September 20, 14th year of Jianxing.

Xu Shiyang's fleet departed.

As in the past, if he was not at ease with the battle, Xu Shiyang would definitely personally come forward to direct the battle.

It's the same this time.

He sat on the "Deng Yingzhou" and personally commanded a battle fleet of 20 artillery ships.

In addition, the non-artillery fleet of 32 non-artillery ships under the command of Luo Haitao (that is, Luo Haiwei, as a high-ranking figure in the navy, he changed his name) was in the vicinity of the shelling fleet, ready to support.

If the 20 gunboats can't quickly eat Li Feibao's fleet, these gunless ships will also have to go to war.

The fleet departed directly from Dengju and stationed at Chenghuang Island at the northern tip of the Changshan Islands, where it was hidden and waited.

There is only one old Tieshan waterway from Lushun, and you can't use it for a day.

Even if Li Feibao's course of action could avoid Xu Shiyang's combat radius, he would always have to enter Port Arthur.

As long as there is no problem with the time information, it is the same to stop him outside the port.

What's more, the information provided by Li Feihu is still accurate.

Two days after the fleet was stationed in the waterway near Chenghuang Island, the peripheral reconnaissance ships reported that Li Feibao had appeared.

September 22, 14th year of Jianxing.

Li Feibao personally led 103 large and small ships arrived less than 30 nautical miles outside Port Arthur and entered the Laotieshan Waterway.

In fact, Li Feibao did the precaution of aligning the provincial fleet.

He knew that Xu Shiyang's ships could be equipped with cannons to suppress his fleet from a distance, and in order to avoid the loss of the goods transported, he arranged fifty ships carrying various supplies sold to Liaodong by the Jiangnan gentry on the inside, and 50 battle ships full of pirates on the outside.

Li Feibao's plan was that if it was really intercepted, the combat ship would directly close the distance by virtue of its numerical superiority, and enter the broadside battle after suffering certain losses.

As long as the transport ship entered the port, Xu Shiyang's interception operation was tantamount to a failure.

Of course, if you can catch a ship of Xu Shiyang, of course, it will be better.

Although Li Feibao only got some vague information about the cannon, he agreed with all the big cabinets that it was a very suitable, or most suitable weapon for sea ships.

Li Feibao even believed that in future naval battles, if it were not for the large difference in the number of ships, the side with artillery would almost certainly be able to defeat the side without artillery.

Therefore, he very much wanted to get a few cannons as samples and try to forge cannons on his own turf.

If Xu Shiyang knew Li Feibao's thoughts, he would definitely admire the other party's vicious eyes.

However, Xu Shiyang didn't know that he only wanted to slaughter Li Feibao, the bastard who was transporting much-needed supplies to the Tartars.

At the end of the hour (about 9 o'clock), a pirate descended from the mast, quickly ran to Li Feibao, knelt down and shouted:

"The shopkeeper, the front is about to enter the Iron Mountain Tunnel! It's almost time to Lushun! ”

"Gather together, don't be swept away by the undercurrent." Li Feibao ordered lightly.

"Yes!"

Lao Tieshan is full of undercurrents along the way, which is prone to shipwrecks, and in another time and space, it even has the prestige of Bermuda in the East.

However, if you are careful when sailing, this place is not so mysterious, after all, it is a busy waterway connecting Qiliao and Bohuang.

The formation of the Li family's fleet began to shrink in order to avoid the undercurrent as much as possible under the guidance of the pilot ship.

However, at this moment, a new signal came from the mast.

The Qi Provincial Fleet appeared.

The leader is the "Dengyingzhou" that Li Feibao once saw, with the arrogant red flag hanging on the high mainmast - this means that Xu Shiyang personally dispatched.

"He really doesn't care about his old friendship."

Li Feibao said to himself:

"Anyway, I gave him more than 200,000 yuan before, and I said that I would turn my face ......."

The person who came must not be good, so there is no need to ask, just start fighting.

The convoy began to break away from the fleet ranks, and the convoy lowered all its rocking oars and prepared to speed away.

The two sides began to approach, preparing for a naval battle.

……

Xu Shiyang divided his fleet into three ships, with ten medium-sized Fu ships as the main force, to deal with Li Feibao's escort fleet.

Ten small ships were on the side, and the non-artillery fleet was ready to attack and intercept the convoy after the artillery fleet had attracted the attention of the enemy escort.

Li Feibao relied on his numerical superiority to set up a plum blossom array that was popular in naval warfare at this time.

That is to say, the escort fleet of the Li Group is divided into five small fleets, each small fleet has ten large ships, and these ten ships cooperate in pairs to form a plum blossom array in the front, back, left and right.

With such a formation, once entering the engagement, the enemy ships will encounter a surprise attack from all directions, and it will be difficult to escape.

Therefore, the Li pirates have always used this formation as a trump card for naval warfare - no one else has as many ships as their family anyway.

Xu Shiyang, who was opposite Li Feibao, as a half-army fan, naturally put on a horizontal formation that was convenient for his own firepower.

Beginning with "Deng Yingzhou", the nine medium-sized ships behind were lined up to face the enemy on the side of the ship, and each ship had five cannons (two general guns and three magic guns) on each side ready to fire.

"Xu Shiyang put on a long snake formation?"

Li Feibao habitually muttered to himself.

If someone else put this formation in front of him, he would definitely laugh until his stomach hurts.

This formation is too thin, it will be pierced as soon as it is stabbed, and then it will be besieged, chased and killed, and ...... defeated.

But the person on the other side was Xu Shiyang, although no one had heard of whether he had the ability to command the Grand Fleet in battle, but after all, this was a person who had defeated the Tartars on land and successfully intercepted the ships of the Zhou at sea.

Besides, he has weapons that he doesn't have - maybe this is the formation that works with the cannons?

Therefore, Li Feibao did not dare to be careless at all, the sound of war drums behind him became urgent, the large fortune ships put down their rocking oars one after another, the bottom sailors rowed hard, and the Li army fleet began to accelerate.

"Don't be in a hurry!"

Xu Shiyang ordered loudly:

"Wait for the enemy to get closer!"

Immediately, a signalman passed his orders to the other warships of the fleet in flags.

This was also a disadvantage of the column: in the absence of radio, any command from the flagship could only be passed on to the next warship immediately adjacent to him, and then he would pass it on to the friendly ships behind.

If there is any mistake in this kind of drumming and fancy communication, it may cause chaos in the subsequent ships.

Therefore, the naval battle at this time also emphasized discipline, and it can even be said that it paid more attention to discipline than the army phalanx.

In modern navy, without the order of the flagship, no warship in the battle line is allowed to leave the post without permission and maneuver, and must follow the ship in front of it.

In another time and space, Captain Jiyuan, who also fled from the battlefield in the Beiyang Fleet in the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, was executed, but Captain Guangjia was dismissed and retained, and it was because of this - Jiyuan was the flagship of Guangjia's squad, Jiyuan took the initiative to flee the battlefield, and Guangjia would subconsciously follow him.

Xu Shiyang's small fleet is naturally the same.

Not only did he force all the warships in the fleet to follow the flagship's movements indefinitely, but he also forced them not to shoot before the flagship opened fire.

。 m.