After listening to Inoue's words, although Tsuboi Hangsanichi could not argue with it, in his heart, he still insisted that the enemy ship should lay an ambush in front, even if it was not a mine, it could be something else.

The direct commander of the Satsuma Navy, a Qianguo man named Lin Yiqing, would not have allowed the "Fuso" to break into Osaka Port so easily!

Seeing that Tsuboi Hangzo was speechless, but still hesitating, Inoue Yoshino's brows furrowed even tighter, and he said sharply: "Tsuboi-kun, do you want to let go of Saigo Yoshinosuke's rebel thief?" ”

Tsuboi Hangzo was taken aback when he heard this, he couldn't compete with such a crime no matter what, "Since the chief is so harsh, then I, Tsuboi Hangzo, will serve His Majesty the Emperor with death today to prove my loyalty!" Tsuboi Hangsan said sharply, no longer paying attention to Inoue Yoshishin, but commanding the "Fuso" to chase after the "King Kong".

In today's battle, the gunners of the "Fuso" can be said to have played to the highest level, and after a while, another 240-millimeter shell hit the "King Kong," and Inoue Yoshishin saw that the "King Kong" burst out of a fire from a distance, and then the tail gun stopped firing and slowed down.

"The speed of the enemy ships has slowed down! Let's catch up! Inoue yelled excitedly.

"Our ship is already at its maximum speed." Tsuboi reminded Inoue Ryoshi, "The channel here is narrow, and there are islands ahead, so you need to be careful." ”

Inoue realized that she was a little too excited, and nodded. He didn't say anything more, but raised his binoculars and carefully observed the situation around him.

Although he opposed Tsuboi's retreat, he also knew in his heart that as a specific operational commander, Tsuboi's worries were not unreasonable, and that he had the spirit of fighting up and observing them attentively like an ordinary lookout on a ship.

At this time, the "Fuso" passed by the side of a small island, and Kozo Tsuboi saw the shore of the island. I can't help but change color on my face.

"The enemy ship we sank yesterday is gone." Pingjing Hangsan said in a deep voice.

"It should have been salvaged by the enemy overnight." Inoue Yoshishin also noticed that the gunboat "Chiyodagata" of the Satsuma Navy, which was sunk yesterday, was gone. I can't help but be secretly surprised by the efficiency of the Satsuma people.

Tsuboi Kozo turned his head to look at the "King Kong" that was still running away, the "King Kong" may have been seriously injured this time, the flames on the ship have not been extinguished for a long time, and the speed of the ship has indeed become slow.

"Fuso" chased after him. Just crossed the island. Smoke in the distance. Suddenly, the figures of four small boats appeared.

"Hurry up and fire!" A hoarse voice came from the deck, and Inoue Yoshishin and Tsuboi Hansan, who were standing on the flybridge, followed the prestige and saw an Englishman with a bandage on his head and hanging his arms standing on the deck. Shouted to the gunners on a 75 mm secondary gun emplacement.

Tsuboi recognized him, this Englishman, Colonel Coles, who had just been assisting in directing the battle in the stern main turret, when the turret was destroyed by the "suspended ceiling blow" of the "Panryu Maru", the head was hit by a fine shrapnel, resulting in blindness in one eye. The doctor was supposed to tell him to rest in the cabin, but he insisted on running to the deck to watch the battle, and it was he who shouted a warning.

The gunners did not seem to understand where he was going, nor did they find the boat on the sea, and they all stood there in a daze, but they still had great respect for the British admiral with sunken eyes, protruding cheekbones, and a bandaged head that looked like an Indian, so no one expressed any opinion of his transgression.

"Don't you see? That's the enemy's pole mineboat! Pole Mineboat! Coles' face was extremely hideous at the moment. He pointed to the sea on the flank of the "Fuso" and almost jumped to his feet and shouted.

When the gunners heard the English word "pole mineboat", they realized what was happening, and immediately began to frantically operate the guns to aim, while the gunners of several other gun positions saw this and began to operate their guns one after another.

"Fire! Target! Enemy pole mineboats! Tsuboi gave the order loudly on the flybridge. As the order came out, in addition to the three 75-mm secondary guns on the first side and the alert 25-mm Nordenfeld machine guns began to aim at the enemy boats, the mobile sampan gun crew also moved the 75mm sampan guns and aimed them at the sea.

"That's what Tsuboi-kun is worried about, the enemy's ambush, right?" Inoue Yoshishin said, raising his binoculars and staring at the Satsuma Navy's pole mineboats that were speeding towards the sea under the cover of smoke from the "Kongo" fire.

"Yes." Tsuboi Hangsan replied in a deep voice, his face was gloomy for a while.

He had just recognized from the binoculars that what appeared in front of him was a real pole mineboat, not a pole minecraft converted from a small civilian steamer!

Tsuboi Kozo didn't know that the Satsuma Army used an authentic pole minecraft made in France.

During the Franco-Prussian War, it was the French navy that turned the tide and changed the tide of the war on land, and after the war, France began to devote itself to building a strong navy, hoping to maintain its strategic superiority over Prussia/Germany from the sea. In addition to large ships such as ironclads and cruisers, the French navy was favored by the French navy for its cutting-edge naval warfare weapons, which believed that it could be equipped with a small amount of money to maintain a deterrent maritime force. Beginning in 9075, France ordered from 2 shipyards in the UK (namely Yarrow Shipyard and Sannikrovt Shipyard) and selected 3 shipyards in its own country to trial produce (respectively Normandy Shipyard, Clapalide Shipyard on the Seine, and Mediterranean Shipyard), and built 19 pole mineboats (all named with numbers, from No. 1 to No. 19), divided into 7 types, these boats with a wide variety of patterns, strange designs, and strange appearances, In fact, they have all become the technical test products of the above-mentioned factories to develop rod mineboats. After paying such a large amount of tuition, the design of the French Navy's pole mineboat gradually matured and was unified, starting with the No. 20 pole mineboat.

They were subcontracted by three French manufacturers with experience in the manufacture of pole mineboats, from No. 20 to No. 55. The French Navy has ordered a total of 29 similar styles of pole mineboats, although there are some slight differences in the rod mineboats made by different shipyards, which can be roughly divided into three types, but because the length of these pole mineboats is roughly 27 meters, it is also called the "27-meter" pole mineboat in France. At this moment, in the sea on the side of the "Fuso" ship, the two pole mineboats that attracted the attention of Inoue Yoshishin and Tsuboi Kozo belonged to the 27-meter model built by the Mediterranean shipyard. This kind of pole minecraft is very small, but it is actually 26 meters long, 3.6 meters wide, with a draft of 0.8 meters and a displacement of only 31 tons. However, the power was strong at the time. It is equipped with a 3-expansion reciprocating steam engine, with a car-type boiler, single-shaft propulsion, and a speed of up to 18 knots. The exterior of this class of boats is fully enclosed. When sailing and fighting. All crew members do not need to be on deck to get their work done. This avoids a lot of security issues. A long pole is visible at the front of the boat, and the head of the pole is equipped with a pole mine filled with 13 kg of cotton gunpowder, which is the only weapon of this type of pole minecraft. Command tower behind the pole mine. It is not only a driving and command place, but also a set of gears and lever devices, which can be adjusted by manpower to extend the length and angle of the lightning rod, and the pole mine of this type of boat can be electric, and the wire is connected to the battery in the command tower at one end, and the other end is connected to the fuse at the tail of the pole mine.

After the defeat of the invasion war, the Qianguo Navy recovered the Ryukyus, which had been secretly annexed by Japan earlier, and maintained the existence of 2 to 4 cruisers in the port of Wyan, the capital of the Ryukyus, all year round. Following the advice of Gonbei Yamamoto, who had come to inspect the Satsuma Navy, he converted a number of pole mineboats with steam steamers for combat and training, but these pole mineboats were too slow to be used in actual combat, and could only be used for the training of the Satsuma Navy's "Sea Surprise Team."

After Lin Yiqing served as an instructor at the Satsuma Naval Academy, he attached great importance to the Sea Surprise Troop proposed by Gonbei Yamamoto, and not only repeatedly practiced the corresponding tactics, but also suggested that the Satsuma Domain purchase new types of pole and mine boats from foreign countries, and went to various ways to do so. With Lin Yiqing's efforts, the Satsuma clan only spent a small amount of money to purchase two "27-meter" pole mineboats at the French Mediterranean shipyard, and then Lin Yiqing bought back two of the 19 experimental pole mineboats built by France at a very cheap price through the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau of Qianguo and equipped them with the Sea Wonder Team. In this way, the Sea Wonder Force has four real pole mineboats.

The first two "27-meter" pole mineboats were named "Lei 1" and "Lei 2" respectively, and the two experimental pole mineboats purchased for the second time were named "Lei 3" and "Lei 4".

Seeing the appearance of the "Fuso," the two Satsuma Navy mineboats, the "Thunder 1" and "Thunder 2," which had long been filled with steam in the automobile boiler, rushed out of their hiding places and pounced on the "Fuso" like sharp arrows.

Since the outbreak of the Southwest War, the Pole Mineboat Unit of the Sea Wonder Force has been in a state of hiding in the snow, and today, this unit has finally waited for the opportunity to realize its value.

The Satsuma Navy's pole mineboat unit was originally designed to deal with the armored cruisers of the Qianguo Navy, but now it is the "Fuso" ironclad ship, which is known as "Asia's No. 1 ironclad." History can say that it played an extremely cruel joke on the Japanese here.

After discovering the rod minecraft in ambush by the Satsuma Navy, the gunners of the "Fuso" immediately began shelling, and the "Fuso" first heard a burst of machine gun fire like a storm -- the sailors of the "Fuso" pressed the trigger of the 25-mm Nordenfeld machine gun, and then the 75-mm cannon that had been aimed also began to shell one after another, and the sea was suddenly shrouded in gunsmoke.

Probably anxious to hit the enemy's pole mineboats, the two 240-mm main turrets of the "Fuso" also began to turn, giving up the attack on the "Kongo" and turning their guns to the pole mineboats, which were traveling at high speed on the sea surface.

While Inoue Yoshishin and Tsuboi Kozo were standing on the flybridge of the "Fuso" and nervously watching the battle situation on the sea, not far away, on the "King Kong," which had already turned around and turned around, Saigo Takamori and Togo Heihachiro were also engrossed in staring at the four pole mineboats that were passing at high speed in the rain wall.

The "King Kong" has successfully completed the task of "luring the enemy," and its wounds are actually not as serious as Inoue Yoshishin and others imagined. In the distance, the sister ship "Hiei" has also pulled anchor and set sail, and according to Lin Yiqing's arrangement, no matter whether the "Fuso" is hit by a pole mineboat or not, the task of cutting off the "Fuso" from retreating and preventing it from escaping will be undertaken by these two ironclad ships.

Realizing that they had been discovered, all four Satsuma naval pole mineboats from France rushed towards the "Fuso" at maximum speed, and the gunners of the "Fuso" also realized that they were now at a critical point of life and death, and they did not care about the fatigue of protracted combat. Loud shouts manipulating the artillery. Shooting fiercely at the group of pole mineboats. The main gun of the "Fuso" also opened fire at this time - the No. 2 main turret, which could not fire forward, was able to complete the aiming in the first place, despite the bulky turret and its slow turning, because the muzzle of the gun had been stopped on the starboard side. Fire was fired at the Satsuma rod mineboat.

It seems that Amaterasu is protecting the officers and soldiers of the "Fuso" who fought desperately for his descendant, Emperor Meiji. The first salvo of the No. 2 main turret of the "Fuso" hit the target directly: two huge 240-mm shells flew over the sea like meteors. Hitting the target, in the midst of the earth-shattering explosion, the hulls of the two Satsuma military pole mineboats "Thunder 1" and "Thunder 2" that rushed to the front burst out with a dark red fire at the same time. In the light of the fire and the smoke of gunfire, the slender hull broke apart in an instant, and almost instantly, the two pole mineboats disappeared from the sea.

"Hooray!" Seeing this spectacular scene, the government sailors on the deck of the "Fuso" could not help but cheer.

Although the two enemy pole mineboats were sunk at once, the gunners of the "Fuso" did not relax in the slightest, and they continued to fire fiercely at the remaining two Satsuma rod mineboats, and soon, a 75-mm shell hit a pole mineboat that was obviously not as fast as the first two, accompanied by a flash of fire, followed by a long white vapor straight into the sky - this is a unique phenomenon of the engine room being hit and exploding, the speed of this pole mineboat slowed down suddenly, but it still struggled forward, It was not until another 75-mm shell hit its stern that it stopped, struggled painfully on the surface, and disappeared after a long time.

The sinking of three enemy mineboats in quick succession excited Yoshishin Inoue and Kozo Tsuboi, and just as they turned their attention to the fourth mineboat, they were shocked to find that the mineboat had rushed to the front and was crashing into the starboard side of the "Fuso."

At this time, the pole mineboat had rushed to the dead end of the 240-mm main gun and 75-mm secondary gun of the "Fuso", and the falling shells could no longer hurt it, only the 25-mm Nordenfeld machine gun was still firing, and hit it many times, but these machine shells could not cause fatal damage to it, and the gunners roared and fired, but could not stop its advance in the slightest.

Tsuboi Kozo turned around and ran into the command tower, snatched the rudder from the helmsman's hand, and turned desperately, under his control, the huge body of the "Fuso" began to slowly turn, like a huge baleen whale, struggling to escape the attack of a much smaller but ferocious orca than it.

But this time, the good fortune of the "Fuso" came to an end.

Almost as Inoue rushed into the command tower, he suddenly felt a violent tremor under his feet, accompanied by a deafening explosion, and a ball of flames rose from the rear of the ship.

At 10:21:12 a.m., the Satsuma Navy's "Lei 4" pole minecraft successfully hit the stern of the "Fuso" with a pole mine.

Despite the thick iron armor of the "Fuso", the hull could not withstand such heavy damage, and "the stern of it ('Fuso') suddenly cracked...... The huge ship was hit by the fatal blow, and the machine was constantly panting, and the machine was dying, like the lungs were breathing for the last breath. Although the "Fuso", which was suddenly hit hard, did not tilt and sank, a hole was blown out of the stern, and at the same time, the rudder blades were damaged and the rudder did not work. At the same time as the "Fuso" was hit hard, the "Lei 4" pole minecraft also fell into fear, because when the pole mine was triggered, the scrambled Satsuma sailors had a problem with the operation, and after the pole mine exploded, the thunder rod was actually stuck on the hull of the "Fuso", and it could not be pulled out!

Seeing that this pole minecraft was trapped, the government officers and men on the deck of the "Fuso" rushed to the stern of the ship, and vented their anger with pistols and rifles on the Satsuma pole mineboat in front of them, and were attacked at close range; the commander of the "Thunder 4" pole mineboat, Tari, was suddenly in a mess, and when the captain Sakurada Naoki was scolding the sailors to quickly reverse the car and the "Fuso" was detached, a bullet entered through the gap in the observation port of the command tower, hitting Sakurada in the neck, and soon another Satsuma sailor was hit in the shoulder.

"Help! My shoulder was pierced! The sailor cried out in pain.

"Yaga! I got a hit in the blood veins in my neck! Do you see so much blood? Do you hear me shouting? Sakurada retorted.

"I'm sorry! Sir! I didn't know you were hurt! The sailor stood up in pain, came to Sakurada, who was covered in blood, and pressed his fingers against the wound on Sakurada's neck to stop the blood from flowing out. (To be continued......)

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