Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1086 Battle of the Forwards (Part [-])
"Sir, I hope that your decision just now will not be misunderstood by Captain Corina." Alfaro looked at the six Spanish warships rushing out of the formation with a livid face, and said in a cold voice: "The flag of 'Book and Sword' on the opposite side has already Obviously, as Jinghua Company, which is currently able to come to Manila to conduct direct transactions with us on its own initiative, I cannot predict what attitude they will take to face us in the future. I also cannot predict that if they take a hostile attitude, the Governor of the Philippines will How should the government complete the trade mission assigned by His Majesty the King in the future."

"Your Excellency, President, I fully understand your concerns, and I fully believe in your previous analysis." Sir Diego smiled slightly, still looking at the six large Galen ships leaving the formation and heading for the Jinghua Fleet, and shrugged Said: "However, there is one thing I need to remind Your Excellency the president: the upcoming commemorative gold coin issued by the Kingdom of Castile has already shown that His Majesty the King and the Kingdom government cannot ignore anyone's hostility - the Spanish Navy will not Tolerate any provocation, and will not show weakness to any enemy."

"But they are not Spain's enemies, and they are not necessarily provoking the Spanish navy. On the contrary, they are Spain's largest trading partner in the Ming Empire!" Alfaro retorted.

"Perhaps you are right." Sir Diego still maintained a gentlemanly smile on his face: "But I still need to tell them that Spain may like Ducats and Florins, but even our trading partners cannot Any act of hostility towards the Spanish Navy at sea, including spying."

Ducat and florin are two kinds of gold coins. The former is minted by Venice, and the latter is minted by Genoa and Florence. They are widely circulated in Europe. These two words are basically a symbol of wealth.

"So you directly ordered them to be expelled, instead of sending people to inquire and communicate with a little restraint?"

"No, Your Excellency President, I have already restrained myself very much." Sir Diego said lightly, "If it weren't for your previous introduction, or if this is Europe, my order just now would not be expulsion, but sinking .”

Alfaro narrowed his eyes slightly: "If the opponent is the Portuguese fleet, would you do the same?"

Sir Diego frowned, fell silent for a moment, shook his head and said, "No, because the Portuguese fleet is now His Majesty's fleet, just as it is impossible for me to order the sinking of Aragon's fleet or Naples' fleet. , it is impossible for me to order the sinking of the Portuguese fleet, unless the other party dares to fire the first shot."

Alfaro looked at Sir Diego and shook his head for a while: "I hope this conflict will not affect the kingdom's eastern trade, and I hope that this conflict will not become an obstacle for us to spread the Lord's gospel to the east."

Sir Diego didn't answer Alfaro directly, an unspeakable enthusiasm filled his eyes, and he said with emphasis: "Más grande!"

“Más grande,” Spanish: “Más grande.”

When Sir Diego was talking with President Alfaro, the Spanish destroyer fleet commanded by Captain Corina had already rushed towards Takagi-san's formation with full sail, and the distance between the two sides was shortening.

The six battleships of the Jinghua Fleet have gathered at this moment after receiving Gao Jing's order. Seeing the six large Galen formations rushing towards their own side, Gao Musan took a deep breath and ordered: "Order, all ships in the formation immediately Adjust the course, take our ship as the axis, form a long snake formation, and meet the enemy on the left string!"

Then he added: "The mainmast and aftmast pay attention to eat the full wind to maintain the speed, the foremast pay attention to adjust the direction of the wind, and keep the bow slightly to the left. Gunpowder and shells are prepared, and three bases are maintained on the deck. Gunners and delivery The crew and artillerymen are on their positions, waiting for orders!"

After the order was issued, the six armed transport ships quickly began to adjust. When the Spanish destroyer formation approached to a distance of about six miles (Da Ming did not say that the sea mile was mentioned), the overall adjustment of the Jinghua forward formation had been completed.

At this time, the Jinghua Fleet was facing the Spanish formation on the left string, and at the same time was moving forward at a small angle to the left.

Gao Musan held a binoculars and watched the Spanish deportation formation rushing straight and full speed in a cone formation, and couldn't help but snorted coldly: "Want to hit?"

The head of the Spanish Galen Sea ship not only has gorgeous decorative icons, but also has a huge ramming horn covered with thick copper skin, which seems to be designed for ramming.

Jinghua's armed transport ships do not have this kind of thick copper-skinned ram. According to Gao Pragmatism, this thing is "expensive and useless"-of course, the lack of thick copper does not mean that there is no ram design, because this kind of The design can still play a certain role in the face of small pirate ships that are much smaller than themselves.

It’s just that Daming lacks copper (to be exact, they use relatively corrosion-resistant bronze), and the iron ram corrodes too quickly, so Jinghua’s armed transport ships only have wooden rams, which are only used to deter and attack pirate boats. It is obviously meaningless to face a big guy with the tonnage of Spain's Great Galen now.

However, Gao Musan did not intend to let the opponent rush over and hit him so simply. He ordered the artillery to prepare, and prepared to start the first round of bombardment with the nature of calibration when the opponent's ship entered about five miles away from his side.

However, the surprise is that when the two sides are still about six miles apart, the Spanish fleet fired first!

At some point the flames flickered, the booming guns rang out, and the Spanish fleet fired the first shot.

Takagi-san was taken aback, and immediately squinted his eyes and stared at the surrounding sea to observe the power and accuracy of the Spanish naval guns.

However, the effect of the Spanish shelling was not good. Only one of the dozen or so shells landed half a mile away from the three ships of Takagi.

But even so, Gao Musan still clearly felt that the people around him were starting to get nervous—although the Spanish naval guns could not use the side string artillery because they were facing them vertically, resulting in sparse artillery fire, but it might occupy a little bit of range The advantage is only because one's own side has not been shot, and it is still unclear about the size of the opponent's shells.

Theoretically speaking, of course, lighter shells can hit farther, but the design of artillery is a project that must be considered comprehensively, and the opponent obviously will not design the kind of small shells that hit huge distances but have no lethality.

Takagi-san calmly ordered: "Order all ships, and allow free bombardment after the opponent enters the five-mile range."

In the era of wooden warships, free fire was the main method of bombardment, because the deck or hull had relatively limited endurance. Although it was not impossible to fire salvos, it would still risk damage to one's own warships, so Takagi-san ordered free fire. The command of the bombardment.

Of course, there is another reason here, that is, in the era when the command system does not have radio bonuses, it is difficult to create any synchronized bombardment of the entire fleet.

The Spanish fleet did not intend to slow down at all, and the Jinghua fleet was facing the enemy sideways. The speed of the distance between the two sides was naturally faster, and the "five-mile distance" was quickly satisfied.

The "Civet Cat" in the first position of the Jinghua Fleet fired its first shot. Of course, this wave fired more than a dozen cannons in a row. The Jinghua armed transport ship is equipped with 28 cannons, but there are two cannons at the front and back. It is impossible to fire sideways, so there are a total of 24 guns on the sidestring.At this time, it is impossible for the 12 guns on the right string to fire, so the 12 guns on the left string are actually fired.

This round of shelling by the "Civet" also failed to score a hit. Only one shell fell near the stern of a certain Spanish galleon, barely forming a near miss.

It is a pity that the shells of this era are solid shells, and it is meaningless to shoot near-missing bombs-near-missing bombs, that is, bombs or shells that explode on the water surface or in the water near the ship during naval battles.After the development of artillery shells to the era of high-explosive shells, the impact force produced by them can also damage ships to a certain extent, but the nature of the destructive force is not the same as that of hitting ships.

Because the density of water is higher than that of air, the damage caused by near-miss bombs exploded in water is more serious than that caused by explosions in air, especially when heavy bombs explode nearby, it may cause damage to the hull in water.

However, the current solid bullets do not have this effect, unless the angle of the shell falling into the water is very tricky, and it actually hits the hull in the water after falling into the water-in short, the shells of this era can only cause direct damage.

But this "near miss" is not meaningless. Its appearance proves that Jinghua's naval guns can hit a distance of five miles, and the accuracy may be higher than that of the Spaniards. "Probably", because the sea artillery battle was affected by too many external factors, and maybe the opponent's shelling just now was just bad luck.

Takagi-san also observed the shot just now, he looked at the distance, and shouted: "The enemy ship has entered the effective firing range of five miles, the gunners can aim and fire by themselves!"

Perhaps the nervous gunners had been aiming for a long time, and the order had just been issued, and Takagi-san's ship "Trichogramma" fired immediately.

The same twelve cannons roared, bursts of fire flashed, and puffs of white smoke rose from the muzzles of the deck guns, and were blown away by the sea breeze.

On the entire deck and on the bridge, a strong smell of gunpowder smoke can be smelled.

Gao Musan usually likes to smell the smell of gunpowder smoke, but at this moment he is not interested in "tasting", but nervously holds up the monocular to observe the shelling effect.

"Bang!" A cannonball hit the deck of a large Galenic ship, making a big hole in the deck, and the broken boards that flew off split the head of a Spanish sailor obliquely on the spot. He was the first person to die in this naval battle.

Gao Musan did not expect that the "Trichogramma" was so lucky, so he shouted excitedly: "Hit the deck!"

In the era of solid bullets, since it is basically impossible to hit the opponent with fire and smoke, it is actually more difficult to observe whether the hit is five miles away. Everyone can only rely on the watchman on the observation deck or the captain holding a telescope. .

At this time, Gao Musan roared, and the people around him became excited, sending cursing words to the other side, and saying congratulatory words to each other.

But Takagi-san knew that it was far from the time to celebrate, because the solid bullets had a very limited impact on the enemy ship, let alone one shot, even if it hit ten shots, it was basically impossible for the opponent to be sunk—how could the wooden battleship be so good? Easy to sink?
There are rumors in later generations that the Spanish "Holy Trinity", the largest sailing battleship in history, was hit by hundreds of shells back and forth. Leng did not sink, but encountered a storm during the process of being towed away.

Although the Spanish Galen in front of us is far behind the "Holy Trinity", the effect of this cannon is obviously not very great, so Takagi-san did not relax at all, while ordering to continue pouring shells at the opponent, he arranged carefully. formation heading.

In the following situation, the Jinghua fleet frantically fired at the Spanish formation while trying to keep away or keep a distance from the opponent; while the Spanish fleet fought back with much smaller bow artillery while desperately accelerating towards Jinghua. The fleet is approaching in order to achieve the goal of hitting first and then jumping to gang combat.

As the number of shots fired by the Spanish fleet increased, the distance between the two fleets had been shortened to about three miles. At this time, the Jinghua Fleet also began to be hit by the Spaniards, and four of the six ships were shot.

Among them, the "civet" took one shot, and a hole was punched in the side string, so two artillery pieces could not continue to fire.Fortunately, the side chords of sea-going ships in the age of sails are relatively high. This hole will not cause seawater to pour in, but waves will occasionally spill in. The captain of the ship has ordered temporary repairs to block the hole as soon as possible.

As for the formation's temporary flagship "Trichogramma", although it hit at least a dozen guns on the two large Spanish Galens, it was also hit by the Spanish fleet because of its role as the flagship. Unfortunately, it took two shots. The position of these two shells is not particularly dangerous.

One of the shots damaged the ramming angle of the bow, but the hull was not damaged, and basically had no effect on Takagi-san, who did not consider the ramming tactics at all; Make a hole in the sail.

Thanks to the fact that Jinghua's horizontal sail is "Gao's hard sail", it will not be like the Western soft sail, which sometimes has a hole and is pulled by the strong sea breeze, and the hole becomes bigger and bigger.

The main body of Jinghua’s “Gao’s Hard Sail” is still woven from bamboo strips, but due to Gao Yu’s experience in Guangxi, these strips have now added some untold secrets from the past of Guangxi chieftain wolf soldiers, some like The production process of the legendary "rattan armor" has made the strength of the sail—to be exact, the toughness has been improved by more than one grade.

Hard sails are not very afraid of puncture, because their puncture injuries are generally not aggravated by sea wind and other reasons, and this "Gao's hard sail" also strengthens the toughness, and makes this strength even higher. Therefore, the injury caused by this gun is mainly because it looks a bit miserable, and it is difficult to change the sail during the battle, which will affect the wind eating effect to a certain extent.

However, contrary to the understanding of laymen, it is actually easier to repair hard sails than soft sails, because slats are necessary on board, and many sailors have mastered the technology of weaving slat sails.

In fact, as long as he withdraws from the battle and removes the hard sail, the injury caused by the gunshot just now can be completely repaired in at most two or three hours, and it will not affect the subsequent use at all.

On the other hand, if the soft sail is damaged, even if it is repaired, it will seriously affect the subsequent maximum wind-absorbing ability. The best way to deal with it is to directly replace the sail. the "reason.

Of course, you can directly replace the sail if it is scrapped, but the problem is that the sail surface of the soft sail is very expensive because of its high requirements on the material, much more expensive than the hard sail—the hard sail uses strips, even if it is soaked in tung oil and tanned The old strips are only a technical problem. In fact, how much is it worth in terms of value alone?

Therefore, at this time, Gao Musan was still relatively calm, and continued to unswervingly implement the previous tactics, while trying to increase the distance, while continuing to bombard the artillery.

He has already seen that his line of battle tactic is indeed very useful, especially when the opponent insists on ramming over to fight the side jumping gang battle - the side string firepower is obviously much stronger than the bow firepower.

Unlike him, Captain Corina, the commander of the Spanish formation, was furious at the moment. While urging the entire formation to continue to accelerate, he cursed the opponent's commander as "a coward without courage". In "Don't even dare to fight me head-on"! ——
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(End of this chapter)