Zhou Chunyu's face sank immediately after hearing this, but since the General Staff had already considered this possibility in advance, he didn't panic, "Originally, I was going to put you back to release goodwill, since you said so, let's stay for the time being, so as not to leak secrets and affect our next move." ”

"What are you going to do?" , Philimante suddenly had a spirit, and gave birth to a bad premonition, "Do you still dare to attack Malaya?" ”

Zhou Chunyu sneered, "Why is it Malaya? India, and even Australia, are within our range of attack until your government comes to the negotiating table. ”

"You're crazy! This is to force the British Empire to fight with you endlessly! Do you think that with one or two advanced weapons, you can overwhelm the world hegemon? Phelimante exclaimed in a gaffe, but his words revealed the trepidation in his heart.

Zhou Chunyu was about to reply, but he heard a burst of enthusiastic cheers suddenly erupted from the ship, and it turned out that the friendly ship that had pursued the British ship had returned.

Because the appearance of the Haitian-class patrol is very similar, it can only be distinguished from the port, so it is not clear which one it is until the distance is very close, but after seeing the number of the first returning ship, the smile on the face of Liu Buyun, the commander of the Ocean Fleet, instantly froze, "How can it be the Hairong?" ”

The Hairong was delayed for some time to attack the Centurion with the Haitian, and the Balre, as a battleship, was far more difficult to sink than those cruisers, as the previous battle to sink the Centurion fully illustrated. Liu Buyun didn't think that the Hairong would be able to sink the Baller so quickly, thinking that the Hairong had lost its target and came back after failing to kill the Baller, so he naturally turned pale immediately, and immediately asked the flag soldier to send a signal to Li He, the captain of the Hairong, to report the situation on the flagship.

That's right, this Li He is the former Pingyuan pipe leader Li He who has been ignored for many years, due to his outstanding performance in the naval battle and training of Dadonggou, plus Li Hui has a very good relationship with him, this guy has risen to prominence after the formation of the Ocean Fleet, and suddenly became one of the six captains. It's just that the experience of the little daughter-in-law for many years still has a profound impact on it, and after seeing Liu Buyun on the Haitian, he immediately made a standard military salute respectfully, which made Liu Buyun even more convinced that this guy must have failed to complete the task.

Just when Liu Buyun was about to reprimand sharply, he noticed that there were still a few dejected British officers on the transport boat that sent Li He, and immediately realized that something was wrong, and swallowed back the words that had already reached his mouth. Like other warships of the People's Navy, there were no foreign officers on board, let alone British officers, and those few could only be captured, and if you want to capture prisoners or officers in a naval battle, then you will almost certainly sink the enemy warship.

This made Liu Buyun feel surprised, the previous two Centurion were so difficult, how could the Hairong be able to easily kill the Balle?

As a result, when I asked, I learned that it was not the Hairong that sank the Balle, but the British officers and soldiers on its ship who took the initiative to open the water gate and sink themselves after discovering that they could neither defeat nor escape

"The Centurion is so tenacious, why did the Balle give up so quickly?" , Liu Buyun thought for a while before he figured out the truth, Philmant desperately insisted on buying time for the Balle to escape, but the Balle insisted that it made no sense, and the British were more advocating gentlemanly demeanor, so they couldn't fight, then admit defeat, and couldn't do something like whether it hurt or not, and you had to spit and disgust the other party, so after resisting for a while, and finding that it was not an opponent at all and the enemy ship was chasing closer and closer, the captain directly ordered to sink itself, which saved a lot of time and ammunition for the Hairong.

Of course, there was another reason why the British did this, that is, to avoid the needless sacrifice of the officers and men on the ship, because the evacuation of the warship was more orderly and more timely, and as a result, more than 400 of the more than 600 officers and men on the Balreux survived, which is rare in the history of the world's navy.

But even so, the heroic behavior of the captain of the Balle in refusing to leave the ship and sinking with him won the respect of Liu Buyun and other Chinese colleagues, although because of cultural differences, Western armies rarely put up meaningless resistance, but this does not mean that they are not brave.

After a while, the other four Haitian-class cruisers all returned to the team, and Liu Buyun also figured out another important reason why the Hairong completed the task first, that is, the speed advantage of the Haitian-class cruiser compared to the Centurion-class battleship was much greater than that compared to the protective cruiser, especially several captains were still more greedy, and when pursuing, they picked new and fast ones, but only two completed the task, and the other two simply lost the target

"Everyone is too confident in the speed of the Haitian-class cruiser, but it is an armored cruiser after all, and compared with the speed of the latest protective cruisers, it will definitely not be able to fight", Liu Buyun was speechless after hearing this, and this little episode even directly influenced Li Hui's thinking when he later designed the next main warship for the Chinese Navy.

Although there were slight flaws, less than a month after the establishment of the Ocean Fleet, it defeated the British Navy, the world's first, sank 2 second-class battleships and 2 protective cruisers, killed thousands of enemies and captured 800 enemies, such a record was enough to shock the whole world. This naval battle with many names has also gone down in history, and together with the previous Battle of Dadonggou and the Battle of Jianghua Bay, it is considered by Chinese and foreign historians to be a "trio" that marks the strong rise of the Chinese Navy, and these three naval battles have a profound impact on the development of the world's navies, especially in terms of warship design.

The once-popular protective cruisers were quickly swept to the dust, and almost all orders for the protective cruisers, with the exception of the warships, which were almost entirely completed, were cancelled, and buyers often preferred to pay liquidated damages rather than the goods

The large armored cruisers that adopted new technologies such as case-hardened armor and water-tube boilers were frantically sought after, and even elevated to a quasi-core position close to the battleship. )