When General Yang De received Chen Shaoyi's reply order, he learned that Chen Shaoyi had opened up the Shuilei area and the main fleet was unharmed, General Yang De was very happy, and put down a big stone in his heart, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, when he saw that Chen Shaoyi planned to use the "Matt tactic" to retaliate against the main fleet of the British Navy in turn, Yang De's eyes suddenly lit up, and he finally knew the gap between himself and Chen Shaoyi.

"Chen Shaoyi, you little bastard, what do you mean by this? Your special mother is sure that Lao Tzu will not retreat! ”

Yang De almost laughed and scolded with tears in his eyes, and his tears were choked because there was a smoke of gunpowder in the command tower. scolded because he found that Chen Shaoyi was not a thing, and the last sentence was clearly stimulating and tempting him Yang De, what does it mean that you can completely annihilate or severely damage the main force of the British Navy without retreating, and you are not to blame for retreating? That sounds harsh.

General Yang De can't listen to people say that he can't do it, and he is also the easiest to be provoked, obviously Chen Shaoyi knows Yang De's character too well.

However, Yang De laughed and scolded, why did he laugh, naturally it would not be a bitter smile, because Yang De didn't care about his life and death at all, he had always been known for his bravery and fearlessness in war, and his parents died tragically in the first Yapian War, so he couldn't wait to torture the British Navy out of the air.

Now that Chen Shaoyi has given him this opportunity, how can he not be happy, and even thank Chen Shaoyi for fulfilling him.

"Boom!"

With an explosion, the battleship trembled violently, and pulled General Yang De back from his dream to reality.

In the face of the frantic attack of the British Navy, the Fourth Squadron had lost all its mine-striking ships and frigates, and the three Haiqi-class dome-armored cruisers braved artillery fire to intercept the three Dingyuan-class ironclad ships in order to protect the three Dingyuan-class ironclad ships from being attacked by the British Navy's Fish and Radium boats, and the ships were already scarred at this time.

The situation was still very grim, and Yang De calmly commanded the battle. While thinking about how to stall for time.

"How much radium is arranged in the back?"

"Report to the general, a thousand meters of depth have been arranged, and according to your requirements, the density is very large!"

"Very good, tell the Cloth Radium Brigade to let them arrange as many radium as possible!"

"General. I forgot to tell you that the amount of water radium carried by our detachment is limited, and it has run out! ”

Yang De frowned suddenly, and quickly said: "Let everyone in the Cloth Ray Brigade go to the shore to get big stones, and use all the Cloth Ray boats, including tugboats, supply ships, and hospital ships to transport stones, and concentrate on blocking the channel. Even if the British cleared the radium area, they would not let him pass. ”

"But in this way, how can we retreat, general!"

"Retreat?"

Yang De snorted coldly, waved his hand, and said: "Lao Tzu will not retreat, and Lao Tzu will drag the main force of the British Navy to death!" ”

The surrounding staff officers were silent for a moment, not everyone could make a decision like General Yang De, but since General Yang De had made a decision. They did not object, because they were always the Imperial Chinese Navy. Since ancient times, the text has been fighting to the death. They had been mentally prepared for a long time, but they didn't expect this day to come so quickly.

At this time, General Yang De turned to his guard Deng Shichang and asked, "Xiao Deng, are you afraid?" ”

"Report to the general, don't be afraid!" Deng Shichang replied resolutely.

Yang De nodded. said: "I was going to train you well, but unfortunately I don't have time!" ”

After a pause, Yang De said again: "In this way, Xiao Deng, you go to the Cloth Ray Brigade to find Lei Qinqing and cooperate with him." After the shipwreck, you and he will be responsible for taking the personnel of our Fourth Fleet to the surrounding islands to hide and wait for the main fleet to return. ”

The surrounding officers immediately cast envious glances at Deng Shichang, and undoubtedly, everyone guessed that General Yang De's intention in doing this was to keep Deng Shichang alive, and if he stayed on the battleship, he would definitely die.

"General direction, I promise to complete the task!" Deng Shichang was still very young at this time, so he naturally couldn't guess General Yang De's good intentions, so he immediately took the order.

Yang De nodded, and quickly ordered someone to bring a brocade box from his rest warehouse, which contained all the glory of the Fourth Fleet, and solemnly handed it to Deng Shichang.

"You must protect the things in this for Lao Tzu, if something goes wrong, Lao Tzu will not let you go!"

"Don't worry, general, I will protect this box and hand it over to the general after the battle!"

Yang De rolled his eyes, scolded a fool in his heart, nodded, and let Deng Shichang leave.

The battle was raging, and the British Navy continued to rotate its capital ships to attack, and although the three ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Zhiyuan were also fiercely returning fire, they themselves continued to suffer heavy losses, with more than half of the superstructure damaged, flames, and thick smoke.

The tactics of the British Navy were still very rigid, and most of the artillery used armor-piercing shells, focusing on the hull of the ship. For the three ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Zhiyuan, the hull is 300 mm thick wrought iron armor, which is difficult to penetrate, and even if it is penetrated, the shells lose their energy, and the damage to the inside of the hull is very weak.

On the other hand, when the ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy shelled the British ships, they no longer focused on attacking the hull of the enemy ship with armor-piercing shells, but used blasting shells to attack the superstructure of the British ships. A single 305mm blaster was capable of destroying a large area of the superstructure and killing a large number of British sailors.

The previous fifteen British ironclad ships took turns to fight, but they all suffered heavy losses, the superstructure of the hull was damaged, and many people were killed and wounded.

But gradually, this destruction became less and less, because of the high-intensity naval battles, which sharply consumed the explosive shells of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

After two hours of fierce fighting between the two sides, the explosive shells of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan and Zhiyuan had been exhausted, and they could only use armor-piercing shells to return fire, and after another hour, the armor-piercing shells were basically exhausted.

At 11:55 a.m., the Hairong Dome Cruiser was hit by a 12-inch armor-piercing bullet that pierced the port side waterline, and the Hairong, which had been hit hard and flooded in many places, had insufficient internal drainage pumps to prevent a large amount of seawater from pouring in, and finally sank eight minutes later.

This was the first cruiser to sink in the history of the Imperial Chinese Navy for the first time, and it caused a considerable shock to the morale of the Fourth Fleet.

At the last moment, General Yang De urgently ordered the Hairong to sail to the sea area of the main channel, even if it sank in battle, it would sink on the channel. Blocking the advance of the British Navy.

It was precisely because of Yang De's order that many officers and soldiers on the Hairong, especially those who were responsible for sailing the ship to the main channel, had no time to escape from the battleship, and were sucked into the bottom of the sea by the sea, and died a heroic martyr.

However, the move of the Hairong to sink on the main channel. Shocked the acting commander of the British Navy, Toms.

Originally, he was preparing to carry out a Fish Ray attack plan on the ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, but was immediately stopped by Toms.

"You can't attack them with fish and radium, these damn Imperial Chinese Navy will sink the battleship in the channel and stop us from passing!"

"But Your Excellency Commander, without attacking with Fish and Radium, when will we be able to sink all the enemy ships!"

"yes, their ships are too solid to attack without Rays. We'll have at least half an hour more to sink them. ”

"Your Excellency, whether we attack with or without Rays, I'm afraid they will end up sinking in the main channel, and you can't stop them unless they surrender, or we will engage in broadside warfare to control the enemy's ships, but that is obviously not practical."

Tom struggled, and eventually he took the advice of his men. Relaunch the Fish Ray Attack.

Soon, more than a dozen British frigates and Fish and Radium boats rushed over at high speed. Prepare to carry out a Fish and Radium attack on the three ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan and Zhiyuan.

General Yang De had no choice but to let the scarred Haiyue and Haidai two dominated cruisers immediately go into battle to prevent the British fleet from approaching his own capital ships.

In fact, the Haiyue and Haidai ships did not have much ammunition, and in addition to the main guns, which could still fire, the secondary guns and rapid-fire guns were almost all damaged, and the hull was seriously damaged. Many of the previous fires had not yet been extinguished, and when the new battle began, it quickly turned into a prairie fire and became a fire.

At 12:09, the Haiyue attempted to intercept the British ship Path. Unexpectedly, two British fish and radium boats rushed over from the other side. The Haiyue's port rapid-fire cannon blew up one of them, but failed to prevent the other from firing Ray.

Ten seconds later, with a loud bang, the Haiyue was hit by a mine, the sea water poured back, and the captain ordered the crew to dive into the water, and he drove the battleship to the main channel, and three minutes later the battle sank.

At 12:13, the Haidai evaded the attack of the British ship Fish and Radium, accidentally touched the reef, and the bottom of the ship entered the water, and two minutes later the battleship ran aground, unable to complete the task of sinking in the main channel.

In this way, however, the Haidai became an unsinkable battleship, and the main guns continued to fire at the British frigates and Fish Rays that tried to get close to the capital ships.

General Yang De also thought about driving three ironclad ships to the reef and shoals to run aground, turning them into unsinkable battleships to fight the enemy. But in that case, it would become a situation in which the British ship could pass directly through the main channel without hesitation.

But on the other hand, even if the three ironclad ships were sunk to block the channel, the British army could blow up the sunken ship and open the channel, and the delay time was limited.

Now that a large amount of water radium and ships have been used to block the channel, the British ships will not be able to pass in a short time, if the British ships carry out radium discharge, then after the three ironclad ships are beached and stranded, they can be contained, and the effect is better than sinking in the channel.

All battles are not for the purpose of winning and repelling the enemy, but for the purpose of pinning down the enemy, delaying time, and waiting for the main fleet to counter-encircle the enemy fleet.

After figuring out this key question, Yang De was full of fighting spirit again.

At this time, a large number of frigates and Yulei boats of the British fleet rushed over, preparing to release Yulei to attack the three ironclad ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan and Zhiyuan.

General Yang De immediately ordered the battleship to speed up the evasion, and at the same time sailed to the nearby shoal and ran aground.

The sudden grounding of three ironclad ships of the Imperial Chinese Army caused mixed feelings for the British commander Toms. Fortunately, the three ironclad ships did not sink into the fairway, saving the British the trouble of cleaning the fairway. The worry is that these three ironclad ships have run aground and cannot be sunk, and if you want to completely destroy these three ironclad ships, I am afraid it will take a longer time.

What made Toms most angry was that seeing the various auxiliary ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy dumping a large number of stones into the channel, blocking the channel, Thomas wanted to send warships to stop it, but was blocked by a large area of water radium.

"Fack!" Toms was furious, and the tactics that Matt used to deal with the Imperial Chinese Navy were turned against him by the Imperial Chinese Navy, and the retribution should not be so fast.

Thomas immediately sent a radium sweeper to clean up the water radium, but next to it were three beached and stranded ironclad ships of the Chinese Imperial Navy, which continued to fire artillery to attack the British sweepers, forcing the British sweepers to dodge. It is difficult to drain radium.

"I see!"

Thomas saw through General Young's calculations, so he had to mobilize more warships to carry out a fierce attack on the three ironclad ships.

"Blow these three broken ships to ashes for me!"

Toms roared, he had been here for almost three hours, he was faintly uneasy, hoping to deal with the three thorns in front of him as quickly as possible.

Knock knock!

The artillery fire was blazing, and the two sides fought fiercely.

After being beached and stranded, the three ships of Dingyuan, Zhenyuan and Zhiyuan once again burst out with ferocious counterattack capabilities. There is no need to worry about being sunk, there is no need to worry about the battleship shaking in the waves, and the gunner has a lot less influencing factors, so he can shoot the cannonball into the British ship more accurately. The 305-mm armor-piercing projectile was fired from the muzzle of the 50 times the main gun, and the power was incomparable, and it could easily tear through the armor protection of the British Navy's revenge-class ironclad ships within 5,000 meters.

The British, in turn, were too numerous in number. Countless shells hit the three ironclad ships intensively, causing great damage. However, at the beginning of the design and construction of the Dingyuan-class ironclad ship, all-round protection was carried out on key parts such as the command tower and turret, especially the command tower and turret, the armor protection is the same as the hull armor, and the 300 mm wrought iron armor is difficult for the British 12-inch shells to penetrate directly.

But. After all, the Dingyuan class is an ironclad ship, and the wrought-iron armor is constantly hit by large-caliber shells. It was a matter of time before they were penetrated, after all, there were too many British ships, and although the three ironclad ships were grounded and beached, they were not sinkable, but they could not move, and they became fixed targets in the eyes of the enemy, and the hit rate of the enemy ships was also greatly increased.

Half an hour later. The entire superstructure of the Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Zhiyuan ships has been razed to the ground, and the flames are raging and the smoke is billowing out, leaving only the single-mounted guns in the command tower, the main battery and the ear platform, and all other parts that are not protected by armor in the open air have been smashed to pieces.

The command towers, main gun turrets, hulls and other armor of the three ships are also covered with dense bullet marks and craters.

But here's what's interesting. It was not until the end of the war that the military experts of the Chinese Empire found out that the 12-inch armor-piercing projectiles fired by the British were steel warheads, most of which remained inside the 300 mm wrought iron armor, but became part of the armor. This conclusion made the Chinese Imperial people laugh, but it made the British blush, and indignantly said that this was the **** transportation of three Dingyuan-class ironclad ships.

However, under the circumstances at that time, the officers and men of the Imperial Chinese Navy who stayed in the command tower and turret were afraid, and they all knew that they might be blown into meat sauce in the next moment.

"Fish Radium!"

The British ships quickly shot out one by one Fish Radium, and soon hit the Dingyuan, Zhiyuan, and Zhenyuan ships, and the 300 mm armor could not block the attack of the British Fish Radium, and was blown open one by one pitch-black holes, and billowing black smoke came out.

Fortunately, the British army's Fish Radium uses hey medicine, if it is replaced with the T Enti high-explosive Fish Radium warhead used by the Imperial Chinese Navy, it does not need more, and four Fish Radium will blow up the ironclad ship to pieces.

General Yang De was shocked by the explosion of fish and radium in the command tower and his facial features were bleeding, after all, he was old, not as resistant to beating as young as Xiaoqing, and after this high-intensity naval battle, he was almost out of gas.

"How long have we been holding out?"

"Report to the general, we have held out for a full 4 hours, half an hour longer than the original plan, and the British army has not yet opened up the water radium area, and there are still a large number of our shipwrecks blocking the channel behind the water radium area, and without 12 hours, the British army will not be able to open the waterway at all."

"Good, good!" General Yang De was delighted.

"We've overfulfilled our task, now it's up to General Chen!"

"General Chen will definitely arrive on time, he will!"

"That's right, you must beat the British out of the, otherwise I'm sorry for so many sacrificed brothers of our Fourth Fleet!"

The battle reached this point, Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, Zhiyuan, and the four Haidai ships had long been out of shells, and everyone was ready for the final sacrifice.

However, death did not come, and the British were in chaos.

"What's going on?"

The attacking British ships couldn't help but stop attacking, and the British officers and men looked back at their flagship, the London, with shocked faces. (To be continued.) )