Chapter 1110 Lushunkou

This black smoke slowly rose into the air, like a black dragon entrenched between heaven and earth. It was extremely conspicuous in the clear sky and could be seen from more than ten miles away. Obviously this was not an accidental forest fire.

, but the warning smoke set off by the sentry on the mountain. The Hou Jin Army obviously did not ignore Laotieshan, an excellent observation point, and deployed manpower at high altitudes to monitor the situation at sea. The Haihan fleet came from the south, and when they saw it

It's not a good way to go. When the Houjin sentry on the mountain saw it, he naturally wanted to warn the rear immediately.

"These wild boar skins are quite vigilant!" Wang Tom was also a little moved when he saw this. Houjin attaches great importance to coastal defense. It seems that a certain scale of troops will be deployed in the Lushun area behind Laotieshan.

army.

However, the main purpose of Wang Tom's trip was to conduct on-the-spot investigation of Lushunkou. If the Jin army wanted to take countermeasures against Haihan, it would suit Wang Tom's taste. After heading north to Shandong this time, several things happened

All major and minor battles were handled by the Army, and the Navy did not get any credit. He also specially sent the Discovery-class warships to the upper reaches of Jiahe River to assist the Army. As a result, the opponent Wanjia Army was too weak and could not enter the range of the naval guns.

In the end, the Navy still didn't fire a single shot and could only act as a mascot.

Naturally, Wang Tom was unwilling to let his officers and men continue to do nothing. He planned this northward expedition to inspect the Bohai Strait and the Liaodong Peninsula, in fact, to find something for the navy to do. Haihan can complete the infrastructure project of Zhifu Bay Base this year.

The merits have been fulfilled and there is no time left to launch a formal attack across the sea on the Liaodong Peninsula. However, Wang Tom still hopes to have the opportunity to let the navy train its troops so as not to become rusty in their fighting skills. Moreover, Hou Jin's maritime armed strength is still far away.

It's not as good as the Ming Dynasty. It should be a pleasant thing for the body and mind to squeeze this soft persimmon from time to time and keep the Hou Jin Army busy for a while.

The seaside side of Laotieshan is full of cliffs, and there is no suitable terrain for docking ships. Wang Tom ordered the fleet to turn to the northeast and continue along the east coast of the Liaodong Peninsula. About five nautical miles further from here is the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.

The important port is Lushunkou.

In the fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, that is, 1371, Ming generals Ma Yun and Ye Wang led their troops across the sea from Dengzhou, Shandong, and landed here. Because the voyage was smooth sailing, the old name of Shizikou here was changed to Lushunkou, and it has been used ever since.

Come down.

The port of Lushunkou is surrounded by mountains, with Golden Mountain in the east, Baiyu Mountain in the north, and Laohuwei Peninsula in the west. The harbor is connected to the open sea through a long and narrow waterway. The harbor is hidden and windproof, and it is one of the few ice-free harbors in the north.

Of course, in the current Little Ice Age, whether the sea surface in the harbor will freeze in winter depends on actual conditions.

If Zhifu Bay is more suitable for building a civilian trade and immigration port, then Lushunkou, located on the Liaodong Peninsula, is undoubtedly one of the best choices for a military port. The terrain of this place presents a semi-enclosed structure, wide inside and narrow outside.

There are commanding heights on both sides of the channel, which is naturally easy to defend and difficult to attack. It can be regarded as the Haihan military's favorite military port terrain. Wang Tom's interest in this place even exceeds that of Dalian Bay, which has a larger harbor area in the north.

Before the Liaodong Peninsula was captured by the Later Jin Dynasty, it was under the jurisdiction of the Jinzhou Guards of Liaodong Dusi. The Jinzhou Guards were established in the eighth year of Hongwu, with more than 6,000 people, and six thousand households under their jurisdiction, namely Jinzhou Zuoqianhu

There are: Jinzhou Right Thousand Household Office, Jinzhou Middle Thousand Household Office, Jinzhou Front Thousand Household Office, Jinzhou Middle Left Thousand Household Office, Jinzhou Back Thousand Household Office, among which the first four Thousand Household Offices are deployed in Jinzhou

Inside the city. Zhongzuo Qianhu was established in the 20th year of Hongwu. It is located on the northwest coast of Lushun Port. It is also the main stronghold of the Ming army at the southernmost tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.

However, these guard posts deployed by the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong failed to defend the territory in the end, and the one who gave them the final blow was the rebel general Kong Youde who once guarded Liaodong. Now the jurisdiction of the Jinzhou Guard has been occupied by Hou Jin

.

The fleet soon passed Laotieshan from the east side. Although the smoke on the top of the mountain continued to rise, the soldiers on the ship did not feel much nervousness before the battle. They had already roughly understood it during the pre-war preparation meeting.

After understanding the situation of the Jin Army, and knowing clearly that the opponent does not have enough strength to pose a threat to itself at sea, it is natural to face the enemy's reaction in a relatively relaxed state.

When he was about to arrive at Laohwei Peninsula, Wang Tom saw through his telescope several small sailboats parked on the shore. They looked like they were not military ships. Sun Bing, who was standing next to him, explained to him: "This place was originally a salt farm.

Jinzhou Wei once had a special salt house here, and I think it should have been preserved after Jin Dynasty came."

This salt field is only a few miles away from Laotieshan. From here, you can clearly see the smoke rising from Laotieshan. If someone lives here, they will definitely receive a warning. From the boat, you can no longer see anything on the shore.

There are human activities.

Tom Wang asked: "How was the output of this salt farm in the past?"

Sun Bing scratched his head and said: "I am not serving here, so I don't know the details, but in the past, the salt consumed by Jinzhou Guards was basically supplied from here."

Wang Tom made some calculations in his mind and found that the Jinzhou Guard's establishment was about 6,000 people. Taking into account the needs of the people in the jurisdiction, there would be at least 100,000 kilograms of salt a year, which is a production capacity of about 50 tons of salt. With this

In terms of the production capacity of the era, it is not too low.

Wang Tom then asked: "How many salt fields are there on this scale in the Liaodong Peninsula?"

Sun Bing responded: "As far as I know, there is a salt farm on the coasts under the jurisdiction of Fuzhou Guard and Gaizhou Guard. As for the scale, I don't know."

The reason why Wang Tom asked about the situation of the salt fields was naturally that he had the idea of ​​​​these places. If the fleet can be sent out from time to time to raid these salt fields, then the salt supply of the Liaodong Peninsula will inevitably fall into a crisis.

In an unstable situation, and in the bitter cold land of Liaodong, salt, iron, tea, cloth and other materials are hard currencies, and the supply will directly affect social stability. Targeting salt fields that are close to the sea and have flat terrain that is not suitable for guarding can allow

Hou Jin's rule in the Liaodong Peninsula affected the whole body, which is a very good choice at this stage.

However, the current task was to conduct reconnaissance at Port Arthur, so there was no rush to attack the salt field. The fleet soon arrived at the southwest entrance of the harbor smoothly.

The reason why this place is called Tiger Tail is because the tail of the peninsula here goes deep into the sea and presents a long and narrow S-shaped curved embankment. Therefore, it is vividly called Tiger Tail, which can be regarded as a natural barrier for Lushun Port Harbor.

Seeing that Tiger Tail had appeared in sight, Wang Tom ordered all personnel to prepare for war. All the artillery on the ship entered combat positions, and the steam engine on the flagship also switched from preheating standby to power supply state. Although the maritime armed forces of the Later Jin Army were not strong,

However, it is very likely that there will be warships deployed in this harbor, so it is necessary to prepare for battle in advance.

The narrow waterway entering the harbor is only about 300 meters wide and about 1,000 meters long. On the west side of the channel is Laohuwei Sandbar, and on the east side is Jinjin Mountain, the commanding heights guarding the harbor entrance. Later in the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang chose to build a small harbor behind Jinjin Mountain.

Lushun Dayu, as the logistics maintenance base of the Beiyang Navy, also built a large-scale coastal defense fort on Jinjin Mountain.

With this narrow waterway as the dividing line in Lushun Port, the east side is a small harbor with a diameter of about 300 meters, which is suitable for use as a logistics maintenance site or building a shipyard, while the west side of the harbor has a larger area, at least

More than six square kilometers of sea area are navigable for ships, which is also the key inspection area of ​​the Haihan Fleet.

However, before they actually entered the harbor, enemy warships appeared at the other end of the narrow waterway, blocking the way of Haihan's fleet. However, the opponent's battle lineup was obviously far inferior to Haihan's, with only four ships with a displacement of 300 meters.

It is a sailing ship within a ton, and judging from its appearance and style, it is obviously a lucky ship that once belonged to the navy of the Ming Dynasty.

"Dengzhou rebels!" Of course Wang Tom knew very well where these warships originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty Navy came from. When Kong Youde defected to Liaodong last year, he took away all the floating ships in Dengzhou Water City, including

It also includes an entire naval force that Shandong Dusi spent several years and countless silver coins to build since the Tianqi Period.

There is currently no detailed information on how many warships and sailors this navy, which was kidnapped by Kong Youde and defected to Liaodong, had. However, judging from the appearance of the ships that appeared on the other side of the waterway, at least they still maintained a relatively complete hull.

, and Wang Tom also confirmed from the telescope that there were artillery deployed on the bow of the other side's ship.

In such a narrow waterway, it is difficult for the Haihan warship with a larger hull to deploy its formation and use its side guns to target the opponent's bow. If both sides do not retreat, they can only confront each other head-on here.

After seeing the situation clearly, Wang Tom did not hesitate and immediately issued a combat order: "Rush over and kill them!"

Wang Tom has full confidence in the firepower superiority of his own warships. After dealing with the Ming army for so many years, he is quite familiar with the Ming army's standard warships. The standard weapon on a Fu ship of this tonnage is the Daihatsu Gongyi

There are six Folang machine guns, three bowl-mouthed blunderbuss, and ten bird-bill blunderbuss. In addition, there are conventional weapons such as spray cans, smoke cans, crossbows, and rockets. And the Dafa Gong on the Fu ship opposite

Mounted on the bow of the ship, with its firing speed, Wang Tom judged that there would be at most three or four shots. As for other weapons, including the Fran cannon, it was basically impossible to penetrate at a distance of about thirty meters.

The side planking of the Majesty-class warship.

As long as it can withstand the first few shots from the opponent's bow gun position, once the two armies enter a state of interlocking, Haihan's ship-borne artillery fire can teach the opponent how to behave. With the tonnage of this kind of lucky ship, Wang Tom can be sure that it will

The ship's hull could never withstand a close-range bombardment from a six-pounder gun. Just one shot from the more than twenty guns on the sides of the flagship was enough to paralyze it.

After Wang Tom's order was issued, the whistle on the flagship immediately sounded, conveying the battle signal to other ships following behind. The Haihan fleet formed a line and headed straight north with Wang Tom's flagship as the pioneer.

Rushed over.

When the two sides were still about 300 meters apart, the 48-pound cannon on the bow of the flagship opened fire first. The heavy shells roared through the air and passed four or five meters away from the mainmast of the other side's bow ship. If this collision was a direct hit,

If the mast was broken, it would definitely be able to be broken into two pieces in one go, which would make Wang Tom, who was watching the battle, secretly sigh that it was a pity.

Seeing this, the opponent was not to be outdone and fired back with the Dafa Gong on the bow of the ship. However, the range and accuracy of this shot were far behind. The projectiles fired were more than 20 meters away from the bow of Haihan's flagship before they fell into the water.

The two sides were facing each other in the waterway, which was less than a kilometer long. They were approaching at an extremely fast speed. The gunner on the bow of the ship completed the loading of ammunition as quickly as possible, and fired a second cannonball at the other side before the bows of the ship crossed. This time

The distance between the bows of the two ships was only a dozen meters. This shot hit the bow of the opposite ship firmly, knocking over the gun emplacement where Dafa Gong was deployed. The opponent could be heard in the smoke.

There were chaotic screams coming from the ship, and it was unknown how many lives had been taken by this shot.

But this was just the beginning. When the ships on both sides began to stagger, the side guns fired one by one. At this distance, they almost all penetrated into the hull of the enemy warship. And the other side's guns were fired.

Although the Fo Lang machine gun was also fighting back desperately, due to its limited power, the projectiles hitting the Shanghai-Han warship only left a small dent on the ship's deck before being bounced into the sea.

The firepower competition between the two sides on the deck was not just an artillery battle. Several rockets flew up from the deck of Houjin's warship and shot at the sail of Haihan's flagship. However, Haihan's canvas was not only thick, but also treated with fireproofing.

, even if these rockets can hit, it is difficult to achieve immediate results. The archers who launch the rockets have to face the dense grape bombs launched from the Haihan warship. The upper deck of the Haihan flagship is equipped with grape bombs and chains.

The twelve-pounder shot fired by the gun. Both of these projectiles are standard deck reapers. In addition, the height of the Haihan deck is more advantageous. The soldiers on the deck of the Houjin warship had no way to avoid it. They fell down as soon as one shot was fired.

Blockbuster.

When Haihan's flagship sailed past the first enemy ship, the ship had been damaged by a round of bombardment. Although there were still some surviving crew members on the ship, most of its combat effectiveness had been lost. However, they

The nightmare did not end there, as the second Haihan warship was bombarded immediately behind.

The only thing that the Houjin warship could cause real trouble to Haihan was the rockets fired at it. However, Haihan had already had a way to deal with this kind of naval warfare method commonly used by the Ming army. There were several weapons on the deck.

The team members were waiting with water cannons made of bamboo tubes. The rockets fired onto the ship would be quickly extinguished before they ignited the surrounding areas. There were even two human-driven high-pressure water cannons on the deck to ensure that they hit the sails.

Rockets at high altitudes can also be destroyed in time.
Chapter completed!