After three o'clock, after Tan Renhao received the battle report sent back by Yang Qinkai's group, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, the three most critical British aircraft carriers were paralyzed, and there was no sign of enemy aircraft carriers dispatching bombers, which showed that the first task force did not need to worry about being attacked by the enemy's air attack. And this is exactly what Tan Renhao is most concerned about, now there is not a single fighter in the sky over the fleet, if dozens of British carrier-based bombers suddenly appear, it will definitely be a catastrophic scene!

A new problem soon arose, Yang Qinkai's group would be able to return to the fleet at about 4:20, and it would take 30 minutes to refuel and load bombs at the earliest, and it would be possible to set off again before 5 o'clock, and it would be able to bomb the British expeditionary fleet again before dark. Qiu Gengbo's fleet could only return to the fleet before five o'clock at the earliest (in fact, it was about twenty minutes earlier than this time), because due to the influence of Yang Qinkai's group's departure, the time to set off again was after 5:50, and it was difficult to bomb the British expeditionary fleet before dark. From this point of view, then Yang Qinkai's group should be used to deal with the British expeditionary fleet, and when the Qiu Gengbo group returns to deal with the closer French expeditionary fleet, then maybe it can complete a bombing before dark. But the problem is that the situation on the battlefield is a bit complicated now.

The battle on Chang Zhixin's side was not fierce, but the French made it clear that they would not fight a decisive battle with the third task force, and their three battleships were destroyed one after another before three o'clock, but the fourth battleship was desperately fleeing. Just after Tan Renhao received Yang Qinkai's battle report, a new battle report was also sent, and the "Jean Bar" had already clashed and intercepted. It is fleeing north at 27 knots, while Task Force 3 is catching up at 30 knots in an attempt to intercept it. But the problem is.

This 3-knot speed difference is not large, and it is close to 3 nautical miles in an hour. Is Task Force 3 capable of intercepting it? In addition, some cruisers and destroyers of the French expeditionary fleet also broke through the encirclement, and these warships were faster. If it is allowed to escape, it will definitely be a loss of pen. And it was too late to send the escort cruisers of Task Force 1 to intercept them, with the exception of Task Force 3. The only thing that can be used is the Yang Qinkai group that is about to return.

It was this question that made Tan Renhao a little hesitant. If Yang Qinkai's group was dispatched to bomb the French Expeditionary Fleet, it would be difficult to organize forces to bomb the British Expeditionary Fleet for the third time before dark, and if the Third Task Force was sent to pursue it, the effect would not be much better. What to do? Tan Renhao hesitated for less than two minutes, and then made a decision to continue bombing the British Expeditionary Fleet, and if the Qiu Gengbo group came back in time, let the Qiu Gengbo group set off in batches to clean up the remaining warships in the French Expeditionary Fleet!

It was also when Tan Renhao made this decision that Chang Jianxin was very distressed. Or rather, he was so dissatisfied with the battle that he had started that he let the "Jean Barr" escape. This is obviously the worst thing to do!

The battle between the two sides began at about half past two o'clock, and within half an hour, the shelling of the 3rd Task Force could be said to be unusually sharp and accurate. Power, blows to the enemy, these can be called perfect. It can be said that at any time in the past, no one could have imagined that three capital ships of the opponent could be killed in half an hour, and two were sunk, and the third was completely incapacitated. From the point of view of the efficiency of artillery battles, the 3rd Task Force brought the combat efficiency of the main guns on the five battleships to the limit, which can be called the most efficient artillery battle since the advent of the "dreadnought" ships. But Chang Jiexin is still dissatisfied, what he wants is not to kill three enemy ships, but to kill all four enemy ships, and not let any of them go!

The turn of the battle occurred at about 2:45 p.m., when almost all the destroyers and cruisers of the French expeditionary fleet were dispatched, and what was more troublesome was that the three battleships that were in the north at that time were attacked by the destroyers at the left turn, and in order to avoid the torpedoes, the formation suddenly dispersed. At that time, the two destroyers on the new side were making a right turn, and although they were not threatened by torpedoes, they were more than ten nautical miles away from the "Jean Bar" and could not be caught up for a while. In a hurry, Chang Jianxin even ordered all the destroyers and cruisers to be killed, trying to block the French battleship that was about to escape, but when those battleships that were on the periphery of the battlefield received the order to turn around and kill the French battleship, they were still one step too late.

At three o'clock, the "Jean Barr" sailed 8 nautical miles in 15 minutes, and at that time the "Nanchang", "Guangzhou" and "Guiyang" were evading torpedo attacks, and the formation had completely dispersed, and in these 15 minutes, the three battleships barely turned 90 degrees, that is, returned to the northbound direction. But at the same time as the turn, the three battleships sailed about five nautical miles to the east.

Before turning, the Jean Barr was due south of the Canton. That is, by three o'clock, the three battleships were actually in the northeast direction of the "Jean Bar", about 7 nautical miles from the "Jean Bar". The most important thing is that there were no battleships in front of the "Jean Bar" at that time!

The destroyer formation that received the order arrived only about five minutes late, and several destroyers panicked at the most critical moment, and the torpedo was launched, but it was fired at a distance of about 5 nautical miles from the enemy ship, and it did not form an effective firing fan at all, so it did not pose much threat to the battleship that was escaping at high speed.

The cruiser formation also rushed over, but the heavy cruisers of the Imperial Navy were not equipped with torpedoes, and the 200 mm and 240 mm caliber shells on the cruisers posed no threat to the battleships, that is, the cruisers who arrived at this time were not even as useful as destroyers!

On the new side, the "Nanning" and "Wuhan" had already completed their turn, and they all abandoned the battleship "Richelieu", which had not yet sunk, and all aimed their guns at the "Jean Barr". But the problem was that the two battleships were about 14 nautical miles away from the "Jean Bar" at that time, almost at the limit of the range of the main guns.

In addition, the two battleships were in pursuit, so they could only fight with the two turrets in the bow direction. The density of fire is reduced by a third, and this reduces the hit rate even more!

At this time, the most threatening to the "Jean Bar" were the three battleships in its northeast direction. But another problem arises. The angle of rotation of the two main gun turrets in the bow direction of the "New Provincial Capital" class battleship was only 130 degrees to the left and right, that is. The rear firing range is only 40 degrees to the left and right, and the effect of firing at this extreme angle is sure to be too bad to be worse. Therefore, at that time, all three battleships had only the aft turrets that posed a threat to the "Jean Bar", and the density of fire was even lower!

on the battlefield. The French battleship simply ignored the torpedoes fired from the direction of its port side and kept sailing north at a speed of 27 knots. By about half past three, the lateral positions of the "Jean Bar" and the "Guiyang" were parallel, and the distance between the two sides was 5 nautical miles. This was an extremely deadly distance for the battleships of both sides. But again, when both sides are sailing at 27 knots, the accuracy of the shelling will be frighteningly low. In more than ten rounds of shelling in a row, none of them hit!

Chang Jiexin also gave an order at this time, and he didn't want this situation to continue. At this time, the "Nanning" and "Wuhan" had accelerated to 31 knots, which was the fastest speed that the battleship could run. And. At that time, the power system on the battleship was not in the best condition, and it was a miracle to be able to reach this speed! And the order to recommend a new one is simple. The other three battleships also immediately picked up to maximum speed, striving to reach a speed of 31 knots, and then went around in front of the "Jean Bar" in an attempt to intercept it.

Outcome. The "Nanning", "Guangzhou" and "Guiyang" did reach a speed of 31 knots, and the "Guangzhou" and "Guiyang" exceeded 31 knots because of the new power system during the overhaul, reaching about 313 knots. At this rate, within two hours, the three battleships could overtake the "Jean Bar" to 8 nautical miles north, and counting the time required to turn, by the time the three battleships turned around, the distance between the three battleships and the "Jean Bar" was about 5 nautical miles. Within two hours, the distance between the "Nanning" and the "Wuhan" and the "Jean Bar" will certainly be shortened to within 5 nautical miles. In addition, the destroyers of the fleet also completed the reloading of the torpedo at this time and followed. Well, with all the forces in the combined fleet, "Jean Barr" simply could not escape!

The question is, two hours later, after half past five, and the dark time is half past six (in fact, it is about half past six, and it is autumn in the southern hemisphere at this time, and the combat sea area is southern, so the daylight hours are shorter), so can you solve the enemy before dark? Perhaps, Chang Jianxin is thinking a little too much, if he can't solve the French Expeditionary Fleet before dark, the bombers of the First Task Force will also come to help him solve the French Expeditionary Fleet. In fact, Chang Jianxin is worried about this, he also received the Warring States report of Yang Qinkai's group, and the first task force is about to take back Yang Qinkai's group, so what will Tan Renhao do?

As a result, before four o'clock, Chang Jianxin also sent a telegram to Tan Renhao, euphemistically asking the First Task Force not to interfere in the battle here. Of course, Chang Jianxin didn't say anything to death, and if Tan Renhao really wanted to intervene, he couldn't do anything. Of course, he believed that Tan Renhao would not come to "intervene" in the battle of the Third Task Force at this time.

Tan Renhao did not come to intervene in the battle of Chang Jianxin, and long before Chang Jianxin sent a telegram, Tan Renhao arranged for Yang Qinkai's group, which had not yet returned to the fleet, to continue to bomb the British Expeditionary Fleet. Of course, Tan Renhao also left a hand, he did not immediately arrange the task of Qiu Gengbo's aircraft group, but decided to look at the results of the third round of bombing of the third task force and Yang Qinkai's aircraft group first.

At 5:30 a.m., the three battleships that had already run to the northeast of the "Jean Barr" immediately went to full speed after receiving the new order from Chang Zhi, and then the battleships began to slow down. The main guns on the battleship were aimed at the French battleship on the port side, which was still escaping. At 5:35, three battleships fired a new first salvo. To the south, the two battleships under Chang Zhixin's personal command were only a minute late, and at 5:36 a.m. they fired a new first salvo. The last fierce artillery battle to "annihilate" the French expeditionary fleet began, and the "Jean Bar" had to face the blows of five battleships at the same time, even if its eight main guns (in fact, only four were able to fight), and a dozen secondary guns fought back fiercely, but in this case, not to mention one battleship, even if there were a few more, the result would definitely not change anything!

This fierce artillery battle lasted less than fifteen minutes, and the five battleships fired eight rounds of salvos one after another, and the 45 huge guns fired at least 340 shells in total, because the speed of the five battleships had been reduced to 18 knots in the third salvo, so the accuracy of the shelling also improved a lot from this time, and the accuracy of the last five rounds of shelling was more than 10%, while the accuracy of the first three rounds of shelling was seriously low. Even if there was only a 10% hit rate, 340 shells would have passed, and the "Jean Bar" would have to take at least 30 or so shells.

The density of shelling was so high that the lookouts on the battleship at that time were not even able to come up with an accurate data on the shelling hits! The number of hits counted by the lookout officers of each battleship was not exactly the same, the highest was 32, and the lowest was only 23. Even according to the minimum calculations, 23 Type 25 armor-piercing shells were enough to completely destroy the "Jean Bar"! More than 40 years after the end of the war, France once sent a diving team to investigate the situation of the "Jean Bar", and from the results of the diving team's statistics, the battleship actually suffered at least 60 shells at that time, except for the shells before the last ten minutes of battle, in the last ten minutes, the battleship suffered at least more than 40 rounds, or even about 50 rounds. Because the proportion of duds after a hit is quite high for large-caliber armor-piercing shells, it is generally difficult for lookouts to observe duds when counting the results, and all the shells that are counted are direct hits, so it is not surprising that this difference in number is not surprising.

Before six o'clock, before the first bombers sent by Task Force 1 arrived, the "Jean Bar" had already begun to sink amid rumbling explosions!