Fortunately, as the warship gradually approached, Liu Buyun recognized from the telescope that the person was the Qiujinzhou and not the Yoshino, according to the injuries in his memory, which made him feel somewhat relieved.

Liu Buyun knows Deng Shichang's character very well, if he can't pursue two Japanese ships at the same time, then Deng Shichang's chosen target will definitely be the Yoshino, which is more difficult to catch up with, but has a greater value, "So, Zhiyuan and Jingyuan may not have an accident, they are still chasing the Yoshino?" ”

However, the grim situation on the battlefield soon made Liu Buyun no longer have time to be distracted, and the Japanese ships Matsushima and Itsukushima finally successfully completed the right turn, went around the back of the three ships of the Beiyang team, and formed a front and rear flanking situation with the rear team.

What's worse is that the two Naniwa-class protective cruisers of the Japanese army no longer entangled with the Pingyuan, and rushed to the main battlefield at full speed to join the two Sanjing ships, which greatly enhanced the strength of the Japanese fleet in the rear, and the tactics of the Beiyang Naval Division finally exposed a big problem

The Pingyuan was indeed sturdy enough, and it was still able to hold on to the fight after being besieged for a while by two Naniwa-class protective cruisers with far more firepower than its own.

However, once the Japanese ships decided to abandon it, the Pingyuan, which could barely run to a speed of 10 knots even if it had changed good coal, could not keep up in any case, and could only watch as the two high-speed cruisers got rid of their entanglement and went to the main battlefield to besiege the Beiyang team

The Pingyuan had anticipated this situation before the battle, so he deliberately brought the two Japanese ships away from the main battlefield during the battle, which made it take more time for the Naniwa and Takachiho to join the decisive battle.

But this kind of cleverness also brought another problem, the Pingyuan itself was also far away from the main battlefield, and with the slow speed of the Pingyuan, when she rejoined the battle, it would be difficult to decide the victory.

Li He, who was unwilling to become a spectator, could only hope that God would let the decisive battle last a little longer, so that Pingyuan could contribute a little more. Although the Pingyuan cooperated with the Chaoyang 2nd ship to defeat the two strongest Japanese ships, and then hit the Naniwa several times when it was fighting alone (but unfortunately they were all 150mm secondary guns, and they didn't hit important parts.) ), the average hit rate is second to none among the warships participating in the battle on both sides. For the Pingyuan, a weak ship that has been treated unfairly for a long time, such a performance is already perfect

Even the Westerners who watched the battle were full of praise for the performance of the Pingyuan, but the British captain Smith still did not forget to laugh at his French counterparts who had boasted about the design of Pingyuan before, "The inward tilting design does strengthen the defense, but it also leads to a serious limitation of the gun positions that can be installed on the ship, if not, with the firepower of an ironclad ship of more than 2,000 tons, at least one of the two Japanese protective cruisers must be disabled by it"

In order to catch up with the British Royal Navy, the French Navy will come up with some swords from time to time, but unfortunately there are more times when the gains outweigh the losses and fewer times to open a new era, as a result, not only have they failed to narrow the huge gap between themselves and the British Navy over the years, but even the second position is not as stable as before.

At this time, a sentence from Rear Admiral Henry of the US Navy unexpectedly helped Tiere regain his self-confidence, "It seems that although the rapid-fire gun has shown good combat results, it is impossible to completely replace the large-caliber main gun for the time being due to the small caliber and insufficient power." Judging from the situation of this naval battle, in the face of increasingly powerful explosive shells, waterline armor has become indispensable, otherwise, even if there is dome armor to ensure a certain reserve buoyancy, it will be quickly disabled and lose combat effectiveness under the enemy's fierce artillery fire. I really can't imagine that not long after the protective cruiser was perfected, this ship type is already completely outdated, and it will be the era of armored cruisers in the future! ”

When Thiel heard this, he suddenly came to his senses again, although France started late in the development of rapid-fire guns, and in the early stage, there was a stupid thing that the continuous rate of fire during the test could only reach 1 round per minute due to the fact that the rapid-fire gun was not equipped with a smokeless projectile kit, but with the world's first artillery design level, France has now caught up. The latest Ghanaian 120mm rapid-fire gun has surpassed the British Armstrong rapid-fire gun of the same caliber, and its consistent unique range and accuracy advantages are still there, and it is not an exaggeration to call it the world's first in the caliber; France is also ahead of the world in increasing the rate of fire of large-caliber naval guns, and the latest 240mm rapid-fire gun developed by France has a faster rate of fire than the British 8-inch rapid-fire gun, and it still uses a projectile weighing 220 kg (generally speaking, the heavier the projectile, the slower the rate of fire of the gun). You can see at a glance which level is higher, and the French have begun to develop the 274mm rapid-fire gun designed with a maximum rate of fire of 3 rounds / min, which is a caliber of 274mm, and the main gun used as the capital ship is barely enough, compared with the 10-inch naval gun that the British claims to be a rapid-fire gun The rate of fire can only reach 1.5 rounds per minute, which is not at the same level at all. In terms of armored cruisers, the French were also ahead of the curve, and the Admiral Charles-class armored cruiser that was launched not long ago was perfect in all respects in terms of tonnage, which made Thière very proud, although the general liberal and loose nature of the French led to the construction period of the ship being too long, and as a result, the world's first perfect armored cruiser entered service was American

While the French were complacent about their technological superiority, the Americans paid more attention to the use of tactics in this naval battle, "This naval battle was really full of twists and turns, I thought the Japanese had lost, but now it seems that they still have a chance." With the successful convergence of the two remaining capital cruisers of the squadron and the two ships of the fast fleet, the Japanese capital ships were twisted into a rope again, and also formed a two-sided attack with the three weak ships in the rear of the squadron (the Kaohsiung was heavily damaged and withdrew from the battle); On the contrary, the situation on the Chinese Navy's side was not good, the small boat (referring to Guang C) was crippled within a few minutes after returning to the battlefield, and was forced to withdraw from the battle column to save itself from the fire, and the only remaining armored cruiser on the battlefield was already on fire, if it also withdrew from the battlefield, the Beiyang Navy would only be left with two battleships, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, and at that time the Japanese could completely rely on their overwhelming numerical superiority to approach the second ship and launch torpedoes."