After Ouyang Gui ordered the fleet to split into two, the main fleet began to turn to the left, preparing to meet the enemy fleet head-on, while the transport fleet led by Captain Li Yanxi turned to the right, preparing to continue crossing the sea and landing.
Although the transport fleet is composed of unarmed civilian ships, and the armed ships that provide cover and support only have two warships of less than 100 tons, the most dangerous ones are definitely not them, but the main fleet.
The main fleet has a total of sixteen armed merchant ships and more than thirty small ships. Although this number seems to be more than fifty, in fact the firepower of the entire fleet cannot even compare with the firepower of a five or six hundred ton ship.
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The Ming Navy on the opposite side had more than 20 large ships and more than 30 small ships.
Of course, the ships of the Ming Navy were not big, and the big ships were only over a hundred tons, and the firepower of their equipment was just that.
But one fact that needs to be paid attention to here is that the navy of the Ming Dynasty is weak, and it is also a professional navy. As for the Navy of the Tang Dynasty, it has only been in the navy for half a year, and most of the naval officers in it are from the army.
, except for several small-scale inland river battles with the Ming Navy in the Xijiang River Basin, there were no large-scale naval battles at all.
This can be seen from the formation of the fleets on both sides.
Although the Ming Navy on the opposite side has more ships, their formation is more dense, and the intervals between the ships are relatively even. It can be seen at a glance that experienced sailors are manning the ships.
However, as for the main fleet of the Tang Navy, although the number of ships is smaller and the morale is extremely high, this still cannot conceal the fact that they have no combat experience, and even the formation of the fleet cannot be maintained.
When the main fleet began to speed up and sprint to seize the upper hand, the fleet's formation was in chaos. The sixteen large ships led by Ouyang Gui personally were fine, but the more than thirty small ships became a mess.
However, chaos returned to chaos, but they still rushed forward without hesitation towards the Ming Navy, which was stronger, more numerous, and more experienced than them!
If there is any advantage between the Tang Navy and the Ming Navy at this time, it is only morale!
Most of the army officers, whether they are officers or soldiers, were transferred from the army, and the Tang Army was able to defeat the Ming Army. Both confidence and morale were very high. In this situation, even after they changed careers
After the Navy, it was still retained.
So even though they were at a disadvantage, they still rushed forward without hesitation!
"The enemy ships have also begun to turn!"
"They want to compete with my fleet for the upper hand!"
"No, their position is more conducive to seizing the upper hand!"
In the command room aboard the Lianzhou, a group of naval staff officers were constantly making calculations using various tools on the drawings. However, the more they calculated, the uglier their faces became!
Ouyang Gui naturally heard what they said and immediately turned around: "What's wrong? Can't we get the upper hand?"
At this time, Colonel Shi Dian, the chief of staff of the Second Fleet, came over and said with a slight frown: "Sir, the situation is not good. The enemy fleet turned around ten minutes ago. According to their course and speed, they will get it before us.
Upwind, this will be very detrimental to our subsequent operations!"
Ouyang Gui: "What is their speed and heading?"
Shi Dian: "The enemy ship is heading 315 degrees and traveling at a speed of six kilometers!"
Ouyang Gui: "What about us?"
Shi Dian: "Our course is two two five, and the speed is five kilometers!"
Ouyang Gui paused slightly at this time, and then said: "Since we can't gain the upper hand, we won't do it and turn to 180 degrees!"
Shi Dian looked anxious: "In this case, they can gain the upper hand and deal a blow to our army!"
Ouyang Guidao: "They are going to gain the upper hand, and we will go directly across the strait. Aren't these two completely unrelated things? Don't worry, what is the mission of my main fleet? It is to entangle the enemy fleet, not to annihilate it!"
At this time, Shi Dian showed a look of sudden realization: "Yes, why do we have to take the initiative to find them? Just block them. It's okay if we don't have the windward position. They will definitely not sit back and watch my fleet cross the strait directly.
You must give up on grabbing the flavor and come over to intercept us!"
Ouyang Gui said: "Isn't that right? Don't worry, this battle won't be over for a while!"
Shi Dian also nodded slightly and said: "My lord, what you have pointed out is that with our current speed of two fleets meeting at eight kilometers and five or six kilometers an hour, it would take an hour to get closer to each other. If there is not three to five hours, this battle will not be completed."
, and these few hours are enough for the transport fleet to cross the strait!"
Listening to Ouyang Gui and Shi Dian talking for an hour, talking for a kilometer, someone from the Ming Navy would be confused after listening to it, this is not understandable!
This is naturally because the units of measurement used by the Navy Department of the Tang Dynasty are quite special. They do not continue to use the traditional old system, nor the foreign system commonly used by foreigners, but the new system advocated by Li Xuan.
The measurement units of the Tang Dynasty originally used the old system, but Li Xuan was not used to using the old system units, and the various regulations of the old system were not uniform. For the same one foot, there were various different ones.
The length, construction ruler, tailoring ruler, etc. are actually different, and there is a big difference between them, which is extremely inappropriate for the development of industrial technology.
Therefore, Li Xuan began to advocate the use of the new system as early as the Huang Zhushan era, and used it as a political propaganda slogan of the new dynasty and new measurements. Therefore, although no one except Li Xuan knew and used the new system measurement units before, now they
He was already widely active within the Tang Dynasty.
Of course, completely replacing the old system is not something that can be accomplished overnight, or even ever.
Therefore, the units of measurement in the Tang Dynasty are relatively complicated today. The old system and the new system are mixed, so you can often see that when troops use distance units, they use centimeters, meters, and kilometers, but occasionally they also use miles, feet, and steps.
Equal units, while the weight unit still uses the old system, the time unit is the old system, and the new system is in parallel.
Li Xuan was naturally dissatisfied with this. For the needs of scientific research, he had already made a complete set of promotion plans for the new system. He wanted to replace the traditional old system with the thorough metric system commonly used in later generations, laying a measurement foundation for subsequent scientific development.
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Because the Ministry of Industry and the Army were established earlier, habits are more difficult to change, but new affairs such as the Navy are easy to change. If it were not for the unification of models, the Navy would want to change the weight statistics of artillery to the metric system, and it is still
They are distinguished by caliber and barrel length. They are no longer directly distinguished by the weight of the shells as in the past, nor are they distinguished by the weight of the artillery like the Ming army.
Moreover, the Navy has not given up on this idea. The Navy will officially increase the schedule in the future. Li Xuan also supports this.
After Ouyang Gui ordered the main fleet to turn to the 180 position, the main fleet changed to sail due south, and the due south position was Qiongzhou Island.
As for the transport fleet, it is located about eight kilometers northeast of the main force.
The Ming Navy on the opposite side also discovered the turn of the main fleet of the Second Fleet at the first time. After all, the weather is clear now and the field of vision is very good. Even if the Ming Navy does not have telescopes, it can still rely on visual inspection to detect it as soon as possible.
Discovered the turn of the Second Fleet of the Tang Navy.
As a result, they quickly turned around and sailed northeast.
The turn of the Ming Navy was almost as expected by Ouyang Gui. The Ming Navy gave up on seizing the upper hand and went directly to intercept.
Of course, with the current distance between the Ming Navy and the transport fleet, it is impossible for them to discover the transport fleet eight kilometers northeast of the main fleet of the Tang Navy.
After the two sides turned again, the distance between the two sides continued to shrink!
However, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the wind direction changed to due west. After Ouyang Gui learned about it, he immediately ordered the main fleet to turn to the southwest. At this time, the wind direction was due west, and at the same time, the Ming Navy was about due south of them.
It's about a thousand meters away. If everything goes well, I might be able to seize the upper hand.
The Ming navy on the opposite side was not to be outdone. In fact, they had to turn to steal the wind earlier.
The frontmost ships of both sides were already less than a kilometer away from each other, and they were still getting closer. The big ships of both sides were still turning, but the small ships of the Ming army had already separated from the group one after another, and were rapidly moving towards the main fleet of the Tang Navy.
near.
These boats are faster and can turn very flexibly. Even the sailors on board can use oars to speed up the boat.
When the Ming army's small boats took action, the temporarily recruited small boats in the Second Fleet of the Tang Navy also took action. The goals of the small boats on both sides were quite clear, which was to swarm towards the other side's big ship!
And not surprisingly, both sides may use similar tactics: fire attack!
The fleets of both sides are actually similar. The capital ships are not professional gunboats. They are all traditional sea ships such as Guangzhou Ship, Fu Ship, and Sand Ship. They are not equipped with many artillery, so it is difficult to attack by artillery battle alone.
The best way to sink an enemy ship is to attack with a fire ship, and then directly attack it to engage in a gang-hopping battle.
Although the two sides have not yet engaged in battle, the smell of gunpowder between them is already very strong. The gunners of the battleships in the Second Fleet have already loaded their cannons and are waiting for the order to fire.
While the fireships of both sides continued to maneuver quickly to look for opportunities, the main fleets of both sides were only about 500 meters away from each other. This distance was already the effective range of the nine-pound cannon on the Lianzhou.
Although he clearly knew that the hit rate would be very low, in order to boost morale and suppress the opponent with firepower, Ouyang Gui still ordered the artillery bombardment to begin!
As Ouyang Gui ordered the bombardment to begin, it also kicked off the naval battle in the Qiongzhou Strait!