The fire on the Yoshino had burned the wooden deck almost completely, so that the sailors had to step on the narrow steel beams that had been watered and cooled back and forth to fight the fire.

In addition, more than half of the officers and men on the Yoshino had already suffered casualties, and there was simply not enough manpower to extinguish the fire and save themselves, resulting in the fire in the coal bunker completely out of control, quickly disintegrating the hull structure from the inside, and gradually spreading to the vicinity of key compartments such as ammunition depots. According to this trend, I am afraid that in a few minutes, the Yoshino will fly into the sky with a loud bang

Although it had not been long since he withdrew from the battlefield, Tsuboi Kozo felt as if he had spent a century in a long and difficult way, and he didn't know if it was because of the smoke or his impatience, his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept for three days and three nights.

After hearing the urgent report of the similarly disgraced Kawahara Yoichi that "all the officers and soldiers sent to extinguish the fire in the coal bunker have been martyred," Tsuboi Kozo was even more mournful, biting his lip and not realizing that he was bleeding

"There's no way, order to fill the ammunition depot with water, as well as coal bunkers", this order of Kozo Tsuboi in desperation finally brought the fire on the Yoshino under control, and avoided the fatal crisis of the explosion of the ammunition depot, but it also made the most advanced and powerful warship of the Japanese Navy lose even if it only existed in theory of combat capability.

At the same time, it is a huge loss that the coal reserves are completely wet, and even if they can barely be used, the calorific value will inevitably be greatly reduced, and the strong power of the Yoshino will soon be unsustainable!

To make matters worse, the Yoshino's draft deepened dramatically due to the massive inflow of seawater, which not only led to a significant increase in drag, slowed down the Yoshino's speed even further, but also caused the Yoshino's dome armor (top) to drop almost completely below the waterline.

Under normal circumstances, as long as the dome armor is not broken, the protective cruiser can rely on the huge cavity under the dome armor to provide enough buoyancy to buy time to drain the water and avoid sinking, but now that the dome armor is so low that it is no longer possible to provide enough reserve buoyancy, once the side is shot, the sea water will completely submerge the dome armor, and eventually cause the warship to sink

And the Yoshino had just withdrawn from the battle column, and the Akitsu Island, which had succeeded it as the first ship of the first trip, had the same bad luck, and in less than two minutes, three warships on the right flank of the Beiyang Fleet fired a full nine large-caliber shells at it!

Rao is hit rate dropped a little, and there were still two shots hitting the Qiujinzhou, and one of them landed near the waterline and exploded into a big hole, and the sea water suddenly rushed in

From a distance, the condition of the Akitsuzu was not as dire as that of the Yoshino, which was moving away, but it was actually even more dangerous because the dome armor had broken and a lot of water had entered.

In desperation, the captain of the Akitsuzu, Hikonoki Uemura, had to order to withdraw from the battle to save himself, which was a reasonable order, but he did not know that the Yoshino had sent an order for him to take the baton (the smoke on the Yoshino was so thick that his vision was obscured, and the other three ships could not read the flag he had unfolded). As a result, the two remaining Naniwa-class protective cruisers actually lost their unified command and had to fight separately.

In addition, the Naniwa-class protective cruiser has not yet been equipped with rapid-fire guns, and its firepower is much weaker than the two that ran away, so as a result, the Chaoyong and Yangwei, which both sides thought would be killed soon, actually held out for a long time

The three ships on the right flank, which were originally designated as outcasts, greatly boosted the morale of the officers and men of the Beiyang Naval Division, and the distance between the two sides and their own teams was also shortened a lot, and the gunners of the Beiyang Naval Division's own team finally made peace!

First of all, a 150mm shell fired by the Yuan hit the Japanese flagship Matsushima, although it only caused limited damage because of the insufficient caliber, but it made the gunners of the Beiyang Naval Division, who had begun to be agitated because of repeated missed targets, regain their composure.

Since then, the hit rate of the Beiyang Naval Division's artillery has become higher and higher, and Liu Buyun is finally completely convinced that Li Hui's analysis before the war is not a lie, "Dongyang is really a genius in the world, everything is expected by him!" ”

At this time, the three ships Zhiyuan, Jingyuan, and Guangbing, which had been sent out to be responsible for the perimeter guard, and the torpedo boat Fulong, also rushed to the battlefield one after another.

Seeing that the right-wing squad had unexpectedly exerted its might and beat Japan, which was far stronger than itself, Deng Shichang, the commander of the Zhiyuan Pipe Brigade, immediately shouted "Okay."

Because the balance of victory had gradually tilted in favor of his side at this time, Deng Shichang decisively gave up the plan to join the war group at the beginning of the reinforcement, and decided to carry out the pre-war predetermined deployment, pursue the two Japanese ships that withdrew from the battle, and send them to the bottom of the sea completely. ', you must sink the Japanese ships to count, otherwise they will come out again to do evil after they go back and repair them."

Although the Guang C can drive a maximum speed of more than 16 knots, but that's all, without the strong pressure ventilation function to further accelerate her completely unable to keep up with the Zhijing 2nd ship with a speed of more than 20 knots after strong pressure ventilation (the new top-level coal-fired ship is indispensable), let alone the Fulong torpedo boat with a maximum speed of up to 24 knots, Deng Shichang had to let Cheng Biguang give up the pursuit and return to the main battlefield to help.

Without the drag of the Guangbing, the speed of the Beiyang rapid formation increased greatly, and they pursued the two Japanese ships that were fleeing. But at this time, the Japanese ship Akitsuzu suddenly changed course, and it seemed that it was about to turn to meet the enemy, intending to entangle the pursuers and cover the safe evacuation of the Yoshino

Before the war, I listened to Li Hui's analysis and knew that the value of the Yoshino was almost worth the sum of the other three ships on a trip, how could Deng Shichang let Uemura Hikonoshi get his wish, and at this time, there was a sudden big explosion on the Yoshino, and the smoke that gushed out of the ship made the Yoshino even look very small, which further strengthened Deng Shichang's determination.

But at this time, the Qiujinzhou had already turned around, and put on a desperate posture to entangle the pursuers to protect the flagship, no matter whether it was obviously not good, Deng Shichang immediately left the Jingyuan and Fulong to deal with the Qiujinzhou, and only one warship of the Zhiyuan continued to chase after the Yoshino. At this time, in order to escape for his life, Tsuboi Kozo had already ordered to turn on the strong pressure ventilation

The power system of the Yoshino is beyond imagination, and under normal conditions, the output power of the strong pressure ventilation can even exceed 23,000 horsepower, which is beyond the reach of the Zhiyuan. However, due to the greatly deepened draft, the Yoshino was not able to run out of the ultra-high speed expected by Tsuboi Kozo, but instead the speed increased and the waves were serious, causing the Yoshino's waterline to continue to move slowly upwards unconsciously