Tian Yaping was a little confused, and the order sent to him from above was to cooperate with the Luo An fleet, the Third Artillery Battalion under the Second Heavy Artillery Regiment, the Third Artillery Regiment and other troops to blockade the Luo River, intercept the enemy fleet along the river, and prevent them from entering the rear and shelling all parts of the country along the Luo River, even shelling the county seats, and even blocking the Luo River transportation.

However, the other side's fleet is not heading upstream, but downstream.

To fight or not to fight?

If they really want to fight, although the distance at this time is nearly four thousand meters, this distance is already within the effective range of the rear-loading guns of their experimental artillery battalion.

But the other party didn't swim over!

If no one comes, it will be difficult to make a decision if they don't fight.

Tian Yaping pondered for a few seconds, and immediately said, "Report to Lord County Guard immediately and ask for instructions!" ”

When the herald rode on fast horses and galloped in the direction of Lin Ziran and them, hundreds of meters away, Tian Yaping himself climbed the lookout platform more than ten meters high.

After climbing up, the artillery staff officer on duty above immediately said: "Battalion commander, their fleet has left the port one after another, but looking at their course, it is heading downstream!" ”

Tian Yaping didn't answer, he leaned over and looked directly in front of the large monoculars, this look was not just a vague shadow of the battleship, but a very clear view of the other party's ships, there were already three slowly leaving the river bay dock to appear on the river, all the ironclad ships, judging from the size, I am afraid that the volume is four or five hundred tons.

I saw the opposing warships leaving the harbor one after another and appeared on the river.

The port where the warships of the Dingjiang Fortress were moored was actually within the effective firing range of their experimental artillery battalion, and they did not fight before, not because they did not want to fight, but because the other party's port was also quite cleverly chosen, with a recessed river bay in the middle, and hills on both sides of the north and south, blocking the artillery firing range and line of sight.

But now, the opposing ships could be seen coming out of the river bay harbor one after another with a faint white smoke and appearing on the river.

If you really want to fight, you can do it now.

However, the other party is sailing downstream. Tian Yaping, who was in a position for a while, didn't know whether to fight or not.

However, soon he got an order from Lin Ziran: "Fight!" ”

Lin Ziran's attitude towards this is very resolute: No matter what the other party wants to do, let's talk about it, after all, the other party's fleet is dispatched at this time, and they can't let it go, if they don't care now, they may be able to cause trouble for themselves.

So no matter how much, let's talk about it.

After receiving Lin Ziran's accurate order, Tian Yaping also immediately ordered: "Open fire immediately, shoot freely"

Soon, the seven rear-loading guns of the experimental artillery battalion opened fire one after another after being set to shoot at Zhu Yuan, and the muzzles of these rear-loading guns spewed out a cloud of white smoke one after another, and then the whole artillery retreated violently, but at the same time, the shells were already flying into the sky, showing a clear curve in the sky, crossing a distance of nearly 4,000 meters, and falling on the surface of the Luo River.

Most of the shells fell on the surface of the river, stirring up water columns, some of which were even only a few meters away from the enemy ships, and the water columns that rose into the air rose to the apex and fell like torrential rain, so that some of the sailors on the deck instantly turned into chickens!

This sudden situation obviously made these ironclad ships of the Luo Hai Fleet a little flustered, some began to turn to avoid, and some began to accelerate downstream.

Although the hit rate of land artillery against such a moving target is a little lower, it is far higher than that of attacking an enemy warship with the ship's naval guns, and it is much higher.

And the shelling between battleships and battleships, that is a dynamic-on-dynamic process, is more computational and complex.

And there is a very fatal factor is the instability of the ship itself, even if the speed is fixed, but the ship itself will have various swings in the process of sailing, especially the roll, which will seriously affect the accuracy of the ship's gun shooting, the shooting window is very small, and the experienced gunner needs to flexibly grasp the timing of the gun.

But ground artillery does not have to worry about these problems, as long as the amount of advance of the opponent is calculated, and after determining the number of shots, you can let go of the fire.

Therefore, the shelling distance of the smoothbore artillery of the army in the towns of Daheng is basically more than nine kilograms of field guns or howitzers, and the heavy long-barreled artillery is running for 1,500 meters or even 2,000 meters, but the shelling distance of the battleship is still limited to five or six hundred meters, or even shorter.

The enemy warship was subjected to intensive shelling by the experimental artillery battalion, and even though it began to maneuver to evade, it was still inevitably shot.

Soon, the lead ironclad ship of about 400 tons was hit with a 75-millimeter grenade.

The shell landed directly on the enemy's deck and exploded, the force of the explosion did not actually damage the battleship, but it killed and injured a large number of deck personnel, especially the crew members on the deck, killing and wounding many people on the spot.

After this has the first hit, there is the second, the third!

The artillery in the experimental artillery battalion was a rear-loading artillery, even if the rate of fire was deliberately reduced in order to avoid exploding, but it was not comparable to the front-loading artillery, and the 75-mm shells fell on the enemy ships one after another.

Even though they are all grenades and cannot sink the battleship, after exploding, they can cause a large number of casualties among the deck personnel on the enemy ship, and at the same time ignite some flammable and explosive objects on the deck and superstructure.

But that's not the point, the point is a hundred and fifty mm grenade!

Although the rate of fire of this thing is a little slower, the power is absolutely amazing, and it has already exerted great power when shelling the northwest battery and the enemy's infantry line.

Now, once again, this 150-mm short-barreled howitzer has shown great power!

I saw a 150-millimeter shell fall on an enemy ship and explode!

The violent explosion was like a storm, completely sweeping the entire deck and even the superstructure of the front half of the battleship, and in the explosion, you could even see a large number of things that were lifted off by the shock wave and fell into the sea, such as lifeboats, personnel and even a small-caliber gun placed on the deck.

After the explosion, the front half of the battleship's deck department was in shambles, and there was a large crater with heavy casualties.

After the heavy shelling, the Luo Hai fleet was clearly in disarray, with several ships speeding downstream and several simply turning around and re-escaping to avoid shelling.

On the other side of the battlefield, Lin Ziran was watching this somewhat one-sided battle.

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