I remember hearing a line on a certain TV series: "Compared to the vast sea, the Yangtze River is like a small ditch". Leaving the near shore and sailing into the depths of the sea, the East China Sea Fleet truly realized the danger of the sea, and the sea conditions such as strong winds, high waves, and headwinds continued to appear, and the number of seasick soldiers gradually increased, but the soldiers who had experienced the extermination of pirates still stood strong through the initial discomfort, and finally entered a basically normal state after three days.

As the Penghu Islands got closer and closer, the East China Sea Fleet sent more and more lookout ships, and Qi Jin was also afraid of encountering unexpected situations, the Dutch fleet was not comparable to those pirates, and if it entered the ambush circle of others, I was afraid that the East China Sea Fleet would be completely wiped out. Xiao Hailong also volunteered to be fined for a month for his accidental entry into the pirate's ambush circle, if the East China Sea Fleet encountered such a situation, it would not be as simple as punishing Fenglu, and it would be the entire navy of the Ming Dynasty that would pay, so Qi Jin had to be careful.

Qi Jin's cautious march still achieved results, on the tenth day of the first month of June, that is, the fourth day of going to sea, the lookout ship first discovered the enemy's situation, three Dutch Navy clippers appeared in the field of vision of the lookout ship, through comparative calculations, the size of these three clippers and the Ming Dynasty Navy's No. 4 Fu ship is about the same size, than the East China Sea Fleet's lookout ship, the lookout ship did not dare to slacken, the captain ordered a quick return to report, and the Dutch clipper ship also quickly found the lookout, slowly followed from behind. After receiving the signal from the lookout ship, Qi Jin immediately ordered the First Squadron to go to meet the lookout ship. As soon as Xiao Hailong heard that the warship of the Dutch fleet had arrived, he excitedly accepted the task, and immediately led the first fleet to sail in the direction of the lookout ship.

When Xiao Hailong's first detachment was nearly a mile away from the Dutch clippers, the two sides began the first shelling, and the results of the first round of shelling were tragic, no one hit the other party's ships, all the shells fell into the sea, and the Dutch fleet did not find that the Ming Dynasty navy was using *, because the mortars that fell in the sea did not explode. But a moment later, after the second round of shells from the Ming Navy, two shots* landed on the Dutch Navy's clipper, and luckily the front sail of one of them broke the sail rope, and the entire front sail fell, causing the clipper to lose some power, and the other clipper was killed by three soldiers. It has to be said that the Dutch had a lot of experience at sea, and they got information from these two rounds of artillery bombardment by the Ming army, first, the firing speed was very fast, and second, the shells would explode and be able to catch fire. His own clippers (in fact, equivalent to the lookout ships of the East China Sea Fleet) could not defeat this small fleet, so the captain ordered the three clippers to quickly break away from the battle, go to meet with the brigade, and report on the situation of the Ming Dynasty navy.

Occupying the Penghu Islands is the Dutch admiral Rear Admiral Rayson, last year he led eight warships from Java, nearly 1,000 naval soldiers to attack Macao, trying to occupy Macao, but the attack failed, was driven back by the Portuguese, and then he led the fleet to occupy the Penghu Islands, and continued to increase reinforcements from Java, trying to attack the Ming Dynasty again, to obtain the monopoly of trade rights on the Ming, and now his naval scale has reached more than 20 large warships, as well as supply ships and more than a dozen clippers as reconnaissance ships.

Now he also got the information that the Ming East China Sea Fleet intends to expel himself and recapture the Penghu Islands, he also does not dare to slack off, and sent one of his detachments to the coast of the Ming Dynasty to visit the strength of the Ming Dynasty Navy, the commander of the detachment is called Van Gaal, this detachment has a total of eight warships, in fact, it is the fleet he led at the beginning, the flagship is a double-deck first-class ship of nearly 1,000 tons, equipped with nearly 100 guns, and the rest are seven second-class warships of about five or six hundred tons. He also cautiously sent three clippers as reconnaissance ships to test the reality of the Ming East China Sea Fleet.

Now the first detachment of the Daming East China Sea Fleet is chasing his reconnaissance ship, because the Daming sailing ships use hard sails, although any wind direction can be borrowed, but it is not as fast as the soft sail clippers used by the Dutch, so although it hit two clippers, let them slow down, and sink it, but it also took a lot of time, so that the other clipper escaped, it was this escaped clipper ship returned to Van Gaal's detachment, so that Van Gaal got the information that the Daming East Sea Fleet had arrived. Van Gaal, as Rael's forward fleet, naturally has a certain strength, and he also wants to meet the Ming Navy that will come to fight, so the first exchange of fire between the Dutch and the Ming Navy has become inevitable.

Van Gaal's idea was to test the combat strength of the Ming Navy in order to inform Raeerson's decision-making, so he did not put on a position that he had to fight to the death. Seeing the chasing Ming Navy from a distance, Van Gaal put on a standard battle formation, seized the front of the "T" battle formation, and faced the enemy with the flank, because most of the guns of the Western fleet were mounted on the side chord. He thought that if the Ming Navy also had to put on such a standard battle formation, it would take a lot of time, and during this time, he would be able to inflict heavy losses on the Ming Army, and then he would advance and retreat freely, because the warships of the Ming Navy were obviously not as large as his warships, and they were not as fast as his warships.

It must be said that Van Gaal's idea is very clever, but the development of things did not continue with Van Gaal's idea, because the structure of the warships of the Ming Navy and the Western warships is different, so the tactics chosen are also different, so Van Gaal's attack on the First Detachment of the East China Sea Fleet with such a battle formation is destined to have a tragic result.

Xiao Hailong also saw the battle formation of the Dutch Navy from a distance, and also saw that the opponent's warship was nearly one-third larger than his own warship, especially the giant ship in the middle of the formation, which was more than twice as large as his second-class Fuchuan battleship, which made Xiao Hailong also invisibly increase the pressure, forcing him to consider the way of fighting. Soon Xiao Hailong chose almost the same way as Van Gaal, that is, to attack tentatively, fight if he wins, retreat if he can't win, and don't suffer a big loss in this first naval battle.

Xiao Hailong's first squadron chose a herringbone or geese formation, and he was in the forefront of the leading goose position, so that if the battle situation was favorable, he could rely on his steam power to quickly pursue without being restricted by the wind direction, and if the battle situation was unfavorable, he could rely on the resistance ability of his ironclad ships to cover the withdrawal of other warships from the battlefield. Of course, this is the first real naval battle, and no one can know in advance what will happen in the actual battle, and the intentional Xiao Hailong has put himself in the most dangerous situation, just like the forward cannon fodder in the land battle, or as the cannon fodder role after the cover is broken. However, this kind of ignorance is not without benefits, and it greatly stimulates the soldiers' confidence in combat, because the officers are all charging forward, and the soldiers can not flinch. Just like the slogan of later generations when the two armies of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party faced off, one was "Brothers, rush me", and the other was "Comrades, follow me", under such a slogan, the result of the battle will inevitably be different, and Xiao Hailong is now adopting "Comrades, follow me". This is the same as the tactics of the communist army in later generations.