Lord of Ming Dynasty

At this time, the destroyer squadron was entangled by a patrol fleet of more than a dozen ships behind. The main fleet sent a small frigate squadron to help, and rushed to the open sea to cover the flanks to prevent other enemy fleets from approaching. The battle took half an hour to end. , captured an enemy destroyer, several ships here were slandered, one frigate, one destroyer, and several others were slightly injured.

This time they were careless. It was only because the destroyer team scattered too far and was entangled by the enemy. Other warships went to rescue and it was night, so they were severely damaged by the enemy and gathered the fleet. Zhang Siyuan thought of sending a telegram to ask the front team The destroyer team, because it was dark, even though Zhang Siyuan and the others opened the distance, the distance was not far, but it was still impossible to see the fleet a few nautical miles away at night, so when they heard the gunfire over there, they just thought that they were on the same side as the enemy. Fleet fights, don't care too much, because it will be resolved soon.

Unexpectedly, it would take an hour to fight over there. At this time, Zhang Siyuan dispatched the second destroyer team to speed up to support. The transport fleet, destroyer three and four teams went far away during the exchange of fire with the enemy, about ten nautical miles, far away from the previous one. It was five or six nautical miles away, so I didn't know what happened. I thought I could go back after destroying the enemy's patrol fleet. I didn't expect such a tragedy. It was Bensu's Spanish fleet, which made Zhang Siyuan vigilant.

After fighting for an hour, they took the fleet to chase and received a telegram after an hour and a half. At this time, the battle over there was over and they had already turned back. When they arrived at the battlefield, the burning wreckage of the sunken warship had not been completely extinguished. , the battle was fierce, and there were captured British people floating in the sea who were not rescued. They carefully screened and rescued more than a dozen other Chinese soldiers who were not rescued by the destroyer team and their own mercenaries, and continued Hurry up.

Later, it was found that the enemy's main warship had caught up, less than five nautical miles away.

The first thousand and 640 chapters of the decisive battle outside the port of Bensu 1

The first enemy fleets to catch up were some patrol warships, but Zhang Siyuan ignored them, took some time to rescue the personnel, and immediately chased his own transport fleet, while covering the injured warships to go first, the enemy patrol fleet did not dare to approach, so he Hanging like this, about 15 minutes later they arrived outside the port of Bensu, and the enemy's main fleet began to chase with open fire. The lights of the fleet behind were like fireflies on the sea, dotted with stars.

The fourth destroyer team and the third team took an hour to reach the port of Ceuta with the transport fleet. At this time, the frigate team, Zhang Yuan came with a frigate team and a destroyer team left behind to meet the transport fleet and the fourth destroyer team. , and the wounded battleship entered the port, and saw that there was nothing serious, the frigate squad and the destroyer squad, the two squads had a total of fifteen warships to meet Zhang Siyuan and his fleet, and encountered a slightly injured destroyer squad on the way. The third squad was ordered Assisting the fourth destroyer team to defend the port, Zhang Yuan continued to set off.

At this time, it was almost dawn, and the east was already a little pale.

But Zhang Siyuan and their main fleet had just passed Bensu, and Bensu's shore artillery fired unexpectedly. Zhang Siyuan was very depressed, and ordered twelve warships from the frigate squad to bombard the enemy's fort, the cruiser squad and the destroyer squad, and the second squad turned around. After a while, he was irritated by the Spaniards, and he was about to take the port of Bensu.

The status of the ports of Bensu and Ceuta is like the thicker end of the goat's horn, and the port of Ceuta is the sharp corner on top of the goat's horn.

Originally, because the population was too small and the range of military defense was not large, I didn't think about destroying this port. Now it seems that I can't do it. If there is a chance, he plans to destroy the port from Hughes to Tangier, occupy it, and directly take Spain People on this side of the coast have occupied all the colonies on the African coast. This area is not small, only slightly smaller than the main island of Newfoundland. This will be the place where I stand here.

Of course, it is not bad to occupy Bensu now. Its area is as large as a medium-sized county in the Chinese Empire, and it may be larger than the Hong Kong Island of the later generations of the Chinese Empire.

Maybe he can be the monarch of a country like Singapore in later generations, and collect tolls through the golden waterway. This place is much larger than that tiny place in Singapore.

It’s not important to think so much. The important thing is to survive. The enemy’s patrol fleet is coming more and more. There are about forty ships in the fire. of the sea.

The frigate team here has destroyed most of the enemy's shore artillery batteries, and is stepping up efforts to destroy the enemy's other deep harbor batteries. The second destroyer team withdrew back to join the shelling ranks, and carried out bombardment of the enemy's waterways, buildings and some obstacles next to the port. Shelling, a small group is still confronting the enemy's patrol fleet in front, it seems that the enemy's main fleet has not arrived yet.

Zhang Siyuan thought for a while, and then sent a report to Lieutenant Baozi who was far away in Huceima, asking him to lead a frigate squadron to support him. It seemed that a big battle was about to take place. Huceima was a bit far away, and it might take three or four hours to get there.

Now he wants to use four cruisers, 28 frigates, and 40 destroyers to fight a decisive battle with the British African fleet. The British African fleet is estimated to have more than [-] auxiliary battleships, destroyers, patrol fleet steam engine battleships, and [-] main ships The battleship fought a tough battle.

In less than 15 minutes, Zhang Yuan and the others arrived, and Zhang Siyuan ordered to re-formation, four squadrons of cruisers and destroyers, and [-] frigates were under Zhang Yuan's command to face the enemy's main battleships.

The task of the frigate is to hold back the enemy's main fleet, and come back to help them after Zhang Siyuan and the others have wiped out the enemy's auxiliary fleet.

It’s about an hour’s voyage from Ceuta port, and about three hours’ voyage from Al Hoceima. It’s almost dawn, and Zhang Siyuan wants to fight a decisive battle after dawn, which is conducive to taking advantage of their warship’s precision shooting, otherwise In the dark night, the number of enemies is superior, which may not be conducive to exerting their quality advantages.

The frigates were prepared first, and lined up in battle formation to meet the enemy. The enemy's auxiliary fleet dispersed one after another, but the frigates were not forgiving. They spotted a patrol fleet of the enemy and eight warships fired violently. When they fired, the enemy's The main fleet reached six nautical miles away.

At this time, Zhang Siyuan had just reassigned the sailors and personnel brought by Zhang Yuan and the others to the destroyers and cruisers. In the previous battles, both personnel and ammunition suffered a relatively large loss. Those who are going to be hit by the enemy will inevitably suffer casualties. The third and fourth squadrons of the destroyer were sent to send the wounded away, but there were not enough personnel on the battleship to continue the battle. They bombarded the enemy's port fort and dispatched small boats Adjust the personnel of the fleet.

Nowadays, there are still many frigates behind those frigates with insufficient personnel, and the small boats are still chasing after the supplementary personnel. The first frigate squadron with a full crew, Zhang Yuan and his flagship frigate squadron do not need to replenish personnel, and fight directly. The remaining two frigates The team, the team following Zhang Siyuan's battle is still replenishing personnel.

The seven warships of the frigate squad entered the enemy's patrol fleet. It was a godsend to kill the gods. People blocked the entry. They fired a salvo every 3 minutes and directly killed one of the enemy's steam engine warships and one sail warship. The flames of the explosion made the sea surface It was as bright as day, and the accuracy rate of the frigate team was immediately improved. The frigate team rushed and fired all the way. The second frigate team, following Zhang Siyuan and their seven warships, was reorganized as the second frigate team and rushed over.

The third team, following Zhang Siyuan's second team, was now reorganized into the third team. Five frigates rushed over and directly faced the twenty warships that had gathered together from the enemy.

After the cruiser formation was completed, Zhang Yuan handed over the cruiser, which is now under the command of Zhang Siyuan, and rushed over immediately. Together with them were the sixteen destroyers of the first and second destroyer squadrons, and the third and fourth destroyers. The team is still adjusting.

The first and second destroyer squadrons spread out for five or six nautical miles, dragging down the other destroyers and patrol warships that surrounded the enemy. The four cruisers with nearly a hundred artillery pieces helped the five frigates of the third frigate squadron to disperse the enemy's [-] A large number of warships of the patrol fleet successfully sent five frigates to join Zhang Yuan's frigate.

Zhang Yuan and his fourteen warships had just passed through the encirclement of the enemy's patrol fleet and destroyer fleet, and the enemy's main fleet arrived. Against the background of the blue sky, huge figures of warships appeared in front of everyone's eyes. Inside the pupils, the waves of warships covering the sea surface came one after another.

The solitary fourteen frigates look like Don Quixote knights riding horses to challenge the windmills.

The first thousand 640 chapter two decisive battle outside the port of Bensu 2

It is said that Zhang Yuan’s fourteen frigates had rushed over, facing the enemy’s main fleet that was still lit and scattered across the exit of the wide strait like stars and stars under the background of the blue sky that gradually faded at dawn, feeling a little dazed, Behind them was a salvo of fire from cruisers, and the exploding patrol ships and auxiliary warships were like torches, turning the sea that was bright just now into darkness.

The two sides are separated by a nautical mile, and the leading battleship on the opposite side has already fired at all. After being at a loss, the side immediately maneuvers at high speed, while twisting and twisting dance movements like snakes, while firing back, and responding with a wedge formation. Attack of enemy warships flooding the sea.

Zhang Siyuan looked at the battle situation over there worriedly. The telescope was full of gunpowder smoke and explosion flames. He couldn't see anything clearly, but everyone knew that fourteen warships would not be much better. After opening the gap here, the last five warships, five The warships of the third frigate team still rushed over, propping up an opening, and the enemy's main battleship was divided into two sides.

And here his four cruisers are like slaughtering chickens with a sledgehammer, like cutting canned food with a big knife, they are full of broken canned liquids and fruits, food, and the wreckage of the enemy battleship explosion on the corpses of the four enemy battleships blooming on both sides The gunpowder smoke and flames after the bombardment continued to bloom.

Cruisers clean them up like fleas and flies. The lack of accuracy can be compensated by firepower. Four cruisers, one with twelve turrets, one turret is two 120mm guns, and one ship is 24 guns. With 96 cannons, a single salvo can cover a ship. If the scatter is bigger, the enemy's ships will run out of fire range if they are fast. At least two shells will be hit, and then those steam engine battleships with a tonnage of less than [-] tons will be finished with one. A destroyer with a hull of four to five thousand tons will be finished with at most three shells.

After destroying three to five enemy warships along the way, none of the enemy warships dared to approach the ferocious cruiser. Those who have passed the enemy, specifically look for those more advanced destroyers to attack, because that is a generation of warships, the British generation of iron-clad ships, compared with steam engine warships, they are more threatening to destroyers. Many of their destroyers were captured by the British, and the British Human warships will not be too far apart. With the British's superiority in quantity, they have no quality advantage. Therefore, in order to save some trouble for the destroyer team, Zhang Siyuan and the others have to find the enemy's destroyer to kill.

There are quite a few destroyer squads. There were four squads originally, and the fourth squad lost some. After taking the captured transport ships and switching defenses with the destroyer squad left behind in the port, the eight battleships of the left-behind destroyer squad replaced the previous eight destroyers. In the fourth squadron, 28 destroyers faced the enemy's auxiliary fleet composed of more than 40 patrol ships and destroyers. It was not a big deal, because they had captured two-thirds of the enemy's British-style warships, so they did not have an advantage in quality. The overall combat effectiveness is lower than that of the enemy's auxiliary fleet.

The four cruisers sank the enemy's four steam engine battleships at the beginning, seriously injured the enemy's two destroyers, and somewhat regained a small numerical disadvantage for this side. The battle lasted for half an hour, and the sky was already bright, but during this time period, Over there, the enemy's warships were also captured to face the enemy's main battleships. They also did not have an advantage in terms of quality. The enemy was very familiar with their warships. Therefore, within half an hour, the five warships of the third frigate squadron lost one warship and were seriously injured. One, Zhang Yuan and his frigate of the New Qin State who rushed forward were seriously injured. Under such circumstances, the enemy's [-] main battleships were not stopped. When they got here, their auxiliary fleet was killed a lot, so fifteen warships were separated and rushed over.

There were still five or six nautical miles from here to there. Zhang Siyuan and the others damaged an enemy destroyer again, and a cruiser was besieged by enemy destroyers. Prisoners, two handyman Sudanese soldiers on board.

Zhang Siyuan commanded the fleet to shrink back, try to widen the distance from the other side, seize the time to attack the enemy's auxiliary warships, hoping to severely damage the enemy's auxiliary warships in a limited time, and then use a considerable force to face the enemy main fleet.

This battle was forced out. If the number of enemy warships is not reduced as much as possible on the periphery, once they are surrounded by the enemy and they hide in the port, then so many of their warships will become a display. The narrow port and the wide Mediterranean Sea , the enemy must be more flexible than them. The enemy can wait for time and think of ways to attack at will, but they can't exert their advantages and can only be beaten passively, so this battle must be fought.

It took the enemy warships 10 minutes to come here, and the 28 warships of the destroyer team took 10 minutes plus the previous half an hour to sink eight enemy steam engine battleships, three destroyers, and severely damage five enemy steam engine battleships. , plus the battleships of the enemy's auxiliary fleet destroyed and severely damaged by the cruiser squad, of the more than 40 enemy warships, almost 45 were severely damaged or destroyed, which is equivalent to annihilating half of the enemy's auxiliary fleet within [-] minutes.

As for the destroyers of the third team, the fourth team, and the second team, one was sunk and one was severely damaged, and the total loss was about six ships. After all, the third and second teams were composed of the enemy's captured warships. There are more injured, but they are still fighting.

Zhang Siyuan saw the enemy's fifteen main warships rushing over, so he could only give up the battle with the enemy's auxiliary fleet, throw off the enemy's auxiliary warships, and turn around to face the enemy's main warships. The cruisers commanded have a quality advantage. Almost one cruiser can block the attack of two and a half enemy ships, and can easily defeat the attack of two enemy ships. However, there are too many enemies. to the attack of twelve ships.

But if you can't bear it, you have to resist. The frigate over there lost another one. It was the enemy's main battleship and was besieged by three of the enemy's main battleships. It only caused some insignificant personnel damage to the enemy. During the 10-minute siege, it was wiped out, and the battleship rolled over into the sea. The reassigned crew members on the battleship had just boarded the ship less than an hour ago, a total of 66 people, plus 45 people assigned to the original battleship, more than 100 people, It disappeared into the sea directly, without even being destroyed for escape.

It seems that using British warships to fight against the British is indeed not worth the loss, and it is definitely not as good as the British in terms of combat effectiveness and proficiency.The losses were the battleships of the frigate's second squadron.

The first thousand and 640 chapters and three delaying tactics

After the loss of one of the second frigate squadrons, there were eleven warships left in total. One of the frigates of the New Qin State that had suffered heavy losses was besieged by the enemy's main flanking warships before it escaped from the battlefield. After causing the loss of two open turrets of an enemy warship, they were sunk unwillingly, and the people who fell into the water were crushed by a large number of enemy warships. Many people were crushed into the sea, and the blood flowed The predators in the sea came, and the patronage of the sharks, the crew members of both sides floating in the sea screamed again and again, and swarmed to swim to their own boats, and many sharks behind them chased their food.

And what about the enemy battleships?

Judging from the enemy situation report sent by Zhang Yuan, the enemy has at least 66 main battleships, which are all the remaining British fleet in Africa. Previously, they sank at least 120 warships of the auxiliary fleet and seriously injured more than 200 ships. One ship wiped out an African fleet. The British were rich and powerful, and immediately assembled an upgraded version of the African colonial fleet, with [-] main battleships and more than [-] auxiliary warships.

In Zhang Siyuan's battle with the Spanish and British African fleet for nearly half a year, they sank nearly [-] Spanish auxiliary warships of various types, and the main battleship numbered [-] to [-] , but the Spaniards are not strong enough, they were attacked by them, and the Spaniards wanted to attack their ports with full artillery firepower. The defensive side always loses less than the offensive side, so the Spaniards were tossed and lost Control over the Mediterranean, then retreat to the Atlantic.

The African fleet upgraded by the British lost more than 60 main warships twice in the Mediterranean Sea, and lost more than 30 auxiliary warships. After they arrived at the port of Ceuta, they were lost in half a year. There are more than 100 auxiliary warships. Now the British's African colonial fleet is estimated to be here. Now they even have the port where the main fleet is stationed. Can you not be angry?

So even if they retreat to the port, the two ports, their strength is now unable to defend, and the Al Huceima port must be taken first. Their agriculture, fortifications, and food reserve bases, where they are lost, they will become rootless, and their warships will always be lost. There is no place for repair and maintenance in the port of Ceuta. Now some repairs are almost completed, but The level of technology and parts is not as much as the Al Hoceima port.

Having said so much, it is just one sentence, two ports must be guarded, if one is lost, they will die without a place to bury them, but there is not enough troops, the warship may be captured, but it takes a long time to train a sailor.

The escort fleet couldn't keep so many main battleships of the enemy. After leaving twenty main battleships to besiege eleven frigates, the enemy's main battleships were rushing towards this side one after another, and Zhang Siyuan deliberately kept the fleet away. It has already retreated to the sea area east of Bensu Port, about ten nautical miles away, and the destroyer fleet keeps retreating, attracting the attack of warships from the enemy's auxiliary fleet.

They have lost a lot of destroyers here, and there are only about 25 destroyers. In addition, there are only [-] cruisers. The enemy's [-] main battleships are on the way again, so the morale of the enemy's auxiliary fleet is greatly boosted. They rushed towards them bravely, even if they were severely injured, they still wanted to keep them.

While fighting and retreating, Zhang Siyuan's purpose was to delay the time, waiting for another escort fleet and the left-behind destroyer squadron from Al Huceima port to come.

The battle lasted for an hour and a half, and now they should be halfway. In order to fight against the enemy, Zhang Siyuan ordered the destroyer's original fourth squadron to go back half an hour ago, and now the left-behind battleship numbered fifth squadron will be reorganized immediately When they come back to fight in the future, it only takes an hour to get here, so the closer they retreat to the door, the faster the fifth destroyer team will come.

The Sixth Destroyer Squad, the Destroyer Squad left behind by Hoceima, the Fourth Frigate Squad, and the frigate squad led by Lieutenant Baozi also got closer to them.