The other British captain had a calmer personality and did not dare to take too many risks, so he did not kill himself, but the final result was not qualitatively different. The captain was shocked to find that his ship had turned on the strong pressure ventilation, but the enemy ship continued to approach (Note 1), and the distance between the two sides had been shortened to within 3,000 meters!

Due to the consumption of a lot of shells in the previous battle, in order to avoid the shortage of shells after going south, the Sea Tiger finally fired the first shot until this time, with the level of the Ocean Fleet gunners, at this distance, it was basically possible to ensure that each salvo could hit at least one shot, and the result did not disappoint the captain of the Sea Tiger, Sa Zhenbing

I don't know if it's taking into account the need for blasting shells when attacking the ground, the Sea Tiger unexpectedly chose armor-piercing shells with a small reserve (accounting for 20% of the total number of shells), but from the first round of effective attacks, it was quite good, a 210mm armor-piercing bullet pierced the dome armor of the Edgar-class protective cruiser, and exploded after drilling into the engine room, and the powerful shock wave and splashing shrapnel blew up a lot of boiler pipes, because the strong pressure ventilation was turned on, The high-temperature steam, which had risen to the limit of both pressure and temperature, instantly filled the entire engine room, scalding dozens of British soldiers to death on the spot.

Compared with those comrades-in-arms who did not die on the spot, they were more lucky, and the wounded who were almost all severely burned could not be saved under today's medical conditions, but they could not die immediately for a while, and could only lie on the ground in despair and wail in pain.

At this time, even the atheists among them could not help but pray to God that they could end this bitter cry as soon as possible, but it was not God who helped them, but their enemies.

Two of the Sea Tiger's third rounds of shelling hit, one of which coincidentally burrowed into the ammunition depot under the enemy's rear main gun, and then detonated a large pile of 9.2-inch (234mm) shells and accompanying cartridges stored inside

With an earth-shattering loud noise, the cruiser was instantly shrouded in billowing smoke, and then its tail was suddenly cocked like a seesaw, almost in an instant, this large cruiser with a displacement of more than 7,000 tons sank into the sea, because it sank too fast, a total of 521 people were killed under the captain, although the Sea Tiger fully carried forward the humanitarian spirit, but only 16 survivors were fished out, which was in stark contrast to the number of prisoners captured by the Sea Dragon.

Having said that, Sa Zhenbing would not feel sorry for this, and in less than a minute, he sank a giant ship with a tonnage comparable to Dingzhen, which gave him a great shock, and Sa Zhenbing, who was trembling with excitement, shouted "happy" a few times, and his emotions calmed down a little with the catharsis of happiness in his heart.

Because he still has a little affection for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Sa Zhenbing was forced to follow his colleagues in the Beiyang Navy Division to "revolt", although he was reused, but he was unable to establish enough recognition of the new regime, but now Sa Zhenbing unconsciously thought of a question, "If the Manchu Qing Dynasty is still in power, can I fight such a happy battle?" ”

The answer is obviously no, let alone winning so happily, I'm afraid that the rotten and incompetent court doesn't even have the courage to declare war on the British, well, even if there is, it's just that the ignorant are fearless, and they don't have the strength to support it like the current new government, and in the end it's just self-inflicted humiliation.

As a result, for the first time, Sa Zhenbing developed a strong disdain for "my Great Qing", and for the first time developed a strong sense of identification with the Datong Party and the new government it established, which is still not very well understood.

Standing on the bridge of the ship, Sa Zhenbing, who was in high spirits, suddenly remembered the brief speech made by Li Hui on Liugong Island after the uprising of the Beiyang Naval Division, "Everyone knows that the navy is the most dependent on advanced weapons and equipment, and in the past, the Manchu Qing Dynasty could only buy cheap goods to make up the numbers, so that you could not give full play to your talents, but now China is different from the past, the party and the government have the ability to provide you with the most advanced and powerful warships in the world, I hope you can give full play to the advantages of advanced weapons, invincible, invincible!" The Manchu government did not understand that the navy was an offensive arm and let you waste your youth on boring guarding and patrolling, while our party and government would pursue an active line of maritime expansion and give full play to the powerful advantages of our navy! The reason why the Ocean Fleet is called the Ocean Fleet is to gallop on the ocean and raise the country's prestige in all directions! ”

"That's a good thing to say!" Sa Zhenbing did not realize that as he identified with the new regime, his mentality had changed rapidly, first of all, from a very different perspective. And the more important change is that in the past, Sa Zhenbing only passively completed the task, but since then he has become proactive, and his talent has been fully displayed.

It is on the basis of this initiative that Sa Zhenbing carefully reviewed the course of this battle, and thus made a major discovery, "Three rounds of shelling, and four shells, can actually sink such a large warship, and it sinks immediately, unlike blasting shells, which rely more on the secondary killing effect of fire, and if there is no continuous shelling to beat the water dogs, the enemy ship can often struggle on the sea for more than ten minutes, or even longer"

"In this way, as long as it can penetrate the armor, then the effect of the armor-piercing bullet is better! Even the type without external armor such as a protective cruiser is no exception, in this case, it seems necessary to recommend more armor-piercing shells, even if the range of application of blasting shells is larger, thirty percent is not excessive, right? Sa Zhenbing wrote hard and wrote his own analysis and judgment and opinions and suggestions into the report, which soon attracted Li Hui's attention, and urgently allocated a lot of armor-piercing shells to the hands of the Ocean Fleet, which played a great role in the subsequent naval battle.

In addition, Sa Zhenbing also mentioned in the report that the 120mm secondary gun was too powerful and the rate of fire was slightly insufficient when dealing with torpedo boats, which was of great help to Li Hui in perfecting the design of the battlecruiser.

Note 1: Although the tonnage of the Edgar-class large protective cruiser is not small, it is actually the product of reducing the cost as much as possible on the basis of the Blake-class large protective cruiser, even under strong pressure ventilation, it can only drive a maximum speed of 20 knots at most, which is more than 2 and a half knots worse than the Haitian class, which is already a big gap for warships. Even if the Sea Tiger travels farther and is in slightly worse condition, its maximum speed will definitely be faster than it. (To be continued.) )