This naval battle, known as the "Slaughter of Iquique" by military fans in later generations, was defined by historians as the first appearance of ironclads on the historical stage.
One warship fighting against twenty warships may seem like an incredible victory, but in the eyes of military experts, it is an inevitable outcome.
First of all, the armor of both sides is not of the same specification. Not counting the few wooden-hulled warships on the Peruvian side, the average thickness of the remaining warships' armor is less than three centimeters. Inside the armor is an ordinary oak hull.
The Zhiyuan is a pure iron-armored battleship. The thickness of the steel plate reaches four inches, which is more than 100 mm. The three-fold difference gives the Zhiyuan an invincible shield in this naval battle.
Next is the power system. Two horizontal 3-cylinder reciprocating steam engines and four high-rise coal-fired boilers were designed by dozens of Prussian engineers and carefully crafted by countless senior craftsmen. It is no exaggeration to say that this represents It demonstrated the top level of turbine technology at that time.
What’s even more outrageous is that the Zhiyuan also has a strong wind pressurization design concept. Theoretically, the maximum power can reach 7,500 horsepower. Such a strong heart allows the Zhiyuan to increase its speed to an incredible 18 knots, almost approaching a flying shear. The ship's speed increased.
Looking at the caliber of the artillery, the difference between the 210 artillery and the 148 artillery is not even a little bit. The Zhiyuan was hit by one or two shots as if nothing happened, but the enemy's thin-skinned and large stuffed dumplings made a hole with one poke of the 210 artillery.
The rest is the quality of the troops. In the 19th century, artillerymen, especially naval artillerymen, were already considered high-tech arms.
First of all, you must understand ballistics, trigonometric functions, rudimentary aerodynamics, and mathematics, preferably calculus. Only in this way can you be qualified to operate the main gun of a battleship.
Having these basic knowledge is not enough, you also need to have a lot of live-fire shooting training. This is very simple to say, but the cost of one shell of the 210 main gun is two thousand taels less. Don’t think it’s too expensive. This kind of integrated shell is simply not available at the moment. There is no molded assembly line, it is completely semi-manual production, and you have to endure the high price.
Didn’t you see that the Peruvian Navy’s main gun has to calculate the amount of ammunition before firing? Their artillery fires are all separated from the warhead and propellant. The artillery operator calculates the distance and angle, then calculates how many pounds of gunpowder is needed, and finally loads it. It is simply impossible to speed up this launch mode.
The main gun of the Zhiyuan is extremely expensive and uses integrated ammunition. It is really easy to use, but this thing is so expensive! Only Xiao Letian, a time traveler, knew where the future trend would be, so he had the courage to spend money like water.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, the price of various types of artillery shells and machine gun shells consumed by the Zhiyuan has now approached half a million taels of silver. If it hadn't been for robbing the French of some money in Dakar, this trip back home would have been impossible. But it really became a prodigal journey.
After analyzing various factors together, the victory of the Zhiyuan is not surprising. The twenty-year era difference is really not a boast.
The sound of cannons on the sea was rumbling, and the Zhiyuan maneuvered in an S-shape, always maintaining a T-shaped shooting posture with the enemy, and the distance between the fleets was always maintained between 4,000 and 3,000 meters. At this distance, the Zhiyuan was still It can maintain high shooting accuracy, but the artillery of the Peruvian Navy can only try its luck.
Xiang Ying knew that the final victory must belong to him. He deliberately let the Zhiyuan move from the southwest sea to the northwest sea to prevent the fleet from escaping. He wanted to eat this fleet in one bite and not a single ship would be left.
Boom, boom, boom... The sea was rocked by explosions. One after another, the Peruvian Navy warships were blown into torches. Some warships even exploded and disintegrated due to a chain reaction in their internal gunpowder magazines.
After an hour of hard fighting, the Peruvian Navy only had fifteen warships left. Looking at the Zhiyuan in the distance, it was still alive and well without any signs of fatigue.
The flagship Lima was in despair, and the commander burst into tears. The whole battle today was so ups and downs that it was unbearable for the heart. He watched the warships being sunk one after another, but he was helpless. Finally, in a daze, he took out his pistol and was about to shoot himself.
"No... General, you can't!" A group of people rushed forward and snatched away the pistols. "It's not your fault. That battleship was completely unexpected. It should have been a European country that intervened. This is a failure of diplomacy, isn't it? What a failure of our soldiers!”
"That kind of warship is not something we can deal with. Let's order a breakout... Don't hesitate any longer to disperse and break out!"
While speaking, there was only a loud bang, and another small ironclad ship was hit by a bullet and ignited a fire. Until this moment, the Peruvian Navy could only recognize the reality. The order to disperse and break out was issued, and the retreat flag slowly rose.
But at this moment, the Zhiyuan had already suppressed the northwest corner of the battlefield, and the Peruvian fleet did not dare to break out to the north. They could only make a large detour to the southwest, and they had to sail dispersedly.
However, they did not expect that the remaining Chilean Navy warships that had escaped long ago would appear on the southern sea surface again, approaching them quickly.
The helpless Peruvian Navy could only rush in one direction to the southwest, while the Zhiyuan and the Chilean Navy were attacking from the north and south and fired wildly at the group of bereaved dogs.
One warship after another was hit by bullets and burst into flames. Countless sailors fell into the water and struggled in pain. At the end, there was only one voice on the battlefield: "What kind of ship is that? Which country's warship is it? If we don't understand it, we will die in peace." !”
Unfortunately, in the end, the Zhiyuan did not fly any flag with the logo, and the sailors on the deck were vague and indistinguishable. There was only one memory that the survivors after the war will never forget.
"That battleship had two very strange prows on the bow. The golden light was very domineering. We thought it was a flying dragon but it didn't have wings. We thought it was a sea snake but it had golden scales... It wasn't until much later that we found out. That is the Chinese totem, that is called dragon!"
The massacre on the sea shocked the soldiers on land. The veterans of the Kingdom of Heaven rushed toward the city of Iquique in a dark force. They bypassed the firepower range of the last three fortresses and launched an attack from the safe area to the pier fort.
There were only 2,000 defenders of the Iquique Fort, and another five to six hundred were killed in the previous battle. The remaining soldiers were not enough to fill the gap between the teeth, and the fort fell after just one charge.
All soldiers who did not surrender had their heads chopped off, and those who surrendered knelt in the corner and were tied up with ropes and locked up in an empty house. Immediately afterwards, the veterans began to operate small-caliber artillery to bombard the fortress.
Tietutuo's hand holding the telescope began to tremble. He choked and said to Chen Yonglu, "Look, look! That's a battleship sent by the Prime Minister. That's our Chinese battleship...invincible!"
A roar like a mountain roaring and a tsunami suddenly erupted from the dock, "Invincible! Our invincible battleship! Invincible..."
