Great Warlord: The Second Ancestor of the Empire

It can be said that Shen Cangyun's arrest has allowed Fang Xiao and the others to take a step forward.

With the help of Shen Cangyun's intelligence, Fang Xiao and others obtained a large amount of evidence. Many previous unjust, false and wrongful cases were uncovered.

Most of these old aggrieved cases were against military personnel.

It can be said that every one of them made Fang Xiao and the people in charge of the case dumbfounded.

Among them, the one that shocked Fang Xiao the most turned out to be the case of Ding Xuanren, the governor of the Great Xia Fleet, during the naval battle with the Sakura Kingdom a few years ago.

Previous reports from the empire were that Ding Xuanren, then the governor of the fleet, was corrupt and misappropriated the fleet's funds privately, which led to the defeat of the imperial fleet in the battle.

But Fang Xiao learned from Shen Cangyun that the real situation was not like this.

Although Ding Xuanren is greedy, he knows what he can be greedy for and what he cannot be greedy for.

The money Ding Xuanren was greedy for was only soldiers' salaries and gray income from some positions. This kind of thing was common among the Daxia army at that time.

If you are not greedy in these areas, that is abnormal.

Therefore, Ding Xuanren's corruption was not a big deal in terms of the atmosphere of the court at that time. After being exposed, the most he could receive was a reprimand. Even dismissal from office is not possible.

But at the same time, Ding Xuanren had his own unique insights into military training. The navy he trained was still very effective in East Asia.

At least it's not a problem to suppress a little Sakura.

And the defeat at that time, to put it bluntly, was more of a conspiracy and a frame-up.

At that time, due to the tense relationship between the Empire and Sakura Country, the friction between the two countries at sea was also increasing.

Navy soldiers from the two countries often use fire hoses to absorb water on the sea and impact each other's decks.

It can be said that between the two countries, anyone who is interested can see that a war will inevitably break out between the two countries in the next few years.

Luo Chen was worried that the victory of the Imperial Navy under the command of Ding Xuanren over the Sakura Kingdom would lead to a further rise in military power.

Therefore, Luo Chen deliberately arranged for a batch of inferior artillery shells to be mixed into the supplies to the Imperial Navy.

Since the quantity of this batch of ammunition was not large, it was transported to the battleship in batches and then placed closer to the inside.

This resulted in an increasing number of inferior artillery shells. At its largest number, it accounted for almost one-third of the fleet's artillery shell inventory.

One thing needs to be mentioned here, naval battles are different from land battles.

In land battles, ammunition may be used up, but naval battles are different.

First of all, battleships are relatively large and can carry a lot of things, such as supplies and ammunition for soldiers.

After all, warships sometimes go to sea for several months, so it's impossible not to bring more things with them.

As for the general ammunition supply, you will be replenished as much as you consume, and it is rare for the ammunition to be exhausted.

Of course, except for fierce naval battles.

Before the advent of the fire control system, the battleship's artillery could only be one gun, and one gun had to be calibrated, and the hit rate was pitifully low.

Therefore, the consumption of artillery shells during that period was very high. The ammunition stores of battleships of the same period were all designed to be large in order to carry more ammunition.

And if there are too many ammunition belts, there will be some less intense moments when the ammunition cannot be used up and can only be stored in the ammunition compartment.

You must know that the cannonballs used by battleships are much heavier than the cannonballs used by the army. One cannonball weighs hundreds of kilograms at least. Who would move the cannonballs around?

Therefore, after the cannonballs are generally put into the warehouse, that is, for subsequent maintenance, it will not be said that this batch of cannonballs are not used up, and I will replace them all in the next supply.

Unless this batch of shells has expired and has not been used, it will be replaced.

As for artillery shells, if you don't shoot them out, you don't know whether the shot will be a dud or not.

Therefore, Luo Chen took advantage of this loophole in the navy and bribed the quartermaster to replace some of the inferior cannon shells supplied to the Imperial Navy.

These so-called inferior artillery shells do not mean that they cannot fire, but they are not powerful enough to penetrate the armor of the Sakura Kingdom warship.

But it was impossible to tell from the scene, so even if someone wanted to investigate afterwards, they wouldn't be able to find out.

Only by opening the shells can we discover that there is something wrong with that batch of inferior shells.

But the actual situation is, who will take apart the cannonball? This is neither necessary nor safe.

Therefore, under Luo Chen's ingenious arrangement, Ding Xuanren led Daxia's imperial fleet and launched a naval battle with the Sakura Kingdom's navy on the high seas.

At the beginning, when the imperial warship used qualified cannonballs, it could be said that it was overwhelming Sakura. Taking advantage of the large tonnage.

But when the high-quality cannonballs were used up and inferior cannonballs were used, the beaten Sakura immediately felt something was wrong.

It turns out that at that time, Sakura had already received news from Luo Chen and knew that there was a problem with the cannonballs of the Imperial Fleet.

Therefore, when they noticed that the shells fired by the imperial fleet fell into the sea and the painful waves were smaller, they immediately realized that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for.

Later, after the Sakura Kingdom's fleet deliberately took two shots from the Imperial Fleet's main guns, they discovered that the Empire's fleet's main guns looked powerful, but in reality their lethality was pitiful. After that, the Sakura Kingdom's fleet Take the initiative to get close to the imperial fleet.

Taking advantage of the high maneuverability of their warships, they began to hunt down the Imperial fleet.

Suddenly, the imperial fleet lost four or five capital ships.

At this time, Ding Xuanren also noticed something was wrong. He immediately asked someone to dismantle the shells, only to find that the shells were not filled with high explosives, but some backward black powder.

And the shells of the shells are still iron-plated aluminum shells.

It’s amazing that such shells can be so lethal!

As a result, Ding Xuanren realized that this naval battle could not continue, and he quickly ordered the fleet to retreat and break away from the Sakura Kingdom warships.

However, at this time, the shortcomings of the imperial fleet were exposed.

Since the warships of the Imperial Fleet are generally larger, this causes the Imperial Fleet to be slower than the Sakura Kingdom's warships.

This resulted in the imperial fleet being unable to fight and unable to escape.

In the end, Ding Xuanren had no choice but to abandon his fleet to protect his commander, leaving some of the battleships behind. He led the main force of the fleet to escape to Penglai Military Port in Shandong Province.

Among them, those who stayed behind include Wang Hongchang, Deng Yu, Gao Fu, Liu Yuxi, Zeng Tai and other senior officials who are now Yinglong fleet.

It needs to be mentioned here that Zeng Tai is the younger brother of Zeng Sen, the current Imperial Navy Minister.

It can be said that the current Yinglong fleet, including Zeng Sen and Sha Zhenhai, all learned from Ding Xuanren.

Here you can see how strong Ding Xuanren's ability is.

Originally, after Ding Xuanren returned to Penglai Military Port, he could hold on. After all, there was still a batch of high-quality artillery shells in Penglai Military Port.

Coupled with the assistance of coastal defense artillery, it is still very possible for the imperial fleet to remain undefeated.