Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 260: Summer Battle in Osaka (VI)
Although the Fujido Fleet's Sea Dog charge suffered heavy losses and did not cause any damage to Li Guozhu's fleet, it still achieved some results.
Because of their crazy charge, Li Guozhu's fleet had to slow down for the accuracy of the bombardment. Then, the Yagyu fleet, which was originally in the north, moved to the east in advance. This direction happened to be the direction of Li Guozhu's fleet. If this continued, the Yagyu fleet would stand firmly at the T-head, and Li Guozhu's fleet would be hit one by one.
Li Guozhu would certainly not make such a mistake, so after the Fujitang fleet began to retreat, he immediately ordered: the entire fleet followed the flagship's turn, from northeast to southeast.
"Lord Yagyu, the enemy ship is starting to turn."
"Yoshi! It seems the enemy commander is not that stupid. Um, has the enemy ship entered our firing range?"
"According to your instructions, we have moved a distance to the southeast. The distance between us has been shortened to less than 2,000 meters, so we can try the 150mm main gun on the Yamato now."
"Okay! Order, Yamato, fire!"
"Hi Yi!"
"Cannon を撃つ! Hanat!"
Following Yagyu Kanbei's order, a 150mm main gun of the Japanese flagship Yamato fired the first shell.
With a sharp sound of breaking through the air, the shell soared into the air, flew in the air for a distance, and then slammed heavily into the sea.
"The nearest enemy ship is still three hundred meters away!"
"Yoshi! Order the entire fleet to continue following the flagship and heading southeast! All ships should fire at the enemy fleet's turning ships with all their might!"
"Hi Yi!"
Watching the Japanese ships on the opposite side start to open fire one after another, Li Guozhu, standing on the flagship, looked solemn: Because of the Fujido fleet, the advantage of facing the Yagyu fleet has been lost. At present, the entire fleet is turning, and it is temporarily unable to fire at full power. What's more terrible is that his fleet is divided into two rows at this time. And the one in the front row is the Jinling class, which is much weaker than the Beizhili in terms of firepower and protection!
"Send an order."
"Please give your instructions, General!"
"Send a signal to General Yu. I will leave the Japanese pirate fleet fleeing to the northwest to his care."
"yes!"
"Order again, Jinling-class detachment, led by Jinling, slow down and turn northwest. Command authority will be delegated to Inukai Tōji."
"Yes, sir!"
Following Li Guozhu's order, the Ming army's new warship fleet began to split into two groups: the Beizhili class, which was tougher and had a longer range, continued to turn southeast, and in the process, they were bound to withstand the concentrated fire of the enemy ships. The Jinling class, which weighed only 600 tons, began to slow down and turn in the opposite direction.
While the Ming army was making adjustments, the Japanese ships' bombardment did not stop: not only did it not stop, but it became more and more intense as the distance between the two fleets gradually shortened!
"Lord Yagyu, the enemy ships have split up."
"Hmm?" After carefully observing through the telescope, Yagyu Kanbei sneered: "The enemy commander is really smart. If those second-class battleships of the enemy also follow the main battleship to turn, we may destroy at least ten of them during the turning process! However..." He showed a ferocious expression on his face: "Without the assistance of the second-class battleships, the enemy commander is too arrogant to rely on those fifteen large ships to fight against my twenty-five new battleships! Pass the order! Ignore the enemy's second-class battleships that are turning in the opposite direction for the time being, and concentrate all firepower to attack the enemy's first-class battleships!"
"Hi Yi!"
As the signal flag on the Yamato waved again, the guns of the 25 Japanese ships once again unified their targets. When the distance between the two warships further increased to about 1,500 meters, Li Guozhu on the Beizhili, who had just completed the turn, felt a black head!
All the busy people on the deck of the Beizhili looked tense, while cheers rang out from the Japanese ship opposite.
"Onboard~!"
"Yoshi! We've got the cross-shot, the next step is to hit the target!"
As if to confirm Yagyu Kanbei's inference, in the following bombardment, a 150mm shell from the Musashi behind the Yamato accurately hit the Ming army's Nanzhili, which was turning!
The huge shell, with its incomparable potential energy, smashed heavily on the deck of the Nanzhili. Three of the seven or eight sailors near the deck were killed directly, and the rest were smashed to pieces by the huge potential energy... Then the shell, with its powerful inertia, crossed the entire deck and hit the low wall at the edge of the opposite deck, creating a huge gap in the low wall!
And this is just the beginning!
As the Musashi scored hits, the Japanese ships' guns became more and more accurate, and for a moment, water splashed all around the Nanzhili. As the near misses continued to increase, four or five more shells hit the Nanzhili's deck and amidships.
"Hold on! Keep turning!" The captain of the warship was a student from Fangshan School. At this moment, his right arm had been deeply cut by the flying wood chips. However, he had no time to care about the blood flowing from the wound, and still held the steering wheel tightly: "Let the boarding team below the deck come up to replace the dead sailor! Turn, you must turn! As long as the turn is successful, we can avenge our brothers!"
Following his command, dozens of strong men in leather armor quickly ran onto the deck, and then silently moved their companions who had died or were seriously injured to the side, and tried their best to the direction of the sail and help the ship continue to turn.
Although the Nanzhili was hit by five or six shells during the turn, it was only slightly damaged overall. The Huguang, ranked third, encountered even greater troubles - after several rounds of shooting, the Japanese ships had gradually adjusted their firing parameters, and their firepower coverage of the Ming fleet's turning point became more and more accurate and fierce.
As expected, after the Nanzhili completed the turn, the Huguang, which followed closely, was hit by six shells as soon as it entered the turning trajectory. Three of them landed in the middle of the ship, directly destroying two gun positions.
"Quick, aim at the enemy flagship and fire at full force."
At this time, on the Beizhili, which had completed its turn, Li Guozhu began to give orders: All our warships that have completed their turn, aim at the opponent's flagship and fire!
“Boom~Boom~Boom~”
As the two giant ships of the Ming army opened fire, Yagyu Kanbei on the Yamato, who had been calm and composed at first, also became solemn.
"Sir, the two large ships of the Ming Kingdom are turning slightly."
"What?"
Yes, in this naval battle, due to the interference of the Fujido fleet, the Japanese side took the lead in the first round of the competition between the two new fleets of Ming and Japan to seize the T-head. Now, except for the two Zhili ships that have completed the turn, the remaining thirteen Ming army ships can only face the enemy with their bows, and honestly endure the baptism of the opponent's artillery to turn in front of the battle.
However, because Li Guozhu had the foresight to slow down the Jinling class and turn in advance, although the tough Beizhili class battleships were hit by a lot of artillery fire, they were still far from disintegrating or sinking.
What about the two Zhili ships that had already completed the turn? After completing the turn and getting basically parallel to the Japanese fleet, and the artillery on one side could be fully fired, they still slightly adjusted the direction: the parallel route of both sides sailing to the southeast was changed to a slightly northeast direction - in this way, about forty minutes later, when the Ming fleet had completed the turn, it would naturally regain the T-head. At that time, it was the Japanese ships that were hit!
"Lord Yagyu, a signal came from the Kai in the rear, the enemy's second-class battleship is turning towards the northwest!"
" Damn it! The enemy generals want to grab the T-head at both ends and sandwich us in the middle!"
After thinking for a while, Yagyu Kanbei looked reluctantly at the smoke-filled Huguang and the fourth ship, Jiangxi, which had just turned and was hit by 20 shells. He sighed and said, "Order, all ships follow the flagship and turn slightly to the northeast. Even if we can't get a new T-head, at least we have to keep a parallel front with the enemy."
"Hi Yi!"
