Kai Fu Han

Chapter 362 The Battle of Jianghua
In a naval battle, if the wind blows from ship A to the other ship, then using this wind, ship A's pursuit of the other ship is regarded as gaining the upper hand.Assuming that the two ships A and B are very close, the ship with the upper wind will have the initiative.

The advantages are many:
Control: A is located in the upwind. No matter how the ship turns, A can choose an angle that is favorable to itself and enter the battle.

Tilting: A sailboat will tilt. Once it comes into contact with the same course, the leeward boat's hull will tilt in the direction of the wind, and the hull below the waterline will be exposed out of the water. If it is hit by a volley of gunfire from the windward boat below the waterline, it will basically cause a huge loss. Leak, completely lose combat effectiveness, or even sink.

Choice: The windward ship can choose the wind, and the windward ship has the initiative. Therefore, the windward ship can also actively choose to enter the leeward and get close to the enemy to enter the battle. This can force the leeward ship to sail upwind and stop the ship to pick up the ship. Choosing the windward to enter the battle can have an advantage in shelling.

Avoid fire: Fire attack is an important tactic in water warfare in this era. Only by being on the upper air can we ensure that only the enemy is burned and not ourselves.If the leeward ship wants to attack the windward ship, the windward ship can dodge it calmly.

Pursuit: If a boat against the wind wants to escape, it needs to turn around, while a boat upwind only needs to raise its sails and accelerate.

Gunsmoke: In this era, artillery propellants were all black powder. One shelling would produce a lot of gunpowder smoke. Being upwind would help disperse the gunpowder smoke. If you were downwind, the wind would blow the gunpowder smoke into your face.

……

There are too many advantages.

……

Most of Goryeo's ships were small boats that could be paddled forward, so they did not pay enough attention to the upwind position, which led to the fleet commanded by Gao Yuan easily seizing the upwind position.

boom! …

First, the ship-based artillery on the mountain-class battleship opened fire, with four cannons on one side, and four huge water columns rose from the Koryo ship array in the distance.

Not a single shell hit...

This is the normal hit rate of artillery in naval battles.

However, as the fleets of the two armies gradually approached, the hit rate of ship-based artillery became higher and higher.

After the big ship was hit, it was basically a big hole. If it was above the waterline, it would be fine, but the shells entered the cabin, causing casualties to the people in the cabin.If it hits the waterline, the ship will rock back and forth, and seawater will immediately pour into the cabin. Then the ship will start to sink, and the seawater backflow will intensify. The people on the ship can only drain water with all their strength, and it will be difficult to continue to participate in the battle.

As the fleets of the two armies gradually moved, a few leaky boats were gradually left on the sea.

After being hit by artillery, the big ship can still be rescued, but the small boat will be miserable. It will either be discounted or broken up. Basically, there is no one that can hold on to a cannon and continue to float on the sea.

As time goes by, the Koryo warships are getting closer and closer to the Xinghan League warships because most of them are assisted by manpower oars.

Finally, the distance between the two fleets was close to within one mile.

At this time, the warships of the Xinghan Alliance also formed a long snake formation.

boom!boom!boom! …

The tiger squat guns on the side of the warship began to join the battle.

When approaching the flattened Tiger Crouching Cannon, the power of the solid bullet fired at close range should not be underestimated.None of the Goryeo warships could withstand a single shot without being shot through the ship's planks.

More than 50 large and small artillery pieces fired non-stop, and the sea was suddenly filled with the huge roar of the artillery. The Goryeo warships' originally approaching approach without hesitation also slowed down.

"Order, fight with them!" Gao Yuan ordered loudly.

The signalmen on the flagship began to pass orders to the following ships, with colorful flags waving in their hands. One signal after another was passed to the rear ships, and finally summarized into a lofty order.

The sails of the Xinghan League warships were lowered by half, and the ship's speed suddenly slowed down.

After being continuously run and bombarded for half an hour, Goryeo's war intention to transfer ships also changed. Some of the ships were still approaching the Xinghan Alliance warships, while some of the warships stayed in place and started to fight.

This also caused the number of warships that the Xinghan League had to face at one time dropped sharply to about thirty.boom!boom!boom! …

The warships of the two armies were approaching, the artillery was roaring, and the Korean warships were "laying down" one after another on the charge.

Suddenly, more than a dozen small sampans rushed out from behind the Goryeo warship.

These ships were loaded with dry straw, and the Korean sailors were rowing at full speed. The small sampans were very fast.

"Get ready to putt!!" Ye Chuan ordered loudly.

It can be heard that the captains of other Xinghan Alliance warships are also issuing the same order.

The long push rod was unhooked from the deck. A soldier held the three-foot-long push rod and pointed it at the approaching small sampan.

"Boom!"

The small sampan was accurately hit by the push rod and immediately stopped moving forward. The sampan was deflected in the water. A Korean sailor reached out and grabbed the push rod, hoping to use the push rod to pull the sampan closer to the Xinghan Alliance warship.

"Grenade!"

An ignited grenade was accurately thrown onto the small sampan.

boom!
The Korean sailors on the small sampan were killed, and no one was safe from the close-range bombardment of the grenade.

This was successfully intercepted, and there were more than a dozen small sampans that were not successfully intercepted.

The small sampan successfully docked with the Xinghan Alliance warship. The dry straw that had been poured with oil in advance was set alight by the Korean sailors. Although in the process, the Korean sailors were also killed by the navy officers on the ship with muskets and crossbows. However, the sampan The fire ignited on the board still affected the Xinghan Alliance warship.

"Quick! Push him away! Quick!"

The push rod pushed the burning sampan away from the Xinghan Alliance warship. Because the warship was in the wind, the small sampan was blown away from the warship by the wind.A water-soaked quilt was placed on the outside of the ship's deck where the fire was ignited, and the fire was immediately extinguished.

Just after dealing with this wave of fire attacks, another thirty or forty fire attack boats came quickly towards this side.

"Shotgun!"

The Tiger Crouching Cannon was replaced with shotgun shells and fired towards the boat a dozen steps away.

The close range bombardment had a very high hit rate. The sailors on the ship were beaten into pieces, and the ship slowly stopped at sea due to loss of power.

The Goryeo Navy carried a limited number of small fire attack boats. After the Xinghan Alliance successfully blocked three waves of fire attacks, no small boats continued to approach desperately, but some large ships had successfully approached.

"Shooting close to the face can better unleash the power of artillery."

The Goryeo warship then completely responded to this sentence.

Because the Mountain-class battleship is a special-purpose warship, the main deck is not high, and the ship-borne artillery fires almost close to the local ships. The deck of the Goryeo ship was plowed by cannonballs in a terrible way.

Everything in the flight path of the cannonball, whether it was people, objects, masts, or wooden boxes, all became torn apart.

With artillery, the Xinghan Alliance gradually reduced the use of rockets in the naval battles. After all, it was not easy to build a ship, and fire attacks could easily completely destroy the ship and sink it to the bottom of the sea.

On state-level and county-level warships without ship-mounted artillery, the tiger squatting gun also exerted its huge lethality. The shotgun was comparable to the ship-mounted artillery in terms of personnel killing. Goryeo sailors.

Coupled with the musket fire, even if the Goryeo warships came close, they would have no energy left to engage in a gang fight. It looked like they were rushing to die.

(End of this chapter)