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Santiago is the second largest city in Cuba, located in the eastern part of the island of Cuba, similar to Shanghai, China, but surrounded by the Maestra Mountains and the Caribbean Sea, Santiago is a mountain town, and the sloping streets are characteristic of Santiago, which is very similar to the mountain city of Chongqing. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Santiago was a "paradise" for Caribbean pirates, and in 1640 the Castle of Morro and coastal fortifications were built, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack. Servera, the commander of Spain's Atlantic Fleet, used the cover of a cobweb-like mine array, reinforced the shore defense guns, and hid in the harbor with nine Spanish warships.

Ma Jifen, deputy commander of the Beiyang Fleet, and Liu Buyun, commander-in-chief of the left wing, led eight warships, including the "Suzhou," "Jiyuan," and "Guangjia," into the open sea of San Diego and tightly sealed the city of Santiago. At this time, the rebel army of Cuba was in Gomez. He. Under Báez, he was leading an army of 40,000 rebels in the city's rainforest to fight a guerrilla war against the 30,000 Spanish troops stationed in San Diego.

These 30,000 troops are the elite of the 200,000 Spanish troops stationed in Cuba that can still fight. Liu Yongfu sent people to talk with the Cuban rebel army led by Báez and fight together. After the agreement was reached, 15,000 warriors of Liu Yongfu's Black Flag New Army, under the cover of strong artillery fire from the Beiyang Fleet, successfully landed east of Santiago and launched a fierce attack on the commanding heights east of Santiago, Monte San Juan and El Cane.

A hundred Krupp cannons lined up on San Juan Hill and bombarded the Spanish trenches, and the smoke of the Spanish battlefield billowed out. Liu Yongfu took the lead, rushed out of the trenches, and the Black Flag Army captured San Juan Hill in the evening after a day of fierce white-knuckle fighting, and then, the Black Flag Army fought bloodily. Elcane was also captured by the squadron.

Occupying San Juan Hill, the Black Flag Army could set up heavy artillery on the hill and look down on the entire city of Santiago, and the Spanish army was extremely passive. A counteroffensive had to be launched the next day in an attempt to recapture the lost positions. The 5,000 cavalrymen of the Order of Santiago, wearing four-cornered hats, white cloaks, red sword-shaped crosses painted on them, and holding long swords with lily-shaped ends in their grips and gauntlets, rushed towards the positions of the Black Flag Army like a tide.

Liu Yongfu calmly commanded the Black Flag Army to respond to the battle, and ordered the rifle team of the infantry army to form a phalanx and shoot in a row. "Bang bang" gunfire rang out all night, and the Spanish cavalry suffered more than a thousand dead and wounded, but still rushed forward. The bullets of the Black Flag Army were almost finished, the barrel was broken, and Liu Yongfu gritted his teeth. Carrying a broadsword, he rode out with two thousand Black Flag troops.

At this time, the Spanish Knights, who owned a large number of farms and property in Cuba, lived a comfortable life, and like the Manchu Eight Banners Army, they had long had little combat effectiveness, and fought hand-to-hand. On the contrary, it is the specialty of the Black Flag Army. The two sides started a tug-of-war, Liu Yongfu's broadsword was cut off, the Spanish knights were rolling, blood stained the white robes, and finally the Spanish knights retreated, and the Spanish follow-up reinforcements came. The fighting continued, but in the end, Spain was defeated by Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army. However, the battle was extremely brutal, with more than 8,000 Spanish troops killed and wounded, and the Black Flag Army itself suffered 1,700 casualties.

The rebel army led by Báez. Seeing the Black Flag Army's great victory over the Spanish army, they drilled out of the rainforest with firearms and bows and arrows to attack the rear of the Spanish army. Seeing that the army could not hold the city of Santiago, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet, Cervera, decided to lead nine Spanish warships to break through the dense fog above the sea in the morning.

At this time, Liu Buyun's fleet also rushed to San Diego, with 15 ships of the Chinese Navy and only 9 warships of the Western Army. In the morning, the sun pierced through the thick clouds, the mist cleared, and the golden sun covered the azure waters of the Caribbean Sea. The Chinese and Spanish fleets fought a fierce naval battle in the Bay of San Diego. Liu Buyun ordered the warships to attack first, and the firepower of the Beiyang Fleet was both fierce and far, and the total weight of the shells fired in each salvo was 29,000 pounds, and the Western Army fired a salvo was only 6,000 pounds, and the situation was favorable to the Beiyang Fleet.

The flagship of the Spanish fleet was the "Maria. The armored cruiser Princess Teresa, built in 1889 by a Spanish shipyard and completed in 1893, 111.8 meters long, 19.81 meters wide, displacement 6890 tons, captain of the Spanish Navy Rear Admiral Vicott Kentas, equipped with 2 11-inch caliber main guns, 10 5.5-inch secondary guns, and 8 57 mm Haqikai rapid-fire guns, 8 37 mm Haqikai guns, 2 22 mm machine guns, 2 2.75-inch bronze salutes, 8 torpedo tubes, speed 20.25 knots, the tonnage, firepower, speed of the Beiyang Fleet "Dingyuan" are about the same, Not to be underestimated in battle.

However, the level of training and maintenance of the Spanish Navy was similar to that of the Beiyang Fleet under the leadership of Ding Ruchang in Chinese history. The Spaniards were nostalgic for the "Armada" that dominated the world, and the ship was decorated with a large number of traditional wooden ornaments, which made it very susceptible to fire in naval battles, and it also had some guns that were never fired. Liu Buyun was on the "Suzhou" and used binoculars to observe "Maria. Princess Teresa" this weakness, concentrated artillery attack on "Maria. Princess Teresa", and soon the flagship's battery was burned down by a raging fire, and thick black smoke rose in San Diego Bay.

The "Almirante. The armored cruiser "Okundo" was a ship of the same class as the "Princess Maria Teresa", the two were about the same tonnage and artillery, but it only arrived in Havana in the spring of 1898. The okundo's hull was full of plankton and shells, and the lack of maintenance facilities severely affected its speed, which dropped to 12-14 knots. In the Battle of San Diego, "Almiante. The "Okundo" was pursued by the Chinese "Suzhou" at a speed of 23 knots, and was hit by 43 rounds of 57 mm shells, most of its deck personnel were killed or wounded, and 3 rounds of 203 mm, 1 round of 152 mm, 1 round of 127 mm, and 9 rounds of 102 mm shells seriously damaged it, and the wounded captain ordered to abandon ship, and the battleship sank 12.6 kilometers from Santiago, and 120 Spanish naval officers on board were killed.

The third armored cruiser of the Spanish warship was the "Vizcaia", which was also the same ship as the "Princess Maria Teresa", which suffered heavy damage in the Battle of Santiago, and in order to save the lives of the crew, the captain ordered the flag to surrender and blew up the ship by igniting the explosives with his own hands.

"Cristobal. The armored cruiser "Cologne" was a new warship built by Spain in 1895 from the British Armstrong Arsenal, and the speed can reach up to 30 knots. Thief fast. However, due to the dispute between the Spanish government and the Armstrong company, even the 254-mm main gun could not be installed, and the combat effectiveness can be imagined. In the Battle of Santiago, "Cristobal. The captain of the "Cologne" took a look. "Almirante. The Okundo, the Viscaya, and the Princess Maria Theresa were all under heavy artillery, some on fire, some sinking, and they hurriedly ordered the first mate of the warship, "Full speed, flee quickly!" ”

"Cristobal. Taking advantage of the chaotic battlefield situation, the Cologne fled at a speed of thirty knots, and a series of tumbling waves were stirred up behind it. But alas," Cristobal said. The captain of the "Cologne" also made a mistake: "Cristobal. The "Cologne" runs along the coastline, not towards the vast Atlantic. But. Perhaps he wanted to use the coastline to cover warships.

When Li Yuanhong saw it, he hurriedly commanded the "Dongting" to pursue. "Cristobal. Soon after, the Cologne ran out of high-quality coal from Cardiff, England, and the stokers had to use the low-quality coal produced in Cuba, which was not full of power. The speed drops, and the coastline of Cuba is particularly curved," Cristobal said. In order to avoid running aground, the warship "Cologne" slowed down further. As a result, at around 2 p.m., Li Yuanhong's "Dongting" approached. A battleship does not even have a main gun, "Cristobal. The captain of the "Cologne" had no choice but to order the flag to be lowered and surrendered. And put the boat on the shallows.

The remaining four or five destroyers, including the "Roar", had a displacement of only about 400 tons and a speed of 26 knots, and these unfortunate small ships, with their high speed, were most likely to escape, but they were ready to sacrifice their lives to cover the breakthrough of the main fleet from the beginning. Therefore, after the naval battle began, they attacked desperately, but they were first blocked by the "Suzhou", and then besieged by other Beiyang warships, and were tragically sunk, and most of the crew members were killed. Including the captain of the "Roar".

Liu Buyun commanded the ** ships to form a "fish scale" formation, intercepted the Spanish warships, and hit the Spanish one after another with fierce and accurate firepower, burning and sinking, after five hours of fierce fighting, the Spanish fleet was completely annihilated, 7 ships were sunk, 2 ships were captured, 600 people were killed, and the fleet commander Servera and 1,800 officers and men were captured. Only 2 ships of the Chinese Navy were slightly damaged, and 1 was killed or wounded.

And the Spanish fleet that rushed to support Cuba, seven warships were still in the vast Atlantic Ocean at this time, spitting out seven long black smokes, the snow-white hull was shining in the sun, and on the flag on the mast, the blue gold lily in the center of the Spanish royal coat of arms had been eclipsed after a long period of wind and rain, this fleet included four six-thousand-ton cruisers and three three-thousand-ton destroyers, which sailed to Cuba in the West Indies, where The colonies, which had been ruled by the Spanish Empire for more than three hundred years, were seriously threatened by the Chinese fleet.

Nearly 3,000 sailors were complacent in the fleet, and the warships at that time were not allowed to have women, and they were physically depressed for a long time, and they fantasized that once the war was over, they would go to Havana or San Diego as soon as possible to find women to have fun. In their eyes, as in the eyes of all Europeans, China is only a semi-civilized backward country, and the Chinese navy is not comparable to Spain, a maritime power that once had an "invincible armada".

But the commander of the fleet, Shelveira, was worried, unlike ordinary sailors, he knew what kind of opponent he was facing the Chinese fleet, he checked the fleet, and the result was that he fell into a bottomless disappointment: this fleet, if well trained, could have become a very deterrent maritime force, but now all four cruisers were rotted or damaged to varying degrees, ammunition was seriously insufficient, most of the artillery systems had serious problems, the voyage had just begun, and the coal bunkers on each ship were half empty. This powerful fleet is a reflection of the Spanish Empire today, and Shelveira even doubts that her fleet will be able to reach Cuba safely. Knowing from the beginning that it was a quixotic war, Shelveira took the last courage and perseverance to defend Spain's honor.

After the Chinese ships annihilated the Spanish fleet that rushed to support, the Black Flag Army and the Cuban rebel army seized the time to besiege Santiago. Three days later, the Western Army ran out of ammunition and food, and 24,000 Spanish troops laid down their arms and surrendered to Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army. Because of the tyranny of the Spaniards over the years, which led to the murderous massacre and revenge of the rebels, these rebels were no less brutal than the Spanish rulers, they burned and plundered everywhere, treated Spanish prisoners of war like pagans and cut off their heads, which made the Spanish colonists who believed in Christianity tremble, and the Cuban governor Weller decided to surrender to the Chinese, but the only condition was that the Black Flag Army forbade the rebels to enter the city.

Liu Yongfu felt that the Spaniards were mainly defeated by the Black Flag Army, and the Spanish warship was also sunk by the first ship, so he left aside the rebel army and negotiated with the Spanish army alone to surrender. In the Sino-Spanish War of 1898, China won the final victory, announcing to the European powers the rise of China as a major military power in Asia, this sleeping lion in the East has woken up in advance, the Chinese are no longer weak and can be bullied, China wants to participate more in world affairs!