The two American destroyers were clearly aware of the threat of the Chinese cruiser with gun barrels on the flanks, both of which were Vickers-class ships with a displacement of 1,250 tons, and although the protection capability was only slightly enhanced compared to the destroyer Mannley, the terrifying shelling ability of the Chinese cruiser that intercepted their own rear still made them make an immediate decision.

The captain of the destroyer, Major Pels, did not even wait for the commander of the formation to give the order to counterattack, and took the initiative to turn to meet the sudden attack of the Ryukyu, and the destroyer Bell immediately followed by him immediately rushed straight to the flank of the Ryukyu...... Of course, the Americans would not be stupid enough to ask for artillery to solve the problem, and the two ships almost tacitly attacked the two wings of the Ryukyu to avoid exposing themselves to the opposing side's side fire.

Major Torres, the commander of the destroyer formation, naturally saw this sudden situation, but at this moment, the four Chinese destroyers in front of the ship had already turned their bows and quickly suppressed their own breakthrough direction with speed, and at the same time counterattacked fiercely with naval guns, and the two sides exchanged fire fiercely at a distance of less than 8,000 meters, but they were unwilling to close the distance, obviously each with their own intentions.

After the two destroyers exchanged several rounds of fire, due to the long distance, only one shell fired by the American destroyer Shirley hit the main armor belt on the rear side of a Chinese destroyer in the distance, but the main guns of the US 100mm caliber had lost most of their kinetic energy at this distance, and they also blew up a big hole in the armor, and both sides had no results.

Behind them, the destroyers Taylor and Bell turned and flew to the Ryukyu, trying to make full use of the speed of 35 knots to flank the attack, but the Ryukyus' countermeasures were extremely sharp, and the fear of saturated torpedo attacks was obviously enough to make Wu Hongyuan extremely vigilant, and the Ryukyu quickly turned to keep sailing in the same direction as the destroyer Taylor on the right flank.

At the same time, the three triple main guns have not hesitated to strike, the reason why they are no longer facing the head-on, the biggest reason is naturally to improve the hit rate of artillery strikes, as a senior naval commander, this experienced the Sino-British naval battle and served as the commander of the shooting of the ship, the biggest factor affecting the artillery skills, there is no doubt that the relative speed of the two sides.

The two sides that are already sailing at full speed at this moment are both attacking the American destroyer, and their relative speed exceeds 60 knots, which means that there is a displacement of nearly 30m per second, and the optimal interval between the main guns of the Ryukyu is 15 seconds, which means a huge relative displacement of 450 meters, even if the Ryukyu inserts 9 gun tubes, the salvo cannot complete such a large range of coverage.

This rapid maneuver also quickly shortened the distance with the Taylor, and at a distance of 6,000 meters, the Ryukyu had quickly fired three rounds of school shooting, although it did not seriously damage the opponent, but one of the rounds of cross-shooting still surprised Major Pelles...... It's just that the US Navy officer really has no choice in front of him, and there are 4 Chinese destroyers behind him, and he must do his best to attack the ambushed Chinese warship.

At 11:47, despite the roar of artillery fire on the Ryukyu in the distance, the Taylor bravely continued to close the distance to 5,000 meters, and what is even more amazing is that at least the destroyer Taylor seems to be unscathed. When Sao was secretly proud, the real disaster struck without warning.

A 100mm shell was the first to hit the low and undulating command tower of the Taylor, and a frightening opening appeared after a black cloud rose up, but fortunately, it was located in the cramped officer's lounge at the back, and there was no loss from any officers who still had time to rest at this moment...... But this hit seemed to doom the US ship......

"Turn the rudder 15 degrees to the right, inform the distance!" Major Pelce was holding a telescope in one hand, and the almost non-stop half-salvo of the Ryukyu in the distance made him stunned, but also deeply worried, he was not familiar with the intelligence of this Chinese warship, and the general people of the Tai Ship should know, but for himself, the other party's dense firepower was undoubtedly too dangerous.

"Major, 4500 meters!" The loud report of the officer on the side gave Major Pelce some hope, the maximum range of the MKII long-range torpedo loaded by the Vickers-class destroyer is nearly 4000 meters, of course, this is only the longest launch distance, theoretically speaking, the destroyer can reach a distance of 3000 meters to carry out a torpedo salvo, it is possible to achieve effective results, after all, the speed of the torpedo is only 40 knots, which is not much faster than the enemy ship.

Before the words fell, the bow of the Taylor, which was speeding rapidly, suddenly rolled up a huge cloud of fire, even at this moment, the waves of several meters high caused by the pitching of the high-speed battleship were completely inextinguishable, Major Pelce shouted loudly, and fell down violently, and the next moment, a stormy explosion wave swept the entire command tower.

The sound of clanging bomb fragments smashed on the armor of the outer wall of the command tower like a storm, making a frightening sound, and the explosion was wrapped in a large cloud of black smoke directly obscuring Major Pelce's vision, when the violent shaking stopped after a few seconds, he couldn't even see the situation inside the command tower clearly, and when the black smoke cleared, the screams of the two officers who were blown away by the air wave made him realize the danger in front of him.

Major Pelce looked out at the front deck, the twin 100mm main gun that was supposed to be in the center to fire harassingly at the Chinese battleship was now crooked to the side, billowing black smoke came out of the gun frame, it was obvious that the soldiers inside could not survive, and the deck officer was directing the soldiers of seven or eight small-caliber machine gun positions to prepare to extinguish the fire.

In the distance, taking full advantage of the previous opportunity of the Chinese cruiser turning the rudder to stick to the Taylor, another American destroyer, the USS Bell, was obviously not idle, and had broken through to a distance of less than 5,000 meters directly from the left rear position, and the Chinese battleship did not seem to pay much attention to the American ship, except for sporadic shelling, it did not see more threats, and in the distance, when the Taylor was shot one after another, the Bell seemed to see an opportunity.

Farther away, the fierce battle between the destroyers of the two sides became more and more intense, and the black smoke rising from the artillery fire made the large area of the sea blurred, and Major Pelce immediately turned and rushed to the microphone, shouting loudly and turning the rudder, preparing to rush straight to the Chinese warship in the distance in the final stage...... But when he just finished roaring and looked up, in just a few seconds on the foredeck of the battleship, he was hit by 3 bullets again, and more than a dozen soldiers who were originally engaged in damage management disappeared from the deck at the moment of the explosion, leaving only shocking stumps and broken arms!

"Major, 3800 meters away! After 2 minutes, you can enter the torpedo launch zone! The officer on the side reported loudly in anger.

But the battleship shook violently at the next moment, and the battleship shook seriously to the right as a whole, and a room of people suddenly rolled to the ground, and the soldiers who rushed in reported that the battleship's side chord was pierced by a large-caliber cannonball, but fortunately, it was not the waterline, and the solemn explosion blew out a large fire pit of more than two meters on the right chord behind the side, but it was not fatal...... What is really fatal is that the deck has been washed by the opponent's continuous small-caliber artillery, and the damage pipe can't climb out of the hatch at all!

At this time, Major Pelce's decision played a great role, he did not hesitate to give the order to launch the torpedo, two triple 21-inch torpedo tubes installed under the decks on both sides of the battleship suddenly opened, and the six torpedoes flew into the rough sea without any pause, and made a beautiful cross-torpedo fire net.

"Full rudder!" Major Pelce did not wait for the loading at all after shooting the triple torpedo in the bow, and although the whole loading process took less than five minutes, this moment was undoubtedly five minutes to die...... His attention had to turn to the destroyer Bell, which was chasing on the other side.

A few minutes earlier, the destroyer, which was still trailing and preparing to cooperate with its attack, apparently tried to launch a straight line from the rear left position, and as a result, the two astonishing triple main guns in the stern of the Chinese ship poured more than 30 shells at the American destroyer in less than a minute, and the hit rate was amazing.

At a distance of less than 5,000 meters, the entire bow superstructure of the destroyer Bell was almost completely flattened after a series of explosions, standing in the position of Major Pelce, he also saw some surviving American troops in the stern of the ship jumping into the sea in panic, this series of blows was completed almost instantly, and the observers on the side reported to him that the Bell was hit by at least 7 shells in less than a minute.

This news suddenly made Peiers realize how wise his previous decision to turn the rudder and break away was, at a distance of less than 4,000 meters just now, the other party must have already aimed his cannon at himself, ready to have a fire kill......

Boom Boom Boom ......

On the Chinese cruiser in the distance behind him, a series of cannon shots suddenly sounded, and the cannon flames pointed to the destroyer Taylor, which was withdrawing at full speed at this moment.

At the last moment, Pelce seemed to hear the officer's exclamation, "Battleship ......" (to be continued. )