Chapter 280 The first confrontation at sea with swords pointing at Japan ()
The Japanese Navy also had monocular telescopes imported from the so-called "Southern Barbarians" (Western and Portuguese). At this time, they also discovered the four Ming Army ships ahead. Since the four ships were all big ships in the eyes of the Japanese, the Japanese Navy immediately became nervous.
, but the commander of the army, Todo Takatora, was very excited and immediately ordered to meet the enemy.
Takatora Toudo believes that there is no need to worry about the four Ming army ships. The reason is that although these four ships are all large ships, the strength of his own fleet is still far beyond theirs.
The Japanese fleet is quite large, with dozens of small morning ships and Kanshu ships, six Oyasaka ships, and four armed transport ships with the same specifications as the opposite Ming army - Todo Takatora even believed that these four ships were on his own side.
Armed transport ships are stronger because they are not only equipped with "iron armor", but are also fully equipped with artillery that was not originally equipped when purchased.
In other words, compared to the four Ming army's four armed transport ships, our four armed transport ships are not only equally matched in terms of artillery, but they also have more iron armor. No matter how you look at it, your own side has the advantage.
However, Gao Lichuan, the decoy formation commander on the "Jiulishan" opposite him, did not see it that way.
As the distance between the two sides narrowed, Gao Lichuan had already determined the size of the Japanese navy formation through binoculars, and also saw clearly the armor of the four Japanese armed transport ships, and clearly counted the artillery they were equipped with which was no different from that of his own warships, but
Gao Lichuan was not alarmed by this, and even snorted from his nostrils.
Immediately afterwards, Gao Lichuan ordered to turn to the right and seize the lead of the T-shaped formation. Because of their professional semaphore advantage, the four Ming ships turned in an orderly manner and quickly occupied a favorable position and deliberately slowed down to facilitate bombardment.
On the other hand, the Japanese army, due to its large scale, mixed ship types, and completely different armament standards, only Anzha ships and armed transport ships could participate in this kind of battle line bombardment, so they had to continue to approach directly.
Based on the experience and lessons learned from the battle with Yi Sun-shin, coupled with the objective reality of the Japanese naval forces, Todo Takatora ordered the ship to be shut down. Small and medium-sized warships such as the small morning ships rushed in quickly and surrounded the four stagnant Ming army ships, while the large ship hung on
Cover artillery fire from behind.
According to his idea, when the small boat approaches, the large ship provides artillery cover from behind. After the small boat approaches and surrounds the four Ming army ships, the Ming army will naturally be unable to bombard normally. At that time, the large ship of our own side will approach again and participate in the encirclement. It is perfect.
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The main reason why he thought so was because he had discovered during previous battles with Yi Sun-shin that Yi Sun-shin's turtle ship often rammed Japanese small ships, but the artillery on the ship would try its best to fire artillery at the Japanese large ships. He believed that North Korea
The naval skills should have been learned from the Ming army - after all, it was the Ming Dynasty's father.
In other words, the Ming army's style of play should be similar to this. However, this style of play is flawed in Todo Takatora's view. Its biggest flaw is that once the enemy ship cannot hit it, it will have to be forced to
Fight in close combat with the Japanese boats around you.
At this time, the Japanese army was able to take advantage of its iron artillery, and the enemy ships could only defend but were unable to counterattack at best. In the end, the Japanese army, which had a numerical advantage, boarded the ship - and then they were massacred.
And there is another advantage to doing this, that is, the main losses of one's side will almost always be small and medium-sized warships such as Kanfune and Kozabune, while Anzha ships and "Tang-like ships" can try to ensure that they do not suffer losses.
A good way to maintain core combat power to the greatest extent.
However, Todo Takatora soon discovered that he seemed to have made the wrong calculation. After discovering that the Japanese navy approached with small boats first, while the large ship hung far behind and refused to move forward, the four ships of the Ming army did not look like the Korean navy at all.
Instead of turning directly for impact, he fired immediately without saying a word.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" the sound of artillery sounded on the four ships of the Ming Army. They successively fired the first round of bombardment, but most of them missed and fell into the sea.
Takatora Toudo was surprised at first when he discovered the bombardment, and then he was relieved when he saw that almost all of them were empty. He was surprised because his estimate was wrong, and he was relieved because the Ming army did not use its full strength in this round of bombardment.
(You can roughly estimate whether it was a salvo by counting the side muzzles and listening to the sound of the gun.) Secondly, the accuracy is poor.
Todo Takatora judged that the main purpose of this round of shelling by the Ming army might be to embolden themselves and at the same time cause psychological pressure on the approaching Japanese boats.
With this judgment in mind, Toudo Takatora naturally did not change the battle plan, but just watched the boats in front of them rushing forward desperately, like a pack of hyenas attacking a lion.
However, the reaction of the Ming army made Takatora Toudo doubt that he had missed something. The four ships of the Ming army still maintained their original formation - in fact, they faced the enemy sideways, and soon launched a second round of bombardment.
This time, it was a salvo.
The cannons on the side strings of the four ships of the Ming Army roared almost simultaneously, firing a large number of chain bombs. From Takatora Toudo's perspective, the sparks on the four ships of the Ming Army flashed in succession, sending out many small black dots. If you look carefully, you can even see the chain bullets.
The two bouncing balls pulled the iron chain in the middle and quickly whirled towards the Japanese boat, like a spinning sickle harvesting lives.
The standard of the Jinghua armed transport ship is 28 guns in the whole ship. Except for the two guns at the bow and stern that cannot be adjusted for side bombardment, there are 13 guns on the left and right side strings. They are all No. 2 guns, and the four ships fire in salvo.
That means 52 rounds per round.
Chain bombs use a chain to connect two small cannonballs smaller than the caliber of the gun bore. After being fired, one cannonball will drag the other cannonball out centrifugally and fly out, thus tearing a big hole in the sail, or tearing out a large hole in the sail.
It can tear the rigging, and if you are lucky, even break the mast, directly paralyzing the enemy ship. It is a special naval artillery shell mainly used to limit the mobility of enemy ships.
52 chain bombs were fired. In Jinghua's imaginary main battle, it would be considered lucky to hit three or five at this fighting distance. However, because the Japanese navy was approaching densely with small boats at this time, the accuracy of the chain bombs was reduced.
It was greatly improved. In this round of chain bombardment, fourteen of them hit the enemy ship.
The advantage of Jinghua's artillery is not only the artillery itself, but also a very important point is that the gunpowder yield is much stronger than that of its opponents at the same time - in other words, the gunpowder produced by Jinghua cannot be used by Jinghua's artillery.
The performance of the artillery is actually excessive, that is, even if the opponent is fully loaded with gunpowder, it cannot achieve the range and power that Jinghua can produce.
The fourteen chain bombs that hit this round broke the masts of three Japanese ships on the spot and damaged a command cabin on the bridge. The rest were basically casualties. According to visual inspection, at least 70 or 80 Japanese sailors were killed.
The Japanese soldiers who were shot closed the ship, and the boat was covered in blood and flesh. It was so horrific and visually shocking.
Needless to say, the Japanese ship with its broken mast must have lost mobility on the spot. Even the Japanese ship that only had some sailors killed was frightened by the brutal scene and the remaining sailors around it were frightened. Its forward speed was also greatly reduced, forcing it to
The Japanese warships behind them had no choice but to go around, which even caused a collision between two warships.
At this time, the Ming army's advantage in seizing the wind direction came into play. They began to distance themselves diagonally, but they were still able to maintain a sideline volley.
Seeing this scene, Toudo Takatora subconsciously felt that the situation was not good, but the Japanese command could not rely entirely on temporary adjustments in flags. Therefore, even though Toudo Takatora was a little worried, it was difficult to immediately order corresponding changes - not to mention that he could not immediately
I can't figure out how to change it.
The small boat cluster of the Japanese navy continued to approach. The four Ming army ships turned slightly while continuing to fire sideways salvos. After two more rounds of salvos, the losses of the Japanese small boats were already quite considerable, with more than thirty ships in total.
The boat and the small boat lost or basically lost their ability to move. More than 200 sailors were killed on the spot, and the wounded were countless.
The only good news is that the Japanese navy's small boat cluster is getting closer and closer to the four Ming army ships, and is already only more than a mile away. Even based on the suspiciously short time interval when the Ming army fired the artillery just now, the Ming army at this time
Before the Japanese army was completely close, they could only fire two volleys at most.
Under the strong encouragement of the samurai, the Japanese navy sailors overcame their fear as much as possible. Inspired by victory, they roared and approached the fourth Ming army ship, where a human figure could be seen clearly on the ship. The man who was originally hanging behind the cluster of boats
The Anzhai ship and the "Tang-shaped ship" also began to speed up and were approaching, preparing to participate in the final boarding and sweeping battle.
At this time, the Ming army indeed fired another salvo, but instead of chain bullets, they fired grape bullets.
Grape bullets are a type of artillery shell that can be used on both land and sea. They use net bags to bundle the loose shells into a bunch, much like a bunch of grapes, hence the name grape bullets. Although its range is not as good as that of solid bullets, it can fire a shot at a close range.
It can knock down dozens of enemy soldiers in an instant, enough to make a platoon of soldiers collapse.
In naval battles, grapeshot fired at a relatively close range has an effect similar to that of shotgun shells, so it can knock down large areas of enemy officers and sailors, killing the enemy on a large scale and even paralyzing enemy ships.
There is no doubt that the Japanese boat, which had approached about a mile away, had to pay a large number of casualties in the face of such shelling.
Since the structural strength of Kanfune and Kohayabune was not high, and there was no so-called "iron armor", two Japanese ships were even badly damaged and suffered from a large amount of water damage.
Although wooden warships are not easily sunk by shells without the ability to explode and ignite, such a scene can't help but frighten the Japanese sailors who saw this scene, fearing that they would end up falling into the sea and feeding sharks. The momentum of the Japanese army continued again.
Embarrassed.
At this time, Gao Lichuan finally ordered to hoist the "orderly retreat" flag, increase the steering force and retreat diagonally. The Japanese small boats, which were already a little frightened but were forced to continue the attack due to military orders, couldn't help but get excited when they saw this.
A jolt.
It turns out that the Ming army is also afraid and can turn around and flee! This shows that our army's courage to fear death has shocked the Ming army! Please work hard, and the victory or defeat will depend on this battle!
Whether they were samurai or ordinary Japanese sailors, these words popped up in their minds at this time. Their mood suddenly changed from fear to excitement, and the whole group rushed to pursue the four Ming ships.
However, what waited for them was that the Ming army's stern cannon continued to fire grapeshot, while more musketeers from the Jinghua ships began to fire Wanli II rifles and began to fight back.
Although the Japanese army felt that the distance between the two sides was still a bit far away, it was not a good time to shoot each other with iron cannons. However, since the Ming army began to fire, even if the Japanese army wanted to maintain the morale they had just managed to gain, they could only shoot in advance and compete with the Ming army.
Military shooting.
However, like artillery, although the quality of the iron cannon produced by Japan is good, due to gunpowder problems, the counterattack at this time can only be heard and has no practical effect at all.
At this time, Todo Takatora also discovered another problem. The Ming army withdrew very quickly. In a short period of time, they adjusted from slowly adjusting to trying to improve the status of the lineup to getting rid of it with all their strength. The speed was almost the same as that of the Japanese small boat swarm.
In addition, the Ming army was able to counterattack forcefully. As a result, although the small boat cluster could have been faster than the four ships of the Ming army, it could only maintain a "bite and hold" state, making it difficult to shorten the distance - as soon as it got close, it would
It will be focused on the fire, so it will slow down again.
But the biggest trouble was not this, but Toudo Takatora discovered that no matter how much he urged, or even threatened with anger, the main formation composed of the Anzha ship and the "Tang-like ship" could not get up quickly. Toudo Takatora was shocked to find that it was clear that he
They were shouting to speed up, but they were actually getting further and further away from the four Ming ships.
The first drawback of the Japanese Navy's installation of "iron armor" on all large ships was undoubtedly revealed: it seriously slowed down the speed, resulting in a significant reduction in maneuverability!
Anji Wakisaka, who was in charge of commanding the small boat group in front, was annoyed that the Ming army did not dare to fight to the death and adopted a shameful fight-and-run tactic. He was also annoyed that Takatora Toudo behind him was too slow to "fear the enemy." After chasing for a while, the big enemy
He cursed and ordered to slow down, refusing to die any more.
When Toudo Takatora's main fleet finally caught up, Wakisaka Anji immediately moved closer, jumped on Toudo Takatora's flagship, pointed at the latter's nose and cursed. Toudo Takatora's face was livid with anger, but he could only patiently explain it.
reason.
Wakisaka Anji had little respect for Toudo Takatora, a guy who had voted for seven lords. At this time, his temper got even worse and he scolded him extremely badly. From being afraid of the enemy and scolding him to making tactical mistakes, Toudo Takatora really experienced what it means to be bloody.
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Fortunately, a new message came at this time, saying that the Ming army ahead had reduced its speed and began to patrol in the distance, and even vaguely had the intention of approaching again.
At this moment, Anji Wakisaka could not care less about continuing to curse, and quickly raised the "Nanman Telescope" to take a closer look. Sure enough, he found that the four ships of the Ming Army had adjusted their course again and began to move towards the Japanese army again.
Wakisaka Anji was furious and shouted: "Toudo, are you going to let Kohayabune and Sekibune go to die, while you hide behind and pretend to be dead?"
Takatora Toudo had a headache. He looked at the approaching night and wanted to say, "Night fighting is not what our army is good at." However, under Wakisaka Anji's almost murderous look, he had to change his words and said, "Let's do this, Your Highness, Wakisaka.
Once the small boats were outflanked by the left and right wings, the main ship advanced at full speed to engage in a decisive battle with the enemy ships, what do you think?"
Anji Wakisaka said coldly: "Very good, but I won't go to command the outflank. I will just watch you on your ship as you kill the enemy heroically. Do you have any objections?"
Anji Wakisaka was a close general of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. How could Takatora Toudo, who had changed his master seven times, dare to have any objections? He could only forcefully smile and said: "How dare you, I am trying to help His Highness Wakisaka."
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