Seeing that the two Chinese warships were following from a distance, neither daring to approach nor reluctant to leave, Seymour decided to add a little more bait, and he made the flagship "Revenge" speed up, which in turn caused the speed of the entire formation to increase, and several troop carriers that were much slower soon fell behind. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"You have to do enough drama, it's not okay if you don't do it at this time. And although the value of several troop carriers cannot be compared with the capital ships, at least they are worthy of the hors d'oeuvres before the meal......", after Yang Yonglin saw this change, he sneered and gave the order to speed up and go around the back to attack the British troop carriers.

Vice Admiral Seymour thought that his treacherous plan had succeeded, and he was overjoyed, but in order to prevent the two Chinese warships from being scared away, he deliberately gave the order for the fleet to turn to the rescue a little late, so that Yang Yonglin had to let the gunner release a little water, otherwise he was afraid that the British warships had not yet entered the distance where they could fire their guns, and the fragile troop carriers would be sunk.

However, the 210mm blasting projectile that used high explosives as a charge was still a little too powerful compared to the civilian ships of this era that were very bad in terms of structural strength and sinking resistance, even if the gunners on the Chaoyong and Yangwei had slowed down the rate of fire as much as possible without arousing the suspicion of the other party, but because they were not willing to deliberately miss out of the habit of careful calculation, they still quickly sank several British warships, and at this time the British expeditionary fleet had just finished that big circle......

This unexpected turn of events left both commanders stunned, and Vice Admiral Seymour had a faint premonition in his heart when he saw for the first time the astonishing hit rate of the Chinese warships and their 210mm guns, which clearly surpassed the rate of fire of the British 8-inch rapid-fire guns (albeit as slowly as possible) and accuracy; And Yang Yonglin sighed speechlessly, those gunners from Xia Ke Island have very good technical abilities, but they are too sincere, and sure enough, the task of acting is a bit too difficult for them!

The failure of acting made Yang Yonglin a little frustrated, but the enemy's too much involvement in acting made him see the new fighter, "Huh? The cruiser broke away from the main fleet and rushed to the front? Is this a hurry after seeing the transport ship without fighting? Or did you deliberately pretend to be desperate for rescue and mess up and sell me a flaw? Hey, it doesn't matter if your flaw is true or not, since it's sold, then I'm welcome! ”

Yang Yonglin immediately ordered the ship's radio station to send a report to the Yangwei, ordering it to pounce on the British cruiser fleet with him, and at the same time turn the column into a horizontal column in the process, so that it could exert the strongest main gun fire when hedging.

Well, in fact, such an order can also be given by flag, but where is the telegram convenient and accurate? Yang Yonglin only relied on it after the first trial, and if it weren't for the signal corps telling him that the failure rate of the radio station was not low, he would have wanted to completely abandon the old flag language.

Of course, the greatest value of the radio station is also long-distance communication, Yang Yonglin confirmed the huge size of the enemy fleet, immediately sent a telegram to the other three detachments, and every once in a while to re-report the current latitude and longitude, so that they can join the battle as soon as possible. As long as the eight Haitian-class ships gather, there is basically no suspense in this battle.

However, if the enemy flees very resolutely, it will not be easy to annihilate them all, in order to ensure that the orders issued by the central government can be completed, Yang Yonglin decided to seize the mistakes made by the enemy and "pull out the teeth of the tiger"!

"Huh?" After discovering that the two warships quickly changed their formation from a single column to a single horizontal formation, Vice Admiral Seymour couldn't help but be amazed, and for the first time realized that the diamond-shaped layout admired by the French did have some merit, "I understand, anyway, the main gun firepower in all directions is about the same, so the formation conversion only needs to consider the speed of the formation (relative to the enemy's) formation, which can make the advantages of the small team switching formations more flexible more fully reflected." ”

However, Vice Admiral Seymour did not make too much of a fuss because of this, because as he commented, the diamond-shaped layout can only play an advantage when the fleet is small, and based on the traditional concept of the navy, if you want to master the sea power, you still have to rely on the main force to fight a decisive battle.

And the two Chinese warships did not take it as soon as they saw it after quickly sinking the British troop carrier, but rushed directly to the British cruiser detachment, which made Vice Admiral Seymour confirm his opinion, "It's almost like an upstart, but he dared to defy the invincible Royal Navy after winning a few despicable sneak attacks?" ”

However, the nearly 600 British officers and men on the large protective cruiser Blake who bore the brunt of the attack were not so easy, and in the face of the fierce enemy, they immediately took the lead in turning to the cruiser fleet to form a queue, so that they could take advantage of the firepower of the rapid-fire guns of the two cruisers of the Blake and Edgar ranks. But to their astonishment, the rate of fire of the main guns of the two Chinese warships was almost the same as that of the 6-inch secondary guns on the side of their own ships......

You know, due to the conservative design ideas, the main gun of the Blake is not a rapid-fire gun, even after the full use of smokeless ******, it can only reach a rate of fire of about 2 minutes 1 round, and it is only a theoretical value, the actual combat rate of fire is slower, although the caliber of 9.2 inches (234mm) is slightly larger than the main gun of the Haitian class patrol, but the density of firepower that can be played in actual combat is too far away, which makes them embarrassed?

You know, just a year ago, the Blake class was hailed as the most powerful in the world (the updated Edgar class is a money-saving version, and it doesn't perform as well as the original.) Now after a dozen of them, it turns out that it is so much worse than the Haitian class, it is like a product of two eras, and the morale of the British officers and men on the Blake suddenly plummeted.

At 13:11 p.m., less than one minute after the start of the gunfire, the front main guns of the Chaoyong took the lead in firing peace!

A 210mm blasting shell easily pierced the thin hull of the Blake and drilled into the coal bunker with a "boom", and in just a few seconds, Vice Admiral Seymour's face changed dramatically because of what he saw in the telescope...... (To be continued.) )