The importance of distance to naval battles is beyond doubt. This is also why Xiong Jing insists on equiping the rangefinder - in fact, there is no need for a combined rangefinder. Only two sextant is used, and the target angle is measured by a known fixed distance between two people. The distance can also be calculated according to the principle of triangulation, but that is obviously too slow.

Range measurement is required in the era of multi-rivet steaming, and in the era of sails and gunboats where ships can only flow with the wind, the distance measurement is also required. Although the actual distance measurement will have great errors due to various reasons, sometimes the error may even exceed one section (1862 meters), it is enough for Shen Yinshang to make up his mind to order the fleet to rush towards the Qin army at full speed, a chaotic boat array.

The wind blows north, to be precise, the southeast wind blows northwest, and when the gunboats and sails are all exposed to the wind, the course is exactly north. The sails of the seaboats and sails can be equipped with sailing speeds up to nine or even ten knots, and the gunboats are even slower. At the same time, because the bottom of the ship has not been cleared for several years in the war, the speeds of the ten gunboats launched last year can reach eight knots, and it has been two, and the speeds of the gunboats in three years are only six or seven knots.

The Queshan fired three times and issued the order of "hanging the wing sail, going in at full speed". All the sails that were closed to maintain a low speed fell. While climbing onto the mast, the sailors who were climbing onto the mast were adapted to the rhythmic rolling of the hull when the sail was installed, they walked on the cross truss with their feet that seemed to have claws, and tried hard to hang the wing sails at both ends of the cross truss. The stronger the wind, the Queshan speed rose rapidly from two knots to six knots.

The captains on the gunboats on both sides did not understand this order, because the speed of each ship was different, and moving forward at full speed meant that the single horizontal formation that had finally been listed would be destroyed. At the beginning of the order, Bu Liangju actually ordered the flag servant to ask the flagship, but the flagship had already dropped the sail and advanced at full speed. In the end, he could only drop the sail and follow.

This was actually a Nelson-style charge! Shen Yinshang, who concluded that the Qin people could not complete the array within four quarters of an hour, decided to gamble. When he bet on the gunboat, the Qin people would fall into a huge chaos. This was his speculation. Before everything happened, Yang Duan and the Chu army gunboats more than 20 miles away suddenly bloomed like spring flowers. They spread their grand sails one after another and drove towards them at full speed.

He was completely relieved at such a long distance, because the time the opponent rushed over was enough for the warships to unfold and then face the enemy. However, when the gunboats got closer and the two sides were about three knots apart, he, the general Armenias, the Baidi Navy general, and other strategists on the flagship, discovered something wrong. After hanging the wing sail, the gunboat speed exceeded everyone's imagination, and in a state of fatigue, the deployment of his warships was slower than usual. If the situation did not improve, the entire army might indeed fall into chaos after the two armies fought.

"Tell Tian Pu and attack the Jing people quickly!" Yang Duanhe, who had no choice, thought of Tian Pu. Tian Pu, who was fortunate to die in the Battle of Honggou, must immediately lead the army forward to delay the enemy's advance.

The warships led by Tian Pu, which had just been incorporated into the boat army, were located on the right side of the boat formation near the land. Those warships that were originally blocked in the Shaohai were on the left side of the boat formation. Seeing the flag order from the flagship from afar, Tian Pu, the general who was waiting for punishment, sighed in his heart, and the muscles on his face were trembling, but under the gaze of the guards, he did not dare to hesitate and quickly shouted: "Send the order, the right army will go to fight!"

The transmission during naval warfare has always been a difficult problem. From the flagship issuance of orders to Tian Pu receiving the order and then issuing orders, the whole process takes more than a quarter of an hour. At this moment, the Chu army's gunboats are enough to advance one to two quarters. The Kongsang, which was launched last year, was faster, and was only one quarter away from the Qin army's warships. Tian Pu, who was waiting for the right army warships to be arranged in a formation, saw this and knew that he could not wait. He shouted: "Beat the drum!"

The southeast wind was in full swing, and the sea breeze blew the drums on the warship towards the direction of the land. Because the distance was too close, Bu Liangju still heard the drums. He knew that Shen Yinshang had bet correctly and was nervous at this time. He had imagined countless times what kind of naval battle Chu and Qin would engage in, what array the Chu army would be, and what array the Qin army would be. However, all the ideas were not so real, nor so chaotic. The Qin army warship was in a dilemma of unfolding but not fully unfolding. The Chu army's gunboats turned into a broken arrow because of their different speeds. Both sides entered the battle with a chaotic formation.

Among this broken arrowhead, the ten gunboats of the Kongsang, Cao Xi, Yi Gao, Geshan, Yu E, Du Fu, Gengshan, Lu Qi, Guzhai, and Bishan formed the left wing's left front, with the Kongsang, which was closest to the middle and first received the full-speed attack order as the tip. The other gunboats fell behind in order to receive the military order, forming a three-kilometer-long diagonal line.

The left edge of the arrowhead is extremely flat, but the right edge is terrible. The Queshan where Shen Yinshang is located is the gunboat that once followed the Red Mountain to the Hongyang and landed on the Red Sea. Zhaoyao, Tangting, Xiongyi, Wuyang, Dishan, and Danyuan, all of these six gunboats traveled across the Red Sea like the Queshan, so their speed was the slowest, especially the first Queshan, which was launched in the water.

The third batch of five gunboats launched the water the year before yesterday: Jishan, Qingqiu, Jiwei, Dahe, and Ganshan did not go to the Red Sea. Their speed was only about half a link slower than the ten ships of the left-wing Kongsang.

The left edge of the arrowhead is complete, and it should be the tip of the arrowhead. The two ships Zhaoyao were behind the left edge by more than one section. The second adjacent ships Tangting, the Little Yi, the Wei Yang, the Dishan, and the Danyuan were also behind the left edge several chains; the third batch of ships Jishan, Qingqiu and other ships were able to barely keep up with the speed of the left edge, and were only one or two chains behind.

The broken arrowheads attacked, and Tian Pu, amid the sound of the drums, led the boat to face the most sharp left front. The charge directly opposite the bow of the ship was inconvenient to hit, but there was a powerful crossbow on the deck of the warship. After entering a range of 400 meters, the crossbow on the boat began to shoot arrows. When he looked on the mast plate, he shouted loudly: "The enemy boat shot me, the enemy boat shot me..."

The Qin army adopted a siege tactic for the Chu gunboats that rushed over single-handedly. More than a dozen or twenty warships besieged a gunboat. Before the impact, the powerful crossbows that entered the range of the warships fired in turn. There were also hand-to-hand soldiers on the gunboats, and these soldiers stood along the bulwarks and held their shields high. What made the Qin army miscalculated was that no matter how calm the East China Sea was, it was not comparable to the inland lakes. Almost all the twenty crossbow arrows shot at the Kongsang were lost. Only three shots hit the target, one shot at the port wall of the Kongsang, and two shot through the sails and passed through the deck and fell into the sea.

The arrows were not one wave but two waves. In the last wave, a crossbow arrow shot on the stern tower and nailed to the painted wooden board. Bu Liangju didn't care about the arrows at all. He just mechanically ordered the battle order: "Open the cannon door!"

"Open the gun door!" The fourth batch of gunboats launched into the water installed copper tubes and ordered them to be clearly transmitted to the gun deck.

The warship hitting the front side saw the Kongsang opening the gun door and immediately became nervous. With a military order, the elastic catapult that should have entered fifty steps before it was launched was launched in advance. The closer the distance, the higher the hit rate. Several rounds of irritating oil bombs hit the ship's side, and one shot hit the main sail's crossbar and then fell on the deck. With a "huh", the sea breeze, the irritating oil splashed on the deck quickly ignited, and a bunch of flames rushed out.

"Bong, dong..." The flames on the deck had not yet been extinguished, and the warships rushing from both sides hit the left and right sides of the Kongsang. The warships with a drainage of more than 60 tons continued to hit the armor on the side, but the Kongsang was hit and shook violently. However, at this time, the captain Bu Liangju still did not order the artillery. He waited for more than 20 warships to pass through the bow of the Kongsang that he stopped shouting: "Fire the artillery!"
Chapter completed!