Chapter 61: Fire! (3,000 words)

Although he did not suffer a loss, he did not take advantage of it much, but allowed the enemy to retreat freely, which was a huge failure in Cheng Chuliang's opinion, so as soon as the battle ended, he immediately came to Li Zhen to ask for guilt.

Li Zhen hurriedly relieved: "You don't have to be discouraged, although you didn't have much success, but you didn't suffer any losses, did you?" If you don't suffer a loss, you take advantage. Moreover, the enemy also has artillery, and it is already a great victory to be able to lose no losses under their siege. ”

"That's right, then the subordinates won't untie the ship formation, just continue to maintain the current state." Cheng Chuliang figured it out, the biggest task of his trip was not to fight with the enemy, but to ensure Li Zhen's safety, as long as this goal was achieved, not to mention that this time it was still a gain, even if his fleet was dead, it was worth it.

Although the ship formation is not good in this way, there is one thing that is excellent - that is, the ship formation is a circle, and the battleships with strong firepower are arranged outside, which means that they can protect the Holy Emperor in all directions without dead ends, no matter which corner the enemy attacks from, they will face the counterattack of the Tang Navy, so they have to retreat, which is incomparable to other formations.

"Let's untie it." Li Zhen said with a smile: "After all, we have so many ships, you have also seen the firepower of the other side, although they do have artillery, but the caliber is not very large, and it is not a threat to us at all, you should be bolder, pursue it more - besides, we can't just defend, we can't pull it out in the future, and we must continue to maintain the formation of the ship, right?" ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand." Cheng Chuliang thought about it, he really didn't need to be so nervous, he was a fully organized naval detachment (a formation composed of ten third-class battleships, as it will be called in the future), what enemy in this world can make him nervous? Even if the enemy is besieging it, even if the enemy has artillery, what can it do? The Holy Emperor is not without the power of self-protection, and with the surrounding warships, what can the enemy do if they have artillery?

What's more, if there is really something that cannot be caught, or if the enemy's strength is too strong to be able to defeat the enemy, it will be difficult to resist even if it forms a ship formation, and it will be impossible to resist and escape at that time, then it is really looking for death, so it is better to untie the ship formation now, even if it can't be defeated, it will eventually be able to escape.

The only problem is this storm, although an hour has passed, but the storm not only does not mean to stop, but is getting stronger and stronger, even if it is formed into a ship formation, it is difficult to resist, if the ship formation is unraveled, I am afraid that the entire fleet will be blown away, this point needs to think of a way.

"It doesn't matter." Knowing Cheng Chuliang's embarrassment, Li Zhen waved his hand to signal not to worry: "We can't resist the storm, why shouldn't the enemy be like this?" You just need to do your best to maintain the formation. ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand." Cheng Chuliang nodded again and again when he heard this, he would be blown away by the wind and waves, the enemy's ships were not as good as his own warships, naturally they were even worse than themselves, not to mention that it was better for the fleet to be blown away, both sides were blown away, the number of enemy ships faced by his own warships was greatly reduced, the accuracy of the enemy's artillery was already seriously insufficient, and when the ships gathered together, they might still be hit by one or two shots, but both sides were scattered, and the firepower was seriously insufficient, and I am afraid that they could not pose a threat to themselves.

And at this time, although the wind and waves are getting more and more fierce, but after all, it is impossible to evolve into a strong tropical storm, Datang's warship has taken into account the wind and waves at the beginning of the design, which is enough to pass through the wind below level 10, but it is not easy to control the direction, but at this time it is summer, and the southeast wind is blowing, even if you can't grasp the direction, the general direction is the same as your goal, maybe you can speed up with the help of the wind speed.

Before, it was just to avoid being blown away by the strong wind, and it was also to make Li Zhen sit more comfortable, so he formed a ship formation, but now that the enemy has hit the door, it is not a wise move to form a ship formation again, and compared with life, comfort will be left behind.

"Governor, come ahead to report, and another enemy is coming." Just as Cheng Chuliang was about to leave, another flag bearer came to report.

"Wheel warfare? Well, that's great. Cheng Chuliang showed a sneer on his face: "Send the order, untie the ship formation, order all the warships to fire back together, and be sure to block the enemy ten miles away." ”

The firing range of a 75-millimeter naval gun is only fourteen or fifteen miles, and it is still the ultimate range, without the assistance of the observation and sighting system, coupled with the complicated situation at sea, it is already a sharpshooter to hit a target of ten miles, especially now that the wind and rain are so strong, the effective range of the naval guns is even half discounted, and at most seven or eight miles is the limit.

What's more, the accuracy of the opponent's naval guns is not very good, now Cheng Chuliang ordered all the naval guns to fire together, there are not only seventy-five mm naval guns in the Tang fleet, on battleships, seventy-five mm naval guns are the smallest caliber, Li Zhen even intends to remove this caliber gun from the battleship, the power is too small, unless it hits the keel, even if it hits, it can only be a small hole, and it is impossible to sink the enemy ship.

In addition to the seventy-five millimeters, there are one hundred and five millimeters, one hundred and twenty millimeters and one hundred and fifty millimeters of naval guns on the battleships, and there are even 200 millimeters of giant guns on the first-class battleships, these are real naval guns, the firing range is more than thirty miles, compared with such naval guns, seventy-five millimeters is simply a baby, if such a naval gun fires, it is naturally enough to block the enemy out of the firing range, and the enemy's artillery will become scrap metal.

"Your Highness, it seems that the enemy is preparing for a wheel war, and his subordinates are going down to prepare."

"Go ahead." Li Zhen waved her hand, looking at the chart and not knowing what she was thinking.

Because all the warships were connected, it was very convenient for Cheng Chuliang to change ships, and he soon came to the flagship of the fleet, the Yuezhou.

The third-class battleship is named after the sea, such as Zonghai, Pinghai, Liaohai, etc., in addition to the Liaoyuan class produced by the Vladivostok shipyard, which itself should be a merchant ship, but at the beginning of the design, the design of the battleship was also increased, so it only needs a little modification to become a battleship, and later Datang expanded the navy, and the degree of launching of the battleship was far less than the speed of naval expansion, so some navies turned to the Vladivostok shipyard to place orders, purchased a large number of Ningyuan-class, and converted into battleships, It was found that the performance was not inferior to the longitudinal sea class, especially the speed was even faster (the Liaoyuan class is a flying scissor sailboat, and the speed itself is the biggest feature), so this originally compromised product actually entered the sight of the navy, and for a time the order floated to the Vladivostok shipyard like snowflakes.

Later, the Vladivostok shipyard improved the original Liaoyuan class, increased the quality, strengthened the defense, and officially changed it to a battleship, although the artillery is not as good as the longitudinal sea class, but the speed is far beyond the longitudinal sea, and it is also loved by a considerable part of the navy, so now Datang has two kinds of three-class battleships, one is the oriental style of the longitudinal sea class, and the other is the Ningyuan class converted from the Western flying scissor sailing ship.

The second-class battleships are named after small states, such as the previous Shazhou, Linzhou, Pingzhou, and so on.

The first-class battleships are named after large cities, such as Chang'an, Luoyang, Jinling, Hangzhou, etc., while Yuezhou and Quanzhou are latecomers and nouveau riche, but there is no doubt that they are real big cities in terms of today's scale, so the two first-class battleships of the Quanzhou fleet are named Yuezhou and Quanzhou respectively. Even for the name of Yuezhou, the Yuezhou fleet and the Quanzhou fleet clashed, but this time it was the Quanzhou fleet that took advantage and took the name Yuezhou into the bag, but because of this, the enmity between the two fleets was greater.

At this time, Cheng Chuliang came to the Yuezhou, but saw a fleet appear in the west, that is, in front of the fleet, the number was about thirty, all of them were large ships with a displacement of more than 2,000 tons, but because the distance was too far, it was not clear whether the other party was a warship or a merchant ship.

"I hope it's a merchant ship, if it's a warship......" Cheng Chuliang muttered to himself, if the weak opponent is a merchant ship, it's fine, even if it's just an armed merchant ship, it won't be the opponent of the fleet, but if it's a warship...... Although the fleet will not be afraid of them, it can only fight one of them, and at most it can only inflict heavy damage on them, but it cannot completely annihilate them.

"Order, fire." No matter what the other party is coming from, now that the enemy is within his range, then fire first.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

“……”

The sound of artillery bombardment was even more powerful than just now, and even there was a burst of vibration on the ship's board, and the huge cannonball flew towards the target with a red tail flame, but at this time it was in the midst of a storm, and it was still difficult to stand on the ship, and the accuracy of the cannonball could be imagined, even if it was assisted by a simple observation and sighting system, but how could it be accurate?

Fortunately, the Datang fleet is well-trained, and it has been trained in the storm in peacetime, but this time the artillery bombardment hit the target with a few shots, only to see that one of the other party's ships was directly hit amidship, and the one hundred and fifty mm cannon was easily passed through the defense of the side of the ship with huge kinetic energy, and drilled into the enemy ship, and I don't know where it hit, only to see the opponent's ship suddenly shake, and then slowly break into two sections, and quickly sink into the sea, in addition to this unlucky guy, there are three other enemy ships were hit, All of them have also suffered varying degrees of damage.

"Okay."

There was a burst of cheers from the fleet, apparently pleased that they had been able to hit their target with one shot.

"Keep firing." Cheng Chuliang suppressed the excitement in his heart and continued to order the cannonball.

The other party seemed to be frightened by the terrifying power of the naval guns, and after barely dodging two rounds of shelling, they scattered and retreated, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

(End of chapter)