Chapter 280: Sword pointed at Japan () ambush, its really coming
In this era, night fighting is disastrous for most armies. Only some elites with sufficient supplies and balanced meals can avoid the effects of night blindness.
However, even if night blindness is eliminated, night fighting itself is very difficult. Not to mention this time, even the modern armies of later generations rarely actively choose night fighting before night vision devices are popularized. [For example, in the Russia-Ukraine war,
Both sides try to avoid night fighting.]
Night battles are often synonymous with chaos. No matter the initiating party or the responding party, no one knows what the final fight will be like, so they will try to avoid it in most cases. Throughout the history of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign wars, every night attack occurs.
, almost all are gambling attacks launched by the weaker side.
Judging from the current maritime situation of the Ming and Japanese armies, the Ming army is naturally the dominant side and the Japanese army is naturally the weak side. However, when it comes to the specific area where the fighting is taking place at this time, the situation is completely reversed.
Although most of the Japanese fleet's main ships (if the "Tang-like large ship", that is, the armed transport ship and Anzha ship purchased from Beijing, are regarded as the main force) were mobilized to attract the Japanese and Japanese fleets that blockaded Pusan, they still have an advantage here.
They have four "Tang-like large ships" and six large Anzha ships, as well as dozens of small morning ships and Guanzhou ships. The Ming army only has a total of four armed transport ships, and they have not been "iron-armored". In theory, their defense power
Not as good as Japanese ships.
Of course, the disadvantages of "iron armor" have been exposed in the battle just now. The worrying speed during the pursuit battle almost declared that "there is no such ship", just like the saying: You can't keep up with the hot ones even if you eat shit.
However, even if there is such a problem, the traditional thinking is difficult to shake. Since all Japanese naval forces at that time liked to use baked jade for fire attacks, "iron armor" became a piece of equipment that was just needed.
In Japan, "Horori" is actually a kind of clay pot, and Hiraudama is a grenade-like weapon that is filled with gunpowder in this clay pot-shaped container, ignites the fuse, and is thrown at the enemy.
But they are different from today's grenades in Jinghua. Pottery such as baked jade has a rope on it. It is thrown by centrifugal force through circular swings. Its main purpose is to kill enemy soldiers. Of course, it can also ignite nearby wooden structures.
This is somewhat similar to modern incendiary bombs. The explosive force and fragments of the container are the main force of killing, and the power of fire is actually lower. It was most used by the Seto Inland Sea navy such as the Murakami Navy, Nomi Navy, and Kodama Navy.
.
Not only ships, since East Asian countries are greatly influenced by China, most of the buildings are made of wood, so the use of baked jade can be more extensive. [Note: I vaguely remember writing in the previous article of this book why ancient Chinese buildings are mostly made of wood.
?Here is a sentence summary: Under the Five Elements thought, only wood is suitable for raising people, so wooden buildings are generally used in Confucian cultural circles.]
Compared with the widespread use of baked jade in medium and long-range attacks commonly used by the Japanese army, China originally also liked to use various fire attack methods. However, China is far wealthier than Japan. In the early days of fire attack, special fire attack ships were often arranged.
Most of the Japanese forces cannot learn how to play, so they focus on the method of baking jade.
Of course, East Asian civilization originated in China, so fire attack methods similar to roasted jade actually originated from China. The "Wu Jing Zong Yao" of the Northern Song Dynasty called grenade-like bombs "iron cones", and Japan's "baked jade"
"Jade" actually follows this title.
China has subsequently developed more similar weapons. The firearms of the Ming Dynasty are really diverse. For example, the "Flying Fire Crow", which has been eliminated by the Ming army after the high-pragmatic military reform, looks like a concentrated launcher in terms of effect.
Style baked jade - the evolved version belongs to.
In order to simplify logistics, Gao Pragmatic greatly reduced the types of Ming military firearms. Long-range heavy firearms were directly cut down to only two categories, namely artillery and rockets.
In terms of artillery, since more than 20 years have passed and we have still not been able to develop real explosive shells, we mainly rely on the impact of heavy solid projectiles to attack fortresses and kill enemies.
Rockets still retain some explosion, ignition and other functions, but they are also based on different specifications of rockets to achieve combat purposes. As for the so-called "poisonous smoke" rockets in the past, they were axed by Gao Pragmatic.
It’s not that he had a heart attack and refused poison gas bombs - in this era, there was no Geneva Convention to restrict the Ming Dynasty. The main reason is that the so-called poison gas at this stage is too ineffective, and if you want it to be effective, the cost is completely unacceptable.
In Gao's pragmatic view, except for some low-cost poisons that can be produced according to local conditions in some areas of the southwest, it is basically impossible to mass-produce, preserve, and transport poisons that can be used on the battlefield. This requires a powerful chemical industry to do.
We simply don’t have that level of technology and production capabilities now.
Closer to home, the Japanese navy has been suffering from the attacks of baked jade in the past. Of course, its tactical thinking will be limited by the "anti-baked jade", and it has insufficient understanding of the artillery operations of the Ming army that has transformed.
They thought that covering their warships with a thin layer of iron would improve their defense. This was sheer nonsense in the eyes of the Beijing-China fleet, which was guided by highly pragmatic tactics.
How do you expect your iron sheet, which is at most a few millimeters thick, to be able to withstand shelling? What should be smashed should be smashed to pieces.
However, in the era of sail power, the speed of warships was originally very limited. Using the measurement standards of later generations, it was only 7 or 8 knots most of the time, and the fastest might be more than ten knots.
In this case, if the waterline of your wooden warship is covered with a few millimeters of iron, it will definitely seriously affect the speed. This is not a matter of choosing between fish and bear's paw, but I want neither fish nor bear's paw. I choose
A piece of chicken ribs.
In fact, both Toudo Takatora and Wakisaka Anji have discovered through the previous confrontation that the speed problem has a great impact. However, this problem obviously cannot be solved technically immediately. Temporary tactical adjustments can only be made, which is the two-wing outflank proposed by Toudo Takatora.
Advance.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The question is, what will happen to the four ships of the Ming Army?
The Japanese army's change of formation has been detected by the four ships of the Ming army. Gao Lichuan snorted and said: "The Japanese and Guizhou donkeys are so incompetent that they do all these useless things. They can't defeat them with small boats, but I can move with big boats. It seems like everything is stable."
His two wings are light and the center is heavy. I only need to attack one of his wings to defeat him."
The first mate beside him smiled and said: "It's easy to beat them, but captain, our mission is not to defeat them. If we really beat them away, I'm afraid we will be held accountable if we go back."
Gao Lichuan said with some annoyance: "I think the training of the Japanese pirates' navy is really bad. If I have ten ships... no, as long as I have eight ships, and they are further away from the coastline, then within three days I can defeat them all."
Annihilate this Japanese pirate navy.
But it's hard to do now. We only have four ships. We can hurt them, but it's difficult to annihilate them. After all, they have so many ships. If it's really difficult, they can scatter and flee. We can't catch up even if we want to, so we can only be honest.
The enemy is lured deeper."
The first mate asked: "They set up a pursuit posture, but obviously they can't increase their speed. Captain, what do you think?"
Gao Lichuan knew what he wanted to ask. He shook his head and said: "If we don't fight tonight, we might get criticized if we turn back from the night battle. Anyway, their steady pursuit can't catch up with us, so just hang them up. Order, everyone tonight
The ship must keep a safe distance and wait until tomorrow morning."
"What if the other party stops chasing me?" the first mate asked again.
Gao Lichuan snorted: "If they don't chase us, we will get close to them. Anyway, we can't let them rest peacefully. Hey, we'll tire them out tonight. The main force will ambush them tomorrow so we can beat them up. After the war, we won't be able to discuss our merits."
Our four ships will count as one extra share."
Well, in the final analysis, recording merit is the last word. But this is not surprising. After all, ideological progress depends on the improvement of education. In addition, it is also affected by various aspects such as status, family environment, life development, etc.
Influence.
As a servant of the Gao family, Gao Lichuan was not originally a member of the sixth family, but a son of the fourth family. Later, as Gao Lichuan's pragmatic status became more and more distant from other members of the family, the family power of the Gao family also changed.
In fact, we arrived at the sixth room.
As a result, Gao Lichuan was able to develop better. It was not easy for him to climb up to the captain step by step. There are many levels above the captain, so it is natural to value recording of merit.
The two sides had decided on a plan, and the Japanese navy pursued them in the first half of the night, but because it was already dark, their speed was not even as fast as before. As the four Ming ships returned from the same route, they were more familiar with the sea conditions and walked very smoothly.
Calmly and always maintained an appropriate distance from the Japanese navy.
In the second half of the night, the Japanese naval forces were tired of chasing because they had to be ready for battle at all times. Not only did their speed drop further, but they also realized that it was impossible to catch up tonight, so they started taking shifts to let some people take a break.
The four ships of the Ming Army quickly discovered the changes in the Japanese navy. Unfortunately, the semaphore at night did not work well, and the light signals were not as comprehensive as the semaphore. It took half an hour to finally coordinate the order and launch a launch attack on the Japanese navy.
Small approaching bombardment.
In terms of results, the significance of this shelling was very small - after all, the technical limitations were here, and the accuracy of the shelling during the day was very worrying, let alone at night. It was obviously a huge battle with little results.
However, having said that, it still disturbed the Japanese navy and had no choice but to wake up those who had just fallen asleep to fight. At the same time, this round of shelling by the four ships of the Ming army also caused the "anger value" of the Japanese navy to soar.
I vowed to wait until dawn and catch up with these four Ming warships with all my strength and teach them a lesson.
The servants and sailors of the four ships of the Ming Army are not tough people, and exhaustion also envelopes them. However, they are not worried about tomorrow. After all, according to the scheduled plan, the Japanese army will be led into the ambush circle tomorrow morning, and then the main fleet will take over.
After completing the subsequent missions, they can rest peacefully.
The two sides finally managed to survive until dawn, but trouble came. At this time, the two sides had actually arrived at Yupu Bay. However, there was heavy fog in Yupu Bay early this morning, and the visibility dropped sharply.
Because the coastline of southern Korea is as complicated as a dog bite, and there are so many islands and reefs, even the four ships of the Ming Army that had been around for a while did not dare to run wildly in the heavy fog. The much larger Japanese navy
Not to mention the army, the speed of both sides has slowed down visibly.
Takahikawa was even more worried that the Japanese navy would lose track of them, so he had to close the distance between the two fleets. What he didn't expect was that this move aroused the vigilance of Anji Wakisaka.
Anji Wakisaka reminded Takatora Todo that the various actions of the four Ming ships indicated that there might be an ambush ahead, just like the tactics Yi Sun-shin had used many times before.
Takatora Todo also attached great importance to this, so the two called some of their subordinates to discuss how to deal with it. Perhaps because Yi Sun-shin had impressed them so deeply before, the Japanese navy thought that they might as well take advantage of the fog to break into Okpo Bay and seize it first.
Check out the situation at Okpo Port.
This opinion was actually first put forward by Wakisaka Yasuji, and Takatora Toudo disagreed with it. He believed that although he had not heard that the Ming army had a large-scale garrison in Yupo before, and based on time, the main force of the Japanese army going south might be at this time.
A sneak attack has been made to Sichuan. Even if the Ming army originally had troops stationed in Yupu, they should now retreat to Sichuan for emergency relief.
However, since our side has been at sea, this battle situation is just a guess, and we cannot be sure whether it is true, so we should still remain vigilant, which means we must consider whether the navy can capture Okpo.
Another point is that Todo Takatora is also doubtful about whether the Ming Navy really still has the strength to set up an ambush in the offshore waters of Sichuan - after all, the Ming Navy outside the Busan Port is already extremely large, and the blockade mission they are performing is obviously the most severe.
Importantly, the Ming army should not have left a powerful fleet in Sichuan as a display besides themselves.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! After hearing this, Anji Wakisaka retorted: "The Ming army is not the imperial army. We can only have a high opinion of their strength but not a low opinion. The people outside Busan Port
The fleet of the Ming Dynasty is indeed very large, but who can guarantee that their entire strength will be limited to that?"
This statement cannot be proven or falsified before seeing the possible ambush circle of the Ming Army. Therefore, Takatora Toudo had to change his statement and said: "If the Ming Navy Navy does have such a powerful force,
So I can’t help but ask, if we go to Okpo now, we will be trapped in a trap? What should we do if we go to Okpo Port and are blocked like in Busan?”
This question was like using one's spear to attack the other's shield. Wakisaka Anji was also speechless for a moment. After thinking about it, he had no good ideas, so he had to ask back: "What do you think of His Highness Itoudo now? I won't say to simply withdraw.
Busan, right?”
Not to mention, after Toudo Takatora discovered that there might be a Ming army trap ahead, he really felt that the prospect of this battle was worrying. It would be safer to retreat to Busan, and at least there would be a chance to preserve his strength - he actually had an "existence fleet" inexplicably.
Thoughts are magical enough.
However, this military meeting that failed to reach an agreement quickly had to be temporarily terminated because the fog cleared at this time, and the lookout hand on a "Tang-like ship" of the Japanese Navy suddenly knocked at a very fast pace.
A warning gong was sounded to signal the discovery of a large number of enemy warships.
The ambush is really coming.
The expressions of Takatora Toudo and Anji Wakisaka changed greatly.
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