The violent, continuous explosions woke Takano awake. He looked up in a daze www.biquge.info feeling very weak and aching all over his body—he could barely feel them except for his two hands. For a moment, he feared that he had lost his hands forever. He hoped not yet; He didn't want to be disabled and couldn't live on his own.

Then he saw his hands, which were tightly wrapped in bandages. He tried to get up, but fell back onto the deck. A sailor who worked as a part-time medician rushed over.

"Don't move." "You have bled a lot and are now weak," he admonished. ”

"What happened to my hand?" Takano asked, shaking his right hand.

"Your ring and little fingers were broken by shrapnel......"

Before the sailor could finish speaking, Takano had already raised his left hand. "What about this hand?"

“…… I was about to tell you that you have shrapnel broken on both of your ring and little fingers, so I'm very sorry. The sailor looked at Takano sympathetically.

"Oh...... What the! It took a while for his words to be heard. Takano's body shook uncontrollably, and his teeth collided. "The ring finger and little finger of both of my hands were broken by cannonballs!"

"I'm so sorry." The sailor repeated. That's the only thing he can say.

His comfort did not help. Takano's emotions were rapidly sliding to the brink of losing control—too hard for a young man of eighteen years old—six fingers. The thought of the nickname he was about to receive and that would stay with him for the rest of his life quickly swelled to the point where he could not suppress it.

"Bastard! I'm going to kill all the Lucians! Kill all of them if you don't leave one! "The first-year cadets began to scream hysterically, struggled frantically, desperately trying to get up and return to combat positions.

The sailor sighed, and wanted to say something to comfort the young officer, but he couldn't say a word, so he shook his head helplessly and walked towards the other wounded.

It was only a moment before he forgot about Takano. He wasn't the only one on the ship who needed to be cared for, and the effects of the chain explosion were rapidly becoming apparent, with more and more wounded walking in or being taken to the infirmary, and sailors having to devote themselves to the intense, if not even time to catch their breath, to assist the medic in dealing with all these troubles.

In the area where the explosion took place, a group of improvised sailors still searched for the bodies of survivors and victims in the twisted steel wreckage. But more power was thrown into the desperate struggle against the fires caused by the explosion, and the sailors used every tool they could find, doing everything they could to try to stop the flames from spreading to the rest of the ship.

They have realized that this is a difficult job, and that the heat and harmful toxic smoke form a barrier that makes it difficult for them to approach the fire. The tools they use aren't very useful.

Even more unfortunate is that more problems are slowly being exposed, drifting into Gengo Hayasaki's ears one by one.

"The water used to extinguish the fire seeped into the boiler room."

"Find the crack and plug it!"

"The fire-fighting operation caused too much water ...... the battleship"

"What are you waiting for? Start draining! ”

"Dazuo, the pumping machine is malfunctioning." An officer breathlessly reported to Gengo Hayasaki.

"Fix it now!" Gengo Hayazaki roared angrily. He was angry, not because one of Lucia's shells had nearly destroyed his battleship, but because his soldiers had not carried out his orders and returned the excess shells to the ammunition depot - an act of daring disobedience that nearly cost the commander and flagship of the Combined Fleet, and earned him a harsh reprimand from Yuzaburo Kato.

Gengo Hayasaki could only leave the bridge and personally urge the soldiers to extinguish the fire. He knew very well that if he couldn't do even this "little thing", he could only apologize.

"Rush in! Rush in! He shouted at a group of sailors, "Rush into the fire!" No matter what means you use, put out the fire! ”

The sailors rushed in, but it didn't take long for them to retreat again. In that smoke, they couldn't breathe.

Gengo Hayasaki's eyes turned red. "Rush in!" He waved his right hand violently, "No one is allowed to withdraw without permission, or I will definitely send him to a court-martial!" ”

The sailors looked at each other and rushed into the fire again. This time, not a single person left there.

The flames continued to spread in all directions.

Another group of sailors rushed into the fire - again to no avail.

Yuzaburo Kato watched silently as the third team of sailors entered the thick smoke, then turned and walked back to Heihachiro Togo.

"Commander, please change the flagship." He suggested.

Useless. Mayuki Akiyama shook his head from the side. He had spent several minutes trying to persuade Togo Heihachiro to leave the Mikasa, but the Admiral did not seem to hear him at all, nor was he aware of the confusion and danger of the battleship, and remained engrossed in the Lucian fleet, occasionally issuing an order to the terrified officers beside him.

"Don't worry about Lucia's flagship, it doesn't have much ammunition." A new order came, "Tell our warships in the rear of the formation to concentrate their fire on the ironclad ships at the end of Lucia's fleet, those small shore defense warships cannot withstand our artillery fire." ”

An officer went to deliver the message. Kato Yuzaburo frowned and raised his voice: "Commander, please change the flagship." ”

"Calm down, Daisa Kato." Heihachiro Togo said, without looking back, "The condition of this battleship has not yet reached the point where I have to replace the flagship." She can still hold on. ”

"I admire your composure, Commander." Yuzaburo Kato insisted, "But you must immediately replace the flagship." ”

"I said it, I'm not going to change the flagship now...... Look! Heihachiro Togo shouted, pointing to the end of Lucia's fleet.

In the direction he pointed, an Admiral Ushakov-class shore defense ironclad was rising and falling under intensive artillery fire. The battleship, with a displacement of less than five thousand tons, was now the target of two battleships, twelve-inch and six-inch shells were constantly falling, and a succession of fireballs quickly swept away its superstructure - bridges, masts, chimneys, artillery...... All of this, in just a few minutes, there was nothing left.

But the shelling didn't stop until it finally triggered an earth-shattering explosion that tore the entire ironclad ship in half. In Kato's line of sight, countless fragments and human bodies were thrown into the sky, and the battleship quickly disappeared from the sea.

He began to wonder if anyone would survive the battleship.

"It's always going to change, Daisa Kato." Heihachiro Togo said lightly, "That's a good sign." ”

Yuzaburo Kato chose to remain silent. Although he still hoped that Heihachiro Togo would replace the flagship immediately, he also knew that at this moment, it was an impossible task.

He could only pull Akiyama Mayuki and whisper next to his ear, "Tell Gengo Hayasaki that he only has—"

Before he could finish his sentence, the Mikasa was shaken by another explosion. It was intense, not as strong as the chain explosion on the starboard side, but it made the people on the bridge unsteady on their feet, and they had to grasp a fixed object to avoid falling.

"We were hit by a large-caliber shell." An officer shouted.

"Where is the bullet?" Yuzaburo Kato asked hurriedly. After two chain reactions, he had lost confidence in the safety of the Mikasa's munitions, and any explosion would cause him to panic and fear where it would detonate.

It took two minutes for him to get an answer.

"Yes...... Coal bunkers. ”

The officer's answer relieved Yuzaburo Kato. But in the next second, his freshly fallen heart returned to his throat.

"Hasazaki Daisa...... was blown up. ”

Yuzaburo Kato turned his head to look at Heihachiro Toshimi. "Commander, please replace the flagship immediately!" The third request, his tone was already with obvious anxiety, but Heihachiro Togo still didn't care.

His attention was focused on the last ironclad of Lucia's fleet - it had been the penultimate one, but now it was the last one - and like the Lucia battleship that had been destroyed a few minutes earlier, it was making its final struggles in the fire net created by the Combined Fleet, but Togo Heihachiro was sure that the struggle would not last long.

Its guns were all silent, the hull was tilted to the left, and the course was shifting to the left. Everyone can see that the battleship's weapons and control systems are all out of order, from a target capable of moving and counterattacking to a pure target, and there is only one step left before final destruction.

And in front of it, its last remaining sister ship is rapidly dying: flames have consumed its bridge, spreading in all directions. It seems that all damage control measures have failed, or that no one is doing damage control at all.

"Good, that's all." Heihachiro Togo said happily, "One by one, all the Lucian warships were sunk. ”

His wishes were met with a positive response. In a burst of exclamations—though no one on the Mikasa heard them—the shore defense ironclad at the end of Lucia's fleet began to tilt at an accelerated pace, and then, completely flipped over, exposing the red bottom of the ship covered in seaweed and shellfish.

Someone cheered.

Yuzaburo Kato ignored this newly acquired record. The situation of the Mikasa has always been uneasy for him. With the loss of Gengo Hayasaki and hundreds of crew killed or seriously wounded, how long can this scarred battleship last? What's more, it was the target of three Lucia battleships.

Yuzaburo Kato focused on the three Lucia battleships in front of the formation out of the corner of his eye. They continue to shoot - they still have ammunition.

Not a good sign.

"Please replace the flagship immediately, Commander." He stubbornly offered his advice again, "I don't think it's safe here. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, an explosion occurred in front of the bridge, and immediately, a blazing storm mixed with metal fragments swept over. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )