Early in the morning of February 24, 1539, Xie Vas, the commander of the Eighth Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Golden Lion Empire, was woken up by his adjutant.

"Commander, about 60 nautical miles west of Gaowo Island, the main force of the Han and Tang Empire's southwest coastal defense fleet has been discovered, of which the number of capital ships may be more than 50."

When Shevas heard this, he sat up from the bed in the cabin unhurriedly, "Sure enough, it didn't disappoint me, send a telegram to General Nakola, and the fish has been hooked." ”

It turned out that the Golden Lion Empire, before issuing a joint statement with the Red Tiger Empire and the Silver Wolf Empire, considered that once the joint statement was issued, Zhou Rui's past performance with the three towns of the Han and Tang Empires should not choose to compromise with the Three Kingdoms.

Then the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet of the Three Towns Jiedu Mansion of the Han and Tang Empires is likely to attack Gaowo Island and the Eighth Fleet stationed on Gaowo Island before the arrival of the expeditionary forces of the Three Kingdoms.

Therefore, after the issuance of the joint statement of the three countries, the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy began to actively prepare for war, and sent a large number of light cruisers and destroyers responsible for reconnaissance to the surrounding waters.

In addition, all the warships of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy parked in the harbor have boilers in a state of hot standby, and once the enemy traces of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet are discovered, all warships can be started in a short time.

At the same time, a large fleet secretly assembled by the Golden Lion Empire's navy stopped near several islands and reefs about 50 nautical miles south of Gaowo Island.

This huge fleet was drawn from the other seven main fleets of the Golden Lion Empire Navy, and included a total of 26 all-main gun battleships, 20 all-steel battleships, 16 large armored cruisers, 30 light cruisers, and 30 destroyers.

Almost half of the warships were drawn from the Fourth Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Golden Lion Empire, so the commander of the Fourth Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Golden Lion Empire, Nakola, was appointed as the temporary commander of this secret fleet.

At this time, in the bridge of the Ruixue all-main gun battleship, the flagship of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet, the captain Chen Yongliang reported to Song Limin: "Song Zhi, the Jingsheng 17th in front sent a telegram that the warship of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy had been discovered, and our whereabouts had been exposed. ”

Jingsheng 17 is a German Wiesbaden-class light cruiser, and at present, the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet has a total of 54 German Wiesbaden-class light cruisers, all of which are named after "Jingsheng", followed by a numerical number.

In addition, the German Scharnhorst-class large armored cruisers in the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet are all named after "Xiangshi" with a numeric number.

The German York-class large armored cruisers were named after the "Ganyang" with a numeric number, and the Russian Wuli-class destroyers were named after the "Longshan" with a numeric number.

The prefixes of these four classes of warships are the names of the four cities that the Zhou family first controlled.

Song Limin frowned, "I didn't expect that the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Empire Navy was quite cautious and sent the reconnaissance ship so far."

Anyway, we have no illusions that the sneak attack may be successful, and then our Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet will have a face-to-face fight with the world's first navy!

Of course, the premise is that the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy does not learn from the Third Fleet of the Silver Wolf Imperial Navy, and directly abandons High Snail Island. ”

Captain Chen Yongliang said: "The navy of the Golden Lion Empire has always been arrogant, and I think that the commander of the Eighth Fleet, Xie Vas, is likely to choose to stay and fight a decisive battle with our Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet, after all, the other side also has 40 capital ships combined. ”

Song Limin nodded, "This is exactly what we want, send a report to the four formations of the Provisional Tenth, the Eleventh, the Twelfth, and the Thirteenth Provisional Formation, as well as the Eighth Formation, so that they can continue to maintain a distance of 50 kilometers from the first column, and outflank the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy after the battle." ”

The 24 capital ships that Zhou Rui has just added to the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet have all been fully staffed by Song Limin.

However, considering the problem of internal coordination within the formation, these 24 capital ships were not immediately assigned to the nine major formations of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet, but were temporarily organized into four formations by Song Limin.

Among them, the provisional 10th formation is composed of 8 American Nevada-class all-main gun battleships, and the provisional 11th formation is composed of 4 German King-class all-main gun battleships and 4 British Iron Duke-class all-main gun battleships.

The 12th provisional formation is composed of 4 Kongo-class battlecruisers of the Dongying Kingdom, and the 13th provisional formation is composed of 4 Fuso-class battleships of the Dongying Kingdom.

The four provisional formations, because they were only provisional, were not equipped with other warships, only capital ships.

This time, in order to deal with the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy, the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet took out most of the main forces.

The first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and ninth formations were the first column, and the eighth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth formations were the second column.

In addition, more than 100 transport ships were incorporated into the second column, and these more than 100 transport ships carried 2 divisions of the Fengwu Army, 2 divisions of the Zhenwei Army and 2 divisions of the Jinnan Army.

These 6 infantry divisions of the Zhou family army will be used as the landing force to seize Gaowo Island.

It was only the first column of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet that was discovered by the reconnaissance ships of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy, and in order to hide part of its strength, Song Limin let the second column follow behind the first column and maintain a distance of about 50 kilometers.

At 12 o'clock at noon on February 24, the first column of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet met with the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy in the sea area about 30 kilometers west of Gaoluo Island.

The commander of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy, Xie Vas, put down the telescope in his hand in the bridge of the battleship of the flagship of the Eighth Fleet, the Salute, and said to Neok, the captain of the Salute, with some emotion: "I didn't expect that one day, I would see such a large human fleet.

When will the fleet led by General Nakola arrive? ”

The Salute is one of the Golden Lion Empire's Valian-class all-main gun battleships, with a full load displacement of 30,600 tons and a maximum speed of 21.5 knots.

It was equipped with 4 twin 45x caliber 360 mm main guns, 14 50x 150 mm secondary guns, 20 30 mm anti-aircraft guns, 26 13 mm anti-aircraft machine guns, and 4 550 mm torpedo tubes

Broadside armor belts from 240 mm to 400 mm, main deck armor 90 mm, main turret armor 400 mm, full crew of 1080 people.

The Brave class can be said to be the most powerful all-main gun battleship in the Golden Lion Imperial Navy, although the Brave class only has 8 main guns, which is almost the lowest configuration compared to the full main gun battleship.

However, the caliber of these 8 main guns has reached 360 mm, which is the largest caliber naval gun among the navies of various countries.

Another feature of the Brave class is that the armor is particularly thick, but the speed is not slow, and it is even faster than the average all-main gun battleship.

In the interior of the Golden Lion Empire's Navy, the Brave class all-main gun battleship also has a nickname - the long-legged turtle.

Captain Neok of the Salute then said, "Commander, Admiral Narcola has just sent a telegram that the fleet he leads will be ready to arrive in two hours. ”

"Very well, this naval battle should be enough to go down in the annals of the Empire.

Order each team to meet the enemy according to the tactics previously arranged, and keep in touch with the flagship at all times. ”

The fleets of the two sides were still more than 10,000 meters apart, and the capital ships of both sides began to pour fire on each other with their main guns, and the whole world seemed to be left with only the rumbling sound of cannons.

Although there are 16 all-steel battleships in the capital ships of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy, the main guns of these 16 all-steel battleships are all equipped with two twin-mounted 45 times caliber 330 mm main guns, and there is no problem at all in bombarding at this distance.

It's just that because of the number of main guns, in the duel with the battleships with all the main guns, there is a slight loss.

In the bridge of the Fuchang all-main gun battleship of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet, the captain Liu Ergou said angrily to the first mate Jiang Hui: "Tell the commanders of the four main turrets to let them aim a little!"

After 10 rounds of salvo fire from the main gun, the opponent was not even hurt at all! ”

When the ninth formation of the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet was formed, Liu Ergou was transferred to the Fuchang all-main gun battleship as the captain.

The Fuchang belongs to the Nevada-class all-main gun battleship of the United States, which can be regarded as the most powerful all-main gun battleship in the Southwest Coastal Defense Fleet, with two twin 45 times caliber 356 mm main guns and two triple 45 times caliber 356 mm main guns.

Although the number of main guns is two fewer than the six twin-mounted 45-caliber 356-mm main guns of the Fuso-class battleships, the comprehensive combat effectiveness of the Nevada-class may surpass that of the Fuso-class.

The armor of the Nevada class in the United States is much thicker than that of the Fuso class of the East Ying Kingdom.

At this time, the Fuchang was using 10 main guns to fire at an all-steel battleship of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy.

What surprised Liu Ergou was that the all-steel battleship attacked by the Fuchang was only striking at another "Fu"-class all-main gun battleship of the ninth formation, and he completely ignored the Fuchang.

Moreover, the battleships of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy also regarded the Fuchang as transparent.

This allowed the Fuchang's 10 main guns to be calmly adjusted, and launched round after round of main gun salvos against the all-steel battleship of the Eighth Fleet of the Golden Lion Imperial Navy.

Unfortunately, 10 rounds of salvo fire from the main guns did not have any effect.

First mate Jiang Hui said with a wry smile: "Captain, now the distance between the two sides is almost 10,000 meters, and it is normal for the hit rate to be low." ”

"Don't look for reasons, tell the four commanders of the four main turrets.

I'll give them another chance to fire five more salvos of the main guns, no matter if they are blinded or aim accurately, anyway, they must be hit once, otherwise Lao Tzu will withdraw them all! ”