Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 225: Battle for Hegemony at Sea (1)
In the middle of the night, the sea fog filled the air.

The time pointed to four o'clock in the morning. Years of accumulated combat experience at sea enabled Liu Buchan to develop a soldier's keen sense of smell.The sudden foggy weather, like an ominous sign, made him uneasy.He dressed neatly, left the cabin, stayed on the deck for a while, and came to the watchtower.Two sentries were observing the situation at sea with binoculars.

"Is there anything unusual?" Liu Buchan asked.

"General Qi, the sea fog is too thick to see clearly," said the sentinel.

"Keep an eye on me carefully, even a bird can't be let go!" Liu Buchan shook his head. For the enemy, this kind of weather is the most powerful for launching a surprise attack. If the battle is not in time, the warships docked on the sea may was hit hard.

When he was about to leave the watchtower, the sentinel suddenly said: "General, please wait a moment, there is a fleet at sea."

"Is it a British warship?" Liu Buchan immediately became nervous, his whole body's nerves were tense.

"I can't see clearly, it seems to be a warship, but the flag is not the British Union Jack"

Liu Mingchuan grabbed the binoculars and looked in the direction pointed by the sentinel, "It must be a British warship that came to attack. They are flying the flag of Spain. They want to use this to confuse us. Immediately put up a semaphore and let all the ships do their job well." Prepare for battle!"

As soon as the words fell, a shell flew across the sky with a piercing sound and landed on the deck of Yangwu, the combined North and South Fleet of China.

"Sound the siren." Gao Tengyun was the first to rush out of the cabin and yelled at the soldiers on the mast plate.The buzzer sounded a piercing battle alarm, piercing the dark night sky, and then all the ships in the silent night woke up and responded together.Fortunately, today's foggy weather kept the vigilant Chinese sailors almost in a state of combat readiness. People rushed out of the cabin as quickly as possible when they heard the siren, and rushed to their respective combat positions.The deck was filled with the sound of rushing footsteps.Guan Xuqing's ten years of painstaking efforts in the Navy finally saw results at this moment.

At this time, the flagship "Dingyuan" frantically played the banner of "Left full rudder".At the moment when he discovered the British ship, Liu Buchan's head seemed to explode suddenly.It is very clear that the consequences of encountering a surprise attack by the enemy fleet under such circumstances, especially the British fleet that has completed artillery preparations, has deployed in a T shape and is blocking the way of the Northern and Southern Ocean Fleets.The fragile 1-shaped ships of the fleet are bound to face the powerful broadside firepower of the British fleet.

He immediately ordered the ships to organize a counterattack on the one hand and arrange them in a triangular file formation on the other hand.Generally speaking, this formation is a three-column formation, which belongs to the preparation formation. This formation can be used for parking, and can also be used for daily sailing and counterattack against the enemy.But the triangular file formation is different from a simple three-column formation. In this formation, the three warships in each horizontal row are a tactical detachment. The layout method was strictly in accordance with the navy's wartime tactical standard that "the whole ship should not be parallel (such as a word), nor should it be in a file (such as a word), but should be scaled forward (such as a checkerboard shape)", so as to facilitate Maneuver to avoid collisions and fratricide.

However, the two sides are under fierce artillery fire, and it is difficult to complete the arrangement of the triangular file formation in a short period of time. Liu Buchan ordered the fleet to turn to the left, intending to turn the situation of the two sides into a parallel line of fire, hoping to change the formation. , using the intensive artillery fire on the side to temporarily suppress the opponent's offensive.

But the British, who had dominated the sea for many years, immediately saw through Liu Buchan's motives. Their commander, Hamilton, ordered that the Chinese should not be given any breathing time, and that they should annihilate the enemy's vital forces in the shortest possible time.A row of artillery shells rushed towards the United Fleet like a hailstorm, and the uniform artillery attack of the British fleet showed the newly formed Chinese United Fleet what is the strength of the world's number one navy.

"Yokokai's side is on fire!"

"The main turret of Guangjia was blown up!"

"Jiang'an was hit by dozens of bombs, the deck was cracked, and the cabin was on fire. It was about to sink!"

Beijing City, Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Guan Xuqing's eyes were bloodshot, staring at the hands of the chime clock, feeling restless for a long time, Feng Xianghua and Lang Weili, chief instructor of the Imperial Navy, whispered to the military map.

"Urgent report ahead!"

"read."

"The British fleet launched a surprise attack on our warships at 3:51 this morning. At present, the Henghai and Guangjia ships have been severely damaged, and the Jiang'an has been sunk by enemy ships."

Feng Xianghua's and Lang Weili's hearts sank all of a sudden, the war was most afraid of a bad start, not to mention the opponent was the powerful Far East Fleet, the outcome of this situation was extremely unpredictable.Guan Xuqing saw their worry, and said intentionally: "It's nothing, the war has just begun, and I believe it won't take long for the situation to turn around."

On the sea at the head of Sihanoukville Bay.According to the order of Liu Buchan's entire fleet to turn left, the cruiser Haitian at the head of the row had to go there first, but at this time the Haitian was surrounded by artillery fire from three enemy warships. , may have followed in the footsteps of Jiang'an.

"My lord, I can't turn left anymore. There are three enemy ships in front of me."

"Going southeast, and rushing there at full speed, I don't believe that the British ship is solid." Wu Shizhong, the leader of the Haitian, said calmly.

The Haitian formed an angle of about 60 degrees with the enemy ship. Because the angle was too large, it was difficult for the 7 main guns to exert their power, and only 14 of the 5 side guns on the side could participate in the counterattack. Therefore, Wu Shizhong ordered the rudder to turn left The purpose is to let the main gun play a role and break through the enemy's defense line.

Haitian, formerly known as "Douwell", was a heavyweight cruiser captured from the French fleet during the Sino-French War. Later, it was specially sent to the German Voltron Shipyard for transformation, and the hull armor was strengthened to make its displacement leap. It reached 5698 tons, and the length of the ship reached 99.6 meters. It was very difficult to turn around. Fortunately, at this time, the high-horsepower unit installed on the ship played a role, and the turnaround was completed in less than a minute. After the direction, the slender Haitian rushed towards the enemy ship Odyssey at a speed of 1 knots!

At the same time, the seven 7mm main guns in front of the ship fired together, the blue and red flames intertwined, drawing a long arc across the sea, and the three shells instantly tore open the side hull of the Odyssey, A shell was sent directly into the inner compartment of the Odyssey, and exploded inside the hull, immediately destroying the two power boilers on the ship.Seeing that the Odyssey was damaged, the other two enemy ships immediately hit the bow of the Haitian with artillery fire.

(End of this chapter)