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Chapter 1431 A battle of wits is worse than a battle of courage
In layman's terms, it means that the Navy Staff and the General Staff would select the most experienced officers to summarize all the possible changes that could be encountered on the battlefield, find the optimal solution, and then summarize it into several detailed rules.

In the future, officers at all levels will no longer need to make decisions on their own when encountering similar situations. They can simply apply the operational guidelines one by one, and then execute them step by step. At most, they can make minor adjustments, which will greatly increase their chances of winning.

This idea sounded like a good one, but when the astronauts excitedly delivered the good news to the palace, they received not praise but a severe scolding. The emperor's reason was very lofty: as Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "Military tactics are like water, which have no constant shape."

Summarizing it into a series of detailed rules and copying them makes it easier to command, but it also fundamentally limits the subjective initiative of commanders, and over time it will make the entire military command system rigid.

Moreover, there are too many variable parameters on the battlefield, making it difficult to summarize everything in advance. If commanders develop the habit of operating according to regulations, their creative abilities will atrophy, and they will hardly be able to come up with a brilliant idea when faced with unexpected situations.

"Don't be afraid of making mistakes. I still have three more opportunities to personally lead the army and suffer losses. As long as it's not a matter of principle, any loss, no matter how great, can be forgiven. Being a soldier and fighting is also a job. I hope you will learn from the professors at the Royal Academy, constantly innovate and surpass your predecessors, so that you can do your job well!"

Having vented his anger, the emperor, as usual, wrote a comment on the memorial, and from then on, this sentence became the military's guiding principle. Don't underestimate a sentence without specific measures or data; its influence on generals at all levels was no less than that of military regulations.

With this statement, commanders at all levels dare to innovate and risk failure in their work. Without it, officers would become increasingly conservative out of fear of taking responsibility, ultimately creating a vicious cycle where the more they do, the more mistakes they make.

"Understood, just watch!" Upon hearing the fleet commander's order, the boatswain was overjoyed. He patted his chest to assure the crew of the victory while shouting to the sailors on deck to crawl into the hold.

Before long, the winch located in the middle of the deck lifted a large tray full of wooden crates from the lower deck. The sailors neatly stacked the crates on the aft deck, and after the boatswain came aboard, he used tools to open the first one.

The 1.5-meter square wooden box was stuffed with straw rope, and in the middle was a large round object bound together with straw rope like a rice dumpling. After peeling back the layers of straw rope, a large iron ball made of gray cast iron was revealed. Some parts of the surface already showed slight rust, and it looked very crude.

Mines! Hong Tao had used them when he led the expeditionary fleet to encircle and annihilate the Spanish fleet in the Galapagos Islands, with considerable success. However, their use within the navy was not widespread, for one simple reason: commanders disagreed.

More than half of the naval commanders were genuinely averse to this sneaky, less-than-honorable, and overly insidious weapon. They were accustomed to defeating the enemy through the capabilities of warships and the art of command, and felt that using mines as a primary weapon was an unfair advantage.

This is where Hong Tao's approach of encouraging his generals to think more independently comes into play. When officers are given more room to maneuver and can make some decisions, they become accustomed to no longer blindly following their leaders. Even if the emperor says something is useful, unless there are mandatory regulations, they still have to use their own brains to consider whether it is good or bad.

However, Wang Tiemao did not belong to this type of officer, because he was not a pure frontline commander, but rather the chief of staff of the fleet, more focused on formulating operational plans, logistical allocation, and personnel appointments and dismissals. He would only go into battle when there was a shortage of manpower. Facing a powerful enemy, his only thought was not to become the weak link of the fleet. As long as victory was possible, he would play it safe, regardless of how impressive the tactics were.

Before setting sail from the Seychelles naval base, at a meeting of senior officers, he, in his capacity as fleet commander, issued an order to the captains that they must carry at least 16 mines.

He had no specific rules or contingency plans regarding when or how to use them. He only knew from the communications ship that the attacking enemy fleet was large, at least a hundred ships. He figured that in a situation where the enemy outnumbered them, such a vicious weapon as mines would definitely come in handy.

As it turns out, the Chief of Staff wasn't just a figurehead; the secret weapon proved its worth from the very first encounter. Trying to use a tangential line for a mass charge, attempting to close in and engage in a chaotic melee, is that it?
Come on! The more aggressively the chase, the denser the ships, the greater the scope for mines to operate. Moreover, these things are far more powerful than naval guns. No matter how sturdy or massive a ship is, if it gets hit by one, it will most likely be half-crippled, with a small chance of sinking or even disintegrating, and at the very least, it will lose its combat capability.

"Lower the top sail, heading 180, wind on starboard!" Soon, the British fleet had reached about 700 meters. The navigator, staring at the chart and the nautical clock, issued the order to adjust the course with a heart-wrenching scream.

"Sharp turn, deck crew, anti-roll!" the navigator shouted, followed by the second mate. Everyone on deck, except the helmsman, rushed to the starboard side and secured themselves firmly to the bulwark with their seatbelts.

At this point, the sail operators will put on an aerial acrobatic show, stepping on the barres and pulling the sail cables with all their might to quickly lower the huge top sail and secure it to the barres with ropes. Then, they will swing like on a swing to the next barres and continue the same action.

At the same time, the lookout standing on the high mainmast also waved two signal flags rhythmically, accurately conveying the flagship's orders to the ships behind.

Unlike usual, there was a group of sailors at the stern of the aft deck. They were using a boom lift to take the mine out of the wooden crate, quickly screwing on several long triggering tubes, then extending out from the stern to steadily lower it into the sea, before cutting the ropes and continuing to operate the second mine.

Freed from its tether, the mine floated precariously on its own, tossed about by the waves, sometimes revealing half of its body, sometimes sinking back into the water. Despite its large size on the deck, it was practically nothing in the sea, barely visible to the naked eye from tens of meters away.

Turning against the wind at sea is a major test for a sailboat. Lowering the sails less allows you to maintain more speed, but it increases the turning radius and, if the wind is too strong, can easily cause it to capsize, which is very dangerous. Lowering the sails more ensures safety and reduces the turning radius, but due to more speed loss, the turning process will be prolonged.

Merchant ships generally opt for the former, lowering their sails slightly to turn, not caring about the larger radius, since there's usually no urgent matter. But warships are different, especially in wartime. A 200-meter larger radius could mean colliding with enemy ships, so every second counts.

(End of this chapter)