Instead of pursuing the Chinese soldiers who fled into the mountains and forests, He Bo led the vanguard of the expeditionary force to occupy Kuching City, and although he captured many Chinese civilians and several soldiers who had not had time to escape, he did not have time to send people for interrogation, because a large number of supplies were seized.

It may be that the Chinese fled too hastily and did not have time to take things away, when He Bo led his men into Kuching City, several Chinese husbands were burning a warehouse everywhere to burn dozens of tons of grain inside, He Bo was overjoyed, and hurriedly ordered the Chinese to be shot to death, saving the grain in the warehouse that had just caught fire.

There were also several guns on the fort at the fort next to the pier, all of which were also captured, but unfortunately they were all old-fashioned smoothbore guns, which made He Bo a little disappointed. However, tens of thousands of taels of silver and hundreds of kilograms of unrefined gold in the treasury of Kuching City Hall, as well as dozens of boxes of white smoke, made He Bo ecstatic!

Finally there's a catch! Those cunning Chinese were finally caught by themselves. Of course, although he could not own all of that wealth, it was no problem to hand over a part of it to the Ministry of War and retain half of it for distribution. It can be said that with this capture, this expedition is not in vain.

After the seizure, He Bo had time to interrogate a group of Chinese prisoners. According to the accounts of these Chinese laborers, there were only a few hundred Chinese troops stationed in Kuching, and the frigate was one of the warships of the Chinese Empire's Nanyang Fleet, which was stranded in Kuching Port for repairs due to a problem with the steam boiler and was captured. And the main force of the Nanyang Fleet seems to be still in the port of Saigon in Indochina.

He finally learned about the movement of the main force of the enemy fleet, although it was not necessarily accurate. He checked the map and found that Saigon was directly north of Kuching, so he decided to stay in Kuching for a few days, wait for Seymour's main expeditionary fleet to capture Batavia, and then join him and go to Saigon to fight the Nanyang fleet. However, with his many years of naval experience, the surrounding vigilance will not be relaxed, and he has also sent two sentinel ships to the north and east to spy on the movements of the enemy fleet in order to detect the enemy's movements in time. After all, he still didn't ask where the enemy's Pacific Fleet was, and he was still a little jealous of the powerful fleet that he had only heard of. This is not to say that he is afraid of the enemy, but he feels that it is really unwise to fight hard with the two fleets of the other side with the detachment led by himself, and the victory is certain, but the losses are also large, for him who has been in naval battles for a long time, he naturally hopes to defeat the other party with the strongest superior military strength, so he decided that it is better to wait for the main fleet to attack together.

After finishing the business at hand, just as he was about to rest, he suddenly saw a group of soldiers smiling and grinning with the newly captured grain ready to let a group of Indian men who followed him make a fire to cook, and his heart moved, and asked the soldiers to feed the captured grain to the chickens, dogs and other domestic animals in Kuching City to eat, so as to prevent the hateful Chinese from being poisoned.

Unexpectedly, he really guessed it!

Four chickens and three dogs, after eating the randomly scattered grain, began to foam at the mouth after more than half an hour, straightened their legs, and died.

Sure enough, it's poisonous!

He Bo couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, and the other officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force were also startled, and they all thanked General He Bo for saving everyone with his prudence.

But Uncle Ho thought of another possibility.

He didn't expect his suspicion to save the lives of the soldiers and himself. In this way, it has always been a conspiracy that those hateful Chinese deliberately left for themselves in the Kuching warehouse, and the money and tobacco are probably just a cover, and their purpose is nothing more than to let themselves and the British soldiers focus on those money, and they are indeed the same, if it were not for the fact that they were particularly cautious because they had suffered several losses from these cunning Orientals in front of them, they might have fallen into their trap and eaten the poisoned food they had carefully prepared! It's so hateful, the one who also played is decent, and I really believe that those Chinese people didn't have time to prepare, and they fled in a hurry so that they didn't even have time to pack up their money and materials, and they cheapened themselves, and they didn't expect that it was actually a well-arranged trap!

"Quick, interrogate the captured Chinese laborers again, and ask about the specific situation and the real movements of those Chinese troops!" He Bo hurriedly ordered.

However, it didn't take long for his subordinates to report that almost all of the Chinese laborers had committed suicide by poisoning.

It is already obvious that those so-called Chinese laborers are all spies of the other party, deliberately staying to provide false information to mislead him.

"It's not good to stay here for a long time, hurry, gather all the soldiers on board and get ready for battle!" He Bo was taken aback and hurriedly ordered to reorganize the armament for battle.

It was already night, and it was pitch black. Not long after they boarded the ship, a sharp and terrible whistle blew, followed by several rapid whistles, which was a small fast steam schoon sent by the expeditionary force to serve as a sentry guard warship.

"General, a large group of warships has emerged from a bay to the east and is coming towards us. It is now less than 5 nautical miles away from the mouth of the Sarawak River, where we are currently docking. The specific number of warships on the other side is unknown, but it is estimated that there will be no less than 40 warships of any size. "A captain officer from the sentinel ship came to report.

He Bo knew in his heart that it was indeed so, it was indeed a trap set by those Chinese! Fortunately, I was careful enough, and with a little luck, I didn't fall into their trap. It just so happened that the other side had forty or fifty warships, even if the number was more than the number of warships of the detachment led by him, but he was the elite warship of the British Royal Navy, and the officers and men were also the most powerful naval soldiers in the world who had experienced naval battles for a long time.

However, since the other side has so many warships, it must be that the South Ocean Fleet and the Pacific Fleet have come together to snipe at themselves, and they are prepared, so there is no need for them to fight hard, or retreat while fighting, and slowly lead the other side to the south seas, at most two or three days, the main fleet of General Seymour's expeditionary force will arrive, and if he goes south, it may not take two days. When the time comes, there will be another counterattack, hit the superior forces of the expeditionary fleet, and annihilate the opponent in one fell swoop, it is the best!

It's just that these troop carriers are a little troublesome, so they can only let them retreat to the southeast first, and lead the fleet to meet the enemy first, first, to find out the strength of the enemy ships, and second, to delay the evacuation time for these troop carriers. Fortunately, the troop carriers he escorted were all parked in Singapore and waiting for the 8,000 infantry, otherwise there was really no way to protect those troop carriers and retreat.

He Bo, who had made up his mind, immediately ordered the army with two battalions of troop transports to withdraw first, and he led the First Fleet of the Expeditionary Force composed of 25 warships to set up a formation and face the east to meet it.

Soon, the fleets of both sides approached, and by the faint darkness of the night, the warships of both sides came into the other's field of vision. The lookout of the Ho Bo fleet reported that the enemy fleet was the enemy fleet flying the flag of the Chinese Empire with a red background and a yellow star, and there were about 50 warships in total, including 2 battleships with a displacement of 4,000 or 5,000 tons, 17 cruisers of more than 2,000 tons, and the remaining 30 or so smaller warships, all frigates and gunboats of about 1,000 tons or hundreds of tons.

He Bo immediately ordered a row of horizontal formations to face the battle.

The two columns of the attacking fleet, a group of more than 20 large and small warships, with a battleship as the flagship, rushed straight to the center of the avant-garde of Hober's fleet, which Hobo guessed should be the so-called Nanyang Fleet. The other column, composed of nearly 30 warships of all sizes, was also composed of a battleship as the flagship and attacked the front part of the rear part of Hober's fleet, which was the Pacific Fleet.

Seeing the ferocity of the enemy ship, He Bo did not care at all, he calmly and calmly continued to command the entire fleet to adjust the direction and angle slightly, seize the most advantageous direction with the help of the wind, and wait for the flagship of the enemy fleet to completely rush into the firing range, and then give a loud order: "Fire!" ”

Suddenly, the two cruisers in the middle of the avant-garde of the Hober fleet let out a dull number of cannon sounds, two of which hit the flagship of the South Sea Fleet, but the battleship seemed to be very strong, and continued to keep course, cutting into the two cruisers that Hober's fleet fired, the captain of this battleship seemed to be very brave, and seeing that the position was very close, he directly bombarded the stern of one of the cruisers with the port side gun, and only a few shells caused it to suffer heavy damage. Immediately afterwards, the battleships of the South Ocean Fleet fired their starboard guns at the cruiser of the Hobo Fleet on the right, but only one shot hit and the damage was not great.

Although a cruiser suffered a heavy damage as soon as the battle began, He Bo was naturally distressed, but he didn't care very much, because he found that the other party's fatal flaw was too brave, and this battleship with the heaviest tonnage, as the flagship, actually rushed into his own warship group.

He Bo smiled and ordered several warships around the flagship to all aim at it and fire fiercely. Suddenly, the other party's flagship fell into a desperate situation.