Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 222 Divine Abomination
"Your Highness, what should we do now?"

Chaos reigned on the deck of the "Ryuo Maru". The samurai of the Kisei family were engaged in a heated debate about whether to continue fighting the Wanzu navy. Of course, only Kisei Tokitada could make the final decision.

However, Mu Zhengshizhong was completely confused at the moment and couldn't make a decision.

This naval battle was far beyond the realm of ordinary understanding. He simply couldn't accurately assess the situation. After all, in medieval Japan, a skilled naval commander was one who could effectively use fire attacks; normal engagements primarily involved boarding maneuvers. If he were to employ any tactics, the most he could devise was an "empty ship tactic"—dismantling the deck of Kobayashi's ship so that the enemy could jump over and fall into the hull, allowing him to destroy the ship from three miles away with a single blow. He had never actually seen anything like it.

The nature of warfare has changed!
However, Kijima Tokitada also knew that a decision had to be made at this moment, even a wrong decision was better than no decision at all. Due to the lack of instructions, the "Ryuo Maru" and the ships of the Hyakushumi pirates were still resolutely heading towards the "Chita". At such a moment, time was extremely precious, and there had to be a decision on whether to fight or flee.

He was a seasoned veteran, and he had been somewhat careless before, which made him a little flustered when he encountered something he had never seen before. Now that danger was imminent and his life was threatened, he quickly calmed down, caught his breath, and began to think hard.

The situation looks rather unfavorable now. The enemy's weapons are unexpectedly powerful. If we retreat now, it will be difficult to create distance in a short time while sailing at sea, and we are very likely to be pursued and attacked by the enemy from a distance...

Rather than being attacked unilaterally, it's better to fight the enemy head-on. Besides, the enemy only fired once and then stopped firing, so their reload speed must be very slow. This is actually a good opportunity to rush in.

As long as we can seize the enemy's "golden ship," sinking a dozen or so ships wouldn't be a loss, and if we could even seize the enemy's "one-hit-destroy" weapon...

The Namu family's ambition to unify the world's seas is not wishful thinking; at the very least, their power can be further expanded...

Moreover, the enemy only has one clumsy large ship facing them, while our side is surrounded from two sides with more than a hundred warships. One hundred against one, the advantage is still on our side!
Thinking of this, Kijima Tokitada's eyes turned bloodshot. He roared, stopping the chaos among his attendants, and ordered, "Continue to meet them! Set off fireworks! Order Hirataka and Gokimaru to speed up and quickly surround the Nohara family's 'golden ship'! We must keep them occupied! Also, give the order that even if the 'Ryuohmaru' sinks, don't worry about it! Today, we must crush the Nohara family!"

Danger is nothing to fear, as long as there is a leader to guide them. Kijima Tokitada's prestige is sufficient. The commotion on the deck of the "Ryuo Maru" was immediately quelled. Regardless of whether they supported continuing to fight the Wanjin navy, everyone obeyed his orders. They immediately waved their flags and fired "signal flares," demanding that the Kobayashi fleet chasing behind the "Chita" continue to speed up. Even if they were rowing until they vomited blood, they had to quickly contain the enemy.

Kijima Tokitada didn't wait idly. Seeing that morale had recovered somewhat, he immediately beckoned to a retainer and ordered, "Hirakawa-kun, you are now in charge of command. Try your best to capture the enemy's 'golden ship'."

Pingchuan instinctively responded with a "yes," then asked, completely bewildered, "Your Highness, you mean..."

"I want to go to the front lines and personally organize the attack!"

After saying this, Kijima Tokitada didn't say much more. He and a few attendants quickly left the deck of the "Ryuo Maru" and headed straight for the stern, preparing to transfer to a nearby ship. The enemy's new weapons had an unknown reloading speed, and the "Ryuo Maru" was too big and conspicuous. They might not be lucky enough to dodge it next time, so it would be safer to change the command location.

He's not stupid; if he can't withstand a rocket, can't he at least dodge?
With over a hundred ships, given the enemy's loading speed, even if they were all anchored and stationary, allowing the enemy to fire at will, it would still take them a long time to finish the job!
Although Mu Zhengshizhong had no sense of honor and no determination to "live or die" and wanted to retreat ahead of schedule, the loading speed of the "Wanjin Rocket" was faster than he had expected. He had just ordered the pirates to lower the small boats and before they could even slide down the ropes, a large cloud of white smoke burst out from the foredeck of the "Chita". Twelve pointed iron rods once again rose into the air with the help of the power of gunpowder.

This time, Haruno and his team learned from the previous experience. They calculated the distance and wind direction, the lead time, and waited until the "Chita" was relatively calm after breaking through the waves before launching. This can be considered as an improvement in technology in actual combat. The rocket did not disappoint them. With an arrogant contrail, it rushed to the "Ryuo Maru" in less than ten seconds.

This time the firing angle was more level, and the bow of the "Ryuo Maru" was hit first, followed by the towering superstructure. The two thick iron rods crashing down immediately caused the ship to shake violently, and the flying debris triggered screams of agony.

Even as a seasoned pirate, Mu Zhengshi did not hesitate and completely disregarded his dignity, jumping directly from the stern of the ship into the sea and swimming away without even getting on a small boat.

His choice was absolutely correct. Before he could swim more than a few meters, the entire superstructure of the "Ryuo Maru" exploded. It only survived because of its size, but it was engulfed in flames. Then, the rocket that hit the bow exploded, blowing half of the bow off. The "Ryuo Maru," which was hurtling forward, plunged headfirst into the sea, its rear end sticking up high, like some kind of creature codenamed 0.

Yuan Ye was wealthy and had an engineering background, so he never cut corners. If you calculate the cost of a rocket at market price, it would cost more than 160 guan. It was really packed with gunpowder. In terms of power alone, it was not much less than a modern RPG. It was just that the technology level was not up to par. The rocket was made bigger than a missile, and it was also a bit inaccurate.

The power of money was now fully on display. The large wooden galley "Ryuoh Maru" sank after being hit by only two rockets, and a large amount of its hull was blown into the air, raining down on the sea and surrounding ships. Some of the debris was even oily and on fire, causing several small fires in the process.

For a moment, the hundred pirates acting as the "anvil" were in great chaos, and the "Chita" also unleashed its maximum potential. The 118 oarsmen were sweating profusely and managed to row the "Chita" to a speed of 4 meters per second - about the same as a human jogging, but it exceeded the theoretical maximum speed of the "Chita" and reached a level close to 7 knots. After all, you can't expect too much from the bulky Atakebune. This speed is already very good.

With this rare agility, the "Chido" led two groups of more than sixty small boats behind it and charged into the group of more than forty ships of various sizes of the Hundred Heads Pirates with unstoppable force. Close combat, which was almost unavoidable in medieval naval warfare, broke out.

At this point, the "Wanjin rocket" no longer needed aiming; enemies were all around, so all that was needed was to load and fire it. Yuanye ignored the firing team, took the short-handled iron cannon handed to him by Aqing, and began to silently load it. Meanwhile, Aman, dressed in a suit of bamboo armor, took the lead, drew his sword, and began shouting orders for the inner guards to set up the bamboo curtains for arrow protection and take their positions, ignoring the fact that the commander of the inner guards was actually Aqing.

In fact, she didn't need to call out to it. The Wanjin Army was not an army that relied solely on fighting in the field. It was well-organized, with strict military discipline. Officers and non-commissioned officers at all levels had clear responsibilities. The arquebusiers, who were the main force of defense, had fought many fierce battles on land. Veterans accounted for more than 70% of the troops, and their combat experience was quite rich. Moreover, the Wanjin Army had started out by defending cities, and its defensive capabilities were second to none among the Japanese during the medieval period.

Well, it was called a naval battle, but it was actually a siege battle.

The deck of the "Chido" was much higher than the surrounding ships, and it was equipped with crenellations and semi-enclosed firing bays. Even if the pirates wanted to board, they would have to climb for a while. The Wanjin navy could shoot from a high position in a relatively safe way, which was almost no different from a siege.

At most, the city is a bit short, but a short city is still a city. The "Chido" was originally designed as a "sea fortress" and was meant to be besieged. Otherwise, why build such a clumsy and slow ship? Even to avoid technological leaks, they could have built hundreds of light and agile small boats and used fire attacks and boarding tactics. That would have made it difficult to control casualties. The compensation for wounded and disabled soldiers in the Wanjin Army is very high, and Yuanye doesn't want to spend that money unless absolutely necessary.

The bow of the "Ryuo Maru" was blown off, and it plunged into the sea. Even though it hadn't completely sunk, it was basically finished. But the pirates didn't lose their fighting spirit, or rather, they were forced to fight. After all, the enemy had rushed into their midst, and they would have launched an attack on their own even without orders. Moreover, Kijima Tokitada had already given them orders.

Meanwhile, due to the blocked route and constant bumping and knocking, the speed of the "Chita" instantly decreased. The Kobayashi ships chasing behind the "Chita" also successfully completed the encirclement and began to attack. However, because Kijima Tokitada had given orders to capture this "golden ship" as much as possible, they did not directly launch their signature fire attack. Instead, they chose to prioritize destroying the "Chita's" oars to disable its power and then slowly destroy it.

A dozen or so relatively aggressive small boats approached directly and began using long poles to damage the bamboo curtains protecting the oars.

Just then, the "Chido" boat, which had been gradually falling silent, suddenly blared with a piercing bamboo whistle. Neat plumes of white smoke immediately billowed from the sides and narrow gaps in the hull of the "Chido" boat. Countless lead bullets formed a net of fire, instantly sweeping across the dozen or so small boats. Those that dared to poke the bamboo curtain with poles were the main targets, trembling from the powerful stopping force of the lead bullets.

If it weren't for the flying blood and flesh, accompanied by inhuman screams, it would look a bit like some kind of strange street dance.

Immediately afterwards, the breech-loading cannons on the deck and in the gun emplacements on the hull also opened fire.

These primitive cannons were also built in the field, and this thing did not involve the leakage of later scientific and technological information—as early as 1517, there were records of the breech-loading cannon in the Ming Dynasty; in 1522, the Ming army captured more than twenty of them in the Battle of Xinhui. By the time of the Jiajing era, the Ming Dynasty had completed the deployment of the breech-loading cannon and had even modified it into more than thirty different models.

Since the Ming Dynasty already had it, Yuan Ye naturally wanted to use it too. However, he wasn't a metallurgical student, and his knowledge of cannon casting and chemistry was limited. Even though he knew the principles of this primitive cannon, he encountered many problems when building it, and many issues remain unresolved to this day.

For example, he initially used the clay casting method, which is very common in later generations, to cast the cannon barrel (mother cannon). As a result, the quality of the casting was substandard, the barrel was rough, the airtightness was very poor, and it was not easy to use.

After a period of hesitation, he switched to the investment casting method to cast the cannon barrel, which solved the problem of rough barrel and improved the accuracy, but the cost increased dramatically, the process became complicated, and there were not even ten workers who could do the job. It was also impossible to cast cannons with large calibers, so the output could not be increased at all.

He is currently working on the iron mold casting method for cannons and the steel drill inner bore method, which are probably close to the level of the early to mid-Qing Dynasty. However, there are still many technical problems to be solved, and he cannot come up with a solution in the short term.

Perhaps he was too stupid, or maybe he time-traveled in the wrong way, and he didn't bring Baidu with him. When he encountered a technical problem, he would get stuck for several months. There was nowhere to search for information, and no one to ask. As a result, after more than two years, he didn't produce many cannons at all.

The cannons currently mounted on the "Chito" are the prototypes he developed over the past two years. In order to ensure accuracy, the calibers are very small, generally around 10 cm. If we were to place them in history, they would probably be considered medium-sized breech-loading cannons, and they wouldn't be able to fire very far, with a typical range of only 500-600 meters.

The only advantage is that it is lightweight, so a few people can carry it around. It also has a fast rate of fire, but the fast rate of fire has little to do with it. The breech-loading ...

Even though it was an imperfect prototype, it was enough to fight off the primitive people who had few suits of armor, rode in wooden boats, and were still using bows and arrows and gunpowder bottles for fire attacks. A dozen or so breech-loading cannons opened fire from all angles of the "Chita" and used up all the bullets at once, creating a metal storm.

The God of War is not something to be trifled with. Even the juvenile or incomplete version of the God of War... well, he's a divine abomination, and no mortal flesh and blood can withstand him.

In an instant, the "Chita" seemed to transform into some kind of deep-sea monster, spewing flames from all angles. The entire ship was shrouded in smoke, appearing even more mysterious and unpredictable. The Satomi pirates were witnessing such powerful firepower at sea for the first time and were caught off guard. The nearby Kobayashi ship was riddled with holes, littered with corpses, and covered in blood; not a single living person could be seen.

The situation on the ships further back wasn't much better. Stray bullets were taking lives every now and then, and the decks, boxes, and barrels were riddled with splinters. It was impossible for anyone to stand on the decks. Even if someone tried to fight back with a bow and arrow, they were quickly killed by a volley of fire from several arquebusiers organized by the experienced officer Wanjin.

As soon as Mu Zhengshizhong climbed onto a ship located on the outskirts of the battlefield, he saw the "Chita," a "mobile fortress at sea," taking advantage of its height, size, and firepower to relentlessly reap the lives of his men. His men, trapped on the ship, had little cover and could hardly find any place to hide.

His eyes instantly turned red, and he began to deeply regret why he had come to drive out the Wanjin navy. He couldn't understand how the Wanjin navy could have such strong firepower—as pirates, they would consume several thousand kilograms of gunpowder in a single battle. How could they possibly break even?

Where did this rich guy come from?

You're all so rich, why do you still need to become river pirates?

He was heartbroken, but he couldn't let his men be beaten so badly by Wanjin. He quickly seized the bow of the ship, ordered the captain of the docked ship to fire fireworks, and instructed his men to launch a fire attack to burn the enemy ship down.

At the same time, he also kicked his men and ordered the "Satomi Water Ghost Team" to go underwater and scuttle the ship, sinking the enemy directly.

At this point, he no longer cared about whether he could seize any spoils of war. His own ships were now blocked by a barrage of fire and could not cause much damage to the enemy ships.

If this continues, Satomi's online army will be finished!

(End of this chapter)