On the Lianzhou, Ouyang Gui and a group of staff officers of the mobile fleet boarded the command platform, and then used the monocular in their hands to look at the Ming Navy fleet that was leaving the port one after another.

"The overall number of naval divisions of the Ming army is basically consistent with the intelligence, there are about one hundred and fifty ships, but among them, the large ships of more than 100 tons are a little more than the intelligence estimated, not about twenty as we thought before, but thirty!"

The chief of staff on the side used a larger and longer high-powered telescope to observe, and said about the situation ahead: "On their left and right flanks, there are a large number of small boats that are rapidly heading towards us, it should be their fireships, thirty on the left flank and forty on the right flank. ”

"Fireship Offensive? It's still the same old thing! Ouyang Gui naturally saw the general situation through the telescope, although the magnification of the telescope in his hand was not so high, but he could still see it clearly when he looked at one.

"Let the First and Third Fleets go out, knock out their fireships first, keep your distance, don't get entangled in their fireships!" Ouyang Gui didn't hesitate at all, and soon gave an order: "Then order the second and fourth fleets in the rear to distance themselves!" ”

If the warships in his hands are still the same as before, only armed with civilian ships, then he is still a little afraid of the large-scale fireship offensive commonly used by the Ming army, then he now has a full nine capital ships in his hands, and he is not afraid of the Ming army's fireship offensive at all!

Because the nine capital ships in his hands are cruisers and frigates, which are originally known for their speed and maneuverability, especially frigates, which are more flexible!

If you really want to compete in speed, these small boats in the hands of the Ming army may not be able to catch up!

In the sea, it is not necessary for the ship to be small and fast, at most it is to turn around and turn more agilely.

With nine capital ships as the core, as long as you are careful, although it is impossible to say that you can annihilate too many of these small arsonist ships of the Ming army, it is still possible to avoid them and disrupt their charging formation.

What's more, this time when he went to sea to fight, he also brought howitzers on his fleet, and this kind of howitzer is a sharp weapon for attacking ships!

Since the army took the lead in using 24-pound and 48-pound short-barreled howitzers for siege operations on a large scale, the navy naturally did not fall behind, and it soon moved the short-barreled howitzers directly to these nine capital ships.

Moreover, at the time of the test, these howitzers were more effective than cannons against ships, not only killing and injuring enemy personnel in large numbers, but also destroying their sails.

After Ouyang Gui's order was issued, the main fleet began to move forward, and the most front frigate, that is, the Liping frigate, took the lead, with all the sails open, directly cutting through the wind and waves.

The ships in the rear are also moving fast with the sails!

A quarter of an hour later, Ouyang Gui ordered to turn forty degrees to the right and began to seize the upper hand!

How to effectively avoid the attack of fireships? The easiest and most effective way to do this is to gain the upper hand, because although a hard-sailed boat can sail against the wind and a small boat can paddle forward, it still can't match the tailwind.

What's more, this is in the vast sea, and the warship can basically sail in any direction that is beneficial to them without worrying about hitting the reef or hitting the beach directly.

After several battleships of the main fleet made a big turn on the sea, the Ming army boats in front obviously wanted to follow suit, but the wind direction at this time was southerly.

After the battleships of the Tang Navy turned, although there was also a certain headwind, the impact was not great, but after the ships of the Ming army turned around, they became headwinds.

As a result, the Ming sailors on these small boats began to paddle forward directly.

The distance between the two sides was constantly approaching, and an hour later, the most front frigate was almost five hundred meters away from the small boat of the Ming army.

At this time, the gunnery chief on the ship immediately ordered: "All guns are ready!" ”

At this time, the commanders of the cannons soon began to load the arson shell, well, in fact, it was a solid shell that burned red!

The best way for cannons in these days to deal with fireships is to use arson bombs.

Because the small boat that acts as a fireboat is usually loaded with a large amount of flammable materials, once this flammable is ignited, the whole ship will turn into a huge fireship, and then the sailors will jump into the water, so that the fireboat will continue to rush up by inertia.

But if you set these fireships on fire in advance, you can force them to abandon them before they can enter the formation!

In this case, these fireships are naturally not much of a threat!

In addition to the arson shells on the cannon, one 48-pound howitzer and three 24-pound howitzers on this frigate are also ready to be fired at any time.

Five hundred meters, four hundred meters, three hundred and fifty meters, at this distance, it is basically impossible to get any closer, and if you get closer, it is possible that their fireships will break through and intercept and then block.

"Fire!"

So at this time, the gunnery chief on the Liping also gave the order to open fire!

As the order was issued, the artillery crews that had already been prepared opened fire one after another, and in an instant, clouds of flames and white smoke erupted from the deck of the Liping, and then these white smoke were blown away by the sea breeze.

In the midst of the flames and smoke, more than a dozen shells flew towards the Ming arson ship closest to the Liping!

At such a close distance, and it was still a concentrated fire, and it was aimed at it for so long in advance, the hit rate was also quite impressive, and an arson bomb fell into the Ming army's fireship on the spot, and after an instant, the fireship was billowing smoke, and then a huge fire flared!

This fireship of the Ming army had already caught fire in advance before it entered the formation.

Many sailors of the Ming army on the spot jumped into the sea to escape, and threw down the fireboat that had been on fire, of course, the fireship did not stop, but continued to move forward, but lost control, and the ship was just a floating target!

The follow-up Datang warships did not pay attention to this fireship, but aimed their firepower at the other fireships in the follow-up!

As more and more of the guns of the capital ships fired, the Ming fireships on the sea were ignited one after another in advance, of course, there were also some Ming fireships that entered a distance of one or two hundred meters, and then ignited themselves to try to ram, but it was also soon the guns on the capital ships that smashed and sank.

Although it is difficult for the naval guns of these years to completely sink those large ships of several hundred tons, the killing effect is still very good for these small ships of only a few tons or ten tons.

It's a massacre!

Nine capital ships, with powerful firepower, more than 100 guns swept the Ming army ships in front of the right, but in this process, the Ming army's fireships have never been able to catch up with the main fleet of the Tang Navy, let alone successfully rammed.

Facts have once again proved that the fireship can only have a relatively good effect on low mobility, or simply a stationary target, and if it is on the battlefield of the vast sea, its usefulness can be basically ignored.

However, in small places such as ports and inland rivers, fireships still have a certain role, but even so, most of these fireships washed out of rivers have not achieved any practical results in modern naval warfare in history.

In Malacca, the Franc Robot encountered an indigenous fireship that washed out of the river, but was still intercepted by the Franc Robot's naval guns and the auxiliary boats in the fleet.

And this is also the reason why in the Age of Discovery, in the duel of fleets, the arson ship can only be reduced to a supporting role, but it cannot become a decisive force.

In the era of sail warships, it still depends on naval guns, and whoever has more guns and bigger guns will be able to gain tactical advantages!

After seeing that his fleet successfully annihilated nearly half of the fireships, and at the same time dodged the remaining half of the fireships, Ouyang Gui showed a dark color of satisfaction, after this battle, I am afraid that the Pseudo-Ming Sailor will no longer use fire attack tactics in the vast sea.

At this time, the remaining half of the Ming army's ships also knew that they couldn't start to retreat, and even if they wanted to catch up, they couldn't catch up, and the frigates with full sails could reach thirteen knots downwind, and the speed was faster than that of the Ming army's boats!

However, although the fireships of the Ming army returned in vain, there were still seventy or eighty warships left in the Ming army, some of which were tens of tons, and some were one or two hundred tons.

Just looking at this number, it is much more than the warships of the mobile fleet of the Tang Navy, but if the number is large and he can win, then Ouyang Gui will not kill him with the mobile fleet.

In this battle, the nine capital ships of the two subfleets, the First Fleet and the Third Fleet, were still the mainstay, and the seven or eight armed merchant ships of the mobile fleet that were not loaded with ground combat troops also stepped forward to share the pressure.

The battle is on again!

And the battle between the two sides is also a little strange, the Tang Navy's side, while firing artillery, is continuing to pull away and maintain a combat distance of about 300 meters or more, while the Ming army is bent on rushing up.

This is naturally not because the Datang Navy is too timid to get close to fight, but because the Datang Navy occupies an almost absolute superiority in naval artillery, so it wants to use naval artillery to eliminate the opponent.

As for the Ming army, they don't have a lot of artillery, and many of them are firearms such as Franc machine guns and bowl cannons that can only kill people at close range, and cannons are big killing weapons, I'm sorry, they don't have much!

So they want to stick close to each other for melee combat, or even rush directly to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

The sound of artillery on the sea sounded for more than two hours, and the two sides fought from noon to afternoon, and this was the result of a somewhat unexpected victory!