"The entire formation turned left and quickly opened the distance."
After this order, Takagizo added another battle order: "Send a flag to inform the entire formation: change chain bombs and attack the opponent's sails and cables. This ship will also follow the same instructions."
This order is a direct complement to his "kite flying" tactical thinking. The main characteristics or advantages of hard-sailed warships are that they can "take the wind from all sides" and are less likely to expand small battle losses, and these two points happen to be the disadvantages of soft-sailed warships.
Now Takagi San has created a situation where both sides are sidelined. Although it is not the best situation, it can already make the advantage obvious. While it still takes some time for the two sides to distance themselves, attacking the opponent's sails and cables is a typical way to maximize profits.
In particular, Takagizo did not forget his mission in this battle: he did not need to use a decoy formation of only four warships to truly defeat his opponent. His mission was to hold back the Spanish fleet and create a way for the main force of the Beiyang Expeditionary Fleet to encircle, annihilate and capture the enemy fleet. Chance.
Now that the other side is neither far nor close to us, although we will also be bombarded, it is obvious that the warships of both sides cannot be sunk by the other side in a short time. At this time, it is obviously more in line with the grand strategy to give up attacking the enemy ship's hull and take the opportunity to attack the sails and cables in order to slow down the opponent's speed.
However, something interesting happened. Just when Jinghua lured the enemy formation into firing its first salvo of chain bombs, it was shockingly discovered that the salvo fired by the Spaniards was also a chain bomb!
In the command room, Takagizo witnessed with his own eyes a chain bomb flying from somewhere on the deck of the "Tengzhou", cutting an unlucky sailor into two sections, and blood and internal organs were sprayed everywhere.
He lowered his face and said to the other people in the command room: "It seems that the Spaniards are smarter than I thought, and they have the same idea as me. However, I guess their purpose is still to Slow down our speed and engage in a boarding battle with us.
Inform the rigmaster and boatswain that damage control is the most important issue now. Our hard sails are much cheaper than their soft sails and are easy to operate. If they need to be replaced, replace them immediately. Don’t worry about saving money. Everything I am responsible for the consequences. "
After all, the Jinghua Liangyang Fleet is a commercial fleet that is "self-financing" to a certain extent. Its daily income mainly comes from maritime trade and escort income - other merchant ships travel with the fleet to do business, and they have to pay 5% of the trade volume to the fleet. Escort fee, this escort fee does not charge in kind, and will be collected at a discounted price.
By the way, most Jiangnan maritime merchants, even those of the Xu family, choose to go with the Jinghua fleet when sailing to Southeast Asia and Japan. Because although pirates these days are not as rampant as before, the times are here and it is difficult to eradicate them all. These pirates are like leeks, which sprout again and again after being cut.
Moreover, Jinghua's escort fee - also called protection fee outside - is not harsh. Compared with the profits of sea trade at this time, the protection fee of "5 out of 100" for trade volume is still acceptable to everyone.
But precisely because the Two Oceans Fleet is such a highly commercialized fleet, it attaches great importance to losses, and its proportion in the calculation of military exploits and achievements is also very high. Therefore, generally speaking, each ship is usually accustomed to "resolutely not repairing the ones that can still be used, and determined not replacing the ones that can be repaired" to avoid reduced merit rewards or even penalty and money deductions.
At this time, Takagi San said that he would be responsible for all the consequences, which meant that everyone would have a free hand. The rigmaster and boatswain immediately mobilized their men again to try to perform well.
The solid cannon was replaced with chain ammunition, and the distance between the two sides was not particularly far, so the losses between them began to increase. It stands to reason that the Spanish ship-based artillery is more suitable for firing chain bombs with a relatively short attack range. However, they soon discovered that Jinghua's "Hard Sail Fleet" not only seemed to have a clear advantage in terms of rate of fire, but also chain bombs against Their damage effects are also far less effective than expected.
The chain bullet itself is two halves of an iron ball connected by an iron chain, which are stuffed into the barrel of the gun and fired. The iron chain will be pulled apart by the centrifugal force during the flight of the artillery shell, and it will become a "swinging and rotating" motion state, making it easier to hang up the thinner enemy ships. The mast can also cut the cable or tear the sail.
This situation led to some phenomena that neither side had expected before the war:
It turned out that Takagi San only knew that after the soft sail was damaged by the chain bullet, it was easily pulled by the wind and the hole became larger. In the end, it was out of control and had to be abandoned.
However, the current problem is that the wind off the northern coast of the Philippines is not very strong, and the sails of the Spanish Galen ships seem to be of particularly good quality. It is obvious that their sails have been damaged in several places visible to the naked eye. But until the distance gradually increased, there was no obvious "hole getting bigger", an ideal situation.
The theory of "holes will be torn apart by the wind" is pragmatically said by Gao Pragmatic, and "the master has no doubt" is the creed in Takagi San's heart, so he can only regret in his heart: Damn, the wind is not strong today!
However, although "big holes" almost never happened, Takagi San unexpectedly discovered another weakness of the soft-sailed warships: the cables on their ships were too many and too dense. This means that as long as enough chain bullets are fired, many of their cables can be broken from time to time even if they are lucky [Note: In fact, most of them are stay ropes].
Most of these cables are connected to various parts of the sail surface, and the soft sail needs them to expand itself and take wind smoothly. Even these cables (stays) play a role in keeping those tall masts stable.
As a result, when they are interrupted too much, various unexpected situations begin to occur. For example, the Spanish fleet's flagship "San Antonio" had an obvious problem with its force when taking wind because too much of the cable on one side of the foremast was knocked off.
In such a fierce artillery battle at this time, the Spanish sailors obviously had no time to pull down the sail surface immediately - comparing the two types of sails, the soft sail at this time is faster to raise the sail and slower to withdraw the sail, while the hard sail is faster to raise the sail. Slowly but quickly withdraw the sail.
The main reason why the hard sail can be withdrawn quickly is that there are brackets on the sail surface, so there is no need to untie the many thin and dense stays before it is withdrawn. The reason why it raises the sail slowly is also due to this problem. Because of the bracket, the weight is relatively large (sail surface weight alone). The records of the Qiying Hao by the British in original history also illustrate these characteristics.
It is precisely because a hard sailboat does not have so many stays that the sail surface cannot be as large as a soft sail. Gao pragmatically raised this issue with the shipyard before and asked them if they could improve in this direction, but the shipyard directly rejected it.
The reason is quite simple: although adding these stays can make the sail bigger, the sail surface cannot be changed as casually as it is now. In other words, the main advantage of "eating the wind from all sides" is gone - then why do I need your hard sail?
Because of this reason, the foremast of the "San Antonio" was completely tilted to one side with difficulty. As a result, it slowly bent under the incredulous eyes of everyone...until there was a huge "click" and the entire foremast was broken. The upper half of the foremast along with the huge The sail fell down.
Fortunately, the Spaniards were not so lucky. The broken foremast did not hit the mainmast and the bridge control room, but fell sideways to the port side and eventually fell into the sea. The sea wind still helped. He killed them, but the hull of the ship was damaged a lot when it was smashed down, and at least three or four sailors were crushed to death.
The impact of the fallen foremast on a battleship is of course huge. The speed of the "San Antonio" immediately slowed down a notch, just like riding a bicycle with the handbrake on in later generations.
As for the other ships, although the situation was not as miserable as that of the "San Antonio" that was under special care, the troubles they faced were very similar. They were all caused by a large number of complex cables and stays being damaged, which affected their speed.
In addition, the operation of soft-sail warships is very complicated, and it is even more difficult to repair damage immediately. Therefore, the entire fleet has begun to have a "difficult" dilemma.
But correspondingly, Jinghua's hard-sailed warship also encountered some unexpected troubles.
The first trouble lies in the article "hard sails don't care about small hole damage". Yes, the hard sail is indeed not afraid of individual small holes. The impact of several holes on the hard sail's wind intake is almost negligible. However, a major problem occurred during this relatively close chain shot exchange - when the holes appeared too Too often, the hard sail may break!
The root of this problem lies in the hard sail material of the Jinghua battleship at this time. The definition of hard sail in later generations is different from that of this era. The so-called hard sail in later generations does not mean that you have to use bamboo strips or reed mats to weave the sail surface. You can use canvas and brackets to count it as a hard sail - the key Depends on whether there is a bracket.
However, today's Jinghua hard sails are relatively primitive hard sails mainly made of bamboo strips. It was only after Gao pragmatic mastered the tung oil processing technology of bamboo and wood products passed down by Guangxi chieftains for generations that he turned these bamboo strips hard sails into " They were reworked to make them more resilient than the stiff sails of the past.
Unfortunately, no matter how "more resilient" they are, they are still made of bamboo strips, and there is still a critical point of fragmentation under the sea breeze. As long as this critical point is exceeded, what should be broken will still be broken - large-scale pieces will fall down, and then gradually lose the ability to eat wind.
If the Spaniards’ trouble now is that they often have no time to remove the sail even though they see damage, then Takagizo and the others’ current trouble is “should I remove the sail or not?”
It is very easy to remove the hard sail. Just untie a few main parts and do a little auxiliary work to remove the entire sail. But the problem is how to hang the spare sail after it is withdrawn. It is not difficult to install it, but it is difficult to raise the sail, especially now that we are still in the artillery battle.
Imagine that a bunch of people gathered around the mast and shouted loudly, pulling the huge and heavy sail up little by little. If the Spaniards happened to hit a chain bomb at this time, wouldn't the scene be like sweeping thousands of troops? ?
What's more, although some hard sails are broken into large pieces now, compared to the entire sail surface, it is not a complete break, but a "small overall break" between the brackets. . In other words, you are right to say that it can still be used, but the wind intake area has become smaller. As for how much smaller it is, it depends on how many pieces are broken.
Both sides suffered varying degrees of speed loss due to their respective disadvantages, and the situation on the field became complicated. Judging from the current situation, it seems that the hard-sailed battleships still have a slight advantage - because although everyone's sails have been damaged a lot, the characteristics of the hard-sailed warships that "take the wind from all directions" allow the enemy formation to be lured at this time. It has some advantages in the situation where the side string is taking advantage of the wind.
This is what Takagi San is most fortunate and afraid of at this time. If he had not actively designed and achieved such a wind-eating situation from the beginning, the two sides would not have been able to engage in long-term close-range artillery battles. And if you are unlucky and the other party successfully launches a boarding battle, the situation will be even more unimaginable.
However, unexpected situations continued to occur: due to the different degrees of sail loss of the ships of the two fleets, the formations between the fleets have become uneven, and can even be described as staggered.
The distance between the farthest ships has increased to two miles, basically out of reach of each other, but the two closest ships are only about three to four hundred meters away, and the sailors on both sides have even begun to fight with muskets. Shooting - this is actually beyond the range of precise shooting, and it is normal for them to be unable to hit each other.
However, Jinghua's consistent emphasis on range and accuracy has played a little role at this moment. Although the corresponding power is weakened, the occasional few bullets hitting the Spanish warships are enough to shock the opponent with this range. ——Although it doesn't actually play any practical role at this moment.
The formation of the entire Jinghua fleet has also changed. The "Dengzhou" and "Jinzhou" slowly fell behind the formation, while the two high-speed reconnaissance ships "Left Wing Hussars" and "Right Wing Hussars" began to show their unique "powers".
Driven by the propellers, although the two ships also suffered a lot of damage on the sails, their speeds were almost unchanged compared to before (because there was the Dengzhou in front of them before, which actually suppressed their speed), which made them The two first-class cruisers that surpassed the "Laizhou class" were the furthest away.
Takagi San keenly noticed this situation. With a thought in his mind, he suddenly ordered: "Sign the flag and order the 'Left Light Cavalry' and the 'Right Light Cavalry' to break away from the formation to hunt freely and conduct harassment operations." After a pause. After a pause, he added: "Let them judge based on the situation whether they can launch chain bombs as much as possible during the harassment operation to continue to attack the opponent's mobility."
The messenger went down, but the first mate was a little worried and reminded: "Captain, if this happens, the pressure on us and the 'Jinzhou' will be even greater."
Takagi San nodded solemnly, but still said firmly: "I know, but it doesn't matter. At present, we still maintain a slight advantage in speed. As long as we can maintain this, wait for the two 'Light Cavalry' to find an opportunity to attack the Spanish fleet." If the sails and cables are more damaged, they won't be able to escape, and we can escape from danger. Judging from the time, the large fleet should also arrive by then..."
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