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Although Simjesky tried his best, he was still unable to bring back all the battleships in time, so that the originally low odds of victory were invisibly weakened. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

On February 16, 1864, under the dazzling sun at noon, at 12:21, the Dingyuan ship commanded by Jia Wuji took the lead in seizing the direction of the reverse side light, so that the Russian fleet that had to turn in a hurry lost the T prefix at the beginning, and was still in the unfavorable situation of the backlight. Seven warships, including the heavy cruiser Lanzhou and the heavy cruiser Quanzhou, were organized into the first rapid fire strike column, and each ship was equipped with eight Changge twin main guns of 260 mm and four times the caliber of the empire to carry out fire strikes on the right flank of the Russian fleet that was trying to make a new detour, while the Dingyuan led the remaining nine warships to directly break through the main formation of the Russian army.

At 12:52 p.m., at a distance of 6,500, the main gun in front of the Dingyuan ship began the first round of test firing! The roar of naval guns caused countless waves on the calm Sea of Okhotsk, and between the high columns of water, the Chinese and Russian fleets kept adjusting the direction of the fleet's windward direction, so that their own fleets could seize a very favorable T-shaped prefix and use the advantage of the side guns to give the enemy ships a fierce blow.

Regardless of the fact that as commanders of both sides, whether it is Jia Wuji or Simjesky, both sides know very well that if the other side does not make a great mistake in command, the two sides will only form guerrilla columns and shell each other in the end!

"The distance is four thousand two hundred, the speed is fifteen, the angle is twenty-one, the turret of the whole ship is pointed at the enemy flagship, signal the fleet to follow the flagship to shoot, sink the enemy flagship for me!" Jia Wuji yelled while putting down the binoculars!

Due to the lack of intelligence, Jia Wuji did not know the number and name of the new ships in service of the Russian Navy, and could only judge the location of the enemy's flagship by its raised command flag, Jia Wuji's intention was very simple, to concentrate firepower to hit the opponent's flagship first, and interfere with the unified command of the Russian army, because the Russian fleet is a newly formed fleet, although it has experience in maritime training, but there is no practice of major wars, and the Chinese Imperial Navy fleet was born from the flames of war, and it can be said that it has grown up with a series of non-stop battles, Therefore, Jia Wuji regards the command system of the Russian army as the weakness of the Russian army, and he firmly believes that as long as he can sink the Russian flagship in a row, and damage two or three Russian warships trying to replace the flagship, then the command system of the Russian army will inevitably collapse, and the Russian army, which lacks experience in naval warfare, will inevitably fall into the point of fighting its own battles, and at the same time give itself a god-given opportunity to break through one by one!

Jia Wuji does not like to use the grand strategy of Lin Haijiang, let alone the orthodox self-explanatory Zhanyang, Jia Wuji's principle is to use the least cost and the shortest time to destroy the enemy as much as possible, kill and injure the enemy's living force, Jia Wuji's most powerful point is to dare to sacrifice, to exchange small local sacrifices for the overall victory, but this kind of sacrifice few fleet commanders dare to make this determination, because the battleship is an expensive combat weapon, and it is absolutely not allowed to give up easily until the last moment, Therefore, the captains of the British Navy have developed the professional habit of living and dying with ships.

Rumble! Boom! As the eight main guns of the Dingyuan ship fired in turn, three seconds later, two clouds of black smoke came out of the middle of the second heavy armored protection cruiser with the command flag hanging on the command flag of the Russian battleship formation, and then the nine heavy cruisers following the Dingyuan ship began to fire one after another.

Jia Wuji was also a little helpless about the effect of this crooked hit, due to the speed of the two fleets, generally within a distance of five yards, even if it was a close miss, but the distance between the Russian command ship and the third ship was at least four hundred yards, aiming at the opponent's flagship, the shell hit another battleship four hundred yards away? Was it too lucky or too helpless?

Simjesky was choked with tears by the smoke blown by the wind, and he could feel from the violent shaking of the heavy armored protection cruiser St. Petersburg when it was hit by the bullet that the caliber of the naval guns of the Chinese Imperial side was at least more than 240 mm, compared to the standard displacement of 6,500 tons of the brilliant St. Petersburg heavy armored protection cruiser, but only four single-barreled 150 mm naval guns of 30 times the caliber were installed, although the number of warships of the Russian army was slightly more than that of the Chinese Empire, But in terms of the power of artillery and the number of guns, as well as the protection of battleships, it was not at all on the same level as the Chinese Empire.

Although the Russian fleet was newly formed, it had the spirit of a newborn calf not afraid of tigers, and they braved five salvos from the Chinese Empire, and after paying the tragic price of one explosion sinking and two withdrawing from the battle columns, at an ultra-close distance of 1,500 yards, the Russian warships broke out with the first round of roars!

After the Russian warships that had been suppressed for a long time were shot one after another, the warships of the Chinese Empire were shot one after another, and the smoke of the explosion continued one after another, Simjesky was very satisfied with this round of salvo, at a distance of 1,500 yards, the rulers of each main gun were almost zero, and the hit rate was at least 70 percent.

Simjesky's mouth was open, but it could no longer be closed, because the six battleships of the Chinese Empire that were hit were almost unscathed? In addition to the medics on the two battleships running back and forth, there was no loss of the enemy ships that were hit?

"All ships are equipped with armor-piercing shells!" Simjesky hurriedly gave the order, he knew very well that if he did not immediately launch a round of hard blows to the enemy ships, then waiting for the counterattack of the Chinese Empire's warships to begin, within a distance of 1,500 yards, the large-caliber artillery of more than 200 millimeters, regardless of power, caliber, and number, would far surpass his own naval guns, and it would be a complete sea massacre for the Far Eastern Fleet!

Simjesky has been calculating the firing frequency of the Chinese Imperial Fleet, a salvo of about five and a half minutes, which is not slow compared to large-caliber naval guns and the entire fleet formation, but what Simjesky didn't know was that Jia Wuji ordered the fleet to use the second rate of fire for salvo fire, and the real first rate of fire was a loading speed of three minutes and thirty seconds! Since the main guns of battleships pay attention to the hit rate and power, not the frequency and density of firepower as the so-called secondary guns, and the firing life of the main guns is only about 350 rounds, the loading speed of the salvo of the Chinese Imperial Fleet estimated by Simjesky is quite close.

Just as the Russian ships had finished loading and Simjesky was about to give the order for a salvo, the entire fleet turned to the right and concentrated its fire on the rapid artillery formation of the Chinese Empire, which had been outflanking from 6,700 yards away.

At this critical moment, the Chinese Imperial Fleet, led by the Dingyuan ship, spewed out orange-red artillery flames one after another! The bridge and turret of the St. Petersburg were lost in the explosion, and a large hole with a diameter of three meters was blown out of the anchor position, and a large amount of seawater poured in, and a raging fire erupted from the hatch.

The commander of the Russian Far East Fleet, Admiral Simyesky, the chief of staff of the fleet, and others were blown up, and there were no bones left! Three Russian warships were fatally hit one after another, and two of them had significantly begun to slow down, and they withdrew from the battle column one after another with billowing smoke and fire, and one of the Russian ships withdrew from the battlefield with a white flag.

Although the Russian fleet was knocked out of the flagship by the Chinese Empire's first round of artillery bombardment, and the command immediately fell into confusion, the ships that had completed the loading still fired fiercely at the Chinese Imperial battle line.

However, it is very regrettable that the Russian army's 150 mm and 30 times the caliber naval guns could not effectively penetrate the key effective protection positions of the Chinese Imperial warships, such as the turret, armored control tower, the bottom of the chimney, the waterline, etc., the Russian heavy armored protection cruisers Gulev and Kevi were sunk one after another within 20 minutes after the command flag of the commander of the angry army, and the remaining Russian warships immediately broke through and fled in a chaos, because the Russian army did not retreat in a unified manner, but the ships scattered and escaped, Therefore, Jia Wuji failed to completely annihilate the Russian Far East Fleet, at least he inflicted heavy losses on the Russian Far East Fleet, sinking five warships including St. Petersburg and Gulev, capturing three and damaging seven!

However, the biggest gain was not to win the expected naval battle, but that after Jia Wuji commanded the next battalion of marines landed, with the cooperation of armed sailors, he found four Zhenyuan-class battleships that had completed the assembly of power boilers in the dock of the Okhotsk Shipyard, so Jia Wuji immediately decided to drag the four battleships back to the Guangzhou Shipyard for re-reinforcement and transformation, and he was able to have such a big gain after defeating the Russian Far East Fleet, which can be said to make Jia Wuji excited. Jia Wuji decided on the spot to immediately terminate the follow-up battle plan and make every effort to cover the return of the four warships.

In Jia Wuji's opinion, he has already taught the Russians a sufficient lesson, and this unexpected huge gain will make the Russians feel distressed for a long time!

(To be continued)