Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 162 The East China Sea Annihilation Battle (1)
Whether it was Lu Yiwei's troops or Feng Xianghua's two divisions that slaughtered Tokyo, they are all on standby now.He was not prepared to take advantage of the victory and pursue directly to Hokkaido.

Because after the supply line was attacked by the navy, there was a serious shortage of both ammunition and food. The Ministry of War also suggested not to stretch the front line too long, and properly recover the defense. After the navy recaptured the supply line, the supplies were fully replenished. There is no rush to move forward.

Therefore, this break time is a rare few days of leisure after the entry of the Qing Army.The army stood still and waited for help, because the time in Tokyo was too great, and the local people did not dare to make a fierce resistance. Everyone was worried that the city they lived in would become the second Tokyo.

Yan Fu led the nine ships of "Changsheng", "Unbeaten", "Ride the Wind", "Break the Waves", "Daqing No. [-]", "Daqing No. [-]", "Guangjia", "Guangyi" and "Yangfan" The warship returned from Haiyuan Road and came to a fleet that had not been encountered near Nagasaki.

And Deng Shichang led nine warships "Zhenyuan", "Dingyuan", "Jiyuan", "Weiyuan", "Flying Eagle", "Sea Lion", "Jingyuan", "Laiyuan" and "Zhiyuan" from the Pacific Ocean. Traveling south to the East China Sea, no fleet was found.

"Damn it, did your warship disappear out of thin air?" Deng Shichang cursed angrily while holding a telescope and talking to himself.

At this time, the nine warships lined up in three columns, with three warships as a team, the middle team protruded about 400 meters forward, and the left and right wings of the columns were slightly behind, so that the three warships in each horizontal team can form a triangle. formation.

In the late 19th century, the modern naval warfare transitioned from the era of sailing battleships was of special significance.Group individual ships together, using appropriate queues.It helps to exert the power of the cluster, and doubles the combat effectiveness and survivability of the warship.

However, at that time, the command methods of the naval formations were relatively primitive, mainly semaphore commands.Even if this method is used for normal sailing on weekdays, if it is used to command a formation of ships with too many nautical miles, it is obviously powerless.Not only may ships that are too far away from the flagship may not be able to recognize the clear signal, but at the same time, once the meaning to be expressed is too complicated, simple semaphore is likely to cause ambiguity.In wartime, semaphore command is even more fragile.The ropes, sails, and signal soldiers that hang the signal flag will all become the targets of the enemy's firepower, and the coal dust and gunpowder smoke will permeate the steaming naval battle.It will make the battlefield as if surrounded by clouds and fog.Even the ships next to the flagship.It is also possible that the content of the signal flag cannot be discerned clearly.

Taking these factors into consideration, if only relying on the flagship to use simple semaphore commands to command a large-scale fleet to change formation or fight.Obviously, it has great technical difficulty and inoperability, so the prevailing norm in the naval circle at that time was to split the large fleet into multiple tactical squads composed of a small number of warships.Yu Si, a diplomat at the Chinese embassy in the UK who participated in receiving the "Wu"-class ironclad cruiser back to China, summarized the norms of the British Navy's charter in his book "The Diary of Buildings and Ships", summarizing this as "during the battle, divide the ships into three ships. It is most appropriate to have one team and several teams to form an army", that is, every three warships are organized into a tactical unit, and then several tactical units are combined to form a combat fleet.The advantage of this is that as long as the warships of each detachment move closely with the captain ship of the detachment, the warships of the detachment can rely on each other during combat, and the detachments can also cooperate with each other. They can act in concert and cooperate in combat, so as not to fall into the disadvantageous situation of being defeated by the enemy one by one.

The North and South Ocean Fleets, which were heavily influenced by the British Navy, also absorbed this idea.In the naval formation specification "Ship Formation Diagram" compiled by the Jiangnan Naval Academy, although hundreds of formations are listed, the most basic tactical unit of each formation is the traditional three-ship unit.

Therefore, when the troops were divided into two groups to encircle the fleet this time, they used three warships as the basic battle group. The formation adopted can be called a triangular file formation. Generally speaking, it is a three-column formation, which belongs to the standby formation. This formation can be used for mooring, and can also be used as the basic formation for daily sailing.But the triangular file formation is different from a simple three-column formation. In this formation, the three warships in each horizontal row are a tactical unit. The relative positions of the three ships in the unit are slightly staggered, and they are not in a straight line.The arrangement of the horns in the column is strictly in accordance with the naval tactical standard at that time that "the whole ship should not be parallel (such as a word), nor should it line up (such as a word), but should be scaled forward (such as a checkerboard shape)" , in order to facilitate maneuvering and avoid collisions and accidental artillery fire (normal sailing formations do not have this requirement)

The "Flying Eagle" cruiser at the forefront of a formation led by Deng Shichang suddenly noticed thick smoke rising from the southwest direction, and moved rapidly towards its own fleet. From the speed of the incoming ship, it could be judged that it was a warship. The "Flying Eagle" immediately sounded its siren, and the entire fleet was put on alert.

But soon, the sentry on the mast plate of the "Flying Eagle" reported that the incoming ship was an American warship.The officers and soldiers on the warships breathed a sigh of relief, and the captain Ding Ruchang immediately ordered the sentry: "Tell them that we are performing a combat mission and keep them at a distance."

The warship flying the American flag didn't seem to see the flag clearly, but rushed a little closer. They didn't return until most of the warships in the fleet could be seen clearly with the "Flying Eagle" ship flying the flag for the second time. A "do not misunderstand" banner, turned around and left.

This small episode did not affect the good mood of the officers and soldiers of the ships. It is almost known throughout the country that the war is going smoothly. Although the navy did not achieve any important victories, they are all prosperous, and the navy is also honored.

"Boom" "Boom"

After entering the East China Sea, the Deng Shichang formation, which had been maintaining a speed of 8 knots to join the Yan Fu formation in Nagasaki, unexpectedly heard the bombardment of warships from near Nagasaki.

"Report, Flying Eagle reported that there was an engagement between two fleets near Nagasaki. It is currently impossible to identify whether our Qing fleet has encountered the fleet." A communication soldier reported truthfully.

"Order all fleets to speed 13, target Nagasaki, and advance at full speed!" Deng Shichang ordered.

"Yes." The communications soldier turned and left.

From the war between China and Japan to the present, Deng Shichang has almost never had the opportunity to perform. The four elite German improved armored ships under his command, Zhen, Ding, Ji, and Wei, have never had a chance to perform. So far, they have only attacked Nagasaki. , Yokohama's fort.Deng Shichang also tried his best to show his value in the direct confrontation with the Chinese fleet.

(End of this chapter)