Seven Seas Beacon Fire

To give an example, if you are a federal citizen living in Alaska, and you take your fishing rod and AR-15 out to sea in your small boat, you might see two four-engine Tupolev aircraft leading two twin-engine Tupolev aircraft flying overhead. Although such a scene is rare, it is not uncommon.

But one day you suddenly find 200 Tupolev aircraft flying overhead, which is not normal. What's even more abnormal is that besides these 200 Tupolevs, there is also a batch of Shen-63S triplanes! Where did these Shen-63S triplanes come from?

Even if you can't understand it, haven't you realized that something is wrong with the current situation?

Under normal circumstances, Admiral Benson would definitely order the fleet to set sail now; after all, it's the navy, and being a little cowardly isn't shameful. But behind them are 10 young men of the United States, as well as the port and landing zone. If they were to play it safe now, then the countless Ming warships lurking in the shadows would probably head straight for Wonsan, joining forces with their surrounding army to completely wipe out the Federal forces within the encirclement, wouldn't they?

So Benson is now in a situation where he wants to leave but can't.

As Benson watched the increasing number of torpedo boat sightings and the occasional cannon fire from the destroyers and cruisers on the outer ring of the formation to drive the boats away, he realized that the enemy had not yet launched an attack; they were merely probing.

This led Benson to suspect that the enemy's objective was clear: the 10 Federation troops encircling him. If he simply walked away now, the enemy might not pursue him. Unfortunately, he probably couldn't comply with the enemy's "good intentions."

Looking at his watch, Benson realized that there were still about two hours until sunrise. He knew he had to lead his fleet through those two hours, and once daylight broke, the initiative would be back in his hands.

He should probably do something now, but after Admiral Benson realized that there might be an enemy trap, his tactical decisions suddenly became very conservative, because every choice he made now could be wrong, and at least for now the enemy did not take the initiative to attack, perhaps because they felt that the two large wheel-shaped formations they had set up at sea were not easy to break through.

Since the enemy did not launch an attack, General Benson did not intend to take any proactive measures. He could not think of any decision that would have an immediate effect, so he decided to continue to stall for time.

Just wait until...

Suddenly, Admiral Benson felt that it was dawn. Bright light suddenly shone in through the previously dark window, and the snow-white light poured into the cabin like water, making people exclaim in surprise: Could it be that the sun had suddenly risen?

Realizing that the unusual light was not coming from a searchlight shone by an enemy at sea, but from above, Admiral Benson immediately rushed out of the bridge and looked up at the source of the light. There, in the deep night sky, a beam of light shone directly down.

He could vaguely see that the blinding light was coming from under a cigar-shaped flying object, which naturally meant that the enemy had installed searchlights on a large rigid airship.

Once upon a time, large airships were just as eye-catching as aerial fleets. Emperor Leopold once built an aerial fleet and used it to launch the earliest strategic bombing in human history.

Although the damage caused by the airships was not significant, it caused widespread panic in London. Under these circumstances, British pilots pioneered the development of a machine gun ammunition belt specifically designed for the Leitanian airships. By combining armor-piercing, incendiary, and tracer rounds, the Leitanian hydrogen airships could be ignited with a single shot.

Since dangerous hydrogen is unusable, the only option left is expensive helium. However, helium is currently only produced in large quantities by the United States, and the Ming army, after the outbreak of war, obviously cannot obtain large quantities of helium, even if they spend money.

Therefore, according to the intelligence obtained by the United States, the airships currently equipped by the Ming army still use hydrogen.

Of course, what the United States didn't know was that most of the Ming army's airships had now abandoned bombing missions and were instead concentrated in the hands of the navy for patrols. However, the United States was clearly unaware of this, and they still thought that the Ming army's airships were still carrying out bombing missions. So when people found an airship floating overhead, their first thought was to guard against it and they dropped a series of bombs.

Although those bombs, which looked like sweet potatoes, were unlikely to do anything to these capital ships, no one wanted to be hit by bombs on their warships. However, just as everyone's attention was temporarily focused on the bombs that might fall overhead, the sound of cannons rang out again—the Ming army's torpedo boats began to move.

Admiral Benson was a veteran naval officer. He could easily distinguish which cannons were firing just by listening. For example, the slow and heavy ones were medium-caliber guns, including four-inch guns, as well as five-inch and even seven-inch guns.

Some cannons sounded crisper, and these cannons fired relatively quickly—at least compared to the medium-caliber ones mentioned above. These cannons were probably the rapid-fire guns on cruisers and destroyers.

Just by listening to the sounds, it seemed that the enemy's artillery was being completely suppressed, and Admiral Benson's unease dissipated somewhat. At first, he was worried that the "gift" he had prepared for the enemy destroyers and cruisers would also have a good effect on these torpedo boats. After all, if you use five-inch or even six-inch guns to shoot at a destroyer, considering the size of the enemy, it doesn't seem that it's difficult to hit it. You just need to keep firing, and if the firing parameters are not wrong, the rest is up to probability.

When the original hypothetical enemy becomes a torpedo boat that is usually looked down upon, although it is also a matter of probability, the probabilities between the two are obviously different—obviously, compared to destroyers, these little sea girls are much smaller in size, and even destroyers can stand up and be big sisters.

But soon, General Benson noticed something amiss in the sound, because it seemed that with each burst of rapid-fire shots, his own firepower was weakening.

Chapter 74 A Small Horse Pulling a Big Cart (2)

"No matter the era, courage is always an indispensable quality for a strong army."

—Cheng Hengqi

"General!" Just as Admiral Benson was listening intently to the distant cannon fire, a communications officer came running up the spiral staircase on the bridge and said to Benson in the command tower, "We heard something on the radio."

Admiral Benson, noticing the faint hint of panic on the staff officer's face despite his attempts to conceal it, nodded calmly and followed the staff officer to the communications room below the navigation bridge.

As a relatively early battleship, the USS Florida was somewhat outdated in both design and structure. The bridge of the entire battleship was relatively simple and low, lacking the enlarged bridge of later Federation standard battleships, and naturally, it was not as close as the later CIC (Command and Control Center). The communications bay was still under the bridge. Although this was somewhat detrimental to command efficiency, it was actually a lucky coincidence at the moment – ​​when there was bad news, the commander could be called out relatively naturally in this way, instead of being said directly in the conning tower, which would affect the morale of the troops.

General Benson had already realized that the communications staff wouldn't bring him good news. After entering the communications warehouse, he saw that the communications officers inside all had long faces, looking more like their daughters had hooked up with a blond-haired sly fox than their wives had cheated on them.

"Just tell me what's going on here? Any bad news?"

The communications officer didn't speak; he simply picked up an earpiece from the side and handed it to General Benson. General Benson looked at the earpiece and then at him, and with a look of doubt, he put the earpiece on his head. Immediately afterward, he heard a static sound coming from the earpiece.

General Benson couldn't understand what was being said in the headset, but it was clearly not English. However, this didn't stop him from realizing what was going on—apparently, his radio had overheard the enemy communicating by radio.

This should be good news...

"Is this the enemy communicating? What are they saying?"

Faced with the commander's question, the staff officer first nodded, then shook his head: "It's the enemy communicating, but we don't know what they're saying."

"The enemy used a code? Didn't we capture their codebook before? Could it be that they changed the codebook and the key?"

“No, General, the enemy is probably communicating in plaintext right now.” The communications officer’s words made General Benson even more confused: “Communicating in plaintext and you can’t understand what they’re saying? I don’t recall us being able to find even one person who understands Chinese!”

Having said that, General Benson turned around with a hint of anger and glanced around, spotting a figure who was clearly Asian. He then pointed at the Asian man and said, "You? Yes, you. Do you understand Chinese?"

The cipher clerk whose name was called stood up somewhat timidly: "Reporting, sir, I understand Chinese, sir."

"Then tell me right now what the radio is saying!"

"Sorry, sir, I don't understand."

"You don't understand? Aren't they speaking Chinese?"

"They seem to be speaking a dialect, which sounds like it might be from northern Jiangsu, or maybe... In short, it's not the official language of the Ming Dynasty, nor is it the language of my hometown in southern Fujian. I can't understand it."

General Benson was taken aback: "A dialect?"

“Yes, sir.” The cipher clerk whose name was called spoke more fluently at this moment: “There are hundreds of different dialects in the Ming Dynasty. Although different dialects use the same script, the difference between two dialects in terms of pronunciation may be greater than the difference between French and English. I think the enemy must be using a niche dialect as a means of encryption.”

"In other words... until we figure out what dialect they are using and find someone who understands it, we can't possibly understand what they are saying?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sons of the Beach! Where did they come up with this idea?" Admiral Benson was so angry he almost threw his headphones off, but his composure prevented him from doing so.

Of course, if Admiral Benson could know from God's perspective that the encryption methods the Ming army is currently using, which are causing the United States so much trouble, were inspired by a federal movie from another world, then the admiral would probably be even more furious.

"Is this the bad news you wanted to tell me?" General Benson looked at the communications officer. "But even if we don't understand what the enemy is saying, it doesn't affect how we fight. You called me down from my post just for this? I thought..."

“No, General.” The communications officer quickly waved his hand, then rushed to a radio and turned the knob on it. General Benson could tell that he was tuning the radio. As the knob was turned, one radio communication channel after another entered Benson’s ears. At first, General Benson’s eyes were filled with some doubt, but soon, the general’s face became more and more ugly.

Because on almost all the channels, he was hearing those damn dialects that they couldn't understand at the moment.

"How many channels did they occupy?" General Benson asked, his face ashen.

"All available channels." The telecommunications officer's words sent a chill down General Benson's spine.

He now fully understood why everyone in the communications bay looked so grim, and why the communications staff had called him down to tell him these things. If he had spoken frankly in the command tower, he wasn't sure if he would have allowed such information to spread throughout the fleet, as it could very well shake morale.

Although he couldn't understand what was being said on the radio, that didn't stop Admiral Benson from guessing what the other side was doing—they were remotely controlling the enemy's torpedo boats via radio.

The enemy has probably grouped their torpedo boats into groups. After the groups are formed, they will enter the battlefield via radio command. To prevent interference during radio communication, even if different call signs are set, it is not advisable to arrange too many units to communicate on a single radio communication channel, otherwise it may cause radio pollution.

To prevent this, it is natural to use several different radio channels that will not interfere with each other.

The enemy has now occupied almost all commonly used radio communication frequencies...

Sons of the Beach! Just how many troops have they deployed?

"When did you discover that the radio had become like this?"

"From the very first plaintext radio communication we received from the enemy, it was the only sentence we could understand."

"The only thing we could understand? What did they say?"

The communications officer swallowed hard. "That must be a code name, which translates to something about the weather—it's sunny today, but the waves are a bit high."

As the communications officer finished speaking, a deafening explosion came from afar, startling many people in the communications cabin. Many of the communications officers, whose faces were already pale, were now almost in tears.

Due to the shortage of personnel after the outbreak of war, many of these telecommunications operator positions were urgently recruited from the public. These recruits could not be considered real soldiers. Most of them had relevant professional skills and knowledge, but they did not have the composure that a qualified soldier should have.

Many of them joined the army because of family problems, or because they wanted to gain prestige in this "inevitable" war, or because they shamelessly wanted to climb the social ladder. After all, when many of them joined the army, the Allied Powers had already gone through the most difficult times on the ground and at sea, and this should have been a great opportunity to earn experience.

Little did they know that death would be so close to them today.

Admiral Benson was the calmest person in the room at that moment, facing the explosion. After all, as the fleet commander, if he panicked now, the entire fleet would be finished.

Admiral Benson knew all too well the source of that earth-shattering explosion. As a senior federal naval officer who had witnessed the Battle of Skardrac and personally participated in the Battle of the Java Sea, Admiral Benson was all too familiar with such explosions.

He would never forget the sound of that medicine depot exploding.

“Reassure your men.” General Benson stared at the communications officer. “Columbia needs everyone to do their job right now.”

After saying that, General Benson turned and left the communications room, taking heavy but firm steps as he walked into the command tower where he was most needed.

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Although the airship arrived at this sea area quite punctually, without getting lost or late, it was as if it were blessed by Mazu, and everything seemed to go so smoothly. However, behind this smoothness was the fact that all the large airships in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, and Vladivostok were concentrated here as much as possible, and were dispatched in a saturation search tonight. Only then did one airship successfully appear in the airspace above this sea area at the scheduled time.

Although the beam of light from the searchlights mounted below the airship could guide the Ming warships in the nearby waters, the range of the light was ultimately limited. Even though the airship pointed out the location of the enemy's main warship, where were the other main warships?

The Ming army only roughly understood the strength of the enemy fleet's formation after a series of tests. After all, in the darkness of night with poor visibility, without radar or a bird's-eye view, figuring out the enemy fleet's formation required risking personal reconnaissance time and time again.

After the initial probing, although the specific details of the Federation fleet's formation had not yet been effectively ascertained, Cheng Hengqi, having grasped the general outline, could no longer wait.

On the one hand, if they dragged it out any longer, it would be dawn. On the other hand, even the recent mobilization of different detachments for reconnaissance was already making the command center of the First Fleet of the Ming Royal Navy feel like they were playing Black Myth: Wukong with a 1060 graphics card – not that they couldn't fight, but just look at the mournful sound of the heatsink.

Cheng Hengqi realized how incredibly challenging it was to simultaneously command multiple small teams to act in unison, a challenge that could easily crash the entire command system.

Before the entire command system collapsed, Cheng Hengqi decisively decided to launch an attack ahead of schedule—at least for now he could still decide which direction to deploy his troops and which detachments to launch the attack first.

If this drags on any longer, Cheng Hengqi is really worried that the entire command process will become a living dead.

Although the senior officers of the United States' 7th Fleet were ashen-faced, realizing that they were in a bad situation and might have fallen into a trap, the Ming army was also in a state of chaos.

Cheng Hengqi's first target was the front of the two ring formations of the United States—the formation with six pre-dreadnoughts as its core.

It wasn't that he was deliberately picking on the weak. After all, these pre-dreadnoughts posed a greater threat to the various light and small ships that the Ming army was fighting. However, all the warships of the United States Navy at this time had the iconic birdcage-shaped masts, and under the limited visibility at night, the Ming army could only see some silhouettes.

Although airships used searchlights and even flares to help the Ming navy identify targets, at night these things could only help the Ming navy determine which warships were capital ships and which were light cruisers and destroyers.

As for distinguishing which of those birdcage-shaped masts are Dreadnoughts and which are Pre-Dreadnoughts, that's really difficult.

For example, the Connecticut, a rather robust pre-dreadnought, already had a displacement of over 17,000 tons, making it essentially no different from a dreadnought in terms of tonnage.

So the Ming army made a choice between two options—attack the one in front first! We'll deal with the one behind later!

After deciding which ship to attack first, the first to rush forward and prepare to pry open the turtle's shell were the four gunboat squadrons that were the first to engage the enemy that night, including the three destroyers of the P1 squadron.

These four formations consisted of a total of 12 destroyers of various types, none of which exceeded 800 tons, with the smallest being only 570 tons. Their maximum speeds ranged from 27 to 30 knots. Due to the difference in speed, all 12 destroyers were naturally arranged in a trapezoidal formation, but all of them rushed headlong into the enemy's sea fortress complex.

A group of little children rushed towards a group of older girls in front of them.

Chapter Seventy-Five: The Most Agile at Sea...

If the Ming army's destroyers were generally regular destroyers of over 1,000 tons, equipped with new 550mm or at least 500mm heavy torpedoes, then tonight's naval battle would have allowed the Ming army to open a breach with fewer casualties, at least in the initial stages.

Before the advent of thermal torpedoes and gyro stabilizers, the effective range of torpedoes was limited to only a few hundred meters. At that time, torpedoes were more like extended angles of attack. After the advent of thermal torpedoes, the effective range of torpedoes was increased for the first time to the point where they could threaten enemy surface ships at normal gunboat engagement ranges. From the initial effective range of about 3 kilometers, the effective range of the latest heavy torpedoes has increased to more than 6 kilometers, which is the range of conventional gunboat engagements of dreadnoughts more than a decade ago. The technological progress involved is naturally enormous.

But all of this had nothing to do with the old-fashioned destroyers of less than a thousand tons that launched the attack. They were still equipped with early thermal torpedoes and had no way to launch them under the cover of night outside the effective observation range of the United States warships.

For the United States, if it were daytime, they would be able to intercept targets at a distance of 8 kilometers or even further. During the Battle of Scadraco, the Leyte forces, equipped with fire control systems for their secondary guns, had their battleships' 150mm secondary guns fire at Victoria targets at a distance of over 10,000 meters.

However, the darkness did provide some cover for these brave light cavalrymen at sea. When the United States searchlights locked onto their targets at night, the distance between the two sides was only 5 kilometers. At such close range, the officers and soldiers on the United States warships on the perimeter, who were on guard duty, were as if they had suddenly encountered a ghost while playing a horror game.

"Stratified interception fire! Construct a barrage at 4 kilometers!"

The United States was no longer the rookie it was at the start of the war. While it couldn't be guaranteed that all positions on the warships were filled with experienced veterans, positions like gunnery officer had indeed been tempered by the flames of war and possessed relatively rich combat experience.

In this situation, gunnery officers on more than one United States warship made the most accurate judgment—the enemy warships were charging at them at nearly 30 knots. How long would it take the enemy to advance 1 kilometer under these conditions? How long would it take the rangefinder to complete the distance measurement? Could the pitch control keep up with such a large change in distance?

These issues are neither necessary nor time-consuming to consider. If it were the officers and soldiers of the most elite main warships in the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy, or the personnel of the Victoria Royal Navy and the Leitanian High Seas Fleet, they could probably complete a series of operations in such a short time to range the secondary gun groups, continuously provide fire control data, and guide the dense secondary guns to intercept and fire.

However, the gunners on the United States Navy warships know the quality of their soldiers all too well. You can't expect a group of students who have barely passed to immediately strive for Tsinghua or Peking University.

Therefore, they chose the most effective method at the moment, which was to ignore rangefinding and have all the guns aim at a distance of 4 kilometers along the path of these destroyers at maximum rate of fire to form a fire net. These small destroyers were not very resistant to damage. Even being hit by a medium-caliber shell could cause very serious damage, which would affect their ability to continue their charge and launch torpedoes.

If two or three of these missiles hit, they could severely damage or even sink these destroyers that are only a few hundred tons in size.

Facing the scorching barrage of fire from the Federation Navy warships, these veterans, who had donned their armor again to charge into battle, were just like the Ming Dynasty navy more than 100 years ago, who had faced the Victorian Empire's sailing battleships with their 32-pound cannons on the high seas. With unparalleled courage and dauntless spirit, they pressed forward to a distance where they could almost see the faces of the gunners on the enemy warships, and used powerful explosive shells to decide the fate of the battle in the Strait of Malacca.

At this moment, these destroyers were not fighting alone. They were like knights possessed by heroic spirits. Although they were just a group of light naval cavalry without heavy armor and shields, they were still able to charge against the enemy's "heavy infantry" at sea without hesitation when the country and the people needed them.

This moth-to-a-flame charge was naturally exceptionally brutal. The HMS Hussar, bearing the brunt of the attack, was struck in the bow the instant it plunged into the fire. The shell pierced the ship's medical bay, eliminating the only medic on board at the start of the battle, before crashing through the other side of the hull and into the sea. More dense near misses pounded around it. Just as the helmsman was frantically turning the rudder, making the destroyer writhe like a snake on the sea, a volley of shrapnel swept across the open bridge like a shower of petals. Crimson blood mist bloomed, like spider lilies on the banks of the River Styx.

This small destroyer is fragile; sometimes a single shell can send it to the bottom of the sea. But at other times, this small destroyer is also very strong; even the world's largest caliber battleship main guns cannot stop its charge.

To the officers and men aboard the United States' cruisers and fleet destroyers, what they witnessed was a group of warships bearing the weight of explosions and shrapnel, supporting their wrecked hulls, as if they had emerged from hell bathed in flames—this was no exaggeration, but an apt description. These old-fashioned destroyers were not as well-protected against fire as the new generation of destroyers, because some parts and lightweight structures on the warships even contained wood. Once a fire broke out, it spread rapidly on the warships under the strong winds at high speeds. However, not a single destroyer slowed down or stopped to extinguish the fire. Instead, these destroyers began to turn and launch torpedoes in a rather disorganized formation at sea.

It wasn't that the officers and soldiers on these warships were poorly trained; it was simply because the steering gears of some warships were damaged, and the original helmsmen of some destroyers had been killed in action.

While the torpedo attacks launched by these older destroyers put the opposing United States warships on high alert, they did not cause much trouble for the US warships on the periphery. Unlike the multi-tube torpedo launchers used on the new generation of destroyers, the torpedo swivel launchers on these older destroyers were all single-tube. This was partly due to their age and partly because their tonnage simply couldn't accommodate too much weaponry.

Therefore, these destroyers can only launch two or three torpedoes at a time. Some destroyers even have their torpedo tubes damaged during the charge, at which point they can only launch one torpedo.

After such a desperate charge, the six destroyers that survived the barrage of fire launched a total of only 10 torpedoes. The early thermal torpedoes left very obvious traces as they moved through the sea. With the help of searchlights, the white trails left by the torpedoes as they sailed through the sea could be clearly seen.

This allowed the United States warships to evade the torpedoes as much as possible, and in fact, the United States did manage to dodge all of the torpedoes without incident, which made the officers and soldiers on the United States ships breathe a sigh of relief.