The winter night at Lushun Military Port is quiet and comfortable. Except for a few sentries on the fort and the dock, all the officers and soldiers have fallen asleep in the military camp. A row of torches are tied next to the road on the dock, lighting up the originally dark stone.
The quality trestle was brightly lit, which was specially set up to prevent anyone from damaging the warship.
Two men wearing Lanfang Imperial Navy officer uniforms were walking along the road, checking the sentry posts and talking in low voices.
"Brother Junguo, when will we be able to use armored ships? The small Japanese country across the sea has already equipped more than a dozen armored ships, but our huge Lanfang Empire has so few armored ships." A man named Zhang Xiaobing
the officer asked.
The officer named Liu Junguo who was asked said: "This question is difficult to answer. I think Marshal Xiahou means that the five ironclad ships under construction should also be equipped with the first fleet. I want to wait until then, and those two
This old ironclad ship should be divided between our two fleets as the flagship."
Zhang Xiaobing sighed and said: "The First Fleet is the direct descendant of the marshal. We are all stepmothers, and we can't get any benefits."
Liu Junguo also sighed: "Yes, I heard from my brother that Lord Fang of the Chinese Territory is equipped with several armored ships, which is much more luxurious than us."
Zhang Xiaobing said with some jealousy: "They are just local lords. Why do they need such advanced warships? Such good warships should be used by our regular navy."
Liu Junguo said: "Don't think about it. Who in the entire empire doesn't know that this Lord Fang led by Zhonghua can make money faster than he can print money. He naturally has the money to build iron-clad ships. If you are greedy, just go ahead.
."
Zhang Xiaobing rolled his eyes and said: "It's as if you didn't say anything. Do you want me to leave the regular navy and go to the small fleet in that place?"
Just as the two people were talking in a low voice, a whistling sound came, and dozens of streams of light pierced the sky with tail flames, and then several shining sparks exploded among the densely docked warships in the port.
, one of the sparks probably ignited the warship's ammunition depot, and a huge explosion was accompanied by a fiery red mushroom cloud rising into the sky, lighting half of the port red.
Fang Xiaobing and Liu Junguo were knocked to the ground by the shock wave of the explosion. Zhang Xiaobing shouted anxiously: "What happened?"
Liu Junguo calmly looked at the burning warship in the harbor and said loudly: "It's an enemy attack, an enemy attack from the sea."
Zhang Xiaobing saw that his own warship was hit and sank, and he shouted anxiously: "Let's get on the ship quickly, drive the ship out of the harbor and fight back."
Liu Junguo shook his head and said: "It's too late. It's not easy to break up such a dense formation. Besides, we are all sailing boats. Now there are only two of us. We don't even have enough people to raise the sail. How can we sail the boat."
Zhang Xiaobing grabbed his hat in frustration: "Then what do you think we should do?"
Liu Junguo thought calmly and said: "Let's go to the fort. Now it's unrealistic to drive the warship out. The only thing we can do is to go to the fort and use the cannons there to fight back, trying to repel the enemy in order to save the warship."
Zhang Xiaobing pulled Liu Junguo's sleeve and said, "Then what are you waiting for? Let's go quickly."
While dodging the flying sparks and shrapnel, the two stumbled towards the Tiger Tail Fort on the peninsula. Their attacks on each other were mainly aimed at warships in the harbor, and they did not pay much attention to the land.
Halfway through the walk, the two of them found three black figures jumping around on the rocks. It seemed that their target was also the fort. Zhang Xiaobing said, "Do you think they are spies who destroyed the fort?" Liu Jun
Guodao: "I'm not sure, why don't we touch it and have a look."
The two people moved forward alternately in tacit understanding, and the familiar movements did not feel unfamiliar at all, as if they were army officers rather than navy officers.
Zhang Xiaobing and the two were very fast and soon caught up with the three people. Zhang Xiaobing pounced forward and knocked down the last person. Liu Junguo took out his pistol and pointed at the two people in front: "Don't move."
The two people in front paused and slowly raised their hands. At this time, the dark figure suppressed by Zhang Xiaobing said: "That's Lao Zhang, I'm Qu Jintao."
"Ah, is it Laoqu?" Zhang Xiaobing quickly subdued the man and said, "I'm so sorry, I thought you were spies who came to destroy the fort." The two men also put down their hands and turned around and said, "You two
It's really causing trouble, and it's all on us."
Liu Junguo put away his pistol and used the firelight to identify them carefully, only to find that they were Jiang Pingxian and Guo Yu, who were both captains. Liu Junguo smiled and said, "I'm really sorry, I hit one of my own family members."
Qu Jintao shook his arm that was twisted so painfully by Zhang Xiaobing and said, "You guys are really trying so hard, my arm is almost dislocated." Zhang Junguo said, "You are also planning to go to the fort to help, right?"
Guo Yu said: "Yeah, let's go quickly and see which force dares to attack our Imperial Navy." Then a few people remembered that someone was attacking the fleet, and they immediately supported each other and rushed to the fort.
The commander of the Japanese joint fleet, Ito, led the first echelon to arrive here two hours ago. Seeing that there were no guards outside Port Arthur, he felt that he would not be exposed for a while, so he decided that the fleet would wait for the time being.
More than an hour later, several warships from the second echelon also arrived, and Ito ordered all warships to approach the military port and fire. Three new ironclad ships each equipped with a 320 mm caliber gun began their first attack.
Also attacking at the same time were the main guns of several cruisers that ventured close to fire. Their target was the group of warships in the harbor.
Since there were many warships in the Imperial Fleet, they were arranged very densely. Even if these artillery shells were fired at a rough estimate of the direction, they still had a very high hit rate. Then various artillery pieces with short ranges began to attack the Tiger Tail Fort and the Golden Mountain Fort.
By the time Zhang Xiaobing and five others arrived at the fort, most of the artillery on the fort had been blown up.
There were not many sentries on the fort. They only used the three largest-caliber artillery pieces to fight back. Unfortunately, the fort artillery here was the same as the ones on the sailing warships. They were only muzzle-loading cannons, with short range and low power, and because it was an open-air fort.
, with weak protective capabilities, these three artillery pieces were quickly destroyed by the Japanese navy, and all the officers and soldiers who fired the cannons were also lost.
Qu Jintao waved and said: "Come on, the two cannons here are of relatively large caliber." The four of them followed Qu Jintao and quickly entered a gun position. Zhang Xiaobing, who had been a gunner, quickly stuffed the gunpowder package into the gun barrel and pounded it.
Really, another big iron ball was put in.
Liu Junguo sprinkled the ignition powder on the ignition hole and took out the flint and flint to start the fire. With a bang, a cannonball was fired from the barrel, causing a huge water column on the port side of the Yaeyama.
"Missed, come again." Liu Junguo immediately began to adjust the artillery. With a "boom", the artillery of Qu Jintao and three others also fired, and the shells also hit the sea.
"Quickly, load the shells quickly." Qu Jintao shouted. Guo Yu immediately used a pig hair brush dipped in tung oil to clean the gun barrel. Then Jiang Ping first put the gunpowder package into the gun chamber. Several naval officers skillfully operated the artillery.
, attacking several Japanese warships within range.
Under the operation of several navy captains, the shore artillery quickly achieved results. A shell hit the ironclad "Musashi", but the shell only made a dent in the armor and was ejected.
"Unlucky, the iron sheet is so hard." Qu Jintao, who was hit, hammered his thigh hard. At this time, the remaining thirty-two Japanese wooden warships also arrived. They passed the ship sideways and fired fiercely with the cannons on the side of the ship.
Attacking the fort, several plumes of smoke quickly exploded next to the fort where the five officers were.
Liu Junguo wiped his face, which was already blackened by gunpowder, and said: "Brothers, those boys have noticed us, let's change places." Several people agreed and changed positions. As soon as they left, a few shells were fired.
It accurately landed in the gun emplacement and blew the two cannons into the sky.
They just changed gun positions and shot hard at the enemy ships. Finally, a shell hit the unprotected cruiser "Yaeyama". How could this warship with only a thin iron skin block the heavy iron ball shells?
The body was penetrated directly, and the shell fell downward and penetrated through the wooden bottom of the ship. Seawater quickly poured into the ship, and the "Yaeyama" had to withdraw from the battle to repair the leak.
"Hit." Qu Jintao cheered, and Liu Junguo on the side said: "Don't hit the iron-clad warships. It's hard to hit the thick-skinned ones. It's better to hit the wooden warships."
Qu Jintao said: "It's more fun to fight against the iron-clad warships, but it's boring to fight against those wooden ones." Even though he said this, he also understood that Liu Junguo was right, so he turned the muzzle of the gun and started bombarding the Japanese wooden warships.
"Captain, something happened." Sun Xiaohu was woken up by the guard while he was sleeping. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and asked, "What happened?"
The guard said: "The headquarters just sent a message, asking all our warships to light fires, and the captains must gather on the flagship."
When Sun Xiaohu heard the order, he immediately woke up. He jumped up and hurriedly put on his military uniform. While ordering the engineer soldiers to light a fire to save steam, he lowered a small boat and sailed towards the flagship.
The current Chinese leading navy fleet only has five cruisers named after the five prefectures of Tongshan County, namely the 'Hailin', the 'Tongjiang', the 'Gannan', the 'Baoshan' and the 'Bei'an'.
There was no naval officer with enough prestige, so Fang Xiaoyu had to let Zhang Si, who was renamed Zhang Haiyang, temporarily take over the post of fleet commander. However, any action would be decided by the five captains together.
When Sun Xiaohu rushed to the command tower of the flagship "Tongjiang", he found that the other four captains had already arrived. The captains of these five cruisers were all orphans adopted by Fang Xiaoyu. They studied at the Imperial Naval Academy for two years.