The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 393
According to Wu Yuanzhou's informant, the Fujian navy has only about fifty ships.If they didn't know and went in and fought fiercely with these Jianlu warships in front of them, the main force of Gaha would have arrived before destroying a few enemy ships, and it would be too late to leave by then!

Lu Si also said anxiously: "General, we have no ships to use..."

Hearing this, Ruan Jin looked at the surrounding waters, and among the three warships that had been following him, only one was floating not far away with a broken main mast, while the other two were slowly sinking in flames.

He waved decisively: "Let someone let the messenger boat go down!"

"This, General, this is too dangerous!"

The messenger boat is used for communication between two big boats, it is only one and a half feet long, and it can only carry six or seven people paddling forward.This boat is usually only used for a short distance, and there is a danger of capsizing if the waves are too big, and the Fujian Navy is still at least four or five miles away. It is almost impossible to row this small boat for such a long distance.

In addition, even if they could get close to the Fujian warship, it would be difficult for anyone to notice a flat boat when the two armies were fighting, but any shell from both sides could smash them to pieces.

"Stop talking!" Ruan Jin went to untie the rope that tied the boat, "If I don't believe it, the captives are really blessed!

"No Grass Island is gone, we can't let the last battleship of our Han people be destroyed here!"

"Subordinate, obey the order!" Lu Si solemnly summoned several soldiers to help put the boat into the sea.

After Ruan Jin descended to the small boat along the rope, he just picked up the oars to paddle, when he suddenly heard the thunderous roar of cannons in the distance.

"How did you get caught so quickly? Could it be that the captives had an ambush?"

He hurriedly looked up, and saw on the sea two miles away, a group of Fujian navy warships with tall masts and white sails, with five large ships as the core, lined up in a horizontal line and went straight to the north side of the Jianlu battle formation.

And the latter was obviously in the process of turning his head to the northeast. It should be that he was intercepted by the Ming army before he could reach the upper wind position in the future, so he had to turn his head in a hurry to fight.

Ruan Jin was greatly surprised, the distance between the two armies was at least five miles, how could the Fujian warship arrive in the blink of an eye? !
He naturally didn't know that under the condition of the wind direction from the side and rear, soft sailing boats have the best effect of eating the wind, and can even exceed the speed of eight knots, that is, sailing at nearly thirty miles per hour.

He gritted his teeth hard, the muscles in his arms bulged, and he swung the oar and said, "Pull harder, maybe we can make it in time!"

……

Niu Bin was obviously even more surprised!From the moment he spotted the enemy ship at the post, he sailed to the upwind port without hesitation, but before he had turned two miles away, the opponent had already galloped for more than five miles and crushed him on the north side.

In naval warfare in this era, whoever takes the lead in gaining the upper hand will take the absolute initiative.This has been the absolute "golden rule" in naval warfare until the advent of "Nelson's Tactics".

First of all, a warship occupying the windward position can use its side sails to achieve very fast speeds, and high-speed movement can effectively avoid being hit by enemy cannons.The leeward position is embarrassing, because the wind is always upwind during the engagement process, and the speed relative to the enemy ship is almost like a stationary target.

In addition, the muzzle velocity of smoothbore guns in the [-]th century was low, which caused the sea breeze to affect the flight speed of the shells.That is to say, the range and power of the cannon in the case of tailwind have considerable advantages compared with the case of headwind.

Finally, because the black powder was fired with a lot of smoke, after the cannon at the upwind port was fired, all the smoke drifted to the opposite side.The gunners on the downwind side will be shrouded in thick smoke from the artillery on both sides, which will greatly interfere with aiming, and it is common for them to be blinded by the smoke.

However, due to the long distance of the first round of shelling by the Daming Navy, and the nervousness of the gunners for the first time in actual combat, the accuracy in their hands was reduced by [-] to [-]%. Therefore, although nearly [-] heavy artillery were fired at once, there was only one ten. The two-pound shell hit a small boat, shooting a huge transparent hole in its side.

The huge roar of the artillery salvo surprised Niu Bin again. Although no warship was destroyed, he still cautiously ordered his officers: "Send the order, the whole team retreat, be careful to avoid the enemy!"

Although he was shocked, he was not afraid, as early as when he found the enemy ship, he had already sent a sentry boat to the direction of Wucao Island to inform Lord Gaha.

In at least two hours, nearly [-] warships will be overwhelmed by dark clouds, and the fifty or so warships in front of them will be wiped out immediately.

Fifty warships?Suddenly, his heart moved, it was reported that the number of warships from Fujian was this number, there should be no fleet of this size near Zhejiang, could this be... the Fujian navy? !

No, it's impossible!Zhoushan is more than [-] li away, so how could it be possible to reach it in less than a day by going upstream? !

He shook his head vigorously, put all doubts behind him, and looked at the enemy ships again, but was surprised again.

What he formed was a formation called "Xiongguan Formation".All the warships with more than [-] materials are close together and arranged in two rows and staggered in the front, while the other small boats are divided into two columns to cover the two wings.There are also several boats wandering in front of the battle line and waiting for orders.

This formation is extremely defensive, and the strong ships block the front like a city wall, carrying the enemy's firepower.If the warships in the first row are destroyed, the larger ships in the second row will immediately make up for it.The small warships on the two wings are mainly to prevent sneak attacks by enemy fast ships and fire ships, which can be described as airtight.

Since the side of the Junk ship commonly used in the Daming waters can only be equipped with small guns, when facing this kind of formation, they can only choose to attack the front of the big ship and use the heavy guns on the bow to shoot at each other.But even a large ship only has two twelve-pound guns on the bow, and it often takes a long time to sink an enemy ship.

Niu Binyuan also planned in the same way. Even though the enemy ships outnumbered him by [-]%, it was not difficult to survive two hours.

However, the warships on the opposite side did not use big ships to attack head-on as usual, but the big and small warships lined up end to end and formed a long snake formation, with their bows pointing west by south, rushing towards him obliquely. over here.

At the same time, these ships are extremely fast, and they can arrive in the blink of an eye under the favorable wind.Before Niu Bin could figure out why, dozens of enemy ships in the long snake formation flashed dense fire at the same time.

During this shooting, the distance between the two sides was only four hundred steps, and even the four-pound guns on the Ming army warships were within range, so hundreds of cannons fired one after another, making an extremely terrifying momentum.

Niu Bin felt the warship shake violently, and the sound of shells piercing through the ship's planks and screams could be heard all around, and at the same time sawdust was falling all over the sky.

When the noise finally subsided, he turned his head tremblingly, and saw that the foremast of his ship had been blown off in the middle, and the shell remained undiminished, and a huge hole was smashed into the poop, scattered all around. With more than a dozen broken corpses.

He swallowed forcefully, if the shell was lowered a few feet, he would have turned into a puddle of flesh...

　Because this book is being pushed during the big closure, in order to achieve good results, I have the cheek to implore my brothers for their support!

　　The number of chapters to be updated today is determined by monthly tickets or rewards. If the number of monthly tickets exceeds 10 or the total amount of rewards exceeds 20 yuan, I will update 4 chapters and never break my promise!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)