This time, the French actually mobilized almost all the military strength, and the size of the fleet was so large, which made Lu Han secretly frightened, the Nanyang Naval Division was not unable to withstand the bloody battle, but the battle between the fleets was not like the previous 501 who immediately fought guerrilla attacks when they saw the horizontal sword, and they could advance and retreat at will.

In last year's operation against the Ryukyus, the Nanyang Naval Division can be said to be dispatched by the whole army, and in the battle with the Japanese fleet, although it controlled the overall initiative, it still showed a large number of deficiencies in fleet operations, after all, as a fleet, each battleship has different speed, firepower configuration, shè range, and armor, and in team combat, it is almost impossible for a single battleship to confront the fleet......

Of course, there are exceptions to the perverted situation, when Qin Kai was in the South China Sea, the astonishing artillery bombardment and the speed of the ship that the other party could not intercept, the brilliance created was an unrepeatable legend How could the enemy of the Nanyang Naval Division have such a appearance.

Now there are not many types of warships in the Nanyang Naval Division, only a few iron-hulled ships, two captured old ironclad ships, plus three main battleships, among which the armor is naturally the thickest armor of the 501 ship, and the 601 light cruiser, although the firepower and speed are fierce enough, but it is almost a thin-skinned dumpling, there is no way...... Who let him come as a test subject.

The key part of the 701 heavy cruiser is only 4 inches of composite steel armor, which can cope with the guns below 200mm caliber, if it is hit by heavy artillery, it is a bit mysterious, however, for the warships of the Nanyang Naval Division, the heavy armor is not the first advantage, the real advantage is the artillery system, power system and shè attack technology **.

The high-caliber artillery provided by the cross-era excellent shè, and the use of the optical rangefinder was an absolute secret of the Nanyang naval division, not to mention the unheard of things such as the shè hit element table and the empirical formula for error rate calculation calculated by Qin Kai using the optical brain.

However, once it is transformed into fleet operations, the first biggest impact is the speed of the ship, in order to strengthen the firepower, it is necessary to provide large warships for each fleet formation, but in order to provide sufficient mobile strike force, it is necessary to gather high-speed warships for combat, which involves too many combat factors

Therefore, the current stable battle formation of the Nanyang Naval Division was proved by practice in the last Naval Battle of the Ryukyus, with the three main battleships 501, 601, and 701 as the assault fleet, and the "Huashan", "Hengshan", and the Tetsuwaki wooden-hulled cruiser as auxiliary firepower.

Therefore, in the face of the aggressive French fleet, whether to take the initiative to attack and use the speed and artillery advantages of the main battleships to attack and disturb, or to first stick to the mouth of the Min River and kill the enemy and then beat the water dogs, this decision is really difficult and, more importantly, Qin Kai, as the supreme commander of the Nanyang Naval Division, does not know where to drift......

In the early morning, Ding Richang also sent his confidants, and he was naturally most concerned about the sudden appearance of the French fleet in Fujian, not to mention that Taiwan on the opposite side still belongs to the governor of Fujian, although the imperial court intends to set up a governor of Taiwan, in fact, it has not been implemented, and the responsibility of losing the land is a time bomb, and he naturally hopes to drive out the French

As for Lao Ding's request, Lu Han naturally had to consider it carefully, and while he was pondering whether to convene the core officers to discuss the matter, the officer in charge of the inspection of the port hurriedly came to report that two Mawei shipping cargo ships had just arrived at the wharf, bringing important news that the Fuzhou-Olonga bō route had been intercepted by French warships.

For this news, Lu Han was naturally surprised, as the core general of the Nanyang system, he naturally knew the position of Mawei shipping in the entire Nanyang system, although now the shipping company is still continuing to expand, and has not expanded the industry to the port north of Shanghai, but created one-third of the output value of the Nanyang system, and undertook almost more than 90 commodity and military transportation tasks.

Escorting the Mawei Sea is also one of the important tasks of the Nanyang Naval Division, of course, this is basically a task performed by training ships and a few old Tetsuwaki cruisers, and it is also the only way for new recruits to train.

He immediately asked the captains of the two merchant ships that sent the letter back, and carefully inquired about what happened more than ten hours ago, and when he heard the four training ships coming out of the escort fleet, he naturally understood the huge risks involved, although these training ships were equipped with 150mm and 30 times the diameter speed shè guns of the Mawei Artillery Bureau, among the same caliber artillery, the 150mm speed shè guns of the Mawei Artillery Bureau definitely had excellent xìng ability. ,

However, with a four-on-two scenario, it definitely takes a bit of luck to have any hope of fending off the French.

But if the other side is equipped with large-caliber artillery, the 150mm speed guns and Makqin machine guns used in the training of these merchant ships are almost furnishings, and the wooden-hulled merchant ships do not have the waterproof design of a battleship at all, once the waterline is hit, the strong kinetic energy of the explosion alone can shatter the wooden keel, not to mention the difficult problem of water permeability.

These two merchant ships are new ships that have just been launched last year, so the speed of the ships is relatively fast, and they received the order of the fleet commander to come back first to report the news, this jīng Ming's fleet commander naturally attracted Lu Han's attention, and after careful questioning, he remembered that it was Qian Xi, a veteran of the Navy Division, and couldn't help nodding secretly.

Thinking that the fleet of Mawei Shipping might still be turbulent at sea, Lu Han immediately ordered the Nanyang Naval Division to gather urgently, and at the same time sent someone to inform Ding Ruchang and ask him to temporarily assist in the defense of Mawei Port! Soon, the majestic figure of the 501 ship sailed out of the mouth of the Minjiang River, followed by the ironclad ship "Hengshan", which officially participated in the military mission for the first time.

Out of the sea, Lu Han immediately ordered the two ships of the "Hengshan" to open a distance of 4 kilometers and search forward along the channel, but it was obvious that Lu Han's luck today was good, and he had just sailed out of an hour when he observed a merchant fleet appearing in the distance on the sea near West Dog Island.

"Report" The officer rushed in and shouted excitedly: "General, a fleet of ships has been spotted in the distance, and the flag that has been hoisted is the red flag of the Nanyang Shipping Company."

Hearing this news, Lu Han's mind that had been hanging back into his stomach was put back into his stomach, and he breathed a long sigh of relief, "Very good, immediately order to close the formation and escort it."

The 501 ship took the lead in accelerating towards the flotilla in front, and at the same time sent a signal, and it was obvious that the other party also observed it, and immediately deviated from the channel and approached at full speed.

"Gengtang, it seems that the merchant ship of the shipping company is good, but the voyage is a little slower, the French warships can resist hard, and there are successors to our sailors" Chen Ying, an officer on the side, obviously observed through the high-powered telescope that the merchant ship ranked first had a good image, and laughed and teased.

"It's really good, Lord Qin's method of practicing with the ship is really good, but I don't know what the new battleship can join our fleet" Lu Han was naturally in a good mood, and he also pondered the problem of this new battleship.

However, the good mood of the two was immediately disturbed by the four cargo ships that appeared in the stern slowly, the superstructure of the four ships was almost destroyed by a certain amount of dù, and the deck was obviously on fire, and the black burn marks on the body could be seen everywhere, and the most seriously injured was a 2,000-ton training ship in the middle.

The wooden hull ship with the port number "0047", one-third of the bow has disappeared, fortunately, the shelling did not hit the bow rudder, otherwise the ship would not have been able to drive at all, and the gun silhouette guns erected on the bow were also missing, but there were two tǐng Makqin machine guns erected on the port side, and the thick wood on the side of the ship had already been torn by some weapons everywhere

It seems that this battle is not simple, the Nanyang Naval Division immediately escorted the fleet back to the dock, waited on the shore, and called Qian Xi and the officers of several training ships to the Naval Division, and the battle that opened the prelude to the Sino-French Maritime Conference was only brought to light.

The encounter yesterday evening was destined to be a fierce confrontation, the two French warships had 27 mén guns of more than 37 mm caliber, while the training ship accompanying Mawei Sea only had four mén 150 mm speed shè guns, and the 11 mm Maxim machine gun was only 8 tǐng, and the Maxim machine gun was of little use against the battleships attacking at a long distance.

As a son of a Chinese merchant family, he received a very systematic Western-style education in Britain in his early years, and then returned to China for several years to receive traditional Chinese culture, but for the desire for knowledge and new things, he finally chose to go to the British military academy to study a few years later.

A year ago, he happened to meet Qin Kai's team stationed in North Newcastle, England to recruit skilled workers, and he was also very curious about the practice of recruiting workers in Britain in this era.

As a result, as soon as he came back, he was shocked by the overwhelming achievements and aura of the Nanyang Naval Division, and joined the Naval Division without hesitation. ,

For most of the half year of military training, except for the occasional little pirate who couldn't open his eyes in the South Seas, he had never really participated in the battle, but the practice on this training ship, Chen Mingna really played with his life and urged the soldiers to practice, and when he saw the French in front of him, he immediately ordered to fight according to the integrated firepower plan conceived during the weekday practice.

This is the result of his and several officers' painstaking research, and this plan is very simple, the other three merchant ships shorten the distance between him and him, and the merchant ship No. 0047 under his command designates the target, and then concentrates its fire on the target, and to put it more simply, it is just to clench his fists and beat people......

The 500-ton small gunboat "Night Cat" in the two French warships, because it was a new ship that had just been launched two years ago, was equipped with 4mén 120mm guns, 6mén 47mm Habecis guns, 2mén 37mm guns, and several 11mm guns.

Obviously, the French far underestimated Chen Ming's determination, and in their opinion, it was completely unthinkable for a merchant ship with only one mén gun to fight against a warship with 10 times the heavy firepower, as long as the first round of fire covered the opposing merchant ship, even the 3-pound projectile of the Habekaith machine gun was enough to shatter the opponent's hull

You must know that the rapid ammunition feeding system of the Haggais machine gun can provide the theoretical fastest shè rate of 30 rounds per minute, and in actual combat, it is completely achievable to reach 20 rounds, and such firepower is absolutely unbearable for a wooden-hulled ship.

The only minor problem was that the 120mm speed guns and the Haggaes machine guns only had a range of 2,600 and 2,000 meters, but the commander of the Night Cat did not think that the other side was capable of intercepting his fast little gunboat

Lieutenant Commander Rejoko obviously also completely agreed with the battle plan of the Night Cat, his 170mm heavy gun in the bow can only reach one and a half minutes and a half shot, but the best shè range is more than 3000 meters, he can use the shè to easily challenge the other party, but if the battle is too long, it is obviously impossible to capture and intercept all the merchant ships of the other side, so ...... It has to be done quickly

As the standard standard of the Nanyang Naval Division, the 150mm speed shè gun was not much improved after the initial installation, but the biggest enhancement lies in the research and development of artillery shells, and three types of aBC shells have been developed successively.

The biggest difference is in the composition of the hair shèyào and the loading of the blasting part, the use of chestnut sè fried yào and mononitro hair shèyào, and now the open huā warhead loading has long been changed to TNT fried yào, this kind of safe, efficient and stable production of fried yào, that is an important secret of the Mawei Artillery Bureau.

However, due to the limited production capacity of the B and C types of single nitro shells, the ship's reserve ammunition was only 100 rounds, and if the fire was fired with all its might, it would be a quarter of an hour's consumption, but the shè Chengtui expanded from 2,700 meters to 3,500 meters, so Chen Ming put down the yòu bait step by step, and then tried to give the opponent a fatal blow.

Under his command, the first few rounds of calibration shè fire were all used in the original A-type speed shè shells, and deliberately lowered the muzzle, it seemed that shè Cheng was only more than 2,000 meters, the French saw that the other party seemed to panic, and before shè Cheng fired at Hu Luàn, he was also in a good mood, and after careful observation, he stepped into this small trap without hesitation.

It was the "Night Cat" gunboat that rushed into the best way with these dozen mén guns, and the 120mm speed shè gun he was equipped with was the main firepower, and it was obvious that the other party's wooden-hulled merchant ship could not have a reason to withstand the destruction of 120mm open huā shells, so he decided to explode at close range? Ju, it's just that it's wishful thinking.

Just approaching the distance of 2500 meters, Lieutenant Colonel Reroko suddenly found that the Night Cat, which was about to get close and open fire, was suddenly surrounded by dense shells, and in the face of the mutation, the Night Cat also launched a crazy counterattack, but at this distance, it was the maximum range of the ship's 120mm speed gun.

Jīlie's exchange of shès lasted only two minutes, and the Night Cat could not withstand the attack, and to be honest, his luck was really hard to say whether it was good or bad, and in two minutes he dropped at least 40 shells around him, but only two were hit, one of which hit one of the gun holes in the bow of the ship, failed to penetrate the gun holes, and killed five or six shè men.

The other impartial breakdown of the thin deck fell into the boiler room, and the explosion did not cause fatal damage, but one of the three boilers was torn open by shrapnel, and several other conduits were also twisted by the explosion, and the two shells did not cause any water penetration, I have to say that the quality of high-carbon steel used in French ships is really good. ,

Such a hit rate, for this Nanyang Navy Division recruit team, is actually a good result, you must know that the hit rate of heavy artillery on moving targets at 3000 meters in this era, if there is 3, it is already an extremely good shè, of course, for the shè speed shè gun with a shorter range, the hit should be higher.

After the shot, the "Night Cat" gunboat, which is known for its speed, became the "Turtle", and the speed suddenly dropped to 6 knots, at this time, the cruiser "Kaisheng" quickly crashed into the Jiāo battle area, and in the face of the attack of nearly 20 guns of various calibers stretched out from the opponent's ship, Chen Ming had to give up the plan to beat the water dogs.

At a distance of more than 2,000 meters, the mutual shè between the two sides obviously reached the point of being cut to the brim, especially the 170mm heavy gun on the bow of the Kaisheng, although it took a long time to send out the shè, but this cannon was fired, and the merchant ship could be smashed in a piece, but fortunately, the first shot unfortunately hit Chen Ming's merchant ship, but fortunately it pierced through two thin wooden planks and flew out.

The four merchant ships all went crazy and launched an attack on the "Kaisheng", the French obviously couldn't stand Chen Ming's plan to fight for their lives, after a few rounds of each other, the decks of both sides were full of stumps and broken arms, and the bloody reality forced Lieutenant Colonel Lei Ruosi to take the initiative to distance himself, ready to change to heavy artillery to win, only to find that the opponent's shells were able to reach him all the way, which made Lieutenant Colonel Lei Ruoke almost drop his jaw.

In the end, under the cover of the Kaisheng, the Night Cat did not continue to be heavily damaged, and the Kaisheng was scarred in the previous close-fitting ròu fight, even the command tower was also hit by a shot, Lieutenant Colonel Lei Ruosi's hat was blown away, the military uniform was also burned out a large piece, and the hull was smoked and burned in many places, but there was no danger under the emergency repair of the damage control team.

Although Chen Ming's four merchant ships were fierce on the surface, the hull of this double-layer thin plank was very effective and affordable as a merchant ship, but as a battleship, it was definitely a disaster, but fortunately, the shè of the opponent's mén 170mm heavy gun only hit two shots, one fell into the sea through the hull, and the other shot directly smashed a piece of the bow in front of the merchant ship No. 0047 into pieces.

Ping Pong Ping Pong shè for half an hour, because Chen Ming in the first round of jiāo battle, the expression xiàn out of the fearless combat style, the French did not dare to approach shè, the distance between the two shots was wider and wider, until 3000 meters later, and maintained this distance for nearly 1 hour and sporadic shè, which was not satisfactory for the result.

Finally...... It was dark, and both sides took the initiative to break away from the battle......

At this time, an urgent telegram was sent to Lu Han