In the morning, after the Ming army discovered the incoming Datang mobile fleet, the Ming army's naval forces marched out of the port to fight. The two sides fought for more than two hours.
The Ming Navy launched a charge attack with fire ships, but these fire ships failed to achieve any success. Some of them were ignited in advance by arson bombs and grenades of the Tang Navy, forcing the Ming Navy sailors to abandon the ship in advance and escape.
Some of the fire ships successfully rushed up, and then ignited the ignition materials on the ship themselves in an attempt to approach and ignite the warships of the Tang Navy. However, a small number of them were directly sunk on the spot, but more were evaded and destroyed.
The target was not hit.
And even more, in fact, there is no chance to even launch a charge after reaching the position and igniting it!
Although the nine main warships of the Tang Dynasty were not as flexible as these small ships, their speed was not slow at all.
So in the end, dozens of fire ships failed to achieve even the slightest victory. Of course, there were only a handful of casualties among the Ming army sailors on these fire ships. Most of them jumped into the water and climbed onto the boats to escape.
It cannot be said that this Ming army's fireship charge was without any results. At least they successfully consumed a lot of the ammunition of the Tang Dynasty navy and the physical strength of the gunners.
But in the subsequent battle results, the Ming army did not have such good luck!
Seventy or eighty Ming warships relied on their absolute numerical advantage to swoop in, trying to approach directly for bombardment and launch a boarding battle. However, the main fleet commanded by Ouyang Gui used speed and maneuverability to try to maintain a distance while trying to maintain a distance.
Launch artillery fire from a distance of about two to three hundred meters!
In this kind of artillery battle between mutual pursuits, the hit rate is naturally not high at medium and long distances, but when it enters two to three hundred meters, the hit rate is still high.
During the battle, the cruiser Jiujiang was unable to avoid it and was approached within a hundred meters by two Ming army ships. Moreover, it was attacked from both sides!
As a result, the ship passed between the two ships at high speed. As it passed, the artillery on the sides of the ship fired a salvo at the Ming warships on both sides.
All kinds of messy firearms on the Ming army's warships also fired back!
The scene at that moment was spectacular and tragic!
Although sawdust was flying everywhere on the Jiujiang and the casualties on the deck were considerable, the two Ming warships were bombarded by more than 30 anti-ship artillery pieces and more than a dozen shotguns from the Jiujiang at close range.
is dying!
Just a close-range salvo paralyzed one of the two-hundred-ton Fu ships on the spot. The Ming sailors on the deck suffered heavy casualties, especially the huge grenades from several howitzers.
It fell on the Ming army's warship and exploded, causing the death and injury of many Ming army sailors. Even one artillery was hit by a powerful 14-pound solid bullet. The huge kinetic energy caused the gun, which only weighed 300 kilograms, to
The Folan cannon flew directly into the sky, and then swept across the deck, causing many casualties to the Ming army sailors on the deck.
At first, they thought they could get close and engage in hand-to-hand combat, so a large number of Ming Navy soldiers went on the deck, ready to engage in battle at any time. However, the people on the deck suffered extremely heavy casualties in this salvo.
Moreover, a shell just hit its main mast. After losing its mast, the huge fortune ship turned into a dead fish on the spot, thus declaring that it had lost its combat effectiveness.
The situation of the other, slightly smaller sand ship with only over 100 tons was not much better. Although it could continue to move, the people on board still suffered heavy casualties!
This scene of the battle was directly watched by Ouyang Gui on the side, so in the subsequent battle, Ouyang Gui ordered the two squadrons to rearrange their formations, and then the two squadrons directly formed two squadrons in a row.
The column rushed through the scattered formations of the Ming army at high speed.
Such a tactical decision basically means giving up the previous mode of maintaining distance with mobility and shelling from a distance, and instead directly intends to use the excellent protection capabilities and powerful firepower of the battleship to directly destroy the opponent!
At first, the Ming army was very happy when they discovered that the mobile fleet had made such a tactical choice, thinking that they had finally found an opportunity to get close and fight!
But then I thought that as soon as the warships of both sides came into contact, the Tang Navy, which was maneuvering in a high-speed column, did not leave them the opportunity to engage in a boarding battle, and rushed over at high speed. While rushing over, each ship
The firepower on the battleships was maximized.
The artillery on both sides of the ship got the chance to fire!
And when the leading cruiser bombarded a Ming warship, the frigate following behind also followed suit!
And this also means that every Ming warship they pass will be bombarded by salvos several times!
The fierce bombardment almost stunned the scattered Ming army warships!
When such a single-column charge came, although the nine warships of the Tang Navy were all scarred, the high cost of the warships of the Datang Navy was fully reflected at this moment. The naval guns of the Ming Army
Most of them are shotguns, which are used to deal with personnel, but they are not powerful enough to deal with the thick side planks on battleships.
On the other hand, the Ming army's warships were riddled with holes, not to mention the casualties, and many ships even had countless bullet holes under the waterline, causing water to enter.
Even more fires will burn. Arson bombs and grenades can cause fires on enemy ships!
After a charge, although no ship from both sides sank on the spot, at least seven or eight ships from the Ming army lost their combat effectiveness.
When Ouyang Gui led his mobile fleet to turn around and launch another column of bombardment, more Ming ships were beaten and lost their combat effectiveness.
At the end, some Ming army ships began to turn and escape, but not many were able to escape, because many ships had lost their ability to maneuver due to fires, flooding, etc., and the scene was quite chaotic.
As for the Ming army's ships, less than one-third were able to escape.
And the rest surrendered one after another!
After a large-scale battle, the Tang Dynasty Navy's mobile fleet only sank one Ming army ship of less than 100 tons on the spot, but captured more than forty medium and large ships.
And this result was unexpected even by Ouyang Gui himself.
As a result, Ouyang Gui didn't know how to deal with so many surrendered ships. Although they expressed their surrender, Ouyang Gui did not dare to approach rashly, for fear that they would pretend to surrender and engage in a boarding battle.
In the end, a small traffic boat was sent over and they were asked to park on the spot without setting sail. Then the people on board were concentrated in several Ming army ships that had their masts broken and lost their navigation ability, while the vacated ships were
Some sailors from the mobile fleet were transferred to accept it.
Those ships whose sails were still on were put into action and then temporarily organized into a squadron.
If the mast is broken and the hull is flooded, repairs are carried out on the spot. Ships these days are all wooden ships, and the fleet usually carries carpenters for emergency repairs.
As for some of the damaged ones that are really serious and cannot be saved or have no repair value, we just leave them alone, salvage some of the materials on the ship and put them on other ships, and finally let these broken ships float until they sink.
After final sorting, it was discovered that there are twelve captive warships that are relatively intact, eight more that need to be repaired before they can be launched, and three that cannot be repaired now, but whose hulls are still relatively intact and can be towed back to port for repairs.
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In addition, more than ten ships were directly abandoned!
In addition to these ships, there were also a large number of prisoners of the Ming army. The number was quite large, as many as thousands.
Among them were Ming soldiers who were captured on ships, and many were rescued drowning victims.
As for the number of casualties of the Ming Navy in this battle, it is unknown. Anyway, there were many corpses floating on the sea.
Because these captured warships had to be dealt with, and although none of the nine capital ships were sunk on the spot, each ship was damaged to varying degrees. One of the frigates even broke out in fire. Although it was extinguished in the end
There was a fire, but the entire ship was seriously damaged. It could only carry out emergency repairs like other damaged ships of the Ming Dynasty in order to restore its navigation ability. As for complete renovations, it would need to return to the port.
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In addition, the casualties were actually not too small. Although the Ming army's artillery was not many, and the threat to the battleships was not great, it could still kill people, so the casualties in this battle were not small.
For many reasons, Ouyang Gui ordered to suspend the follow-up landing attack on Nan'ao Island, and just stayed outside the port while sending someone to contact the First Mixed Regiment.
That night, Ouyang Gui was even busier than during the war, and he didn't go to bed until midnight.
By the next morning, Ouyang Guidu appeared in the conference room with a pair of red eyes, and the expressions of the others were similar to Ouyang Gui's. Although they were tired, they all looked happy.
The result of this naval battle can be said to be a complete victory. One of our own frigates was severely damaged, two were moderately damaged, and the remaining ten frigates were slightly damaged at the cost of sinking one of the opponent's ships and severely damaging two of the enemy's ships.
More than ten warships, and more than twenty warships were captured, not counting the losses of the Ming army's small fire ships.
Even they themselves had not expected this result before.
In yesterday's post-war meeting, many naval officers agreed that the reason why such results were achieved was because of the strength of the nine warships in the main fleet, which brought about this decisive naval strategy.
Advantage!
Because the mobile fleet, whether it is speed or flexibility, or gun firepower or protection capabilities, or even the total tonnage of the fleet, far exceeds that of the Ming Navy of Nan'ao Island!