Before the 5th Brigade of the Tang Army and the 3rd Brigade of the Wuyi Army arrived on Luzon, the Tang Army had actually begun to attack the Spanish army, and the first to engage the enemy was naturally the Western Pacific Fleet of the Tang Dynasty. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Unlike the Spanish colonial fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, which actively avoided war, the Spanish Navy in Manila Bay had nowhere to go, and even before it was prepared for the attack of the Tang Navy's Western Pacific Fleet.

Spain has also added some new ships to its navy in the past few years, but the use of steam-powered and more technical warships also requires higher logistical support, so it is very uneconomical to deploy these ships in the colonies. However, despite this, Spain still deployed some steam ironclad ships in the Philippines, Mexico and other colonies, in order to ensure its own deterrence as much as possible, so that the Datang Navy would not feel too easily a threat to itself.

However, the Tang Navy never felt any threat to its Spanish counterparts. Unlike the British, who spent a lot of money on naval construction and already had a large warship of nearly 10,000 tons like the Warrior class, the Spaniards have put more effort into their own shipbuilding in recent years, even less than the French. Although they owned steam ironclads earlier than the British, they purchased two steam ironclads converted from treasure ships from the Tang Dynasty, and later built another four or five thousand ton steam ironclad cruisers with the help of the Tang people. However, the size of its fleet has been slowly pulled away by the British.

The British built and refurbished dozens of steam ironclad warships, although most of them were frigates of more than 1,000 tons, but in terms of number alone, even the Tang Navy was not as many as the British's steam ironclad ships. On the one hand, Spain has to deal with a poor economic situation at home. On the one hand, it was necessary to constantly suppress the colonial uprising. Therefore, the money for naval renovation is relatively limited. At this time, they only had more than 20 steam ironclads that they could use, and more than 70% of them were deployed in the Iberian Peninsula itself, belonging to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean.

The Spanish Navy was so valuable to the steam ironclads that it even made the decision to take the initiative to avoid the Tang Navy and let the Tang Army pass through the Gulf of Mexico and land on the east coast of Mexico when faced with the Tang Navy, which was comparable in size to himself. Of course, the Spanish commander also knew very well. They were at least 6 knots behind the Tang warships, and they were far inferior in firepower and tonnage, and if they went to war, they could only become the Tang Army's achievements, so in order to preserve the fleet, they chose to retreat and avoid.

But the same method could not be done by the Spanish Pacific Front Fleet deployed in Manila Bay, because when they realized that the Tang Dynasty had also taken military action against the Kingdom of Spain in the Far East, the main force of the Western Pacific Fleet of the Tang Navy had already arrived at the mouth of Manila Bay.

The Datang fleet that appeared here was indeed the main fleet. All nine battleships, the flagship of which was the battleship Makino. Captain Jiao Qiang served as the commander of the fleet, and the rest of the warships were two cutting-edge Dingyuan-class cruisers, three Pinghai-class cruisers, two Liberty-class frigates and one cutting-edge rainstorm-class frigate. The Dingyuan-class and the rainstorm-class are both third-generation warships of the Datang Navy, and a major difference from the previous generation of warships is that the Pinghai-class and Freewind still use the wooden hull to attach armor, while the Dingyuan-class and the rainstorm-class are already all-steel warships. As a result, the Datang Navy obtained a stronger hull, which allowed it to be designed more complex, and the speed of both types of ships also exceeded 20 knots.

In terms of appearance, the Dingyuan-class and the Rainstorm class are more similar to the warships of the World War II in the other plane, but because there is no air defense need, they are not equipped with a large number of anti-aircraft guns.

The Dingyuan-class cruiser equipped with 4 twin 203 mm turrets is a standard heavy cruiser configuration, but its cost is also a pain in the flesh of the State Council and the Ministry of Defense, although its combat strength is very guaranteed, and in the future, the Datang Navy is likely to face the British nearly 10,000 tons of warrior-class such large maritime combat ships, the same tonnage configuration of the warship is very valuable. However, some people have also pointed out that Datang now has a large number of overseas territories, and has its own interests in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, and a large number of merchant ships and migrant ships need the escort of the navy, and the security of overseas colonies also needs the protection of the navy.

Therefore, some people hope that the navy will only build a small number of Dingyuan-class for decisive battlefields, and build more light cruisers of 4,000 to 6,000 tons, with faster speed, moderate defense, equipped with 155 mm class main guns, used to support the ground operations of ground forces, with better seaworthiness, low economy, and high cost-effectiveness ratio. In the past, the high and low configuration of the Datang Navy was the high and low configuration of cruisers and frigates, but after all, the frigate has a small tonnage, and its self-sustaining power is relatively poor, and many tasks are difficult to perform alone. The original Pinghai class was a good choice, but after all, it was already an old ship that had been in service for more than ten years, and it was technically relatively old, and the navy preferred to acquire new ships.

With the speed of technological innovation of the Datang Navy, basically five years later it will be a brand new warship, the plan of the Datang Navy is to build eight Dingyuan-class, and then launch a new cruiser, but with the continuous enhancement of Datang's national strength, it is becoming more and more feasible to shorten this cycle, and the scale of the Datang Navy is indeed relatively limited, and it is becoming more and more difficult to take care of such a vast land area, and even the scale of the new warships of the British Royal Navy exceeds that of the Datang Navy. This is obviously something that the proud Datang Navy cannot tolerate. So there is a light cruiser development plan, supporters hope that the Navy will make a plan for the construction of eight heavy cruisers and as many as sixteen light cruisers, so that a large number of light cruisers are built, which actually replaces the construction of some frigates, and supporters believe that light cruisers are actually better than frigates, and the actual construction cost of Datang's latest 2,600-ton frigate Rainstorm class is not much cheaper than their lite version of more than 4,000 tons of light cruisers.

Of course, this is all a digression in the war, at this time, the nine battleships of the Tang Dynasty, led by the battleship Makino, sailed into Manila Bay. (To be continued.) )