For such a large battleship as the "King Kong" battlecruiser, it will take at least about three years to complete the run-in, and now the Japanese sailors are still in the run-in stage with this battleship, and it can be said that it is a great risk to send the "Kongo" to fight in China before its combat effectiveness has been fully formed.

However, the Japanese political and military leaders ignored the opposition of the technical officers and drove the giant ship to Qingdao to participate in the war.

The intention of the military top brass is very clear, such a giant ship representing Japan's military strength and industrial achievements (in fact, the "King Kong" was built in Britain), appeared on the Chinese battlefield and dealt a fierce blow to the squadron, which can not only show the powerful force of the Japanese Empire to all countries in the world, but also greatly improve the morale of the people in Japan who have fallen sharply due to the Battle of Caofeidian and the loss of Qingdao.

Of course, the opposition of the Japanese military top brass to the lower-level officers is not completely inconsiderable, in their opinion, the current "King Kong" to participate in the fleet decisive battle is undoubtedly inappropriate, but the problem is that in the face of the weak Chinese Navy, the "King Kong" has no chance of a decisive battle of the fleet at all, this time to Qingdao to participate in the war, the main task of the "King Kong" is to shell the position of the first team, cover the landing of the Japanese army, for such a low-intensity and even "hands-training" combat mission, the Japanese military top brass to the "King Kong" I'm still quite confident.

Although the Japanese military top brass was full of confidence in the "King Kong," at this time, Matsuoka Shuzo Daisa, like many officers, was worried about the safety of the "King Kong."

In order to prevent the people's will to war from wavering due to the defeat in the war, the Japanese government strictly blocked the news of the defeat in the Caofeidian Sea, but after all, there is no impermeable wall in the world, and many Japanese naval officers still knew the news, and many Japanese officers were shocked that the Japanese navy lost four battleships at once in this battle. Due to the official blockade, the captains of the capital ships such as Shuzo Matsuoka did not know the details of the naval battle, so they did not know how to take precautions. This time, Shuzo Matsuoka led the "King Kong" to Qingdao to support the battle, and he felt quite trembling as if he were walking on thin ice.

And the scene that Matsuoka Shuzo saw just now just confirmed his concern about the combat capability of the "Kongo" sailors.

And at this moment, a cannonball came from nowhere, and it hit the forward deck where the midshipman was, and a red light flashed, and the figures of the trainee officer and the sailor, who had been frightened, were suddenly drowned in the flames.

Matsuoka Shuzo looked at the fire ball that bloomed there in surprise, he noticed that this cannon seemed to be a little different from the shells fired by the Chinese artillery just now, and soon, the cannon dispersed, and Matsuoka Shuzo saw that the midshipman and the sailor who was still crying just now, both of them were blown off at the knee, and the Japanese sword in the midshipman's hand was also broken to the point that only the hilt remained, and not far from the two of them, there were twisted steel plates and blackened corpses, as well as the sea water that had turned red.

A bad feeling rose in Matsuoka's heart, and he raised his binoculars again to carefully observe the squadron's position that was being attacked by heavy fire from Japanese ships.

He vaguely felt that there was likely to be a hidden gun emplacement of the squadron on the shore, and it was a very powerful artillery.

Just when Matsuoka Shuzo was worried about his suspicions, a burst of thunderous cannon suddenly sounded on the shore

Looking through the binoculars, in the smoke of gunpowder, many places on the shore were flashing with cannon flames.

A piercing whistling sound came from the sky, as if it was raining steel bullets, and the "King Kong" was instantly enveloped in flames, and there were violent explosions everywhere.

A shell hit the second main turret of the "Kongo", and the heat from the violent explosion rushed to the bridge with shrapnel, and Matsuoka Shuzo felt as if he had been hit by a huge fist, and fell backwards, the back of his head hit the armor plate hard.

Matsuoka's eyes burst into Venus, and the scene in front of him began to blur, his ears let out a screech, and the sounds around him became unclear.

Matsuoka Shuzo tried hard to stand up, but his body didn't obey the call at all, and one of his subordinates ran over when he saw this, and while helping him up hard, he couldn't stop saying something to him anxiously.

Matsuoka Shuzo was supported by his subordinates before he stood up straight, he looked at the vague faces of his subordinates a little blankly, and his subordinates reported something to him loudly, but he couldn't hear any sound at all. ,

It took a while for Matsuoka's eyes to barely return to normal, and he stared blankly at the sea in the distance, and what he saw was a hellish scene.

In the sudden stormy shelling by the Chinese just now, many Japanese ships were hit, and the slightly larger warships were all on fire, although the damage was very serious, but it was not fatal, while some destroyers and gunboats that served as direct guards for large ships were much more miserable, and many ships and auxiliary ships exploded and sank immediately after being hit, and the surrounding ships did not even have time to rescue them

Looking at a destroyer that was broken in two not far away and still burning and not sinking, Matsuoka Shuzo could hardly believe his eyes.

"It's okay for you, sir."

Matsuoka's ears finally ended his deafness, and he heard the shouts of his subordinates and nodded, indicating that he was fine.

"This is a shell from a large-caliber artillery," a staff officer reported loudly to the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Yamaya, "and there are hidden positions of Chinese artillery."

As soon as the staff officer's words fell, a violent explosion was heard in the queue behind the "King Kong", followed by a black cloud of smoke rising into the air.

"It's the commander of the 'Akitsuzu'," an officer reported in a loud voice, "it was hit and exploded"

"What the hell," exclaimed the lieutenant general of the mountain house, in exasperation, "I really shouldn't have brought these old ships here"

"The Chinese have laid out a lot of concealed heavy artillery here, sir." One of the staff officers said, "The caliber of these guns should be more than ten inches." ”

Shuzo Matsuoka tried to calm his head, and he held his binoculars and looked to the shore, where the muzzle flame of Chinese artillery could be seen everywhere in the smoke of gunpowder.

"Destroy them at once," the other lieutenant general of the mountain house shouted angrily.

"No General" Shuzo Matsuoka remembered the reports about the "Chinese rocket" and said to the others in Yamaya, "We have now become a live target, and we should retreat immediately"

"The army has landed, do you want them to call us gallant ghosts?" The other people of the mountain house yelled at Shuzo Matsuoka.

"But our fleet is very dangerous now," said Shuzo Matsuoka, pointing to the flames on the coast, "If we continue to fight like this, the large warships may be able to support for a while longer, and the other warships will not be able to stop such an attack at all."

"Then let all those xiǎo boats stay behind" Yamaya roared, a pair of old eyes staring at the cow, as if they were going to eat people, Matsuoka Shuzo sighed helplessly, and did not speak.

"Hit another one"

Xu Yuanjin held up the binoculars and watched a Japanese cruiser on fire slowly capsize on the sea in the sound of explosions after being shot several times one after another, and couldn't help but shout excitedly.

"That's the Chiyoda." Yang Shuoming said, "It's the same as the 'Qiujinzhou' that was just sunk, it's an old ship that we have seen fighting with in the first five years," he looked at the "Chiyoda" with only the bottom of the ship still on the sea, and sneered, "It's already fucking supposed to sink." ”

Listening to Yang Shuoming's words, Xu Yuanjin and several officers around him all widened their eyes in surprise, probably not understanding that he could see so clearly without a telescope.

"It's still the eighteen millimeter cannon," said one of the officers, "and this time we've won."

"All of their xiǎo-type warships have been withdrawn, and large warships have come up." An observer said.

"Then we don't have a lot of artillery, and the fortifications are strong, they can't beat ours," said another officer with confidence, "Don't forget that we still have rocket artillery."

Yang Shuoming nodded, of course he understood why this officer was so sure.

Before the arrival of the Japanese reinforcement fleet, Yang Shuoming organized the Qingdao military and civilians to repair and strengthen the original German coastal defense batteries, and set up many new solid concealed gun emplacements, which were densely packed and equipped with 180 mm howitzers ordered by Yang Shuoming from the United States, so that the defensive strength of Qingdao's coastal defense batteries was greatly improved. In order to deal with the possible attack of the Japanese fleet, Yang Shuoming prepared a thorough plan to meet the enemy in advance, surveyed and mapped the sea area where the Japanese ships might stay, and directly made the mapping map and data into charts and sent them to each concealed artillery group.

At the beginning of the artillery battle, the concealed artillery groups of the 180-mm howitzers did not open fire immediately, but were met by the 280-mm coastal defense guns first; after the Japanese fleet concentrated all its firepower on these batteries and produced a feeling of underestimating the enemy, the concealed artillery groups "fired from behind" and carried out a "high-density, high-intensity, and large-angle" concentrated fire attack on the Japanese ships, and the Japanese fleet really suffered a big loss. ,

In this era, no matter how powerful the naval artillery is, it can't beat the shore defense artillery, this is an iron rule, whether it is caliber or shè cheng. In addition to not being able to move, the shore defense artillery basically had the upper hand when facing a fleet with almost equal firepower.

Sure enough, as the officer had said, the large ships of the Japanese fleet continued to strike close to the land in spite of the heavy fire from the Chinese artillery, but they soon paid the price for the action.

Seeing that the Japanese fleet continued to approach and the artillery fire became more and more intense, the Chinese concealed artillery group on the shore responded with a dense Qi shè, and soon, the "Kongo" was hit by four 180-mm shells one after another, the gunnery chief and several survey officers were killed, and even the commander, Vice Admiral Yamaya, was wounded. The battleship "Zhoufang" was hit by three shells, the navigator was seriously wounded, and the two main turrets were damaged, while the cruiser "Chitose" was hit by a bomb depot and turned into a raging wreck in a series of explosions, and almost all the officers and men of the ship went to see Asunayasu. The top of the main mast of the armored cruiser "Iwate" was broken, two main turrets were destroyed, and the officers and men on board were killed and wounded, and they withdrew from the array in disarray.

Except for the "Kongo", which was slightly damaged, the damage to the other Japanese warships became more and more serious, and Yamaya realized that the fleet could no longer hold on, so he had to order the Japanese fleet to retreat and sail out of the shè course of the Chinese shore defense guns.

"The Woko has run away," someone shouted excitedly.

After the two sides disengaged, the sound of artillery gradually fell silent, and the large-caliber heavy artillery on the Chinese batteries stopped firing one after another, but some medium-caliber artillery still rang non-stop.

Yang Shuoming knew that this was the squadron using these artillery pieces to block the Japanese troops who had landed and tried to seize the fort.

"Let's go, go over and have a look," Yang Shuoming said to Xu Yuanjin.

"Didn't you send all your 'Guardsmen' to them? Still not sure? Xu Yuanjin looked at Yang Shuoming and asked with some puzzlement.

"It's not." Yang Shuoming shook his head with a smile.

"Aren't you itching again and want to go into battle yourself?" Xu Yuanjin seemed to understand something, and then asked.

"Even if it's it." Yang Shuoming smiled and took his "fifty-shot box cannon" and replied, "The main thing is to see the death of the Japanese." ”

"The navy's hún eggs retreated, we lost our artillery cover"

Behind a mountain bag at the foot of the mountain, a Japanese officer said with tears to Nomura Yoshitake Daisa, who was in charge of commanding the landing force.

"It doesn't matter if we don't have artillery cover, we're so close to them now that their artillery can't hit us." Nomura Yoshitake said calmly.

At this moment, the Chinese artillery in the distance opened fire again, and Nomura Yoshitake judged from the sound of the cannon that it was the sound of a German-made 88-mm gun.

The shells continued to fly from a distance, exploding nearby, and it was clear that the Chinese gunners had also spotted the Japanese troops who had appeared in front of them, and although the Japanese had entered the dead end of their shots, they still shplayed the shells as far as they could.

And in order to enter this security attack position, the Japanese army has left thousands of corpses on the beach.

Nomura Yoshitake Osa, a more experienced officer in the Japanese Army, participated in the capture of the German battery when the Japanese attacked the German army in Qingdao, because he had such an experience, so after the arrival of reinforcements of the Japanese army, Nomura Yoshitake once again began the battle he had already fought once.

At this time, the machine guns arranged in front of the fort by the squadron also rang out, but because the Japanese army was in the dead end of its shelling, although the squadron's artillery fire was very fierce and formed a certain suppression of the Japanese army, it did not cause much damage to the Japanese army.

"Forward" Nomura Yoshitake looked at the stream of fire that hit the back of the Japanese team, looked back at the battery that had been hit by the Japanese gunfire, gritted his teeth, and slammed the command knife on his waist and shouted loudly.

"Onboard" The Japanese soldiers let out a strange shout and rushed in the direction of the battery.

At this time, there was a completely deathly silence on the Chinese battery, and there was no sound, and Nomura knew that it was probably because the fierce shelling of the Japanese ships had killed all the defenders here, so this was the case.

But the facts quickly proved to Nomura Yoshitake that his judgment was completely wrong.

Just as the Japanese attack poured onto the battery, the battery suddenly erupted in a strange burst of gunfire that he had never heard before

Countless bullets and fires swept over in an instant, as if hundreds of tǐng Makqin heavy machine guns were firing at them, and at this time, Nomura Yoshitake's brain went blank for a moment, and his heart was completely surrounded by fear and panic. ,

The Japanese officers and soldiers who rushed to the fort were instantly swept down like cutting straw, and Nomura saw that Chinese soldiers wearing gray and blue military uniforms suddenly appeared in the fort. Unlike the Chinese soldiers in gray cloth uniforms with rifles in their hands, these soldiers were holding a gun that he had never seen before

Although there were only a few hundred people on the other side, and their queue was also very loose, each of them was almost more than ten meters away, but the weapons in their hands rained down an extremely terrifying and deadly rain of bullets in an instant, as if thousands of rifles were firing at the same time.

Despite the terrible blow, the Japanese soldiers did not stop, and continued to shout "board load" and rushed forward, many of whom rushed to a distance of less than two meters from the Chinese soldiers, and were knocked to the ground one by one by the Chinese soldiers like rabbits.

Some of the Chinese soldiers seemed to have run out of bullets, some of them skillfully removed the magazines and took out new ones, while others chōu from their waists chōu xiǎo cylinder-like things with wooden handles were thrown into the ranks of the Japanese troops.

With a violent explosion, blood flew sideways in the Japanese army for a while, and ghosts cried wolf. Probably thinking that they had been shelled again, the morale of the Japanese troops collapsed at once, and they began to retreat one after another, refusing to come forward and die no matter how the officers shouted.

Seeing a Japanese officer standing among the dead bodies holding an Oriental sword standing there as if he was stupid, Yang Shuoming raised the "fifty-shot box cannon" in his hand with some amusement, pulled the trigger, and several bullets were fired continuously, and the Japanese officer's body immediately spewed out a large cloud of blood mist, and fell to the ground like a leaky pot of blood.

Yang Shuoming got up and followed behind the soldiers who were advancing in a fan-shaped formation with several guards, and he saw several soldiers behind the palace holding a gun in one hand and a three-edged military thorn shining with cold light in the other, stabbing to death the wounded Japanese soldiers lying on the ground from time to time.