"Report, Your Excellency Commander, the Chinese Imperial Fleet has caught up!"

"Report, the enemy has changed into a white navy combat uniform!"

After hearing these two news, Matt finally showed a smile that he had not seen for a long time, since he came to the Pacific Theater, for the first time in the months of war, he was happy, he was really embarrassed for too long, and he almost forgot how to laugh.

"Get ready to fight! Drag on for two hours and the victory will be ours! ”

Matt also gave the battle order, but the British troops on each ship had already been waiting for the day, and there was no need to prepare at all, and they quickly entered the combat state.

Seeing that the warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy were quickly catching up, Matt was surprised by the speed of the other party, but he was not nervous, and gave the battle order in an orderly manner, and soon the British fleet adjusted its formation, gave up escaping, and turned around to meet the battle.

Chen Shaoyi kept a close eye on the situation of the British fleet, especially when he saw the opposing commander laughing from the telescope, which made him suspicious.

"Why is this old man laughing? Is there an ambush? ”

If Chen Shaoyi was the commander of the British army, and encountered the main fleet of the Chinese Imperial Navy at this time, even if he was not scared to his knees, at least his face was nervous, and it was impossible for him to laugh.

If Matt knew that it was his inadvertent smile that caused his seamless plan to leak, he probably would have the heart to buy a piece of tofu and crash to death.

"Communications Staff!"

"Here!"

"Order the Fourth Squadron to search backwards for suspicious areas along the way! If found, report it quickly, and there must be no mistakes! Chen Shaoyi's suspicion finally made him have more eyes and keep a hand.

"But General, our reconnaissance fleet has long been informed that the main force of the British Navy did not enter the Blanche Waterway, but left from the direction of the South Solomon Sea, and our reconnaissance ships have been on guard. There was no enemy fleet in pursuit in the rear. The communications staff reminded.

"I always feel that Matt, this old fox won't be here, there must be some kind of secret that can't be hidden, we should be careful!" Chen Shaoyi asked the Fourth Squadron to be more steady.

"But ......"

"But what? Execute the order, nonsense Theta! ”

"Yes!"

Seeing that the commander was angry, the communications staff naturally did not dare to be verbose anymore and immediately conveyed the order to the Fourth Squadron.

The fourth squadron consisted of three ironclad ships, Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Zhiyuan, three dominary cruisers, Hairong, Haiyue, and Haidai, as well as the Fufu, Gospel, Fuqi, Fudi, Fufu, Fushou, Fuku, Fujiang, Fukuoka, Fuku, and Fuji, and the lightning strike ships Forced, Strong, Strong, Strong, Strong, Forced, Strong, and Strong. The communications ships Fengyan and Fengyu are composed of warships, which integrate operations, reconnaissance, escort and other tasks.

The commander, Vice Admiral Deng Yongzhi, was still excited to be the first to rush up to attack the British fleet, but an order came to him to withdraw from the battle sequence and search the rear to prevent a surprise attack by the enemy fleet.

Deng Yongzhi was one hundred and twenty unhappy, but it was useless, his arms could not reach his thighs, and he had to obey orders. So he left angrily with the fourth detachment.

With the Fourth Squadron Palace, Chen Shaoyi's heart was a little more steady. Despite his suspicions about Matt's intentions, he decides to attack if the other party is in ambush. Then he will have a tiger tooth extraction.

Any war is a risk, because no one knows the outcome of the war, and if you don't enter the tiger's den, Chen Shaoyi still has confidence in the Chinese Imperial Navy.

A cannon rang out. The main guns of the armored cruiser Qianning, the advance fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy, suddenly opened fire and took the lead in attacking the British ship Xiaoander, opening the prelude to the Battle of Blanche.

The cruising fleets of both sides were the first to engage each other. At a distance of about 3,000 meters, the artillery fire was fierce, and countless water columns suddenly rose on the sea, and the waves splashed and the sea water boiled.

The Qianning, with the two armored cruisers behind her, the Canning and the Genning, opened fire to attack the British ships in front of them while accelerating closer to the other side.

With the combat experience of attacking the British escort fleet off the coast of Australia on several occasions, the Chinese Imperial Navy has discovered a new method of warfare for armored cruisers, that is, using armored protection to withstand the artillery fire of enemy ships, approaching enemy ships at high speed, and using rapid-fire guns to carry out fierce attacks to destroy and injure the superstructure and personnel of enemy ships, so as to achieve the purpose of inflicting heavy damage on enemy ships and at the same time incapacitating enemy ships.

This tactic is very effective, especially the British battleships on the opposite side are old-fashioned wrought iron cast cruisers, and the opponent's protection ability is limited, and they can't stop the artillery bombardment of the Zhongning-class armored cruisers.

At the same time, the other six Zhongning-class armored cruisers were not to be outdone, and were divided into the second and third teams, and cooperated with the first team of the Qianning to form a three-way column and directly penetrate the British patrol fleet.

This is a stance that requires hand-to-hand combat!

The British sailors on the opposite side of the British ship were all taken aback by the courageous momentum of the Chinese Imperial Army, and they opened fire one after another, trying to prevent the other side from approaching.

Twenty British cruisers were on standby, and the 203-mm main guns opened heavy fire, and the shells continued to hit the opposing ships, but all of them were intercepted by the 200-mm uniform steel armor.

"I can't even break through!"

The British army was dumbfounded, is this Nima still a cruiser? Even a British armored cruiser can blow up a hole of several hundred millimeters if it is hit by an English-made 203 mm armor-piercing shell. However, hitting the Zhongning-class armored cruiser of the Imperial Chinese Navy left a pit of less than 100 millimeters at most.

The difference between a pit and a hole is that the former is not pierced, while the latter is pierced.

"And so it was!"

Matt, who was watching the battle from the rear, restrained his smile, this time he saw with his own eyes that the armor-piercing shells fired by the British ships not only could not penetrate the armor protection of the Chinese Imperial warships, but even the craters opened were much smaller.

The armor of the opponent's battleship is no longer wrought iron, but stainless steel armor!

The difference between wrought iron armor and stainless steel armor is the density of iron, and a knife can easily cut through a finger because the density of a knife is much greater than that of meat. In the same way, the armor-piercing bullet uses a solid steel bullet that hits the wrought iron armor and penetrates it like slicing tofu. And on the stainless steel armor, the density of both sides is the same, and the result is a dazzling cremation, blowing up a small crater, and the warhead is embedded in the crater. It's like the effect of mud slapping on a white wall.

Matt straightened his guess, and at the same time became even more jealous of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

"We can't let the Chinese Imperial Navy continue to grow like this, we must destroy them, completely wipe them out, otherwise the British Empire will completely lose its sea power and lose its hegemony!"

"Order Stephen to retreat, don't fight hard! The ironclad fleet is ready to take over! ”

Matt wanted to delay time, so he ordered the British fleet to fight and retreat, while ten ironclad ships were ready to respond.

It's just that Matt still underestimated the latest armored cruiser of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and saw that nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers suddenly entered combat speed. Billowing black smoke billowed from the chimney, which was forced to ventilate, could make the speed of the battleship skyrocket to 24 knots in an instant, approaching the British fleet at a speed that could be seen, and in the blink of an eye, it was less than 1,500 meters away.

"Left full rudder!"

"Starboard artillery ready!"

"Full rudder left!"

"Starboard guns ready!"

The three squadrons made a left turn almost at the same time, the bow split the huge waves, and the hull quickly turned sideways, and the starboard side of the nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers was all facing the British fleet.

36 254 mm guns, 27 128 mm ear guns, 27 75 mm rapid-fire guns, and 108 30 mm rapid-fire guns were all aimed at the British battleship more than 1,000 meters away.

"Fire!"

At that moment, artillery fire rang out. An overwhelming barrage of shells rained down on the British ships on the opposite side.

The British ships were shot one after another, and huge holes were torn open in the hull, billowing black smoke came out. The deck was full of fire and rain. Smoke billowed from the old British battleship, which was equipped with an open-air battery, and the British artillery in it was ravaged by artillery fire. In an instant, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and there were heavy casualties.

In just five minutes, nine British ships were heavily damaged. Among them, the Aritusa was fatally penetrated by two 254-mm explosive shells, and the rear main gun ammunition depot exploded, and the entire stern was instantly blown apart, thick smoke billowed out, seawater poured in, and the rear half of the hull sank rapidly.

This is the golden five minutes, after all these years of baptism of blood and fire, the Imperial Chinese Navy has mastered the essentials of modern giant ship cannon battles. On the contrary, the shipside artillery tactics familiar to the British Navy were outdated, and in the age of steel warships, they had been surpassed by the Imperial Chinese Navy in terms of technology and concept.

In the golden five minutes, nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy poured shells at the British fleet at the fastest speed, if in the past, the Imperial Chinese Navy would install armor-piercing shells on the main guns to attack the armor protection of British ships, with the goal of directly sinking enemy ships, then now the Imperial Chinese Navy has found that the use of armor-piercing shells to attack enemy ships is too inefficient, because armor-piercing shells are solid steel, as long as it is a non-lethal penetrating hit, it is not enough to directly sink the enemy ship, and the main gun loading ammunition is time-consuming and laborious, It's too much time to spend in the golden five minutes.

Therefore, today's artillery of the Imperial Chinese Navy will make the greatest use of the golden five minutes created every time, and they will load the main guns with high-powered explosive shells, not to attack the vertical armor of the enemy's hull, but to attack the superstructure of the enemy's ship as the main goal, and the enemy's bridge, conning tower, chimney, open-air battery, tail rudder and other superstructures have become the main targets.

No matter how powerful this battleship is, it still relies on people to operate, and if all the people are killed or more than half of them are damaged, the enemy ship will lose its combat effectiveness.

Under the guidance of this new tactical concept, the nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy opened fire fiercely, especially the ship-based rapid-fire guns, and the 30 mm caliber shells did not need to be "bang bang" fire, sweeping the enemy commanders, sailors, and gunners in the superstructure of the enemy ship, and killing them in the blink of an eye.

"Withdraw quickly!"

"Fish Radium!"

The British sailors were beaten to the ground, and the commander really had no choice but to immediately release the fish radium, hoping to use the fish and radium to interfere with the approach of the warships of the Chinese Imperial Navy and buy himself time.

Tong! Tong!

The British ships continued to release fish radium and rushed towards the Chinese Imperial warships at high speed.

Fish and radium are very dangerous weapons, and the officers and men of the Imperial Chinese Navy are very clear, and when they see the British ship releasing fish and radium, they immediately accelerate to evade it and hide far away.

At this time, the golden time of five minutes had passed, and the nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy quickly pulled away and returned to the long-range state of main gun fire, and at the same time broke away from the effective range of the British ship Fish Radium.

Matt, who was watching the battle on the second line, was pale, this was when he witnessed the British Navy's warships being beaten by the Chinese Imperial Navy, the other side only had nine armored cruisers, while his own side had twenty cruisers, with an absolute numerical advantage of 20:9, but the result was that the British battleships were pressed and beaten by the Chinese Imperial warships, one was about to sink, one was beaten into a hairless roast chicken and lost its combat effectiveness, and the other seven battleships were each severely damaged, with flames and thick smoke.

On the contrary, looking at the nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy in the distance, although they had also suffered hundreds of shells from the British ships during the close battle just now, and on average each battleship had suffered dozens of shells, but the losses were not large, only a few warships were emitting black smoke, and some fires could be faintly seen, but they were quickly extinguished.

This Nima gap is also obvious!

Matt was so angry that he wanted to vomit blood, and he wanted to call those British commanders over and slap them hundreds of times, but that didn't relieve his hatred!

The first round was a tentative attack by the Chinese and British fleets, and it was clear that the Imperial Chinese Navy had taken advantage.

Next, the relatively slow battleships and ironclads of both sides came up one after another, and the second round of the battle began.

"Tug the Arethusa to the main channel, even if it sinks, it will sink worthwhile!"

Matt gave the order, and it was clear that he wanted to block the waterway. Before he came, he had made all the preparations, and considered sinking the battleship to the main channel if he was not an opponent of the Imperial Chinese Navy. Although the main channel is very wide, it cannot support the large number of warships of the British Navy, and one cannot block the channel, so a few, no matter how bad it is, dozens of ships will all sink into the channel, and the main force of the Chinese Imperial Navy will be blocked.

The battle continued, the cannon roared, and the entire battlefield was shrouded in thick smoke, Chen Shaoyi's attention was focused on the battlefield, although he also saw that the sinking Aritusa was being carried away by a British tugboat, but he didn't think much about it.

When the nine Hsiungfeng-class battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy and the six Dingyuan-class ironclad ships entered the engagement area, the nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers were reduced to supporting roles, assisting the attack and playing the role of junior brothers. The other six Haiqi-class dome cruisers, each with a team of frigates, wandered around, rescuing damaged warships at any time, and were ambulances and firefighting teams on the battlefield.

"I want to see how good the Hsiungfeng-class battleship is!" Matt only learned from the mouths of the survivors of the Battle of Guam that the Hsiungfeng-class battleships were very good, but he didn't see them with his own eyes, so he gritted his teeth and put his ten ironclads at the front, ready to face the latest Hsiungfeng-class battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy. (To be continued.) )