China has been called the Celestial Dynasty since the Han Dynasty. This "Celestial Dynasty" has several meanings, one of which is unquestionable: The Celestial Dynasty is the first dynasty in the world!
The Ming Dynasty was called "Strong Ming" in later generations. This kind of strength was not only the foundation of the court, but even the emperor did not dare to show any weakness in foreign affairs. At the same time, this kind of strength was also the persistence in the hearts of ordinary Ming people.
Otherwise, how could the Yangzhou Ten Days and Jiading Three Massacres occur in the Jiangnan region, which has always been regarded as moderate, after the Tatars entered the customs?
Weak people and compromisers appear more in the bureaucratic class. As Ma En said, the bourgeoisie is naturally weak and compromising.
Takagi San is also one of the "ordinary people of the Ming Dynasty", and his strength when facing foreigners is also fully revealed at this moment.
Even though the Ming Dynasty banned the sea for more than a hundred years and only reopened the sea for more than ten years, this is not something that you barbarians can call themselves "the best in the world"!
Thousands of officials look to Chang'an, and all nations worship Han Yuan.
That is China, that is the atmosphere of the Celestial Empire. The master said that Yi Di is afraid of power and has no morals. When he should be given "power", there must be no ambiguity.
At this moment, facing the menacing Spanish fleet, Takagizo took a deep breath, simply threw the word "lure the enemy" out of the sky, and decisively ordered: "Command the gunner, commander of the gunnery, to fire volleys freely! There are enemies but no one.
I am invincible!"
"Here!" The orderer clasped his fists and responded with a bang. He ran out of the command room and went to the gun cabin on the bottom deck to shout the order to the gunner: "Captain's order: Free volleys of artillery fire. There are enemies but no one, and no one but me."
!”
[The "Dengzhou" is a cruiser with two decks of guns. The bottom deck has more gun positions on the non-open deck, so the gunnery commander himself takes command from the bottom gun cabin.]
The gunner's blood boiled when he heard this, and he raised his arms and shouted: "Order! Listen carefully to all the gun positions on the starboard side. There is no enemy but we, and we are invincible! Listen to my command: four marks on the muzzle, full charge - fire!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" A series of artillery salvos fired from the starboard side of the "Dengzhou".
But the gunnery officer didn't care about the results of the bombardment - there was a dedicated person in charge. He kept shouting: "Cool the barrel! Clean the barrel! Move quickly - prepare gunpowder and shells! Each member of the inspection team supervises and records everything
During the preparation time of the artillery team, anyone who is slow will be flogged immediately!"
In later generations, some people once said that the navy is the military service with the strictest discipline. This kind of strictness is not inferior even to fleets such as the Beijing-China Liangyang Fleet, which is more commercial-oriented.
Loading preparation can only be done by the division of labor of a complete gun crew. If a certain link is slow, it may reduce the efficiency of the entire gun crew. Therefore, the inspectors on the ship are required to flog the gun crew that does not move fast enough on the spot.
——Use a whip to whip. This is not about who is slow and who is whipped, but which artillery group is slow. Everyone in a gun group will be whipped.
Under this kind of punishment, no one in the artillery crew dared to slow down even a little bit, because if you were even a little slow, you might harm your comrades who are usually closest to you. That would really be "social death" on the spot.
In a traditional human society like China, almost no one would do this. Everyone would try their best to speed up, and the colleagues around them would loudly remind each other that they must strictly follow the instructions - because everyone has accepted
With specialized training, everyone knows that classic movements are the most optimized movements.
Even so, the first round of shelling from the four warships in the enemy formation still missed. The rangefinder on the deck (a unique configuration of Jinghua at this time) sent a messenger to send the results of the first round of shelling. The results showed that
The first round of bombardment was generally within one mile of the Spanish fleet, and the range finder also reported the approximate speed of the Spanish fleet.
Of course, the gap was huge, but the gunnery commander was calm because it was a normal phenomenon. In fact, the accuracy of long-distance naval gunfire could be said to be extremely ugly until the First World War.
There is a very critical point that must be said here: Talking about accuracy without talking about distance is just a rogue thing. Because for things like shelling, the closer the distance, the higher the accuracy. Once the distance is extended, the accuracy will decrease.
In different eras, when the distance reaches a certain level, the accuracy will drop sharply and dramatically.
In the famous Battle of Jutland in later generations, the hit rate of the two elite navies of Britain and Germany was only about 2%, and the hit rate of their battleship main guns was less than 1%. Of course, the hit rate of their battleships of that era was
The range of the main gun is much longer than it is now, so the drop in hit rate is not too surprising.
By the time of World War II, for example, the new battleships of the United States after 1943, such as Iowa, North Carolina, and Nanda, were all equipped with radar fire control systems. They could guide the main guns through radar range measurement, speed measurement, and heading.
Shooting. At the same time, the main gun passes through the gyro stabilizer and can also shoot in bumpy sea conditions.
However, what about the hit rate of naval guns during this period? Medium and short range: at 10-15 kilometers, the hit rate can be 5%-8%, and the 9 main guns can hit 1 shot every 2-3 salvo rounds.
; Medium and long range: at 18-25 kilometers, the hit rate is about 3%. About every 3-4 salvo rounds, the probability of hitting 1 shot. Long range: at 30-35 kilometers, the actual hit rate is still only 1
%, you can barely hit 1 shot every 10 volleys - it all depends on your appearance.
The three levels of medium and near, medium and far, and far are not only divided in this way in later generations. In fact, the two ocean fleets in Beijing and China are also divided in this way. They are nothing more than divided according to the proportion of range. In World War II, the American imperialist naval guns fired more than 30 kilometers. Now,
The top of the sky is only over two kilometers, but as long as it is divided according to proportion, in short, it can be said: it is normal to miss the long-distance artillery fire, but if it hits, it is the smoke from the ancestor's grave.
However, because Jinghua was specially equipped with range finders, Jinghua's ships still had a huge advantage in adjusting shooting parameters. The "Dengzhou" quickly adjusted the muzzle scale and launched a second round of salvo.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Because the Spaniards’ speed has been reported by the range finder, this round of shooting is more purposeful, and they are now “charging” with full sail and downwind, and the distance between the two sides has also been reported.
It's about a mile closer, so the accuracy is greatly improved compared to before.
In this round of shelling, the "Dengzhou" alone hit 4 rounds, 3 of which hit the "San Antonio", the flagship of the Spanish Treasure Fleet, and the other one was originally aimed at the "San Antonio".
But for some reason, it hit the "Almeria" on its side and rear instead.
However, neither the "San Antonio" nor the "Almeria" suffered much damage.
The "Almeria" only had a hole the size of a human head punched in the deck, and no one was hit. It was quite lucky.
The "San Antonio" was a little more unlucky. A shell that hit the deck smashed an unlucky sailor into a pulp on the spot. After penetrating the deck, it killed two gun crew members on the second deck and destroyed a ship by the way.
A cannon. The other two shells hit the side string, but because the hull of the big Galen ship was very high, the locations where the two shells were hit were also quite high.
In sea conditions with limited wind and waves like the South China Sea, as long as there is no storm, these two puncture wounds will not even allow water to enter the hull. And if the Spaniards can escape smoothly, the carpenters on the ship will soon be able to repair these two wounds.
The damage has been roughly repaired.
Although the damage to the Spaniards was very small, the artillery range and accuracy of Jinghua's decoy formation still surprised them, especially Commander Silva and Captain Echevari, who suddenly became nervous.
Got up.
"Oh, God! Have these pagan artillery been kissed by the devil? At such a distance, they actually scored a hit?"
"Commander, I have ordered the battleship to be repaired, but the current situation does not look right..." Captain Echevari frowned: "The other party dares to challenge us with a weak fleet, perhaps because of this magical accuracy.
long heavy cannon."
"What suggestions do you have, Mr. Captain?" Silva asked, grabbing the armrest in front of him.
"Your Excellency, Commander, I have noticed that the opponent's flagship has been leading the maneuver in an oblique arc. This can not only prevent us from quickly closing the distance with them, but also gradually lead us to deviate from our original course.
"
Echevari is worthy of being an old captain, and he can see Takagizo's intention at a glance: "We are basically still in the tailwind, but with the opponent's flagship leading the team to maneuver like this, we probably only need to go through... No
By ten minutes, it will be the right chord that is catching the wind.
Your Excellency, Commander, I have the duty to remind you that the other party is four Chinese-style hard-sailed warships. The side attack will have almost no effect on them, but for us, it will seriously affect the speed of our ships.
.At that time, it is very likely that we will not be able to catch up with the enemy ship - that is to say, the boarding battle will not be carried out smoothly."
In fact, there is no need to remind Echevarry of this point. Commander Silva is also an experienced naval officer himself, and he has also seen this trouble. Therefore, he replied without thinking: "We also adjusted the course, and the entire fleet deflected 15% to the right.
Speed forward, and when the distance between the enemy and ourselves is reduced to two miles [Note 1], each ship will fire back. In addition, do not slow down the speed, and you must try your best to seize the opportunity for a boarding battle!"
[Note 1: Sorry, I can't find any authoritative record of what unit of length the Spaniards used during this period, so I had to make do with miles.]
Echevari believed that although the commander's order was not subtle, it was still very reasonable at this moment, so he quickly and faithfully executed the order. While letting the ship make adjustments, he sent people to desperately send orders to several other items.
The ship signals - that's the trouble with not having a semaphore.
The communication between them originally relied mainly on small traffic boats, and if the distance was close enough, "communication basically relied on roaring." However, now that our own warships are moving at full speed, it is obviously impossible to communicate by rowing small boats.
"Communication basically depends on shouting" is not reliable - the other party is shelling, who can speak louder than the roar of the cannon? So I have to gesture wildly. As for whether the other party can understand or not, it all depends on the understanding.
.
Fortunately, the Spaniards seemed to have quite good understanding. After the flagship "San Antonio" turned slightly, the other ships followed suit and tried their best to keep a frontal alignment and lure the enemy formation away.
In fact, such a deflection is not very helpful in maintaining the wind. Both Silva and Echevari understand this, but their focus is to fire back after approaching, and to strive to get within "ten minutes"
Complete docking.
However, this move was ruthlessly ridiculed by Takagi San on the "Dengzhou". He sneered and said: "Humph, you are a stupid ass who won't look back until you hit the south wall... I am a cruiser!"
Turning his head, Takagi San ordered: "Signal: Our ship is about to accelerate, all ships keep a distance from our ship." After a pause, he turned to the first mate: "All masts are full, speed up and deflect. I want to speed up as soon as possible."
It has become a situation where both the enemy and ourselves are taking advantage of the situation."
As this order was issued, the speed of the enemy formation immediately accelerated. They not only deflected, but also continued to "retreat diagonally" in the opposite direction to the direction of the Spanish fleet due to the difference in wind. This kind of
Although the speed of "oblique retreat" is not high, it can still slow down the time when the two sides finally come into contact.
At the same time, the ships were still carrying out bombardment. At this time, the hit rate of the bombardment had improved to a certain extent. The six large galleons of the Spanish fleet had been hit by nearly 20 bullets. Although the power of the artillery was not limited to this era.
It was large and did little damage to the wooden hull, but such continuous hits inevitably had a certain impact on the morale of the Spaniards.
Of course, none of this is critical. At this moment, Takagizo did not expect to sink six such giant ships by shelling alone, and the Spaniards did not think that these shellings could cause any fatal damage to themselves. In the eyes of the Spaniards,
These cannons are just annoying, and only a few unlucky people will actually die from the cannonballs.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! However, the "sidewind" state that Echevari originally expected occurred only six minutes later under the full acceleration of Takagi's third formation.
At this time, the artillery fire from both sides also began to become more precise. The Spanish had fired artillery at a distance of two miles before, but unfortunately there was no hit. Now there was only about one mile left. Although the Spanish fleet received more than twenty cannons,
It also hit Jinghua's battleship. Although there were only six of them, it was enough to excite the Spaniards.
This is related to the attributes of the guns mentioned before. The Spanish artillery equipment does not have enough long and heavy guns, but there are many medium and close range guns with greater power.
Their shells were heavier and larger. As a result, the "Dengzhou" was hit by three rounds, the "Jinzhou" of the same class was hit by two rounds, and the "Right Wing Light Cavalry" was hit by one round. Instead, they were regarded as the "culprits"
The culprit's "Left Wing Hussars" seemed to have divine help. Not only did it miss one shot, but it also hit the opponent with at least eight shots.
Although the "Dengzhou" received three heavier shells, the high-quality teak wood from southern Xinjiang used by this class of cruiser made a great contribution. One of the shells with a bad angle was actually directly bounced away, only cracking the deck wood.
One of the other two hit the side string, leaving a hole; the other hit the sail and fell into the water from the opposite side of the ship.
The advantage of the hard sail was evident at this moment. A hole slightly larger than the size of a person's head had almost no impact on the entire ship. The length of the sail only made a brief observation and directly said "don't worry about it for now."
However, changes in the wind situation put the Spanish fleet into real danger.
Takagi San grinned and said relaxedly: "Send the order, the entire formation turns left and U-turn, quickly distance yourself - everyone, the weather is so good, it's time to fly kites!"
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