The morning mist made the two sentinel ships of the Qing Army's sailors who came out to patrol Nanao Island a little overwhelmed. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Recently, it was rumored that the Cantonese thieves from the west would come to attack Nanao, so the chief soldier of Nanao Town personally ordered to send a sentinel ship to reconnoiter every day, but more than half a month has passed, and it has not appeared.

"The fog is so heavy today, there shouldn't be any thieves." Thinking so, the Qing soldiers on the sentry ship casually took a circle outside and wanted to return.

Suddenly, lying on the tip of one of the ship's masts, a lookout sentry pointed to a row of black dots to the west and shouted, "My lord, look, what is that?" ”

"Damn, it's really a thief's sailor called!" A foreign commissioner climbed up with him to take a look, was so shocked that he almost fell, screamed, and hurriedly ordered the helmsman to turn back and go back to report the news.

The 5th Division led by Liang Peiyou had only more than 200 warships.

Among them, 80 are large red single ships converted from warships, with two decks equipped with large and small guns, each ship carrying nearly 15 or 6 guns, equipped with more than 60 sailors; In addition, there were fifty medium-sized Red Single warships, each carrying nearly ten guns, and more than forty sailors; The remaining nearly 100 small Red Single Battleships were used for pursuit, reconnaissance, and close combat, with only one or two guns or even no artillery, and only more than 30 sailors.

Originally, these large and small red single warships could be equipped with more artillery, but there were too few artillery in the captive army, so the guns on the small red single ships were dismantled and deployed on the big red single battleships.

At this moment, Liang Peiyou was holding the monocular clairvoyance captured from the British, and he had already seen the Qing army patrol sentry ship that had turned back to report the news.

"What about knowing we're attacking?" Liang Peiyou sneered and gave an order: "The whole army will attack, set up an inverted figure-eight formation, and slowly attack Nanao Island." ”

Following the sentinel ship to the east for more than an hour, the fog on the sea slowly dissipated, and the vision suddenly became clear.

Soon, a large group of warships appeared ahead. I saw three fleets rushing out from the west of Nanao Island, and they came over in three directions to destroy the 5th Division B that came to attack.

"It's a good time, order the whole army to retreat to the south, and lead the Qing Demon Water Division to the south, away from Nanao Island." Liang Peiyou ordered according to the strategy formulated by the General Staff.

And one of the three Qing fleets, on a large rice boat at the front, Han Jiamo, the chief soldier of Nanao Town, the naval division of the two provinces, was standing on the bow of the ship, and in his hand was also a single-barrel clairvoyant bought from foreigners. ”

"I guess I'm hiding somewhere, and when we fight, let's suddenly kill it." A person next to him replied.

Han Jiamo nodded and said, "It should be like this!" However, now that the fog lifted, they were nowhere to be found. It's better to take this opportunity to break the Cantonese thief in front of you, as long as you fight quickly, there is nothing to worry about! ”

"Look, my lord, the Cantonese thief has fled south."

"Immediately raise flags for Wu Junmen and Hong Junmen, and invite them to attack together with the two fleets. Order the fleet to speed up and attack the Cantonese thieves. Han Jiamo hurriedly shouted.

The general of the Qing army who gave the order knew that Wu Junmen, who was talking about by the commander-in-chief, was Wu Yuanyou, the commander of the Guangdong Navy Division, who led his troops to flee to Nanao, and Hong Junmen was the former commander of the Guangdong Navy Hong Mingxiang.

Suddenly, Zhang Manfan, a naval division of the Qing army, took advantage of the northeast wind to approach the fleet of the 5th Division.

"Ready! Stabilize the hull, aim at the enemy ship, and fire! Seeing that it was already approaching the fleet of Cantonese thieves, Han Jiamo ordered.

"Boom!" Dozens of shells were fired at the Red Dan warships of the captive army.

I saw huge columns of water splashing on the surface of the sea. Although most of the shells missed and fell into the sea, a few of them hit the last two Red Dan ships that retreated.

Suddenly, the two red single warships shook violently, but fortunately, although the hull was smashed with a few holes, it was not fundamentally injured and did not enter the water.

The 5th Division did not return fire, ignoring it and continuing to withdraw southward.

Seeing that the first round of attacks did not achieve good results, Han Jiamo, the commander-in-chief of South Australia, touched the beard at the corner of his mouth and ordered to continue the pursuit.

In this way, the pursuit lasted for half an hour, and the 5th Division suffered three artillery attacks, and one large Red Single Boat and two medium Red Single Boats were damaged.

The other two fleets of the Qing army also came together. Because it was a tailwind, he would soon catch up with the naval division of the captured army and cut off Liang Peiyou's fleet.

At this moment, from the east of Nanao Island, a group of warships appeared in the sky, led by the appearance of the giant Atlantic warship that Han Jiamo was looking for, but all of them were different colors.

At this time, Liang Peiyou's fleet, which had originally fled south, suddenly made a large-angle turn and used its side to face the Qing army's sailors who were still rushing over by inertia.

Seeing that the fleets of the two armies were getting closer and closer, and had already entered the artillery range, Liang Peiyou suddenly shouted: "The gunners of each ship, fire at me and beat him hard!" ”

In order to lure the Qing army sailors away from Nanao Island, Liang Peiyou retreated south with the fleet that was obviously able to fight with the Qing army's sailors, and he had long been holding back the fire, and now when he saw Luo Xuan's fleet appear, he could finally let go and fight back, and couldn't help but get excited and shouted loudly.

More than 40 large red single boats of the 5th Division of the B Division quickly lined up in the front, aiming at the Qing convoy in the northwest with the side or oblique side, and a round of artillery shells was fired, although most of them were solid shells, but they were also amazingly powerful, and about 300 shells smashed into the Qing army's large and small rice boats and bow boats, and some of the same red single boats.

Han Jiamo's face changed greatly, and the secret way was not good! When he saw that the sailors of the bandits, the cannonballs sent out were so amazing, and another fleet of ships ambushed by the Cantonese thieves rushed to arrive, if there was such a might, his own firepower would definitely not be able to fight. By now, he had understood that the Cantonese thieves were just trying to lure him out of the protective range of the Nanao Fort.

So, he ordered to return to Nanao Island, hoping to use the fort to deal with the rebels.

However, the premise governor Hong Mingxiang, who followed behind, still led more than 100 warships to intercept it due to the field of vision, and had not yet discovered the fleet of Luo Xuan and others. Without saying a word, he gave the order to open artillery to attack.

The battle was fought in full swing.

And Wu Yuanyou, the admiral of the navy, was captured by the army from the Humen Admiral's Office, and has been chased and fled, from Yangjiang Association, to Jieshi Town, and finally fled to this Nanao Town, he has long been on fire, and this is already the last territory in the eastern part of Guangdong, and if he escapes again, he is afraid that he will be directly questioned and imprisoned by the imperial court.

So, he ordered his warships to swarm up, wanting to seize the opportunity to encircle and annihilate the Cantonese thieves in front of him.

But then, his eyes widened in disbelief.

I saw that the rebel sailors who had been fleeing, all the red and single battleships quickly lined up in two columns in a circle, and the nearest column of nearly 100 warships, hundreds of cannons fired in unison, and the earth-shattering sound of artillery bombardment made people tremble. The cannonballs that fell like meteorites smashed on the surface of the water, stirring up countless waves, but many more hit the boats, four or five small red single boats and medium millet boats were overturned, and several large red single boats were hit, and the sea water poured in.

Wu Yuanyou's face changed, he couldn't figure it out, in just half a month, the level of artillery bombardment of the Yue thieves could be increased so much, so accurate?

You know, on this sea, even if there is no wind and waves, the ship will not stop, and the artillery will definitely shake with the ship, which is very difficult for aiming at the target of the shelling. Moreover, the object of the shelling is still the ship, which is also moving, which makes it even more difficult to hit.

What he didn't know was that Liang Peiyou on the other side was also surprised and ecstatic.

Liang Peiyou didn't expect that the same artillery would be so different. The difference is that when the cannon is fired, there are two brothers who are responsible for measuring and calculating on each warship, and before the cannon is fired, the distance of the shelling target and the direction of the artillery are calculated, and then according to the method taught by the foreign instructor, find out the elevation angle of the artillery. So, everything was different!

In the past month, on every large Red Dan warship, there has been a general interpreter from a trading house, who brought one or two foreigners to the ship to teach the gunners how to fire their guns and shoot more accurately.

How to measure the distance between two ships was taught, and then the relationship between the power of the guns and the discharge of gunpowder was verified, and the artillery mounts were appropriately modified.

The original gun carriage was placed directly on the wooden rack, or even on the ship's board. When the foreign instructor saw this, he called a carpenter and made only a batch of oblique gun mounts, and tied thick ropes to the guns, fixed at one end, and free movement at one end, so that the recoil of the guns was reduced. In addition, on the gun carriage where the artillery was fired, a scale was drawn, marked with marks, and the distance corresponded to each other.

Each warship is equipped with a special surveyor, and the distance to the target is measured before the cannon is fired, and then converted into a unified dosage and a suitable gun elevation angle, that is, the gun is aligned with the scale on the gun mount, so that although the brothers who fired the cannon still do not understand what the reason is, the result is that not only the range of the gun has been slightly improved, but the accuracy has been greatly enhanced.

So, there is all this in front of you. Liang Peiyou finally understood why those British captured officers who attacked by sneak attack looked contemptuous when they saw his brothers firing their cannons.

I have to admit that the foreigners' methods really work.

Another salvo of six or seven hundred shells landed near the fleet of the Manchu Division, and nearly ten ships were shot, several of which had already entered the water and were about to sink into the water.

On the other hand, the three rounds of artillery fired by the Manchu Qingshui Division either fell more than 10 meters in front of the fleet of the 5th Division or more than 20 meters behind the ships, and only a small number of lucky ones hit the ships.

After firing this round of artillery, the two sides were already extremely close. (To be continued.) )