The intervention of the Manchurian Navy in Taiwan made the French as unhappy as they were. At that time, Guo Xing'a used the Taiwan incident as an excuse to invade Japan for the first time, and the French certainly knew about the Qing Dynasty's transfer of Taiwan to Manchuria. The reason why they know that Manchuria has a stake in Taiwan and dare to brazenly attack Taiwan many times is actually to create a fait accompli.

After the Qing Dynasty transferred Taiwan to Manchuria, Manchuria only built a Kaohsiung port, and all other places were not accepted. Manchuria was expanding too fast and wanted to concentrate all its efforts on consolidating those distant territories, and did not attach much importance to Taiwan in its pocket. If it weren't for this Qing-French war, the Qing Dynasty would not have withdrawn from Taiwan and dumped the pot on Manchuria, and they would not be happy to rule Taiwan for a while! The idea of the French was to attack the northern part of Taiwan under the control of the Qing Dynasty as much as possible before Manchuria intervened. As long as it is a fait accompli, Manchuria will have to weigh it if it wants to intervene. And as long as they actually control a part of the area, the French can take advantage of it.

At present, the French army has only occupied one of the Penghu Islands, and the Manchurian warships have sailed over, and the French can only stop there. If the French army advanced any further, it would be the Manchurian army waiting for them in the chicken coop. Moreover, although the Manchurian Navy suffered heavy losses in the battle against the British Far East Fleet, the strength of the French Far East Fleet was not comparable to that of the British Far East Fleet, and some of the remaining small ships in Manchuria also had a surplus to clean them up. The French, who were aggrieved by Barra, could only retreat to Penghu, they did not want to start a war with the two giants of the East at the same time, and the Manchurians really had the strength to invite them out of Asia.

Guba was indignant and wanted to practice with the nosy Manchurians, but the French government strictly forbade it, and Guba could only burst into tears every day. Guba has always thought that he is a hero, and a hero who can make immortal contributions to France, and the reason why he has not been able to realize his dream of a hero to this day is completely dragged down by the weak French government. The government did not allow them to provoke the Manchurians, and the land war was insufficient, and they lost their goal for a while.

Gu Ba really wanted to fight with the strongest Beiyang Naval Division of the Qing Dynasty, and see how many catties and taels of the First Fleet of the Great Qing Dynasty were trained by the Manchurians with all-Manchurian equipment, but unfortunately the Beiyang Naval Division, which had threatened to go south several times, did not come to the decisive battle with him. The Beiyang Naval Division really didn't dare to move, and a big battle between Manchuria and Britain in the waters near Shandong frightened the imperial court. Cixi and Li Hongzhang were very worried that the British would cause trouble to the Qing Dynasty, so even though the situation in the southeast was critical, they left the Beiyang Navy Division near Tianjin to guard the gateway to Beijing.

Lonely can only attack the coastal areas of Fujian when he is idle, but the opportunity has finally come. In early October, the Nanyang sailors of the Qing Dynasty came. The Nanyang Naval Division, also known as the Nanyang Fleet, was a modern naval fleet independently set up by the Qing Dynasty during the movement. It was formally established in the thirteenth year of Tongzhi by Shen Baozhen, then Governor of Liangjiang and Minister of Commerce of Nanyang. Before the Qing and French wars, it was quite large-scale, with 17 cruisers and destroyers, about 50,000 tons. Most of the warships of the Nanyang Naval Division were manufactured by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, and only a few were purchased from Manchuria. Since the policy of the Qing court was to concentrate on the development of the Beiyang Naval Division first, the Nanyang Naval Division was far from it in terms of tonnage, equipment, personnel and strength. The Nanyang Naval Division is responsible for the sea area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the anchorage places are mainly Shanghai and Nanjing.

Although it absorbed many talents who studied in Manchuria and observed the ships of the Beiyang Naval Division, the design and construction were all completed by the Qing Dynasty itself. Although Beiyang is strong, it is only a bought foreign trade fleet, and the Nanyang naval division is the root and sprout of the Qing Navy. The Kaiji-class cruisers, Nanchen-class cruisers, Haian-class cruisers, Weiyuan-class cruisers, Meiyun-class cruisers, Yuankai-class destroyers, Junhe-class cruisers, Jianwei-class cruisers, and Jinou-class ironclad coastal defense gunboats independently designed and built by the company are not advanced, but they are also of the international first-class level. If the South Sea Fleet came with all divisions, the French Far East Fleet might not be their opponent, but unfortunately the imperial court was really afraid!

The naval battle in the Yellow Sea between Manchu and Britain was not far from Weihai, and it was even closer to Liugong Island, where the Beiyang Naval Division was stationed. The Beiyang Naval Division can be regarded as seeing the strength of the world's first-class navy, a big battle that almost ended in the same end, but they have seen enough. The imperial court knew very well that if Britain attacked the Beiyang Naval Division with such a powerful navy, not only would the Beiyang Naval Division be wiped out, but Dagukou and Tianjin would also be 100% finished. In order to complete the strategy, the imperial court not only let all the Beiyang naval divisions be stationed in the sea off the mouth of Dagu, but even the main force of the Nanyang Fleet was also transferred. After the attack on the coast of Fujian, the imperial court could only send Wu Ankang, the chief soldier, to lead the cruisers Kaiji, Nanchen, Nanrui, Chengqing, and Yuanyuan to the rescue.

These five battleships, although of different classes, were all unarmored steel light cruisers. In terms of construction technology alone, they were more advanced than most of the French army's wood-clad iron, but the five ships were not armored and their protection was also very weak. In terms of artillery systems, the two sides are evenly divided, that is, the new capital ships of the French army have more firepower. The imperial court felt that these five warships were already a large combat force, and it was enough to deter the French Far East Fleet and ensure that the overall situation along the coast of Fujian would not be chaotic, but unfortunately the French did not think so. The petty fights planned by the imperial court have never appeared in the plan of the lonely pull, and the plan of the lone plan was a decisive battle of the fleet from the beginning.

After detecting that the five light cruisers of the Nanyang Naval Division were heading south, Gu Ba immediately selected thirteen main battleships and quickly went north to meet the enemy, but Wu Ankang, who was fighting at home, was completely unaware of the movements of the French army. After some searching, the French army soon met the five ships in the ocean of Dachen, Zhejiang. The French army was well prepared, but the Qing army was caught off guard, and the sudden encounter immediately caused the Nanyang naval division, which had never experienced the flames of war, to immediately fall into a panic.

Although it has been more than 10 years since the establishment of the Nanyang Naval Division, it is not easy to purchase one ship and one ship, so the time for the Nanyang Naval Division to become an army is only about a year old. Most of the generals were directly captured from the army, and even if they practiced water warfare, they were only mixed up in the Yangtze River. Not to mention the sailors, most of whom had just been recruited from the southeast coast. Most of the officers and men of the whole army had never fought before, and they had never even seen blood, and several high-ranking generals also rose up in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Twist Army era, and they were completely unfamiliar with naval warfare. The sudden appearance of the French army, which had a long naval tradition, would of course be in a panic. Although everyone has a high level of enthusiasm for combat, they don't know what they should do at all.

"Junmen, the French ship is approaching, how should we deal with it?" Jiang Chaoying, Jin Rong and other management agents all went to sea for the first time to fight, and they panicked more than soldiers when they saw the enemy.

"Don't rush into battle, retreat temporarily!" After giving the order to prepare for war, Wu Kangan frowned, he was not afraid of war or even death, but he was afraid of the gang of people in the court!

Since the First Opium War, the Qing army has waged wars against the European powers and has hardly won any battles. The repeated defeats caused a huge psychological shadow to the imperial court, and the orders given by the imperial court to the generals were usually not allowed to fight. Battleships and armies belong to the assets of the imperial court, and there are many people in the imperial court who will live. If you know that you are invincible and still fight foolishly, it will eventually lead to the loss of the assets of the imperial court, not only will it be useless, but it will be guilty, and the battleship is very important in the eyes of the imperial court.

At that time, Nanyang was already the only remaining fruit of the southeast coastal defense force, and every naval soldier was a baby bump. Wu Ankang did not receive instructions to fight in the event of a French warship, and his strategic goal was to assist in the defense after arriving in Fujian. If he encounters the enemy and fights, causing the loss of the assets of the imperial court, the old men in the imperial court who only count silver and ignore military affairs will definitely not spare him. Moreover, the French army was almost three times that of the Qing army, and there were three steel giants with a tonnage of nearly 10,000 tons.

"Order the ship's crew not to panic! All personnel enter the combat position, each gun emplacement completes loading, and aim at the enemy ship! Retreat at full speed towards the town harbor! Wu Ankang quickly gave an order to calm the army, and at the same time prepared to deal with the French attack, but finally decided to retreat.

Wu Ankang was originally preparing to retreat to Shanghai, because Shanghai was the anchorage of the Nanyang Fleet, and there were a large number of batteries to rely on nearby, as well as two light cruisers left behind, and an incomparably powerful Jinou-class ironclad coastal defense gunship, which was enough to fight the French army. Moreover, the Yangtze River Fleet in Manchuria was stationed in the Zhoushan Islands at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and if the war was unfavorable, they could retreat to the Zhoushan Islands for refuge. They don't have to worry about Shanghai's defense, because Shanghai is the core area of the Jiangnan Trade Zone, and the interests involved in it are very huge, and if the French army dares to mess with Shanghai, not only will the Manchurians not spare them, but Britain, Russia, Germany, and other countries will not agree.

It is a pity that the ships of the South Seas did not have the ultra-high speed of the Manchurian cruisers, which were often more than 30 knots, and their speed was only about 10 knots. According to the speed of the ships in the South Seas, it was possible to get rid of the French capital ships, but it was extremely difficult to get rid of several French cruisers. Once the conflict broke out and was entangled by the French army, the Nanyang naval division would not want to get out, and would definitely be beaten to death by the French army. Therefore, after Wu Ankang roughly checked the charts, he quickly selected the town port that was closest to them and the Qing army's defense was relatively well-prepared.

Zhenhai is the gateway to the east of Zhejiang, Zhaobao Mountain, Jinji Mountain and other places have dangerous terrain, and it has always been an important place for soldiers, and the Qing army is very tightly defended. Liu Bingzhang, the governor of Zhejiang, is a veteran general of the Huai Army, and he is a civil and military general. During the Qing and French wars, Liu Bingzhang determined the defense policy, improved the unified command and coordination organs, and raised a large amount of food and wages, and made very adequate preparations. The Nanyang ships retreated to Zhenhai, although it was still difficult to inflict heavy damage on the French army, but it was more than enough to protect themselves.