The battleship Wuyishan was attacked by Japanese warships while patrolling and sank in a bitter battle. All 890 officers and men of the ship were killed, and none survived. This news has not yet reached the distant Ming Jingshi, but it has already reached the hands of another person.

In the steel cabin, a tall general, dressed in a crisp white naval uniform, stood in front of a thick glass window, looking at the rough seas in awe. The adjutant behind him walked up behind him with a telegram, saluted and then spoke, reminding softly: "General! ”

"News from the Wuyishan?" Zhang Rude, the commander-in-chief of the fleet of the Daming North Sea Division, and the commander of the admiral, came back to his senses, turned to look at his adjutant and asked. He led the main force of the North Sea Fleet to set sail from Fushun Military Port and go north to guard against the Northeast rebels to attack Zhuanghe and Donggang in the south.

However, as soon as his fleet left the harbor and circled to the area south of Zhangzi Island, he received a distress message from the battleship Wuyishan. It said that it had encountered an unidentified enemy fleet, and the battleship Wuyishan was responsible for defending the territory and was being expelled.

Immediately after that, the commander of the fleet, who was cruising at sea, received news of martial law in the Liaodong Peninsula and an attack on Mukden by rebels in the northeast -- he linked these two events, and soon judged that the unidentified fleet heading south was likely to be unfavorable to the battleship Wuyishan.

So he took his fleet and began to rush eastward, chasing the course of the Wuyishan to the sea area where there was a possible engagement. As a result, he was still a step late, because it didn't take long for him to receive a telegram from his subordinate Lu Chongwen, claiming that the Wuyishan had been greatly damaged and had been surrounded by enemy ships.

"Want to bite off a piece of meat from my Zhang Rude, and you have to retreat with your whole body?" Pressing his palm on the edge of the porthole window in front of him, the general, who was quite prestigious in the navy of the Ming Empire, looked at the waves outside the window hatefully, gritted his teeth and said: "Let the fleet move forward at full speed!" General Lu is willing to fight for the country, why do I Zhang Rude regret this? ”

Beneath his feet, a steel-trained battleship was using its massive body to break through the waves ahead, and the two dragons in the bow of the ship shone in the sunlight with the same dazzling light. The Ming Empire was established, and all battleships were qualified to decorate dragon-shaped graphics and texts, not trespassing but the honor of the Royal Navy of the Ming Empire.

The flagship of the Beihai Division, the giant ship Huashan with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons, was spewing out thick smoke from the two huge chimneys in the middle of its wide hull. This shows that it is moving at the fastest speed, and the sea water hitting the hull makes it sway slightly with the waves, and the waves cut by the hull churn to the sides, which is even more spectacular if viewed from a high vantage point.

Behind the battleship Huashan was the battleship Hengshan of the Ming Navy, and the battleships of the Ming Empire were all named after high mountains, which meant majestic and majestic. Of course, following this battleship, there was also a battleship, the Changbaishan.

Guarded by some cruisers, the three battleships churned with billowing smoke and sailed at the highest speed they could muster towards the final return of the battleship Wuyishan to the area where the battle was finally held. For a while, the air became solemn because of the arrival of these battleships, and the atmosphere on the sea was so oppressive that it was impossible to breathe.

"My Ming warship, there is no reason to sink it in vain!" The captain of the battleship Changbaishan, a big man from Shandong, put down the telegram in his hand, looked at the adjutant and other sergeants beside him, and said coldly: "Our navy does not have a bad seed like the army, and there is no rule of not fighting back when you are beaten!" ”

At the same moment, the captain of the battleship Hengshan also threw aside the telegram in his hand confirming that the battleship Wuyishan had lost contact, stared at his subordinates with a hideous face and issued a gnashing order: "Keep up with the battleship Huashan!" I want to see which one of them is not long-sighted and dares to start a war with our Ming fleet in the Yellow Sea! ”

Zhang Rude put his hands behind his back, but the solemnity on his face could not be concealed, on the one hand, because the battleship Wuyishan lost contact, and on the other hand, he was worried that the enemy's fleet would use the Wuyishan as a bait to trick his fleet into rushing to the battle.

Even if he didn't say it, he guessed that the so-called unknown fleet on the opposite side without the national flag was actually the Japanese fleet - on the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the fleet that could entangle with the navy of the Ming Empire, and after counting, there was only such a single one left.

"Order the fleet to keep moving, keep course and continue east! We've entered the sea where the Wuyishan sent a telegram back, so that the fleet is ready for battle! Scatter destroyers and cruisers and search forward! After Zhang Rude issued a series of orders, he pressed his command knife and stood in his position waiting for the reply message.

His lieutenants began to give order after order, and then the officers in the various positions repeated the orders and began to carry them out. The battle alarm sounded in the cabin of the battleship Huashan, where the commander's flag was hoisted, and the flag-whisperers standing near the mast began to use the flag to convey simple battle orders to the surrounding battleships.

Even with the convenient means of communication such as radio, various ancient means of communication were still retained in naval warfare: warships had flag soldiers on board and relied on flag language to transmit simple messages; In addition, warships are generally equipped with searchlights for communication, and they will use flashing codes to communicate.

After a short wait, some small warships began to break away from the fleet and scattered to search for traces of various engagements in the sea. Soon they found some of the things on the battleship Wuyishan, and some belonged to the cruiser Xingkaihu.

"General! The Wuyi Mountain must have sunk here...... We found some lifebuoys, and some deck fragments, but hundreds of robes, and we couldn't find a single living ......" The adjutant stood in front of Zhang Rude with the latest news and reported the latest discovery. They arrived in time, but they didn't even think that they could save a friendly soldier who had fallen into the water.

And Zhang Rude, who was standing in his position, didn't say a word, but the whole person looked like a volcano that could burst out at any time, and the whole person was filled with a strong anger. General Lu Chongwen is a veteran of the navy that Zhang Rude respects, when he took the post of commander of the Beihai Division, Lu Chongwen served as the captain of the Wuyishan and supported him, although he was three years younger than Lu Chongwen, but Lu Chongwen was a close friend.