Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1891 The sword points to the ambush of Dongying (Weiba), it's really coming
In this era, night battles are disastrous for most armies. Only some elites with adequate supplies and a balanced diet can avoid the effects of night blindness.

Even with night blindness eliminated, however, night combat itself is pretty tough.Not to mention this time, even the modern army of later generations, before the popularization of night vision devices, usually rarely choose to fight at night. [For example, in this Russia-Ukraine war, both sides tried to avoid night battles. ]
Night battles are often synonymous with chaos.Regardless of the initiator or the responding party, no one knows what will happen in the end, so in most cases, try to avoid it.Throughout the history of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign wars, almost all night raids were gambling attacks launched by the weaker side.

Judging from the current situation at sea between the Ming and Japanese armies, the Ming army is naturally the superior side, and the Japanese army is naturally the weaker side. But in the area where the fighting took place at this time, the situation is completely opposite.

Although most of the capital ships of the Japanese fleet (if the "Tangyang Daship", that is, the armed transport ships and Anzhai ships purchased from Jinghua, are regarded as the main force) were mostly mobilized to attract the Pingwa Fleet that blocked Pusan, they still have an advantage here.

They have four "Tang-like ships" and six Da'an house ships, as well as dozens of small early ships and Guan ships, while the Ming army has only four armed transport ships, and they have not been "iron armored". Not as good as the Japanese ship.

Of course, the disadvantages of "iron armor" have been exposed with the battle just now, and the worrying speed is almost announcing "there is no such ship" during the pursuit battle, just like a saying: eating shit can't keep up with hot ones.

But even with such problems, traditional thinking is hard to shake.Since all Japanese naval forces in those days liked to use baked jade for fire attacks, "iron armor" became a kind of just-needed equipment.

In Japan, "bakery" is actually a kind of clay pot, and baked jade is a grenade-like weapon that is filled with gunpowder in this pottery-shaped container, ignites the fuse and throws it at the enemy.

But they are different from Jinghua’s grenades today. The baked jade is a kind of pottery with a rope, which is thrown by centrifugal force through a circular swing. The main purpose is to kill enemy soldiers. Of course, it can also ignite nearby wooden structures.

This is a bit similar to modern incendiary bombs, the explosive force and the fragments of the container are the main force of killing, and the power of the fire is actually low.Sailors from the Seto Inland Sea, such as the Murakami Navy, the Nomi Navy, and the Kodama Navy, used it the most.

Not only ships, but because East Asian countries are greatly influenced by China, even the buildings are mostly made of wood, so the use of baked jade can be more extensive. [Note: I vaguely remember why ancient Chinese buildings were made of wood in the previous article of this book?Here is a one-sentence summary: Under the Five Elements Thought, only wood is suitable for raising people, so wooden buildings are generally used in Confucian cultural circles. ]
Compared with the extensive use of baked jade in medium and long-range attacks commonly used by the Japanese army, China actually liked to use various fire attack methods.However, China is far richer than Japan, and in the early days of fire attack, special fire attack ships were often arranged. Most Japanese forces could not afford to learn this style of play, so they focused on the method of roasting and branding jade.

Of course, East Asian civilization originated in China, so fire attack methods similar to baked jade actually originated from China. "Jade" is actually following this title.

There are even more similar weapons developed by China. The firearms of the Ming Dynasty are really diverse. For example, the "Flying Vulcan Crow" that has been eliminated by the Ming army after the high-level military reform is very similar to concentrated fire from the effect point of view. The baked jade of the style - an evolved version.

For the sake of simplifying logistics, Gao Pragmatic greatly reduced the types of firearms in the Ming army. Long-range heavy firearms were directly cut down to only two categories, namely artillery and rockets.

In terms of artillery, since more than 20 years have passed, no real explosive ammunition has been produced, so it mainly relies on the impact of heavy solid projectiles to attack and kill the enemy.

The rocket still retains some functions such as explosion and ignition, but it also achieves combat objectives based on rockets of different specifications.As for some so-called "poisonous smoke" rockets in the past, they were cut down by Gao Yushi.

It's not that he refused gas bombs due to a heart attack - there was no Geneva Convention to restrict Ming Dynasty in this era, the main reason is that the so-called poison gas at this stage is too ineffective, and the cost is completely unacceptable if it wants to be effective.

In Gao Pragmatism's view, except for certain areas in the Southwest where some low-cost poisons can be produced according to local conditions, it is basically impossible to mass-produce, store, and transport poisons that can be used on the battlefield.This is something that can only be achieved by a strong chemical industry, which simply does not have that level of technology and production capacity now.

Closer to home, the Japanese naval forces have been under fire in the past. Of course, their tactical thinking will be limited by "anti-baked jade", and they have insufficient understanding of the artillery operations of the transformed Ming army.

They think that covering warships with a thin layer of iron skin can improve their defenses. This is pure nonsense in the eyes of the Jinghua Liangyang Fleet, which was born under the guidance of highly pragmatic tactics.

With your iron sheet at most a few millimeters thick, do you expect it to be able to resist shelling?What should be smashed should be smashed to pieces.

However, in the era of sail power, the speed of warships was inherently limited. According to the measurement standards of later generations, most of the time it was only 7 or 8 knots, and the fastest may be more than ten knots.

In this case, if the waterline of your wooden warship is covered with a few millimeters of iron, it will definitely seriously affect the speed of the ship.This is not a question of choosing between fish and bear's paw, but that I don't want fish or bear's paw, so I prefer to choose a chicken rib.

Both Fujido Takatora and Wakisaka Yasuji have actually discovered through the confrontation just now that the speed problem has a great influence, but this problem is obviously impossible to be solved immediately technically, and only temporary tactical adjustments can be made, which is the outflanking of the two wings proposed by Fujido Takatora. advance.

The question is, what will the four ships of the Ming army do?
The change of the Japanese army has been found out by the four ships of the Ming army. Gao Lichuan snorted and said: "The Japanese are poor, so it's useless to do all this. He can't beat the small boats, but I can go when the big boats come. It seems that everything is stable. I only need to attack his wing fiercely to break him."

The first officer beside him smiled and said, "It's easy to fight, but captain, our task is not to defeat them. If we really beat them away, I'm afraid we will be held accountable when we go back."

Gao Lichuan was a little annoyed and said: "I see that the Japanese pirates are not well trained. If I have ten ships... no, as long as I have eight ships, and they are farther away from the coastline, then within three days I can be all Annihilate this Japanese pirate navy.

But now it is difficult to handle, we only have four ships, we can hurt them, but it is very difficult to destroy them.After all, they have so many boats, if they can't do it, they can disperse and flee. We can't chase them even if we want to, so we can only lure the enemy in deep. "

The first mate asked: "They have put on a pursuit posture, but obviously the speed cannot be increased, what do you think, captain?"

Gao Lichuan knew what he wanted to ask, shook his head and said, "I won't fight tonight, and I might be criticized if I turn around in a night battle. Anyway, their steady pursuit can't catch up with us, so let's hang them up. Order, everyone Pay attention to keeping a safe distance from the ship, and wait until tomorrow morning."

"If the other party chases after him, will he chase him?" the first officer asked again.

Gao Lichuan snorted softly: "If they don't chase, we'll approach them. In short, we can't let them rest in peace. Hey, I've dragged them out tonight, and tomorrow's main ambush will be the best way to beat the dogs in the water. After the battle, we must give them some credit." Our four ships count as one more."

Well, in the final analysis, remembering credit is the last word.But this is not surprising, after all, such things as ideological progress depend on the improvement of education level, and are also affected by various aspects such as status, family background, and life development.

Gao Lichuan, as the member of the Gao family, was not originally from the sixth house, he was the son of the fourth house.Later, as Gao's pragmatic status became more and more distant from other members of the family, the clan power of the Gao family actually went to Liufang.

As a result, Gao Lichuan was able to develop better. It was not easy for him to climb up to the captain step by step, and there are still many levels up the captain, so it is only natural to value merit.

The two sides have made a plan, and the Japanese navy chased after them in the first half of the night, but because it was already night, the speed was not even as fast as before.However, since the four ships of the Ming army returned the same way, the sea conditions were more familiar, and they walked very calmly, always maintaining an appropriate distance from the Japanese navy.

In the second half of the night, the Japanese navy was exhausted from chasing because they had to be ready to fight at all times. Not only did their speed drop further, but they also realized that it was impossible to catch up tonight, so they started shifts to let some people rest.

The four ships of the Ming army quickly discovered the changes in the Japanese navy. Unfortunately, the semaphore at night was not working well, and the light signal was not as comprehensive as the semaphore. It took half an hour to finally coordinate the order and launch a war against the Japanese navy. Small-scale approaching shelling.

In terms of the results of the battle, this bombardment was of very little significance—after all, due to technical limitations, the accuracy of the bombardment during the day was very worrying, let alone at night.

But having said that, it still disturbed the Japanese navy, so they could only wake up those who had just fallen asleep to fight.At the same time, this round of bombardment by the four Ming warships also aroused the "anger value" of the Japanese navy to soar. They vowed to wait until dawn and must try their best to catch up with these four Ming warships and teach them a lesson.

The servants and sailors of the four ships of the Ming army were not hard-working people, and fatigue also enveloped them.However, they are not worried about tomorrow. After all, according to the scheduled plan, the Japanese army will be led into the ambush circle tomorrow morning. At that time, the main fleet will take over the follow-up mission, and they can rest at ease.

The two sides managed to survive until dawn, but troubles came their way.At this time, the two parties had actually reached Yupu Bay, but Yupu Bay was foggy early this morning, and visibility dropped sharply.

Because not only the coastline in southern Korea is as complicated as a dog bites, but also there are many islands and reefs, even the four ships of the Ming army who have been moving around for a period of time in this thick fog dare not run wildly. Not to mention the army, the speed of both sides slowed down visibly to the naked eye.

Gao Lichuan was even more worried that the Japanese navy would be lost, so he had to narrow the distance between the two fleets a lot.What he didn't expect was that this action aroused the vigilance of Yasuji Wakisaka.

Wakisaka Yasuji reminded Fujido Takahu to pay attention, thinking that the various practices of the Ming army's four ships indicated that there might be an ambush ahead, just like the routine that Li Sunshin had used many times earlier.

Fujido Takatora also attached great importance to this, so the two called some of their subordinates to discuss how to deal with it.Perhaps it was because Yi Sun-shin had impressed them too much before. After discussion, the Japanese navy thought it might as well take advantage of the fog to break into Okpo Bay and seize Okpo Port first to see the situation.

In fact, this opinion was first put forward by Yasuji Wakisaka, and Todo Takatora did not quite agree with it.He thought that although he had not heard that the Ming army had a large-scale garrison in Okpo before, and based on the time, the main force of the Japanese army going south might have already sneaked into Sacheon by this time. Even if the Ming army had a garrison in Okpo, it should retreat to Sacheon now Emergency.

However, since our side has been at sea, we are only guessing about this battle situation, and we cannot be sure whether it is true, so we should still be vigilant, and then we must consider whether the navy can take Yupu.

Another point is that Fujido Gaohu is also quite skeptical about whether the Ming army navy really has the power to set up an ambush in the waters off the coast of Sacheon. Importantly, the Ming army should not have left a powerful fleet in Sacheon as a display beside them.

Wakisaka Yasuji retorted after hearing this: "The Ming army is not a court army. We can only look at their power high but not underestimate it. The Ming army fleet outside Busan Port is indeed very large, but who can guarantee their full strength? That must be the only ones?"

It is impossible to prove or falsify this statement before seeing the possible ambush circle of the Ming army, so Fujido Takatora had no choice but to change his statement, saying: "If the navy of the Ming army does have such a powerful force, Then I can’t help but ask, is our going to Okpo now a self-inflicted trap? What should we do if we go to Okpo Port and get blocked like Busan?”

This question can be regarded as using one's spear to attack the other's shield, and Wakisaka Yasuji was at a loss for words for a while. After thinking about it, he had no good idea, so he had to ask back: "Then what is the opinion of His Highness Yitotang now? He would never say that he would simply retreat. Busan, right?"

Not to mention, after Fujido Takatora realized that there might be a Ming army trap ahead, he really felt that the prospect of this battle was worrisome. It would be safer to return to Busan, at least he still had a chance to preserve his strength-he actually had the "existence fleet" for no reason. Thoughts are magical enough.

However, this military discussion that failed to reach a consensus soon had to be temporarily terminated, because at this time the fog cleared, and the watchman on a "Tang-like ship" of the Japanese navy suddenly rang at a very fast pace. A warning gong was raised to signal the discovery of a large number of enemy warships.

Ambush, really coming.

Takatora Todo and Yasuji Wakisaka's expressions changed drastically.
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(End of this chapter)