The night was dark and the wind was high, and the sea was dark and dreary, and nothing could be seen, only the sound of the huge waves.

This is a light cruiser of the Chinese Navy, the port number 209, the name of the ship "Fortitude", is the sixth of the "Courage class" light cruisers, built in 1937, a new design, a standard displacement of 9,000 tons, equipped with nine 150 mm main guns, respectively installed on three triple turrets, one in front of the turret and two in the back, the secondary gun is a 1005 mm high-level dual-purpose naval gun, a total of twenty, all installed on the twin turrets, in addition, there are a large number of 45 mm, 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, in fact, The "Courage class" light cruiser is a kind of air defense cruiser with air defense as the main combat purpose, and its main tactical use is to accompany the aircraft carrier to provide strong anti-aircraft fire protection for the aircraft carrier, and at the beginning of the design, it also took into account its other tactical uses, such as ocean-going sea attacks.

Due to the small caliber of the main guns and the small number of them, the "Perseverance" could not compete with heavy cruisers, battle cruisers, and battleships, and this was not originally its tactical use, but the sailing speed of this light cruiser was quite fast, reaching an astonishing thirty-three knots, and it was precisely for this reason that it was also very suitable for tactical reconnaissance.

Now, the "Perseverance" is carrying out a tactical reconnaissance operation, and it is looking for two large warships of the British Navy, one is the battlecruiser "Counterattack" and the other is the battleship "Nelson", and the "Perseverance" is on a mission with a destroyer, which forms the first reconnaissance detachment of the task force.

The captain of the "Perseverance" is now Captain Xie Zhe, who is also the commander of the 1st reconnaissance detachment, and now, Xie Zhe is standing in the watchtower of the main mast of the warship, looking out at the dark and heavy sea.

"Did you really see the lights just now?"

After looking at it for a long time, the sea in the distance was still pitch black, Xie Zhe turned his head and asked the lookout soldier standing behind him.

The lookout nodded affirmatively, and said, "That's absolutely right, it should be the light of the searchlight, it flashed several times, it won't be dazzling." ”

"Tell the radar soldier to fix the radar as soon as possible! This radar, you can strike at any time, but not now! ”

Xie Zhe gave an order to the adjutant with some depression, and then continued to use the high-powered telescope to look at the direction pointed out by the lookout, but still found nothing, and the sea was strangely dark.

As a state-of-the-art light cruiser, the "Perseverance" is equipped with a sea search radar, and it was used quite well during the day today, but after nightfall, it suddenly "struck", and the radar crew thought that it might have been hit by a thunderstorm when it broke through the thunderstorm area in the afternoon, and some key parts of the radar needed to be replaced, but since it was dark, it has been busy for two hours, and the radar has not been restored, which simply makes Xie Zhe extremely depressed.

In this dark situation, the radar is the eye of the warship, Xie Zhe does not want the prey to slip out from under his nose, if the lookout sees the light of the searchlight, maybe it is the British fleet.

At the same time, Xie Zhe also hoped that the other side did not find the "Perseverance" and the destroyer not far from the "Perseverance", otherwise, no one would dare to guarantee that the British fleet would not come back and forth, and with the firepower and protection of the "Perseverance", it would not be an opponent of the British battleships and battle cruisers in any case.

But without confirming the identity of the other party, Xie Zhe couldn't just leave, the task given to him by the fleet commander was to search for the British fleet, and now, the search operation has reached a critical time, at this time, the previous efforts can not be wasted.

Xie Zhe decided to continue to approach the suspicious target, but at the same time he also ordered the entire ship to be put on combat duty, and the warship was to be kept under light control and radio silence, and the connection with the destroyer was limited to light signals.

After stepping down from the watchtower and coming to the bridge, Xie Zhe asked the officers on duty at each combat post through the communication equipment, and he was very satisfied with the high morale of the officers and soldiers, knowing that the other party was a battleship and a battlecruiser, but he did not see any cowardice at all, this is the military soul of the Chinese Navy!

"Keep a logbook! At 9:20 p.m. today, our ship discovered a suspicious target at the ××× north latitude and ××× east longitude. In addition, the radar was damaged and repairs are being intensified. ”

Xie Zhe dictated the logbook, which was written down by a midshipman officer in the navy.

The next thing is a long wait, the sea target, you see it is very close, but often it is very far away, although tonight the sky is very cloudy, there is no light, but the light of the searchlight shining by the other side may give you the illusion because of the reflection of the sea surface, thinking that it is a few nautical miles away, but the real situation may be that it is far away more than ten nautical miles.

Xie Zhe had been standing on the bridge, and he waited patiently.

Like Shen Honglie, Xie Zhe also studied at the Japanese Merchant Marine School in his early years, but after returning to China, the life trajectories of the two were slightly different, Xie Zhe has been serving the southern ** camp since he returned to China, until the United Front came to power and the North-South unification decree, he was able to join the cruiser fleet and became a deputy captain, and later he was promoted and became the deputy director of the Naval Department. But the attempted military coup in 1933 ruined his future, at that time, the Navy Chief Tang Xiangming sent the Marine Corps into Beijing to "maintain order", and the specific implementation of this order was Xie Zhe, Xie Zhe was completely kept in the dark at that time, until the next day of the coup, he found out that he unknowingly got on the thief ship, after a cold sweat, Xie Zhe immediately made a decision, and immediately reported Tang Xiangming's conspiracy to Lu Ping, the acting deputy director of the Admiralty at the time, and it was this decision that finally saved his life, Allowing him to escape the ensuing reckoning.

But this is a stain after all, although Lu Ping said some good things for Xie Zhe, but in the end the center still issued an order, transferred Xie Zhe from the Admiralty, and "assigned" to the combat unit as the captain of the destroyer, fortunately, Xie Zhe returned to the combat unit without any complaints, and after working hard for a few years, he finally regained the trust of the center, and the Admiralty handed over the latest light cruiser to him to command, which was his trust.

This trust was exchanged for Xie Zhe with patience, he has always been very patient, maybe he is too patient, and this edge will not be revealed, compared to Shen Honglie, Xie Zhe is more than calm, but his enterprising spirit is slightly lacking.

"Captain, the radar is back in operation."

A staff officer in charge of contacting the radar room at any time walked up to Xie Zhe and whispered.

Xie Zhe hurriedly gathered his thoughts, walked to the communicator, and asked the radar soldier if he had found the target.

"Discover the target! Two large targets, six small targets, preliminarily judged to be a battle formation! The distance is 4,500 meters! ”

The radar equipped with the "Perseverance" uses centimeter waves like the long-range warning radar "reflection" equipped by the air force, so the positioning accuracy is very high, and the distance between the warship and the target can be accurately measured.

Four thousand five hundred meters, this distance made Xie Zhe a little tempted, he really wanted to use the nine 150 mm main guns of the "Perseverance" to fire a few salvos, but in the end he still held back, first, he could not fully confirm that the target was the "counterattack" and "Nelson" he was looking for, and second, the firepower was insufficient, even if the shell hit the target, it could not penetrate the battleship's armor belt, and against the battleship, the best weapons were torpedoes and aerial bombs.

"Lift the radio silence and immediately send a telegram to the fleet to inform us of the current position of our ship."

Xie Zhe immediately gave an order, and at the same time instructed the staff officer to bring a chart to confirm the current location of the warship.

Now the "Perseverance" is sailing off the coast of the Mergui Islands northwest of the Kra Isthmus, and the closest island to the warship is Dormel, with a straight-line distance of more than 50 nautical miles between the two.

At this moment, Xie Zhe suddenly felt a flash of light appear on the dark sea outside the porthole, and before he could raise his head, he heard a naval midshipman shout.

"Shelling! Shelling! The enemy ships opened fire! The enemy ships opened fire! ”

There was no doubt that it was the British fleet, and they had also spotted an unknown fleet 4,500 meters away, but it was impossible to confirm whether they were sure that the target of the shelling was the Chinese fleet.

The first salvo of naval guns was a flare, and in the night sky, dozens of medium-caliber flares reflected the dark sea, and by this time, both sides were already able to see the shadow of the other's ship.

"Boom ————"

"Boom ————"

The British fleet had apparently turned the muzzles of their main guns around before the first salvo of naval guns, so when they realized that the enemy was a small fleet, they immediately fired another salvo from their main guns.

The waves at sea were strong, and the British battleship "Nelson" was swaying violently due to design flaws, and it was impossible to shoot accurately in this case, so all the sixteen-inch shells of the "Nelson" flew far away, and there was no threat to the "Fortitude", but it was the battlecruiser, the shells it fired were very close to the "Fortitude", and the nearest shell was almost attached to the stern of the "Fortitude" and fell into the sea, but fortunately, it was an armor-piercing shell, and there was not much explosives. After the explosion in the sea, the impact on the hull of the ship was not great, and the "Perseverance" was in danger.

"The destroyer retreats first! Our ship acts as cover! ”

Almost instantly, Xie Zhe made up his mind, and at the same time ordered the warship to raise to its maximum speed and retreat westward at full speed.

"Boom! Rumble! …… Rumble! Rumble! ”

The "Perseverance" immediately fired back, and under the correction of the radar parameters, the six 150-millimeter naval guns located in the stern of the ship continued to correct the coordinates, and the shells gradually approached the main battleship of the British fleet, and after two minutes they hit the target for the first time, and two high-explosive shells directly hit the foredeck of the "Counterattack", and the flash caused by the explosion was particularly striking in the dark night, but this explosion only scratched the itch for the battlecruiser with thick armor, and did not affect the pursuit of the warship.

"Boom ————"

"Boom ————"

There was another salvo of main guns, and the "Counterattack" and "Nelson" still adopted a horizontal formation to give full play to the advantage of firepower, and large-caliber shells rained down near the "Perseverance", and dozens of huge water columns were lifted, and the scene was very spectacular and thrilling.

At the same time, all the secondary guns of the British fleet also began to fire intensively, and at such a close distance, the "Perseverance" had nowhere to hide, and could only rely on the armor belt to carry it.

"Turret No. 3 shot!"

"Gun No. 2 shot!"

"The mainmast has been shot!"

"Shot on the starboard side of the stern!"

……

More and more reports of battle damage were collected to Xie Zhe through the bridge communicator, and the damage management team in some compartments had already begun to work, which was indeed a heavy shelling, and the tactical literacy of the British Navy was indeed not blown, but thankfully, not a single main gun shell had hit the "Fortitude".

However, this luck did not last long, and five minutes later, the first sixteen-inch shell fell from a high altitude, smashed down the upper deck of the bow of the "Perseverance" next to the windlass, penetrated several lower decks, and exploded in the bilge, and almost in a short time, the speed of the "Perseverance" dropped by five knots.

Then there was the second sixteen-inch shell, which penetrated the No. 2 turret and fell into the shell hoisting shaft, fortunately, the "Perseverance" adopted a new design, and the shell hoisting shaft was divided into two sections, which did not lead directly to the ammunition depot, so although the sixteen-inch shell exploded, it did not detonate the ammunition depot, but for safety reasons, Xie Zhe still ordered the damage management team to inject seawater into the ammunition depot of the No. 2 turret to prevent the ammunition from detonating due to the high temperature.

As if to save face from the defeat in the Battle of the Andaman a few days ago, the British fleet pursued the "Perseverance" and began to adjust its course and catch up to the west, but in this way, the British fleet could not carry out a broadside salvo, and the firepower was suddenly greatly reduced.

Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, Xie Zhe decisively decided to stop the artillery fire and run westward at full speed, but at the current speed, it was still difficult to get rid of the pursuit of the British fleet.

At this moment, a violent explosion suddenly sounded in the British fleet, which had been thrown a few nautical miles away, and then a British light cruiser was seen to withdraw from the fleet sequence, and immediately after that, the entire British fleet immediately stopped the pursuit, dispersed, and searched everywhere on the sea in a rage.

Under the flares, Xie Zhe saw the actions of the British fleet, there is no doubt that the British light cruiser ate a torpedo, but who fired the torpedo? The destroyer of the 1st reconnaissance detachment was sailing in front of the "Perseverance", and it could not have been the torpedo it had fired.

It was not until the end of the war that the torpedo was fired at the British fleet by a Chinese Navy's "Shark-class" ocean-going submarine, at that time, the submarine on patrol duty was sailing from the southern sea to the Kra Isthmus offshore, and happened to meet the "Perseverance" and "Counterattack" and "Nelson" to start a war, the captain found that it was a light cruiser of the Chinese Navy that was being pursued, so he immediately made a decision and ordered the submarine to attack, and the bow fired a salvo of four mines, but due to bad sea conditions, The torpedo hit only one British light cruiser, but it allowed the "Perseverance" to escape the pursuit of the British fleet, and unfortunately, in the subsequent anti-submarine operations carried out by the British fleet, the submarine of the Chinese Navy was severely damaged and eventually sunk, and only two officers and men survived.

Although the price was paid for an ocean-going submarine, the price was worth it, and the Chinese Navy's task force won another brilliant victory in the naval and air counterattack battle the next day, the British Navy battleship "Nelson" and the battlecruiser "Counterattack" were sunk, and the British Army on the Kra Isthmus had lost its sea barrier, and the rest depended on when the "typhoon" made landfall.