"Captain, the enemy ship has been destroyed. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info" reported to its captain Jiao Qiang.

Jiao Qiang had been appointed as the captain of the frigate Hurricane last year, although he was still commanding a frigate, but the Hurricane was the fourth ship of the Liberty Wind class frigate, and it was not at the same level as the previous Qi Jiguang-class wooden-hulled flat-head frigate.

At this time, Jiao Qiang said secretly: "If it was Li Wenzhong before, I'm afraid it would take a little more time to sink this rushing ship." ”

Jiao Qiang's Hurricane and another frigate, the Boundless Wind, were the vanguard of the expeditionary fleet, and their current location was near the Miaodao Islands north of Dengzhou Prefecture in Bohai Bay, and just now the Hurricane and the Boundless Wind encountered the first enemy belonging to the Qing State since they set sail - a large ship from the Dengzhou Naval Division.

The Dengzhou Naval Division is the most important northern naval division in Chinese history, and before the tragic Beiyang Naval Division, the Dengzhou Naval Division was responsible for defending Gyeonggi and was very powerful. At that time, the national hero Qi Jiguang served as the commander of the Dengzhou Naval Division.

The route of the expeditionary fleet was actually set north of the Miaodao Islands, which was also to avoid being discovered as much as possible. However, I don't know if it was the luck of the Tang army or the bad luck, the two frigates met a rushing ship in this area. With the lax discipline of the Qing Dynasty sailors and the very few voyages, it is a small probability to meet them.

Jiao Qiang immediately made a decision and shelled this ship, which had a tonnage of almost 200 tons. The 130-mm guns on the frigate played their due strength, and under the heavy shelling of the two battleships, the ship was sunk without any suspense.

"More than 200 tons of boats. It can be regarded as a flagship capital ship in the Qing Naval Division. Jiao Qiang pinched his chin and thought. The Datang Navy has a lot of intelligence. There is not only "historical legover" information, but also some intelligence sent and bought by spies in recent years, and they know a lot about the situation of the Qing army.

The Dengzhou Naval Division is a hurdle for the Tang fleet to capture Tanggu, although Jiao Qiang originally thought that it was unlikely to meet them, but now that he really meets them, there will be no panic.

Lin Huansheng, a young officer on the ship, said: "Captain, should we expand the search area, this area is the activity of the Qing Naval Division." And the large force of our expeditionary fleet will come to this area in an hour, and it may be relatively passive to be detected by the Qing people. ”

Lin Huansheng was the young man who talked to Bai Nan on the wooden-hulled frigate back then, and now he has become a young naval officer, his idea is very safe, Jiao Qiang nodded, reported the situation to Bai Nan, who was sitting on the Qilian Mountain, and began to search for possible Qing sailors nearby with the Boundless Wind.

"Captain, at seven o'clock, twenty thousand yards away, spotting the enemy fleet. There were eight of them, all small ships. Guantong immediately reported the information.

Jiao Qiang nodded. It shouldn't be surprising that a rushing ship appeared, and a group of Dengzhou sailors' warships appeared, so he asked Lin Huansheng: "Xiaolin, what do you think?" ”

Lin Huansheng was not stunned at all, and said his guess: "I think it is unlikely that our actions were detected by the Qing people, so it can only be a coincidence, although the training of the Dengzhou sailors is sparse, but this does not mean that they will stay in the port for twelve months throughout the year, this may be their training activity." ”

Lin Huansheng didn't guess correctly, the dispatch of a number of Dengzhou Navy Division warships, although it was true that they did not detect the movement of the Datang Expeditionary Fleet and came to intercept it, but it also had some twists and turns with Datang. Speaking of which, the Manchu government interrupted trade with the Tang Dynasty, although the economic and trade activities in the north have not been as good as in the south, such as Shandong, Zhili and other places are more conservative, but everyone knows that it is extremely profitable to sell Datang goods over the years. Not to mention those expensive Tang leather goods and jewelry, even a simple piece of soap, or small glassware of the Tang people, which are attracted to many people. Therefore, there have always been merchants who have trafficked Datang goods to the north through various channels, and the profits may be more than several times.

This situation became even more profitable after the Manchus stopped trading with the Tang Dynasty. A group of merchants may have had a stock of Tang goods from the past, or some shrewd merchants from Guangdong and Fujian heard that the Tang had established a territory in Borneo, from which they could also get Tang goods. Anyway, the merchants even raised the price of Tang goods and sold expensive Tang goods to various places.

Some people are accustomed to the easy-to-use Datang tools, such as Datang's saws are sharper and more durable, and the ladies and ladies are even more dissatisfied with the old men when they cut off their daily perfume and skin care products, and they dislike that men can't get them for them. Although the imperial court cut off trade, it could not cut off the demand of the people, so during this period of time, a large number of merchants took risks and began to smuggle Tang Dynasty goods.

The situation was naturally grasped by some officials of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, I don't know if it was really out of public intentions, or simply wanted to stop a batch of Datang commodities and resell them privately, anyway, the Dengzhou Navy Division was on the side, they sent the sailors who usually do nothing, and wandered around the beach by boat, and before that, they had successfully intercepted two small smuggling ships transporting Datang commodities, and made a profit of no less than 10,000 taels.

"Lord Zhao, are the minions' eyes spent, why are there two white-shelled giant boats over there?" General Zhang Runqing really rubbed his eyes and said in front of his chief officer and general Zhao Lide.

Zhao Lide is playing with a few glass beads, which he intercepted from the smuggling ship before, and it is not worth much, in recent years, due to the dumping of a large number of Tang goods in the Qing Dynasty, the price of glass has dropped significantly, unless it is the kind of extremely exquisite, complex glass products, otherwise the price is not much different from the better porcelain.

Zhao Lide personally boarded the ship as a general to supervise the battle, so naturally he didn't want to take the lead and fight on the front line of anti-smuggling. In fact, when the first smuggling ship was detained, one of his subordinates actually hid it from him and detained some of the most valuable Tang goods on the ship privately.

Because he was worried that the people below would block his financial route, Zhao Lide personally went out to check the gates, although going to sea was somewhat bumpy, but if he could get thousands of taels of silver at a time, it was also a thing that satisfied Zhao Lide, who did not have much money.

Zhao Lide also saw two Tang warships at this time, and he was also confused by the second monk, but he instinctively felt that it was very inappropriate, the big ships and small boats on the sea were very different, although the Manchu court had always restricted the sailors from building big ships, but Zhao Lide was not stupid, and naturally knew that a big ship was far more powerful than a small ship. What small boats use cluster tactics and what five-point plum blossom formations are clearly self-deception.

Just as Zhao Lide was thinking about whether to go around and send a ship to explore the reality, the ship over there actually approached at a very high speed, and the distance was shortened to only seven or eight miles in an instant, and then the two "white-hulled ships" opened fire.

The main naval guns of the Liberty class frigates are two 130 mm naval guns with turrets, which not only have a long range, but also have a high rate of fire, and their power should not be underestimated, and they are highly regarded by the navy, and even considered more reliable and powerful than 155 mm naval guns. At this time, the Hurricane was facing the warship of the Dengzhou Navy Division on one side, and there were additional eight 76mm naval guns on the sideboard, these 76mm naval guns have been further improved compared to those on the Qi Jiguang class, they themselves are equipped with rotatable gun mounts, have a more flexible shooting angle, and the volume has been reduced a lot, and the performance has also been improved to a certain extent, it is already very similar to the small and medium-caliber secondary guns of warships in World War I and World War, but there is no turret protection.

At this moment, the two frigates of the Tang Navy output twenty shells to the fleet of the Dengzhou Naval Division, when Jiao Qiang was fighting the British, he was more accustomed to commanding his battleships to fire at a distance of two thousand to three thousand yards, the British artillery could not reach him, and he could get a higher hit rate at this distance. However, after becoming the captain of the Liberty Wind class frigate, the navy's training has new requirements, and the naval command requires the captains to tap the equipment potential of each ship, adapt to the situation of future naval warfare, and use more flexible tactical operations in farther places.

Therefore, Jiao Qiang now attaches great importance to shooting at a distance of 4,000 yards to 5,000 yards, and the 130-mm naval guns of the ship's main guns have a firing range of more than 10 kilometers, and the range of the 76-mm guns is also more than 6 kilometers. But Jiao Qiang found that his ship was firing at a greater distance, and the hit rate dropped seriously. This made him very annoyed, so after receiving the ship, Jiao Qiang vigorously trained the gunnery of his weapons department, using some simple fire control equipment to improve the hit rate. It can be said that after a period of training, the crew of the Hurricane has been able to shell at a distance of 5,000 yards, achieving a higher hit rate than the previous shelling of the Li Wenzhong at a distance of 3,000 yards.

Although the Boundless Wind is slightly worse than the Tempest, it is not much worse, and the rate of fire of the ship's guns is indeed very fast, so it didn't take long for the two frigates to form a straddle fire on the warships of the Dengzhou Naval Division, with a greatly increased hit rate and serious damage to the enemy ship.

Even with almost no artillery and only one-tenth the tonnage of the enemy ship, Jiao Qiang strictly followed the training and combat manual, and he hoped to test his training results through actual combat.

And the Dengzhou Naval Division seems to be the target of his self-inspection, with no mobility ability, and no long-range firepower, so he can only be beaten except for being beaten. (To be continued.) )