Cutting 1719

Chapter 600 Race against time

Chapter 600 Race against time
In the later history, the naval battle that broke out in the waters near Batavia was very far-reaching, although its scale was not large, it was only six third-class ships against nine third-class ships, and the other warships were not at all. It's not worth mentioning, but the changes brought about by this battle even changed the mode of subsequent naval battles.

When the Dingyuan ship directly rushed into the Dutch battleship under the command of Qiu Ze, in a sense, it almost had the determination to succeed or succeed.

And the situation of the naval battle later did indeed reflect this point. I saw a shell fired from the Dutch third-class battleship Tulip, slanting across the rudder platform of the Ningyuan ship, and splashing wood along the way. The debris was like deadly lead bullets, directly sweeping the officers and soldiers of the Dachu Navy on the entire rudder to the ground.

I saw that under the violent impact, Qiu Ze was directly thrown to the ground by other guards, but at this time, Qiu Ze's whole body was covered with blood, but he didn't know if it was his own or the guards pressing on him. Yes, the strong bloody smell accompanied by billowing smoke made the rest of the naval officers and soldiers panic.

Although there is a rule for commanders in the Great Chu Navy, that is, when the admiral dies in battle or cannot assume the command responsibility, the deputy admiral can take over the command responsibility, and the deputy admiral dies in battle, the fleet chief of staff takes over the command responsibility, and the admiral In principle, the deputy admiral and the chief of staff cannot command on the same ship, so it can avoid the situation of no one commanding after the flagship is sunk or the admiral dies in battle.

The same is true in this battle, if Qiu Ze dies in battle, Deng Yunfang, the deputy admiral of the Zhenyuan ship, will become the new fleet commander.

Of course, no one wants to see this, because Qiu Ze is almost a pillar-like soul in the Great Chu Navy. If he falls, the combat effectiveness of the entire fleet will be greatly reduced.

However, at this moment, the naval admiral in his 40s was trying to stand up, his body was covered with large bloodstains, his arms and legs were wounded deeply by fine wood chips, and His forehead was also scratched by sawdust, and blood was constantly flowing.

"My lord! My lord!"

The naval officers and soldiers on the side hurried forward, trying to lift Qiu Ze off the commanding rudder.

Qiu Ze stood in front of the crowd panting, he raised his hand hard to stop his subordinates from lifting him off the helm.

"This battle. I am the commander, and I must never leave the helm!"

"Come on, tie me to the mast, and I will win this battle standing up!"

The blood pouring from his forehead quickly almost blurred Qiu Ze's vision. The scene in front of him seemed to be covered with a layer of red cloth. Through this layer of red cloth, he could see the shells falling like raindrops. Agitated water splashes, and naval soldiers lying everywhere.
But at this time, Qiu Ze's heart was like a calm sea, without the slightest emotional fluctuation. He tried hard to think about the situation before him, and then whispered the order word by word, and asked the herald to pass the order through the signal flag. go down.

In fact, the situation on the battlefield has developed into what it is now, which was completely anticipated by the Chu Naval Staff Office. After all, the strength gap and command gap between the two warships are clearly on the surface, and it is impossible to obtain it by conventional means. Victory—the reason why this battle will still break out is entirely because the current Da Chu Navy has a real trump card.

After the signal flag on the Dingyuan ship was raised, the Dachu warships in the melee also received the signal, especially the huge Chinese warships located on the flanks of the battlefield, and the huge number of chasing boats also began to raise their signals The flag seems to be a unified signal, with a kind of inexplicable mystery and tragedy.

When the time returned to three days before the start of the war, all the mid-level officers in the Da Chu Navy Fleet followed Qiu Ze for the last meal before leaving.

Qiu Ze raised his wine bowl and drank it to everyone. He said loudly: "We were all brothers who came out of the Green Camp back then, but His Majesty never suspected us, nor did he cleanse us in the navy, and sent us Entrusted with a heavy responsibility, none of you here is below the rank of major, which shows that His Majesty has treated us well, and he will repay us with his life!"

"We all understand in our hearts that this battle must be fought. If we don't fight, we will be sorry to His Majesty, but we must win. If we don't win, we will be sorry to His Majesty. If we want to win, we must dare to die!"

"Once the battle starts, I will try my best to lead six sailing warships to attack the Dutch fleet first and hold back the opponent's main force. You have only one task, and that is to take advantage of the opportunity to rush into the Dutch fleet, divide it, and then attack the Dutch fleet at close range. Next, use rocket bombardment!"

"Although the rockets have a long range, their accuracy is too poor. We must shorten the distance to within [-] yards, preferably [-] yards. The closer the better, and then concentrate the bombardment to achieve miraculous effects! At that time, there will only be two In the end, it's either win or die!"

"In a word, put it to death and then live. Once this battle starts, the kings will advance but never retreat!"

These green battalion veterans who were originally from the Fujian Navy raised their wine bowls one after another and drank them all in one gulp.

"There is no retreat! There is death but no life!"

"Rockets are ready! Raise the flag, lean over!"

Xu Tonglong, the No. [-] leader of A, roared loudly, and a bloody towel was wrapped around his arm at this time. The original white background color had long been indistinguishable, but the involuntary trembling of his arm showed his pain at this time.

The so-called No. [-] is a relatively common chasing boat. It itself is only a small and medium-sized ship, six feet six feet long and one foot seven feet five inches wide. The number of cannons on it is also extremely rare. The two six-pound guns are not lacking enough artillery, but because of the shape of the ship, there is no way to install gun positions on the side, so we can only put such a gun at the bow and stern.

However, even such a chasing boat can be regarded as the main warship among the large number of traditional warships, because almost all other warships are smaller boats and fast sentinels. It has to be said that in this era, the development of Eastern warships has lagged far behind that of the West, and the concept of naval warfare is also at a disadvantage.

Therefore, even though Qiu Ze has more than 100 such warships in his hands, he still dare not let these warships rely on their numbers to kill elephants, because they are likely to sink a few armed merchant ships with untold hardships. After that, it will be completely destroyed, and this is definitely not what Qiu Ze wants to see.

Fortunately, there are rockets, which can give them a desperate chance.

Of course, it was just a desperate opportunity.

After Xu Tonglong's order was issued, several Chu navy soldiers took out many long cylindrical objects from the cabin, and then installed them on the launcher fixed on the deck, and then lifted the top The covered cloth reveals a straight and slender elastic body, with a long lead wire dragging at the bottom.

When these rockets were all installed on the launchers on the deck, there were a few more columns pointing obliquely to the sky on the originally flat deck, and the entire hull looked a bit weird.

"emission!"

Xu Tonglong slashed down the naval sword in his hand, and then the soldiers lit the fuse, and a thick white smoke enveloped the entire ship immediately, and a dozen rockets rushed into the sky with piercing sounds, and then They drew an arc and scattered in all directions, looking very beautiful and spectacular.

"Boom--"

A series of huge roars followed, and the Dutch armed merchant ship closest to A-[-] was hit by several rockets, and then sank slowly amidst the sound of explosions, at a speed of Beyond everyone's imagination, in just a moment, there was only thick white smoke left on the sea.

However, this scene was destined to be only the beginning of this naval battle. Other big Chu warships on the sea also began to set up rockets one after another, and launched a bombardment at the Dutch warship in front of them. Flowers are like flowers, and the next series of explosions are one after another, adding a lot of cruelty to the scene.

Looking at the huge changes that took place on the battlefield, not only the ordinary Dutch sailors were surprised, but even De Vries, who was commanding the Batavia, was dumbfounded. Obviously, the admiral had never seen anything like this before. There is no record of this weapon in my mind.

Especially in terms of the momentum and power of the rocket launch, there is no weapon in the navies of Western countries that can match it. Even De Vries, who has a keen sense of smell, quickly realized the value of this rocket in naval battles .

Of course, the accuracy of the rocket is extremely poor, and it is necessary to stick tightly to the opponent's warship in order to hit the target with multiple shots, but the explosive power brought by it itself makes it extremely damage to the hull, followed by The burning of the battleship will also make the battleship lose its combat effectiveness, so it is not an exaggeration to say that it can change the pattern of naval warfare.

Qiu Ze, who was tied to the mast and insisted on commanding, also looked at the scene in front of him excitedly at this time. He quickly realized the preciousness of the fighter at this time, and immediately issued an order to lead the Dingyuan ship and other Five third-tier sailing warships entangled the Dutch third-tier warships in combat.

The reason is simple. Compared with the Dutch armed merchant ships with limited firepower, the densely packed artillery positions of the third-tier warships are too harmful to traditional warships. If it chooses to turn around and suppress traditional warships, I am afraid that those warships will be difficult to resist. There is no chance to get closer at all, and even firing rockets will not have much effect.

Just like the current third-tier battleship Dachu, the distance from the third-tier Dutch battleship is always about [-] yards. At this distance, rockets can only rely on luck if they want to hit the third-tier battleship on the sea— ——Therefore, Qiu Ze does not intend to use it on Tier [-] warships, but as a way to let traditional warships play a role.

"Boom--"

As time went by, the battle on the sea became more and more intense, with shells flying through the air from time to time, but with the addition of rockets, the situation began to develop in the direction of the Chu Navy, and more and more The Dutch armed merchant ship was sunk, but there were very few big Chu warships that were sunk, most of them were relatively small boats and fast whistle ships.

When he found that the situation was becoming more and more unfavorable, De Vries was full of annoyance. He didn't want to waste time with the third-tier warships of the Dachu Navy on the sea, because the power of both sides could only rely on the wind direction, and the distance was also limited. It has been unable to get closer, which caused the Dutch third-tier warships to fail to quickly sink the Dachu battleship.

At this time, De Vries hopes to lead the warships under his command and directly turn around to fight those large numbers of traditional warships. As long as these warships are wiped out at a certain distance, then at least they can maintain an unbeatable battleship. the result of.

However, under the quiet and persistent command of Qiu Ze, the six ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, Jiyuan, Jingyuan, Laiyuan and Zhiyuan have been stillborn and entangled with the six sailing warships of the Netherlands, and only the remaining three third-tier battleships After getting rid of the battlefield, they were the Helder, the Troy and the Tulip, and they began to turn around and head towards the flanking battlefield.

Among the rippling blue waves, I saw a large number of broken wooden boards and the wreckage of warships floating on the calm sea in the past. At the same time, there were also many corpses of Dutch naval soldiers who died in battle, outlining a tragic picture on the sea. In contrast, the Great Chu Navy suffered relatively minor losses, with only a dozen small boats sunk.

When the Dutch battleships Helder, Troy, and Tulip rushed over aggressively, Xu Tonglong was also commanding the No. [-] at this time. Naturally, he could clearly see the movements of the Dutch battleships and knew that he had only six ships and three ships. There is no way to completely suppress the opponent's nine warships, and the rest can only be relied on by themselves.

"Order, the ship formation turns and attacks the three enemy ships coming to the right!"

Xu Tonglong's tone was very calm. He was also the commander of a squadron formation, and immediately let all the warships under his formation stand in front of the Dutch warships.

"My lord, our ship may not be able to rely on it."

The officer on the side cautiously dissuaded him. In fact, he only said half of what he said. It was only one aspect that he couldn’t rely on it. In terms of offense, the Dutch battleship has 32 cannons on the side, and the power of each salvo is too great.

Xu Tonglong snorted coldly, and said: "If you can't get past them, then stand in front of them. Even if you sink in front of them, you can block some time. What we need most now is time!"

That's right, for the Dachu Navy and the Dutch Navy, the two sides are fighting each other for time. If the traditional warships on the flanks of the Dachu can sink dozens of armed merchant ships in the Netherlands, then the lonely nine Naturally, a third-tier battleship cannot escape, but if the three third-tier battleships of the Dutch fleet are allowed to return first, then the outcome is still unknown.

(End of this chapter)

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