Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 56: New Shells Demonstrate Power
When Chiyomika heard Liu Daming call her "Lin Fei's woman", she immediately lowered her head and whispered, "First Mate Liu, don't talk nonsense. There is nothing between Lin Feijun and me ..."
Chiyomika's voice, as thin as a mosquito, was soon drowned out by the angry shouts of the crowd. Amid the angry shouts, Lin Fei shouted, "Brothers, please be quiet and listen to me!"
Lin Fei shouted three times before everyone quieted down. Then he said, "Brothers, we want to attack the island, but there is a problem. Your mentality is not right now!"
Liu Daming said: "What's wrong with that? If the people on the island bully our people, we should kill them!"
Lin Fei said: "You should all remember what I said to you when we defeated Chief Makaipaslo, right? I told you a long time ago that you can't conquer the enemy by killing alone. It's the same now. Moreover, we encountered a very strange thing on the island today!"
Everyone asked, "What's so strange?"
Lin Fei said: "At the beginning, Sultan Bazaier didn't understand . I told him that Chinese were different from Filipinos and Spaniards. He understood and agreed to release us. But as soon as I walked out of the palace, their people besieged us. Why would they go back on their words? Isn't this strange?"
Liu Daming said: "What's so strange about this? I think we Chinese are the only people in the world who are most loyal to our promises!"
Lin Fei said: "I don't think it's a matter of keeping a promise or not. If they really wanted to kill us, they could have fought us a long time ago. Why would they have to talk so much and then take action at the end?"
Everyone realized that something was wrong. Liu Daming asked, "So what is going on?"
Lin Fei shook his head and said, "I can't figure it out either. So our main purpose after arriving on the island is to figure this out, not to kill people! The Muslims on the island have their own beliefs and culture. They are different from the Filipinos who have no culture. We can't assimilate them, so we have to win them over and make them our allies!"
Liu Daming and his men finally understood and said, "Well, Captain, how do you think we should fight this battle?"
Before Lin Fei could speak, he heard the communicator Ma Chengfeng shouting loudly on the mast: "A suspicious target was found on the port side. The number is unknown and it is approaching our ship at high speed!"
Lin Fei's mind moved, and he immediately thought of the "Flying Arrow Warship" that Chen Fu had mentioned, so he shouted loudly: "All ships enter combat status! Everyone, return to your positions!"
Everyone immediately ran back to their seats. Lin Fei turned to Chiyo Mika and said, "Mika, the captain's room is just ahead. Go there by yourself. I can't accompany you."
Lin Fei turned around and walked towards the command room. Chiyomika suddenly stretched out her left hand and pulled him. Lin Fei stopped and turned around to ask, "What's wrong?"
Chiyomika asked timidly, "When can we go back?"
Lin Fei said: "It's hard to say, we have to rescue everyone on the island before we can go back."
Chiyo Mika's expression changed, as if she had something to say. Lin Fei asked, "Do you have something to say?"
Chiyomika shook her head gently and said, "Nothing... nothing happened, Lin Feijun, go and command the battle."
Lin Fei thought that something must have happened to Chiyomika, but the military situation was urgent and there was no time to ask more questions. He decided to wait until these "flying arrow warships" were dealt with.
Lin Fei rushed into the command room, picked up the megaphone and said loudly: "Boatswain, start the anchor winch and raise the anchor!"
The ship moved slightly, and the anchor slowly left the seabed under the drive of the anchor windlass. Lin Fei shouted loudly: "Two cars forward one, left rudder fifteen!"
The sailors in the command room repeated Lin Fei's orders loudly: "Both vehicles move forward one step!", "Left rudder fifteen!" Then they sent instructions to the engine room through the vehicle bell, turned the steering wheel to adjust the course, and the Nuwa ship slowly moved.
Lin Fei had unique considerations when he issued the order "Left rudder fifteen". After turning left rudder fifteen, the Nuwa ship's course would be away from the island and towards the sea. In the vast sea, the Nuwa ship could take advantage of its fast speed and leave behind the flying arrow warships on the opposite side.
The Nuwa ship was slowly turning. Lin Fei picked up the megaphone and contacted Ma Chengfeng on the mast. He said loudly: "Send a message to the Pangu ship and ask them to withdraw from the battlefield immediately!"
Ma Chengfeng answered loudly: "Understood!" Then he sent a message to the Pangu ship with a light signal. The Pangu ship sailed away after receiving the order. As soon as the Pangu ship withdrew, only the Nuwa ship was left on the sea to face the flying arrow warships of the Muslim warriors.
Lin Fei picked up the telescope and looked at the Flying Arrow warship in the distance. He saw that the waves created by the bow of the ship were very large, and he knew that this kind of ship was very fast. Lin Fei handed the telescope to Chen Fu and asked, "Is the ship you see the Flying Arrow warship you met?"
Chen Fu picked up the telescope and looked through it, then said, "Yes, that's it!"
Lin Fei laughed and said, "Just watch carefully and see if we can defeat them!"
Lin Fei turned to Liu Daming and said, "Old Liu, you stay here and watch. I'll go to the gun position and take a look."
Liu Daming nodded in agreement. Lin Fei walked out of the command room and came to the No. 1 gun position. Sun Yong was the gunner of this gun position. Lin Fei asked directly, "Is our stereoscopic rangefinder still working?"
Sun Yong nodded and replied: "It's very useful, much more accurate than visual distance measurement!"
Lin Fei asked: "What is the distance now?"
Sun Yong replied: "3,500 meters!"
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Very good, wait until we are 2,000 meters and fire the first shot!"
Sun Yong was stunned and asked, "Firing at 2,000 meters? Can it be accurate?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "The freeboard of their boats is very low, and they have hardwood panels installed on the hull, which raises the center of gravity. Their stability must be very poor. Our shells are filled with trinitrotoluene explosives, which are much more powerful than black powder. And they explode in the water, so they might be able to overturn their boats."
Sun Yong was shocked and asked, "Is this trinitrotoluene explosive that powerful?"
Lin Fei laughed and said, "Of course, our trinitrotoluene explosive is the most advanced explosive in the world!"
Sun Yong couldn't believe it and asked, "Is it more advanced than the explosives used by the British?"
Lin Fei thought, the explosives used by the British are still picric acid, which will be replaced by trinitrotoluene explosives in the future. Our explosives are certainly more advanced than those of the British. Lin Fei nodded, and Sun Yong asked, "Is it true?"
Lin Fei laughed and scolded: "Of course it's true! Where did you get all that nonsense? Get ready to fire!"
Sun Yong laughed and said no more. He began to concentrate on aiming. Soon the opponent 's boat was two kilometers away. Sun Yong pressed the firing button. With a "boom", a shell flew out of the barrel and flew towards the opponent's boat.
The shell drew an arc in the air and landed heavily in the water. A delayed-trigger fuze was installed on the warhead. This fuze was also designed by Lin Fei. He added to buffer the moment the fuze touched the target, delaying the explosion by more than 0.03 seconds.
Although 0.03 seconds is short, it is the limit of the delay fuse's explosion delay. It is this 0.03 seconds that allows the shell to penetrate the target and explode.
The shell fell into the water more than three meters deep in a moment of delay, and the mercury fulminate detonator immediately detonated the trinitrotoluene explosive. A violent explosion occurred in the water. The density of water is thousands of times that of air, so the power of explosives exploding in water is much stronger than that in air. The shock wave in the water flow directly hit the nearest small boat.
The Flying Arrow warship was made of wood. Since the Muslim tribes on the island had underdeveloped industries and were unable to make iron nails, the wood was connected with mortise and tenon joints. The mortise and tenon joint is a type of connection that relies on changing the shape of the wood itself. The connection is not as tight as iron nails, and when hit by the shock wave , several connection points were immediately broken, and sea water suddenly poured into the cabin.
When the Muslim warriors on the ship saw that the hull was broken and water was entering the cabin, they immediately used clay pots and basins to scoop up the water and pour it outside. As a result, people had no time to row, and the speed of the flying arrow warship slowed down!
Lin Fei noticed at a glance that the speed of the Flying Arrow warship had slowed down, and shouted, "Our trinitrotoluene explosives are working! Order the other gun positions to fire immediately!"
The Nuwa ship has six 120mm naval guns, one located at the bow, one at the stern, and the other four on both sides. When the Nuwa ship is dealing with enemies on the side, the bow and stern guns can point the muzzles to the side, thus concentrating the firepower of the four guns on the side.
The four naval guns fired at the same time, and four shells flew into the group of Flying Arrow warships. Two of them missed the target and had no effect. One of them exploded five or six meters away from a Flying Arrow warship. The huge waves caused by the shock wave actually overturned the Flying Arrow warship, and it fell into the sea like a turtle with its shell turned upside down.
Another shell was very lucky and hit a Flying Arrow warship directly. The hardwood shield installed on the Flying Arrow warship could protect against bullets, but it was impossible to protect against shells. The shell, which flew at a speed of several hundred meters per second, hit the hardwood shield heavily with huge kinetic energy. The hardwood shield was as fragile as a piece of white paper under a red-hot iron!
The shell penetrated the guard plate and exploded underneath it. Due to the distance, Lin Fei and his companions could not hear the explosion at all. They could only see a thick black cloud rising from the Flying Arrow warship. The high temperature generated by the explosion instantly ignited the Flying Arrow warship. The wood of the warship was painted with tung oil paint that had not been fire-retardantly treated and was very flammable. The Flying Arrow warship suddenly burst into flames. The people on the ship jumped into the sea like dumplings. The hull barely floated on the sea and sank into the sea in less than five minutes.
