Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1481 Beiyang Expedition ([-])
As a former gunner, Luo Yuan has a soft spot for naval artillery battles.Although he has actually only fought once in actual combat so far, the artillery battle on the "Civet Cat" gave him a great shock, and this shock turned into a kind of fanatical passion, which made him want to fight as long as he was in front of him. There is an option to engage in artillery battles, and it is difficult for him to refuse this temptation.

As soon as Gao Musan's order came, Luo Yuan became full of energy immediately and asked all the crew members of the ship to act. The bell on the "Left Hussar" rang loudly, and the deck was busy.

The gunner commanded the personnel to open the gun door, move the ammunition that had been prepared from the ammunition compartment to the deck, and place them separately and simply fix them in a special position next to the artillery position.

Although the battleship is not yet in the right position, and it is not even certain which side of the artillery will eventually fire, the gunners need to be in place.

One of the characteristics of the artillery produced by Jinghua is that the height of the muzzle can be adjusted slightly, and an easy-to-use sighting device is installed.Although these equipments are very rough in the eyes of high pragmatism, in any case, it is definitely better than nothing, so Jinghua Artillery Factory has always insisted on equipment.

Now the gunners need to make some adjustments in advance and make sure the equipment is intact and usable.The gunner even asked the deputy gunners to start warm-up exercises-they were responsible for delivering and loading solid projectiles, loading gunpowder, cleaning the barrel and other physical work. It would be very bad if cramps occurred after the battle started.

Obviously, the captain of the sail cable will not be idle, and is asking all the sailors in charge of the sail cable operation to check all the sail cables again, and move the most vulnerable and damaged sail cable accessories to the position below the deck very close to the cabin door .

The "Left Wing Hussar" is an experimental reconnaissance ship. Although there are a group of "engineers" and a "chief engineer" on board, the sail captain dare not put all his hopes on them.

As a reconnaissance ship, the most critical performance is speed and viewing distance. Therefore, the "Left Wing Hussar" not only has a small one-man watchtower built on the mainmast, but also uses a whole fir tree with Southwest characteristics. .

The warships at this time were all made of wood, and those who entered these warships would find themselves completely surrounded by all kinds of wood: under their feet was a pine or teak floor that was nearly a foot wide, and above their heads was a wide oak floor. Nearly two feet of horizontal planks.

In addition, you can also see a towering, huge mainmast made of the trunk of a whole fir tree native to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

This huge specialty fir tree needs to be collected from the westernmost plateau mountainous area in Yunnan, transported to the upper reaches of the Red River (the Red River originates from Ailao Mountain in Yunnan) through extremely difficult land transportation, and then goes straight down the river from the north of Annan to the sea, and finally arrives in Qinzhou. Shipyards carry out processes such as drying and manufacturing.

In a word, this kind of wood itself is not expensive (Jinghua has a special status and western Yunnan is under the jurisdiction of Yunnan Tusi), but the transportation cost is surprisingly huge.It can be said that looking at the whole of East Asia, only rich and powerful masters like Jinghua will use it—and it is only used on a few tiers of warships.

This specially ordered whole fir tree is not an ordinary product that is three to five feet high. It is as high as twenty feet (yes, 60 meters high), so thick that it is difficult for a grown man to hug him.This mast pierced the deck and was attached to the wooden keel and even to the bottom of the ship.

The cable captain first asked to check the main mast, which is the watchtower, and the watchman of the lookout post also checked whether the small flags on his body were complete—the guns rumbled during the battle, and the people below might make various roars. His voice on the watchtower It may not be heard by the people below, and the observation results must be reported with the help of semaphores, so the flags must be complete and intact.

The sailors of the other masts can't relax either. A series of inspections must be done in accordance with the requirements of the drill code. Otherwise, in addition to the inherent fine system and confinement of Gao Jiajiading, what awaits them is flogging, that is, whipping. ——The sea is different from the ground, and sometimes there is really no deterrent effect if you don't do it.

The busiest people below the deck are the chief engineer and the engineers. They are the "experiments" that the entire Jinghua Liangyang Fleet cares about.

In addition to caring about artillery battles, Luo Yuan cared most about the performance of the engineers, or the performance of the propeller.Jinghua spent so much effort, time and money, naturally hoped that it would pass the actual combat test.

According to the standard given by Gao Pragmatism, the speed of other warships of Jinghua is about 7-8 knots. The speed of European warships fluctuates greatly under different sea conditions, which can be roughly regarded as 6-9 knots. Damage, even the lowest value will be lower.

The reason for this has been mentioned before. Hard sails are not too afraid of headwinds, and the speed difference between tailwinds and headwinds is not very big, while soft sails are headwinds at high speeds.

And this "Left Wing Hussar" has run to more than 13 knots in the Bohai sea trial due to the addition of artificial drive shaft and propeller, and it must be known that the wind is not very strong in the sea conditions of the Bohai Sea.Although due to manpower, this speed cannot be maintained for too long, but generally speaking, its temporary escape ability should be unrivaled in the world.

In the original history, China built a Chinese-style sailing ship "Qiying" in the late Qing Dynasty. The ship departed from Hong Kong from 1846 to 1848, arrived in Britain via the Cape of Good Hope and the east coast of the United States, and set a new record for Chinese sailing ships. far record.

The Qiying is made of teak, has three sails, and has a displacement of 800 tons. The British are very interested in the level of the shipbuilding industry around the world, so they have worked out the technical parameters of the Qiying.

Under the attention and research of the British, they believed that the maximum theoretical speed of Qiying reached 15.3 knots, but this is just a theory.Its best recorded speed is less than 8-9 knots, the best average speed is 5-6 knots, and the average speed of long-distance voyage is 3.5 knots.

Don't underestimate this record, because in the previous article, the other Jinghua warships have a speed of 7-8 knots, and the European warships have a speed of 6-9 knots. In fact, they are all equivalent to the "best record speed", and they will definitely not be in the actual sailing process. so tall.

The "Left Wing Ranger" is quite different from the Qiying. It can be seen at a glance on the bright side that it has a clipper bow and a super high mainmast (the main mast of the Qiying is only half the height of the Left Ranger) There is still propeller power in the cabin below the deck or to be precise, so the "best record speed" of the "Left Wing Ranger" reaches 8-10 knots.

If this boat is placed in the Atlantic Ocean where there are often strong winds, it is very likely to run at a high speed of 12 knots.Moreover, the tonnage of this high-speed reconnaissance ship is not small, about 1000 materials (about [-] tons in displacement), a little larger than an armed transport ship.

All the sailors in the engine room were warming up, and the chief engineer personally brought two technical craftsmen from the shipyard to check the main shaft. Except for the inevitable water seepage in the protruding part, everything else was normal.

After receiving reports from various parties, Luo Yuan ordered: approach the formation of the Spanish treasure ship, open the left and right gun doors in advance, put the artillery in place, and put out the semaphore that means "request your ship to stop and be inspected" - but he knows that the Spaniards may not see it. understand.

The reason is simple: the most complicated semaphore of this era is the semaphore of Jinghua, which was created by the ship department under the insistence of high pragmatism. Civil merchant ships.

But Europeans have not yet popularized this thing, or it is still in an extremely primitive stage.

The high degree of acceptance of semaphore by the navigators in Jinghua and even Daming even surprised Gao Yushi. After thinking about it, it probably has something to do with China's history.

According to historical records, as early as early ancient China, the means of "semaphore" existed and was used for communication.The oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty have records about the flag, which was mainly used to indicate identity or point out the direction at that time, and it was the most authentic semaphore.

The military book "Six Taos · Tiger Tao" records: "People hold banners, look at each other from outside and inside, order each other with numbers, and don't make them dull", which shows that flags have been used in military operations in ancient times.

During the Three Kingdoms period, which is most familiar to future generations, semaphore communication has been applied to warships. "Taiping Yulan Zhuge Liang's Military Order" records: "When you hear the sound of beating drums, raise the white flag and crimson flag, all boats and boats will enter the battle, and those who do not advance will be cut off. When you hear the golden sound, raise the green flag, all boats will stop, and those who do not stop will be cut off."

The land divisions of the Ming Dynasty also used various flags to command operations, and the navy divisions would also fly flags, but before Jinghua launched a special semaphore, everyone had never seen such complicated meanings expressed by flags.

On the contrary, the recorded history of semaphore abroad—mainly in Europe—is not very long.until 1684.The Englishman Robert Hooke (Robert Hooke) used several obvious symbols to communicate, which is the birth of the naval semaphore.

In 1793, the Frenchman Claude Chappe used the position and angle of the left and right wooden arms of the cross to represent each letter, which is called Semaphore, which is the origin of the English word of the semaphore. "origin.

It is said that the news that Napoleon, who was exiled in 1814, fled from Elba Island and returned to Paris, spread quickly throughout Europe by using this method.

But there was a more famous thing before that. In 1802, Britain and France, exhausted by the long war, signed the "Treaty of Amiens", but the two sides tore up the treaty in the second year and restored it. Hostile relationship.When the British heard that Napoleon was going to invade England, British Admiral Nelson was ordered to contain French Rear Admiral Villeneuve's fleet stationed in Toulon.

In the spring of 1805, Villeneuve got rid of Nelson's blockade and assembled with the Spanish fleet in Cadiz, and Nelson pursued him all the way.On October 10 of that year, the two sides faced off at Cape Trafalgar in the Strait of Gibraltar.

As the fleets of the two countries gradually approached, Nelson sent the most famous semaphore in the history of British naval warfare to his ship "Victory": "England requires everyone to do their duty."

In fact, what Nelson ordered to his communications officer at the beginning was "England believes (confides) that everyone will do their duty", but the communications officer suggested replacing "believes" with "expects" for a simple reason: the former is in the semaphore It can be found in the manual, but the latter has to be spelled letter by letter.Nelson agreed to the change, hence the famous quote above.

Nelson's words are meant to boost morale before the battle, so they are not commonly used semaphores, so some communications officers suggested changing the words.However, Luo Yuan's order at this time was different. "Request your ship to stop and undergo inspection" is a semaphore often used by Jinghua.

To put it bluntly, in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of ​​Japan, the South China Sea, and even the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Myanmar, Jinghua often uses this semaphore, and the reason is simple: Laozi has the biggest fist. .

The Spaniards have also encountered this kind of situation, but they usually encounter it in the South China Sea. It is not clear whether anyone in this group of Spanish fleets has seen Jinghua's semaphore.

However, in Luo Yuan's view, that's not a problem. The entire East Asian sea is our Jinghua territory. On our territory, you don't understand our semaphore... Hehe, don't blame me for not saying hello when you get beaten. That is the famous Chinese saying: "Don't say that what you say is unpredictable"!
The Spanish treasure ship formation had always been aware that the "Left Wing Ranger" was following them. Seeing that it suddenly approached boldly, opened its gun doors, and raised its semaphore, it quickly reacted.

Coincidentally, many people in this Spanish fleet traveled hemispherically all the year round—from Mexico to the Philippines, then took the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope and returned to Spain, mainly stopping at Portuguese colonies for supplies.For this reason, they could understand the simple semaphore of the "Left Hussar".

However, if you understand it, you can understand it, but the Spaniards' reaction to this semaphore is not very friendly.Perhaps it was because there was only one Jinghua warship in sight, and this warship looked rather strange, and the tonnage did not seem to be large, at least one size smaller than the six big treasure ships of their own, so not only did the Spaniards not He planned to stop the ship, and even quickly adjusted the course of the formation, and began to drive towards the "Left Wing Hussar".

"Driving here" is obviously not to take the initiative to meet the inspection, because Luo Yuan doesn't even need the report from the watchtower. Judging from the actions of Zhuanfan and Zhang Quanfan, they obviously wanted to fight.

The six 1200-ton Galen warships came together, and they clearly had a strong deterrent effect on the "Left Wing Hussar" with only 1000 tons.Even though the sailors in Jinghua had already developed the thinking of "I am the biggest at sea", they still couldn't help but subconsciously stare at the approach of the Spanish Grand Galen formation at this time.

Luo Yuan snorted softly, and ordered: "Signature: If your ship refuses to accept the inspection, you will be responsible for the consequences." After a pause, he continued: "Our ship turned ninety degrees to the left (the ship was taught according to the high-level practical guidance) , has been promoted), the starboard artillery is ready, and the engine room is ready for acceleration."
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(End of this chapter)