Perrin faithfully carried out the mission of the commander of his fleet, and gave the order, "Raise the royal flag, raise the flagship flag, and let the three six-hundred-ton warships closest to the enemy in the outermost part meet them, and tell them to send small boats, send people to command the flagship to come up and report, and not allow them to break into our fleet." ”

Zhang Qiang was very satisfied with his approach, in this case, in case the enemy laid an ambush, in case the enemy attacked the flagship with his own ships, or disrupted the fleet formation, then the end would be very unbearable.

After less than half an hour, the three ships of the Fifth Fleet in front stopped outside, and after some conversation and arguments, the soldiers on board finally sent a small boat to row to the Huaxia 310 battleship where the flagship was located, following the small boat of the 600-ton warship of the Third Fleet of the Huaxia Naval Division in front.

"Commander of the No. 302 patrol warship of the Third Patrol Squadron of the Fifth Fleet, Li Yunfeng has seen His Majesty, and he has met Lord Peilan, the chief soldier of the Third Fleet." He stood on the deck and gave a military salute to Zhang Qiang and Perran, and a white Arabic numeral 5 on his left arm made it clear at a glance that he was a sailor of the 5th Fleet.

There is a silver anchor underneath the number five, the anchors of the 1st to 3rd fleets are golden, which is the main fleet, the 4th to 5th, and 6th are formed by separate subfleets, so only silver anchors can be used, and the coastal division garrison is a black anchor.

"Why did you flee in such a hurry?"

Zhang Qiang shouted angrily and asked?

Li Yunfeng trembled, lowered his head, and whispered: "We were ambushed, it was the British warship that ambushed us, and behind was a ship with an unknown flag ambushed our brigade, our Fifth Fleet and the Fourth Fleet Qiongdao Fleet were almost completely wiped out, we were on the edge of the battlefield, plus the ship was small, so we fled quickly, otherwise we might have been annihilated by the enemy." ”

"What? The Fifth Fleet was annihilated? Zhang Qiang, Chief Pei Lan, and the captain, first officer, second officer, and five people who surrounded him exclaimed in unison.

The Fifth Fleet, which was a pilot of a new fleet that Zhang Qiang had high hopes for, was annihilated in this way, which definitely shocked and disappointed Zhang Qiang.

Li Yunfeng said with a heavy heart: "Yes, our commander-in-chief received a request from the Zheng family's envoy, requesting the Fifth Fleet near Manila to support them in the battle against the Spanish fleet, I heard that the Spanish fleet originally had fifty-six armed merchant ships of three hundred tons, thirty armed merchant ships of six hundred tons of Galen, and eighteen Spanish battleships of nine hundred and sixty tons of three rank battleships arrived in Manila from distant Europe, and at the same time, there were about 15,000 expeditionary forces to follow the new governor Olipith White to take office, Their young master, Zheng Zhi, asked for support from our Fifth Fleet. ”

"Bastard, bastard, without an order from the General Staff, without an order from the Ministry of Defense, without an order from the Director of the Naval Division, without my consent, who, who allowed him to use the entire fleet to help others and help other forces, is he- still the general of the Naval Division of the Huaxia Kingdom?" Zhang Qiang spun around in place, waving his arms and shouting angrily.

He was furious that no king would allow his generals to lead their troops into battle without permission, and to move troops and horses without procedural legitimacy, which might threaten his rule, was subject to accountability, censorship, and eventual execution.

Perrin didn't want his fellow sailors to be questioned, which might affect him, so he explained: "Your Majesty, it may be that the military situation is urgent and there is no time to report to Your Majesty, or the messenger he sent is already on the way, and he thinks it is more appropriate to send troops first." ”

Zhang Qiang raised his head and looked at him, until he lowered his head, and then said: "That won't work, if the generals below conceal the situation, until the end we don't know the enemy's situation, it is still a small matter to cause us heavy losses, the important thing is that it is possible that he will become a vassal king, this is a big thing, and it must be severely punished, but I will listen to his explanation." If his explanation convinces the Cabinet, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff, I can consider punishing him as appropriate. ”

He stopped and took two steps, "Also, follow the order to help the forces that are not our kingdom, so there was no before, there is no now, and there can be no in the future, guards, send a team, attendant officer, immediately draft an order, remove Liu Taiyun from the Fifth Fleet, and escort him back to Jinling Mansion to be reviewed by the Naval Division's Headquarters." ”

After shouting, he said to Perran: "Send a small fleet of three six-hundred-ton warships to carry out the order." Let the three patrol boats and transport boats follow them. ”

"But we don't know where they are now, and what will happen to the Fifth Fleet in the future?" Who will manage them temporarily? ”

"And this sortie, the Qiongdao detachment of the Fourth Fleet, and the chief soldier of the Fifth Fleet, Kodak, how to deal with it? He didn't report such a thing either. ”

Zhang Qiang said to him: "You are now temporarily going to take over the Fifth Fleet, and acting for the Fourth Fleet, the Fourth Fleet also sent manpower, but did not report to me, this is a serious violation of discipline, must be thoroughly investigated, you went to cooperate with the investigation team led by the attendant officer to investigate this matter, and at the same time to reorganize the combat readiness, to guard against the counterattack of the Annamite and the attack of the Du Ge rebels, where they will attack next, I don't know." ”

Perrin saluted, then took his personal guards into the dinghy, and went to the periphery to board a six-hundred-ton warship of the three outer guards who came this time, and soon the two warships that seemed to be seriously damaged also joined his team, and he had five six-hundred-ton warships, two hundred-hundred-hundred-ton patrol ships, and one transport ship.

With a team of 25 people, a team of 12 people from the King's Guard, he sailed into the distance.

Zhang Qiang said to the captain of the Huaxia No. 310 beside him: "Convey the order, the fleet will be directly commanded by me, and speed up and rush to the Fifth Fleet." ”

Zhang Qiang was very angry, after the anger he thought that there was still a problem with the flow of the generals of the army, and although the sailor eliminated a group of old pirates, let them go home to recuperate and enjoy their old age, but most of the sailors and generals of the sailor division were still Lu Jianguo and the young sailors and coastal fishermen captured from the Zheng family sailor and the Taixi sailor. So that batch of soldiers has basically been eliminated, and there are very few people who can stay in the water division, and there are not many low-level soldiers, and there are even fewer officers, and the few generals can be counted on one hand.

In fact, most of them are still personnel from Zhejiang Prefecture and Fujian Prefecture in the south, and there are also some personnel from Guangdong Prefecture and Guangxi Prefecture, but compared with the previous two prefectures, there are still very few, which is a matter that the Chinese naval division cannot solve.

At present, it can only be done by increasing the number of cadets and marines to become sailors, from sailors to relevant naval division officers, and then occupying positions in the naval division, so as to alleviate the control of the southerners over the naval division.

In fact, the main reason is that Liu Taiyun is still a group of generals of the Lu Jianguo who left behind by Zhang Ying and them, and the buddy is angry, maybe he knows that the Zheng family is now in an alliance with the Huaxia Army, or not an alliance but has a good relationship, and he is familiar with doing business and is used to it, so he dares to dispatch the Fifth Fleet to help the Zheng family, and he doesn't need to greet Zhang Qiang and the director of the Marine Division of the Ministry of Defense in advance, or ask for instructions, he regards the fleet as his and his capital.

This is unacceptable.

The captain whispered, "The ship that went to the southeast to reinsee Manila has returned." ”

Zhang Qiang was very angry, "Let them come to see me, why didn't they come back for so long?" Why leave the fleet so far and don't send someone to report? ”

(End of chapter)