Chapter 160 Horsetail Sea Battle 1

The French are careless.

Their understanding of Fujian sailors mainly depends on the French technical consultant team of Fuzhou Ship Administration, and the technical team led by Bai Laoyi lacks understanding of two things, one is the number and standards of land-based forts, and the other is the manufacturing level of Luoyuan Bay Shipyard.

In order to play a role of confidentiality, when Hu Chuyuan purchased land-based artillery, the general's purchase contract was scattered among many artillery manufacturers. He not only chose Armstrong artillery and Krup artillery, but also ordered a large number of Armstrong imitation artillery from the United States.

The French can see six forts, that is, the old six at the mouth of the Min River. They only know that the Fuzhou Ship Administration Government has spent a lot of money to strengthen and update the old six, but they don't know that there are another 16 new forts hidden in the Fushan Mountains at the mouth of the Min River.

Around the Maweikou of Luoxing Tower, Fuzhou Ship Administration has successively built 16 new forts in Ending Mountain, Yantai Mountain, Mahan Mountain, Tianma Mountain, Junshan Mountain, Niuwan Mountain, Yanshan Mountain and Jianfeng Mountain.

In order to facilitate concealment, the scale of these 16 forts is not large. Each of them is equipped with four to five 11-inch new land cannons. The outer layer of the fort is covered with a green screen, and the surrounding are transplanted giant trees against common sense, and even use cement to imitate the mountain.

All the forts are connected by telephone network, and the firepower is adjusted according to the orders issued by the ponytail fort. According to the original design, as long as the French ships can be concentrated at the ponytail port, the new 16 forts can exert their firepower, and the horsetail forts and the cool mountain forts in the old six can also exert their firepower.

If the French ship wants to evacuate, the Tieshan Fort, Gaolongshan Fort, Mazhukeng Fort and Tianluowan Fort, which are arranged in the old six platforms between Yangyu Bay and Tianluo Bay, will play a blocking role.

The scale of the old six sets is very large, each with eight 12-inch caliber and four 13-inch caliber heavy guns, which are very well-protected and easy to defend and difficult to attack.

In order to avoid the firepower of the old six platforms, the French are bound to ** enter the ponytail, and the new sixteen forts are designed for this purpose.

As for the existence and scale of Luoyuanwan Shipyard, it has always been the biggest secret of Fuzhou Ship Administration.

Luoyuan Bay itself is a world-class natural port, with only one exit and a huge inner bay surrounded by mountains. In such a terrain, Hu Chuyuan chose a place called "Aoli" by the locals to build a new ship port base...

"Aoli" is located in the inner bay at the southern end of Luoyuan Bay, commonly known as Xiao'ao. There are more than a dozen islands at the mouth of the bay. "Aoli" bay itself is also the inner bay of Xiao'ao. "Aoli" is also surrounded by more than a dozen small hills such as Hutou Mountain, Yangwei Mountain, Xiwei Mountain, Baiheling... It is a half-moon-shaped valley with a very hidden terrain. Cover, easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Hu Chuyuan took a look at this place at a glance. In early 1880, he spent a lot of money to introduce dock equipment from Germany and the United States. It has a 3,000-ton and two thousand-ton dockyards, as well as a supporting steel mill and timber factory, which are specially used to build gunboats and defense ships. In order to avoid the eyes and ears of the French, this part The steam engines, boilers and artillery of the ship were purchased directly from the United States and Germany, instead of being supervised by the French.

Hu Chuyuan dared to take the initiative to provoke the French and lure the French into the Mawei port, which actually relied on these two points.

The war is approaching, and the sky is gloomy. The autumn wind sweeps across the port and blows the waves of the river.

Hu Chuyuan came out of the government office and went to the campus. Hundreds of altars of Fuzhou old rice and aged white wine were opened by the soldiers. A bowl was full, and thousands of sailors lined up in front and picked up the wine.

On those ships in the port in the distance, the soldiers also picked up their wine and looked at the school grounds in the distance.

Admiral Ye Zukui personally held the wine plate and burned three bowls of old rice. He walked to Hu Chuyuan step by step and said "Your Excellency" in a heavy voice.

What is hidden in the word

is the momentum of dying and the horn of the upcoming war.

Hu Chuyuan looked solemn. He took one of the bowls, picked up his hands, silently walked up to the stage, and looked at dozens of warships ahead from afar.

His heart, at this moment, seemed to condense into a blood clot and almost stopped beating.

Time also seems to be stationary.

Only the solemn autumn wind is blowing coldly, and the thousands of flags on the school grounds are flucling.

This is a Chinese ceremony.

He silently raised the wine and looked up at the sky. Suddenly, he seemed to be able to communicate with the sky, heard the call of the sky, and heard the cry of the earth. At this moment, he used all his strength to sprinkle the white wine in the bowl into the sky and fell to the earth with the wind.

"Sacrifice to heaven and earth!"

"Hor!"

There was a loud roar from the school grounds, and the salute was bombarded continuously, and thousands of soldiers roared.

Ye Zuyu served the second bowl of wine. Hu Chuyuan continued to take it over, looking down at the earth, listening to more voices and feeling the world. Finally, he sprinkled the wine on the school yard again.

"A sacrifice to the ancestors!"

The salute roared again, and the soldiers roared again.

In the last bowl of wine, Hu Chuyuan held it in his hands and looked down at all the soldiers on the school field. After a long time, he raised it again...!

"Bye, soldiers!"

In a passionate shout, Hu Chuyuan picked up the wine and drank it all of a sudden. Countless soldiers also drank their own soju with him.

The spicy soju choked Hu Chuyuan's throat and stimulated his chest and abdomen, as if he had lit a fire in his body, and hot tears rolled in his eyes. He didn't know whether the wine was too spicy or the thoughts in his heart were too sad and heavy.

Ye Zuui suddenly smashed the wine bowl in his hand and smashed it. He roared, "All the soldiers, follow us to serve the court and defend the countryside!"

"Recommence to the court and defend the countryside!"

Then there was a shout on the school ground. The soldiers also broke the wine bowl together, as if the French ship was broken. From then on, they cut off everything and killed the enemy in blood, just to win.

The blood rolled in Hu Chuyuan's heart. Along the way, the things he experienced, the soldiers who vowed to die in front of him, made him understand a special truth.

He suddenly grabbed the rifle of the guards around him, raised it high, and shouted, "Sergeants, I will coexist with you and defend the countryside together...!"

"My lord...!"

There was an exciting sound all over the scene. Everyone was excited and couldn't stand the murderous spirit and excitement in their hearts. Everyone's eyes turned red and shouted.

Jiang Chaoying suddenly shouted in the school field, "Sergeants, kill the enemy with me!"

In his shouts, hundreds of dead men of torpedo boats rushed out and rushed to more than a dozen torpedo boats parked in the port. Jiang Chaoying was like a famous general of the Wu army in the Three Kingdoms era. He held a steel knife and stood in the bow of the boat. With all his strength, the diesel engines of the torpedo boats were launched one after another and rolled around. Rolling black smoke.

In the distance, the French fleet has lined up in front, blocked at the mouth of the horse's tail, lined up in an oblique line. Three Saint-Zenard-class first-class central ironclad-style ironclad ships lined up in the front and began to rush towards the port.

The final declaration of war is still half an hour away, but the French can't control so much. They rushed in and want to gain the upper hand and attack from the southwest of the port, which is conducive to the spread of artillery smoke.

Under the leadership of the Weikang ship, many cruisers also quickly started and rushed to the southwest line.

The mouth of the Min River is not as wide as the sea, but there are also two kilometers of water, which is enough for the ships to maneuver. Now it is a high tide period, and even the French Saint-Zenard-class warships can shuttle freely.

If it is delayed to about one o'clock in the afternoon, the Saint-Zenard-class warship will be stranded by accident.

This means that the French can't delay until the afternoon.

Hu Chuyuan took a risk and boarded the horsetail fort with Ye Zukui. Here, he watched the whole situation, and hundreds of guards also rushed over to carry the artillery as a hard laborer.

Although the French were grabbing favorable terrain, they did not fire.

The ponytail fort was already ready. Ye Zuui was personally responsible for aiming. He wanted to fire the gun, but he couldn't help looking at Hu Chuyuan.

Hu Chuyuan knows what he is thinking.

The court said, "The provocation can't be started by me first. If you don't respect the order, you will win or lose"!

Qi's mother, this is about to declare war.

Hu Chuyuan made a decision immediately and said to Ye Zukui, "Order all armies to fire, and I will bear all the responsibility!"

"Your excellency...!"

Ye Zuyu also wanted to sigh a few words.

Hu Chuyuan shouted, "Fire!"

"Good!"

Ye Zuqi was really overjoyed. He immediately connected the phone calls of each department and ordered the forts of each department to shell the area of seven vertical twelve.

Because the forts are arranged in a relatively hidden location, it is indeed invisible to the French, but the forts themselves also lack a good field of observation. To this end, Ye Zugui came up with a rule similar to chess. The defense area of the mouth of the Minjiang River is divided according to the horizontal and vertical lines of the chessboard. After each fort has been trained by itself, it can adjust the rail height and direction of the gun according to the order of the horsetail fort.

The horsetail fort first fired the first shot at the dense area of the French ship. After this roar, the forts hidden in the mountains around the mouth of the Minjiang River fired one after another, and the gunboats and defense ships on the northern line also fired.

More than a hundred cannons broke out in just a dozen seconds, and the color of the world changed. On the river, countless waves exploded and roared.

Ye Zukui is good, because each battery has been equipped with the first round of shells. It will take about three minutes from the beginning of preparation to launch. At that time, the area of horizontal seven vertical twelve is the most dense place of the French fleet.

In the first round of gunfire, the French second-class ironclad Truan was hit by three flowering bombs at the same time. A Peruz-class cruiser was hit by a 13-inch flowering bomb, and the waist of the ship exploded a huge hole on the spot. It was probably because the boiler was blown up and burned out. The smoke was so thick that the speed of the voyage also plummeted to the point where it almost stopped.

As soon as the speed drops, you will die.

Hu Chuyuan was overjoyed that he could kill one in the first round of guns, which was really lucky.

Although there are more than 100 shells in a round of artillery, the hit rate of this large artillery is very low, and the hit rate of 5% is very good.

The high hit rate is the cannon, but the destructive power of the cannon is also low.

The French expeditionary fleet also seemed to be stunned by the sudden burst of artillery power of the Fujian sailors, so it began to readjust and release the torpedo boats and rush to the port on the north line.

This decision is a little helpless, because the southern line squadron of Fujian sailors has large activity space, scattered ships, and has a good attack distance torpedo boats, while the small ships on the northern line are relatively dense.

That's the problem. The northern line is equipped with six defense ships, equipped with a large number of Hamen Kios rotary machine guns, which has a good interception effect on these torpedo boats.

The French should be clear about this, because these defense ships were born from the French La Roche-class offshore ironclads.

In the dense machine gunfire, the French quickly lost two torpedo boats, and the rest of the torpedo boats had to retreat. In order to give full play to the attack power of the forts on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the southern and northern squadrons of the Fujian Marine Division did not approach the French ship too much. With this situation, the firepower of the small-caliber artillery of the small ship Can't play out.

The two sides entered a relatively deadlocked state. The firepower of the French expeditionary fleet was particularly fierce, sinking a number of small gunboats and two Yangwu-class wooden shell cruisers. However, under the attack of the battery and the fire attack of the Fujian Marines, they also lost many cruisers and gunboats.

After losing three Peruz-class cruisers in a row, the French fleet began to adjust its tactics, divided into two columns, and decided to attack the southern fleet with artillery fire to get rid of the enemy on both sides in front of it.

They rushed forward, the southern fleet retreated to the mouth of the Oolong River, and the northern fleet rushed forward and continued to suppress the French fleet.

After retreating into the Oolong River, the Saint-Zenard-class ironclad had to run aground, and the French could not continue to attack, but they soon found that at the mouth of the Oolong River, the number of fort attacks they faced was significantly reduced.

At this time, the horsetail fort and Qingliangshan fort in the old six are still continuing to exert their forces. Six of the new sixteen forts are out of range. The activity space of the southern fleet is greatly compressed, leaving only the mouth of the Wulong River, while the space on the north line has greatly increased.

The problem is that the armored defense of the southern fleet is very weak, and the speed of the northern fleet is slow, which is equivalent to the speed of the turtle.

The losses of the French were not great, especially the main ironclad ships were well preserved. Only the second-class ironclad Truan was hit many times, the cabin caught fire, and temporarily lost its attack ability.

The French finally found an opportunity to use gunboats to cooperate with all torpedo boats to attack the mouth of the Wulong River and launch a torpedo attack on Weikang, Guangwu, Yangwu and other ships.

Very fast, the slow and weak firepower of Yangwu was hit by a torpedo and barely drove to the bay at the mouth of the Wulong River and used as a fort. There were less than seven warships left in the southern fleet.

At this time, Ye Zuyu finally couldn't help it. He stepped forward and asked Hu Chuyuan, "Your Excellency, fight. If we don't fight, we will have no chance. Now they have penetrated into the mouth of the Wulong River and missed this good opportunity. When Lv Han and others arrive with the Luoyuan Bay gunboat fleet, they will definitely retreat."

Hu Chuyuan couldn't help but hesitate. The tactic he approved himself was to wait for the arrival of the Luoyuan Bay Fleet to attack the French formation with the Northern Fleet, disrupt the opponent's formation, and then use Deng Shichang and Jiang Chaoying to lead more than 30 torpedo boats to attack from north and south.

(to be continued)