1890 King of Southeast Asia

Due to the location and height, the coastal defense artillery on the northern artillery can effectively supply targets at a maximum distance of about six kilometers. The aiming equipment of this era has not yet been developed and mature, and the attack distance of the artillery is still very short. It is too far for human power to see clearly.

For example, five years later, the latest Yoshino attack of the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet was also about two thousand meters. It is not that it cannot be fired far. The 150mm gun can fire at five kilometers without any problem, but it is not accurate.

On the northern artillery, the temporary person in charge Zhao Jiaxing has received orders to drive away pirates and practice artillery. He is checking each gun one by one. This is his first time to use a large-caliber gun. To describe his current mood in one word is "anxiety".

The artillerymen in his hands have not been trained on how to use large-caliber guns, let alone how to use coastal defense guns. Most of the artillerymen have only fired one shot with a three-inch sampan gun. Only the person in charge of each gun has received actual shooting experience with three guns, so they became gun commanders.

The artillery had no teaching materials to use at all. They only had a little experience left by the British. They combined the problems encountered in their own training and supplemented their own operation manuals. However, in terms of actual combat, how can we say that the artillery can only guarantee to hit a bungalow-sized target at about one thousand meters.

After checking the last 120 gun, Zhao Jiaxing hurried back to the command center, staring at the pirate ship coming towards him, waiting for them to enter the range.

This time, Zhao Jiaxing was going to use the tactics mentioned by the British instructor, that is, zoned bombardment. Setting the parameters in advance can greatly reduce the aiming time in actual combat. Only after fine-tuning can you effectively shoot the enemy.

The Dutch have shooting parameters, and as for fine-tuning, that is the purpose of this training.

After waiting for a long time, until the pirate ship was two kilometers away from the artillery, Zhao Jiaxing estimated that he should be able to hit a few shots, and then ordered to start the attack.

The pirates were still excited that no Dutch had come out to stop them even when they were close to this distance. This confirmed that the Chinese were fighting with the Dutch, and both sides could not spare the energy to take care of them, so they could grab a wave at will.

The pirates who dreamed of getting rich were greatly frightened two kilometers away from the fort!

"Start shooting as planned! Ready, fire!" Zhao Jiaxing ordered into the microphone.

There were bangs, which was the result of the volley training that had never been done.

With a whistling sound, the shells fell into the designated sea area, stirring up dozens of water columns. It was just a bit off, especially a 203mm 1884 Krupp cannon, with an effective range of ten kilometers, and a distance of two kilometers was basically a direct shot. As a result, the impact point was more than a hundred meters away from the nearest pirate ship. The most important thing was that the pirate ship was not in the target strike area.

After a round of shelling, the battlefield was briefly quiet, and only the sound of the sea breeze was heard. Half a minute later, the 120 gun spoke again, but the familiar 120 gun gunner could fire at an ultra-high rate of fire of ten rounds per minute. As for 150 and 203, the fastest firing rates are six and two respectively. Of course, there is no reaction now, and because it is on the shore, the reloading speed can keep up, and the firing rate can be increased.

The sound of the cannon broke the temporary silence, and the renewed bombardment seemed to have magic. The pirate ships began to panic and scrambled to turn.

Pirates are pirates after all. Their organizational ability is limited to the team. Cooperation with each other? Don't make a fuss. They have to spit at each other when they see each other from a distance of hundreds of meters. Maybe they will have to fight. Expect them to cooperate? Now they just hope that they can run fast and hope that the cannons will hit other ships. It would be best if only they can run away and everyone else will die.

In this way, the pirates began to circle only two kilometers away from the port, avoiding the bombardment where no one knew where the next shot would hit.

The bombardment continued, and it was hard to say how accurate it was, but the rate of fire was rising. The 120mm Armstrong rapid-fire gun gradually showed its fierce side, and the advantages of fixed metal shells were fully reflected at this moment. The six guns continued to spit out flames at a rate of six rounds per minute.

Under normal circumstances, it only takes one or two minutes for a small pirate ship to turn around, and it may take longer for a larger one, but now all kinds of ships are mixed together, turning, some turning at a large angle, some turning at a small angle, and more than a dozen pirate ships are in a mess, and then the collision is inevitable.

The first casualty of the pirates came from the collision. Two small boats collided with a slightly larger ship, dozens of people were injured or fell into the water, and the big ship had a hole.

The bombardment continued, and the water column was getting closer and closer to the pirate ship. By the tenth minute of the bombardment, the pirates had basically completed the turn. Except for the eight ships that collided, the remaining twenty or so ships had sailed to a position about 2,500 meters away from the gun platform.

The fort had its first trophy. A small boat that was deflecting outward and trying to escape the sight of the bombardment along the coastline was hit by a 203mm gun by mistake. It was just a wooden boat the size of a fishing boat, with a displacement of several dozen tons.

Boom! Unlike the sound of a cannon falling into the water, the cannon

was directly hit by a 203mm shell and directly disintegrated into pieces. The dust dissipated, and only the floating debris on the sea and some burning wood fragments could prove its existence.

"Good!" Zhao Jiaxing didn't know that this was a huge misunderstanding. He thought that although the artillery didn't play well, it wouldn't be so far off.

It was also the tenth minute of the bombardment that the 120mm guns that fired the most gradually mastered the skills of firing ahead of time. Although they were not very skilled, the effect gradually showed up, and the slow pirate ship became the best and most perfect training target.

Similarly, because of the need to estimate the lead time, the speed of the artillery fire dropped rapidly, and the skills were uploaded. For a time, the firepower projection of the entire turret was only one-third or less of the original, but the efficiency continued to improve.

Two minutes later, a 120mm howitzer penetrated a large wooden ship with a displacement of about 100. The shells were fired from the left rear of the ship and exploded in the middle of the ship. The cabin was blown out and unsealed, and seawater continued to pour in. In addition, the high temperature of the burning gunpowder also caused a raging fire, and the main mast collapsed. The ship had no chance.

The people on the ship obviously knew more about this. A large number of crew members jumped into the water and swam to the shore. Jumping off the ship might only die, but not jumping would definitely die. The pirates knew how to choose.

It can be seen with the naked eye that the artillery technology is rapidly improving. Half an hour ago, it was still pointing east and shooting west. In just half an hour, it can already roughly hit the lead time. Now, this batch of artillery is only a little short of theoretical foundation, and this item will be completed soon. When the British left, they took away a large amount of raw materials and a huge order.

The bombardment continued. Zhao Jiaxing thoroughly implemented Liu Yiming's order to train the troops. The artillery was not so abundant at ordinary times. Before, firing a cannon had to go through layers of approval. Most of the time, they could only do simulation training against wooden models. This time, they could fire as much as they wanted.

Shells kept hitting the target. There were more than 20 ships, and finally more than a dozen were left. Only six slightly larger ships were lucky enough to escape without being hit in a fatal position.

There were many pirates floating in the sea, desperately swimming towards the shore holding a piece of rotten wood. It was not until the pirate ship exceeded 3,500 meters and the bombardment lasted for 40 minutes that Zhao Jiaxing ordered to stop the bombardment.

More than a thousand shells were exchanged for the results of 18 ships. According to the normal navy, this exchange ratio is actually very profitable, but the premise is that the target is a warship, at least a transport ship. However, when the target is a pirate, and it is not the world police, this is undoubtedly a loss.

However, Zhao Jiaxing was quite satisfied with the result. More than 40% of the shells were fired in the first ten minutes. Except for a stray bullet that hit a ship that wanted to escape, the others were just a noise.

In the next half hour, especially in the last ten minutes, an average of one ship was hit every minute. Although this was the result of more than a dozen guns, it was also a remarkable thing. After only going through the artillery training and hearing the instructors tell stories, and then summarizing and thinking up the division of the shooting area and the advance amount, it sounds like a trivial matter. This is exactly what a cultured army can do, and it is the strongest place to improve the combat effectiveness of the army.

When the results of the battle were passed to Liu Yiming, Liu Yiming was also surprised by the results of the coastal artillery. This is like a person with only elementary school education, who only received elementary school education and did not have textbooks, relying on listening to high school students bragging, and calculating the textbooks later, and finally got into college. It's amazing.

"Let someone clear the channel, and there will be ships passing soon." Liu Yiming said lightly. As for those pirates? Do they still want to be treated as prisoners of war?

Now Liu Yiming needs to focus more on procurement. The merchant ships that are sailing this time are all the ships in the port that can sail to Singapore, because once the Dutch react, these ships will not be able to stay in the Dutch port, and the crew may also be in danger.

There are a total of twelve steam transport ships with a capacity of more than 30,000 tons, both Dutch and Chinese, in the port. The Chinese have recruited hundreds of people to barely operate the five captured ships, all of which are 3,500-ton transport ships manufactured by the Amsterdam Shipyard in the Netherlands. They are all of the same model and are used for ocean transportation. The remaining seven ships are five 2,000-ton and two 1,500-ton cargo ships.

Now Liu Yiming is trying his best to play the role of transportation capacity. If he moves fast enough, it is very likely that he can complete a transportation before the port is blocked.

This is the reaction speed of the Dutch that Liu Yiming expected. The first exploration should not be too late, but Liu Yiming doubts whether the Dutch will believe the pirates' remarks. Maybe the first exploration will come very late.

Liu Yiming's ship sailed according to the twenty-day deadline. Twenty days later, a telegram was sent from Si Shui, or other means of conveying the message were used. The ship would return only after receiving the message, otherwise it would first earn money through foreign trade.