Ning Liujin's relative's boat is not big, costing no more than 200 materials at most. It is just one of the countless junk boats in the Zheng family's fleet. The hull is very old, but it is still strong. There are two privately cast cannons installed on the boat.
. Thick and short, covered with yellow-red rust. When the cannon is fired, it jumps three feet high. Although it is tied with a rope, the gunner will still be hit if he is not careful. Ning Liujin has it at his feet.
Several large baskets of scrap metal, small stones and broken pieces of porcelain used for cannonballs, and several jars of gunpowder were thrown under the mast, which was covered with a few straw mats.
Apart from the captain, the most important person on the ship is the fire chief. He can memorize the needle, read the compass, and recite the tide song. He and the helmsman at the helm are second-in-command. Below are the hard-working guys who can fire cannons.
It's barely considered a three-way, but the danger is too great. Less than half a year after Ning Liujin boarded the ship, the gunners had already been replaced by two. When one fired the cannon, the cannon jumped up and hit him, and he vomited blood and died on the spot. The other fired the cannon.
At that moment, the gunpowder sprayed out from the gun port, and his face was covered with flowers. He was rolling around shouting at the sky and the earth, but the captain ordered him to throw him into the sea. Ning Liujin was so frightened that he secretly vowed never to become a gunner.
An "apprentice" like Ning Liujin was not considered a human being on the ship. No one took his status as a "relative of the ship owner" seriously. He was given various jobs, including fists and kicks. Not long after boarding the ship, he fell asleep one night.
He was raped by a gangster, and was brutally raped many times later - this kind of thing happened frequently in pirate gangs, and everyone didn't take it seriously.
In order to make a living, he had to swallow this breath with hatred and humiliation. He hoped that one day he would be able to stand out on the ship and join the second class of weizhi. Nowadays, there are wars on the sea every day. The ship owner, Huo Chang, dies very quickly.
After a few battles, some guys climbed into the captain's cabin and even took away the captain's wife and children.
It is said that they gathered in Kinmen this time to fight against the Kun bandits. One night the captain drank a few too many drinks. He was frothing at the mouth and said that this was the decree of the imperial court, and General Zheng was going to lead everyone to fight against the Kun bandits. He said that he would fight the Kun bandits.
Once the thief is done, everyone will be rewarded.
Ning Liujin had no idea what the Kun Thieves were. He only knew that they had big and fast ships and were said to be more powerful than General Zheng. Of course, most people did not dare to say it openly. In fact, let alone the Kun Thieves, he had fought with them
Who is Liu Xiang who has seen war? He has no idea how powerful he is. In his opinion, fighting is just for the food, and who to fight is a matter for the leaders to consider. Ning Liujin's only concern is
Don't lose your life in the war.
At 5 o'clock in the morning on September 20th, the outline of Kinmen Island was already vaguely visible. A lookout found the outlines of many ships 3 nautical miles north of the fleet. The officer on duty in the shooting control room immediately used an infrared telescope to observe Liaoluo Bay. He saw Liaoluo Bay.
There are many ships moored along the coast of the bay, three or four rows deep. They are all small and medium-sized ships. A little further to the west, seven three-masted gunboats with a displacement of 1,000 tons are moored.
The Lichun quickly raised the signal flag and at the same time used light signals to notify each team and squadron to prepare for battle in a single column. At 5:10, an order was issued from the Lichun: Advance, the enemy is at Liaoluo Bay!
At 5:12, the 130mm main gun of the Lichun opened fire first from 3 nautical miles away, and then the four ships of Power, Wind Control, Wave, and Yangbo opened fire in sequence. The fire ejected from the 130mm cannon reflected the bay red.
Ning Liujin was in a deep sleep. Suddenly, a loud thunderous noise resounded through the sky. He thought a thunderstorm was coming, so he quickly opened his eyes. The moon and stars were sparse in the sky. He was surprised. He saw only a group of people outside the fleet.
The fire light rose and then dimmed quickly. The men who were sleeping on the deck all woke up and were startled.
"Quick! Load up the cannon! Someone is coming to kick the camp!" the captain's voice rang urgently.
The guys quickly loaded the cannons or muskets with powder. The gunpowder cans were opened directly and poured into the barrels. Ning Liujin was not responsible for the firearms. He immediately picked up the steel fork he carried and stood beside the ship's side, just staring at the black paint.
Painted sea surface.
From his angle, he could see almost nothing. His ship was mixed in with many small and medium-sized ships in Liao Lo Bay, and all he could see was the ship and its mast.
But from the distance, the red light could be seen flashing from the clouds hanging in the sky, and then there was the sound of rolling thunder. The dull explosions came one after another. Everyone on the boat opened their eyes wide.
Don't know what they are about to face.
"Hurry, raise the sails and weigh the anchor!" The owners of every ship were shouting. No matter what they were facing, if they continued to stay here, they were obviously waiting for death. Ning Liujin was also rushed to weigh the anchor, and the wet cable rubbed against it.
There was a burning pain in the hands, but everyone was shrouded in fear and pulled the cable desperately regardless.
Suddenly, a bright light cut across the sky and the sea. It seemed to be a section of burning air, rotating on the water. The source of the bright light was vaguely a large black ship with a tall mast, facing the extremely fast wind.
Moving forward, Liujin thought he must have been wrong, because there was absolutely no boat that could sail in this direction - it was a pure headwind.
The bright light pointed at a sailboat and stopped turning. Several orange flashes flashed across the phantom-like ship, and then the sailboat connected to the bright light turned into a ball of fire, and the sail rolled up toward the sky like a mat.
Some fragments flew past the firelight and slipped into the unknown dark night.
The bright light suddenly disappeared again. Everyone was stunned as they watched the burning boat quickly break into two pieces and submerge under the water. The flames floating on the water also quickly extinguished and dimmed.
"Your mother, raise the sail!" The captain reacted first, kicking and beating several crew members along the way. "Raise the sail, raise the sail! Full sail!" he shouted.
The Beginning of Spring led four gunboats to pause their firing after the first round of shelling against the Liaoluo Bay ship group, and quickly corrected their shooting at Zhu Yuan. Their target was the seven main gunboats further away. The previous round of shelling was just for the follow-up.
The squadron of secret service boats designates targets for firing.
The squadron of secret service boats followed, but the range of their guns was much shorter, so they kept their guns silent and continued to sail into Liaoluo Bay. Each gun had been loaded with grenades, and the gunners had loaded the barrels and were ready to fire.
Artillery was fired sporadically from the Zheng family fleet in Liaoluo Bay, but the best artillery equipped on these ships could not reach more than 1 nautical mile. For the sailors on the ship, it was not a spectacular event.
It was just a fireworks show. Each squadron, under the command of the squadron leader, continued to approach the enemy fleet in a neat formation.
The Lichun sailed forward for 1 nautical mile, and when it was 2.5 nautical miles away from the seven three-masted gun ships, Mingqiu looked at his watch and issued the order "Turn on the searchlights and fire the entire fleet" from the bridge. The Lichun's
Captain Li Ziping had already calibrated the shooting elements repeatedly in the gunnery control room and was waiting for the order to fire. As soon as Mingqiu finished speaking, the Lichun fired the first salvo, accurately covering a three-masted ship.
Gunboat. The towering water column instantly submerged the enemy ship.
After the Lichun opened fire, the main guns and side guns of each ship opened fire one after another under the guidance of searchlights. Dozens of shells flew away with red trails, setting off countless water jets at the anchorage.
Li Ziping carefully observed the rising and falling water column with a telescope. Suddenly, a red flame flashed in the water column, and a dull explosion sounded immediately:
"One hit!" the observation post immediately shouted.
"Keep shooting, keep the speed." Li Ziping ordered on the bridge. The gunners on the main gun deck in front of the bridge were loading ammunition. They used gun brushes to clean the gun bores and loaded silk maroon medicine bags one after another.
, push the grenades one by one into the body tube, and then launch them.
Every time it is fired, the Lichun will vibrate, and smoke and gunfire sweep across the deck. The vibration, high temperature, and gunfire make the front deck a purgatory. But the sailors operating the cannon are screaming excitedly, and some people simply
They took off their shirts, and their faces and bodies were stained black by gun smoke and gun oil.
"Damn, it really feels like the clouds on the bank." Li Ziping felt the acrid gunpowder smoke passing by his face in the sea breeze, making him almost breathless. The bridge under his feet was shaking: the roar of the boiler and the roar of the steam engine.
, the roar of the cannon...mixed into a powerful and powerful war music of the steam cannon era.
As the distance got closer and closer, the sky became brighter and brighter, and now they no longer needed searchlights. The gunner continued to correct the target according to the landing point of the water column. The gunners shot more and more accurately, constantly shooting in the dense water column.
The explosion burst into flames of red and yellow. Although several ships in the fleet of seven gunboats had pulled anchor, they were almost unable to fight back under the intensive and accurate gunfire of the first battle team. The wooden hulls were as long as
Being hit by a grenade will cause serious structural damage to the hull and deck. The shrapnel will mix into splinters and fly across the deck. Flesh and blood will suddenly fly across the deck, like a hell on earth. Inflammable materials on the deck are not controlled either.
A fire broke out soon after being hit by the shell. A gunboat was directly hit by the ammunition magazine at the stern of the ship, causing a large explosion that blew it into two pieces.
From beginning to end, although there were a few gunboats that managed to fire back, the number of artillery was too small and the range was not enough, posing almost no threat to the ships of the first team. Only when the first team approached to about 1 nautical mile, did
Several artillery shells fell into the column, but did not hit any targets. At this time, almost all the gunboats had been hit, and most of them had sunk into Liao Luo Bay or became a burning hull floating on the water.
. The last two three-masted gunboats also completely lost their ability to fight back after the next round of bombardment, and sank to the bottom of the sea one by one in the subsequent artillery fire. (To be continued...)