,!
The Japanese navy also had monocular telescopes imported from the so-called "Southern Barbarians" (Western and Portuguese), and at this time they also discovered the four Ming army ships ahead. Since the four ships were all big ships in the eyes of the Japanese, the Japanese navy immediately became nervous, but the commander Takatora Todo was very excited and immediately ordered to meet the enemy.
Fujido Takatora believes that there is no need to worry about the four Ming army ships. The reason is that although these four ships are all large ships, the strength of his own fleet is still far beyond theirs.
The scale of the Japanese fleet is not small, with dozens of small morning ships and several dozen Kanbune ships, as well as six Oyasaka ships and four armed transport ships with the same specifications as the opposite Ming army - Takatora Toudo even believed that these four ships were on his side. Armed transport ships are stronger because they are not only equipped with "iron armor", but also fully equipped with artillery that was not originally equipped when purchased.
In other words, compared to the four Ming army's four armed transport ships, our four armed transport ships are not only equally matched in terms of artillery, but they also have more iron armor. No matter how you look at it, your own side has the advantage.
However, Gao Lichuan, the decoy formation commander on the "Jiulishan" opposite him, didn't see it that way.
As the distance between the two sides narrowed, Gao Lichuan had already determined the size of the Japanese navy formation through binoculars. He also saw clearly the armor of the four Japanese armed transport ships and clearly counted the artillery they were equipped with. There was no difference between them and his own warships. However, Gao Lichuan was not alarmed by this, and even snorted from his nostrils.
Immediately afterwards, Gao Lichuan ordered to turn to the right and seize the lead of the T-shaped formation. Due to their professional semaphore advantage, the four ships of the Ming Army turned in a uniform manner. They quickly occupied a favorable position and deliberately slowed down to facilitate bombardment.
On the other hand, the Japanese army, due to its large scale, mixed ship types, and completely different armament standards, only Anzha ships and armed transport ships could participate in this kind of battle line bombardment, so they had to continue to approach directly.
Based on the experience and lessons learned from the battle with Yi Sun-shin, coupled with the objective reality of the Japanese naval forces, Todo Takatora ordered small and medium-sized warships such as Kanfune and Kozabune to rush in quickly and surround the four stagnant Ming army ships, while the large ship hung on Cover artillery fire from behind.
According to his idea, as the small boat approaches, the large ship provides artillery cover from behind. After the small boat approaches and surrounds the four Ming ships, the Ming army will naturally be unable to shell normally. At that time, the large ship of our own side will approach again to participate in the encirclement. Just perfect.
The main reason why he thought so was because he had discovered in previous battles with Yi Sun-shin that Yi Sun-shin's turtle ship often rammed Japanese small ships, but the artillery on the ship would try its best to fire artillery at the Japanese large ships. He believed that the North Korean navy should have learned this skill from the Ming army - after all, it was the Ming Dynasty's father.
In other words, the Ming army's style of play should be similar to this. However, this style of play is flawed in the view of Takatora Toudo. Its biggest flaw is that once the enemy ship cannot hit it, it will be forced to engage in close combat with the Japanese boats around it.
At this time, the Japanese army was able to take advantage of its iron artillery, and the enemy ships could only defend but were unable to counterattack at best. In the end, they were picked up and boarded by the Japanese army who had a numerical advantage - and then they were massacred.
And there is another advantage to doing this, that is, the main losses of one's side will almost always be small and medium-sized warships such as Kanfune and Kozabune, while Anzha ships and "Tangyang big ships" can be guaranteed not to suffer losses as much as possible. A good way to maintain core combat power to the greatest extent.
However, Toudo Takatora soon discovered that he seemed to have made a wrong calculation. After discovering that the Japanese navy approached with small boats first, while the large ship hung far behind and refused to move forward, the four ships of the Ming army did not look like the Korean navy at all. Instead of turning directly for impact, he fired immediately without saying a word.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The sound of artillery sounded on the four ships of the Ming Army. They successively fired the first round of bombardment, but most of them missed and fell into the sea.
Fujido Takatora was surprised at first when he discovered the bombardment, and then he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that almost all of them were empty. He was surprised because his estimate was wrong, and relieved because the Ming army did not use all their strength in this round of shelling (counting the side string muzzles and listening to the sound of the gun can roughly estimate whether it was a salvo), and secondly, the attack was accurate. Not good.
Fujido Takatora judged that the main purpose of this round of shelling by the Ming army may be to embolden themselves and at the same time cause psychological pressure on the approaching Japanese boats.
With this judgment in mind, Toudo Takatora naturally did not change the battle plan, but just watched the boats ahead rushing forward desperately, like a pack of hyenas attacking a lion.
However, the reaction of the Ming army made Takatora Toudo doubt that he had missed something. The four ships of the Ming Army still maintained their original formation - in fact, they faced the enemy sideways, and soon launched a second round of bombardment.
This time, it was a salvo.
The artillery on the side strings of the four ships of the Ming Army roared almost simultaneously, firing a large number of chain bombs. From Toudo Takatora's perspective, sparks flashed continuously on the four ships of the Ming army, sending out many small black dots. If you look carefully, you can even see the two balls of the chain bullet pulling the iron chain in the middle and spinning rapidly towards the Japanese boat, like a rotating sickle harvesting lives.
The standard of the Jinghua armed transport ship is 28 guns in the whole ship. Except for the two guns at the bow and stern that cannot be adjusted for side bombardment, there are 13 guns on the left and right side strings. They are all No. 2 guns, and the four ships fire in salvo. That means 52 rounds per round.
Chain bombs use a chain to connect two small cannonballs smaller than the caliber of the gun bore. After being fired, one cannonball will drag the other cannonball out centrifugally and fly out, so it will tear a big hole in the sail or blow the It can tear the rigging, and if you are lucky, even break the mast, directly paralyzing the enemy ship. It is a special naval artillery shell mainly used to limit the mobility of enemy ships.
52 chain bombs were fired. In Jinghua's imaginary main battle, if he could hit three or five at this fighting distance, he would be lucky. However, because the Japanese navy was approaching densely with small boats at this time, the accuracy of the chain bombs was greatly improved. Fourteen of the chain bombs hit the enemy ship in this round of bombardment.
The advantage of Jinghua's artillery is not only the artillery itself, but also a very important point is that the gunpowder yield is much higher than that of its opponents at the same time - in other words, the gunpowder produced by Jinghua cannot be used by Jinghua's artillery. The performance of the artillery is actually excessive, which means that even if the opponent is fully loaded with gunpowder, it cannot achieve the range and power that Jinghua can produce.
The fourteen chain bombs that hit this round broke the masts of three Japanese ships on the spot, damaged one of the bridge command cabins, and the rest were basically casualties. It was visually estimated that at least 70 or 80 Japanese sailors were killed. The Japanese soldiers who were shot in the ship and the morning boat were covered in blood and flesh. It was horrific and very visually shocking.
Needless to say, the Japanese ship with its broken mast must have lost mobility on the spot. Even if only a few sailors were killed, the scene was so brutal that it frightened the rest of the sailors around them, and their forward speed was greatly reduced, forcing the Japanese ships behind them to go around, which even led to two accidents. Warship collision accident.
At this time, the Ming army's advantage in seizing the wind direction came into play. They began to distance themselves diagonally, but they were still able to maintain a sideline volley.
Seeing this scene, Toudo Takatora subconsciously felt that the situation was not good, but the Japanese command could not rely entirely on temporary adjustments in flags. Therefore, even though Toudo Takatora was a little worried, it was difficult to immediately order corresponding changes - not to mention that he could not immediately make adjustments. Can't figure out how to change it.
The Japanese navy's small boat cluster continued to approach, and the four Ming army ships continued to fire sideways salvos while turning slightly. After two more rounds of salvos, the losses of the Japanese small boats were already considerable. More than 30 ships and small boats were lost or basically incapacitated. More than 200 sailors were killed on the spot, and the wounded were countless.
The only good news is that the Japanese navy's small boat cluster is getting closer and closer to the four Ming army ships, and is only more than a mile away. Even based on the suspiciously short time interval between the Ming army's artillery fire just now, the Ming army could only fire at most two rounds of volleys before the Japanese army completely approached.
Under the strong encouragement of the samurai, the Japanese navy sailors tried their best to overcome their fear. Inspired by victory, they roared and approached the fourth Ming army ship, where a human figure could be seen clearly on the ship. The Anzha ship and the "Tang-shaped large ship" that were originally hanging behind the small boat cluster also began to accelerate and approach, preparing to participate in the final boarding and sweeping battle.
At this time, the Ming army indeed fired another salvo, but instead of chain bullets, they fired grape bullets.
Grape bombs are a type of artillery shell that can be used on both land and sea. They use net bags to bundle the loose shells into a bunch, much like a bunch of grapes, hence the name grape bombs. Although its range is not as good as that of solid bullets, one shot fired at close range can instantly knock down dozens of enemy soldiers, enough to make a platoon of soldiers collapse.
In naval battles, grapeshot fired at a relatively close range has an effect similar to that of shotgun shells. It can knock down large areas of enemy officers and sailors, killing the enemy on a large scale and even paralyzing enemy ships.
There is no doubt that the Japanese boat, which was approaching about a mile away, had to pay a large number of casualties in the face of such bombardment.
Since the structural strength of Sekifune and Kohayabune was not high, and there was no so-called "iron armor", two Japanese ships were even badly damaged and suffered from a large amount of water damage.
Although wooden warships are not easily sunk by shells without the ability to explode and ignite, such a sight had to scare the Japanese sailors who saw this scene, fearing that they would end up falling into the sea and feeding sharks. The Japanese army's momentum was once again embarrassed.
At this time, Gao Lichuan finally ordered the flag of "orderly retreat" to be hung, and the steering force was increased to retreat diagonally. The Japanese small boats, which were already a little frightened but were forced to continue the attack due to military orders, saw this and couldn't help but cheer up.
It turns out that the Ming army was also afraid and would turn the ship around to escape! This shows that the courage of our army to fear death has shocked the Ming army! Everyone, work hard, the winner will be decided here!
Whether they were samurai or ordinary Japanese sailors, these words popped up in their minds at this time. Their mood suddenly changed from fear to excitement, and the whole group rushed to pursue the four Ming army ships.
However, what waited for them was that the Ming army's stern artillery continued to fire grapeshot, and more musketeers from the Jinghua ships began to fire Wanli II rifles and began to fight back.
Although the Japanese army felt that the distance between the two sides was still far away, it was not a good time to shoot each other with iron cannons. However, since the Ming army started to fire, even if the Japanese army wanted to maintain the morale they had just managed to raise, they could only shoot in advance and compete with the Ming army. Military shooting.
However, like artillery, although the quality of the iron cannon produced by Japan is good, due to gunpowder problems, the counterattack at this time can only be heard and has no practical effect at all.
At this time, Todo Takatora also discovered another problem. The Ming army retreated very quickly. In a short period of time, it went from slowly adjusting the lineup to trying to get rid of it with all its strength. The speed was almost the same as that of the Japanese small boat swarm.
In addition, the Ming army was able to counterattack forcefully. As a result, although the small boat cluster could have been faster than the four ships of the Ming army, it could only maintain a "bite and hold" state, making it difficult to shorten the distance - as soon as it got close, it would It will be focused on the fire, so it will slow down again.
But the biggest trouble was not this. It was that Toudo Takatora found that no matter how much he urged, or even got angry and threatened, the main formation composed of the Anzha ship and the "Tang-like ship" could not get up quickly. Toudo Takatora was shocked to find that even though he was shouting to speed up, he was actually getting further and further away from the four Ming army ships.
The first drawback of the Japanese Navy's installation of "iron armor" on all large ships was undoubtedly revealed: it seriously slowed down the speed, resulting in a significant reduction in maneuverability!
Wakisaka Anji, who was in charge of commanding the small boat cluster in front, was annoyed that the Ming army did not dare to fight to the death and had a shameful fight-and-run tactic. He was also annoyed that Takatora Toudo behind him was too slow to "fear the enemy." After chasing for a while, the big enemy Cursing and ordering to slow down, he refused to die again.
When Toudo Takatora's main fleet finally caught up, Wakisaka Anji immediately moved closer, jumped on Toudo Takatora's flagship, pointed at the latter's nose and cursed. Todo Takatora was livid with anger, but he could only patiently explain the reason.
Wakisaka Anji had little respect for Toudo Takatora, a guy who had voted for seven lords. At this time, his temper got even worse and he scolded him extremely badly. From being afraid of the enemy and scolding him to making tactical mistakes, Toudo Takatora really experienced what it means to be bloody. .
Fortunately, a new message came at this time, saying that the Ming army in front had reduced its speed and began to patrol in the distance, and even vaguely had the intention of approaching again.
Wakisaka Anji didn't care to continue cursing at this moment, and quickly raised the "Nanman Telescope" to take a closer look. At this glance, we found that the four ships of the Ming Army had once again adjusted their course and began to move towards the Japanese army again.
Wakisaka Anji was furious and shouted: "Toudo, are you going to let Kohayabune and Sekibune go to die, while you hide behind and pretend to be dead?"
Takatora Toudo had a headache. He looked at the approaching night and wanted to say, "Night fighting is not what our army is good at." However, under the almost murderous look of Anji Wakisaka, he had to change his words and said, "Let's do this, Your Highness, Wakisaka. Once the small boats were outflanked by the left and right wings, the main ship moved forward at full speed to engage in a decisive battle with the enemy ships, what do you think?"
Wakisaka Anji said coldly: "Very good, but I won't go to command the outflank. I will just watch how you kill the enemy heroically from your ship. Do you have any objections?"
Anji Wakisaka is a close general of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Todo Takatora, who has changed his master seven times, would not dare to have any objections. He could only forcefully smile and say: "How dare you, I am trying to help His Highness Wakisaka."
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