"Distance xxx, angle xxx, all the main guns in a salvo, extinguish it!"

With Hu Zhen's order, all 44 main guns of the First Squadron of the Huaxia Army concentrated on shelling the Cristobal Colón, which was 3,000 meters away from the line of its battleships. ⊙，

At a distance of 3,000 meters, the Huaxia fleet achieved an astonishing hit rate of more than 25%, and in just one minute, the Huaxia fleet fired two salvos, and the Cristobal Colón was hit by more than 30 rounds, from the outside of the deck to the cabin, there was a violent explosion together, and the whirring blazing flames swept everything on the ship!

The 6,840-ton Cristóbal Colón was torn into countless pieces by the shells that exploded in the ammunition silos, threw them into the air with fireworks and cigarette butts, and then smashed heavily into the sea.

With the sinking of the Cristobal Colón, the duel between the two capital ships has come to an end.

Hu Zhen ordered the main team to withdraw to a distance of 5,000 meters, and continued to use the method of only hitting the enemy by itself, and the enemy could not hit himself, shelling the Princess Maria Teresa, the Almirante Okendo, and the Viscaya and the Pelayo and Carlos V behind them, and busily looked at the situation around the battlefield.

When the capital ships of the two sides faced off, the rest of the ships had already fought in a state of dog-tooth group fighting, and the sea within a radius of dozens of kilometers was full of fire, and countless corpses and ship fragments were floating on the water.

Although the naval traditions and qualities of the officers and men of the Huaxia Navy were slightly inferior to those of the old Spanish navy, the number of ships of its second and third warframes was larger than that of the Luzon fleet, and its new ships had strong advantages in speed, accuracy, range and rate of fire in artillery.

More important. It is the young people of the Huaxia Army who are not afraid of tigers when they are born. Although it was difficult to maintain a neat formation during the shelling of the ship columns. But in the melee, there are not so many entanglements and restrictions.

After sinking the Guam under the command of Ting Ding-pong using a radio radio, the Second Squadron quickly surrounded the fastest destroyer and torpedo boat in the Luzon fleet.

The white officers desperately steered their destroyers and torpedo boats to rush into the ranks of their own group, but under heavy artillery fire, they were shot one after another.

In desperation, a white officer ordered a torpedo to be fired at a distance of more than 3,000 meters in an attempt to break up the encirclement of the Chinese fleet.

Numerous torpedo waterlines rushed in, and the ships of the Huaxia Army opened fire on the enemy ships. While dodging or shelling enemy torpedoes with small-caliber artillery.

Several torpedoes were hit by small-caliber shells, exploding in the water.

This attack on small high-speed warships using torpedoes was all in vain.

However, the eight General Leso-class torpedo destroyers and six torpedo boats that fired torpedoes were sunk by the intensive artillery fire of the Huaxia Army, and seven destroyers and four torpedo boats were sunk, and they were only one step away from the destruction of the whole army, and the remnants of the ships could no longer launch decent torpedo attacks.

However, in the destroyer hedging between the two sides, the Huaxia Army also lost two destroyers and one torpedo boat.

After clearing the threat of the enemy's fast torpedo ships, Zheng Dingbang commanded the 2nd and 3rd teams to work together like a huge iron tong to firmly clamp all the enemy's warships except the capital ship.

In the midst of the melee, the Luzon fleet had only 123 speed cruisers Don Juan de Austria, the Cuba Island, and the Luzon, five Velasco-class gunboats, and four Dulloya-class cruisers. Its iron-boned wooden hull can be used to scare indigenous pirates. In such a naval battle, not to mention the 155-mm main gun, even the 75-mm gun, one cannon can blow it up into a big hole in the water.

After losing the fastest destroyers and torpedo boats, the artillery fire of the Huaxia Army swooped down like locusts, and the wooden-hulled cruisers of the Luzon fleet were the first to suffer, but in half an hour, they either exploded and disintegrated, or caught fire and entered the water, and slowly sank into the sea.

The Second and Third Fleets of the Huaxia Army were like two steel knives cutting butter, and wherever the artillery fire went, the old ships of the Luzon fleet caught fire and exploded and sank one after another.

The rearguard of the Luzon fleet was still capable of fighting the cruisers such as Rena Cristina, Alfonso XII, Rena Masti, Erikson, Castilian, Christopher, Madrid, and Iberian.

The stormtroopers of the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons were in disarray, and suddenly under heavy enemy fire, the cruiser Loofer, captured from the Dutch East India Fleet, was hit by one 150 mm shell and two 120 mm shells, and immediately sank into the water.

According to Hu Zhen's instructions before the war, the crew of the cruiser Lover immediately abandoned the ship and escaped, and most of them successfully escaped.

The 210-mm front guns of the cruiser Rotterdam were overturned by Luzon fleet shells, the shells on the gun mounts were detonated, a raging fire broke out on the deck, the bridge was burned, the speed dropped to less than ten knots, and it was forced to withdraw from the battle.

The cruisers Boston and Kaiguang were hit hard by enemy shells, but they were able to grit their teeth and persist in the fight.

Zheng Dingbang was furious and ordered: "The cruisers of the second squadron reorganize the column, cut up from the left side to seize the T-shape, and shell the enemy cruiser column!" ”

After receiving the order, the two fast cruisers, the Qiming, Qixing, Qiqi, and Qikai, which had not been seriously damaged, immediately assembled at the maximum speed of 215 and, with the cooperation of other ships, quickly rushed to the front of the enemy's formation 3,500 meters away to launch artillery bombardment.

In the dense artillery salvo, the Huaxia battleships showed strong combat effectiveness.

The Reyna Cristina was the first to suffer, and in just three minutes, the hull was hit by forty or fifty shells, and immediately sank with a large explosion, leaving all the crew with no chance of escaping.

The battleships behind the Luzon fleet saw that the Chinese army had long lost the arrogance of the white European navy to dominate the world's oceans, and they immediately panicked: some wanted to dodge, some wanted to turn and retreat, and some insisted on returning fire with stubborn artillery fire.

In the hedging of the cruiser, the Huaxia Army also seized the upper hand, and the remnants of the Luzon fleet had been surrounded, and it was a matter of time before they were all annihilated.

The remnants of the cruisers of the Luzon fleet were struggling and hopeless, and they could only pin their hopes on their own main fleet.

However, the lead ships of the Luzon fleet were already difficult to protect themselves at this time.

When the captain of the Almirante Okundo, Montojo, knew that the Luzon fleet had suffered a crushing defeat in this battle, and the only way to do this was to let the flagship and the remnants of the battleship withdraw from the battlefield, save the combat strength and find a chance to fight again, he ordered the flag signal to be sent to the flagship and other fellow ships immediately: "The Almirante Okendo is determined to launch a decisive charge to attract enemy artillery fire, please withdraw the flagship quickly and start the battlefield to save its strength and fight again!" ”

After the flag was issued, Montojo, regardless of whether Severa agreed or not, ordered a lonely and tragic charge to the main fleet of the Huaxia Army at maximum speed. (To be continued.) )u