Lord of Ming Dynasty

But this effect is not very great, because although the British battleship fleet is not large, they are all elite. The number of battleships is enough to ignore their obstruction, and they are still chasing at a speed of [-] or [-] knots.

An hour later, the enemy had approached seven nautical miles behind Song Qing's main fleet of more than a dozen warships, and was still approaching rapidly. Song Qing ordered the signal soldiers to issue the order to turn the transport and supply fleet for the last time.

Then gradually break away from the fleet protected by them, reduce speed, and prepare to face the enemy.

At this time, three camouflaged scouting fleets tore off their camouflage and joined their fleet. Song Qing's fleet had a total of [-] warships, six of which were the Type [-] ironclad ships that survived the last battle against the Portuguese, and four were There are three types of ironclad ships, three of which are first-class battleships that survived last time, and one is a type II ironclad ship.

Although the speed was reduced, Song Qing and the others still waited for the enemy to come over at a speed of six knots, while the transport and supply fleet continued to advance at a speed of ten knots. It opened one nautical mile in less than 10 minutes, and opened three miles in two to ten minutes. nautical mile.

Half an hour into the battle, Jin Qishun and his fleet had sailed six nautical miles.

The first thousand and 480 chapters are made of dumplings

240 nautical miles southeast of the island of Korwu Town, and [-] nautical miles from Hero Harbor, the [-] warships left behind by Song Qing stopped to fight, and [-] nautical miles away, the supply transport fleet led by Jin Qishun was moving at a speed of ten knots. The speed turned to the southeast again, and left here quickly.

He knew that the time Song Qing and the others could buy him was limited. With their speed, the enemy would probably catch up with a few warships in less than an hour. All they could do was stay as far away from the battlefield as possible.

It was getting dark, and if we persisted for another two hours, the fleet shrouded in darkness would be difficult to find if we did not turn on the lights on the sea, and it would be difficult to find them twenty nautical miles away.

The steam engine in the steam engine room made a piercing whistling sound, and then the machine idling due to the loss of steam made a muffled buzzing sound. Because the power was fully turned on, thick smoke billowed over the fleet, covering most of the sky.

It was another half an hour, the tail of the team was fifteen nautical miles away from the battlefield, and the flagship at the head of the team was twenty nautical miles away from the battlefield. Finally, he remembered the sound of the cannons over there. Now Jin Qishun was not too worried. It has been an hour, and the fleet is still driving at maximum horsepower, moving forward at high speed.

Jin Qishun carefully studied the speed, tonnage, personnel allocation of these warships, and how they will move when they encounter the enemy. It is not yet time to disband the fleet. What fighting power is there.

The most effective ones are the three ironclad type III telegraph relay camouflage reconnaissance ships. There are three 128mm cannons on the ship, plus 24 75mm secondary guns, sixteen 37mm rapid-fire guns, and two [-]mm cannons. mm close-in defense guns, this level is only one level worse than the British ironclad ships. In terms of overall performance, in addition to the number of [-]mm artillery, there are other artillery numbers, that is, the artillery density is not as good as that of the British ironclad ships, and the overall defense is poor. One point, the speed is two knots away, and the combat effectiveness is basically the same as that of the British ironclad ships.

Accuracy and hit rate are almost the same.

In other words, after so many years of catching up, the British have caught up, even surpassing the shipbuilding level of the New Qin Empire a few years ago. There is no way around this. There are too many talented scientists in Europe. That's great, the Chinese Empire, the old problem of the Han people is that after the country has been defeated, they just think about stability and don't want to make progress, because they are too poor, and because they are poor, they want to enjoy themselves when they are rich.

If you want to go beyond enjoyment and advance to a higher stage, this hurdle is not something that everyone can overcome. It requires someone to push forward with great courage, vision, and the ability to block all resistance and backlash. It is not ordinary hard work. Perhaps his reward is the new Master of the new advance blocker.

After 100 years of creation and construction, the Huaxia Empire has become this state, and the New Qin Empire is walking on this road, just because the enemy outside is too strong and has not relaxed.

They don't dare to relax, but there are already some signs in the local area. Li Ya and the others, who have struggled for 20 years, already have some thoughts of enjoying themselves.

The people below are still struggling slowly and tenaciously.

Jin Qishun is such a person, trying to climb up.

In addition to these three ironclad ships, there are six British second-class battleships in his fleet that were repaired after simple repairs, and six slightly injured ironclad ships captured by the British. These are all his battleships that can fight. Other warships may also have some combat capabilities, at least most of the warships can fire back when the enemy rushes over.

But the most feared thing for the injured battleship is the shock. Once they fight back, some warships will be paralyzed. Maybe they will stop at sea and become targets. If you hit the enemy, even if the enemy loses some warships and human lives, they will not be able to escape. In the end, they may drift on the sea without power, or they may end up being sunk by the enemy, and many people may have to die.

Some battleships with relatively light injuries may be able to fight back and fight, but their maneuverability and defense capabilities, as well as the quality of the crew, and command are all declining. Because they have been injured, the original crew must have suffered a lot of casualties, even if it is an easy battle. After many battles, people who have experienced death, some survived, and some people were afraid of dying. This kind of people is already useless, so you can't count on them, you can only replace them with a new batch.

Now there are only a few battleships among the more than 40 battleships that have combat capabilities. When encountering a situation, they can only disband the formation and pray that the enemy's number of warships is too small. Loss, at least some can go back.

The gun barrels are already rumbling over there, and this side is still advancing rapidly. The formation of the fleet has shrunk even closer. The distance between all the warships is no more than 80 meters, and the distance has been reduced by more than 30 meters. The length of the entire fleet has been reduced to A little more than two nautical miles, so that the distance from the enemy's fleet is a little further, and the escape is 23 nautical miles, and the sound of the guns over there is already faintly audible.

It will take at least an hour and a half for the enemy to catch up with them, and Jin Qishun and the others have taken another step towards the hope of being alive.

The setting sun is already hanging in the sky, and in less than an hour, the setting sun will set, and half an hour will pass, and darkness will fall, then most of the fleet can be drawn into the darkness.

Jin Qishun ran this channel many times, so of course he was familiar with it. He skillfully gave orders to direct the fleet to escape from the enemy's sight as soon as possible. Even if there were enemy scout ships staring at him, the chance of escaping after nightfall was relatively high.

"There is a ship ahead." After Jin Qishun arranged some things, he just sat down to rest for a while, when he heard the observer in the command tower outside the fleet commander's lounge shout loudly.

"160 degrees and eight directions to the southeast, a large number of smoke columns were found approaching,"

"Visual estimation is a fleet of steam engines,"

"What appears to be a British flag on a mast that appears above sea level."

"The clear target is nineteen nautical miles away from us, ten ships, no, twenty ships, my God, they still have fifty ships, all over the sea, my God, it's the British super fleet."

"Eighteen nautical miles away, they're the British super fleet, damn—"

Jin Qishun raised the binoculars with trembling hands, and saw the opposite side in the setting sun, bathed in golden brilliance, one after another enemy ships rising above the sea level, looking at the fluttering Mizi flag, it was really a British fleet, and it was a super fleet. The fleet, it was really bad luck, and they collided head-on. Did the British know our retreat route and intercepted it on this road?

"Turn, turn, [-] degrees southwest, advance at full speed, increase the speed of the fleet to eleven knots, tell them to go all out, and blame God for those who fall behind. If things are really impossible, disband the formation and be blocked by the enemy. Allow They surrender."

Chapter 480 Where is the Rescue?

The fleet led by Jin Qishun encountered an enemy, and this enemy was a particularly ferocious enemy, who seemed to be quite powerful.

After discovering the enemy for the first time, Jin Qishun immediately ordered the fleet to turn around. The enemy was only [-] nautical miles away.

The fleet turned [-] degrees smoothly. Jin Qishun immediately sent a telegram to Song Qing who were fighting behind to inform them of the situation. When the enemy was only [-] nautical miles away, he ordered the fleet to turn [-] degrees further towards the southwest defense line. The fleet moved at a speed of [-] knots. Advance, half an hour later, the distance is only three nautical miles, it seems that the enemy is also advancing at this speed, or they saw Jin Qishun and they also increased their speed.

In short, after turning for half an hour, even if the speed was increased by another knot, reaching a speed of eleven knots, Jin Qishun's fleet was only nineteen nautical miles away from the enemy.

Jin Qishun knew that this was not going to work, the enemy would soon catch up with them. If the warships in the enemy fleet were all ironclad warships, the speed would only be an hour away. You must know that the fastest speed of the British ironclad warships was about nineteen knots.

Jin Qishun looked at the fourth officer, "The fleet is handed over to you. Immediately go to the first iron-clad battleship and lead the fleet to sail westward 150 degrees. If you have to, you are allowed to disband the formation and escape separately. I will lead the fleet. Block up and block the enemy."

After the four officers got off the battleship and drove to the fleet behind in a fast clipper boat, Jin Qishun ordered all the battleships capable of fighting to turn 160 degrees to the southwest and sail at an angle of more than 20 degrees from the direction the enemy came. , It is equivalent to letting the large fleet turn again. After a period of time, they slowly fell from the front of the fleet to the stern of the fleet.

After such a long voyage, they were actually more than 40 nautical miles away from where they blocked the enemy fleet in Song and Qing Dynasties.

The sun has just set, and the sky is still a little bright. Using this light to prevent the enemy from being able to find them is tantamount to a dream, so he has to hold the enemy back for at least an hour, so that the night is completely dark, and it is so dark that he cannot see far away. Otherwise, as long as the enemy stares at the shadow of the fleet and pursues them, they will be chased after about an hour.

Forty-five nautical miles, they had completely fallen behind the big fleet, and they were two nautical miles away from the turning figure of the big fleet. The enemy also began to turn around, and the sky gradually became dark. This fleet cannot avoid head-on encounters with the enemy.

The Grand Fleet was 21 nautical miles away, and the distance between them and the enemy was only [-] nautical miles.

At this time, they were already 56 nautical miles away from Song and Qing, and the time was three and a half hours. Because of Jin Qishun's constant change of direction, the distance from the battlefield where Song and Qing's fleet encountered the enemy fleet seemed much farther away. .

Jin Qishun didn't know why it was so late in the sea and the sea today.

Jin Qishun sent another telegram, reporting to Song Qing the observed situation of the enemy fleet and their positions, as well as the situation of the division of the large fleet again.

At thirteen nautical miles, Jin Qishun saw the figure of the enemy's warship turned black on the surface of the sea, but the enemy's speed was still not slow and was still approaching.

The fastest enemy reconnaissance fleet has rushed to five or six nautical miles, and in the last glimmer of light on the sea, both sides can already see each other's warship without binoculars.

The figure of the large fleet is still around six nautical miles. Jin Qishun knows that the enemy has accelerated again. Maybe the enemy is only at the speed of eleven or twelve knots at the beginning, or only a little faster than them, the speed of thirteen knots will allow them to gain speed again. After an hour and a half, as long as the large fleet is ten nautical miles away and no one is chasing it, it is almost impossible to see the figure of the warship so far away on the sea, so they can almost escape the pursuit of the enemy.

But at this time, he needs only fifteen wounded warships that he is now leading to complete the task of blocking the enemy's scouting and searching ships from passing by them and tracking the large fleet.

The six British second-class battleships captured from the enemy scattered and found the three fastest sailing scissor scissor ships rushed up by the enemy. These slender scout ships were originally used as long-distance communication ships. There are still many British sailors in the team. It is really because the sailing fleet of the entire country of the British is too large.

Even after many large-scale battles with Spain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the New Qin Empire, there are still many remaining warships of this kind. The smaller the warships, the better. The more things are built, the larger the size and the less advanced the technology is, it is pushed up from the base number of these warships at the bottom, which is hundreds of thousands.

Like sailing ships and armed merchant ships, the British have at least a million of them over the past few decades. They are used for business and as pirates to attack the enemy, to maintain the defense and communication of its increasingly large global colonies, to do business, and finally to fight against the enemy. There are also hundreds of thousands of ships for this kind of reconnaissance and communication. After more than 10,000 years of elimination of sailing ships with a tonnage of one thousand tons, the British still have [-]+. The number of sailing ships is also within tens of thousands, and due to the emergence of the New Qin Empire, these ships withered away relatively quickly.

The larger the sailing warship is, the faster it will die. In these years, on the contrary, although the steam engine has been around for nearly 50 years, and it has appeared in the West for more than 30 years, it has been popular for nearly a decade, and the base is very small. .