New Ming Empire mixed in America

The moment the battle order was issued, the gunboats of the leading fleet, which had been impatient for a long time, opened fire directly, and Zhu Zhiwen's flagship also began rapid-fire firing of naval guns.

Ever since the Xinming Empire 'developed' the 75mm rapid-fire cannon, which would not appear for more than thirty years, the artillery of the Xinming Empire has undergone earth-shaking changes.

The tube-retractable design has become a common design in artillery manufacturing, and the same is true for naval guns.

The naval gun installed with a fixed gun mount, coupled with the barrel-retractable structure and the spaced threaded breech block, allows the naval gun to shoot at a speed that stuns other countries in the world.

With a rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute, the theoretical limit rate of fire can reach thirty rounds.

However, because the artillery needs to clear the barrel after firing several rounds in a row, the rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute is impossible to achieve, let alone the theoretical rate of fire of thirty rounds.

The Xinming Empire's naval guns generally fire five rounds rapidly. After two rounds of shooting, the gun barrel is cleared, and then the next round of rapid fire can be carried out.

So a round of ten rapid fire shots in one minute is pretty good.

Clearing the barrel obviously takes longer than firing.

Moreover, the caliber of the naval gun is much larger than that of the 75mm rapid-fire gun, so it takes longer to clear the gun bore.

But the density of firepower under this rapid fire was far beyond the opponent's imagination.

Although the distance was quite far, and the shooting started from 2,500 meters away, after one round of shooting, the two gunboats rushing at the front were still unlucky.

When firing at this distance, the hit rate all depends on the face. Apparently the two gunboats that were hit did not pray to Mazu before going out.

As for your question about why Europeans pray to Mazu...

This is the Far East. If you don’t believe in Mazu, do you believe in that scumbag Poseidon holding a dung fork?

Here, even the Dragon King of the South China Sea is more effective than that guy. At least this is the scope of the South China Sea, China's territorial waters since ancient times.

Looking at the armed merchant ship next to him that was hit in the captain's cabin, the Dutch consul's eyes almost popped out of his head.

The distance between their two ships was less than thirty meters. When the unlucky armed merchant ship was hit, the flying wood fragments tore off the sails of his ship.

Originally, he thought that his side had the advantage, and he only had to follow the fleet out once to gain military exploits.

But now it seems that his plan has to change. The original plan was to slow down when he reached a range of 1,500 meters, and then hide behind and wait for the victory of the naval battle.

But the round of artillery strikes just now made him feel the danger, so he could only pull his neck and shout to the captain:

"Stop moving forward, slow down, slow down!"

"Damn it, didn't you say that there is no naval gun that can hit this distance?"

The captain who was sprayed with saliva was also a little shocked, because his many years of naval combat experience told him that this was impossible.

But now the fact is happening before his eyes, and he can't believe it or not.

"In the past, naval battles were conducted one thousand meters away... No, it took at least eight hundred meters before firing. Who would have thought that Eastern artillery could hit such a distance?"

After explaining, the captain went to inform the sailors on his ship to lower the sails.

After all this was done, feeling the ship's speed slowly decrease, the captain wiped the sweat from his face and added:

"I really don't know how those Easterners aimed the artillery. The distance is so far, and it's obviously impossible to aim the artillery with just a telescope..."

But the Dutch consul couldn't listen to his explanation at all. Now that the Eastern cannons were firing their second round, he had no time to argue with the captain.

After experiencing the first round of attacks, all the armed merchant ships learned the lesson and began to disperse to the surrounding areas.

Anyway, the target is there, all you have to do is lean in and engage in a fight between men.

But as the distance got closer and closer, the hit rate of the vanguard fleet led by Zhu Zhiwen became higher and higher.

At the beginning, the first round of rapid fire achieved good results with two hits, but the second and third rounds of rapid fire resulted in zero hits.

Now that the opponent has traveled 1,500 meters, the hit rate has skyrocketed.

After another round of five rapid fires, fire broke out directly on the decks of the three armed merchant ships.

There was also a huge hole in the sail of an armed merchant ship that was torn apart by a cannonball. Under the influence of the sea wind, this hole tore the side sail in half in the blink of an eye.

On the sea around the armed merchant ship, water columns continued to rise, and the scene was very spectacular.

After another salvo, the leading fleet began to accelerate toward the northwest of the approaching gunboats.

When passing several gunboats, they resisted a salvo of fire from the other side before the distance between the two sides was reopened.

Relying on its speed advantage, the leading fleet made a big turn from the side and stopped in the northeast direction of the previous shelling position.

If you don't make a turn and continue sailing forward, you will definitely be surrounded by the opponent's armed merchant ships.

Although it is very difficult to surround a ship at sea, Zhu Zhiwen's vanguard fleet now has a large number of ships.

In addition to gunboats and battleships, there are also transport ships.

So the current situation is still a confrontation, but the warships leading the British have begun to raise their sails, and it seems that they are going to participate in the attack.

Zhu Zhiwen didn't pay much attention to these messy armed merchant ships, but Dai Ying's battleship was equipped with Armstrong naval guns.

Even though the Armstrong naval gun is currently criticized, it is undeniable that this artillery is still very advanced in the world.

It has a long range and strong power, but it has a few minor flaws and occasionally self-destructs, but it is still the most advanced artillery.

Moreover, this kind of artillery uses oval-shaped shells. Even if these shells are solid bullets, they will cause more damage to one's own deck or ship's side than spherical solid bullets.

The last time we faced the British expeditionary fleet, we suffered a loss in this regard. As long as a few shells hit the side of the ship, the steel plate on the side of the ship would probably deform due to the impact and fall off.

If it hits the deck, it will most likely penetrate the deck.

If you are unlucky enough to be hit by an opponent's shell on the deck where the boiler is located, it may damage the boiler in the cabin, which is very dangerous.

So Zhu Zhiwen later ordered his vanguard fleet to start mobile warfare and move around the opponent's huge and chaotic fleet.

If you have a chance, do a quick round of fire; if you don't, just keep wandering.

He had only one purpose, which was to delay time and wait for the main force of the Pacific Fleet to arrive.

Therefore, the scene on the sea seemed to be heated, with gunfire coming one after another, but in the next few hours, only two joint fleet gunboats were damaged.

A transport ship in the vanguard fleet was hit by three artillery shells in succession, causing one of the ship's masts to break, and the rest of the gunboats suffered more or less damage.

In this way, time slowly passed as the two sides chased and blindly fired.

At this time, the battleships with the British finally decided to join the battle, and they began to rush towards the front of the combined fleet.

It seems that they want to compete with Zhu Zhiwen's vanguard fleet.