What surprised all the soldiers of the Expeditionary Fleet, including Zhao Longcheng, was that the intention of the Lima fleet had been determined without a shot. They were not sure of defeating the Expeditionary Fleet, but were in a desperate madness. Moreover, it was definitely not the enemy's performance, and even the officer with the least experience could draw such a conclusion.

The reason is that the Lima fleet has completely fallen into chaos since it started to maneuver tactically.

If the Lima fleet advancing on the battlefield was like a skeleton, then the Lima fleet is definitely a nest of hornets. All the warships were messy, and it was obvious that the sailors on the open-air deck wanted to speed up the steering speed through sails, but the canvas turned into a random fly swatter in their hands, which could not be effective at all. This led to the Lima fleet not approaching the battle lines, but approaching each ship on its own, both fast and slow, and it was not like a battle lines, and even the front and rear positions did not exist.

The only thing that can be called a tactical arrangement is the last three heavy gunboats, which are obviously making a larger turn. Because there are no battleships of the Expeditionary Fleet to confront them, these three ships can raise all their sails and use all means to turn maneuvers.

No fleet commander dared to show weakness like this, because such chaos could not be controlled at all. Zhao Longcheng immediately ordered the entire fleet to respond cautiously. The banner-tongued order was to allow the captains of each fleet to maneuver in the tactical range without having to be too rigid in the rules of the battle lines.

On August 4, 2016, at the end of 12:30, the flagship Zhiyuan, which was arranged in the third battle position, launched the first round of volleys. At this time, the Bogota, the second ship of the Lima Fleet, which was facing it, had undergone a messy shelling of a quarter of an hour. The distance between the two sides was only 150 meters. The thirty-six-pound short-heavy artillery on Zhiyuan showed excellent power, and the first round of shells hit at least more than twenty shells of Bogota.

Bogota is a heavy gunboat with a displacement of about 1,000 tons. It is a new ship with fifty-two cannons. The heaviest one is the twenty-four-pound Kofilin cannon, but there are only twelve cannons in the middle of the front of the lower deck (mainly to balance the center of gravity caused by the tall stern building of the main ship). The rest are sixteen-pound cannons, eight-pound cannons, three-pound cannons and other small cannons.

In terms of the number of artillery, the comparison between the two sides is forty to twenty-six. Bogota's artillery is only 65% ​​of the Zhiyuan ship. However, if we compare the firepower projection, the six 24 pounds, four 16 pounds on the left side of Bogota's left ship, four 8 pounds and four 3 pounds cannons have only 412 pounds of shells at one time. The firepower projection on the right side of the ship is 1,440 pounds, and Bogota's less than 30% of the Zhiyuan ship.

Neither the former nor the latter have reached the qualification line for battleship counterattack. In the era of sailing warships, if you want to join the battleship line and participate in battleship artillery battles, the minimum requirement is that the effective firepower of your own battleships cannot be less than 70% of the counterattack battleships. Because of this, the battleships with 74 guns have become the mainstream in the era of sailing battleships. Such battleships are also qualified to face more than 100 artillery battleships. However, because the number of first-class battleships is not large, the number of artillery ships in most battleships will not exceed 90. Therefore, the minimum standard for third-class battleships is 64 artillery.

Therefore, Bogota is not qualified to face the Zhiyuan. More importantly, the three-pound cannon is completely ineffective in the battleship bombardment, and the eight-pound cannon is also barely enough, so the strength gap between the two battleships can only be larger than the data.

The first round of firepower volleys of Zhiyuan ship gave Bogota a heavy blow. The thirty-six-pound shells could directly penetrate Bogota's bulwark within the range of the effective shooting, making a hole the size of a washbasin, causing huge casualties, and the opponent's counterattack was messy, which allowed all the artillery on the Zhiyuan ship to use more calm vertical firing, that is, the artillery fired from left to right, or from right to left, one by one. Therefore, the gun captains and artillery officers on each layer of artillery deck can also adjust some artillery to ensure higher hit efficiency.

The calmness of Zhiyuan is also reflected in the fact that it does not use the fastest firing speed. The overall weight of the 36-pound short-heavy cannon of the Imperial Navy is only higher than the sixteen-pound cannons on the opposite side. Because it uses flintlock machines, curved push-bomb rods, flammable medicine bags and other professional artillery equipment, the explosion rate can even reach three rounds per minute. However, Zhiyuan does not do this. They only use a firing speed per minute, so that they can maintain the physical strength of the crew.

The Bogota, which has the upper hand, is not so professional. Because it has joined too many civilian sailors, there are constant problems in operating artillery. More importantly, the Zhiyuan is calm and sailing in a straight line, waiting for the Bogota to be sent to the muzzle, but the Bogota has to approach with the gunfire, which is extremely difficult.

It was not until the Bogota approached within 100 meters that Zhiyuan adopted the burst rate. The double shells loaded by all the artillery were two solid shells on the lower deck, and the middle-level artillery deck was first loaded with a bag of shotguns and then a solid shell. The open-air deck and the stern building artillery deck were all loaded with two shotguns.

After three concentrated fires, Zhiyuan began to turn left and distance himself from Bogota, and then shot the Spaniards one by one.

Most of the other ships are like this. Although the expeditionary fleet is an iron army that dares to rush and fight under the command of Zhao Longcheng, and is not afraid of platoon battles, Zhao Longcheng knows that if there are major casualties here, people still say that the ship may not be able to be kept. After all, within a radius of 1,000 kilometers, the empire has no port controlled by it.

Because of the early plan to accelerate the space occupation, the Expeditionary Fleet had only five ships actually participated in the battle line operations, and the Lima Fleet only had five ships in the front, and the Lima Fleet Santa Fe was the last one. Of course, because the Lima Fleet was too chaotic, the Sixth Ship also opened fire on the Expeditionary Fleet No. 6, Weiyuan, and Weiyuan was also using two tail guns to fire on the first ship of the Lima Fleet's frigate, which was turning to attack the Lima Fleet's frigate, Kayao.

Since the shelling of the two sides, Zhao Longcheng saw that the Empire Expeditionary Fleet had obviously gained the upper hand and there were few casualties. He believed that it would be beneficial to his side if he continued to fight like this. Taking other actions rashly may not make his side more beneficial. Therefore, the Jingyuan, the Expeditionary Fleet's No. 1 ship, could only sail at the forefront boredom. After adjusting the artillery angle, the shelling of the Lima fleet's first ship, was not very effective. The so-called shelling only showed that he did not do anything.

As the flagship Zhiyuan, the most casualties were the watchmen on the main mast plate. They must always pay attention to the situation of the No. 6 ship Weiyuan, because for the Expeditionary Fleet, the current situation is favorable, and the only disadvantage is the strength of the Lima fleet. Their guard fleet has left the battle line and turned left to cut into the left side of the Expeditionary Fleet. If in place, these three ships can attack the Expeditionary Fleet's guard fleet, namely the Fuyuan, Zhenyuan and Weiyuan. The Weiyuan is the most susceptible to being attacked, because there is this possibility. The Lima fleet did not catch up with two to one, but siege the Weiyuan and four ships siege this one.

The flagship in the No. 3 battle position could not judge the enemy's intentions. Therefore, Zhao Longcheng placed the deputy flag Weiyuan in the No. 6 battle position from the beginning, and it was up to itself to contact Zhiyuan at any time. Once Weiyuan was besieged, Zhao Longcheng would immediately slow down and avoid it, or choose the battle method by himself, while the other ships would face it directly and fight with the other Spanish warships in close combat.

Originally, the fleet staff estimated that this would be the case in about thirty minutes, or in fifty minutes, the Lima Fleet's guard fleet would attack its own guard fleet, but until the two sides fought for an hour, the Weiyuan did not send a signal. First, the current crew quality of the Lima Fleet's current crew is too poor, and simple tactics cannot be used in full. Zhao Longcheng's strategy of responding to the entire fleet is a bit similar to the "hit    and       run" when playing games in later generations. The expeditionary fleet kept fighting, turned left, re-formed the battle line, and then continued to fight.

This made the group of scattered crew members of the Lima fleet at a loss and almost had a ship collision. If they continued to fight like this, the Lima fleet's avant-garde and backbone ships would not be able to stand it. In fact, in less than two minutes, the second battleship of the Expeditionary Fleet, Suiyuan, the first ship of the Lima fleet, Panama and the third ship Potosi, successively withdrew from the battle line. Suiyuan was in a bad luck and was hit by a sixteen-pound shell. The steering wheel in the control direction and two helmsmen and a navigator died in battle. The stuck rudder rod made Suiyuan turn left and escape, which did not cause much chaos.

After confirming that the steering wheel was not repaired in a short time, Suiyuan used inclined sails and some sails to control the direction and rejoined the battlefield twenty minutes later. However, these sailors and sail-controlled sailboats were beaten very badly. In order to avoid breaking away from the position, Suiyuan did not turn to avoid the battle line when the Panama attacked, but bombarded the Panama with all his strength and directly broke the Panama and fled right. Therefore, Suiyuan was able to stay in the battle line.

The Potosi was in trouble. It was beaten by the opposite Jingyuan, especially the waterline position, and several large holes were hit. Although the Jingyuan waterline was also hit by two holes, the two sides were different. The Jingyuan was at a disadvantage and the waterline was damaged. Because the hull was inclined, the actual break was above the water surface. As soon as the Potosi turned and the hull continued to tilt, a large amount of sea water would be poured in.

On the surface, the two sides fought hard, but in fact, the expeditionary fleet was fully in charge. Zhao Longcheng did not seek change, but wanted to continue to fight. After only one hour, two enemy warships lost their combat power. If they continued to fight, they would definitely win more happily. However, in less than three minutes, an accident forced Zhao Longcheng to issue an assault order. This accident was caused by the increase in wind power.

After the contact between the two sides, the wind power remained between the 12th and 16th knots. Because both sides only used the mid-sail as the power sail (to prevent the opponent from destroying the sail cable), the two battle lines maintained a speed of less than four knots. When the Lima Fleet's guard fleet accelerated its pursuit, it could only reach a little more than five knots, which is also an important reason why it was unable to enter the position for a long time.

The sudden increase in wind is not only because the Lima Fleet Guards can enter the position faster, but more importantly, the strong winds on this coast are often accompanied by heavy fog. As the wind increases, the air becomes obviously wet. The wind blows the hotter sea water on the surface to the outer sea, causing the cold sea water brought by the Peruvian cold current to overflow. The wind also blows the hot air at noon to the sea surface. The hotter air hits the colder sea water, which directly leads to the occurrence of advection fog, but appears very quickly.

"His Excellency Raphael, do you see? This is God's blessing. We attacked the pagans and did the most righteous things. God responded to our righteous deeds..." Laonia declared frantically, but he saw the coldness and indifference on Raphael's face. His eyes stared at the Chinese warship opposite. Laonia saw that the battleship Weiyuan they were facing was approaching at the fastest speed, and the shelling became much weaker.

In Raphael's eyes, the Weiyuan artillery fire gradually faded, but cheers kept coming from the ship, and there were few people on the open deck. This was the rhythm of preparing for the boarding battle. Can my own ship take this attack?

Raphael drew out his knife and pistol, holding a knife in his right hand and a gun in his left hand, and staring at the Weiyuan who was rushing fiercely. Suddenly, he thought of something and said to the army soldiers gathered around him: "Transfer Lord Raonia to the deputy flagship."

"No, I will fight to the death with the pagans!" Laonia shouted loudly.

Raphael said: "Laonia, this glory belongs to me. You should be the second commander of the fleet to clean up the mess, win the whole victory, or lead the retreat."

"That's your job, Lord Raphael," said Laonia.

Raphael shook his head: "No... this time, I will not run away again."

The reason why Raphael did not want to escape again was not that he believed that this would definitely be defeated or that there would be glory of victory, but that this was the last battle in his life. He was in his seventies. If he missed this time, he still didn't know when the next time would be. In this current situation, even if the Chinese army was destroyed, a stronger fleet would arrive in a few years, and the Lima fleet... If it was destroyed, there would be no Lima fleet again.

Laonia was dragged away, and he was taken to the small boat that was lifted down on the right side of the ship, leaving in the increasingly dense fog. When she was leaving the flagship, Laonia found that the last flag was raised on the main mast - the battle line was disbanded!
Chapter completed!