Victory

The brave "Old Ironclad" suddenly turned its rudder and almost rammed into the "Free Trade," rapidly closing the distance between the two.

"Get closer! Bomb them face to face!" Captain Hull shouted, boosting the morale of his soldiers.

United States of this era were definitely a fighting nation, practically all rednecks, and generally believed in the motto "Don't be a coward, just be reckless." Although the first round of France shelling caused them heavy losses, it did not break their morale; on the contrary, it seemed to have the effect of igniting their anger.

The distance between the two warships rapidly closed, from about one hundred meters to eighty meters... sixty meters... forty meters...

Captain Hull was calculating the distance and about to give the order to fire a volley when the France on the other side preemptively fired another volley.

The breech-loading gun's rate of fire advantage was obvious. In fact, if the gunners hadn't been less skilled, they could have fired this salvo much faster.

The two sides were now less than forty meters apart, and even with old-fashioned cannons, they wouldn't miss. So in this salvo, all nine cannons of the "Free Trade" hit their targets.

Unlike the previous shelling, where the France were unsure of the true strength of the United States "super frigates" and thus used specialized armor-piercing shells, some of these shells proved to be overkill, failing to achieve their maximum destructive effect.

Therefore, during this round of firing, Captain Zola ordered the shells to be replaced with armor-piercing personnel-killing rounds.

This type of shell is still a solid shot, because a reliable high-explosive shell fuse for artillery has never been developed. To this day, the reliability of this thing has never been reliable. There have even been more than one accident in the experiment where the fuse was triggered at the time of firing, and then the shell blew the gun barrel apart.

Armor-piercing anti-personnel rounds are essentially long cast iron cylinders, except that the front of the cylinder has several deep grooves, and the entire shell is also covered with deep grooves. When these grooves penetrate a ship's plating, the rounds create numerous stress concentration points, causing them to break and fragment. While their destructive power cannot compare to high-explosive rounds, compared to armor-piercing rounds which are prone to creating two holes with a single shot, these rounds inflict significantly more damage once they penetrate the enemy's plating.

Therefore, this salvo caused even greater losses to the United States. This bombardment reduced the number of gunners on the lower gun decks of the Constitution by almost a third.

However, the morale of the United States was not dampened by this round of shelling, and the Constitution continued to approach, getting within about thirty meters.

"Fire!" Captain Hull shouted.

Many of the cannons on the two gun decks of the Constitution had been damaged in the first two rounds of shelling, and more importantly, the gun crews had suffered heavy losses, leaving many cannons unmanned. Of the twenty-three cannons, only eighteen were able to fire.

However, Captain Hull believed that even with only eighteen cannons, this volley would deal a heavy blow to the France, because at such a distance, it was almost impossible for them to miss.

But reality dealt them a heavy blow. Although it didn't kill a single United States, it shattered United States morale—the shells fired by the United States bounced off the "Free Trade's " external steel plates and splashed into the sea.

At such close range, the inability to penetrate the hull of a France warship essentially rendered the shelling futile; their cannons simply could not possibly penetrate the hull of a France warship.

"Move closer! Move closer! Prepare for boarding!" Captain Hull roared. Since they couldn't gain the upper hand in the gun battle, boarding was their only hope for a comeback—the smoke billowing from the France warships' funnels was growing thicker, their steam engines would soon be operational, and escape was impossible. Now, they had to charge forward, get their foremasts entangled with the enemy's foremast ropes, and then decide the outcome with close-quarters hand-to-hand combat. This was indeed the only chance for the "Constitution" to win at this moment.

The ideal combat mode envisioned by the "Free Trade is to avoid hand-to-hand combat as much as possible. This is quite normal; if you can win by simply walking a dog or flying a kite, why bother with boarding maneuvers?

However, this does not mean that the Free Trade is incapable of boarding maneuvers. In fact, the Free Trade has made specific preparations for boarding maneuvers.

Initially, some suggested equipping the ships with Greek Fire from the bow and stern, similar to clipper ships. However, it was quickly discovered that equipping warships with Greek Fire could be very dangerous in many situations. For example, when attacked by enemy ships using grapeshot, the Greek Fire might set their own ships ablaze.

The suggestion to equip warships with "Greek Fire" was therefore rejected. However, another proposal was adopted: equipping warships with "Claymore" to deal with boarding enemies.

As a result, small squares indicating "This side faces the enemy" were hung in many places on the Free Trade, such as the masts, and the entire deck was covered by these "Claymore".

The Constitution pulled alongside, and the American troops aboard, led by Captain Hull who was brandishing a sword, stormed onto the deck of the Free Trade.

There wasn't a single France on deck. This gave Hull an instinctive sense of unease. But the situation was already too dire—could he retreat like Sima Yi? Now he had no choice but to go all the way and fight his way through.

"Follow me!" Captain Hull shouted, brandishing his sword, as he led his soldiers toward the stern tower, some firing wildly toward it.

Just as Captain Hull and his men had almost reached the stern, an explosion rang out on the deck of the "Free Trade." Countless iron balls swept across the deck like a storm, and all the American soldiers who had rushed onto the deck of the Free Trade " were knocked to the ground.

The Constitution had a total of 400 crew members. In the previous gun battle, they had already suffered over 100 casualties. Now, on the deck of the Free Trade, nearly 100 more fell.

What's worse, these nearly one hundred people were almost the most combat-ready personnel on the entire Constitution. Moreover, the captain and first mate were among them. Now, the Constitution has suffered nearly half its casualties and has lost command, and it can be said that it is in complete chaos.

At that moment, a large group of soldiers poured out of the various hatches on the deck. They were armed with the latest revolvers or double-barreled shotguns and charged toward the Constitution.

The remaining forces on the "Constitution" were no longer sufficient to withstand the France attack, and soon, several of the most crucial positions on the "Constitution" were captured.

The United States retreated below deck, while the France simply threw Little Melon into the cabin through the hatch.

After a Little Melon, shouts of "Don't give up! We surrender!" came United States below.

After the combat personnel secured all key positions on the ship, the casualty figures for both sides were tallied. In this battle, eleven French Army were killed, all of whom died in the fighting after boarding the "Constitution." Twenty-six were wounded, most of whom were also wounded in the fighting after boarding the "Constitution." Only one man slipped and fell on his own deck, and his hand was cut by United States bayonet that had been thrown to the ground.

Two hundred and twenty-two American soldiers were killed, and most of the remaining one hundred or so were wounded to varying degrees. Only two of them were completely unharmed.

"Hey, Captain, that's a great win." Victor congratulated Captain Zola after seeing the score.

"The main problem was that they misjudged our strength. And once that misjudgment happened, there was no turning back. Actually, I think the command of that United States captain just now wasn't really that bad, and his decisiveness was very admirable. If he hadn't encountered us, even if he had encountered a first-class battleship like the Victory, his performance would have been much better." Zola then began to sing praises for the United States captain who had died in battle.

This is quite normal, though. Generally speaking, praising the enemy is never a bad thing. If you lose, it's not because you're incompetent, but because the enemy is simply too strong; if you win, then you should boast even more about how powerful the enemy is. Otherwise, what's so glorious about expending so much effort to defeat a bunch of idiots?

"Is this ship alright?" Victor asked, looking at the captured "Constitution".

"This ship is quite good. Although it suffered some damage in the battle, it can be repaired and is fine again. Hmm, we're not far from Saint-Domingue now, and we can easily sail this ship Saint-Domingue as well," Captain Zola said. "However, we encountered an attack by United States warships here, and I think the situation in Saint-Domingue has probably changed somewhat. Mr. Treville, I wonder if these changes will cause any trouble for your mission?"

"Ah," said Victor, "Thank you for your concern. You are right, some unfavorable developments have likely occurred in Saint-Domingue- Domingue. But isn't that precisely why I'm here? Besides, your victory today is extremely helpful to my mission. I believe that with your victory today, and with the sincerity of France for peace and development, Governor-General Toussaint-Louvetour should be able to make a rational choice."