The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 903 This is the secret of the "shrine maiden"!

In the autumn of 1882, off the coast of Sado Island in the Sea of ​​Japan, the leaden-gray sea surged. The armored cruiser "Jinghai," with a standard displacement of 12000 tons, was conducting gunnery training, its three funnels belching out smoke that swirled like gray dragons in the chilly sea breeze. Senior Colonel Luo Xinhua stood on the edge of the flybridge deck, his navy overcoat flapping in the cold wind of the Sea of ​​Japan, his brass binoculars fixed on the view of ten thousand meters away—the rusty hull of the decommissioned Korean training ship "Donghae," anchored with two anchors and bobbing with the waves.

The bridge loudspeaker suddenly hissed. Luo Xinhua turned and picked up the copper tube; a clear, crisp female voice came from the other end, speaking Mandarin with a slight Kyoto accent: "Captain, gunnery bridge observation complete. This ship is 10,500 meters from the target beacon. Initial velocity correction: propellant temperature 20 degrees Celsius; wind direction: northwest, 12 knots, accounting for the offset. Reference data have been approved by the calculation team and synchronized to all gun positions. Request permission for the first test firing!"

He recognized the voice. It was Onodera Tsubaki, the gunnery priestess, the third-in-command of the gunnery team on the "Jinghai." She was ranked only below the gunnery officer and the gunnery vice-commander. Right now, the gunnery officer was personally observing through the observation port in the conning tower, while the gunnery vice-commander was watching over turret A. The gunnery bridge was under her command. This girl was called a "priestess," but in reality, her gunnery skills were first-rate, and she had a silver tongue, having several of the gunnery team's prized calculators completely under her spell!
"Accurate." Luo Xinhua's voice was deep and resolute. "First round, partial volley."

The order rolled down the copper pipe to the gunnery bridge. The megaphone suspended on the steel cable between the bridge and the conning tower vibrated and hummed. Onodera Tsubaki tightened the communication valve, then took the receiver from the loudspeaker, puffed out her chest, and shouted in a soprano voice: "Attention, all guns! First salvo—fire!"

"boom!!!"

Two twin 210mm gun turrets at the bow and two amidships at the stern roared suddenly. Four shells tore through the sea breeze, leaving faint gray streaks in the azure sky. Through binoculars, four columns of white waves suddenly erupted around the rusty ship! One column of water skimmed less than a hundred feet along the port side, while the spray from the other almost reached the sterncastle. The close-range and long-range shells clamped down like iron pincers, firmly trapping the target ship in the center!

"Clamp! First clamp!" The cheers from the gunnery bridge almost pierced the steel plates. Onodera Tsubaki smiled and bowed deeply to the four calculating officers whose foreheads were beaded with sweat: "Thank you for your meticulous calculations! Keep up the good work!" The young man's chest heaved, the ink on the ruler on his pen was still wet, but his face was already flushed.

The beeping microphone crackled again! Data from the observation posts came through one after another: "Commander's tower visually confirms the trap! Close range 400 meters! Long range 250 meters! Enemy ship's relative course unchanged, rangefinder reading range change rate—200 yards per minute!"

Onodera repeated loudly, his clear voice cutting through the data like a knife. Four petty officers rushed back to the charts and ballistic tables, the abacus beads clicking like a torrential rain, the slide rules clanging as they moved. A low hum from the brass tubes filled the air as an observer shouted, "Starboard turret ready!" "Port turret data set!" "Aft main turret—!" The commands sparked in the crowd, and in less than sixty seconds, two abacuses were slammed against Onodera's chest.

"Bridge artillery, issue a general call—" Onodera said, his lips pressed against the copper tube, "Bearing corrected to 1.2 minutes to the right! Scale reduced by 350 meters! Calculate the pitch rate according to the new value! Prepare for the next salvo—"

Inside the command tower, Luo Xinhua's binoculars were fixed on his eyes. Four more shells tore through the sea and sky once more. This time, he didn't need to count silently. The navigator goddess, Miyaji Kaoru, nestled beside the magnetic compass, the jade beads ticking off fifteen sweet, crisp counts: "One, two, three... fourteen, fifteen!"

"Boom!!!" Four white dragons, wrapped in a rain of iron, crashed down! One shell nearly penetrated the forecastle of the target ship, splashing water onto the rusty foremast! The other three, like three heavy hammers, pounded into the sea on the starboard side of the target ship—a cage of spraying snowy waves was firmly pinning the wrecked ship to its core!

"First round of crossfire! Second round of straddle fire!" Jinguji Kaoru's cheers crashed against the steel wall. "Long live the artillery platoon!"

Navigation officer Jiang Zhaoxing, speaking with a Fenghua accent, stroked his mustache and laughed: "Damn it, these young sissies are quite clever! Ever since they arrived, the cannons have been firing more accurately, the ship has been sailing more steadily, and even the deck is clean."

Luo Xinhua's smile relaxed slightly. A flash of inspiration? Was the new Jiangnan Type 7 composite rangefinder in the artillery team a fake? It could clearly see a cable from ten thousand meters away; those four petty officers were solving ballistic equations incredibly fast—well, no slower than Onodera, much faster than him, Luo Xinhua! And they were both accurate and fast! This wasn't taught by Onodera Tsubaki, but by the "small-town test-takers" produced by over twenty years of seven years of compulsory education in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom! Solving ballistic equations is like doing math problems; good math skills naturally lead to speed. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had nearly two hundred million people who had received seven years of compulsory education; selecting several thousand naval calculators from among them—if not one in ten thousand, at least one in a thousand—couldn't be of poor quality.

In contrast, the British Empire, with a population of 30 to 40 million, had a mediocre level of compulsory education. Those who did well in school could easily find comfortable jobs, so why would they go on a ship to become calculators? In addition, their methods for calculating ballistics were particularly complex (which was advantageous for hitting targets above 15,000 meters), so naturally they were not as good as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"Order to cease training! Lift combat readiness!" Luo Xinhua's voice echoed across the bridge. Before he could even move, the megaphone blared again. The watchman whispered a few breaths into the megaphone, then suddenly roared, "Captain! Urgent telegram from Matsuzaki Command! You and the communications officer are ordered to the captain's cabin immediately!"

The dull thud of leather boots echoed through the steel-plated passageway. As the captain's teak door was pushed open, two men were already waiting with their hands at their sides. The first mate, Zeng Changhai, had a dark, ruddy complexion. This naval lieutenant commander, whose ancestral home was Jintian, Guangxi, was a relative of Zeng Tianyang and a year ahead of Luo Xinhua in the naval officer academy! Beside the first mate stood a petite, sparrow-like communications shaman, Xueye Qianzhe—actually a codebreaker. She bowed to Luo Xinhua first, then presented him with a sealed telegram. The radio station was a treasure that needed to be concealed by the "superpowers" of these "shamans"! Otherwise, how could one explain the US Western Pacific Fleet's main warships' ability to coordinate so effectively across the vast ocean? It must be the "telepathy" between the shamans!

Well, no matter how long we can keep fooling each other, we might as well keep lying for as long as possible!

The telegram unfolded in the dim yellow light of the bamboo lamp, the few words like iron hooks: "Flotilla C210 will set anchor and cross the sea to the west on the 9th. Jinghai ship will follow and provide escort, to the New World."

The officers' meeting room below deck was stiflingly hot from the steam pipes. A Pacific nautical chart lay open on a long teak table, and Luo Xinhua tapped the dotted mark on the "C-210" route with his finger. The deputy captain, Zeng Changhai, took a sip of strong tea to refresh himself.

"The higher-ups probably want us to deal with the Rafale-class destroyers the British sold to the Americans!" Zeng Changhai said. "Last month, this Rafale-class destroyer severely damaged our 'Flying Fish'!"

The first of the 6500-ton Exocet-class destroyers was transferred to the US West Coast Navy a few months ago, but unexpectedly, it encountered a Rafale on its first mission.
Navigation Officer Jiang Zhaoxing's pen nib was poking at the speedometer: "The Rafale-class is designed for a speed of 22.5 knots, and in actual combat, it's a miracle it can even reach 21 knots. But our 'Dinghai-class'?" He stroked his mustache, "struggling at 18 knots! It seems we have no choice but to take action!"

The door hinges clicked softly, releasing the sweet aroma of jasmine tea mingled with the cloying sweetness of osmanthus-flavored rice balls. The shrine maiden, Onodera Tsubaki, stood gracefully holding a lacquered tray, followed closely by Jinguji Kaoru carrying a box of sweets. Li Hualong—the gunnery officer with a face radiating gunpowder—broadened his eyes as he took the teacup, grimacing from the heat, but still staring intently at the nautical chart: "As long as we catch it, we're finished! We have eight 210mm guns, it only has eight 152mm guns!"

Luo Xinhua's fingertip suddenly pointed to a spot on the nautical chart, the calloused skin scraping against the paper with a rustling sound. That was the Aleutian Islands, a crucial point on the shipping route. "The Gust must be carrying supply ships; I reckon they're hiding here." He glanced at the crowd. "The C210 convoy, with its thirty-five cargo ships stretched like a ten-nautical-mile-long snake, could easily bite off a section—"

"It's the headquarters of the Fourth Brigade being transported!" Onodera Tsubaki suddenly interjected, the edge of the tea tray trembling slightly from the force. "Daidouji-neechan said that Lieutenant Colonel Luo Xinzhong's (the "Guo" in Luo Xinguo's name has been changed to "Zhong") command post is also on the ship!"

The room was deathly silent. The Fourth Brigade was the vanguard of the landing in North America, and its commander, Luo Xinzhong, was Luo Yaoguo's second son. If they had died at sea...

Luo Xinhua narrowed his eyes: "The second brother is here too?" Zeng Changhai slapped his thigh upon hearing this: "Then we have to keep an even closer eye on him. That son of a bitch, the Gale-class, dares to touch Second Master. We will never let him get away with it!"

Jiang Zhaoxing squinted and said, "We'll weigh anchor on the 9th of the 21st month of the year 2010, and we have to get behind tonight! The Jinghai will keep its speed down to twelve knots and quietly follow the main force for ten nautical miles, disguised as a fishing boat."

The tactical debate instantly heated up. Li Zhilong advocated for advancing forward to lure the enemy, while Zeng Changhai insisted on flanking maneuvers. Suddenly, a gust of cold air swept through the crack in the door, and Jinguji Kaoru's nostrils twitched: "The northeast wind has shifted to the southeast... A tributary of the Kuroshio Current will arrive here tomorrow." She traced a deep blue arc on the nautical chart with her fingertips, "With the current, the speed can be increased by half a knot."

Luo Xinhua suddenly stood up, the bottom of his teacup making a crisp sound as it tapped on the teak table: "Li Hualong, prepare enough armor-piercing shells for the main guns, we must sink the Rafale! Jiang Zhaoxing, hoist out our 'fishing boat flags'! Zeng Changhai, add two shifts to the engine room—we must achieve a speed of over 20 knots!"

A ship's horn wailed from deep within the hull, and the steel armor trembled slightly in the undercurrent. A battle to hunt down the Gustaurn had begun.

(End of this chapter)