"Bang!"

In the bow of the battleship "Dingyin No. 1", a 260mm caliber Krupp front-loading rifled gun suddenly fired a cannonball, and the huge momentum caused the shell to quickly break through the deck that had already been blown up, penetrate into the cabin, and explode violently, the high temperature and air waves generated by the explosion of the powerful TNT explosive overturned the cabin, the broken wooden planks began to burn, and more than a dozen gunners in the cabin were hit by the rapid fire of the exploded iron pieces, killing and wounding.

Immediately afterwards, two more shells flew into the ship's hold, one of which penetrated into the middle bilge of the flagship of the 3rd Squadron of the British Expeditionary Fleet, the "Talbot", and immediately exploded, blowing up the outlet steam pipe on the upper floor of the boiler room, and the scorching steam instantly filled several nearby cabins, and dozens of British soldiers who had no time to dodge were immediately scalded by the high temperature steam, and frantically searched for a water source to water their bodies.

When the steam pipe breaks, the power is lost. The "Talbot" immediately became full of speed, and when it was unable to dodge, more artillery shots came, and the "Talbot" was hit in succession. Two shells fired from the Krupp 260mm howitzer in the bow of the battleship "Dingyin No. 1" exploded, and dozens or hundreds of iron sand and iron bumps in the grenade were fired in all directions at a speed of more than 270 meters per second, driven by the explosion of the new TNT explosive.

Around the explosion point, whether it was the cabin, the British soldiers or the sailors, everyone and everything could not be spared, and a few British artillerymen who were still operating the artillery just now had become a pile of bloody rotten flesh, and their bodies were beaten into a sieve by the rain of bullets, and every body was intact. Stumps, minced flesh, organs, blood, or some bloody internal organs were thrown into the sky, and then scattered on the deck and broken sails, and some of the sailors and civilian officers of the British army who could not bear it could not stand the blood, and closed their eyes and covered their mouths on the spot, and even vomited bile.

Hundreds of soldiers on the "Talbot", the flagship of the 3rd Fleet of the entire British Expeditionary Fleet, have been killed or wounded by more than a third after being exploded by a few shells, and the rest are also frightened, where do they still have the heart to fight back?

And in this way, the "Talbot" became like a salted fish, lying on the surface of the sea and becoming a living target.

No matter how strong and lucky the "Talbot" was, it was always a wooden battleship, and soon, about three hours after the engagement, the flagship of the 3rd Detachment of the British Expeditionary Fleet, after suffering two shells from the bow of the battleship "Dingyin No. 1", three Krupp 260mm front-loading rifled guns, finally could not withstand it, the ship's board was blown open a huge opening, the sea water poured in, hundreds of British soldiers jumped into the sea, and soon they were swept away by the waves stirred up by the explosion of the shells.

Not long after, the "Talbot" sank to the bottom of the sea, carrying with it hundreds of British soldiers who had not had time to escape. This was the first British battleship to be sunk by the artillery of the mixed fleet of the Chinese Empire, except for two small gunboats that were hit and sunk by the "Dingyuan No. 4" since the main fleets of the two armies were engaged.

After the beginning, the mixed fleet of the Chinese Empire was out of control.

Wei Jun didn't give any orders at all, didn't give any command, everything relied on the warships to fight on their own, relying on their mutual cooperation. Now it seems that they are working well together.

Following the sinking of the "Talbot" by the battleship "Dingyin No. 1", Wei Jun's Indian Ocean Fleet continued to blossom.

The "Dingyuan No. 2" ironclad ship took advantage of the collision angle of the bow to sink a wooden cruiser and a heavy gunboat in succession, while the "Dingyuan No. 1" and "Dingyuan No. 2" and the three subsequent cruisers were not idle, besieging two British cruisers, sinking one and forcing the enemy captain to surrender voluntarily.

As the Indian Ocean Fleet's wedged column continued to penetrate deep into the enemy ship group, the battle became more and more intense. The sinking of the two successive flagships of the British army seriously affected the morale of the soldiers, and the Indian Ocean Fleet led by Wei Jun at that time adopted a strategy of free attack, and it was a formation that could move freely, giving full play to the power of the Krupp artillery with long range and accurate accuracy. Not to mention that the power of the TNT-filled shells was far from being comparable to the black powder that the British army was still adapting to.

In this way, on the right side of the line of fire, the Indian Ocean Fleet, which originally had a small number of warships, except for two ironclad ships and one battleship surrounded by enemy ships, the rest of the follow-up warships were also pressed up and surrounded by enemy ships, and within the scope of the naval battle of the exchange of fire, the number of warships of the Indian Ocean Fleet was equal to the number of British 2nd Fleet, 3rd Fleet, and 5th Fleet combined.

Most of the warships of the Indian Ocean Fleet are equipped with Krupp cannons, which are powerful with the blessing of high-powered TNT gunpowder. Although the number of warships fighting was about the same, and even the number of artillery was less than that of the British fleet, the caliber was large, and the explosive power of the shells hit was even more than too much. Especially the grenades, the iron filings from the explosion blew the British troops on the deck and even in the cabin, killing and wounding them heavily.

However, the Indian Ocean Fleet was not without losses. In addition to the damage to the impact angle of the flagship "Dingyuan No. 1" ironclad ship, the side plate armor was pierced by a small hole by the gunfire of the already sunken "Warrior"; The other cruiser was shot through the bilge and sank, but fortunately, more than half of the soldiers on board were rescued from other warships; Two more frigates were damaged and had already retreated.

On the side of the Nanyang Fleet led by Tan Tiyuan, it may have achieved more brilliant results because it did not have a super ironclad ship like the "Warrior" as an opponent.

Tan Tiyuan personally led the flagship of the Nanyang Fleet, the "Dingyuan No. 4" ironclad ship, and the "Dingyuan No. 5" ironclad ship led by Ding Ruchang, deputy commander of the Nanyang Fleet, cooperated with each other to lead the 38 main warships of the Nanyang Fleet to fight a beautiful battle of annihilation.

When they were in a chaotic situation of enemy and enemy, Tan Tiyuan did not give any orders, but only adopted a tactic called "chaotic warfare" proposed by Ding Ruchang in advance, and took advantage of the anti-artillery shelling ability of the two ironclad ships, "Dingyuan No. 4" and "Dingyuan No. 5," to rush into the British warship group first, and smashed the British fleet to pieces with ramming angles, directly cutting off the two detachments of the British fleet, causing the British troops to be unable to take care of each other.

The first two ironclad ships smashed and sank three British warships in a row, and Tan Tiyuan and Ding Ruchang made a good start, the two ironclad ships rushed into the enemy ships, not only impacting the enemy ship's hull with ramming angles, but also attacking the enemy ship with the bow firepower and attacking the two sides of the ship at the same time. And because the combat formations that rushed into the enemy ship group were perfectly coordinated, almost every warship of the Nanyang Fleet, all the weapons on the entire warship could be effectively used, firing from all sides, and even one or two guns were not idle.

On the other hand, the British fleet opened fire with each other, and a small number of shells accidentally damaged their own warships, which made the morale of the British army, which was already demoralized, drop even more.

Probably due to the effect of Krupp's cannons and new gunpowder, coupled with high morale, the Nanyang Fleet sank 13 warships in a row, wounded 26, and captured 8 British warships.