Just when the anti-Danish coalition was progressing smoothly on land, the anti-Danish coalition fleet was not idle on the sea. According to the previously agreed strategy, Lübeck was temporarily conservative, and the Hamburg fleet and the East Friesian fleet would lure the Danish fleet to engage in a decisive battle.
The specific method is to set off from Hamburg Port with great fanfare and make a gesture of reinforcement of Lubeck. Moreover, in order to allow the Danes to accurately obtain the whereabouts of the Hamburg fleet, the Hamburg fleet deliberately leaned on the west coast of Denmark to slowly move northward, luring the Danish fleet to intercept.
At the same time, the 40 warships of the East Friesland Kingdom will cruise on the sea surface of the Hamburg fleet more than 30 kilometers away. Once the Hamburg fleet is found to be in battle with the Denmark's intercepting fleet, they will immediately go around the side of the Denmark fleet and cut off their retreat. Of course, the East Friesland fleet will not immediately enter the battle, but will wait for the fleets of both sides to form a pot of congee and the Danish fleet cannot easily evacuate, then rush out, attack the side of the Denmark fleet, and intercept any escaped Danish warships.
Although it is said that if the telescope is more than 20 kilometers, the telescope will not be able to see the ships in the distance. If it exceeds 30 kilometers, it is basically difficult to see the masts on the opposite side. But Marin thought of a solution, which was to let the Hamburg warship set up a beacon tower on the top of the ship building to inform the East Friesland fleet.
Even if the Earth is curved, the telescope cannot see the Hamburg fleet 30 kilometers away. But as long as the beacon fire is lit, the wolf smoke will soar into the sky. In the distance, you can still see it with a telescope.
To this end, the Hamburg Parliament specially purchased a batch of wolf manure and fuel with particularly large smoke during concentrated burning to send signals. After testing, the excavation effect was good.
Moreover, both Hamburg and Lübeck's fleet have received guidance from Marin's flag language. Now, the command of Hamburg's fleet is very convenient, and the messenger can just stand on the bow and wave the flag. Even if the cannon sounds, he can accurately pass the command on the battlefield.
In fact, the style of flag language still needs to be combined with a telescope to achieve the maximum effect. Because, in the case of hundreds of ships, the flag language on the first ship will definitely not be visible to the person on the last ship with the naked eye. Without the telescope, the flag language relay can only be used to convey the naval battle orders between Hamburg and Lübeck's warships. But no matter what, the coalition fleet using flag language is much stronger than the Danish Navy who does not know the flag language. In particular, each warship of Marin is equipped with a telescope, which is very convenient to convey the flag language.
...
The information of the Hamburg fleet sailing along the west coast of Denmark was indeed reported to the fleet intercepted by Denmark. As a confidant of Naval Secretary Thomasson, the commander of the Danish fleet, Alkinson, who commanded 120 warships, was not incompetent. At the age of 40, he was also an experienced naval commander. This time, Thomasson sent him to lead these 120 Danish warships in order to completely defeat the Hamburg fleet. As long as the Hamburg fleet was defeated and Lübeck was unable to support it, it would be easy to deal with it. Moreover, no matter what, 120 ships were still very advantageous to fight 90.
Although the navy in Denmark or Hamburg is popular with the strategy of "hiding troops from the people". It is to draw large merchant ships and talented sailors from merchant ships during wartime to join the navy and participate in the battle.
However, Denmark is different from Hamburg. Denmark controls the huge Kalmar alliance, from Denmark to Norway, and even to the Faroe Islands and Iceland. In order to control these territories, Denmark has long retained the size of 50 warships, often cruising in the waters it controls and cleaning up pirates.
As a small force with only one main city and one sub-port (Cooks Harbor), Hamburg has many merchant ships, but it does not retain its permanent fleet. Only in wartime will large ships and elite sailors be drawn from the merchant ship to participate in the war.
Therefore, in terms of combat readiness, the combat readiness level of the Hamburg Navy is not as good as that of the Danish Navy. To put it more carefully, most of the Hamburg Navy soldiers are part-time. However, the Denmark Navy has 50 warships, a total of 5,000 people, full-time.
This time, the Danes conquered the Hamburg fleet, and the Danes drew 3,000 people from 5,000 full-time sailors to join the war. Most of the more than 9,000 sailors in Hamburg were drawn from merchant ship sailors. There were no more than 500 people with real naval combat experience. Even these 500 people were invited by Hamburg from the pirates for money...
Therefore, Denmark is a complete burger in terms of the number of warships and the quality of sailors. However, no one has ever considered the fleet of the East Frieslander country.
Because the Europeans were also very conservative in this era. They valued tradition very much and no one paid attention to the traditional naval weaklings like the East Frislander. What's more, the last time the Danes besieged the Port of Emden, they did not see the East Frislander sending a warship to fight. Therefore, it is normal for European countries to ignore the maritime power of the East Frislander. At this time, Spain, which only sold 17 large and small Clark sailboats to Marin, knew that Marin still had some strength...
Although Alkinson felt that Hamburg was a little wrong, out of confidence in the combat effectiveness of the Danish Navy, he decisively led a huge fleet of 120 warships to bypass the northern end of the Jutland Peninsula, heading south along the west coast of the Jutland Peninsula, intercepting 90 warships in Hamburg...
A few days later, on the day when Marin and his army crossed the Elbe River, the Denmark intercepted the fleet and the Hamburg fleet finally met on the sea 30 kilometers northwest of Esbian, the port on the west coast of the Jutland Peninsula...
"Hurry, light the war!" Rolf, commander-in-chief of the Hamburg Fleet, ordered loudly. After hearing the order, the flag-speaking soldiers on the side immediately climbed to the top of the ship and began to wave the two flags in their hands vigorously to convey Rolf's orders.
Then, there was a lit up bell of war on the top of several taller ships in the Hamburg fleet. Because of the addition of wolf manure and the smoke-prone wet firewood, the smoke was very strong and soaring into the sky...
On the sea 30 kilometers west of the Hamburg fleet, Viharry, the adjutant of the commander-in-chief of the East Friesland Navy, who had been observing with a telescope on the roof of the flagship Hoffman 1, quickly observed the wolf smoke, and then shouted:
"Sir Kidd, the hamburger people lit the beacon! The hamburger people lit the beacon!"
Kidd was taking a nap in the captain's room. It was February, and the wind was strong and it was still very cold. So he handed over the burden of blowing and observing on the roof of the boat to the adjutant. As for himself, he hid in the captain's room to shelter. But after hearing Viharry's shout, Kidd rushed out immediately and ordered loudly:
"Flagspeaking soldiers, let all the captains come out and wait for the order!"
At this time, most of the captains stayed in the captain's room to shelter from the wind. But now the war is about to start, so these guys naturally have to come out to command.
The flag-speaking soldiers waved the flag in their hands vigorously, and then the adjutants of the captains who were in charge of observation began to call their captains out.
When the captains came out in a neatly dressed manner, Kidd ordered again;
"Tell them that all warships start sailing north for an hour, then go east and cover the Danish fleet's rear route!"
After hearing the order, the flag soldiers immediately began to wave the flag and pass the order...
At this time, the Danish fleet and the Hamburg fleet had just met and had not really started fighting. So Kid ordered the fleet to go north first and then east.
Because, if the 40 warships in East Friesland were too early and were discovered by the Danish fleet, the other side would probably choose to fight their own 40 ships first, rather than the Hamburg fleet. After all, persimmons must be picked and pinched.
Although the East Friesian fleet has many artillery and advanced tactical ideas, those naval soldiers are not confident enough... After all, there is no precedent in using artillery to defeat the traditional navy. Therefore, the naval soldiers under Marin are not very confident. If they were discovered by the Danish Navy early and causing the Danish Navy to rush to the East Friesian Navy first, it is easy to collapse due to the lack of confidence in the soldiers.
Therefore, these young soldiers who have not experienced the naval battle should wait until the Danish fleet and the Hamburg fleet are in a mess before suddenly appearing and attacking the Danes' side.
Moreover, in order to scare the Danes, Marin also instructed Kidd to take the banner of Lubeck when entering the battlefield. This is because, according to common sense, Lubeck's fleet should be blocked by the Danish left-beck fleet. If the Danish fleet attacked the Hamburg fleet and found that there were 40 Lubeck's warships behind him, he might guess that the fleet guarding the Ore Strait was defeated? Otherwise, how could Lubeck's fleet appear behind us?
Chapter completed!