off just now simply hung a white flag to express its surrender. After Lawrence and the others sent people up to receive it, they learned that this ship was actually just a fast merchant ship captured by pirates. The current full-level mechanic who is the temporary captain is just like the ship, a captured captive.

At that time, the ship was sailing to test a new steam engine after an overhaul, and the mechanic also wanted to see how well his newly invented condenser, which should be installed on the steam engine, worked. Unexpectedly, he was captured by a group of pirates just before sailing far from a place where the city could be seen near the sea.

In order to save everyone, the extraordinary man who worked as a mechanic on the ship stepped forward and used himself as a bargaining chip to get the pirates to let the others go. As a Transcendent who took the initiative to seek refuge, he was appointed as the new captain after the death of the original captain during the escape of the entire pirate group.

Although he was appointed as the captain, the rights on board were still in the hands of the chief mate and treasurer sent by the pirate group. He can only be regarded as the honorary captain of the pirate ship and the repairman of the machinery on board.

In the first round of engagement just now, the four shells that hit the ship's side happened to kill the charge leader who was on the artillery deck and all the stormtroopers who remained on the ship, plus the gunner who stayed at the stern at that time. However, under the orders of the first mate and treasurer on board, the ship still tried to rescue the head of the pirate group through active attack.

However, the result of this is that the first officer, the financial officer and a group of buddies gave the order to rotate the hull and were spotted by the Enterprise when they stood at the bow of the ship and were about to engage in battle. Then the gunner of the Enterprise found out that something was wrong and directly commanded the ship. The cannon blasted them all along the bow. As a result, the only person on board who could be called the commander was the mechanic who was originally considered to be an honorary captain.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, he successfully persuaded the pirates who seemed bewildered because the previous leaders were all dead. Then they surrendered directly to Lawrence.

Of course, to persuade these pirates to surrender, except that they are indeed in an extremely unfavorable environment now, if they don't surrender, they will die. These surviving pirates belonged to the miscellaneous or lowest-level cannon fodder on the pirate ship. Even if they were caught, they would not be guilty of death. This is also an important reason why they chose to surrender.

"What should we do next?" After taking in the prisoners and temporarily repairing the two severely damaged steam sailboats, the first officer ran up and asked. In the battle just now, the Enterprise lost 3 men and wounded 27. But killing more than 150 pirates, sinking an old-fashioned sailing ship of about 300 tons and capturing two steam sailing ships with a displacement of 400 to 500 tons can be said to be a complete victory.

"First use artillery to destroy the two boats on the shore, and then leave a few people to set up an observation post on the island." Lawrence thought about the arrangement. Because he just saw that after his side won, the pirates who were watching the battlefield by the fire on the shore ran into the forest, leaving only the two boats that went ashore to rest on the beach.

"Shouldn't we go ashore to clean up?" Safir asked Lawrence while wiping the blood on the breastplate with a handkerchief. Just now she and Fatina cooperated in two and took the lead with another group of commandos directly from the The stern of the boat reached the middle of the boat, so a lot of blood was splashed on his body.

"Of course not going ashore." Lawrence smiled and shook his head. "I don't want to throw our precious people into the jungle to play hide-and-seek with these pirates. For us, it is enough to block this section of the coastline."

The most important reason why he made such a decision was that more than half of the pirate group was now on the shore. Although their own side had an advantage in extraordinary strength, they were at a disadvantage in terms of numbers. So at this time, it is unwise to go ashore and attack the enemy's strengths with your own weaknesses.

On the other hand, there are only two small coastal settlements within more than 30 kilometers of this place. And these two settlements that mainly focus on fishing have recently moved to ports with better conditions because Lawrence recruited fishermen in the Oxhorn Bay port area. Therefore, as long as the two ships and the possible supplies on board are destroyed, the more than 500 pirates on the shore will try to survive in the wild.

After making a decision, Lawrence commanded the Enterprise to approach the coastline, and then used high-explosive bombs to ignite the two sailboats under repair into two blazing fires. At the same time, Nora took the two Transcendents of the Church of Agriculture from the Enterprise and flew to the jungle on the island.

Although the decision to siege was made, after learning from the captives that there was a professional-level fighter among the pirates on the shore. Everyone quickly made a decision to kill that guy first.

Obviously, in the jungle, a professional-level fighter would definitely not be able to defeat two spellcasters with higher extraordinary levels who were good at fighting in this environment. So when the two boats on the beach began to collapse due to the flames, the three of Nora and the others walked out of the woods and appeared on the beach with a dead body and dozens of captives.

The corpse is naturally the deputy head of the pirate group who was killed. After all, as an important wanted criminal, his head is also worth a lot of money. equipment.

And this group of captives were the three pirates who voluntarily appeared near them and surrendered after killing the deputy head of the pirate group and a dozen stubborn pirates. Because these pirates feel that they are not guilty of death, but staying in the jungle as outsiders will really kill people.

After the group of pirates who voluntarily surrendered and the group of pirates captured just now were imprisoned, Lawrence and the others anchored at the mouth of the river to conduct detailed post-war statistics and searches. By the way, the two captured steam sailboats were temporarily repaired. .

In particular, the two steam sailboats were seriously injured in the battle just now. If they were not repaired, Lawrence was a little worried that they might get flooded halfway and sink directly.

Fortunately, after inspection by the carpenter on board, it was found that although the two captured ships looked in a mess, especially the pirate flagship seemed to have lost its entire upper deck because of the extraordinary battle just now. However, the keel, ship ribs, steam engine and the parts below the waterline of the two ships have no major problems, so they are worth repairing.

When everyone started working, Lawrence boarded the two captured pirate ships together with the Transcendents on board, and then searched for the booty on board.

At the beginning, these transcendents wanted to roll up their sleeves and look for them by themselves, but Lawrence quickly stopped them. He first summoned the phantoms of the aquatic monsters and told them to go to the silent sailboat, and then summoned the paper figurines to enter the two captured pirate ships and search every place.

"Let's just wait." Lawrence said and summoned a few ghost phantoms of monsters to let them deal with the coconuts that were just picked up during the process of escorting the captives from the shore, and then distributed them to everyone. "In half an hour, I can search the three boats thoroughly."