Since most of the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division are designed with the bow facing the enemy, especially the two ironclad giant ships in Dingzhen, the formation of the Beiyang generals is all horizontal without exception.

On this basis, the unreasonable defects of the Beiyang Naval Division detachment proposed by Li Hui before were completely exposed, "Chaoyang is our two weakest warships, especially in defense, so the Japanese fleet will definitely be the first to pick up the softness, and give priority to attacking the side where Chaoyang is located, so our queue is bound to turn to Chaoyang as the center to rescue the second ship, but this tactical action has a natural problem, that is, the speed of the far-end warship determines the speed of the circle, and according to our current detachment method, None of the detachments could get up quickly, and it was completely unrealistic to expect such a tactical maneuver in front of the faster Japanese fleet, especially the Japanese fast fleet."

"It seems that the fleet can only be reorganized according to speed, and the fleet can be organized according to the principle of maximum speed from fast to slow, in order of Zhijing (17 sections), Jiyuan (15 sections), Jinglai (14 sections), Zhenyuan (13 sections), Dingyuan (12 sections), Pingyuan and Chaoyang (9-10 sections), in this way, the turn should be much faster", Admiral Ding Ruchang finally made up his mind to completely change the traditional formation of the Beiyang Naval Division, and for the small formations required for escort, patrol and other tasks, his idea was "Zhijing, Jinglai, Dingzhen, Chaoyang, as one of the four basic squads, can choose one of them to attend when necessary, and Jiyuan and Pingyuan have always followed the brigade to act. ”。

As soon as the words fell, Fang Boqian, who knew that such a reform would be greatly beneficial to his life and safety, immediately loudly agreed, and even he expressed his support, and others had no opinions, so the new grouping method was quickly decided. At this time, Li Hui put forward a new suggestion on this basis, "I have an idea, if there is really a war with the Japanese in the future, then the work of peripheral reconnaissance and vigilance will be specially handed over to the Zhijing team." Their maximum speed is only less than 1 knot slower than the formation speed of the Japanese fast fleet, which is difficult to catch up with in actual combat, and their position in the team is at the end of the horizontal team, and they can directly join the team when they return to the team, which is much more convenient than other squads, plus they are the fastest, and the time required to return to the team is naturally the shortest. And if other squads go out, they may be shipwrecked when they encounter the Japanese fast fleet, and it will be a little troublesome to join the battle after returning to the team, and the time wasted will definitely be longer."

Li Hui's suggestion was reasonable, and the three giants of the Beiyang Naval Division decided to adopt it after a few simple discussions, which made him secretly relieved in his heart, "If Zhijing replaced Pingyuan Guangbing and participated in the battle halfway through the Battle of Dadonggou, Zhiyuan and Deng Shichang should have a great chance to avoid misfortune in history, right?" ”

Who knew that Deng Shichang did not accept Li Hui's affection, but instead twisted his eyebrows and asked, "Zhijing is the two most powerful battleships in my Beiyang Fleet except for Dingzhen, if the Japanese army comes from the other side, causing the second Zhijing ship to return to the team in a hurry only after the battle begins, wouldn't it mean that the firepower of the main force is a big difference at the beginning?" ”

"Deng Junmen was too worried, in fact, even if Zhijing did not leave the team, because he was at the far end of the horizontal team, with the outflanking speed of the Japanese fleet, he would not be able to reach the Japanese ships for a long time, so there was no loss at all. Actually, in my personal opinion, maybe it is a better choice for Zhijing not to return to the team, Deng Junmen, don't be angry, listen to me first. After solving the problem of explosive bombs, as long as there is a fixed town, our army will win the decisive battle of the main force, and even if there are a few fewer warships, it will not have a fundamental impact on the overall situation. However, there is a problem here, it is easy to destroy an enemy ship with a blasting shell, but it is very difficult to sink it, and Japan's ship repair capability is far above that of our country, and the time required to repair it is far less than ours, so the only way to completely send the Japanese ship to the bottom of the sea is to do so. And everyone knows that the four new dome clippers on the Japanese side have amazing speeds, and it is not easy to catch up. Therefore, I hope that the second ship of Zhijing will be specially responsible for chasing and killing those injured Japanese ships that have withdrawn from the battle during the decisive battle of the main force, because only your two warships in Fang Jin's army can meet the speed requirements. And when dealing with the injured enemy ships, the weak defense of the Dome Clipper is not so obvious, but the powerful firepower of the two ships can be fully reflected, if you can sink all the Japanese ships that were injured and fled during the battle, then you are the biggest hero! By the way, you can also ask Lord Zhongtang for instructions (the torpedo boat unit is not under the direct jurisdiction of Ding Ruchang, the admiral of the naval division, and Lao Li must be directly consulted in terms of personnel arrangements,) to see if the torpedo boat unit can also be incorporated into it."

Deng Shichang was reluctant to accept such an arrangement from the bottom of his heart, but after careful consideration, he also agreed that this method was the only way to completely defeat the main force of the Japanese Navy, and finally nodded with a dark face to express his approval, which made Li Hui secretly relieved, although Deng Shichang is very individual, fortunately, he can still take care of the overall situation

After confirming that the Zhijing 2nd ship was separated from the main force queue, Li Hui began to give an in-depth introduction to the current situation of the Japanese Navy, and provided reference for the generals of the Beiyang Naval Division to study and deal with the strategy, "In addition to the four new dome armored clippers with high speed, the Japanese Navy also has seven warships with strong combat power, first of all, the 'Sanjing ship' built by them with Dingzhen as an imaginary enemy to the French, that is, the three dome armored clippers Matsushima, Itsukushima and Hashidate, each of which is equipped with a giant cannon with a caliber of 320 mm and a diameter of 38, theoretically it can easily penetrate Dingzhen's thick armor"

"'Theoretically'? Could it be that it can't actually be broken down? Liu Buyun and the others were overjoyed when they heard this, but they couldn't believe it, no matter what, it was also a 320 mm caliber that surpassed the main gun of Dingzhen, and it had a very long body, it stands to reason that the armor-piercing ability should be extremely strong, how could it not penetrate the second ship of Dingzhen According to the world's advanced level, it is not particularly thick armor?

Li Hui shrugged his shoulders when he heard this, and sneered, "Because the Japanese think that the shells that can't explode are not powerful, except for the trainer shells, the other shells have charges." But here's the problem, the blasting projectile has no armor-piercing ability, and no matter how great the kinetic energy is, it is useless, because it will detonate as soon as it touches the target; As for the armor-piercing blasting projectile, due to the early explosion caused by the charge, the actual penetration depth is far inferior to the test data of solid bullets (at that time, the artillery penetration test used solid bullets, and the armor-piercing blasting projectiles have not yet found a reliable and accurate test method). Not to mention Dingyuan's steel-faced armor, even if it's Zhenyuan's wrought iron armor, it's still helpless."