Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1890 The sword points to Dongying (Weiqi) for the first confrontation at sea

The Japanese Navy also had monoculars introduced by the so-called "Southern Barbarians" (West and Portugal), and at this time they also discovered the four ships of the Ming Army ahead.Since the four ships were all big ships in the eyes of the Japanese, the Japanese navy immediately became nervous, but the commanding general Todo Takatora was very excited and immediately ordered to meet the enemy.

Fujido Takatora believes that there is no need to worry about the four ships of the Ming army. The reason is that although these four ships are all large ships, the strength of their own fleet is still far superior to them.

The size of the Japanese fleet is not small. There are dozens of Kohaya ships and Guan ships each, as well as six Da'an house ships and four armed transport ships of the same specifications as the opposing Ming army. Armed transport ships are more powerful, because they not only have "iron armor" added, but also fully equipped with artillery that was not equipped when they were originally purchased.

In other words, compared with the four ships of the Ming army, the four armed transport ships of our own side are not only evenly matched in terms of artillery, but also have more iron armor.

However, Gao Lichuan, the decoy formation commander on the "Nine Mile Mountain" opposite him, didn't think so.

As the distance between the two sides narrowed, Gao Lichuan had already determined the size of the Japanese navy formation through binoculars, and also saw clearly the iron armor of the four Japanese armed transport ships, and counted clearly that the artillery they were equipped with was no different from that of his own warships, but Gao Lichuan didn't panic about this, and even let out a cold snort from his nostrils.

Immediately afterwards, Gao Lichuan ordered to turn to the right to seize the top of the T-shaped formation.Because of their professional semaphore advantages, the four ships of the Ming army turned in a uniform manner. They quickly occupied a favorable position and deliberately slowed down to facilitate bombardment.

On the other hand, the Japanese army, due to its large size and miscellaneous ship types, had completely different armament standards. Only the Ataka ships and armed transport ships could participate in this kind of battle line bombardment, so they had to continue to approach directly.

Based on the experience and lessons gained from the battle against Yi Sun-shin and the objective reality of the Japanese naval forces, Fujido Takatora ordered the small and medium-sized warships such as Guanchuan and Kohayafune to rush forward quickly and surround the four lagging ships of the Ming army, while the large ships were suspended. Behind the artillery cover.

According to his idea, when the small boat approached, the big ship would provide artillery cover in the rear, and after the small boat approached and surrounded the four ships of the Ming army, the Ming army would naturally be unable to bombard them normally.Simply perfect.

The reason why he thinks this way is mainly because he found in the previous battle with Yi sun-shin that Yi sun-shin's turtle ship often used rams against small Japanese ships, but the artillery on the ship would try its best to fire artillery at large Japanese ships.He thinks that the North Korean navy should have learned this skill from the Ming army—after all, Daming's father.

In other words, the Ming army's style of play should be similar to this.But this style of play is flawed in Todo Takatora's view. Its biggest flaw is that once the enemy ship can't hit it, it will have to be forced to fight close to the Japanese boats around it.

At this time, the Japanese army was able to take advantage of the iron guns, and the enemy ship could only defend and was unable to counterattack at most. In the end, the Japanese army, which had a numerical advantage, boarded the ship-and then slaughtered.

And there is another advantage of doing this, that is, the main losses of one's own side will almost always be small and medium-sized warships such as Guanchuan and Xiaozaoship, while Anzhai and "Tang-like ships" can try their best to ensure that they will not suffer losses. This is a good way to maintain the core combat power to the greatest extent.

However, Fujido Takahu soon discovered that he seemed to have made a wrong calculation. After the four ships of the Ming army discovered that the Japanese navy was approaching with small boats first, while the big ship was hanging far behind and sluggishly refused to move forward, they were not at all like the Korean navy. Instead of turning directly to strike like that, they fired immediately without saying a word.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The cannons rang out on the four ships of the Ming army. They fired the first round of shelling successively, but most of them missed and fell into the sea.

Fujido Takatora was taken aback when he discovered the shelling, but he was relieved when he saw that almost all of them were empty.He was surprised because his calculation was wrong, and he was relieved because the Ming army did not do its best in this round of shelling. bad.

Fujido Gaohu judged that the main purpose of this round of shelling by the Ming army may be to embolden himself and at the same time create psychological pressure on the approaching boats of the Japanese army.

With this judgment, Fujido Takatora naturally would not change the battle plan, but just watched the boats in front of them rush up desperately, like a herd of hyenas attacking a lion.

However, the reaction of the Ming army made Fujido Gaohu a little suspicious of what he had missed.The four ships of the Ming army still maintained their original formation-in fact, they were facing the enemy sideways with a long snake, and soon launched a second round of shelling.

This time, it was a salvo.

The sidestring artillery of the four ships of the Ming army roared almost simultaneously, firing a large number of chain bombs.From Fujido Takatora's perspective, sparks flashed on the Ming army's four ships, sending out many small black dots.If you look carefully, you can even see the double balls of the chain bomb pulling the iron chain in the middle and spinning quickly towards the Japanese boat, like a revolving sickle that harvests life.

The Jinghua armed transport ship has 28 cannons on the whole ship. Except for the two cannons at the bow and stern that cannot be adjusted for side string bombardment, there are 52 cannons on each of the left and right side strings, all of which are No. [-] guns. That means [-] rounds per round.

Chain bombs use a chain to connect two small shells smaller than the bore of the gun in series. After firing, one shell will drag the other shell centrifugally and fly away, so it will tear a big hole in the sail, or put the The rigging is torn, and if you are lucky, you can even tear off the mast and directly paralyze the enemy ship. It is a special naval shell mainly used to limit the movement of the enemy ship.

52 chain bullets were fired, and in Jinghua's imaginary main force duel, it would be considered lucky to hit three or five chain bullets at this engagement distance.However, since the Japanese navy was approaching densely with small boats at this time, the accuracy of the chain bombs was greatly improved. In this round of chain bombardment, fourteen hit the enemy ship.

The advantage of Jinghua's artillery is not only the artillery itself, but also the gunpowder equivalent is far stronger than that of its opponents at the same time. The performance of the artillery is actually superfluous, that is to say, even if the opponent is full of gunpowder, they will not be able to shoot the range and power that Jinghua can shoot.

The fourteen chain bombs hit in this round broke the masts of three Japanese ships on the spot and damaged a bridge command cabin, and the rest were basically casualties.According to visual inspection, at least 80 to [-] Japanese sailors were killed, and the Japanese soldiers who were shot closed the ship, and the flesh and blood on the Xiaozao ship were horrific and extremely visually shocking.

Needless to say, the Japanese ship with a broken mast must have lost its mobility on the spot.Even the Japanese ships that were killed by some sailors frightened the rest of the sailors around because the scene was too tragic, and their forward speed was also greatly reduced, forcing the Japanese ships behind them to go around, and even caused two accidents. A collision of warships.

At this time, the Ming army's advantage in seizing the wind direction began to play a role. They began to open the distance obliquely, but they were still able to maintain the sidestring salvo state.

Seeing this scene, Takatora Todo subconsciously felt that the situation was not good, but the command of the Japanese army could not rely on the semaphore to make temporary adjustments. Therefore, even if Takatora Todo was a little worried, it was difficult to order to make corresponding changes immediately—not to mention that he was not there for a while. Can't figure out how to change it.

The small boat groups of the Japanese navy continued to approach, while the four ships of the Ming army turned slightly while continuing to maintain a sidestring salvo.After another two rounds of salvos, the losses of the Japanese small boats were already considerable. More than 30 ships were shut down, and the small early boats lost or basically lost their ability to move.

The only good news is that the group of Japanese navy boats is getting closer and closer to the fourth ship of the Ming army, and it is only more than one mile away.Even if calculated according to the suspiciously short time interval of the Ming army's firing just now, at this time the Ming army could only fire two salvos at most before the Japanese army completely approached.

Under the strong encouragement of the samurai, the sailors of the Japanese navy tried their best to overcome their fear, and under the inspiration of victory, they roared and approached the four ships of the Ming army who could already see a human figure on the ship.The Anzhai Ship and the "Tang-like Big Ship", which were originally hoisted behind the group of small boats, also began to accelerate and approach, preparing to participate in the final sweeping battle.

At this time, the Ming army fired another volley, but instead of chain bullets, they fired grape bullets.

Grape bullets are a kind of artillery shells that can be used for land and sea. They use net bags to bundle the shotguns into a bunch, which looks like a bunch of grapes, so it is called grape bullets.Although its range is not as good as that of solid ammunition, a shot fired at close range can knock down dozens of enemy soldiers in an instant, enough to break up a platoon of soldiers.

In naval battles, grape bullets fired at relatively short distances are similar to shotgun shells, and can knock down large numbers of enemy officers and sailors, killing enemies on a large scale and even paralyzing enemy ships.

Undoubtedly, the Japanese small boats that approached for about one mile had to suffer a lot of casualties in the face of such shelling.

Since the structural strength of Guanchuan and Xiaozaoship is not high, and there is no so-called "iron armor", there are even two Japanese ships that were beaten to pieces and flooded a lot.

Although the wooden warship is not easy to be sunk by shells that do not have the ability to explode and ignite, this scene has to make the Japanese sailors who saw this scene terrified, for fear that they will fall into the sea and feed sharks.The momentum of the Japanese army was once again embarrassed.

At this time, Gao Lichuan finally ordered to hang up the semaphore of "orderly retreat" and increase the steering force to retreat diagonally.Seeing this, the swarms of Japanese small boats, which were already a little afraid but had to continue to attack due to the coercion of the military order, couldn't help but cheer up.

It turns out that the Ming army is also afraid, and they will turn the bow of the ship and run away!This shows that the courage of our army to fear death has shocked the Ming army!You all work hard, the outcome is in this battle!
Whether it is a samurai or an ordinary Japanese sailor, these words popped up in their minds at this time, and their mood changed from fear to excitement for a while, and the whole group rushed to chase the four ships of the Ming army.

However, what waited for them was the stern artillery of the Ming army to continue firing grape bullets, and more gunmen from Jinghua ships began to fight back with Wanli Type [-] rifles.

Although the Japanese army felt that the distance between the two sides was still a bit far, it was not a good time to shoot at each other with iron cannons. However, since the Ming army began to shoot, the Japanese army could only fire in advance even in order to maintain the morale they had just raised. The army shoots at each other.

However, like artillery, although the iron cannons produced in Japan are of good quality, due to the problem of gunpowder, the counterattack at this time can only be said to be audible, and has no practical effect at all.

At this time, Fujido Takatora also discovered another problem. The Ming army withdrew very quickly. In a short period of time, it changed from a state of slowly adjusting and improving its lineup to fully get rid of it, and the speed was almost the same as that of the Japanese army's small boat cluster.

In addition, the Ming army was able to counterattack forcefully, which led to the fact that although the group of small ships could have been a little faster than the four ships of the Ming army, they can only maintain a "bite and hold" state, and it is difficult to shorten the distance-as long as they get close Will be set fire, so slow down again.

But the biggest trouble is not this, but Takatora Fujido found that no matter how much he urged, even angry and threatened, the main formation composed of Anzhai Ship and "Tang Xiang Da Ship" couldn't get up quickly.Fujido Takahu was shocked to find that he was shouting to speed up, but in fact he was getting farther and farther away from the four ships of the Ming army.

The first disadvantage of the Japanese navy adding "iron armor" to all the big ships was revealed: it seriously slowed down the speed of the ship, resulting in a great reduction in maneuverability!
Yasuji Wakisaka, who was in charge of commanding the small boat group in front, was not only annoyed by the shameful tactics of the Ming army who did not dare to fight to the death, but also by the shameful tactics of running while fighting, and also annoyed Takatora Fujido who was behind him slowly "fearing the enemy". After chasing for a while, everyone Cursing and ordering to reduce the speed, he refused to die again.

When Todo Takatora's main fleet finally caught up, Wakisaka Yasuji immediately leaned over, jumped onto Todo Takatora's flagship, pointed at the latter's nose and cursed.Fujido Gaohu was so angry that his face was livid, but he could only explain the reason patiently.

Yasuji Wakisaka has no respect for Todo Takatora, a guy who has voted for seven protagonists. At this time, his temper is even worse. From being afraid of the enemy to scolding like a tiger to tactical mistakes, Todo Takatora really realized what it means to be bloody. .

Fortunately, a new news came at this time, saying that the Ming army in front had slowed down their speed and began to patrol in the distance, and even vaguely had the meaning of approaching again.

Wakisaka Yasuji didn't bother to continue cursing at the moment, and quickly raised the "Nanban Telescope" to examine it carefully.After looking at it, it was found that the four ships of the Ming army adjusted their course again, and began to touch the Japanese army again.

Yasuji Wakisaka was furious, and shouted: "Todo, are you going to let Kohayafune and Sekifune go to die, but hide behind and pretend to be dead?"

Fujido Takatora had a bit of a headache. Looking at the coming night, he wanted to say, "The night battle is not the commander of our army", but under the eyes of Yasuji Wakisaka who could almost kill people, he had no choice but to change his words: "How about it, Your Highness Wakisaka, this Once the small boats are divided into left and right wings, and the main force of the ship advances at full speed to fight the enemy ships, how do you think?"

Yasuji Wakisaka said coldly: "Very good, but I won't be directing the outflanking. I'll just watch you heroically kill the enemy on your boat. Do you have any objections?"

Yasuji Wakisaka is Toyotomi Hideyoshi's confidant general. Todo Takatora, who has changed his lord seven times, dare not have any objection, he can only forcefully laugh: "How dare, His Highness Wakisaka is about to help."
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(End of this chapter)