When the guns of naval ships are fired, the sailors always think that they have more shells than the enemy, because the enemy's shells explode right next to them, and even if their own shells hit the enemy ship, they will not make much movement, unless they detonate the ammunition depot or ignite a fire. When Lieutenant General Moffett privately communicated with the gunner's first officer, Pan Wenzhi, he told him to find a way to arouse the morale of his side in a naval battle in order to increase the self-confidence of the gunners, and for this reason, he could lie when necessary.

It stands to reason that Lieutenant Colonel Pan Wenzhi should wait for the Hairong to force the Rijin to fire before lying about the military situation, but the second round of shells of the Haiqi is too biased, and he knows that this is not a technical reason - since Vice Admiral Moffett took over the navy, the fleet's training funds have been five times that of before, and the gunners' hit rate has also been greatly improved, and many shells are not too far from the target even if they miss, but now the Haiqi's shells are getting farther and farther, which makes him lie in advance to increase the gunner's confidence.

The advantage of the front and rear main guns not firing in a salvo was waved out at this time, when the front main gun was firing, the rear main gun was loading, and when the rear main gun was firing, the front main gun was adjusting according to the latest distance, and everyone only saw that their shells missed, and everyone thought that the shells fired by the other main gun hit the enemy ship, and under Pan Wenzhi's lies, the gunners were greatly confident. Only a few secondary guns on one side saw that their own shells only stirred up waves and did not hit the enemy ship, but they did not say anything, but were worried, the 18-inch shell hit by the amidship just now only made them uneasy, compared to the 11.4 cm armor of the main turret, the armor of the secondary gun was only 5.1 cm, such a thin armor even if the Japanese are not using armor-piercing shells but only high-explosive shells. The lethality is also difficult to resist.

The fire amidship was quickly extinguished by the efforts of the sailors, perhaps because it was already dark. The Japanese shells never hit again, but the sensitive tubes of their shells exploded violently even if they hit the sea. In the night, water and fire continue to rise from the black sea at the same time, and the scene is indescribably strange.

During the 20-minute round, the Nisshin fired a total of six rounds of shells, including test firing, and recorded 21, only one of the third rounds hit the Haiqi, and the other shells were fired in the sea. At 6:34, in the constant curse of Captain Lin Baoyi. The cruiser Rijin had approached 7,000 meters to its side, and the main guns on the Hairong were hit by 14 six-inch secondary guns on the Nisshin before they made a test firing, and the position of the bombs was the stern main guns, and there were no casualties or substantial damage after the violent explosion, but it still startled everyone in the command tower.

Taking advantage of the fire of another bomb explosion of the Haiqi in the distance, the first mate Chen Jiliang looked at Lin Baoyi, whose face changed several times, and said: "Female insider, the foreigners want us to die, and we can't go forward." ”

Moffett, Tian Shijie, Wu Fan, and Cheng Biguang all knew the specific battle plan on the Haiqi. But apart from them, the officers and men on the Haiqi and Hairong did not know what the ultimate goal of their own battle was, especially the Hairong, and they were ordered to follow the flagship and retreat after 30 minutes. But now it's only twenty minutes. As soon as it entered the range of the Nisshin's secondary gun, the Hairong, which had just opened the gun, had already been shot, thinking that there were fourteen six-inch guns on the Rijin. Lin Baoyi's scalp was a little numb, and he did not reprimand Chen Jiliang for his untimely complaints. In the next round of salvo from the Nisshin, he asked to the side with some uneasiness: "What time is it?" What is the distance between you and the Japanese now? ”

"Six thirty-seven minutes. It was six thousand eight hundred yards from what had just been reported. Someone replied.

"Is the flagship still moving forward?" Lin Baoyi asked again.

"Nope. Now they were trying to close the distance, but the Risshin was too close. The voice in the darkness replied, as if to remind him of something, and the voice replied: "The Haiqi can sail up to twenty-two knots, but we ......."

In fact, the Haiqi has a maximum voyage of 24 knots, but that was when it left the factory, and now more than ten years have passed, the highest voyage is only 22 knots, and the Hairong is only 20.75 knots when it leaves the factory, and it is also more than ten years later, and now the sailing can have 19 knots. The first mate meant to remind Lin Baoyi that he would retreat in half an hour, and the same distance would definitely fall behind the Hairong because of the slower sailing, and now the shells of the Rijin were basically fired at Haiqi, but once they fell behind when retreating, the shells would all fall on the head of the Hairong.

There was silence in the command tower, only the eager voice of Chen Shiying, the first mate of the guns on the mast in the microphone, "The distance is six thousand six hundred, is it possible to open fire?" Is it possible to fire? ”

"Don't fire just yet...... No! Fire with the slowest shot. Captain Lin Baoyi ordered. At this time, countless thoughts were spinning in his mind, he wanted not to move with the Haiqi, so as to widen the distance between him and the Rijin, but now the navy is very strict, once it breaks away from the Haiqi, it is no different from escaping, the fate of Du Xiqi, the former captain of the Hairong, he knows, Yang Jingcheng is a ruthless and unrighteous person at all, offending him is looking for death, so the best way is to shoot less.

Born at six o'clock in the evening of August 21, 1913, the naval battle in the Philippine Sea was extremely strange, the Rijin wanted to get close to the Haiqi while firing the cannons, and in the dark night the cruiser of more than 7,000 tons was like a monster that would breathe fire, constantly spewing anger at the Haiqi, and the two main guns of the Haiqi were trying their best to counterattack, only the Hairong was silent, like a shadow following the side of the Haiqi, its shooting was slower than the main guns of the Haiqi, according to the calculation of Pan Wenzhi, the first mate of the Haiqi guns, they were simply five minutes one.

"What's going on with the Hairong, why are they shooting so slowly?" Lieutenant General Moffitt not only looked at the Rijin, but also at the Hairong beside him, and he immediately asked Major General Cheng Biguang.

What else could it be? It was night, and only the light of the guns could reveal the position of their ships, and the Japanese would not be able to aim accurately if they did not fire their guns or fired less guns. Major General Cheng Biguang muttered in his heart, but he didn't want to, in fact, he didn't dare to tell the truth, Liu Guannan, the head of the Haiqi, was a Fujianese, and there were many Fujianese in other positions, and he now said that the Hairong was deliberately avoiding the war. In a few days, all Fujianese will know that he beat them in the back. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and say, "Sir." The Hairong was hit by a shot just now, perhaps due to a mechanical failure. ”

"Mechanical failure?" Lieutenant General Moffitt was suspicious. He didn't believe it a little, that is, the main gun was hit by the Hairong just now, but the main gun of the Hairong was single-loaded, and there were still two guns lost in one.

The commander of the tower secretly speculated, but Pan Wenzhi on the mast revealed the mystery, and after reporting the distance of the enemy ship as usual, he only heard him angrily scolding: "Lose his mother!" Hit the streets! Fire a shot in five minutes, if you don't want to fight, you can get out! He subconsciously said to himself that the microphone was listened to by the whole ship, just as the gunners of the Haiqi also wanted to slow down the fire. His voice rose again, "Hit!" The rear main gun of our ship hit the front turret of the enemy ship, ah, the Japanese are on fire! It's on fire! ”

At 6:44, in the thirtieth minute after the start of the artillery battle, the seventh round of fire from the Haiqi finally hit the front main gun of the Nisshin, and even if the main gun was hit by a continuous twelve-inch shell in the Battle of Tsushima, the defense was still not as good as before, although the shell did not penetrate the armor. However, the entire turret was slightly displaced, and the flames of the explosion ignited the nearby wood, and the fire on the Nisshin caused the whole ship to look at it squarely, and the light of the fire guided it. A shell from the Hairong also hit the Nisshin, but the fifteen-centimeter shell did not achieve much success.

Amid the rumbling of artillery, Lieutenant Colonel Tian Shijie, who had been watching the time in the commander tower, was now in a better time to ambush the submarine. He said to Lieutenant General Moffitt, who was smiling, "Mr. Lieutenant General, the time has come. ”

"Good! Heading 080. Voyage 19, get out of here. Lieutenant General Moffett ordered. The signal station gives the Hairong a signal. Be sure to follow the flagship in action. ”

"Voyage Zero80, Voyage Nineteen!" The driver, Ben Zheng Choo, repeated Lieutenant General Moffett's order loudly, began to turn the rudder, and evacuated the battlefield according to the predetermined route.

As soon as the flagship moved, the Hairong immediately followed, and Yu Sanbao, the captain of the merchant ship who had watched the battle from a distance, also put down the binoculars and ordered the steering gear to turn. In less than five minutes, the Chinese ships turned around and distanced themselves from the Nisshin. Kutsumi, who was closely watching the battle on the bridge, shouted excitedly when he saw this: "The Shina people have escaped, all follow up and pursue the Shina fleet!" ”

At the beginning of the war, the fleet was in the west, and the constant turning of the two sides in the artillery battle made the fleet now on the east side, in fact, this was also the strategy of the Nisshin, that is, not to let the fleet get close to the west and north, so that the fleet would be encircled by the Japanese fleet. The Japanese had expected the plan before, and for the Nisshin, the best outcome was to sink or damage their own ships, and if not, block the way and let the fleet rush back, and because of this, the ambush circle of 25 submarines was chosen to the east.

The merchant ships were at the front, followed by the Haiqi and Hairong, and finally the cruiser Nisshin. Hu Qinzhai, who was on the periscope depth U-52, could only see the small light of the fire in the east and hear the explosion of the shell after it fell into the water, but what the battle situation was over there, he could not see it when he was hiding underwater.

Under the white lights, everyone at the command platform stared at the listener's face, and after I don't know how long, they only heard the listener say, "The merchant ship is coming...... He was followed by ...... And two, no, three warships! ”

The sound of the merchant ship's motor was familiar to the listener, but he couldn't distinguish the sound of the warship, especially the sound waves of the explosive shells fired by the Nisshin on the sea, which stimulated the listener's fragile eardrums, and every time the shell exploded into the water, he felt like his ears had been hammered by something and buzzed.

The explosion of the Japanese ship's shells not only stimulated the listeners, but also stimulated the entire submarine, after each shell exploded, the sound waves transmitted in the water would make the submarine shake a little, which couldn't help but make Hu Qinzhai think of the kind of weapon called depth charges taught in the submarine school, and he couldn't help but worry that if the Japanese understood the depth charges, then he would be miserable.

The sound of explosions on the water was getting closer and closer, and at this time, seeing that he could not stop the escape of the Shina people, Kutsumi Masao Daisa, began to order the gunnery chief to adjust the target of the artillery to the merchant ship, which was what he wanted to sink, but the merchant ship was 15,000 kilometers away from the Nisshin from beginning to end, and this distance made the eight-inch main gun on the ship completely out of reach.

"Where are they, Ibuki?" Worried that the people of Shina would flee farther and farther, Jiutsu saw that Masao Daisa asked the first mate impatiently.

"They're on their way, and it's probably only about thirty or forty nautical miles. His Excellency the Major General ordered us to be sure to hold off the people of China for another two hours. The first mate replied.

"Yo Xi!" Dazuo was finally satisfied, and he felt that the shelling of his ship tonight was very bad. But even so, his goal is almost achieved. The culprit for the futility of the entire combined fleet will be confessed here tonight.

Not understanding the situation of the Japanese, the submarine commanders who had formed an ambush circle kept asking the chief engineer to keep the level up, after the sound of the motor of the merchant ship sailed by, Hu Qinzhai was pleasantly surprised to find that he seemed to be on the side of the convoy, which means that the Japanese ships will also pass along this channel, which is an excellent firing position, just when his own cruiser hurried to the front of the guò submarine, he ordered loudly: "Torpedo No. 1 to No. 4 ready!" ”

"Torpedoes No. 1 to No. 4 ready!" The captain's orders were repeated by the heralds, one by one, to the boat's torpedo compartment.

"Turn on the torpedo tubes!" Hu Qinzhai stared at the periscope with his eyes. Command again.

"Turn on the torpedo tubes"! Orders were passed in the boat. In the torpedo compartment, the sailors who had already loaded the torpedo shook the handle of the torpedo tube cover, and when the gears were occlusive, the front end of the torpedo tube was opened, and the seawater poured into the torpedo tube with a 'ho'.

I tried to find the Japanese ship in the periscope, but all I saw in the periscope was pitch black, and even the waves in front of me could not really see it, and if I wanted to know the direction of the enemy ship, I could only wait for it to fire the next time. It's not too long. The fully pursued Nisshin opened fire again, and the fire from the muzzle of the gun allowed the wolves on the surface of the sea to determine the location of their prey.

"The boat is at zero one zero, eighteen degrees, and two thousand four at a distance. The depth is two, and the torpedo degree is thirty. Hu Qinzhai gave the order in one breath, and he felt that his heart was about to beat out. As the herald repeated his order, he repeated, "Left rudder five." Number one, number three, get ready to shoot! ”

"Left rudder five. Number one, number three, get ready to shoot! The herald repeated.

"One, shoot!" Hu Qinzhai shouted, and his suppressed voice was like a wolf biting its prey.

"One, shoot!" The herald's voice also rose up, and with his command, the sailors of the torpedo tube pulled the trigger, and at the same time as the bubble at the tail of the torpedo burst out, the torpedo also broke out of the tube and rushed towards the prey.

"Two, shoot!" The voice of the herald reached the torpedo compartment again, another trigger was pulled, and torpedo No. 2 was out of control.

"Three, get ready to shoot!" The herald passed the order on again.

"Three ready!" The torpedo compartment responded.

"Three, shoot!" The order came again, and torpedo No. 3 was fired.

"Stop shooting!" As the Japanese ships opened fire again, Hu Qinzhai seemed to see the periscopes of several other submarines, and he remembered the commander's previous order, that is, to save torpedoes as much as possible.

After Hu Qinzhai finished the order, he turned his head and looked at the listener who was counting the seconds with a pocket watch. The listener understood exactly what he meant, and said to him and the others who were looking at him, "You'll know the result right away." ”

If a torpedo wants to hit an enemy ship, it is necessary to shoot at a certain point at the front end of its course, 30 knots, and the torpedo travels 15.43 meters per second, a distance of 2,400 meters, and it takes 155 seconds for the torpedo to be in a straight line, and to shoot at the front end of the enemy's course, the distance the torpedo has to travel is not only 2,400 meters, but is very likely to reach 3,000 meters, which takes more than 190 seconds, more than three minutes. If it was daytime, the white track stirred up by the torpedo bubbles would definitely make the enemy ships appear, and these three minutes would be enough for them to adjust their navigation, but in such a dark night, and it was an urgent tracking, could the Japanese show up?

The seconds were ticking forward, turning around and then turning, and while everyone was holding their breath, the sailors on the Nisshin finally showed an abnormality, and several white tracks appeared on the sea near his ship, and he immediately shouted, "Torpedo!" There are torpedoes! The port side shouted that there was a torpedo, and the starboard side also shouted that there was a torpedo, and Kutsumi, who was staring at the Shina fleet with a telescope, finally put his eyes on the closer, "Yaga! He subconsciously scolded like a wooden chicken, and did not give the order to avoid torpedoes at all, because he couldn't avoid it at all, this was a sea of torpedoes!

Kutsu saw that Masao was shocked by the dense torpedoes on the sea, and Shaozo next to him also saw the torpedo trajectory all over the sea, and when he was shouting 'sir', a torpedo hit the tail of the Rizhao, and with a slightly dull 'boom', the Nisshin seemed to be lifted heavily by a big hand under the water, and then fell heavily. Before it could finish its landing, it was hit by the next torpedo, this time hitting the ship's amidships, but before the fire of the explosion could fully bloom, another torpedo followed...... Four minutes later, the cruiser, which was still showing off its might, broke in two and sank to the bottom of the sea in a whirlwind, and the more than 500 officers and men on board were buried with it.

Seeing that the Japanese ships chasing after them were suddenly hit by torpedoes one after another, the sailors on the two cruisers all jumped up, and in the exclamation, they only heard someone shouting Mazu bless, and the sailors finally knew why they wanted to shoot at the Rijin, which was stronger than themselves. Thinking that the Chinese Navy had never sunk a Japanese ship, several old people on the ship suddenly burst into tears!

Although only the first two torpedoes in front could tell who fired them, the officers and men on the submarine heard the sound of the Japanese cruiser's hull tearing and dragon bones breaking, and this was the first warship sunk by the submarine force, and even if it was not sunk by itself, it was also sunk by teammates; Even if you don't have the results now, you will definitely have the results in the future.

Amid the joy of the command tower, Lieutenant General Moffett reverently drew a cross on his chest, and his hanging heart finally let go. When the Japanese ship was pursuing just now, a shell of the Japanese ship hit the Haiqi again, and the vibration of the explosion caused the boiler to begin to leak, and the navigation of the Haiqi suddenly slowed down, if the submarine sank the Japanese ship five minutes later, then the approaching Nijin, it is very likely to sink itself here. After a brief prayer, Lieutenant General Moffett looked at the beaming crowds and shouted, "Gentlemen, it's time for us to go home." As soon as he spoke, he ordered: "The left is full of rudders, heading to 240, and the ships will move with the flagship!" ”

With the order of the lieutenant general, the Haiqi made a 180-degree turn, and the Hairong, which had been following him, also made a turn, and the merchant ship at the front of the run also approached under the signal, and the three ships sailed west in formation again. Lieutenant General Moffett, who thought that the Japanese were coming at full speed and felt that the voyage was constantly descending, said again: "The pipe wheel reports losses. ”

"Pipe wheel reports loss." Captain Tang Tingguang repeated the order in the microphone.

After a long silence, the voice of Liu Guannan, the head of the head office, came from the microphone: "It has been repaired, but it is better not to have eighteen sections!" ”

The Haiqi is a warship of more than ten years, and it is also a warship that is not properly maintained, taking coal as an example, the qualified coal used by the warship is Welsh hard coal, but this coal needs 221 tons. In the nuclear price to the Admiralty, the coal used by the warship was quoted as 2 taels per ton of Welsh hard coal, but in the inner account of the fleet, the fleet used 12 taels of carefully selected Kaiping lump coal, and the one who could control the coal supply to the fleet was Zhang Yi of the Alcohol Prince's Mansion - it was this person who sold the Kaiping mine to Britain at a low price, and he relied on the status of the Alcohol Prince's Mansion to collect 12 taels of coal from the Navy, but gave another 3421 tons of Japanese cheap coal. After all, the current emperor is from Prince Alcohol's Mansion, and the Minister of the Navy Zaixun is also from Prince Alcohol's Mansion, if you really annoy Zhang Yi, then this navy can't think about it.

After more than ten years of Japanese coal burning, coupled with insufficient maintenance, the boilers of these warships left by the Manchu Qing Dynasty all had problems with gas leakage and corrosion, and even if the pursuit just now did not shake the boiler boiler boiler with a gun, it could not be maintained for too long, so to speak, the Nisshin was sunk by a torpedo is just right.

Hearing that the engine was fine, everyone was finally completely relieved. Lieutenant Admiral Moffett began to count his own results, not to mention the Hairong, which fired a total of seven rounds of thirteen shells in the half-hour battle, and only hit one Japanese ship, but in the later pursuit, his own side hit the Japanese ship once, so that it was two out of nineteen, and the hit rate was 10.5 percent, which was much higher than the Japanese out of 43 out of three...... The lieutenant general was taken aback by the numbers he had calculated. (To be continued!)

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