In the early morning of the ninth day of February, in the Seto Inland Sea, the sea east of Awaji Island.

The sky full of stars reflected in the sea, and the moonlight was smashed by the V-shaped bow of the cruiser Lushun in the undulating waves, and the hull of more than 5,000 tons rose and fell, and the lights on the ship flickered.

Inside the bridge, Zhuge Weidao stood in the captain's command position holding on to the railing, looking at the dark sea outside the window, still in good spirits.

Although Zhuge Weidao still didn't think about how to be a captain, his work attitude was still very good. When it was his turn to be on duty, he would arrive at the bridge ahead of schedule and wait patiently for his deputy commander Chen Jian to get off work before taking over the command. Then he stood in the command position with the most upright posture, as if he was going into battle in the next moment. Seeing this attitude of his, the navigator, the signal officer, the flag officer, the helmsman, the messenger, the herald, the herald, the bridge observer, and the combat staff officer on the bridge did not dare to slack off in the slightest.

However, although Zhuge Weidao took out the "posture of a famous general", he did not take the initiative to issue any military orders. All his military orders were put forward by Captain Wang Wen, the chief of staff, and he was only responsible for nodding his head and then saying "very good".

Hmm, this captain of Zhuge Weidao is really good.

With his "self-taught" naval expertise, if he was asked to change hands with Wang Wen and become a chief staff officer, it would definitely be a joke. But to be a captain...... It's not bad!

Of course, Zhuge Weidao also knows his own catties. Therefore, he did not plan to mix the surface fleet all the time, but agreed early on with the Admiralty Shangshu Zhuge Weiyi, the Navy Chief of Staff Zhuge Weiyong, and the Navy Commander Guan Tianpei. When he had enough maritime experience, he went to the Navy Command as chief of staff...... No one else understands HNA's affairs, but of course he is an expert. So he arranged for most of his subordinates from Peshawar to go to HNA early in the morning, and HNA would be his territory when he returned.

Just when Zhuge Weidao was pondering whether to "invent" the plane as soon as possible after arriving at the HNA Headquarters, a flash of light suddenly appeared in front of him. He looked up and saw that it was the "Yamato" sent by the Japanese Shogunate Navy to lead the way for the 10th mission formation of the Ming Beiyang Fleet where Zhuge Weidao was located.

Four clippers with a speed of 24-28 knots sailed slowly behind a small wooden boat with a speed of only 10 knots, and the small wooden boat was actually called the "Yamato...... This scene is a bit absurd no matter how you look at it. But no matter how absurd it is, Zhuge can only endure it. Because this time, the "mission" of the 10th mission formation was actually to send him to Japan to marry the Tokugawa shogunate, which was a diplomatic mission, so the sailing route had to be arranged by the Japanese side.

"What did that Yamato say?"

Zhuge Weidao looked at the lantern language for a while, but he still didn't understand, so he asked directly.

"Report to the chief," the signal officer inside the bridge replied immediately, "The Yamato said that there has been a lot of pirate activity in the waters around Shikoku Island and Awaji Island recently, so let's be careful. ”

Zhuge was stunned for Dao, "Pirates? ”

Wang Wen, the chief staff officer on the side, immediately took over the topic and said: "Sir, after the restoration and opening of Japan, the pirates who had disappeared because of the isolation of the country have made a comeback, not only active in Japan's inland seas and coastal waters, but even deep into the Pacific Ocean, and even the Luzon Islands are infested with Japanese pirates. Among them, the most famous are the Murakami Navy, the Goto Navy, the Kumano Navy, the Ito Navy, etc., and in recent years, there have been the Satsuma Domain's Wanderers.

According to the investigation of the Naval Intelligence Bureau, the shogunate and some powerful daimyo are actually behind these Japanese pirates, among which the Murakami Navy is behind the Choshu Domain's Mori clan, the Goto Navy is supported by some powerful feudal clans in Kitakyushu, the Kumano Navy is supported by the Shogunate and the Kishu Tokugawa family, and the Ito Navy is a member of the Satsuma Shimazu family. ”

"The Tokugawa shogunate and powerful feudal clans support the pirates...... Zhuge Weidao nodded slightly, he "forgot" about this, because it was not a big matter, so he never "remembered", but he could understand why the Japanese did it?

This is to follow the wisdom of Elizabeth I of England, when overseas trade and industrialization have stuck Daming's neck, and engaged in this crooked and evil way...... Sure enough, it's a bandit country!

Thinking of this, Zhuge Weidao just smiled coldly: "Tell the Yamato that if you encounter pirates, my formation will definitely eradicate them for Japan!" ”

"Yes, sir!"

......

Just when Zhuge asked his subordinates to light the Yamato's wooden-hulled gunboat with a displacement of up to 600 tons, on the sea south of the Naruto Strait, four pirate ships with a displacement ranging from 5,000 tons to 1,000 tons were parked, no, more precisely, camouflaged assault ships!

In fact, the main force of Japan's maritime armed forces today is not at all the Japanese shogunate navy on the surface, what the Four Heavenly Kings, what Yamato, Musashi (all of which are several hundred tons of wooden-hulled gunboats), what Kongo-class (Japan's self-built wooden-hulled iron cruisers), and what Akagi and Kaga (two protective cruisers that have changed hands and I don't know how many hands), it seems to be very powerful when it sounds like a name, and there are thirty or forty of them together. But the actual combat effectiveness is not worth mentioning compared to the Ming Navy, and there is no need for the Beiyang Fleet to go out, just this small tenth task formation where Zhuge Weidao is located will have a naval battle with them, and you will be able to win the battle!

But the Japanese devils are not the Qing Dynasty that engaged in Westernization in history, they are not so disciplined, the serious navy can't beat the Ming Dynasty, they can still come to the yin, engage in pirate tactics, engage in pirate ships, engage in camouflage attack ships.

The former is still a bit casual, just build a random boat, put on a few small cannons and a group of ronins who are so poor that they only have "one knife and one life" left.

The latter is even more powerful, and they are all camouflaged warships specially built with the black money earned by the dry pirates. The shell is made like a civilian ship, but with an armored gun bay installed below the deck, you can push out the 6-inch rapid-fire cannon hidden in the gun bay and fire if you put away the covered wooden planks!

There are also hidden under the bow and stern decks of the guns that can be raised and lowered, which can be raised by turning the covered decks over. This way, one or two rapid-fire guns in the bow and stern can be used.

In addition, the boilers and steam engines used by this camouflage assault ship are also high-horsepower, and when they are fully opened, they can make the camouflage assault ship soar to more than 20 knots!

Such attack ships, not to mention merchant ships, even the next warships will have a way when they encounter them.

And this time, in order to ignite the war between the Ming Dynasty and the British, Shimazu Qiliang not only sent the most elite Haitao team under his hands, but also took out four secretly built camouflage attack ships, and also found two large ships of four or five thousand tons and two small boats of less than one thousand tons according to the size of the Lushun-class and Xinchang-class.

Even in order to pretend to be more like the real thing, Qi Liang also made people transform the camouflage attack ship and installed a fake ship mast, if you look at it when the visibility is not high, it will be like the real thing!

"Saigo-sama, five unidentified ships are coming from north to south, sailing at a speed of ten knots, and they can pass through the Naruto Strait in about half an hour!"

On the pitch-black bridge of the Kirikumaru, the flagship of the four Japanese camouflaged assault ships, a staff officer of the Haitao Brigade, dressed like an ordinary merchant sailor, shouted loudly and looked very excited.

The one-eyed dragon Xixiang nodded heavily: "Mixi!" It's finally here, Beacon Whisper! The rise and fall of the imperial kingdom in one fell swoop! Saigo Yoshibei Takashi is willing to join all the kings and serve the country in seven lives! ”

"Hay!"