However, it is not easy to retreat from the current battlefield, in order to resolve the range advantage of the warships of the People's Army fleet, the British fleet did not hesitate to pay the price of losing one warship, and the combat distance between the two sides has been shortened to about 4,000 meters, and now to retreat from the battlefield, it is extremely troublesome, because it takes more time to get out of the range area of the KPA warships, so in the process of escaping, it will be vigorously pursued by the KPA, fortunately, Cole has already sent a rescue telegram to Martinez, as long as he can hold on until his battleship arrives, he will be able to get rid of the KPA fleet。

So the British fleet immediately turned and left the battlefield, and the People's Army fleet naturally would not let go, closely pursued, and during the turn to flee, the counterattack power of the British warships decreased, so they were all fiercely pursued by the People's Army warships, first of all, the Crescent due to the destruction of the left propeller, the speed was greatly reduced, and was bitten by the Qingzhou and Yizhou, and the shells rained down on the hull, and the whole ship was blown up almost beyond recognition, and finally was sunk by the Qingzhou and Yizhou launches.

And other British warships were also pursued by the People's Army warships, and because the speed of the British warships was not as fast as the People's Army warships, so they could not get rid of it at all, in the pursuit battle, the stern of the Blenheim was hit hard by the Tianjin, the propeller and the tail rudder were destroyed, and they stopped on the sea and could not move, but the Blenheim was still unwilling to be captured, and still fought back with the guns on the ship, and this is a 9000-ton large protective cruiser after all, and it is relatively durable. There is no way for the Jinan to take it for a while.

In fact, at this time, it only takes one shot to sink the warship, but the KPA Navy does not have ** on battleships and armored cruisers, and it does not bring destroyers equipped with **, so it can only be bombarded with artillery one cannon at a time. However, the shelling is very accidental, as long as it hits the fatal part, one shot is enough, and if it is not the Guanjian part, it is impossible to say how many shots are needed.

Now Qiaqia was such an embarrassing time, the Tianjin and Jinan opened fire in turn, and the main guns hit the 4th and 5th guns of the Blenheim in a row, almost destroying all the weapons of the Blenheim, and the hull was also heavily damaged, but it was impossible to sink the warship. Fortunately, after the Qingzhou and Yizhou sank the Crescent at this time, they continued to pursue, and happened to pass here, but the Qingzhou fired a ** to solve the battle, and finally sent the Blenheim into the sea.

But at this moment, the warships of the People's Army received an order from the lead ship, the Chitu, to abandon the pursuit and immediately turn around and retreat. It turned out that the battlefleet detachments of the British fleet arrived.

The three British armored cruisers did not disperse and retreated, but always concentrated together and cooperated with each other to cover the retreat, so although one of the three warships basically lost its combat effectiveness, and was pursued by the two strongest warships in the People's Army fleet, they fought and retreated, which was quite orderly, much better than the other two groups.

After a period of pursuit, the Red Rabbit received a warning from the Kunming ship, and the battleship detachment in the British fleet had approached about 15,000 meters from the battlefield, and the Red Rabbit's lookout also spotted the British battleship and issued a warning to the command of the Red Rabbit.

So Luke immediately issued an order to retreat to the other ships, after all, his task was only to lure the enemy, and now he has sunk 4 warships of the British fleet, and led out the British battleship detachment, both the results and the task have been completed quite well, there is really no need to be greedy, not to mention using armored cruisers to meet the battleships, it is completely to send people to the head, so do not retreat at this time, wait until when.

By the time Martinez arrived at the battlefield with a detachment of battleships and two detachments of destroyers, the KPA fleet had already withdrawn 15,000 meters away, not to mention that the speed of the battleships was not as fast as that of the cruisers, so it was too late to catch up.

Of course, Martinez had no intention of pursuing, but only ordered to gather the remaining warships and rescue the soldiers who fell overboard. However, there were 9 warships at the time of the war, and now there are only 5 left, almost 1 and a half lost, even if there are 5 surviving warships, only the Cressy and Hogg are still free from a battle, and the other 3 warships are basically not able to fight again.

It turned out that Martinez set the bottom line for himself was to lose only 2 warships, and now the loss has greatly broken through this bottom line, but failed to sink a warship of the other side, so Martinez is naturally quite annoyed, but this also shows that the combat power of the People's Army fleet is strong, after all, the British fleet has a relatively obvious advantage in numbers, although the protective cruisers account for the majority, and the firepower is also insufficient, but it is certain that the People's Army fleet cannot be underestimated.

And at this moment, the lookout of the Dreadnought reported to Martinez that a formation of 6 battleships of the KPA had been spotted, at a distance of 18,000 meters.

It turned out that the battleships of the People's Army had also been at a position of about 22,000 meters behind the battlefield, and they were ready to meet the armored cruiser detachment, but the battle of the armored cruiser detachment had been relatively smooth, so they did not attack, but now that the British battleship detachment had arrived, the battleship detachment of the People's Army was naturally about to appear. The Red Rabbit, Jueying, and battleship detachments in the armored cruiser detachment also turned around and came back again, accompanied by the destroyer detachment, while the Jinan, Tianjin, Qingzhou, and Yizhou retreated to join the cruiser detachment and temporarily remained unmoved.

But at this time, Martinez hesitated, it turned out that he firmly believed that the 8 battleships he brought were enough to fight against the battleship detachment of the People's Army, at least he could be invincible, but the contest between the cruisers of the two sides just now made Martinez's confidence a little shaken, because this battle has confirmed the combat effectiveness of the People's Army Navy, after all, the cruiser detachment has suffered a heavy blow, if the battleship detachment has any accidents at this time, then no matter what the outcome of this Far East battle, his military career has already ended。

However, now that the opposing battleships had come to the door, if he did not want to fight this battle, then he had to retreat, so Martinez decided to inform the main force of the expeditionary fleet about the results of the cruiser battle first, and then make a decision.

Soon Martinez received a reply from the main force of the expeditionary fleet, asking him to find a way to hold off the KPA battlefleet, which was about 40 kilometers away from the battlefield at this time, and it only took 1 hour and 30 minutes to arrive, and he had to hold on to this hour anyway.

After receiving the order, Martinez was happy and worried, happy that the main force of the fleet could finally arrive, as long as the fleet arrived, there was no need to be afraid of the People's Army fleet, and the worry was that he would have to hold on for another 1 and a half hours, this time is not long, but it is not really short, just now the battle between the cruisers on both sides, that is, more than 1 hour, as a result, his side was sunk 4 ships, 3 were disabled, so this 1 and a half hours, how many battleships do you have to pay?

Of course, the order of the fleet was only to drag down the KPA's battlefleet, and it was not necessary for Martinez to engage the KPA fleet, but if it was not engaged, how could it be delayed the KPA's battlefleet? However, after all, Martinez had received a formal education in naval combat theory and had many years of experience in military command, so he quickly came up with a clever trick, that is, he tried to go around to the rear of the KPA's battleship detachment, so that he could not only cut off the KPA's battleship detachment's retreat route, but also temporarily avoid a head-on battle with the KPA's battleship detachment, and after the expeditionary force fleet arrived at the battlefield, he could also form a situation of flanking the KPA's battleship detachment in front and rear, and annihilate all the KPA's battleships in one fell swoop。

However, when both sides found each other and set up for a big battle, how to go around the rear of the other side became the key to the success or failure of Martinez's idea. However, there are very detailed instructions on this tactic in the British Navy's tactical manual, in fact, in naval battles, it is common for the two fleets to exchange positions with each other, just like cavalry hedging in land battles, so it is not difficult to go around the rear of the other side in naval battles.

After deciding on the tactical plan, Martinez immediately began to act, first ordering three heavily damaged warships to return to the sea, and first rushed to Kaohsiung to dock for repairs, while two armored cruisers that were still ready for World War I followed the fleet and lined up in a column with the battleships, and the two destroyers in parallel, followed the rear of the battlefleet and headed for the KPA battlefleet.

And Martinez did not return to the command room, but stood on the bridge to observe the movements of the KPA fleet and direct the actions of the fleet.

At this time, the fleets of the two sides were not traveling in a straight line, the British fleet was moving from south to north, and the KPA fleet was moving from north to south, and the position was westerly, and after about 20 minutes, the lookout reported that the vertical distance of the two fleets was 16,000 meters, and the lateral distance was 2,500 meters.

Martinez nodded, and immediately ordered: turn the rudder 45 degrees to the right and accelerate to 15 knots.

Turning the rudder 45 degrees to the right meant that the British fleet was heading northeast, and the change of direction of the British fleet was soon discovered by the People's Army fleet. ”

The tablet shows that the British fleet is now moving from south to north to northeast, and this is to widen the horizontal distance between the British fleet and the KPA fleet, but the question is what is the purpose of the British fleet's operation? If it is to avoid the KPA fleet? Then why not just turn around and run? Chen Xiaojiang of course knew that the Far East Fleet was not far from here, and he did not want to really fight the other side, so he was only prepared to retreat immediately after a few moves and lead the British fleet into the Taiwan Strait, but he did not expect that the other side would give him such a hand.

However, Chen Xiaojiang quickly thought of a possibility, that is, the other party did not want to play the game of grabbing the "T" horizontal head with him, because he could not grab it, so he planned to open the lateral distance between the two sides to a suitable position, and then change to a straight line to engage in an artillery battle with the People's Army in a staggered voyage.

But this result is not what Chen Xiaojiang wants, not that he does not dare to engage in a staggered artillery battle with the British fleet, but that his task is to lead the British fleet into the Taiwan Strait, not to have a real battle with the British fleet, so Chen Xiaojiang thought for a while and ordered the fleet to turn 90 degrees to the left, and the fleet to accelerate to 16 knots to intercept the British fleet.