"Haha, these Japanese generals are really stupid; In these years, he must have only cared about buying big ships and fast guns, thinking that whoever has more guns and bigger fast ships is the boss, and he has not even studied the most basic naval combat examples! ”

Ding Ruchang raised his binoculars and looked at the Japanese army in the distance for a while, and said with a smile:

"In the Battle of Lisa 26 years ago, Italy used this kind of single-column battle line formation, but it was defeated by Austria using a herringbone wedge formation. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

"The Battle of Lisa is the only large-scale naval battle in the world in recent years, and it is also the first duel between the mixed fleet of steam ironclad ships and sail wooden-hulled ships. However, they still adopt this old-fashioned battle line of the sail era, and they may also have their considerations. ”

Liu Buyun, as a senior sailor general who graduated from the shipyard academy and interned on Western ironclad ships for several years, obviously thought more deeply than Ding Ruchang.

A trace of anger surged up on Ding Ruchang's old face, this Liu Buyun had to contradict himself in everything to show his ability, and he always implied that he was a halfway monk with a gun and a stick in his words.

"No matter what they consider, there is no pretense that this battle line battle formation is in front of them now; And the ship formation that restrained the battle line was a herringbone wedge-shaped horizontal formation! ”

Ding Ruchang said loudly and passionately: "Taking advantage of the firepower advantage of the giant cannon in the bow, the fleet is like a sharp dagger, fiercely plunging into the waist of the enemy ships, cutting them in two, and then surrounding one section and calmly annihilating them!" ”

Hearing Ding Ruchang say this, Hannagan nodded again and again, and even Liu Buyun had to think that what Old Man Ding said this time was really reasonable.

"Herald! The fleet was changed to a horned fish through the squadron formation, and the speed was increased to 8 knots; ”

Seeing that he had refuted Liu Buyun speechless, an extremely wonderful feeling surged over Ding Ruchang's whole body, and he gave a combat order loudly with full of anger:

"First, ships of the same type must act in concert to assist each other, and at the same time, always bombard the enemy ship with the bow of the ship to maintain a positional advantage; The ships need not be as far as possible to move with the flagship, and they must not break away from it. ”

With the issuance of Ding Ruchang's order, Shao Changhao, the flag in charge of the Dingyuan ship, immediately played the flag of changing formations.

In Ding Ruchang's concept, Dingyuan Town was far away in the middle as the awl head, and the remaining eight ships were four on the left and right as their two arms.

Among the eight ships, each two ships form a combat squad.

In each combat unit, the forward ship is the captain, and the rear ship is the wingman; The wingman position was 45 degrees behind the right side of the forward ship, 400 yards apart.

Each combat squad is 1,200 yards apart from each other.

The entire fleet spreads out to form a wedge-shaped thin corrugated double slash.

In this way, the entire Beiyang Fleet was like a sharp awl, directly inserted into the waist of the Japanese Combined Fleet, cutting the Japanese fleet into two sections.

Then select a section and concentrate on encirclement.

After the Dingyuan ship waved the flag, the naval fleet that followed behind immediately crossed left and right towards Dingyuan and Zhenyuan.

At this time, it was already 12:20 p.m., and the fleets of the two sides were less than nine nautical miles apart.

"! Dingyuan, why doesn't Zhenyuan slow down but accelerates? ”

On the Yangwei, the pipe band Lin Luzhong was directing the warships to change formations, and they were surprised to see Dingyuan, and the two ships in Zhenyuan not only did not slow down and wait for the ships to adjust their formations, but began to accelerate slightly, rushing straight towards the Japanese fleet.

"Lao Ding, this is spring!"

In Yangwei, 500 yards in front of Chaoyong, Lin Yongsheng, the Jingyuan pipe belt who changed the formation with the Lai Yuan ship, shook his head with a wry smile and put down the telescope in his hand and said: "They go in a straight line, we have to make a big bend, how can we keep crossing the formation of fish scales and geese?" ”

"Pipe tape, do you want to speed up? Otherwise, we won't be able to form a horned geese squadron with the flagship. ”

On the Jiyuan ship, Shen Shouchang, the first mate, ran to Fang Boqian's side and asked for instructions.

"You don't need to speed up, you can maintain a speed of 8 knots; There is a mistake in the flag on Dingyuan, it is not a goose marching array, but a goose walking herringbone wedge-shaped array! ”

"Goose herringbone wedge-shaped array, what kind of array is this?"

Shen Shouchang was dizzy when he heard this.

"Drawing anti-dogs according to cats and tigers-"

Fang Boqian said with a sneer: "Ding Junmen wants to go down in history, and he is learning the battle formation of Tegethoff, just like the Battle of Lisa; Is it just that the Japanese army is so stupid? ”

About 15 minutes later, at 12:35 p.m., the ships were barely in position, and the Beiyang Naval Division ended its formation.

Because of the ambiguity of Ding Ruchang's instructions, at this time, the ship formation of the Beiyang Naval Division became a horizontal formation, not a horizontal formation, and a herringbone wedge formation was not a herringbone wedge formation.

Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, brave charge ahead.

Ride the dust!

The rest of the ships were scattered around the two main ships because of their uneven speeds and different bends.

I tried my best to catch up.

For a time, the strange ship formation of the Beiyang Naval Division was difficult for the Japanese commanders who were only 6 or 7 nautical miles away.

"Baga, what are Qing Ships doing? Could it be the ship formation they secretly rehearsed! ”

Ito Yuxiang was confused, saying that he was very lonely and unheard, and he really couldn't understand it.

"It's like a horizontal formation, but it's uneven, and the wedge formation doesn't look like it."

The chief of staff, Sameshima Commander Daisa, also said that he could not understand the array of the Oshimizu Division.

However, now that the two warship groups were extremely close, Ito could not hesitate in terms of time, and he gritted his teeth with a fierce face and gave an order:

"Order the 1st Guerrilla Group to turn to the left, accelerate to sweep through the Qing naval group from the front, and attack the right flank of the Beiyang Naval Division; The ships of the team continued to follow up at a speed of 6 knots and waited for the next order. ”

Immediately, the flag-bearer of the Matsushima passed the command to 1.5 nautical miles ahead, on the Yoshino, the flagship of the 1st Guerrilla Force.

At this time, Tsuboi Hangzo looked at the approaching Qingguo's 'four dislikes', and he was also confused.

"Commander, the Qing army's ship formation, how do I look like the Black Dragon Society and the Yamaguchi-gumi group fight on the streets of Tokyo? The boss rushed to the front with bricks, followed by a group of messy little brothers on the left and right. ”

Yoshino Captain Kawagen asked for a big sa, looking at the Beiyang Naval Division's alternative array, he couldn't help but grin.

"This kingdom is inherently ignorant and unreasonable!"

Tsuboi Hangsan shook his head, looking at Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, who were protruding in the distance and rushing over with billowing black smoke, and began to give orders to change formations.

"The speed of each ship was increased to 10 knots, with Yoshino as the head of the snake, and the bow of the ship facing the enemy ship Dingyuan, Yuguan followed up, feigned attack Dingyuan, and Zhenyuan."

Zhenyuan, bridge.

At this time, Lin Taizeng, Yang Yonglin, and Ma Jifen stood on the bridge, looking at the approaching Japanese ships.

"There were 12 Japanese ships in total, divided into three sequence units; The front 4 and the rear 6 rows are all battle lines, and the last 2 ships are listed separately. ”

Yang Yonglin said in surprise: "This kind of battle line formation is the first time I have seen it. ”

"What battle line? It is a serpentine formation, which is the kind of fast ship and slow ship that He Yingguan said and divides the fast ship and slow ship into two and forms a separate team; With the sideboard firepower, the slow ship is responsible for sticking to the enemy ship group, and the fast ship is swimming in snakes, looking for opportunities to bite and attack. ”

Lin Tai once twisted his face and said: "We want to rely on the giant cannon in the bow of the ship to bombard the bow of the Japanese ship; But the Japanese will not be stupid enough to put the fleet in front of our array for us to bomb, their advantage lies in speed and broadside firepower. ”

"The Japanese ship has turned!"

Majifen suddenly exclaimed.