Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 24: Capture of the Cruiser
The captain's collision caused the blade to cut his carotid artery, blood gushed out, and the captain fell backwards and passed . Lin Fei was shocked and hurriedly pressed the captain's carotid artery to stop the bleeding, but it was useless. The captain used a lot of strength and the knife cut very deep. There was no hope for the captain to be saved.
At this time, Liu Daming ran into the cabin and saw the captain dead on the ground, surrounded by blood. He said in shock: "Lao Lin, why did you kill the captain?"
Lin Fei said ashamedly: "It was my fault that I didn't keep an eye on him and let him commit suicide!"
Liu Daming said: "Then we have to fight one cabin at a time!"
Lin Yuan frowned and said, "There's nothing we can do about it. Is Lao Yu here?"
Liu Daming said: "He's here! Everyone on the Pangu has come."
Lin Fei said: "That's good, you ask Lao Yu to take people to guard the cab, and we will go to deal with the Spaniards in the cabin!"
Liu Daming frowned and said, "Although this cruiser is not as big as the Zhiyuan, it has a lot of cabins. Can we defeat it?"
Lin Fei said: "Although it has many cabins, there are two most important ones. The first is the ammunition depot. I am worried that the Spanish will detonate the shells in it and sink the ship. The second is the steam engine room. If we control it, we will control the power of the entire battleship."
"This battleship is a protected cruiser. The ammunition depot and steam engine room are both in the protective armored fort. They should not be far away. Let's enter the protective armored fort and take down these two key compartments."
Liu Daming said "OK" and followed Lin Fei to the nearest deck entrance. The deck entrance was a round hatch. Just as Liu Daming was about to open it, Lin Fei stopped him and said, "Be careful, there may be an ambush below. Open it as quickly as possible and get out of the way."
Liu Daming nodded, stretched out his hand and pulled the handle on the outside of the hatch. The hatch of this warship did not have an internal locking structure, so it opened as soon as Liu Daming pulled it. After pulling open the hatch, he dodged to the side as Lin Fei said. At this moment, a group of things suddenly flew up from below. If Liu Daming did not dodge, he would be hit.
Those things fell on the deck and everyone saw clearly that they were actually glass bottles! Lin Fei laughed loudly and said, "The Spaniards on this ship don't have guns! Brothers, use guns to greet them first!" After Lin Fei finished speaking, he put the gun into the cabin door and pulled the trigger. Only a scream was heard from inside. The other sailors also followed Lin Fei's example, put their guns into the cabin door and pulled the trigger.
After a few screams, there was the sound of panic running from inside. Lin Fei looked out and saw a group of Spanish sailors running away. Lin Fei grabbed the escalator and jumped down. Liu Daming and others also jumped down. Lin Fei pointed to the stern of the ship and said, "The armored fort is in that direction. Follow me."
This cruiser has been in service for seven years. The hull is quite old, and the cabins are full of metal patches and falling paint. Lin Fei led his men to the stern. From time to time, sailors rushed up with various tools, and they all became victims of Lin Fei and his men's guns.
The battleship was not big, with a displacement of 1,010 tons, only half the size of the Zhiyuan, so everyone quickly rushed to the armored bunker. The so-called "armored bunker" is a cabin surrounded by armor, which contains key parts such as the ammunition depot and the steam engine room.
A watertight door outside the armored fort blocked everyone's way. Through the glass porthole on the watertight door, Lin Fei saw dozens of sailors behind him holding wooden sticks, iron chisels, and wrenches, staring at the watertight door nervously. Lin Fei raised his gun and hit the glass porthole heavily with the butt of the gun. With a "bang", the glass porthole did not move at all, but Lin Fei was shocked and took two steps back.
Lin Fei's mind changed, he raised his gun and aimed it at the glass porthole and fired a shot. With a "pop", a bullet hole appeared on the glass porthole. Lin Fei swung the butt of the gun and hit the bullet hole. The glass shattered and the porthole turned into a big hole. Lin Fei reached the gun through the porthole and fired two shots. The two Spanish sailors fell to the ground and the rest ran to the cabin at the back in a panic.
Lin Fei asked a sailor to reach into the porthole, open the watertight door, and rush in. There were several cabins on both sides of the aisle. When the cabin doors were opened, they were filled with iron boxes. Inside the iron boxes were yellow shells and square propellant bags. This was the ammunition depot.
Just as Lin Fei was about to walk out of the ammunition depot, he suddenly heard a noise behind the ammunition box. Lin Fei reached out and took out the Saladin Blade and shouted in stiff Spanish: "Get out!"
A man with black hair and black eyes came out from behind the ammunition box. He raised his hands high and said in Spanish: "Don't kill me, I surrender, I surrender!"
Seeing that this person looked very similar to a Chinese, Lin Fei switched to Chinese and asked, "Are you Chinese?"
When the man heard Chinese, his eyes lit up and he said to Lin Yuan in Chinese: "Yes, yes, yes, I am Chinese, and my ancestors are from Guangdong."
Lin Fei frowned and said, "Then why did you become a sailor on a Spanish warship?"
The man said hastily: "I am not a sailor, I am just a sailor."
Lin Fei didn't quite understand. Liu Daming shouted from the side: "What do you mean by sailor? Is there any meaning in picking this word? I think you are deliberately making fun of us. I will cut you open first!" After saying that, he drew out a machete and stepped forward.
The man knelt down on the ground and said in a trembling voice: "Please spare my life! I am just a sailor. The Spanish officers recruited us to do some sailor's work, so as to save the number of sailors and make it easier to get paid."
Upon hearing this, Liu Daming laughed out loud, "The Spanish also know how to eat empty salaries? Haha, they are no different from those corrupt officials in the Qing court!"
Lin Fei then said: "When you said 'recruit you guys aboard', did you mean there are other people like you on the ship?"
The sailor nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes, there are a total of 25 Chinese sailors like me."
Lin Fei thought, why not use these Chinese for my own benefit? So he said softly, "Brother, what's your name?"
The man said: "My surname is Huang, and I am the third child in the family, so I am called 'Huang San'."
Lin Fei reached out and helped Huang San up, saying, "Brother Huang, we are all Chinese, we have the same ancestors, follow me and I won't kill you, how about that?"
Huang San said hurriedly: "As long as the hero doesn't kill me, I will do anything."
Lin Fei said: "How about you follow us and persuade all the brothers like you to surrender?"
Huang San said without thinking: "Of course, we are on the warship just to support our families, not to risk our lives. Good man, I can tell you one more thing, you don't have to kill those Spanish sailors, they don't want to die , if you talk to them nicely, they may surrender to you."
Lin Fei was delighted, thinking that this was great, so he didn't have to continue fighting. So Lin Fei turned to Sun Yong and said, "Sun Yong, take Huang San back to the command room and have him use the megaphone on the ship to persuade the Spanish sailors to surrender!"
Sun Yong agreed and took Huang San back to the command room. Soon, Huang San's voice of persuading the ship to surrender was heard throughout the ship. After more than ten minutes, teams of Spanish sailors came out of the cabin and surrendered to Lin Fei.
Lin Fei counted the number of people. There were 56 Spanish sailors and 25 Chinese sailors. Lin Fei had the sailors detained in the cargo hold. He called Huang San and other Chinese sailors over and said to them, "Brothers, how much do they pay you for working on the Spanish ship?"
Huang San replied, "One hundred pesos per month."
Lin Fei had never lived in the Philippines and didn't know what a hundred pesos was worth, so he asked, "What can a hundred pesos do?"
Huang San smiled bitterly and said, "If you live frugally for a year, you can save enough money to have a few meals of meat during the New Year, and buy a few feet of good cloth for your children and wife to make some beautiful clothes."
Lin Fei frowned and said, "That's too low. How about this, you guys follow me and I'll give you 500 pesos per month, how about that?"
Everyone cheered, and Lin Fei arranged them to different parts. When Lin Fei's men saw that they had captured a Spanish cruiser and captured 25 sailors, they were all very excited. At this time, Ma Chengfeng said to Lin Fei from the mast: "Captain, there is a ship coming from the port side!"
Lin Fei quickly took out his telescope and looked to the port side. He saw a fat ship coming over. It was the Spanish troop transport ship. Ma Chengfeng said to Lin Fei: "Captain, they sent us a light signal, asking why we didn't fire for so long?"
Lin Fei said through the megaphone: "Ignore them!" Then he said to everyone: "Brothers, we now have warships! Are you still afraid of their troop transports? Let's use the warships to deal with their troop transports!"
Everyone cheered in unison. Lin Fei said, "Lao Yu, go to the steam engine room immediately and start the steam engine. Lao Liu, stay in the cabin and steer the ship. Sun Yong, follow me and use the naval guns to hit their transport ship hard."
At this time Liu Daming said: "What about our Pangu?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Throw it into the sea first. It's anchored anyway, so it won't be washed away by the waves."
Everyone started to act immediately. Lin Fei took Sun Yong to familiarize themselves with the artillery. This artillery used a simple elastic gun mount and could be considered a rapid-fire gun. The gun body was exposed and had no turret. There was a sight on the breech block. The maximum distance on the sight scale was 3,000 meters, but on the sea, it was already very good to be able to accurately hit the target at 1,000 meters.
At this time, Huang San personally led people to transport the shells and propellant from the ammunition depot to the gun position. Lin Fei glanced at the Spanish words painted on the shells and asked, "What does it say?"
Huang San replied: "It means penetration."
Lin Fei nodded and thought: "It seems that this shell is an armor-piercing shell. The troop transport ship on the opposite side is thick and fat, with a low freeboard, and its reserve buoyancy must not be large. It should sink after a few armor-piercing shells."
