[2nd Update]

On the battleship Royal Oak, Rear Admiral Kembaugh was a little surprised to see that the light cruiser Pex in the distance was being shelled by the Xuanyuan outside the field of vision, according to the tactical practice of the Royal Navy, the Pex light cruiser monitoring the Xuanyuan in the field of vision is enough to achieve the purpose of not letting the opponent leave, and the main fleet that is trailing far away can launch an outflanking attack outside the field of vision at a critical moment, and finally annihilate the opponent.

However, he was still taken aback by the shelling of the Chinese battleships, and a succession of school-fired shells landed in the vicinity of the light cruiser Peckes, and the Pex made a very timely course maneuver, which, according to the conventions of naval tactics, was enough to make the opponent's calibration worthless, and had to be recalibrated.

However, the result was greatly beyond his expectations, although the Chinese battleship could not be observed from his position, but the sky that was already slightly black in the distance was suddenly torn through the sky by a fierce light, and he immediately realized that it was a scene that could only burst out with full combat firepower...... Such shelling by the Chinese completely subverted his tactical concept, which made him feel a little funny!

Then, more than ten seconds later, the shells that whistled down from the air surprised him again, and six large-caliber heavy guns smashed down from less than 200 meters behind the Pex's light patrol, setting off a large wave of skyrocketing, and then, the rumbling cannon sound came from the ground, even outside the field of vision, which still made Major General Kenbau feel a huge pressure.

What surprised him even more was the high efficiency of the ensuing shelling, and almost less than a minute later, the distant sky shone again, making him realize. The other side even launched a second round of heavy shelling...... This has completely upended his understanding of naval gunnery. The battleship HMS Royal Oak was armed with 343mm Armstrong heavy guns. It's huge, but even the best guns can shoot at an efficiency of 3 minutes, and that's the result of perfect training.

He received information from the Far East Fleet Command that the Chinese warships he was pursuing were equipped with 10-inch, 40-diameter heavy guns, and the most powerful rapid-fire guns of this era would not exceed 210mm. A 10-inch rapid-fire gun, that can't exist, but the other party really hit a high rate of fire that he can't understand!

This made him immediately put away any point of contempt in his heart, such an opponent was enough to arouse his deepest attention, and at this moment, Major General Ken Bao sent an order, "Order, go forward at full speed, I hope to be able to carefully observe the Chinese's artillery skills, such a rate of fire." It's amazing! ”

The twin rows of huge chimneys of the battleship Royal Oak immediately spewed out billowing black smoke in the distance. Another round of shells slammed into the face of the Pex, and this time, the trajectory of the shells had apparently been corrected more accurately, and the most recent shell had landed less than 100 meters in front of the bow of the Peques that had just changed course.

The Péx Light Cruiser was obviously aware of the rapid rise in the danger index, but it was clear that it could not turn around and run away with its surveillance mission, and it was obviously a good idea for the battleship to immediately slow down and pull away...... But this time, it's just another bad idea.

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

The third and fourth rounds of heavy shelling took off again, and the little distance that the Pex had just opened seemed to play a role, and the deviation between the two rounds of shelling exceeded 200 meters, which made Rear Admiral Kembaugh, who was watching the battle on the Royal Oak, slightly let go of his previous worries......

Next, the fifth round of shelling without warning was overwhelmingly smashed, this time, the efforts and eagerness of the Payx just now were all at once, and 6 shells formed a staggered chain of shells and smashed directly into the tail of the battleship, I have to say that this new battleship of the Royal Navy was lucky, such an accurate cross-fire, it only formed 2 close misses, not a direct hit.

However, the violent explosion of two 250-kilogram high-explosive bombs less than 10 meters away from the stern of the ship still produced an astonishing destructive force, and after the Pex bilge made a terrifying creaking sound, suddenly, several steam pipes broke into several pieces without warning, and the double-tube engine at the tail of the battleship also quickly stopped rotating after a few harsh metal frictions.

Rear Admiral Kemba, who was catching up with the "cannon ......", was also caught off guard by this sudden situation, and saw that the Pex's light cruiser was slowly crossing the sea after losing speed, and the only thing he could do at this moment was to order the 343mm heavy guns in the bow to fire fiercely...... Of course, he never expected to be able to hit an enemy outside of sight!

But such measures were obviously not enough to save the Pex light cruiser, in just 3 minutes, three rounds of salvo fire in succession, forming two rounds of accurate straddle fire, a 250 kg high-explosive bomb directly hit the bow deck, and a 150mm gun on the deck was directly overturned into the sea, and the violent explosion that penetrated into the bow of the ship suddenly turned the Pex into a huge fire tube.

In another round of straddle fire, the shells penetrated the rear of the battleship directly from the side chord armor belt, and the light cruiser, which was less than 3 inches of armor, was simply unable to resist the bombardment of 250 kg heavy guns, and was directly disemboweled, and there was a large explosion in the middle of the flowering...... The violent explosion caused all kinds of debris and sparks on the stern of the battleship to rush into the air at a height of dozens of meters, becoming a stunning sparkle under the thin night of the evening.

In less than five minutes, the new cruiser carefully built by Petermore Shipyard to defend the British Empire's maritime trade routes was overturned on its side on the sea 50 kilometers northwest of Great Nicobar Island due to a large amount of water.

Rear Admiral Kembaugh stood with his brow furrowed in front of two 343mm, 35 times diameter heavy guns, representing the infinite force of the British Empire, pondered for ten minutes before making a very difficult decision, ordering the accompanying briefing ship, the Princess Anne, to submit his battle report to the Penang Fleet Command at once, and he repeatedly made a point...... The Chinese's battleship was already the Royal Navy's first trouble in the Far East, and he suggested that more than 5 detachments should carry out the round-up mission.

Before nightfall, Tang Qingshan had confirmed that the opponent behind him had been completely thrown off, but what made him feel very helpless was that in fact, the entire Bay of Bengal and the Burma Sea were filled with a large number of British frigates and merchant ships from various countries, and the target he could choose to do was only British merchant ships, which buried enough trouble!

"General, we have sailed out of the waters of Little Nicola Island, are we going to Gemolda Island to meet the Zhanjiang!" At night, the first officer, Sun Ping, lay on the chart and pointed to the meeting point just ahead.

"Okay, let's go and meet the Zhanjiang first, the British will definitely increase the search range, the Zhanjiang must immediately go to this dangerous area, we just need to replenish fuel and ammunition, and then, we have to do a big job!" Tang Qingshan stood behind Sun Ping and looked at the huge chart in the faint light...... This is your own long journey!

Tang Qingshan naturally didn't expect that his long journey would directly lead to a huge adjustment in the Royal Navy's military strategy, and this adjustment was actually a big surprise even to Vice Admiral Simon, the commander of the Royal Navy's Far East Grand Fleet......

On the afternoon of the 9th, the notification ship "Princess Anne" brought the news of the Regulus's strong performance at sea to Penang, which directly led to the almost grounding of the "East Sumatra Plan" of the British Far East Fleet that was being assembled, and Vice Admiral Simon immediately telegraphed the squadron of the Admiral-class battleship Ben Bau, which was rushing to Vissaka, to rush to the waters off the Bay of Bengal to rendezvous with the Royal Oak, and at the same time sent a notification ship to deliver a message to the heavy cruiser Blake, which was searching in the Gulf of Burma, ordering them to join Rear Admiral Kembaw's detachment immediately.

Vice Admiral Simon, who was well versed in the rules of war at sea, naturally knew the possible destructive power of the Xuanyuan and the huge difficulty of pursuit, and in the evening of that day, after weighing it again, he gave up the plan to continue to send additional fleets to round up the Xuanyuan, even if he paid a huge logistical price, he believed that as long as the Chinese fleet was defeated, all the sacrifices would be worthwhile!

Slightly surprisingly, before the evening, two large German cruisers, the 6,200-ton "Empress Augusta" and the 5,200-ton "Hansa", suddenly visited Penang, and Colonel Wagner, deputy commander of the German Far East Fleet, paid a visit to Vice Admiral Simon and expressed the German side's willingness to observe the operations of the Royal Navy.

Vice Admiral Simon received the other side with a black line, but tactfully stated that the German warships had to accept the British arrangement before they could approach the battlefield, otherwise the Royal Navy would not welcome any neutral country to intervene.

The Germans showed limited understanding of this, and then left Penang in the name of escorting a German and Austro-Hungarian fleet, and the appearance of the Germans did not attract the attention of Vice Admiral Simon, and the Royal Navy has always been hostile to any maritime challenger, especially the aggressive German Navy in recent years.

Late at night on the 9th, the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, including the flagship HMS Hood, sailed out of Penang Harbor one after another, and the British Navy's secrecy work was quite good, so that the news came out from the Penang direction early the next morning, but the British detachment that departed from Sin Chew Harbor in the early morning of the 10th was apparently observed early by the No. 8 reconnaissance airship responsible for surveillance.

Including the battleship Collingwood, the flagship of the detachment, a large number of warships raised their anchors early, and as soon as the sky dawned, they quickly set off from the port of Sin Chew, but this time, the fleet obviously did not go straight to the exit of the Sin Chew Strait, but under the leadership of Rear Admiral Tauwell, it suddenly sailed into the direction of the Strait of Malacca.

Near noon on the same day, the detachment led by Rear Admiral Tauwell had sailed into the sea near the east side of Sumatra's Langsang Island, and what reassured Tauwell was that a large number of torpedo boats and light cruisers sent out of the city had not found the Chinese Navy at the target location, and it seemed that at least for the time being, it was going very well! (To be continued......)