“Enemy ships are retreating!”
“Cease fire!”
Yanling’s Captain Gao Youzhi ordered a cease-fire after confirming the East Sakura cruisers were withdrawing.
Yanling does not have the capability to produce 140mm shells; all ammunition must be purchased from the Qian Cang Empire’s directly administered territories, meaning every shot fired is one less available.
“Enemy armored cruiser closing to 16,000 yards!”
“Notify Wujin and Tianning to rendezvous with our ship; we are temporarily withdrawing from the engagement,”
Without the slightest hesitation, Gao Youzhi ordered a retreat. The Asama-class armored cruisers, with a full displacement exceeding 10,000 tons, were armed with two 45-caliber 203mm guns and fourteen 152mm quick-firing guns. Their main armor belt was 180mm thick Harvey hardened nickel steel.
If he didn’t use the four long-range 533mm torpedoes hidden on the Yanling, he probably wouldn’t be able to do anything against them. Moreover, their mission in the planned operation was originally to repel the enemy’s protected cruisers and destroyers.
“Now it’s time for the big guns to perform…” He glanced at the Taixi, 7,000 yards behind him.
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“Our ship is 14,000 yards from the enemy cruiser fleet!”
Kawara Youichi on the yashima was not too surprised to learn of the cruiser fleet’s defeat. The combat capabilities of two Asama-class armored cruisers were more than enough to completely overwhelm those three small ships of less than 3,000 tons, and even in engagement with Haisui-class, they could ensure they would not be at a disadvantage.
The enemy’s cruisers began to turn, but the two Asama-class ships had already passed the three protected cruisers, rushing to a distance of 11,000 yards. In forced ventilation conditions, the Asama-class’s maximum speed was no slower than the Hai Yung-class, and such a large-angle turn would inevitably cause a significant decrease in speed.
However, the appearance of the Yanling confirmed one thing for Kawara Youichi—this fleet in front of him must be annihilated immediately! Now the Autonomous Territory had gotten involved. If they were allowed to develop further, another allied force hostile to him would emerge in the Cangdong Sea Area!
On the sea ahead, the Yanling and the two ships Asama and Tokiwa engaged in fire again. Although the 11,000-yard distance exceeded the Asama-class’s fire control capabilities, the Pinghai-class’s 140mm guns were not equipped with specialized armor-piercing shells. Capped semi-armor-piercing shells hitting a 7-inch armor belt would at most leave a white mark. Even if they managed to bypass the side armor belt with a high angle of impact, the shells, weighing only 38kg, were powerless against the internal 50mm thick armored deck.
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Chu Qing glanced at Liu Feng, who stood impassively by the porthole, then ascended to the firing command post and took the handheld ship’s telephone from the Paoshu Zhang’s seat.
“A, P, Q turrets are now under my command. Load armor-piercing shells—”
The Paoshu Zhang was startled. Although he didn’t object, a hint of surprise showed on his face—he didn’t know what Chu Qing was planning.
Chu Qing did this to completely pull Liu Feng onto his side. With the Taixi Navy almost annihilated and facing a complex and volatile situation, cooperation was needed before reconstruction could be completed.
Liu Feng’s Yanling Autonomous Territory currently held goodwill towards Taixi, and there was potential for further cooperation between them. However, to reassure him, Chu Qing also needed to demonstrate absolute strength to silence everyone in the Yanling Autonomous Territory.
Therefore, he decided to use the powerful computational capabilities of the auxiliary smart brain to achieve a precise artillery strike at extreme range to showcase his strength.
By expending a certain amount of spatiotemporal points, the auxiliary smart brain could provide ranging results accurate to the centimeter within a 20-kilometer radius. It could even make precise predictions of the target’s movement within one minute, calculate delays caused by the gunner’s reaction time, real-time wind speed on the sea surface, and so on.
These data would then be processed by the smart brain and converted into results like “set specific firing parameters at a certain time,” achieving an operation similar to “pre-aim + wallhack auto-aim” in modern FPS games.
“Smart brain, access automatic fitting calculation module.”
“Module loading…”
“Loading complete.”
“Automatically retrieve this ship’s artillery ballistic data, determine the distance and closing rate between this ship and the enemy ship, and generate a fitting curve…”
“Automatically retrieve artillery rifling wear, determine sea surface wind direction and speed, wave height, air humidity, estimate this ship’s rolling and pitching periods… correct calculation results.”
“Pre-compensate for muzzle blast interference and human error… output firing parameters…”
The smart brain’s calculation results popped up on the panel. Chu Qing immediately picked up the phone and simultaneously rang the firing bell.
“Main gun elevation 13.5, traverse right…”
Six thick gun barrels rose high, gleaming with a cold, menacing light in the sunlight… Once the gun crew adjusted the artillery to the preset state according to the firing dial, three green lights lit up in front of Chu Qing, and the warning bell for main gun firing rang.
At this moment, the countdown for the “optimal firing window” on the panel still showed 5 seconds.
“5”
“4”
“3”
…
“1”
Chu Qing pressed the firing button without hesitation. The Dreadnought-class’s electrification modifications and central fire control system allowed her Paoshu Zhang to fire the main guns via a button, thereby reducing error.
“Boom!”
A brilliant curtain of fire bloomed on the sea. Six 45-caliber 305mm naval guns from the three main turrets fired six 386kg armor-piercing shells at their maximum elevation towards the Tokiwa, 18,000 yards away.
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