In the more than 80 kilometers from the mouth of the sea to the Beijing Division, not to mention a cruiser of only one or two thousand tons, even the Pingbo armored ship of more than 6,000 tons can enter it.

Even larger tonnage 10,000-ton ironclad ships, if you are careful, can also enter.

What, the Jingzhou Shipyard under the Jingzhou Machinery Bureau, in the early years, also built a 10,000-ton ironclad ship, and after it was built, it went down the river into the sea.

So when a large-tonnage battleship enters the Mirror River, there is no problem at all!

Of course, after entering the Jinghe River, the battleship with a huge tonnage has no mobility at all, and if it is intercepted by both enemy warships and land heavy artillery, then it will be more troublesome.

In this regard, the navy is actually very worried that the enemy's main fleet will take the initiative to abandon the Quping naval base and retreat into the Jinghe River.

But if something really happens, then even if you are worried, you have to kill in the mirror river!

Because if the main force of the navy does not enter, it will not be able to completely defeat the Jingzhou fleet by relying on those twenty or thirty offshore river gunboats, and then control the Jinghe River.

The strength of the Jingzhou fleet is not weak, and it is also a huge fleet with a 10,000-ton ironclad ship.

Although this 10,000-ton ironclad ship was a product of more than ten years ago, and the performance of the earliest ironclad ship is already seriously backward, but this is a big guy of 10,000 tons!

At the same time, the Jingzhou fleet also has a lot of other capital ships!

These main warships were all moored in the Jingzhou Navy before, and it was also the most important naval base of the Daheng Navy before, Quping Naval Base.

Duan Hongxiao and other admirals hoped to be able to arrive directly and block them in the Quping Naval Base before the main force of the enemy's naval fleet withdrew from the Quping Naval Base.

For this reason, after the First Fleet had finished replenishing and leaving the port, in order to prevent the enemy from getting the news to evacuate first, they did not delay time on the way, and directly rushed to the Quping Naval Base at the mouth of the Jinghe River at high speed.

In order to further confuse the enemy fleet, they even carefully selected the departure time to ensure that they would arrive just outside the Quping Naval Base at dawn the next day!

It's the same as buying a night of covert maneuver time!

The fleet went north at high speed, even at night.

Huang Xinggang, commander of the First Fleet, went to rest with dinner shortly after nightfall, and not only him, but in fact, most of the officers and men of the First Fleet rested early.

However, by about five o'clock in the morning of the next day, when the sky was still dark, most of the officers and men of the First Fleet had already gotten up and started to prepare for work.

The galleys of each battleship have already begun to prepare breakfast in advance!

The captains and main officers of the warships had already appeared in the command compartment.

On the high mast, there were not only lookouts, but even officers observing with binoculars on them.

Time passed, the sky gradually turned white, and the sea turned from pitch black to gray.

The sun had not yet risen, but the lookouts were already able to search the sea far away through their telescopes.

On the Pingbo, Admiral Huang Xinggang, commander of the First Fleet, pondered over the charts, and there were people constantly coming in and out of the combat conference room, reporting various data.

"Commander, we have entered the sea area of the mouth of the Jinghe River, and we are still twenty-five nautical miles away from Quping, if nothing else, they will soon find us!"

Lieutenant General Huang Xinggang stood up at this time, looked around and said, "Gentlemen, let's start according to the predetermined battle plan!" ”

Soon, the steam-steel fleet of nineteen warships on the sea began to split into two, and the armored ships Pingbo, the cruiser Luohai, and five other cruisers with higher speeds began to soar to the highest speed, sailing northeast at an average speed of fifteen knots, where the Jinghe estuary and where the Quping naval base was located.

The twelve old warships in the rear, which were slower, were advancing at a speed of about twelve knots, which was already the maximum sustained speed that these old warships could run.

One after the other, the two fleets galloped towards the same goal!

And as they continued to advance at a high speed, at the same time, although the sky was bright, the patrol ships of the Jingzhou fleet on the periphery were also the first to discover them!

But it doesn't matter anymore!

At this time, they were only more than 20 nautical miles away from the Quping Naval Base, and the first detachment led by the Pingbo was racing at the highest speed, and it could reach the outside of the port in an hour and a half!

In just an hour and a half, the opponent didn't have time to make too many responses, and if he was lucky, the opponent's warship didn't even have time to leave the port.

Because it is impossible for a steam engine battleship to maintain a fire all the time, but if a steam engine battleship wants to maneuver smoothly, it needs to maintain a relatively high steam pressure, and it needs a coal-fired boiler to make a fire for a long time.

In other words, once the ship is back at anchor in port, it will take a long time for the coal-fired boiler to be shut down and restarted.

Of course, this can only happen by luck, and now that it is a time of war, it is impossible for the opposing warships to really be unguarded.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for the lookout to shout on the mast of the Luo Hai dome cruiser at the forefront of the fast fleet: "There are battleships ahead!" ”

After the lookout shouted loudly, the officer on duty on the watchtower immediately stepped forward, leaned over the large monoculars and looked at it, and said while looking at it: "Report immediately, the direction is twenty-two, the estimated distance is seven nautical miles, and an unknown warship has been found!" ”

The relevant news soon spread to the Pingbo in the rear, and Lieutenant General Huang Xinggang himself climbed the control tower and observed with a telescope.

Although the distance is relatively far, but at this time the sky is already bright, there is no fog on the sea, and the height of the conning tower is relatively high, you can still see it with a telescope, even if you see only a relatively vague hull, but the experienced Huang Xinggang can still see at a glance that it is the Nanguang-class cruiser in the Jingzhou fleet.

The reason why they can be recognized at a glance is because they have the cruiser Nanxing of the same class in their mobile fleet!

The Nanguang-class cruiser is a new type of warship that has been put into service in the Jingzhou Fleet in recent years, and the Yongchang 43rd is the first ship to be put into service.

According to public information, the Jingzhou side has built and commissioned as many as five ships, which are the main warships of the Jingzhou fleet, with a displacement of about 1,500 tons, and belong to the iron-ribbed wood-hulled unprotected cruisers.

The ship has a special feature, that is, the speed is very fast, and it can run at a speed of fifteen knots under pure steam power.

It is worth noting that in the Battle of Shayangwan last year, the Jingzhou fleet sent a Nanguang-class cruiser to participate in the attack operation, and finally was killed by the unified fleet that poured out, and finally a battleship escaped hopelessly and was forced to surrender.

This battleship that surrendered to Cheng was the cruiser Nanxing.

After the capture of the ship, the unified fleet repaired the ship, and at the same time upgraded and refitted, upgraded the ship's gun layout, removed the smoothbore guns, and replaced them with new breech-loading rifled guns of the unified army.

Although the cruiser Nanxing in the unified army today has a relatively small tonnage, poor endurance, and protection against slag, it has still become one of the main ships in the unified fleet with a high speed of 15 knots powered by a pure steam engine, and after being equipped with a new type of rear-loading artillery.

One of the seven battleships in the fast fleet this time was the cruiser Nanstar.

When Huang Xinggang and the others discovered a Nanguang-class cruiser in Jingzhou on the opposite side, the other party also discovered the fast fleet led by Huang Xinggang himself at about the same time!

Soon, the ship just began to accelerate, turn!

At the same time, the message began to be transmitted to the rear through flags, whistles, etc.!

It didn't take long for the alarm to sound loudly in the Quping Naval Base!