"Then you really don't plan to care about Da Song? Didn't you say before that you wanted it to be a kingdom of your imagination? If Jinhe and they bring down the Great Song Dynasty, will they manage it according to your wishes? "On the issue of the changes in the political arena of the Golden River Empire, Karl could not find a place that could make Hong Tao deflated, so he could only change the topic. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

"Who said that, of course I have to care about the Great Song Dynasty, what does it matter to me whether the Jinhe Empire is fair or unfair? I don't like it, whether it's fair or not, I have to take care of it! Lao Ka, you remember, fairness can only be pursued under the condition of equal ability. If your son comes to me now to tell me about fairness, I will shut him up with a slap, you know why? Because my strength is far superior to his, he is not qualified to be fair with me. Fairness is forced, not talked about. Go, go, don't get tired of me, go and get familiar with the gunners with the performance of the Qizu gun, and I will gradually equip you in the future, and then you will be the instructor, and I don't have the manpower to give you sailor training. "As soon as he talked about the problem of the Great Song Dynasty, Hong Tao was annoyed, mainly because he didn't have such a great ability to control the Jinhe Empire, and the sense of powerlessness was very annoying.

After two turns, the direction of the chase was still from east to west, but the wind completely changed by 180 degrees, from northeast to southwest. At a distance of more than 10 kilometers, separated by only a few small islands, the changes are so obvious, nature is truly wonderful.

But except for Hong Tao, who still has the heart to think about these things, whether it is running in front or chasing behind, basically no one thinks about this problem. The ancients were cloudy again, and they didn't know the true face of Lushan, only because they were in this mountain. If you zoom out 10,000 times and put it on a computer screen to become a real-time strategy game, many players can easily observe the changes between wind direction, direction, and distance. But when you put yourself in this game, a lot of things are not so easy to see.

"Slow down, turn the sails quickly, as long as they don't get thrown off by them in the upwind, once they get into the crosswind and downwind, they can't escape!" Seeing that Hong Tao's fleet was struggling to enter the state of headwind, and the speed had dropped significantly, Lord Jiang had a cruel smile on his face. The advantages and disadvantages of schooners and schooners were talked about by my teacher when I was in school, and I tried them on a small boat when I was an intern. Schooners are nimble but lack high thrust and are not a good choice for large-tonnage warships.

"Now I'm going to use the technology you invented to defeat my enemies, and then I'm going to defeat you and avenge my father and sister! Wash away the shame you brought to our Jiang family! "I'm afraid that this strange-looking fleet in front of me has encountered this problem, when the wind is not in the right direction, the area of the shirk cannot provide sufficient thrust, and the speed of the ships must be slowed down. This kind of sail, which can turn the sail direction at a small angle, can still gain enough thrust when the sail is headwind, depending on the change of course and the adjustment of the sail direction. This hybrid sail type was not invented by Lord Jiang, but it was invented by the person he didn't want to mention, and he gritted his teeth with hatred when he thought about it.

The two fleets were entangled in the north of the Victory Islands for more than two hours, and the distance between them had narrowed to about a kilometer. If we continue at this pace, it will take less than four hours for the two fleets to be within range of the naval guns.

"Twenty on the left side, prepare to eat half the wind on the starboard side, continue to slow down!" At this time, Hong Tao turned the course to the south by 90 degrees, and at the same time made the sail not eat the wind in the right direction, further reducing the speed.

Now his fleet is once again crossing the archipelago, heading from north to south, and the wind is also crosswinding. This wind direction is more favorable for both schooners and newer schooners. If you want to subdivide, if the crosswind blows from the bow direction, it is the side headwind, and the efficiency of the shouker will be higher; If it is blowing from the stern direction, the efficiency of the sail will be at its highest.

"Is there going to war?" Although Carl has not made much progress in naval warfare technology over the years, he is also a captain after all, and he has already seen Hong Tao's intentions, and seeing that the fleet behind him is about to overtake from the starboard side, he also entered the combat state and stood beside Hong Tao with a sail line.

"Well, I can probably see their performance, and if they pass us on the port side, I'm afraid I'll have to take them around again. It's a pity that they chose starboard, and sometimes a small choice can change the fate of many people. Hong Tao's face showed that kind of smile that made people feel chilled in his heart, and every time this smile appeared, the massacre would begin, such as in Malacca, Kalamba, Java, Maska, East China Sea......

"Why do you have to take a turn and fight again, just to drain their stamina? Your ship handling is advantageous, but they're not novices either, and you won't be able to drag them down if you have three or four sail shifts on deck. Karl understood some of Hong Tao's tactics, but he still didn't understand some things, such as the choice of the timing of the war.

"Quite simply, I don't want them to run back to one. Take a look at the charts, this is the northeast trade wind belt, and it's a two-hour flight west of the island I docked at. Their boat is not suitable for sailing against the wind, while mine is better suited to the headwind than they are. As soon as the cannon is fired, it won't be long before their commander realizes what a foolish decision it was to fight me on the sea, and if he is clever enough, he will flee with the fleet back. But he couldn't go back, and a U-turn with the wind was a dangerous thing for a sailboat, exposing the whole hull to my guns, and they would not be able to return fire because of the tilt of the hull. Even if the steering was successful, I would easily catch up with them in headwind conditions, and I would have been chasing them for 2,000 kilometers. No matter how amateur my gunner is, will he not be able to hit a single shell in seven or eight days? So they're dead, and if they don't turn around, do you know where it is? Hong Tao finally said his entire combat intentions, and the performance of the ship, the performance of the artillery, the state of the personnel, and the weather were all calculated by him to the extreme.

"It's the Caribbean, and it's my oil route, and the trade winds will blow them to where we found tobacco, so you can go back to Sun City with you, and I'll just go to Fort Mia." You are truly the devil of the sea, and I will never want to meet an enemy like you at sea in my life. Karl foamed at the palm of his hand, then reached out to feel the wind direction and humidity, confirming Hongtao's statement. Every time he went to Cité Soleil, he was heading farther south, but the wind here was exactly the same as the wind on the route.

A sail battleship with front-loading naval guns, no matter how many layers of naval gun decks it has, and no matter how many naval guns it can hold, will have a fatal flaw, that is, it cannot fire at any angle beyond the vertical line of the hull. Because the left and right firing ranges of these naval guns are fixed by gun trucks, except for the slight adjustment of the pitch, the left and right firing ranges are zero!

"Turn into a horizontal line and shoot with the flagship!" Hong Tao made full use of this weakness of the opponent's battleship, and after driving south for more than four hours, he finally entered the combat state.

"Knock...... Knock ......" With two dull shots of naval guns, the tail and starboard guns of the Virginia opened fire, targeting the first battleship of the Flemish Hanseatic fleet.

"Oh my God, it can fire on the spot!" Karl had already changed into big leather shoes with a round toe and a wooden pole in his hand, and had gone on deck to serve as a midshipman.

He was no longer interested in how Hong Tao commanded the battle, but it was these Qi Zu cannons that made him particularly curious. After the first shot, he saw an incredible spectacle, the cannon body retreated half a meter away with half of the gun carriage, and then slowly slid back along the lower half of the gun carriage himself.

At this time, the gunner just took the second shell from the ammunition transfer port on the deck behind him, opened the bolt, did not even need to clean up, hooked out the shell with a small iron trench, then stuffed the new shell in, closed the bolt, and pulled the small rope to aim.

If the angle is right, it's a second shot! If the angle is not suitable, shake the crank on the side of the gun mount slightly, easily adjust the gun mount on the semicircular track on the deck, pull the rope, or the second gun.

The time for all this set of actions to be completed is very short, the gunner does not have to be in a hurry at all, the labor intensity is not high, and there is really no pressure on five guns in one minute. Karl even thought that if a skilled gunner was replaced, he could easily more than double the rate of fire, if the barrel could withstand it.

"Lord Jiang, why did they fire so early, shouldn't they have approached three or four hundred meters behind?" Not only Karl was dumbfounded, but even the Lord Count on the flagship of the Flemish Hanseatic was also strange. He is obviously not a person who is familiar with naval warfare, but he seems to be very interested in naval warfare, has also experienced naval warfare, and knows some basic common sense.

"The only thing that can switch angles to shoot is the small-caliber deck gun, and firing at this time may be a distance test, or it may be a scared ......" Lord Jiang is indeed an expert in naval warfare, and he knows the combat mode of the sail warship very well, although he has not seen the situation of the other side firing, but the analysis is very accurate. If the opposite side is not Virginia-level, this analysis is 100% correct.

"I think the latter is more likely, you say, father." The young nobleman next to him interjected again, he did not have the calmness of the old earl, nor the indifference of Lord Jiang, he felt very excited to shoot each other with naval guns on the sea, and the dense freckles on his face became red, and he looked like a novice.

"That's not right! This is not a small-caliber naval gun! But after a few seconds, Lord Jiang was not calm, he put down the binoculars, and his face was full of confusion.

(To be continued.) )