"The course is due north, and the wind is in my favor. The 10 main guns are ready for fire at any time. "There is a joke in later generations, called to protect the family and defend the country, the Ministry of Agriculture, and expand the territory and fishery political bureau. But in today's Ming Dynasty, it is still the real naval fleet that really expands its territory.

The battleship Wuyishan was ready for battle, and it was followed by the cruiser Xingkaihu, which had only a few 200 mm guns. Although this is a fast battleship designed to cruise and deal with small enemy ships, it follows the main ship at this critical moment, aiming its small gun muzzle at the horizontal line where the enemy appears in the distance.

"General, let the Xingkaihu get out of the battle, the enemy's two battleships, the Xingkaihu won't be of much help if they fight......" The adjutant put down the binoculars, and worriedly opened his mouth to persuade his chief officer Lu Chongwen: "It seems that this is the combined fleet of the Japanese, and the leader should be the new battleship Nagato." ”

"I think it's them." Lu Chongwen, who also looked sad, nodded, agreed with his adjutant's words, and commanded: "Let the Xingkaihu return, this is not a battle that a warship of its level can participate in." ”

On the bridge of the cruiser Xingkaihu, which was not far behind the battleship Wuyishan, the captain looked at the signal flag hanging on the flagship with a wry smile ordering him to return and retreat: "It's really considerate...... In the 200 years since the founding of my Ming Navy, has there been a captain who has retreated without a fight? ”

After he finished speaking, he turned around and shouted to the officer who was signaling to the commander: "Hang out the battle flag, keep the current course, signal the flagship, and tell them that I will guard the left and right, and fight until the last moment!" ”

"All guns on the side side! Aim for the unidentified fleet and get ready to fire! A few minutes later, the opposing fleet had already entered the range of the guns of the battleship Wuyishan of the Ming Imperial Navy, and the entire 10 giant cannons pointed their barrels at the sky majestically, and in an instant, the surrounding air seemed to be frozen because of the atmosphere.

"Volley!" The Ming Dynasty may be the earliest industrial country in the world, and it is also the first of all countries in the world to start producing artillery and setting up professional artillery design positions -- so when it comes to casting artillery, even Germany, an emerging industrial power, is nothing more than equal to the arms industry of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, even if Japan learns the British and French cannon casting technology and improves its own domestic arms industry, which originally originated from the Ming Dynasty, it still cannot compete with the same Ming as its own master's master in artillery.

This is even more obvious when this is reflected in actual combat. When the battleship Wuyishan, which had been in service for 20 years in the Ming Dynasty, opened fire, the Japanese battleship fleet, which was 27 kilometers away, had no way to fire back at the Ming Dynasty's warships, although they were outnumbered.

Without the slightest hesitation, in the midst of a deafening roar, the battleship Wuyishan fired all 10 large-caliber shells it could fire now. The shells whizzed towards their target, crossing a distance of more than twenty kilometers with the sound of the wind.

And when these huge cannons were not pushed back to their original positions by the recoil-reducing retraction device, the gunners of the Ming Dynasty began to prepare for the next launch. Inside the small, dimly lit turret, the soldiers skillfully tossed and turned through the cracks of the machinery, manipulating the various equipment around them and starting to load the next shell.

The soldiers who had lifted the latches endured the still warm gases and began to clean the debris from the inside of the chambers. The warhead of a shell that was carried to the inside of the turret from the ammunition depot under the deck three below the turret had long since been lying flat in the standby position waiting to be reloaded.

"Click!" With a crisp sound, a cylindrical elevator-like device behind the soldier opened the hatch, revealing the firing charge inside. After the warhead of the shell is pushed into the chamber, the firing charge sent from the ammunition compartment is also pushed into the interior of the cannon, and then the bolt gradually closes with the sound of the command.

The rate of fire of the 356 mm caliber main gun is not fast, even if the theoretical rate of fire is calculated, it may not be possible to fire a second shot within a few minutes, so when the battleship is in a decisive battle, the first round of fire is generally not a salvo, but a "half shot".

The so-called half-fire means that on all the multi-mounted turrets, only one gun fires, which is used to measure the distance between the two sides, adjust the elevation angle of other guns that fire next, and other data, so as to ensure that the hit -- this shelling method can ensure that half of the guns are being loaded, and the other half of the guns can shoot exactly right and continue to correct the firing parameters until they hit the target.

Lu Chongwen is a veteran of the navy, of course he knows this method of firing, and in the first round of firing, the battleship Wuyishan only had 5 main guns firing. The rest of the guns corrected their angles and fired a second fire after about 2 minutes.

The shells spanned a considerable distance and landed on the surface of the sea not far in front of the Japanese Navy's newest battleship, the Nagato. The huge explosion evaporated a column of water tens of meters high, which was even higher than the bridge height of the Japanese Navy battleship in the distance.

"The navy of the Ming Dynasty is still so reckless...... I just asked about the identity of my fleet in plain code, and I opened fire without answering. Putting down the binoculars in his hand, the commander of the Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet, Takaichi Togo, sneered at the officers beside him: "Do they still think that this is 100 years ago, when there was only the Ming fleet at sea?" ”

However, in the final analysis, this sea power is still stronger than the Ming Empire -- Japan can form a partial suppression of the Ming Navy, and it is already the strength of the whole country. As everyone knows, in order to surpass the Beihai division of the Ming Empire, the Japanese emperor was reluctant to even buy clothes, and took the whole family to eat rice balls for almost a year.

To put it bluntly, every battleship of the Japanese Navy has been tightened and accumulated by tightening their belts and saving money, and they cannot afford to lose or delay, and this battle must take advantage of the courage of the Ming Dynasty to defeat the decisive battle before the Ming Dynasty does not react.

"Keep going! We have an absolute advantage in speed, so let's try our best to eat this battleship of the Ming Empire! Togo Guiichi looked at the water column that was gradually calming down in the distance, and issued a combat order to continue to lean towards the Daming battleship, and the four Japanese battleships opened their teeth and claws, and rushed towards the Wuyishan battleship, which was weak and weak.