At this time, two more hazy silhouettes of warships appeared on the horizon, after careful identification, the lookout on the Zhenyuan first confirmed that it was the Zhiyuan and Jingyuan who came back, and the Zhenyuan suddenly thundered with joy, and the captain Lin Taizeng was even more crying on the spot, he knew Deng Shichang's personality very well, and knew that he was not a person who would give up easily, and returning so early meant that the mission had been completed, and the strongest warship of the Japanese army, the Yoshino, was finished!

Because the mast was damaged and people could not go up, the observation point of the Dingyuan was much lower than that of the Zhenyuan, but through the flags issued by the Zhenyuan and Jingyuan, Liu Buyun and others still learned of this great news in time, and they were also cheering.

The value of the Yoshino is worth one-third of the combined fleet, and after losing this strongest warship, unless the Japanese side can sink at least one of the two ships in Dingzhen, it will definitely not be able to explain after returning home.

Considering that the second ship of Zhijing is coming at high speed, once they converge with the three remaining warships of the Beiyang team, it will inevitably be more difficult to deal with, Ito Yuheng finally made up his mind, for the time being, regardless of the Jingyuan that gradually turned to the far end, directly reversed to save time, attack the Zhenyuan nearby, and fight the last one!

However, although the armor of the Zhenyuan is an outdated wrought iron armor, after all, the thickness is there, and with the maximum caliber of the Japanese rapid-fire gun of only 6 inches, there is really nothing to do with her.

On the contrary, the Zhenyuan became more and more brave under the siege of the Japanese ships, and a huge 305mm caliber bomb hit the side of the Naniwa, blowing up the superstructure in the middle of it beyond recognition, and at the same time triggered a series of explosions of ammunition used in the 150mm auxiliary guns piled up nearby, which instantly turned the Naniwa into a burning fireship.

Less than a minute later, the unforgiving Zhenyuan fired again at Naniwa with its main guns on the other side, and this time another 305mm blaster hit the target, and it also hit below the waterline

The sea water suddenly poured into the breach, because the breach was too big to plug the leak, and the Naniwa's dome armor was also damaged, causing the water to penetrate deep into the hull, constantly squeezing out the limited reserve buoyancy

Because it was originally a "small boat frame cannon", the angle of inclination of the Naniwa was not much, and the two 260mm main guns on the ship with obviously too large caliber could not be used anymore, and considering that the side secondary guns were all destroyed in the explosion, the current Naniwa has only small-caliber machine guns available, which can be said to have completely lost its combat effectiveness. And with the current injury of the Naniwa, even if it withdraws from the battle at this time, I am afraid it will be difficult to drive back to Japan.

In the face of such a desperate situation, the captain of the Naniwa, Heihachiro Togo, took a deep breath, his face showed a hideous color, and loudly issued his last order to the microphone, "For the sake of the Imperial Country, for the sake of the Navy, drive at full speed, and sink Zhenyuan!" ”

Although most of the Western officers who watched the battle thought that it was just trying to stick it up and launch a torpedo, but even so, Heihachiro Togo's courage was widely praised by them, after all, rushing to within 200 meters under the deterrence of Zhenyuan's giant cannon was not much different from the danger of direct impact.

For the officers and soldiers on both sides of the battle, they were deeply shocked by the decisive attack of the Naniwa, however, Togo Heihachiro's madness was of no avail

The Naniwa had to slow down to less than 13 knots in order to take care of the two Sanjing ships behind it, and it was difficult to speed up too much between eagerness, even if the distance was less than 2,000 meters, it was not possible to rush to the front of the Zhenyuan in a short time, at least it was enough for the main guns of the Zhenyuan to be ready to fire again.

In the face of the menacing Naniwa, Yang Yonglin, the first mate who actually replaced the captain and commanded the whole ship, showed extraordinary calmness, and it was not until the Naniwa narrowed the distance to within 500 meters that he gave the order to open fire, and then, there was no more

Almost at the same moment, two 305mm blasting shells hit the front of the Naniwa, only to hear an earth-shattering loud noise, the bow of the Naniwa was directly blown up, the terrifying shock wave directly lifted the dome armor like a husk, and the frantic influx of sea water broke the fragile balance of the hull, causing the Naniwa to tilt rapidly.

At the same time, the sudden increase in sailing resistance slowed down the Naniwa's speed significantly, and although it seemed that the Zhenyuan was close at hand, it was still out of reach

Less than a minute later, the Naniwa sank completely, along with 292 people from Captain Heihachiro Togo

The rapid sinking of the Naniwa dealt a devastating blow to the morale of the Japanese officers and soldiers, and at this time, the Laiyuan and Yangwei, who had successfully extinguished the fire, appeared on the edge of the battlefield one after another, and the Pingyuan was almost open to a distance where it could fire artillery attacks.

However, what Ito Yuheng did not expect was that after seeing the remnants of the Japanese army's three protective cruisers evacuate the battlefield, the Beiyang Naval Division did not choose to accept it as he expected, but coincidentally pursued it relentlessly, so that it disdained the two abandoned weak ships, and only the Pingyuan, which knew that its speed was not enough, set the target for them, and the Yangwei, which had no combat effectiveness at this time, stayed on the battlefield to rescue the survivors who fell into the water

"Dongyang said before the war that we will have the opportunity to attack the weak with the strong, and we must sink as many warships as possible, and if we can sink one more, we will not be able to turn over the Japanese Navy from now on!" , Liu Buyun stared at the three Japanese ships that were fleeing, and remembered what Li Hui had said to him before the war, if it was possible, he would leave all three new defense patrols behind!

"I really can't imagine that this naval battle will be a complete victory for the Qing Navy!" , British Captain Smith looked at the few ships left on the Japanese side, and couldn't help but sigh like this, and at the same time expressed his dissatisfaction with the Beiyang sailors' practice of beating the water dogs, "But these Chinese are too ungraceful, and they are not willing to let go of even a Japanese ship, completely ignoring that there are still many survivors who have fallen into the water at sea and need to be rescued."

"I think the commander of the Beiyang Naval Division is very wise, although even the current results are enough to determine the ownership of sea supremacy, but the Japanese warships have the advantage of speed, and once they turn to attack tactics to destroy the route after losing the ability of the main force to fight a decisive battle, I am afraid that they will have no way at all, it is better to take advantage of the opportunity of the Japanese ship to be injured and slow down to eliminate all of them to prevent future troubles, and if it were my command, I should have done the same", the words of the American Henry caused widespread dissatisfaction among European officers, You must know that at this time, the European navy was obsessed with the so-called "aristocratic fan"!

However, Henry was also clever, and when he found that he had committed public anger, he immediately changed the subject, "Now that the warships on both sides have left, and only one warship is left to rescue the officers and soldiers who have fallen into the water on both sides, let's show the humanitarianism of a civilized country and go over to help!" ”