At this time, the fleet behind agitated the maximum sails and opened the large steam engine, and finally slowly caught up and came into view.

Hope immediately discovered the problem, and did not know whether it was panic or whim, so he changed the order again, and ordered the five detachments to form five diagonal battle formations and attack forward. As a result, the British fleet began a complex maneuver before the battle. At this moment, the entire fleet once again caused great chaos, causing the already somewhat chaotic fleet to completely lose control and start a melee mode.

In the sea ahead, artillery was already rumbling.

At this time, it was already about 2:40 p.m., and the Chinese Imperial Fleet was divided into two sharp cone formations, surrounded the 14 main warships of the British 3rd Fleet, and opened heavy fire.

The 14 warships of the British army still wanted to resist, and when the reinforcements in the back arrived, they also began to retreat and return fire.

Nearly a nautical mile apart, the warships of the Chinese Empire, which surrounded the British warships, fired two rounds of artillery bombardment, and nearly half of the 14 warships were hit, and although they did not sink, three of them suffered heavy damage and lost power. At this distance, although the British warships fired, it was only a morale-boosting response, and in fact, at this distance, their most advanced front-loading rifled guns did not enter the effective range and could not hit the enemy warships that were not densely packed.

The artillery of the Orientals is really advanced, the range is so far, and the accuracy is so accurate.

In fact, these besieged British forces were overestimating the fleet firepower of the Chinese Empire. Although the warships of the Nanyang Fleet were equipped with many Krupp guns and had an effective firing range of more than one nautical mile, it was an indicator that could only be achieved by bombarding stationary targets from stationary batteries. Nowadays, this kind of cannon on a sailing warship to shoot at a target that is also sailing and moving cannot be very accurate at all. Even the hit rate within half a nautical mile will not be very high.

But the key point is that the number of warships in the Chinese Empire is too large, and it has almost achieved the perverted degree of covering all the sea areas of these 14 British warships, dozens of warships fired together, and hundreds of thousands of shells were fired into the encircled warship group, and there was no need to consider accuracy at all, and several warships could be hit at random.

Just when the British warships began to despair and were about to surrender after a few more rounds of artillery, the warships of the Chinese Empire besieging them stopped firing.

When the smoke of gunpowder cleared from the sea, the British found that two black battleships, roaring with steam engines and blowing their sails, were rushing towards them at full speed.

It turned out to be two battlearmored ships!

I don't know whether to tease or test the power of the new warships, the Chinese Imperial Fleet actually sent these two new ironclad ships to rush into the British warship group alone, preparing to ram the British warship with the thick ramming angle installed in the bow.

For this ancient tactic, the soldiers on the British warships scoffed. They are going to teach these two damned Eastern warships a hard lesson, and it will be difficult to escape anyway, so it is better to pull these two warships as companions.

So, a few minutes later, when the two warships rushed closer, except for the three warships that lost power and could not float on the side and could not attack, the remaining 11 warships opened fire one after another, and because of the close distance, more than half of the shells hit the rushing ironclads.

Just as these British soldiers waited for the enemy warship to be badly damaged, or exploded or capsized and sunk, ready to celebrate and cheer, something stunned them happened.

These two black battlearmoured ships were unscathed!

All the British soldiers were stunned and couldn't believe what they were seeing!

They are no strangers to the so-called ironclad battleships in front of them, in the British Navy, they call them battlearmoured ships, but in fact, they are just ordinary wooden battleships, and the wooden side panels of the ships exposed to the water are wrapped with iron plates to protect against the damage of shells. There were two such so-called ironclad ships in their expeditionary fleet, but they were only much more fortified than other wooden ships, which were perforated or damaged by shells. But if you are hit by dozens of shells, as in front of you, the protective iron plate will not be able to withstand it, and you will still suffer heavy damage or even be sunk.

But the two ironclad ships in front of him seemed to be completely different, it was estimated that the iron plate was very thick, the cannonball hit only made a dull sound, and the side plate of the cabin was only a slightly obvious dent, and there was not much damage at all.

The British soldiers were not willing to believe it, and opened fire fiercely at the two warships that were already rushing closer and closer. But in the panic, although the shells kept hitting, the two ironclad ships were not affected at all, and rushed up at a faster speed.

Listening to a dull and huge loud bang, a Chinese Imperial ironclad has hit the side of a British cruiser of nearly 2,500 tons with its ramming angle, the cruiser shook violently, and then lost control, and the route in front of it was blocked by several other cruisers of the besieging Chinese Imperial Fleet, as a last resort, the British cruiser began to retreat, at this time, the Chinese Imperial ironclad named "Dingyuan No. 4" began to increase its horsepower, and hit its starboard side again, As a result, the hull of the British cruiser was seriously tilted, and a large amount of seawater poured in from the breach, and in just about three or four minutes, the British cruiser sank into the sea together with more than 300 British soldiers on board.

At the same time, another British frigate of nearly 800 tons was also hit by the bow of the ironclad ship named "Dingyuan No. 5" and hit the side, because the tonnage difference was too great, although this frigate was considered a large tonnage warship, in front of the "Dingyuan No. 5" ironclad ship that was as huge as a hill, it was like a young child being hit by a big man, and it overturned from the sea and capsized directly.

At this time, the first "Dingyuan No. 4" ironclad ship made a slight turn and increased its horsepower and rushed towards another cruiser dozens of meters away.

Despite dozens of shell hits, the two Sea Overlords did not show any major damage, and with their huge displacement, they were still formidable even if they were not fast. Fortunately, after the two ironclad ships collided with four British warships in a row, I don't know whether they were afraid that the shells would damage the ironclad they were protecting, or because they were satisfied with their ramming angles, and feared that they would harm their own hulls, so they stopped charging and ramming, and went to the side.

But the next moment, the soldiers of the remaining nine British warships were even more desperate: dozens of warships had already surrounded them in the dark, and the distance was less than a nautical mile, and they began to fire shells sporadically, and three warships were injured in an instant. One of the battleships and three cruisers began to return fire, but as soon as they fired a few shots, they were directly submerged in a sea of shells, and the wooden battleship and a cruiser were immediately hit by multiple shells, and the shells loaded with powerful TNT explosives drilled into the cabin and exploded, shattering the entire ship's planks around the cabin, cracking the hull, and quickly pouring into the seawater.

The British changed color one after another, and the remaining 7 warships immediately stopped shelling, directly took off their clothes as white flags, and waved on the deck to demand that the other side stop firing their guns and be willing to surrender.

At this time, it was only an hour before the two sides came into contact. The 14 main fleets of the British army at the forefront were all wiped out, while the naval warships of the Chinese Empire were almost undamaged.