Chapter 2123
Since the first Majesty-class battleship was put into service at the end of 1629, the Haihan Navy has basically continued to build this type of main battleship at a launch rate of one to two ships per year. Although the majesty-class warships are not really large warships in the eyes of naval generals, with their significant advantages in comprehensive performance such as firepower, speed, and endurance, they have few opponents in East Asia in this era.
The Majesty-class battleship has taken into account both sail and steam power during the design stage, and has left a certain amount of room for the upgrade of subsequent models of power equipment and weapons and equipment. Therefore, although the naval generals are more interested in more advanced steam ironclads and have even built experimental ships such as the Black Shark, considering that the current external environment does not pose a real threat to the Haihan Navy, the implementation of The committee believes that it is not necessary to spend huge sums of money to build more advanced warships for the time being, so the Majesty-class warship will remain the main flagship of the Haihan Navy fleets for a foreseeable period in the future.
In this military operation to attack Hirado, a total of three majestic-class warships were dispatched, two of which belonged to the East China Sea Fleet under Shi Diwen, and the other warship from the Northern Fleet went to the west coast to compete with the Fujian Navy. Divisions fight together.
With the strength of the Majestic-class battleship, it can be said to be a killing blow against the Japanese warships with relatively primitive combat methods on the battlefield. After the steam engine on the ship was turned on at full power, the speed quickly increased to more than three times that of the Anzha ship. It was necessary to catch up. The distance between the two parties does not take too long. When it was still about a few dozen feet away from the Hirado navy ahead, the Haihan battleship took the lead in opening fire.
Majesty-class battleships are equipped with a cannon on the bow specifically for chasing enemy ships. The barrel of this 135mm-caliber cannon is longer than the cannons on both sides of the ship, so the range and accuracy are also better. Under ideal sea conditions, you can basically hit wherever you point within fifty feet. This is very useful for bombarding the stern rudder of enemy ships when chasing them.
The VIA in pursuit only fired two shots, and then hit the stern of the enemy ship closest to it, making a hole the size of a washbasin above its stern rudder. The gunner on the VIA could even faintly hear what followed. The screams came from the enemy ship.
Although this shot did not hit any vital parts of the ship, it immediately plunged the ship, which was dragging at the end of the Hirado naval force, into chaos. Seeing that the opponent was getting closer and closer to him, the commander of the ship ignored Shota Ishimura's previous order for all ships to move eastward and evacuate the battlefield, and tried to further change direction and escape from the large force towards the north. In this way, if the Haihan battleship behind wants to pursue the large force, it will no longer bite itself.
The idea was correct, but the only problem was that the speed at which the VIA caught up was too fast. Before the ship had completed its turn, it had already entered the effective range of the VIA's port gun.
The firepower output from the sides was much denser than the bow cannon. As the rumble of cannons sounded, the Guan ship, which was shortened to about ten feet away from the Weisheng, was immediately baptized by cannonballs. Moreover, the Haihan Navy obviously made targeted arrangements for these Japanese sailing ships with thin hulls. The artillery shells used were not large solid artillery shells, but grape bullets known as "deck reapers".
These projectiles were enough to penetrate an inch-thick ship at close range. After several grapeshot rounds hit the lower deck, the entire starboard oar of the ship almost immediately stopped rowing, and the ship's speed immediately slowed down. Come down.
However, the VIA did not continue to waste ammunition on this ship, and continued to pursue the Hirado navy along its original course, which was fleeing ahead. Before the people on the Guan ship had time to rejoice, the Weibang, which was following closely behind, had also rushed to kill it, and the shells that were poured into it this time were all big ones. In one round, the Guan ship was fired near the waterline. Several holes. Before the people on the ship had time to rescue the casualties, they had to engage in the battle to plug the damage pipes. Otherwise, even if they survived the bombardment, they would not be able to paddle a half-sunken ship back to their temporary base in the north. .
However, Shi Diwen had no intention of letting anyone leave the battlefield. The two flagships were responsible for the rapid pursuit and carried out the first round of strikes on the Hirado navy fleet, while several expedition-class warships slowly followed to clean up the battlefield. For an enemy ship like this that has been hit and is unable to leave the battlefield quickly, naturally there will be latecomers responsible for finishing the damage to make it sink faster.
After that, a closed ship tried to use its arms as a chariot to block the direction of the Weisheng, but the bows of the Majestic-class battleships were equipped with stainless steel rams. Although this thing was rarely used, it was always used. It is the standard equipment of Majesty-class battleships. When the two ships collided, the Weisheng relied on its tonnage advantage and strong collision angle to effortlessly smash the enemy ship into two pieces. However, its own speed was only slightly affected, and the hull was not seriously damaged.
This result is also equivalent to a warning to other warships of the Hirado Navy. It is extremely unwise to fight with the Haihan warship. It is even difficult to achieve the purpose of delaying time. The only thing they can do now is to give up the idea of ​​resistance and try to speed up their flight and escape separately, so that they may have a chance to escape from the battlefield.
But now even escaping has become a luxury. The navigation performance of these Japanese warships is so bad that they can't even escape by splitting up to get rid of the two Haihan warships that are chasing after them. The VIA and the WEIBANG worked in tandem, unstintingly giving a round of close range bombardment to every ship they caught up with.
A rough calculation showed that every naval warship that was hit had at least six or seven artillery shells. If you were lucky, you might still be able to struggle to escape, but if you were unlucky, it might start to sink on the spot.
Shota Ishimura knew the risk was extremely high when he took on this mission, but even so, it was hard for him to imagine that the real fighting situation would be so passive. The Hirado navy he led could not even open up a battle formation to confront their opponents head-on. Even if they wanted to cause some trouble for their opponents to delay their escape, it was now difficult to do so.
The most powerful weapon on the Anzha ship and the Seki ship is the musket, but when used in the current combat environment, the effect it can have is almost non-existent. The musketeers aim and shoot targets on enemy ships during the ups and downs of the sea, and the hit rate is basically random.
Several ships tried to use ignited arrows to attack the Haihan warships, but they quickly failed because the Haihan naval guns had a far greater range than the arrows, and these warships often lost control of the warships before getting the best chance to shoot. It has already been baptized by a round of shells. At this time, there are very few people who can still use bows and arrows to launch a counterattack, which will lead to more violent artillery attacks.
After an hour of this maritime pursuit, more than 70% of the participating ships of the Hirado navy had been destroyed. This is the result of Ishimura Shota ordering to evacuate the battlefield from the beginning instead of fighting head-on. If he had made a slightly impulsive decision outside the Hirado Strait, or if he had been a little slower in making a decision to retreat, I am afraid that even one person would have been killed. I can't last more than an hour.
Seeing that the two Haihan battleships were still chasing relentlessly from behind, Shota Ishimura regretted even more that he had accepted this life-threatening job. He now only hopes that the heavy casualties of his group can really give the Hirado clan some breathing space. As for whether another group of people led by Wei Zhi can open up a situation on the west coast of Hirado Island, Shota Ishimura no longer has high expectations. . But in fact, the navy's attack did not do much to relieve the pressure on Hirado Port. The number of warships originally invested by the East China Sea Fleet in the port artillery battle was less than half of the total, and the fleet chasing Ishimura Shota was only One-third of the warships were dispatched.
This means that more than half of the warships of the East China Sea Fleet are still in the waters of the Hirado Strait at this time. Even at this time, the Hirado Domain has another navy fleet that wants to rush into the Hirado Strait to liberate Hirado Port. , and still inevitably get a beating.
In fact, after the land escape route to the south was cut off by Kaihan's landing, the chance of survival left for the Hirado clan became smaller and smaller. Ordinary civilians might be able to escape from the mountains and forests in the center of the island to the south to escape the war, but as the ruler of the Hirado Domain, Tagawasuke and the thousands of feudal troops under his command would never be able to escape in this way. .
There are thousands of land and sea troops under his command. If they want to escape at this time, the people's hearts will be completely dispersed. When the time comes, it will not make much difference whether the Hirado clan can be destroyed by the Kaihan people. Tagawasuke knew this well, so he just secretly sent Tagawa Nanzaemon and his son out, but he had no intention of escaping. If he died on Hirado Island in the future, at least there would be an heir who could continue the Tagawa family business.
Tagawa's order to Wei Zhi was to hide in the open sea and wait for the opportunity. After figuring out Haihan's attack routes, he would try to attack his retreat from the sea, hoping to force the enemy to retreat voluntarily by attacking the enemy's supply ships.
When formulating this battle plan, both Tagawasuke and Wei Zhi believed that the Hirado Domain should be able to survive for six or seven days without the navy participating in the war, but they did not expect that they would have to show up under the pressure of the enemy's offensive on just the first day. All assets deployed in Hirado Port were lost. The opponent did not regard Hirado Port as the only target of attack. Taking advantage of the lively fighting at Hirado Port, they had secretly implemented a landing at another place and cut off the Hirado Domain's escape route without hesitation. .
To put it simply, the tactics prepared by the Hirado Domain in advance had very limited effects, but the opponent's actions were somewhat beyond the expectations of Tagawasuke and his staff - the opponent's actions since the war began were more efficient than theirs. Much higher than expected. They thought it might take their opponents three or four days or even longer to accomplish things, but their opponents accomplished everything on the first day of the war.
This also greatly disrupted the Hirado clan's response plan. A considerable part of the originally formulated combat plan had to be overturned and restarted, such as the current actions taken by the navy. Wei Zhi did not dare to continue to sit on the sidelines, otherwise the whole city of Hirado might not be able to survive until the third day. He can only take action in advance to try to alleviate the pressure currently facing Hirado from the sea.
Of course, if Wei Zhi could learn which unit of the Haihan Army was currently landing at Boxiang Bay, and that this unit had cut off traffic on the island, he might modify his action plan and cancel the enemy luring and surprise attack. These unrealistic battle plans were instead designed to meet the feudal army in the north of the island to break out from the sea at night.
However, the backwardness of reconnaissance methods and the lack of key information made it difficult for Wei Zhi to make an accurate judgment on the situation. Although he tried his best to formulate a comprehensive and comprehensive plan, many combat methods were simply not available when the strength gap between the two sides was too large. Method implementation. For example, Shota Ishimura, who was sent to lure the enemy in the Hirado Strait, was simply unable to command Japanese warships with low combat performance to achieve the results he expected.
Another example is the plan to sneak attack on Boxiang Bay, which was not what he expected. It would be able to steal the retreat of enemy troop transports and supply ships on the west coast. Waiting for Wei Zhi here, in addition to dozens of large and small warships from the Fujian Navy, there is also the flagship Wei Neng from the Haihan Navy's Northern Fleet.
Even if the number of warships under Wei Zhi's command were doubled, there would still be a clear gap in the combat effectiveness of the two sides. Therefore, the sneak attack plan not only has no chance of success, but will instead turn into a situation where people come to seek death.
Fortunately, Wei Zhi had dealt with both the Haihan Army and the Fujian Navy in his early years. Anyone who had suffered losses would be more cautious. He did not let the fleet rush into Boxiang Bay rashly, but sent two troops first. The ships moved forward, one went into Boxiang Bay to find out what was going on, and the other moved between the entrance of the bay to the Shengyue Strait in the south to confirm whether there was any trace of the Haihan armed fleet nearby.
This prudent arrangement temporarily saved Wei Zhi's fleet. The two ships had already seen the dense warships in Boxiang Bay while they were still outside the bay. They immediately turned around and left, not daring to stop and take a closer look. By the time the Fujian Navy ship chased them out of the bay, the two Chinese-style warships belonging to the Hirado Navy had already fired fireworks signals into the sky, notifying Wei Zhi in the distance to evacuate immediately.
The sailing performance of Wei Zhi's warships, which were based on Fuchuan, was much better than that of Japanese warships. As soon as he saw the danger signal from the scout ship, he immediately adjusted the sails, turned around, and ran north. He didn't even consider the option of head-on combat.
"These bastards are already here, but they can run away faster than the rabbits when they meet each other!" Xu Yuzhuo looked at the dots of sails on the sea in the distance on the deck, knowing that he couldn't catch up, and he was very angry at the moment.
He had already calculated that this would be the place where the Hirado Navy must rescue him. He originally planned to withdraw the fleet from Boxiang Bay in the afternoon and deploy it to the fishing port at the southern end of Isatsuki Island, which is more than ten miles away, and make way for the entry into Boxiang. Bay and the channel of Furue Bay, waiting for the Hirado Navy to appear here and then take the retreat, but the timing is still a little behind. Seeing that the situation was not going well, the other party ran away, causing all his plans to fail.
(End of chapter)