"You have entered the territorial waters of the Ming Empire, withdraw immediately, otherwise it will be regarded as an invasion, repeat, you have entered the territorial waters of the Ming Empire, withdraw immediately, otherwise it will be regarded as an invasion, and our side will take the necessary military action to counterattack. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info"

West of the Sunda Strait, aboard the USS Neptune, commander of the British Far East Fleet, George Brown, was aboard the battleship Nipton. Admiral Bing looked faintly at his starboard side, less than fifty meters away, a small steamboat was sailing slowly, and a sailor on board was holding an iron horn and shouting, this was the tenth such small steamship he had encountered on his way south, almost from the moment he sailed past Ceylon, this small ship with two huge paddle wheels and schooners appeared from time to time like a ghost, but it was the first time it was so close as today.

Obviously, they entered the territorial waters of the Ming Dynasty.

"Admiral, how do you reply?"

The officer next to him asked.

At this time, the steamship was closer, and the two sides could see it directly without even a telescope, and the Ming sailor who shouted was still repeating the warning.

"Tell them that we don't recognize the division of their territorial waters, and that the 100-nautical-mile territorial sea line is simply a fantasy."

Admiral Bean said.

The officer next to him immediately repeated.

"One last warning, not leaving again means war!"

The sailor on the steamship shouted.

Admiral Bing made no reply, and the fleet of more than two hundred warships and armed merchant ships on the sea, ignoring the small ship like a herd of giant elephants ignoring an antelope, continued to sail towards the Sunda Strait.

The latter suddenly began to accelerate after completing the final warning, and at the same time turned away from the British fleet, and the British battleship did not open an artillery attack, the two sides have not officially started the war, as for the problem reported by the small ship back is not worth mentioning, at this time I am afraid that even Yang Feng already knows that they chose the Sunda Strait as a passage port, and there is no need to deliberately conceal their whereabouts, anyway, there is still a maximum of half a day to reach the Sunda Strait and directly face the Ming artillery.

Admiral Bing did not want to repeat the mistake of the Dutch, and taking the Strait of Malacca would have his fleet enclosed in a narrow passage like the Dutch, but there was no such danger in the Sunda Strait, which was surrounded by a vast sea.

"Full speed ahead!"

Looking at the small boat that was gradually moving away, His Excellency the Admiral said lightly.

Almost at the same time, the Ming patrol ship, which had stretched the distance to four thousand yards, suddenly burst into flames, accompanied by the whistling sound of cannonballs breaking through the air, two water columns rose near the Neptune, and the explosion sounded like a horn, but before the British could open the gun door and launch the cannon, it had already escaped beyond the range of the ship's guns.

"Is this the beginning?"

Admiral Bing said with a sneer.

"Is this the beginning?"

At the same time, one hundred and fifty kilometers away in Coconut City, Chen Tai, the envoy of Nanyang Jing, also sneered.

Of course, he received a report from a previous patrol ship, and the whereabouts of the British fleet were always under surveillance, and the patrol ships and the cable telegraph network that were constantly cruising the coastal waters allowed him to keep track of the whereabouts of this huge fleet in the most timely manner, and from the time they appeared in the waters west of Sumatra, the nearest patrol ship had already sent a telegram from Padang to find its whereabouts.

"Send a report to Surabaya and Zhennan immediately."

Then he said.

"General, have you ordered the armies to begin their march into the city?"

The chief of staff beside him said.

"Entering the city, all the armies of Sumatra and Aceh have withdrawn into the cities, and the Chinese people from all over the country have also withdrawn into the cities."

Chen Tai said immediately.

At present, Daming has six prefectures on the two islands of Java and Sumatra, the coconut city on the island of Java is Jakarta, the ridge river is Semarang, and there is also Surabaya that is Sulabaya, and the island of Sumatra is the old port, Padang, Medan, but the coconut city is across the two islands. However, the number of Chinese in these provinces is actually not very large, Coconut City is the largest, only more than 20,000 people, and the least Padang has only a few thousand people, a total of less than 50,000, all of whom are plantation owners and merchants. However, the number of troops was huge, and the Eighth Army alone had six brigades of 30,000 troops, and each province had a garrison, with an actual garrison of 45,000, not including a detachment of the navy and the river fleet directly under the army, and the actual total strength exceeded 50,000.

As the order of the Jinglu envoy was transmitted to the outside world, the Ming troops and the Chinese in the outer plantations also withdrew to the nearest prefecture.

But the detachment stationed in Coconut City did not move.

Because they are not the protagonists.

The real protagonist is in the Sunda Strait.

The next day, when the early morning sun shone on this shipping chokepoint, which was only fifty miles wide, on the fortress fort in the middle of the Sunda Strait, on Sangian Island, which was dyed red by the sun, the alarm bell was first ringed, and with the sharp whistle of those officers, the Ming soldiers who were eating threw down their dishes and chopsticks and rushed to their respective posts as fast as possible, and then one cannon after another raised their muzzles.

"It's finally here!"

Fang Hong, the colonel of the Ming army guarding this fortress, looked at the distant horizon, and the gradually emerging side of Bai Fan said with emotion, just on his left and right at the same time, the alarm bell also faintly came, which was on the other two batteries on the left and right of the strait, a total of three batteries and fifty eighty-pound cannons guarded this strait, covering all the channels with those powerful cannonballs, blocking any enemy who tried to enter the Ming Inland Sea.

They are the protagonists of this battle.

"Sir, do you need a warning?"

An officer asked.

"No, when you enter the firing range, aim directly and wait for the order to fire! They have already penetrated hundreds of miles into our territorial waters, and it would be too much to give them face if they were warned. ”

Fang Hong said.

"Order the cruisers Forward, Conway, and Crocodile to go out to the probe channel, and if the Ming army opens fire, return fire and retreat."

Thirty miles across from them, George. Admiral Bing gave the same order.

Immediately after the three cruisers came out, and his battlefleet slowed down, if the Ming army did not fire, then it also means that Yang Feng finally gave in, if the Ming army fired, then it means war, and then the battlefleet set up a position and rushed forward to fight. Tens of thousands of sailors and sailors on the battleships and transports of the British fleet, who understood this, kept their eyes on the three cruisers, and the latter continued to move forward, and soon came into the effective range of the Ming gun's guns at 8,000 yards, at which point even Admiral Bin clutched his binoculars and stared motionlessly ahead.

"Fire!"

Almost at the moment when the three cruisers entered the fifteen-mile range, Fang Hong roared without hesitation.

In the reinforced concrete fortresses beside him, the eighty-pound cannon that had been waiting for a long time roared almost simultaneously, accompanied by a blazing muzzle flame, and the cannonballs shot out like meteors, and then the exploding water columns near the three cruisers rose into the sky. At the same time, the Ming artillery in the fort reset the cannon as fast as they could, reloaded the shells, and then aimed again at the British cruiser at sea.

"Order them to retreat at once, and the battlefleet advances!"

Looking at the flames that erupted again from the red fortress, Admiral Bing also shouted without hesitation.

At this moment, a series of exclamations suddenly sounded beside him, he subconsciously raised his head, and saw the Pioneer cruiser shattered in the flames of the explosion, the five-hundred-ton cruiser was directly hit by an eighty-pound cannonball, and at this time, the Ming artillery shells had begun to change to cotton gunpowder, and the terrifying power was not at all what this kind of small boat could bear, just one shot made it shattered.

Admiral Bing frowned, quickly putting the hint of foreboding behind him.

The huge battlefleet immediately stepped forward, but not all battleships, only thirty battleships really attacked, even the eighty pound cannon of the Ming army could not cover the entire Sunda Strait from both sides, and the three batteries must complement each other, and the real core is the middle battery, and the passage can be opened by blasting this one with the strongest firepower. But it is impossible to line up eighty battleships on the front of this fort, thirty is already too much, and what Admiral Bin is really worried about is that the main fleet of the Ming army is taking his own back road, just like the Dutch broke at the beginning, so most of the battleships of his battlefleet are on guard in the rear.

But thirty battleships were also scary.

Including the five second-class battleships, there were 1,400 cannons, and even if only half of them were usable, it would be a total of 700 cannons.

What fortress can hold seven hundred cannons?

Thirty battleships slowly approached with the majesty of the supremacy of the sea supremacy.

Soon they sailed past the sinking site of the Vanguard.

The Ming troops did not open fire.

"Keep going!"

Admiral Bin had no doubts, at such a distance, I am afraid that even the shore defense guns of the Ming army would not be able to penetrate the two-foot-thick oak of the battleship, and it would be most reasonable to narrow the distance to within three thousand or even two thousand yards.

The huge fleet continued to move forward.

All the officers and sailors on the Ming army battery stared at the enemy, but the smiles on the faces of these people seemed to be a little strange, they did not have the solemnity of a brutal battle, but they all smiled as if they were waiting to watch a good show, including their commanders, and they were still muttering something.

Of course, Admiral Bing will not know this.

All he knew was that his fleet was closing the distance a hundred yards and a hundred yards, and soon his forty-two pounder guns, which had a range of four thousand yards, and twenty pounder rifled guns that he had purchased from the Ming Dynasty, would be pouring shells on the shore.

"Order the ships, prepare to fire!"

He said with a deep breath.

Almost at the same time, suddenly an explosion sounded not far away, and a tsunami of water like a raging wave also rose into the sky, above this water column, the huge body of more than 1,000 tons of the battleship Awe-inspiring on the third deck was thrown up like a toy, and at the same time, it could be seen that almost half of its hull began to turn from the keel into countless fragments and flew into the sky, and then it smashed heavily on the sea with the fall of the angry waves, and then broke into two pieces like broken sugar cane.

Well, the Sunda Strait has been mined. (To be continued.) )