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The 1st and 6th fleets were not too far apart, and if they were straightened into a straight line, they would be five kilometers, and the mast could be seen with the help of telescopes. But this is not the sea, but the Yangtze River, and this section of the Yangtze River Tongling is twisted and turned, and behind the current Poyang Lake Naval Division of the Qing Army, there are still several large islands in the middle of the river in Zhangjiazhou and Tiejiaozhou, and there are no other fleets at all a few kilometers away. Sang Xinsheng also thought that the Mawei army fleet on the opposite side was the one in front of him, but it was more than thirty ships, although the other side had more than 60 warships, and they also said that they had a chance to win.

"Order, the second to seventh battleships in the front left will change to chain shells and aim at their masts and hit me hard! The eight to thirteenth battleships in the front right all opened fire on the large warships in the front of the Qing army, and first knocked out their large warships, and those small warships are not to worry!! Ning Wu quickly issued his order. The sailors of the Qing army now have a deep understanding, all the powerful artillery is concentrated on large warships, and those small warships do not have a few artillery guns at all, even if there are, they are considered to be very powerful Huzun cannons or those bowl-mouth guns and the like, the range is only more than 100 meters, not to mention the number will not be much.

This is not the case with the cannons on the Mawei battleships, large sea ships, professional warships, with unparalleled solid hulls, it is purely normal to install dozens of cannons, and most of these cannons are large-caliber naval guns. The largest warships of this era were still in Europe, such as the first-class battleship "Sea King", which was built by Britain 35 years ago, and was also the first large warship in the British Navy with a three-story long deck.

The total cost is more than 40,000 pounds, which is equivalent to 450,000 taels of silver! The chief designer, Pate, originally thought that the ship would only need to be armed with ninety cannons. But King Charles I insisted on increasing the number of cannons to one hundred and four. The cannon alone weighed one hundred and fifty-three tons. The position is also the largest warship in the world today. The keel of the ship is 39 meters long, the total length is more than 50 meters, the width is also 15 meters, the depth is more than 23 meters, and the draft is close to 7 meters. The "Sea King" had thirty guns on the lower and main decks, and twenty-six guns on the upper deck. There were also twelve guns on the bow floor, fourteen guns on the half deck, ten bow guns and a number of stern guns. There were more than 800 sailors on the battleship, and the net weight of the largest shell reached 60 pounds. A single salvo of shells weighs a ton! Until now, the "Sea King" is still in service in the British Navy, and this "Sea King" has been in service for 60 years in history!

The Mawei Navy warships, although the fifth-level battleships are barely forty meters, are already big for the Qing army warships. The largest warship in the Poyang Lake Naval Division of the Qing army is the Dafu ship, and the Dafu ship in the Qing army is not as small as the Dafu ship in the Zheng army, it is one size smaller. The most intuitive example of the Dafu ship is the "three-masted gunboat" under the command of Zheng Chenggong back then, which is of course owned by Zheng Jing now. "The tree has three masts, the main mast is four feet high, and the length of the ship is twenty feet. The cabin has five floors, and the deck of the ship is as high as a city. It can accommodate more than 300 people", and is equipped with eight Hongyi cannons and 40 thousand catties of Buddha Lang machines. This Dafu ship is not much smaller than the King of the Sea, and there are only three in the Zheng army, and the others are the same as those in the Poyang Lake Naval Division of the Qing Army, but due to structural reasons, they are still inferior to sail warships.

The Dafu ship in the Qing fleet was one size smaller, with a length of only fifteen zhang, that is, forty-five meters, which was comparable to the third-class battleships of the Mawei Army, but there were only three Poyang Lake sailors in total. Not to mention the difference in quantity, even the above artillery configuration is even more different. As for the other warships of the Poyang Lake Naval Division, such as the Rushing Boat, the Cangshan Boat, the Haicang Boat, and the Centipede Boat, that is, the Rushing Ship still has some power. In fact, the Rush Ship is also a kind of large Fu ship, which is similar in size to the fifth-level battleship of the Mawei Army, and its power is far from the same.

Far away, the feeling of Zhimeng was not very strong, and the closer he got to him, the more panicked he became, the Mawei battleship was too big. Now in their fleet, there is only one that can catch up with the largest warship on the opposite side, there is no second-class and fourth-class battleship, and the other rushing ships are comparable to the fifth-class battleships of the Mawei Army. As for the Cangshan boat, Haicang boat, and centipede ship, the largest is only twenty meters long, which is obviously a few levels smaller than others.

In the roaring cannon, Ning Wu stood on the deck and commanded the fleet to play directly against the attack. This is also due to the fact that the wind speed is too strong at the moment, and the Qing army knows that its speed cannot escape at all, so it has to rush towards the Mawei army. Although the number of warships of the First Detachment was not as large as that of the Qing army, the total tonnage of the fleet was indeed far greater than that of the Poyang Lake Naval Division. You must know that just one third-class warship is equivalent to four or five Haicang ships or Cangshan ships.

"Commander, the Qing Army's sailors are coming up!" Yang Zelin, who was in charge of assisting the command on the side, suddenly pointed to the side and shouted.

Ning Wu said calmly: "At this time, can you still get close to the boarding negotiations?" Give me a hard beating of his bitch! ”

"Yes!" Yang Zelin answered, and then began to convey Ning Wu's order.

As the saying goes, what kind of people bring out what kind of soldiers, Geng Jingzhong's character has always deeply influenced the army under his command and the officials below. Over the years, Geng Jingzhong's attitude towards the enemy has always been tough and uncompromising, and this character has already imperceptibly imperceptibly entered the hearts of the officials below.

"Quickly reload each cannon and prepare to fire!" On the deck, Ning Wu commanded the overall situation, and Yang Zelin continued to work overtime on the lower deck, directing the artillery to prepare for the shelling. In the gun compartment to which the next deck belongs, Liu Zerong, who was wearing a blue and white sailor suit, was also giving orders loudly. The size of the Mawei Navy continued to expand in the first few years, when experienced sailors and junior officers were very scarce, but Geng Jingzhong also spared no effort in the training of naval officers. From the initial accelerated training course for officers to the current officially established military academy, he has been training professionals for the army and navy every year. Liu Zerong was a cadet of the early officer crash course, and when he graduated, Liu Zerong was assigned to the Ningwu ship of the First Fleet as a gun commander due to his excellent academic performance and internship performance. He is in charge of all the more than twenty guns on the second floor of this battleship.

Under command. All the naval gunners were doing what they were trained to do, stuffing the gunpowder into the chambers and poking the shells into the barrels. After stabbing it firmly, the fuse was plugged in. Now, every time there is a battle, the soldiers are no longer as nervous as they were in the first two years of the Navy, and the belief in victory emerges in the hearts of every soldier, and the tension is driven away from everyone's hearts.

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

Due to the difference in speed between sound and the speed of light, although the Qing army saw the sparks coming from the guns of the Mawei battleship, it was not until this time that the rumbling cannon sound reached their ears, and then they saw that countless small black dots seemed to appear in the sky and were rushing towards them at a rapid pace.

"Damn it, hurry up and evade it!"

Zhimeng immediately screamed. In fact, it wasn't just him, the whole Daifuku ship he was on began to mess up, they were not at the forefront, but no one could have expected that the guns of the Mawei Army could hit so far. As they spoke, the countless shells had begun to fall around them one after another, and because of the distance, the flying shells hit the surroundings of their ships, and landed on the surface of the river and stirred up countless waves.

Due to the distance, the first salvo on Ning Wu's side only hit the first few Qing warships, and the Dafu ship, which was slower and a little farther away, was not hit. Even if it doesn't hit. But this round of salvo scared Zhimeng into a cold sweat.

"Damn, what the hell is going on with these rebel artillery. How can you hit so far! Although not even a piece of his scalp was rubbed, he was indeed intimidated, and he was already keenly aware of the difficulty of this battle, and he immediately gave an order. All obeyed my orders, the No. 1 formation marched on the left side, suppressing the opponent's fire with artillery, and the No. 2 formation followed from the right and got close to fight them! ”

With the order of the Foldman, a fierce battle began.

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

A twenty-four-pound cannonball hit the deck of the Daifuku ship of the Zhemeng ship, and made a large hole the size of a basin in the inch-thick deck made of cedar, and then the cannonball did not stop, but rushed into the gun compartment on the lower level with the remaining energy, and hit a Franc cannon with a loud bang, and then the cannonball rebounded, hitting the two gunners next to him to the ground, and finally rolled on the deck twice before surviving.

The deputy beside Sang Xinsheng saw that the Mawei battleship was seven or eight hundred meters away, and the battleship that couldn't stop firing at his own side said anxiously: "My lord, the cannon fire of the rebel battleship on the opposite side is too far, and we have no way to fight back!" ”

"Shut up, I don't need you to teach me!" Sang Xinsheng, who was already angry, glared at his deputy viciously, "Order all ships, I don't care what method they use to shoot at the rebel battleship immediately, if the normal charge doesn't work, then the strong charge, I can't let that damn rebel warship continue to run rampant like this anymore!" ”

"But"

"Nothing!" The deputy still wanted to argue but was blocked by Sang Xinsheng's words, "At the moment, we have no other way, instead of being beaten passively, it is better to take a risk, in short, as long as we can hit their ship, it will be a victory, do you understand?" ”

Looking at Sang Xinsheng's anxious red eyes, the deputy swallowed what he wanted to say, bent down and saluted.

Sang Xinsheng didn't look at the deputy who left silently, turned his head to the helmsman next to him and said: "Hurry up and lean up, order all the sailmen of the warship to hang up the full sails, and be sure to lean on, only in this way can our artillery be reached." This sentence was said by Sang Xinsheng while gritting his teeth, he couldn't figure it out, the imperial court did not have such a powerful artillery, why did the Mawei Navy have such a long range of artillery, this is obviously unscientific, aren't all the cannons of the Great Qing Kingdom cast by the instrument supervisor? I remember that a few years ago, Geng Jingzhong sent people to the capital to ask for cannons!

He remembered right, a few years ago, Geng Jingzhong did send people to the capital every year to ask for cannons and some other weapons, but it was just a show to confuse others. Don't really say it. For Sang Xinsheng, who has been living in the army, he really doesn't know what the firepower of the Mawei Army is. As for what you hear or whatever, who doesn't hear some news every day, as for the truth or falsehood, you haven't seen it with your own eyes, who can know who!

At the beginning of this battle, Sang Xinsheng felt that the development of things did not go as smoothly as he originally envisioned, and before he could do anything, the other party hit a cannonball, although the first three rounds of artillery at the beginning of their battleship were basically not damaged, but he already felt that something was wrong. When the two armies are less than 800 meters apart. There were more and more ships being hit by shells, and although these were solid shells, and just two or three shells would not cause them much damage, but as long as they got a little closer, it would be troublesome.

"Hurry up and get up, you can't be beaten like this anymore! Order the front team to stick up and entangle them at once, forcing them to slow down, only then can we defeat them. Sang Xinsheng also desperately urged the battleship to start accelerating. At the same time, he also swore in his heart that once he defeated the Mawei Navy, he would definitely behead all these damned rebels, but before that, he had to capture the guns on the Mawei battleship. He was too curious about the fact that this kind of range could be mounted on a battleship with such a long range. If he could capture these cannons and bring them back, how should the imperial court reward him? Thinking of this, he suddenly became excited.

"Herald. Form a V-shaped formation, with full firepower. Bang them over for me! As the commander of the detachment, Ning Wu stood on top of the battleship tower and quickly gave orders. This is not the time to hide in the cabin and rest. The order was quickly conveyed to the ships, and the warships, which had already practiced countless times, quickly set up their formations under the command of their respective captains, and at the moment when the formation was formed, the ships took the initiative to open fire, and the target was of course the Poyang Lake Naval Division not far away.

Although the Mawei Army formed a formation of only eight warships, the number of guns on the eight battleships was nearly twice that of the Poyang Lake Water Division, and the artillery on their side had already reached all the guns on the opposite side. Two hundred and forty cannons and guns of their own roar also let out their own roars, and two hundred and forty shells whistled down on the enemy ships. This distance of less than a thousand meters is the distance at which the guns on the battleship can exert their power.

Three rounds of artillery bombardment passed, and although only about twenty shells fell on the enemy ships in each round, by the third round, all the horsetail troops had been replaced with flowering shells. The twenty or so flowering bullets were not solid bullets, and each one that landed on the battleship would explode violently, and the iron pieces of iron bullets in the bombs were scattered and splashed in all directions, causing far more damage than solid bullets. What's more, every time a shell falls on the battleship, there will be a big hole there, and there is not a single thing like their solid shell that smashed on the third-class battleship of the Mawei Army and did not react. In addition to these injuries. At the same time as the Poyang Lake Naval Division's warship was shot, it also began to catch fire, although the fire was not big at the beginning. But they also had to detach some of their men to start fighting the fire.

After all, the two fleets are not of the same level, although the resistance to attack is almost the same, but it also depends on whether the means of attack are the same. Now the results are clearly different, so after the shelling, the Mawei side has a clear advantage. The losses on the Mawei side were small, but they did not cause much damage to the other side. After this first bombardment, the Mawei battleship continued to advance, and the Poyang Lake Naval Division began to accelerate forward. But just now, since they fired more than a minute earlier than the Mawei Army, after the Mawei Army returned fire for a round, they were almost ready again.

At this time, the gunners on both sides were also reflected, and the movements of the horsetail soldiers were obviously much faster than those of the Qing army, and they appeared to be quite skilled. After a round of return fire, they immediately reloaded, adjusted the angle of fire at the same time, and when sparks came out from the guns of the opposing battleship, they also lit the fire signal on their side.

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

The sound of artillery on both sides did not sound different, but the Mawei army was more dense on the side, after all, there were a lot more of them. The hit rate of both sides in this round of shelling was much higher, and because the distance was also shortened, 20 shells of the Poyang Lake Naval Division smashed on the deck of the Mawei battleship, while half of the eight battleships in the V-shaped formation at the front fell on the battleships of the detachment that were advancing closely in formation. No one could predict the trajectory of the shells, so this round of shells brought more than thirty casualties to the Mawei fighters. Those killed or wounded in battle were quickly carried into the cabin. The medical team was also busy treating the wounded, cleaning wounds, stopping bleeding, suturing, and bandaging.

The hit rate of the Mawei battleship is still much stronger than that of the Poyang Lake Naval Division, and at a distance of 400 meters, all twelve battleships in front of the Mawei Army can be launched. The main warships of the Qing army are the eight, but more of them are old-fashioned Haicang ships, sand ships, bird ships, etc., although the size is not small, but it can't withstand such an explosion, except for the eight main battleships in front of the situation is better, there is an armed merchant ship in the back, three sand ships and three Haicang ships began to burn violently. The strictest were the two sand ships and the three smaller Haicang ships, which were already on the verge of falling apart, and they could not withstand a few shells. In this way, the Poyang Lake Naval Division is equivalent to losing one-fifth of its warships at this moment.

Every time the cannon was fired, the hull of the battleship shook violently due to the countershock force of the artillery fire, and at this moment, it was already about to be divided between life and death. Ning Wu grabbed the barricade behind the shipbuilding and stabilized his body, and at the same time ordered loudly: "The guns of each ship continue to prepare, and the musket team prepares separately!" Everyone else is in place! After the order was given, the horsetail soldiers on the deck each stood in their familiar positions, which had been fixed after many trainings. Twenty musketeers stood on each side of the ship, and were to shoot the enemy during the staggered period between the two ships. Some of the fighters quickly lifted out the Thunderbolt rocket box, which was not lethal, but it could burn the sails of the enemy ship and greatly reduce the maneuverability of the enemy ship. (To be continued......)