The Revolt of the Three Feudatories: All-in at the start in Beijing

Chapter 238 Anglo-Dutch Raid

At 11:45 AM, Zhang Huai'an was awakened by the urge to urinate.

He cursed and rolled off his bunk, then, barefoot, he stepped onto the wooden floor of the cabin and groped his way to the stern in the dark.

The night at Nantianmen was damp and stuffy, with not a breath of wind, but the moon was big and round, hanging in the sky.

Zhang Huai'an had just unbuckled his belt when he suddenly stopped. He sensed something moving on the sea to the west.

Zhang Huai'an squinted, his urge to urinate vanished instantly, stared at the darkness for three breaths, then suddenly turned around and rushed back into the cabin, kicking Old Zhao, who was sleeping by the door, awake.

"Arise! Arise, all of you!"

Old Zhao was kicked so hard he tumbled over, and groggily reached for his knife: "Boss? What's wrong?"

Zhang Huai'an did not answer. He rushed to the bow of the ship, grabbed a brass telescope, and scanned the area to the west.

Through the telescope, a dense array of ship shadows could be seen, silently approaching under the moonlight.

The sails of those ships were all black, blending into the night. If the moon hadn't peeked out from behind the clouds, it would have been completely invisible. This was a sneak attack; it was deliberate.

They stopped counting when they reached the fifteenth ship.

"Beat the gong!" Zhang Huai'an's throat tightened as if something had choked him, his voice shrill and distorted. "Beat the gong! Enemy attack!"

The gong on the Bing-class Fujian ship rang out at midnight, with extremely strong penetrating power. Immediately afterward, the gongs on the Ding-class, Wu-class, and Ji-class ships also rang out.

Within a few dozen breaths, all the Fujian ships lit up, and the soldiers were awakened from their sleep, rushing scrambling to their respective gun positions.

But it was too late.

The moment the gong sounded, those black sailing ships simultaneously lit up their bow lights—not one or two, but a whole row of them, illuminating the hull and the numerous cannon ports along the gun emplacements.

Zhang Huai'an got a clear look at the ships.

They were all capital warships, three-deck, each with at least thirty gun ports on its sides, more than sixty in total. He even recognized the flags of the Royal Navy and the Dutch Navy at the very front.

"The Anglo-Dutch alliance."

Zhang Huai'an squeezed out the word "Xi" through gritted teeth.

Old Zhao, standing beside him, was deathly pale, his torch trembling. "Boss, how many...how many are there?"

Zhang Huai'an didn't answer. He raised his binoculars again, moving the lens away from the main warships and scanning behind them—and then his hand trembled.

Fifty, at least fifty armed merchant ships followed behind the main warships, each with twenty or thirty gun ports on its broadside. Even more terrifying, on the flanks of these large ships, countless smaller merchant ships were rapidly advancing.

Those small boats had a shallow draft and moved extremely fast, their bows thrusting towards the iron chain array of the Fujian ships.

Zhang Huai'an suddenly understood what they were up to.

"Aim the cannons at those small boats!" he roared as he charged toward the bow, shoving aside the gunner who was aiming at a large ship in the distance. "Shoot the small boats! Shoot those small boats!"

The three flying thunder cannons simultaneously turned their muzzles. The gunners frantically loaded the explosive shells and ignited them—three muffled cannon shots rang out, and the three gunpowder packs flew in three arcs toward the advancing small boats.

The first gunpowder pack fell into the sea, creating a column of water; the second flew past the stern of a small boat and exploded twenty feet away.

Only the third one hit the bow of a small boat. The force of the exploding gunpowder tore the bow apart, but the small boat continued forward for more than ten feet before stopping.

The other tax officials on the Fujian ships, professional novel websites, provide the most comfortable reading experience. At this time, they hadn't discovered it yet, so there were too few of them to stop the charge of these dozens of small boats.

Zhang Huai'an saw that the small boats were piled with wooden barrels, and the barrels were painted with flame symbols in black paint. He could almost smell a pungent odor carried by the wind.

Gunpowder, the whole ship was full of gunpowder.

"Abandon ship!" Zhang Huai'an roared at the soldiers behind him, turning around. "Cut the chains! Head to shore—"

He didn't finish speaking.

The first gunpowder ship collided with the bow of the Xin-class ship.

The explosion ripped through the night at Nantianmen, the shockwave overturning everyone on the Fujian ship. The flying thunder cannon at the bow was blasted away, tumbling twice in mid-air before crashing into the sea.

Then came the second, the third, and the westernmost gunpowder ships—one after another, they crashed into the iron chain array, explosions rang out incessantly, and flames shot into the sky, illuminating the entire sea area as if it were daytime.

Zhang Huai'an was thrown onto the deck by the blast wave. His ears were ringing and his vision was a blurry red. He struggled to get up.

All you need to see are two nearby ships, already blown in two, their bows slowly... It sank into the sea.

The soldiers on deck jumped into the water like ants, but many more were engulfed by the flames of the explosion before they could even jump.

The iron chains were broken in the continuous explosions. Those arm-thick iron chains could withstand the fiercest storms in the South Seas, but they couldn't withstand the simultaneous explosion of dozens of ships' worth of gunpowder.

When the broken iron chains sank into the sea, the defensive line formed by the Fujian ships was torn open in the middle, leaving a huge gap.

Zhang Huai'an lay on the ship's side, blood streaming down his forehead, obscuring his left eye. He looked through his right eye at the breach, watching the main British and Dutch warships slowly turn around, preparing to rush in through the gap.

Less than half of those who survived his death were still alive.

Old Zhao climbed up from the deck, his left arm bent at an impossible angle, but he seemed not to feel it. He staggered over to Zhang Huaian and pulled a tinderbox from his pocket.

"Boss," Old Zhao's voice was unusually calm, "there's still some gunpowder in the gunpowder magazine. That's enough."

Zhang Huai'an looked at the tinderbox in his hand, then at the allied warships approaching from the gap. He reached out and took the tinderbox, then glanced back at the seven people who were still alive.

Are you scared?

Old Zhao grinned, his teeth covered in blood.

"If we're put in the imperial court, it'll be perfect for us common soldiers. I, Old Zhao, was just a lackey for the Manchus before. In these past few years, I've not only killed some Manchus, but I've also reclaimed dozens of acres of land. That's more than enough!"

Zhang Huai'an laughed as he listened, because he was in the same boat. From a poor young man in Guanzhong, he now had three wives and concubines, and two children. Without Da Han, he would have nothing.

Just as Zhang Huai'an was smiling and preparing to throw the tinder into the cabin, a sudden burst of light appeared.

It wasn't the light of an explosion, but a brighter, warmer light emanating from the island behind them.

Zhang Huai'an suddenly turned around.

One by one, the islands surrounding the South Heavenly Gate lit up, from the nearest reefs to the farthest mountain peaks.

Those were piles of firewood—huge piles of firewood, each more than two people tall, piled on the highest point of the island.

This prompted someone to set them on fire simultaneously, and the flames leaped from one island to another, illuminating the surrounding sea.