Before dawn on the 11th, four Chinese submarines that had hastily surfaced from the waters south of Sugi Island were immediately towed onto the mothership and transported away, and Colonel Cai Hesen, commander of the Third Destroyer Fleet, who was in charge of the defense of this sea area, immediately gave up his plan to continue to harass the British Navy on the western side of Suji Island after learning that the British Far East Squadron of more than 20 ships had passed through the Kundur channel, and led the fleet to turn to the waters off Bran Island in the north.

Cai Hesen was naturally worried that the British warships would go all the way east to the west coast of South China, and because the Blake-class and Orlando-class cruisers in the British Far East Fleet posed a threat to the Shanghai-class destroyers in terms of speed and firepower, the Pacific Fleet Command had temporarily stopped the peripheral autonomous attack of the Shanghai-class destroyers, and all destroyer squadrons had received orders to move closer to the main fleet.

At 12 o'clock on the morning of the 11th, the Hood, the flagship of the Far Eastern Fleet, passed through the Kundur channel surrounded by a large number of warships, and the battleships immediately followed formed a huge warship group of more than 15 kilometers on the east coast of Sumatra.

After Vice Admiral Simon obtained an important entrance into South China, his goal was directly aimed at the main force of the Chinese Navy active in South China, and the first time to find the enemy was naturally the most important task, and another important task was naturally to contact the nearby Sumatra Tammy Port, which was estimated to have been destroyed by the Chinese, and the Royal Navy needed a supply point close to the front for continued operations.

When the huge British Royal Navy was attacking from all sides, the main force of the Pacific Fleet, which was being tracked, was under the orders of Fleet Commander Xu Shoushan. But he directly made an extremely bold move.

Just after noon on the 11th. A group of British warships patrolling the eastern section of the Sin Chew Strait is methodically entering the eastern section of Batam's shipping lane. In fact, in the sky above the battleship, in the direction of the noon sun, a Tianzhou-I reconnaissance airship was staring closely at the three British warships dangling in the strait below.

At 12:11 p.m., the officer on duty on the airship sent the agreed telegram, which immediately caused the British fleet to suffer a very unexpected and fatal blow from behind the bay in the eastern section of Batam. Almost in a few minutes, more than 7 warships poured out, and it was the Zhenyuan ironclad that took the lead.

The flagship of the patrol formation is the Neptune ironclad launched in 1881, with the displacement of 6800 tons of this battleship, it is indeed a big guy, and although the waterline armor is only an old-fashioned wrought iron armor, the thickness is an astonishing 400mm or more, however, the old single-tube engine and double-expansion steam engine make this type of battleship only have a speed of less than 15 knots and a relatively short range.

The captain, Lieutenant Commander Phillips, was a very professional Royal Navy officer. Although the Neptune ironclad is not the latest warship, the combat effectiveness of the Royal Navy is undoubtedly the most advanced of its time. When the first Chinese battleship appeared at the mouth of the bay in front of him, the 12.5-inch naval gun in the bow of the Neptune was fired immediately.

At a distance of more than 4,000 meters, the Neptune made an extremely impressive start, with two 300-kilogram high-explosive shells, one of which crossed the Chinese battleship flying the five-star red flag, while the other successfully hit the bow side chord armor belt of the Zhenyuan ship, at this distance, even the Zhenyuan side chord 356mm could not resist this heavy blow.

The 300-kilogram shell tore through the iron armor at a distance of 2 meters at the front anchorage, and after cutting into the armor, a violent explosion occurred, and the violent explosion immediately made the small half deck on the left side of the bow of the battleship completely disappear from the battleship, causing a violent fire and billowing black smoke to immediately burrow into the lower cabin.

The commander of the Zhenyuan is the old Beiyang general Deng Shichang, of course, Deng Shichang is now a rear admiral of the Pacific Fleet, and he has shown good military quality in a series of battles, so he has the opportunity to enter the core lineup of the fleet.

After all, let Zhenyuan take the lead in attacking, and the fleet just hopes that this ironclad ship can exert its ability to fight with thick skin...... What I didn't expect was that this test came at the first time......

"Keep course! Fire! Deng Shichang stood on the bridge, and all kinds of objects that had been scattered in the explosion just now rolled to the ground under his feet, but at this moment, his only consideration was to completely take down the British fleet and "immediately extinguish the fire...... Report the loss! ”

Rumble...... The 254mm heavy gun in the bow of the ship was modified in less than 10 seconds after being shot and immediately launched a counterattack, Zhenyuan was modernized after the Sino-Russian naval war, the old 305mm heavy gun is obviously not suitable for today's Pacific Fleet operations, and at the same time, considering the problem of wartime supply, it is still a mature product of the Mawei Artillery Factory 10 inches, 40 times the diameter of the naval gun.

Compared with the Neptune, which protrudes from the flanks and occupies the top of the T-position, the Zhenyuan ship can show almost all of its broadside firepower at the first moment, and four 254mm heavy guns and three 120mm rapid-fire guns fire fiercely at almost the same time......

A black cloud immediately rose on the Neptune ironclad that was maneuvering at high speed, and a 120mm incendiary bomb hit the ironclad fort above the main gun position in the bow, although the 30-kilogram shell could not penetrate the bridge armor of the opponent with a thickness of more than 300mm, but the sparks shot out by the incendiary bomb suddenly plunged the bow terrace gun position into flames and billowing black smoke.

This immediately disrupted the counterattack of the Neptune's bow main gun that was being nervously loaded, although this twin 12.5-inch heavy gun actually needed at least 3 minutes to fire again, but Zhenyuan's first counterattack prolonged the process more than twice.

In just a few minutes, under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Colonel Phillips, the four ships Taishan, Yuheng, Chiyou, and Dayu have been concentrated from the bay......

"Immediately turn to ...... Left full rudder...... Veer! "There was no suspense in such a battle situation, and Lieutenant Colonel Phillips made his only choice.

And the heavy artillery of the 4 ships on the opposite side that had long been ready to fire suddenly made the Neptune a target for fire without any suspense......

Rumble...... Boom Boom Boom ...... Boom Boom Boom Boom ......

In the narrow strait, groups of ironclad beasts swooped down on their prey unscrupulously, and the sky was filled with gunsmoke and shelling!

By the time the smoke cleared, the distance between the two sides had narrowed to less than 3,000 meters, almost the distance of hand-to-hand combat that the Pacific Fleet called in this era...... After making the only choice, the Neptune ironclad unfortunately fell victim to that choice, exposing itself to the enemy's fire, albeit for less than a few minutes......

But these ironclad monsters of the Pacific Fleet have long been armed to the teeth, and the 210mm heavy guns on Huangshan, Taishan, and Yuheng, under the operation of these elite navies, almost poured 10 rounds of free fire on the Neptune in less than 3 minutes, and among more than 140 armor-piercing, high-explosive, and incendiary shells, nearly half of the shells directly hit the hapless Neptune at close range.

The Neptune's trusty 400mm armor belt, although it is also solid enough, but this old-fashioned wrought iron armor, under the dense bombardment of 210mm and 40 times the diameter of heavy artillery at close range, still lost without suspense, the fifth round of armor-piercing shells has penetrated the slightly higher bridge cockpit, and the subsequent several incendiary bombs directly ignited the bridge into a huge fire tube.

The terrace gun emplacements and ear batteries exposed to the outside were even more unlucky and were named at the first moment, and the high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs became demons that harvested life at close range...... The 6 254mm high-diameter heavy guns on the Dayu have become real butcher knives at this distance!

In the first round of free fire of the battleship Dayu, the twin heavy guns of the A gun position directly hit the armor belt above the central waterline of Neptune, and the explosion immediately tore a huge wound of at least 3 meters or more on the opponent's stomach, and then, the next 3 rounds of fierce shelling directly knocked off the main gun on the rear deck of the battleship and the entire rear corridor.

But in the end, the fatal blow was completed, unexpectedly from the stern of the Zhenyuan ship twin 254mm heavy guns, due to the modification of the Zhenyuan ship, although the overall transformation of the bomb machine is good, but the rate of fire is slightly lower than that of Dayu, so, in the whole round of counterattack, Dayu played 4 rounds of shelling, Zhenyuan only played 3 rounds, but this third round of shelling, but a slam was sturdy.

At the time of the last round of shelling, the Neptune, which was already about to become a fire pipe and a chimney, was less than 2,500 meters away, and the heavy shelling of the main guns in the front and rear hit the middle of the battleship, and 4 shells were hit...... At least 3 of them directly sank into the middle of the battleship, and then caused a series of violent explosions!

The burst of flames and various objects that erupted rushed straight into the sky, causing the Pacific Fleet to immediately ignore the target of the fire, and instead plunged directly behind the Neptune, and the muzzles of the guns rotated rapidly, pointing at the other two British cruisers that followed the Neptune in the distance.

Accompanying the Neptune on patrol was the Far East Fleet, which had been stationed in the port of Sin Chew, the opossum-class light cruiser Celtic and the large torpedo boat Seafish, these two battleships obviously understood their poor situation, but because the Neptune was still in battle during the period, although the sinking was almost a foregone conclusion, the two ships approaching forward were obviously weighing back and forth between rushing to help and withdrawing.

These hesitations made them immediately fall into the encirclement of the Dayu and the four Shanghai-class destroyers that had not been replenished just now, and the large torpedo boat of the Hai Kun hurriedly fired two torpedoes, and tried to escape by taking advantage of the chaos, but was beaten into a fireball on the sea by the four Shanghai-class destroyers in less than two minutes.

When the 6 main guns of the black hole hole on the battleship Dayu pointed at the Celtic light cruiser, the captain of the ship, Major Phil, hung the white flag very wisely!

At this moment, Xu Shoushan, who was sitting on the Dayu and filled the regret that he had not been able to fight on the front line for a long time, issued a combat order for a comprehensive siege with a wave of his hand...... British, look at our Black Tiger's trick! (To be continued......)