The encounter between the Chiyou and the Immortal obviously ended in the complete defeat of the Immortal, and it was only more than ten minutes from the engagement of the two sides to the disengagement from the battle, but the Chiyou fired a crazy salvo of main guns, and a total of 9 salves were projected at the Immortal protective cruiser that was constantly maneuvering and evading, in addition to destroying the main and auxiliary chimneys of the Immortal in the second round, it was also in the sixth round of salvo fire, which made a beautiful span at a distance of 8500 meters, and the two shells hit the Immortal's command tower and the stern twin 234mm turret respectively.

However, the kinetic energy of the medium-caliber naval guns at long distances has been significantly reduced, although the explosion caused a lot of surface trauma to the Immortal, but the Royal Navy's Orlando-class protective cruiser carefully built by Sir White is worthy of being the most equipped new cruiser in the 80s, the semi-covered main turret 200mm and the command tower 305mm surface carbonized armor showed good protection ability, the Immortal quickly completed the artillery fire after being killed more than ten soldiers.

After the main fleets of the two sides drew closer to each other, Rear Admiral Tauwell, commander of the Second Far East Fleet of the British Royal Navy, finally chose to abandon the plan of a tentative assault...... Although during the Philippine intervention, the fleets of the two sides had a tentative contest, but when they really entered the live-ammunition battle, the differences and feelings were obviously completely different.

"Order, the 2nd and 3rd torpedo boat formations cooperate with the battleship Barbarian and the cruiser formation of Orlando to carry out the defense of the strait...... Immediately inform Colonel Miles to return with the flagship, I must know every detail of today's battle! "Rear Admiral Tauwell's order temporarily ended the first contact battle between the Chinese and British navies.

A large number of warships of the Royal Navy after the Sino-British encounter. Move forward quickly. Vice Admiral Simon, commander of the Grand Fleet, also got the report of the commander of the detachment, Rear Admiral Tauwell, for the first time. In his report, the latter reported to him in a very serious and cautious tone about the encounter between the protective cruiser Immortal and the battleship Chiyou of the Chinese Navy,

On the 5th, in view of the reasons for the defeat in the first battle with the Chinese fleet, Vice Admiral Simon, commander of the British Far East Fleet, after careful consultation with his senior staff officers, naturally made a comprehensive assessment of this formidable opponent again, and at the same time, made new tactical adjustments after carefully weighing the original combat plan.

Although the opponent showed surprisingly strong. But...... For the victory...... This British general, who has 35 years of naval experience, still has a firm belief, and the strength shown by the Chinese Navy can only inspire him to have a stronger desire to win!

The Royal Navy has been invincible in the four seas for many years, and the naval strategy of the British Empire has never been to regard one country as the enemy, but to comprehensively suppress more than two arms competitors. France and Russia, which had previously been in the position of possible opponents, have lost their halberds in the Far East.

The Russian Navy was even almost beaten to the point that it could not take care of itself, and now it only relies on this newly launched Catherine II-class ironclad to support the world. As for the French......

According to the internal view of the Royal Navy, although the entire French Navy suffered considerable losses in the Far East, the local production capacity is destined to recover much faster than the Russians, in fact, this is also confirmed, but the French naval ideas are definitely of a more strange type, and the naval concepts confirmed by the Chinese in their continuous victories have not been learned by the French at all, but in their self-absorbed naval system.

In fact, after the Royal Navy saw the strength of China's Shanghai-class destroyers, Sir White had also greatly revised the original plan for the competition of torpedo boats, and instead began and built the Royal Navy's "Havok"-class destroyers on a large scale.

This time, Vice Admiral Simon had already made up his mind to strike a severe blow at the emerging naval power in the Far East and lay the foundation for the British Empire to continue to control the sea, although Chinese took the lead in blocking the exit of the Sin Chew Strait with almost unimaginable efficiency...... This was the favorite blockade tactic of the British Imperial fleet, but it was clear that it would not allow the Chinese to succeed.

On the 5th, the British Royal Navy's Far East Fleet issued a series of operational orders, according to the pre-arranged arrangement, with three large-tonnage warships in formation, assisted by the Sin Chew Port torpedo boat detachment, to continuously attack the exit of the Sin Chew Strait and the southern section of the Malacca Strait.

Vice Admiral Simon's orders were clear, and his motives seemed simple, and for the next two days, the warships of the British Far East Fleet continued to appear on the outskirts of the islands in the Strait, and the British gunboats and torpedo boats were intensively active in the shallow waters close to the islands!

The Huangshan Heavy Cruiser encountered a British fleet outside the Xingzhou Strait at noon on the 5th, and the British, with the superior strength of one large cruiser, one light cruiser, and three torpedo boats, only launched a tentative attack, and the fierce battle lasted less than 10 minutes.

Two hours later, on the sea west side of Suji Island, which is nearly 200 kilometers away from the exit of the Sin Chau Strait and has an actual sea route of more than 330 kilometers, the destroyers Liyang and Quancheng, which are subordinate to the Second Destroyer Squadron of the Pacific Fleet, cautiously infiltrated and reconnoitred into the Strait of Malacca through the channel and encountered a four-ship detachment led by the cruiser Blake.

The destroyer Liyang naturally has no intention of fighting, and in this kind of narrow channel and not suitable for maneuvering, fighting against a high-speed iron turtle like the Blake is worthless from any point of tactical and strategic terms, but the entire sea area on the west side of Suji Island is full of all kinds of messy reefs and small islands, and it is obviously impossible to easily and calmly get rid of the opponent.

The two sides shelled each other in a narrow area, and the Liyang did not give the British any chance, and even in the process of getting out, it directly hid behind a reef and fired two torpedoes at the pursuing British battleship, forcing the other side to slow down and maneuver.

The speed of the cruiser USS Blake at almost 22 knots was on full display, and, Colonel Kevins, who commanded the large 9,200-ton cruiser. Undoubtedly a bold figure. He did not care at all about the consequences of the cruiser Sturdy striking a mine in the waters east of Sugi Island a few days earlier.

The British went madly and chased and struck. Fortunately, after entering the southern section of Suji Island, the other four warships of the Second Destroyer Detachment rushed to reinforce them, and Colonel Kevins considered the flexible means of the enemy's torpedo attack, but did not want to make a lose-lose result, so the two sides broke away from the shelling.

For two days, although the two sides continued to fight artillery, the battlefield was too cramped. Both sides of the encounter had no intention of fighting fiercely, and although there were all kinds of strange missiles and amazing hits in the fierce battle, it was obviously only a superficial wound for both sides......

The actions of the British naturally aroused Xu Shoushan's great attention, and the main forces of the Pacific Fleet gathered at the exit of the Xingzhou Strait to make a strategic posture of encircling the British, but he naturally never simply thought that the British would be deflated in the face of such a small encirclement network...... Otherwise, it wouldn't be called the British Empire!

Standing in the bridge of the Dayu. Xu Shoushan, who was holding a coffee cup, stared blankly at the battle chart, above. News from the surrounding waters was constantly being added, and he had almost all the strength of the Chinese Navy in his hands, and this time, even the destroyer fleet had mobilized three sub-fleets to keep up.

On the Beijing side, Lu Han has already sent a telegram that almost all of the accumulation of the Nanyang system for more than 10 years has been bet on this war, but in terms of military strength, the Pacific Fleet is still undoubtedly far behind the British Far East Fleet, but Lu Han also expressed great optimism......

“…… Our division fought on the home field, and the time, place, and people were all favorable to us, while although the British were stronger than their appearances, they actually knew nothing about our army in terms of gunnery, arms, and tactics......

For the optimism of his old partner, Xu Shoushan did not feel relaxed at all at the moment, his whole army was dispatched, forcing the British in the strait, in addition to cooperating with Tang Qingshan's actions, naturally there was a purpose of forcing the enemy to change the military strategy, the so-called army strategy, is to make the opponent follow his strategy by constantly attacking the opponent.

Fighting a standard battle line with Britain on the vast sea was not his Xu Shoushan's style, when Qin Kai used the help of German supply ships to make a detour of nearly 3,000 kilometers to attack Saigon's destruction attack, that was the grand strategy he had always wanted to personally handle...... And the choice of battlefield, this is already the most important issue on his table!

"General...... Message has arrived from Airship 7! Staff officer Tang Hong poked his head out of the telegraph room and said loudly.

Xu Shoushan raised two fingers and shook them, signaling him to wait, staring at the chart for a while, pondering for a moment, and then turning around and asking, "Is there any movement from the British?" ”

Tang Hong nodded calmly, "There are signs of a large number of ships moving in Xingzhou Port, and a large fleet has been observed entering the port, and almost all the warships that left the port before have returned!" ”

Xu Shoushan immediately realized that the highlight of the battle was about to be staged, what did the British want to do, although he did not have very clear news, but the British were going to come out and look for an opportunity to fight with themselves in the sea battle, this was an obvious result, but ...... How are the British going to break out?

"Oh......" he thought for a moment, "let the reconnaissance airships take turns nailing Sin Chew Harbor and make sure the Hood appears, I must know here...... Is there any news from Tang Qingshan? Have you contacted He Xiaojun's side! ”

"General He's side has received a telegram from us, and the First Division has formed a task force to prepare to cross a mountain pass in the Barisan Mountains west of Sumatra and try to make telegraph contact to the Indian Ocean side......" Speaking of this, Tang Hong paused, and then continued: "However, I asked a few telegraph skill officers, it is possible, but considering that Tang Qingshan should maneuver in a large area, this chance will not be very great!" ”

Xu Shoushan nodded, compared to the British, his means of controlling the war situation are obviously very advanced, through wireless telegraphy and relay points all over the Straits Settlements to South China, he can even directly contact He Xiaojun who is advancing in Sumatra anytime and anywhere, and this is one of the powerful cards of the British Far East Fleet that he relies on to challenge more than twice his own military strategy, "Notify all ships, immediately enter the first-level combat readiness, arrange a shift 24 hours a day, we are here to wait for the British to make a move!" ”

Xu Shoushan sat and waited for a move, and after Vice Admiral Simon sat in the port of Penang to transfer troops, he also received an important news, but because the Royal Navy did not have the means to transmit the news directly from the sea, relying on telling the notification ship, when he received the telegram from Makari, Sumatra on the morning of the 7th, it was already seven hours after the time happened.

This time, the 7th Squadron, led by the old cruiser Bavler of the Far East Fleet, anchored in the sea near Kundur Island near Sumatra because it was already dark after entering the outer perimeter of Kundur Island.

According to the report of Colonel Burton, commander of the cruiser Pavrel, more than two Chinese warships launched a night attack on their detachment, and due to the Royal Navy's proper handling, several torpedoes released by the other side were hit, and then, the cruiser Pavrel, the armored cruiser Opossum, and the gunboat Cormorant launched a fierce attack on the opponent, and 3 torpedo boats also joined the battle, and finally, after 2 hours of fierce fighting, the main gun of the Bavrell cruiser hit the other side, and the Chinese Navy fled in panic!

At the end of the telegram, Colonel Burton reported that considering that the Chinese warships would be severely injured after being hit by their 234mm main guns, they had launched a night-long pursuit to try to capture the attacking Chinese warships, and if they could open the channel, they would continue to expand the results!

This drunken and hot-tempered Colonel Burton was actually not in the eyes of Vice Admiral Simon at first, but considering that the cruiser Bavrell had been sailing in the Straits Settlements and the Far East for a long time, he sent Lu to carry out the mission.

"...... here" Vice Admiral Simon stood in front of the chart, looking at the more than 10 kilometers of shipping lanes west of Kundur Island, he couldn't help but think that if this 40-kilometer-long north-south channel could be opened, when the Chinese Navy tried to export reinforcements from the Sin Chau Strait, he would also have at least 7-8 hours of maneuvering time, which would be enough for the huge Royal Navy to enter the relatively wide sea area south of Sumatra Chinese.

"Prepare to carry out the South Sumatra battle plan!" After much deliberation, Lieutenant General Simon finally made up his mind. (To be continued......)