Yang Yonglin naturally didn't want to let these British battleships go back, although with the tonnage and protection of the monarch-class, if only two Haitian-class patrols were relied on, even if the shells were exhausted, it was unlikely that all six of them would be left, but the other six Haitian-class patrols deployed by the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean were approaching rapidly, as long as they arrived, everything would be possible. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The Chaoyong and Yangwei only need to manage to hold off the British fleet so that it cannot return to Bombay smoothly, and if possible, Yang Yonglin also wants to bring it in the direction of friendly ships.

However, Seymour was not stupid, and he quickly made a decision, "We must return to Bombay immediately, this naval battle is already lost, but as long as we can keep six battleships, at least we can create a certain deterrent as an existing fleet; If there were any more losses on these six capital ships, the situation would be terrible! ”

But in this case, the cruiser Gibraltar, which is still spinning in place, has become a huge burden, and if a battleship is towed, not only will her speed be greatly affected, but it will also drag down the entire fleet, but if you don't say a word and just leave the Gibraltar and run away, then the morale on the Gibraltar cruiser will completely collapse if it is not good, let alone continue to resist, it would be good not to surrender to the enemy with warships, after all, now the British Royal Navy has lost a series of battles, and it is really hard to say that there is still a little bit of honor left in the past. And once such a thing happens, when it comes to post-war liquidation, most of the responsibility will fall on Seymour, the commander of the fleet......

After much deliberation, Seymour had the Bannerman inform the ship that it would be allowed to surrender to the enemy (after abandoning the ship and sinking itself). In this way, although objectively saving a little ammunition for the Chinese, at least it can make the officers and men on the ship not too resentful, and can ensure that the warship will not fall into the hands of the enemy.

The captain of the Gibraltar gave the order to abandon the ship with tears in his eyes, but instead of leaving, he quietly returned to the conference room where the water had already begun to enter the water, smoked a cigar, and sank into the Indian Ocean with his beloved ship......

Because of the voluntary abandonment of the ship, the number of surviving officers and men on the cruiser Gibraltar was the highest in the British expeditionary fleet, but it was only more than 200 people, less than half of the number of the crew before the war, and the losses were still quite large.

The reason for the loss of so many people was not mainly due to the limited casualties caused by the enemy's shelling, but because the two Chinese warships did not stop to rescue at all, and the British troops on the lifeboats could only row to the coast by themselves with great difficulty to save themselves, and as a result, they died of hunger, thirst, and drowned many people......

In fact, this was also an important purpose for Vice Admiral Seymour to order the Gibraltar to surrender to the enemy, and it was very time-consuming to salvage at sea, and if both Chinese warships were left, then the six British battleships would definitely be able to retreat in one piece; Even if only one Chinese warship had been left to rescue, the pressure on the six British battleships would have been cut in half.

However, Vice Admiral Seymour did not expect that the Chinese Navy would completely throw away the chivalry, and did not hesitate to pursue the six British battleships with all its might instead of paying attention to the poor British officers and men in the lifeboats.

Although he is not confused, Yang Yonglin, who has been diligent and studious since childhood, has always been very good at learning new knowledge and is relatively easy to accept all kinds of new concepts. Among the old generals of the Beiyang Naval Division, there is no second person who has a deeper understanding of Datongism than Yang Yonglin, and once someone asked him what Datongism is, Yang Yonglin took "seeking truth from facts, public before private." The answer was highly praised by Li Hui, and the decision he made now is also based on the latter sentence "public before private".

In the previous war against Japan, the Chinese Navy had always been committed to destroying the enemy, and until the battle was completely over, it would never send warships to rescue the enemy's drowning personnel. However, to a large extent, that was due to the fact that the Japanese Navy had first committed the barbaric act of shooting Chinese officers and men who had fallen into the water during the Battle of Toshima, and the Chinese Navy naturally did not say anything chivalrous to such an enemy. And now Yang Yonglin's refusal to save the British is the beginning of the formation of the Chinese Navy's tradition of "victory above all else".

"Following the so-called 'chivalry' will naturally be of great benefit to my Yang Yonglin's personal reputation, but it will lead to the inability to overcome this naval battle, and the legacy will be endless. How could I afford to let the country suffer such a loss for the sake of my good name? Yang Yonglin faced the first mate's question, and replied, "What's more, the party leader has said more than once that although the Chinese civilization has greatly slowed down the development of science and technology because it has taken the wrong path, it has been ahead of the world in terms of humanities for a long time, and the universal morality that the West is now advocating is just the remnants of the ancient Chinese, even after the two barbarians entered the Central Plains and caused a great regression, the current Chinese civilization is not worse than that of Westerners, as long as we don't take Western standards to ask us." Chivalry? Isn't it Song Xianggong's set? We already saw it as a joke more than 2,000 years ago, and it's a shame that Westerners still have the face to brag about it......"

Yang Yonglin did not talk about chivalry, and Vice Admiral Seymour was immediately under great pressure, although he was very confident in the protection of the Sovereign-class battleships, but the diamond-shaped layout of the main guns adopted by the Haitian-class patrol made it possible to have 6 main guns to fire forward when pursuing, which was too great.

If the British fleet is still lined up in the most familiar single column, it means that the one at the end will have to meet the 12 main guns of the Chinese side with two main guns, and considering the huge advantages of the latter's rate of fire and accuracy, the difference in firepower is dozens of times, and the enemy ships can safely and boldly lean up to further improve the hit rate of artillery bombardment.

In desperation, Vice Admiral Seymour could only order the formation to be changed to a horizontal formation, although this formation had been basically abandoned by the British Royal Navy due to the fatal defect of unfavorable steering, but it was still much better than the column in the current situation.

In the case of a single horizontal group, although two Chinese warships only had to deal with one British battleship at the same time after they went around the flank, the latter could shell sideways, so that all four main guns and one side of the secondary guns could fire, which was much better than being rear-ended in a single column.

What's more, the single horizontal team can easily be converted into a double horizontal team at the right time, so that the firepower of the flanks can be doubled, although it is still unfavorable, at least the loss is not as great as that of the single column and the double column; Moreover, the six British capital ships did not want to fight now, and they just had to flee with all their might, and there was no need to make any tactical maneuvers, so the defect of the slower steering of the horizontal line was no longer a major problem. (To be continued.) )