At half past eleven, on the Lianzhou, a young officer wearing the rank of captain of the Navy stood on the command platform on the upper deck, and this person was none other than Captain Fei Qing, the gunnery chief of the Lianzhou.

I saw him say: "Nine catties of artillery ready, the enemy No. 1 ship on the left, the distance is five hundred, solid shells!" ”

At this time, the gun commander on the side of the nine-pound gun on the bow deck aimed at the enemy ship on the left for the final aim, and as for the loading, it had already been loaded, and even the gunners who were preparing for the second round of loading were already ready.

The gunners who are ready to reset the naval guns are in place, ready to reset the guns as soon as the guns are fired, and the gunners who clean the gun chambers are also ready to clean up the gun chambers as soon as possible, and clean up the gunpowder residues remaining in the gun chambers, so as to avoid the second loading, the remaining gunpowder in the gun chambers that are still burning ignites the gunpowder of the second load, thus causing an explosion accident.

The gunners, equipped with gunpowder and shells, were also ready for the second round of reloading as soon as the guns were fired.

The gun commander of this nine-pound artillery is also a veteran artilleryman in the Tang Dynasty Division, and he is also the most skilled gunner in the entire Tang Dynasty Division.

In the era of front-loading artillery, the technical content of ordinary gunners was average, and they could be trained casually for a period of time, and they could act without knowing big characters, but if they were gun commanders, then it was very difficult to train.

Because there was no fire control system in those years, and the accuracy of the artillery was not high, almost every time the gun was fired, the orientation was almost recalculated, and the requirements for the gun commander were very high.

Therefore, whether the artillery of these years can hit the enemy, especially whether it can hit the enemy's ships, in addition to relying on luck, the most important thing is the skill of the gun commander.

Therefore, almost every artillery commander, in the Tang Dynasty's division, whether it is the army or the navy, belongs to the top talents, and the military rank is generally the highest level that can be achieved among soldiers: sergeant.

And these artillery commanders are strong enough because of their professional knowledge, so it is easy to get the opportunity to continue to be promoted to officers, usually after going to a crash course in the martial arts academy, they often come back to the unit as a second lieutenant, and at this time they can serve as a platoon commander or even a deputy captain.

However, for an ordinary artilleryman to grow into a gun commander, and he is also a skilled gun commander, in addition to requiring long-term training and learning, it also has a lot to do with personal talent.

The army and navy in the Tang Dynasty division are combined, and the total strength is nearly 100,000, even if it is an ordinary artilleryman, there are several thousand, but there are only a few artillery commanders, and there are only a few hundred people in total.

And among these hundreds of people, almost all of them are the first batch of artillerymen, and these people are also of different technical levels, and being able to go to the Lianzhou and serve as the commander of this ninth-level artillery is enough to prove his strength.

After receiving the order, he began to carry out the final calibration, and in the process, he was still directly calculating various data, and finally after the complete aiming, he directly said: "Fire!" ”

Suddenly, the arquebus of this nine-pound cannon was ignited!

The arquebus burned rapidly, and ignited the propellant in the barrel, and in the next moment, all the gunners saw the cannon in front of them retreat violently, even the cannon body weighing thousands of catties could not resist the strong recoil of the artillery.

At the same time, a thick cloud of white smoke was also released from the original position of the cannon, and the violent cannon sound reached everyone's ears.

Many of the artillerymen immediately moved quickly, but not everyone was paying attention to the artillery itself, the gun commander of the gun and the gun chief on the upper deck were all paying attention to the landing point of the shells.

The distance of 500 meters was not long for the fast-flying artillery, and soon they could clearly see a small black dot flying in front of the enemy ship.

However, this cannon did not hit the enemy ship, but it did not make everyone show any frustration, and in the battle at sea, the ships of both sides were in motion, and the ships were still shaking on the sea, and this hit rate was far less than that on land.

This is also the reason why the range of the artillery is obviously several kilometers, but it will only fire at a distance of 500 meters.

If you fire at a distance of 500 meters, you can't hit it, and if you fire from a distance of one or two thousand meters, you can basically hear a sound.

The first shot missed, but the commander of the nine-pound gun didn't have time to regret it, and once again began to calculate and shoot Zhu Yuan, and at the same time, the gunners under him were also nervous and busy.

They had to put the guns, which had been knocked back for a long distance, back into place, and then began to clear the chambers, load the cartridges, place the arquebuses, and place the solid spherical shells.

These tasks are relatively simple to say, but in fact they are still more troublesome, because it is about artillery, no one dares to relax, they are all done very carefully, and work in strict accordance with the process.

When the gunners had finished resetting and loading, the gunner took aim himself, this time for a little longer!

When the aiming was complete, the second shell was also fired.

As soon as his cannon fired, he also heard the continuous rumbling sound of cannon from the rear, and he knew that it should be several other nine-pound guns and seven-pound guns in the fleet firing.

Because it takes time for the fleets to get close to each other, and artillery firing also requires a certain angle of fire, the timing of this cannon is not uniform, but there is a precedent.

However, only nine-pound and seven-pound artillery are being fired at present, and as for five-pound artillery, because of the firing range, firing at a distance of 500 meters is purely a waste of shells.

So now the ships of the main fleet of the Second Fleet have been firing guns one after another, but the sound of cannons is not dense.

And because the distance is a bit far, the hit rate is relatively low.

After more than 10 minutes of vigorous fighting, it turned out that only two or three shells of the enemy ship were hit.

Naturally, these two or three shells could not have caused any actual damage to the enemy's ships, at most they caused only a few casualties.

However, the only few shells hit, but it brought a great morale boost to the fleet, because it meant that the opponent could indeed hit the opponent, and the opponent did not seem to have large-caliber naval guns to return fire.

This kind of thing is that you hit the opponent, but the opponent can't fight back, even if the hit rate is reduced, and you can't even cause any actual damage to the opponent, which is a good thing.

Because every time you hit an enemy ship, you can attract a cheer from the sailors.

However, this cheer does not represent the middle and high-level generals in the fleet!

Because the long-distance artillery effect is not obvious enough, it means that you cannot rely on the range advantage of large-caliber artillery to gain the upper hand, if you want to achieve effective results, I am afraid you have to continue to close the distance!

It's just that once you enter the distance of two or three hundred meters, or even further, although you can have more artillery to fire, and also achieve a higher hit rate, but the Ming artillery will definitely return fire, and at that time, I am afraid that the battle will be very fierce.

On the Lianzhou, Ouyang Gui was still a calm civil official, although he also paid attention to the shelling, but he obviously did not show any dissatisfaction, let alone personally intervene in the shelling.

That was the business of the gunners of the ships, not the accusations of his fleet commander.

At this time, the staff officer beside him said with a look of excitement: "My lord, according to the current speed and direction, in a maximum of ten minutes, the distance between the two sides can be shortened to three hundred meters, and at that time, a large number of our five-pound guns will also be able to fire, and we will definitely be able to severely damage the enemy ships at that time!" ”

However, Ouyang Gui shook his head slightly: "What are you doing to close the distance, now we can hit them, but they can't hit us, it's not very good, give the order, keep a distance of four hundred meters!" ”

As he spoke, he shook his head slightly!

Most of these naval officers under his command are transferred from the army, and they also bring the high and courage of the army with them, although this is also a good thing, but it is not a good thing for today's battle.

Closing the distance and fighting hard?

Ouyang Gui didn't want to do this unless he had to, because his idea was not to annihilate the opponent's fleet, in fact, the enemy was strong and I was weak, what he really wanted was very simple, that is, to entangle the opponent and cover the landing fleet.

Therefore, in this naval battle, it is not important whether the main fleet can sink the opponent's battleship, the important thing is to drag the enemy!

In the end, it remained in the current state, and the two sides maneuvered and entangled with each other several hundred meters apart, and then after a few hours he led the fleet to retreat and return.

Because by that time, I am afraid that the landing fleet will have already landed on Qiongzhou Island, and there will be no need for the navy to continue to fight hard with the enemy's fleet.

The Datang Navy is weak, can you keep a little more vitality for the navy or keep a little more!

But Ouyang Gui's assumption was just wishful thinking, because it was only fifteen minutes later, Ouyang Gui just found out that something was wrong!

The enemy fleet did not continue to follow him and continue to close the distance, but began to turn towards the east.

Seeing this scene, he immediately secretly said that it was not good, this must be the enemy's fleet that discovered the landing fleet and ran to intercept the landing fleet regardless of himself.

If it is really bypassed by the Ming naval divisions, then the landing fleet will be dangerous.

The Ming Army's sailors turned and distanced themselves at this time, definitely not wanting to run, they were going to intercept the transport fleet, and this kind of thing was not allowed by Ouyang Gui.

He never forgot his duty: to cover the landing of the army!

So after seeing this scene, he did not hesitate to order: "Order all ships, close the distance, and entangle them!" ”