Volume 3 Chapter 373 The Confrontation Will Begin (2)

Somewhere west of Kalihet, a reconnaissance fleet is on a vigilant patrol.

The size of the fleet is not large, only one large, two medium, and four small ships in total. After all, it is not performing any combat mission, such a scale is enough. In addition, this fleet was not far from Kalihet, about two hundred kilometers, but this was already a limit that could be reached at that time.

Cruising on the sea is not so easy, even if it is a modern ship, if there is no radar, satellite and other tools to help, then its patrol range is not much different from the ancient ships, at most it is to see if the multiple of the telescope in the hand is enough, and then you can see a few more nautical miles. And how useful can these nautical miles be on the vast expanse of the sea?

Nonsense and a few words of nonsense, except that the fleet is carefully but boringly patrolling the fairway. It is said that they are careful because they are conscientious and responsible, and they say that they are boring...... In fact, anyone who has drifted on the sea knows what it is like to face the endless sea all day long.

In contrast, the situation of this small fleet is fine, after all, they are only about two hundred kilometers from Kalihet, and ten days of cruising on the current channel will be replaced by another cruising fleet. Counting the round-trip trip, they only drifted on the sea for half a month.

The non-commissioned officers in the fleet are all Jiangdong children, or it should be said that the only troops currently performing combat missions in the Kaliheit area are only 5,000 Jiangdong children led by Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang. This is not Lu Ren's stinginess or some other bad thoughts, but Zhou Yu's own initiative to ask for it.

Speaking of which, as Zhou Yu stayed with Lu Ren for longer and longer and came into contact with more and more things, Zhou Yu became more and more eager to bring back an elite division to Sun Quan...... Well, if this matter is put in modern language, it means that Zhou Yu has been mixed with Lu Ren here for a long time as a guest general, and he has deeply realized the obsolescence and backwardness of Jiangdong in terms of military tactics and other aspects. In this case, Zhou Yu, as a military general who is very capable and discerning, will of course want to use every opportunity to learn and learn, and his ultimate goal is to bring back to Jiangdong what he learned from Lu Ren.

It is undeniable that with Zhou Yu's military talent, he learned many things very well, and at the same time, he also trained the five thousand Jiangdong disciples brought out very well. But all along, Lu Ren, out of many considerations, just let Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang be soy sauce and play on the side, and did not let Zhou Yu sing the leading role. In other words, although Zhou Yu has learned a lot from Lu Ren, and at the same time trained the Jiangdong disciples well, he has never had the opportunity to really test on the battlefield. And a truly elite unit, which also plays the role of "tinder", how can it be done without relevant actual combat experience?

Therefore, Zhou Yu also saw the opportunity that Lu Ren's troops on hand could not be turned around at once, and took the initiative to ask Lu Ren for help, and asked for the task of attacking Kalihet this time.

In fact, when Lu Ren made the decision to capture Kalihet, Huang Zhong, who was in Ceylon with Zhou Yu, also had 10,000 men, and if he adjusted it well, he could also draw out the corresponding forces to take Kalihet.

However, at this time, Lu Ren considered that the next thing he had to do here was to move the command center from Yangon to Kalihat, so the work related to it was not a little bit, and at the same time, he also needed a general who could control it, so Huang Zhong and his men and horses should not be used lightly. You Zhou Yu said at this time that if you want to earn some military merits, then let Zhou Yu earn it, anyway, with the information that Lu Ren came back, I don't believe that with the level of Nagopur, Zhou Yu can suffer anything. After all, in terms of the ability of pit people, Zhou Yu can enter the top ten in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty.

Therefore, at this time, the Han army here in Kaliheit was basically all Jiangdong children, and Lu Ren asked Huang Zhong to transfer about 2,000 people to form a fleet, mainly responsible for the logistics of Zhou Yu's troops, and Huang Zhong himself was busy with those messy things in Ceylon.

said that although these 5,000 Jiangdong disciples cannot be said to respect Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang like gods, they at least respect and love. And for this small fleet that is carrying out patrol alert tasks, these Jiangdong disciples really don't understand why Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang want them to do things that don't seem meaningful to them now, but they are still seriously carrying out their tasks.

As I said earlier, this kind of mission on the sea is actually a bit nonsense in a sense, because compared to the vastness of the ocean, people and ships seem too small. And how far can a human vision be above the sea, even with the help of a telescope? Thirty miles? Fifty miles? In short, not to mention in that era, even in modern times, it is not easy to find a fleet at sea, and sometimes it is a stroke of luck. Therefore, this cruising fleet can only cruise on the route of the main channel, but it is difficult to say whether it will be able to find something at some point.

These Jiangdong children are now veterans on the sea, and they all know this kind of problem very well, so in addition to their strict patrol vigilance, in fact, none of them think that anything will happen. Some people even think that Zhou Yu sent them out not so much to carry out patrol vigilance as to conduct training at sea.

This is the innate inert thinking and habitual thinking of human beings, and even Zhou Yu is not clear about some of the real situations about rest, let alone the children of Jiangdong. It is precisely because of this "don't know" situation that the children of Jiangdong are not so precautionary about rest, and then when they found that a fleet was coming from the northwest direction, they were actually stunned there, and they didn't react for a while.

Fortunately, the time of this lag is not long, and the situation of looking at the hand is very similar to the person who is waiting for the red light to cross the road in modern society, because he waits too attentively, he will forget the purpose of crossing the road in the first place...... Okay, I don't talk about these anymore, I just said that I was stunned for a while and then reacted, and hurriedly shouted a warning below.

The appearance of the enemy situation made these Jiangdong disciples nervous immediately, but fortunately, Zhou Yu trained them very well, so at the moment they were nervous, so they didn't have any panic, or it can be said that the Jiangdong children were a little excited in the nervousness.

Thinking about it, as a long-trained army, it has never been able to fight any serious battles, and it is inevitable that there will be some itching at hand. Even if he followed Zhou Yu to take over the task of capturing Kalihet this time, because Zhou Yu had been playing tricks and abduction in order to preserve his strength, it can be said that these Jiangdong disciples had never fought any serious battles here in Kalihet. Moreover, the children of Jiangdong are also known for their strength in water warfare, and now that they see a fleet coming, their hands are itching, which is even more uncomfortable.

Finally, the principal of the fleet still remembered the main task of his small fleet, and hurriedly ordered the two light boats to turn around and report back to Calihat to report to Zhou Yu...... Why not with a telegraph? Come on! This thing has not been popularized to a certain extent here in Lu Ren, and it can only be equipped with a division level or above or a specific unit in modern terms, and Zhou Yu is only on Sun Shangxiang's flagship.

In short, after sending two clippers back to report the news, the chief general led the remaining one, two, middle and two elementary schools to prepare to meet the enemy. Some people here may say, even your five ships dare to meet the enemy? Isn't it too bold? Aren't people a little too delusional?

I'm sorry, but that's not the case. In fact, the lookout had already observed the number of ships in the opposing fleet, which was actually only eight, and in terms of the tonnage of the ships, it was only two medium-sized and six small. With such a fleet size, if nothing else, it can only be the opponent's vanguard reconnaissance fleet, and its combat effectiveness is definitely relatively limited.

In the case of sending two small clippers to report the news, although there are three fewer ships in the number of ships, there is a large main warship, so it is not inferior to the other side in terms of combat effectiveness, and it can completely fight with the other side. And it doesn't matter if you win or lose, the important thing is that you can try the other party's water. If you have something to do, you can also try to capture a few captives and come back for information.

The children of Jiangdong had such a mentality, but they didn't expect that the other party's fleet would also have a similar mentality.

What has to be said here is that the people at the two ends have a striking similarity in mentality. First of all, the Sabbath fleet and the children of Jiangdong have never fought each other at all. Although Anxi had sent a fleet to participate in the battle of Yangon before, Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang were still on the way to Yangon at that time, so this battle was led by Gan Ning to fight with the Sabbath fleet, and soon the Sabbath fleet that participated in the war at that time was destroyed.

Then the children of Jiangdong have been practicing for a long time but they can't fight, and the rest fleet is invincible in the western front of the Arabian Sea, or it should be said that before Lu Ren entered Central Asia, the rest fleet had no opponents in the entire Indian Ocean, after all, the Wan'er Gang was not open in vain.

The navy of the eastern provinces of Rome was able to fight before the Sabbath fleet was opened, but after the Sabbath fleet was opened, there was no fight at all, so the trade route between the eastern provinces of Rome and Lu Ren was once blocked by the Sabbath fleet, and I didn't know how much risk I had to take when I ran a business, and later Lu Ren opened a new channel for the eastern provinces of Rome after occupying Ceylon, which solved some problems, but the navy of the eastern provinces of Rome still did not dare to confront the Sabbath fleet, From time to time, the coast is still plagued by the Sabbath fleet.

Under such circumstances, the Sabbath fleet has long been accustomed to flaunting its might, and it is natural that it will ignore the sea power of other powers...... Of course, this also has a lot to do with the fact that they don't know much about Lu Ren's situation. Although there were some commercial contacts between Anxi and Lu Ren earlier, and Wan'er had also arranged a business of exchanging oil with Lu Ren in order to get some production tools from Lu Ren, but for the people, they must not know much about it. And this kind of thing is not to mention in that era of poor information exchange, even in modern times, who dares to say that the ordinary people of one country really know the ordinary people of other countries?

These things are no longer talked about, just to say that these two small fleets, which were originally tasked with reconnaissance and cruise, now one wants to fight and test the waters, and the other looks down on each other, and as a result, they collide together. It wasn't until both sides were separated by miles and began to open fire that each realized that the other was not so easy to deal with.

It should be made clear here that when it comes to the total strength of the navy, Lu Ren is actually slightly better than the rest aspect, after all, Lu Ren has been developing for more than 20 years, and the development of sea power has always been a part that Lu Ren attaches great importance to.

But! Although the navy has cutting-edge ships, the number is relatively limited, and some of them have to be assigned to the defense of several sea areas. And in this case, some old types of ships are unlikely to be eliminated so quickly.

It's not too complicated, the general meaning is that Lu Ren's latest warships are the fifth generation, but the number is small, and the shipyard's construction technology for the fifth generation of ships still needs to be improved, and it will not be able to be fully mass-produced in a short period of time. Therefore, Lu Ren's current main warships are the third and fourth generations, and then the warships assigned to Zhou Yu are also mainly based on the third generation and supplemented by a small number of fourth generations, only Sun Shangxiang's flagship is the fifth generation specially arranged by Lu Ren.

In terms of rest, Wan'er's level of departure is roughly equivalent to the benchmark of Lu Ren's third-generation ships...... Some people may ask why Lu Ren didn't start with three generations? And Wan'er is resting in peace, but she is three generations?

In fact, Lu Ren was almost a poor and white person in Yizhou at the beginning. Of course, it is a bit too much to say that one is poor and two white, at least Lu Ren is okay in terms of economic strength, but Lu Ren has to take into account and invest in many aspects, so it is impossible to invest too much in the shipbuilding industry. In addition, at that time, the shipbuilding industry in Yizhou was almost starting from scratch, so Lu Ren had to organize some "primary tasks" and "low-level tasks" for the shipyard to increase experience points and upgrades. To put it simply, Lu Ren just wants to go up step by step.

But on the other hand, in terms of rest, Wan'er directly entered the royal family of rest, although it took some time to help Cass Yili stabilize the power at the beginning, but after Kass Yili succeeded, it was directly engaged in large-scale and large investment, of course, it can be done in one step. In other words, Lu Ren is a self-made man with careful calculations and gradually takes shape, while Wan'er has strong strength to rectify at the beginning, and the two sides are completely different in terms of starting point.

Because of this, although the start of Anxi is much later than Lu Ren, the strength of the main ships of the navy will not be too different from Lu Ren's navy, and Lu Ren is nothing more than the fourth-generation ships are more than Anxi. If the ratio of Lu Ren's fourth-generation ships to third-generation ships is about seven to three, then the rest is about five or five.

And the difference in combat effectiveness between the third-generation and fourth-generation ships of that era was not very large, at most a difference of between 10 and 15 percent. Such a gap is a bit like the "Black Pearl" encountering the "Conqueror", although there will be some losses, it is not that there is no fighting, and if the "Black Pearl" adds a "Flying Dutchman" of the same level, then the "Conqueror" will also have to kneel.

All in all, the overall combat effectiveness of these two small fleets is actually comparable, especially after the principals of the two sides have been deterring each other at the beginning, and as a result, they have found that the strength of the other side is similar to their own in all aspects, and they have invariably become cautious. After some mutual testing and further understanding of the strength of the other party, the two sides will be inseparable.

At this time, in terms of the tactics adopted by the two sides, it is also strikingly similar...... This is not surprising, because whether it is Lu Ren or Wan'er, the tactics they taught the navy are all copied. And the information copied by Wan'er is a backup left by Lu Ren, and then "he" didn't have much time to find any information for Wan'er when he resurrected Wan'er, and saw that there was a backup left by Lu Ren in the database, so he stuffed it to Wan'er, so Lu Ren's copy and Wan'er's copy were basically the same copy, and now two small reconnaissance fleets have been formed, because the tactics are similar, and the principals on both sides can quickly judge each other's intentions according to each other's actions. And then it becomes the result of an entangled and stalemate situation.

It is useless to say more, because the ships of both sides are steam-powered, so the point of seizing the upper hand becomes not very great. And because the tactics of the two sides are similar, some tricks become useless. At this time, the principals of both sides made a choice that was difficult to judge by right or wrong, that is, they both gave up approaching each other and then engaging in hand-to-hand combat, but either kept a parallel line with the other side's fleet, or circled each other with each other, completely using artillery as a means of attack to attack the other side.

Jiangdong's side is actually a little helpless to make such a choice, because Jiangdong's children's ship configuration has been affected by Lu Ren's thinking all along, that is, Lu Ren has always reduced the configuration of the crew because he has always had limited troops. For example, a warship like the "Conqueror" had to be equipped with 400 people in the Europeans of the Age of Discovery, but Lu Ren was only equipped with about 200 people.

Of course, Lu Ren dared to do this because after the addition of steam power, the ship's operating personnel could be reduced a lot, but this also caused Lu Ren's naval hand-to-hand combat to suffer a lot...... Well, Lu Ren never thought about hand-to-hand combat, just bombard Lao Tzu from a distance when facing the enemy ship!

In contrast, the rest navy actually has a carrier advantage, and if it really becomes a hand-to-hand combat, the children of Jiangdong will have to suffer a big loss. But the problem is that the principal on the side of rest was frightened by the large warship of Jiangdong's disciples, thinking that the other party's large warship must have a lot of passengers, so wouldn't it be a loss to grandma's house to fight hand-to-hand combat? Although there is no large warship on his side, it means that he already has the advantage of maneuverability and flexibility, so it is better to use this maneuverability and flexibility to win with artillery.

In this case, can you say who is right and who is wrong on both sides? Anyway, it is for this reason that the two sides are flying shells back and forth on the sea, and the fight is endless......

————————————————————

(The bottle hasn't been in very good shape lately, so I've had a good rest for the past two days.) I'll pause more occasionally, but I'll definitely finish the book, after all, it's all been written here, and I've entered the final and final stage. )