On January 22, 1630, the sky was already dawning, and a small fleet of one capital ship, one destroyer, three frigates, and twenty transports, was quietly moored on the sea about two kilometers south of the port of Champong.

As the commander-in-chief of the Navy, Tang Xunliang was standing on the bridge of the command ship of the active capital ship Shengli at the moment, and he raised his hand to look at the watch on his right arm, the time had already reached 6:50, and there were still 10 minutes before the exercise started. He looked around, Yang Junbo, the captain of the Victory, was standing behind him at the moment, and when he saw him, he hurriedly stood up and waited for the order. Tang Xunliang shook his head slightly, the deputy captain Ston was not on the ship at the moment, he was still discussing specific matters related to diplomatic negotiations with the group of Maidno diplomatic missions in the guest house in the port area of Dongfang Port.

The deck was full of busy sailors at the moment, carrying crates of ammunition onto the deck and placing them in explosion-proof storage areas. The deck has been sprinkled with sand to prevent sailors from slipping during the battle due to the splashing of water or blood on the deck. Sailors have moved sandbags near the gun emplacement, and the installed spring cannons are surrounded inside, so that if the sailors encounter a solid bullet nearby, they can also hide behind the sandbag to prevent casualties caused by flying debris.

Several nearby transport ships were emitting smoke columns upward, and the transport ships were still using large Fu boats, but instead of rowing boats, hanging on the hangers on both sides of the Fu boats, they were several small steam boats, which were about twelve or thirteen meters long and six meters wide, and the steam engines were installed on the amidships. There is a tall chimney above the boiler, and a column of smoke is emitting outwards, which indicates that the boiler is already preheating and waiting for the order to be put down to the surface of the water immediately. However, there was no rope net on the side of the Fufune that was common in later landing battles, because the side of the Fufune was not high, and the draft was not particularly deep, so even if the small hair boat with the ship was put into the water, there would not be too much height difference, and the landing marines could board the ship through the springboard between the ships.

"This is their landing fleet?" In the woods about a kilometer away from the landing site, Russell's brows furrowed slightly, but when he spoke, the telescope was still staring at the fleet that was not clear on the sea surface - in comparison, in fact, Russell's telescope was the best one, and his telescope was still the officer's telescope brought by Shu Da from the Foreign Legion of Dongfang Port, this army-type telescope is not large, and it can see targets within about three kilometers, although the Chinese naval ships on the sea at this moment are still not very clear, But it is much better than the telescopes used by Mycenae and Kirkman around them, most of the telescopes used by the Medeno people are brass shell pull-out monoculars produced by the Yaning people, the Yaning people do not have the optometric equipment brought by the Chinese, the grinding lenses are purely based on luck, the production speed is slow, the effect is still very poor, as long as someone has used the binoculars produced by the Chinese, they will not be willing to use these shoddy monoculars.

At this moment, both Mycenae and Kirkman looked at Russell with a little envy holding the small army telescope in both hands and observing the distance, but there was no way, this was given to Russell by Shu Da, although the two of them wanted it, but they brought one, no way. Although it is said that the three people in the military rank are high and low, they are not under the same military establishment, and no one can balance the other, so they are basically at the same level now, so there is no way to win people's love.

"Why is there smoke coming from their boats?" Mycenae looked at the fleet again, the column of smoke was very conspicuous on such a wide sea, and if you looked carefully, it was not those lucky ships that were smoking, but the strange-looking boats hanging in the air next to the lucky boats, these small boats were like the "ghost ships" of the Chinese before, with neither sails nor oars, but there seemed to be those spiral things on both sides of the hull that could push the hull. Kirkman whispered, "It seems that these ships are propelled by these spirals, which is about the same as the pilot boats that Miro got back in that time, but if so many people are used to propel such a ship, how many people can be transported ashore?" ”

"I don't know, I don't know when it's now, I can only guess that it's about to start, wait!" Russell said suddenly, "Look at the sharp ship, it seems that someone is signaling the lights." ”

Sure enough, in the red glow of the sky, the stern of the sharp ship was signaling the flotilla at the back. The slightly undulating hull on the sea, with the lights on the tail going on and off, gives people a dreamlike feeling.

There were not many people in the woods at the moment, about a squad of no more than twenty dragoons, followed by sixty infantry battalion soldiers led by a Foreign Legion soldier who had defected from Shabak, and their mission was mainly to protect the three generals who had come to spy on the Chinese landing. Although it is said that the location of these generals is a little further south of Champong Port, after all, it is still within the national border claimed by the Chinese, and in the event of a conflict, at least they must be able to protect their whole body and retreat, right?

"Bang Bang Bang At this moment, these burning paper shells are hanging under a small parachute, and they are slowly descending in the air with thick smoke.

"What's that?" Russell was the first to cry out curiously, "Is it also a signal?" ”

"It should be," Kirkman said softly, "you see, there's already movement in their fleet. ”

The lens of the telescope immediately pointed to the fleet on the sea, and sure enough, at this moment, the fleet suddenly moved, and several transport ships began to raise their sails and anchor, slowly heading in the direction of the sea. But in front of them, the destroyers rushed to the front.

When the destroyer approached about 800 meters to the coast, the hull turned and ran parallel to the shoreline, and the sails on the mast were gradually retracted and turned into a half-sail state.

"This is going to be shot, right?" Mycenae, who had a wealth of experience in naval warfare, muttered to himself, and Kirkman also nodded slightly. Sure enough, I saw that the sailors on the deck of the destroyer began to get busy, especially next to the gun emplacements piled up with sandbags, the soldiers were moving nervously, as if they were firing guns. However, the problem was that the sound of the artillery firing was not heard, and the smoke from the firing artillery was not seen. Just when the three of them were a little confused, the beach suddenly boiled, and one after another explosive potholes burst on the beach, and only after half a second or so did the explosion sound be heard.

"This must be the Chinese playing tricks, these must have planted explosives on the beach in advance, and when the exercise starts, they will explode, and it seems that they are accurate." Russell smiled slightly, but his words were quickly refuted by Kirkman, "No way, we have been here since last night, and it is impossible for the Chinese to bury explosives on the beach at high tide at night." ”

"Yes," Mycenae said, too, "you see that the area of the explosion is the area after the low tide, and we have been watching here, and if they really buried the explosives here, they will definitely be soaked in the high tide and fail." So these should really be what they launched. ”

"But how can there be no smoke and dust when the cannon is fired?" Russell was a little incredulous, and was about to speak, when he saw another commotion on the gun emplacements of the destroyer, and then a new explosion began on the beach. This time the explosion was farther away from the beach than the previous one, and went deep inland into an area with many white poles. I saw that these white poles were blown to pieces and rose into the air, and there was dust and wood chips flying everywhere.

"Oh my God, it's so accurate, they don't have a lot of dispersion when their guns fire." As soon as Mycenaeus spoke, he saw that the sharp ship that was slowly driving behind the destroyer before was beginning to turn, and several people suddenly stopped talking, waiting with bated breath for the performance of the sharp class.

The gun window of the sharp ship began to open, and one by one the gun barrels were pushed out of the gun window, and then a stream of gunpowder smoke and flames were sprayed outward, and after a while, the sound of cannon fire came. However, what disappointed them was that these guns, which they had high hopes for, did not have much effect, these were smoothbore guns with fixed gun positions, and the shells themselves were smaller than the muzzles to be put into the barrels, and the trajectory of the shots was not very controllable, plus there were waves more than one meter high on the sea at the moment, and the shells fell on the beach except for the sand bunkers that did not cause much light and shadow effect.

The Victory is actually tasked with a special task at the moment, which is to verify whether the main guns that will be installed on the two new restored Victory-class capital ships will be used with the existing hexagonal guns, spring guns or smoothbore guns. Therefore, the lower gun deck of the Victory is now equipped with smoothbore guns, the middle gun deck is installed with hexagonal guns, and the upper open-air gun deck is equipped with spring guns.

Soon a puff of smoke began to shoot out from the window of the middle gun deck of the Victory, and the three generals in the helmets in the distance immediately felt that this launch was completely different from the previous one, first of all, the smoke was sprayed farther than the previous one, and the fire was also brighter, and the sound of the cannon was much louder than the previous one.

The shells were made of hexagonal solid shells, and they flew easily over a distance of 800 meters and quickly hit the target area on the beach, but because of the waves, most of the shells flew through and landed in some areas to the west of the target area, and only two shells landed in the target area.

Then there was the same silent gun as on the previous destroyer, and the accuracy of this batch of shells was slightly more accurate than the previous hexagonal gun, but it was still affected by the waves and could not all hit.

"No way, it's useless without an artillery stabilization system." Yang Junbo couldn't help sighing, the most important one in naval artillery is the artillery stabilization system, even if it is a primary artillery stabilization system, it can resist the hull shaking caused by the waves to a certain extent. Tang Xunliang on the side smiled, "It's okay, it's just the verification stage now, and when the new artillery is finalized on the ship, there will definitely be an artillery stabilization system." By the way, there is also the hull stabilization system, which can be used to resist the shaking caused by the waves. ”

"That's good, the capital ship in the future will be ten times more comfortable than the current broken ship." Yang Junbo picked up the telescope and looked at the shooting range with some excitement, the shooting range at this moment was no longer what it used to be, like the surface of the moon was full of craters. Tang Xunliang shook his head, "The capital ship of the future will not be like this at all," he said and stomped on the deck and continued, "This kind of old ship is not of much use even if it is improved, the hull is too wide, the draft is too shallow, and the center of gravity is high, if you install a rotating turret on it, it will definitely not be so easy, even if you install an engine on the lower deck, there is no way to determine the center of gravity of the ship, the best way is to redesign a new ship yourself." ”

"By the way, speaking of ......" Yang Junbo's words were interrupted by a salvo from the lower gun deck, and he had to wait until the gunfire stopped before continuing, "Speaking of shipbuilding, our two steam carriers should be almost finished, right?" ”

"Oh, those two should have been completed a long time ago, but because they had to wait until a good day to be launched, they were now doing all those pretentious inspections in the dockyard, so they should be launched in the next few days." Tang Xunliang said and picked up the telescope and looked at the shooting range, this time the shelling was much closer to the shooting range than before, and even two shells fell in the shooting range, but because many white wooden poles had been broken, there was no effect. "By the way, the two ships of our navy can be launched after the installation of the artillery, in fact, the engines have already been installed, just waiting for the guns to be in place."

"Can't you go into the water first and then load the cannon?" Yang Junbo's words immediately made Tang Xunliang give him a blank look, "Do you know how much a rotating turret weighs?" What we are going to install now is a fully enclosed metal turret, and we also need to connect the steering machine to the power system, if it is launched now, you will carry it for me? ”

"Oh! Forget it," Yang Junbo hurriedly shook his head, "That thing moves more than ten tons, and it also needs an automatic loader, right?" ”

"And the automatic loader!" Tang Xunliang laughed, "Why don't you go to the electromagnetic cannon?" We are considering breech-loading guns, manual loading is good, there is still enough space in the fully enclosed turret. However, I heard that the main mast should be retained, and a shooting director should be installed on it......"

"Damn! There are so many good things, installed on such a wooden boat," Yang Junbo said and shrugged his shoulders, "It feels really magical!" ”