Chapter 332: The Decisive Battle of the Ocean I

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Vice Admiral William's decision made Jia Wuji extremely annoyed, the British ships were scattered and broke through the siege and escaped, Jia Wuji, who did not dare to disperse easily, immediately commanded the formation to chase and beat the British flagship, and the heavy cruiser Hurd and Cape Rat, which retreated in the same direction as the Poseidon Fork, were sunk in the process of pursuit, and finally after a day and night of pursuit, the Nanling hit the tail of the Poseidon Fork, causing the Poseidon Fork to lose its ability to sail and be captured. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Vice Admiral William became a prisoner with palpitations, and all the officers and men of the fleet hated this evil guy so much that even under the protection of hundreds of gendarmes, William was still beaten to the ground, and according to the orders of the Empire, William would be sent to Nanjing to deliberately provoke war crimes and cause huge losses to the Chinese Empire.

Immediately, the unwilling Jia Wuji commanded the formation to pass through the Ceylon Peninsula for supplies, handed over the prisoners, and then went to Mumbai, the largest port in India, because of the fear of the British army's shore fire, so carried out minelaying and large-scale artillery bombardment outside the Gulf of Mumbai.

Due to the heavy blow to the advance formation under the command of Vice Admiral William, only seven battleships escaped back to the port of Mumbai, and all of them were wounded. The capture of the German Imperial Navy was a common occurrence for the Chinese Empire, and it was not the first time that the British Army and Navy Vice Admiral had been captured, so the Chinese Empire did not provoke much repercussions about the naval battle that broke out in the Indian Ocean.

However, because of the application of battlecruisers, the Imperial Naval Academy included this case in the scope of research, and there were several completely different voices in the Imperial Navy regarding the application of battlecruisers alone, and there were quite a few people in the Admiralty who believed that with the development of the ship's power system, the speed of the battleship would be close to or even reach the standard of the battlecruiser, and the battlecruiser with weak defense of the battleship with empty firepower would become chicken ribs. Although the Southridge-class battlecruisers equipped by the Imperial Navy played a great role in this battle, it was not the only reason to determine the role of the battlecruisers, and even the Admiralty, which was only a ship, was not in favor of continuing to build the Southridge-class battlecruisers.

After this battle, fifteen Bloomington-class heavy armored protection cruisers versus six Southridge-class battlecruisers, the result was that five were sunk and three were captured, and the British would send another heavy patrol formation? This is obviously impossible, and the Southridge class is probably already in the sight of the British.

In the face of the voice of the Imperial Navy, Lin Haijiang actually made Ten very satisfied, because the Imperial Navy Department and the Military Academy are the core components of the Imperial Navy, they can not be confused by the victory in front of them, and even see the essence through the surface, Lin Haijiang is very happy, what he is most afraid of is the lack of generals with strategic vision in the Imperial Navy, the powerful enemy is not terrible, what is terrible is his own people like pigs.

Due to the complete severance of the connection between the British mainland and India, the Chinese Imperial Navy ship formation shelled the port of Mumbai, and laid mines outside the port of Mumbai, the shipping of the whole India came to a complete standstill, and the British, who was fighting between France and Germany, urgently needed all kinds of supplies from India, so under the operation of Queen Victoria with all her might, the Allied fleet of a total of 123 ships of various types sailed out of the Mediterranean, and the momentum came to the east, and the strategy of first Europe and then Asia planned by the British was completely broken.

In fact, although the British have repeatedly analyzed and demonstrated that the Chinese Empire does not have enough troops to invade India, the British army and the British and Indian troops in the whole India are less than 200,000, of which the British army is only more than 30,000 people, and the Chinese Empire has nearly 200,000 marines alone. In particular, the Ceylon Peninsula has become a naval base of the Chinese Empire, and the Chinese Imperial Marines on the peninsula are building a permanent garrison system day and night, and it seems that Ceylon will become a second imperial fortress?

The British Empire could not afford to lose India, but due to the hasty assembly, the Entente only assembled one hundred and twenty-three ships of various types, of which ninety-seven were combat ships, with the British Royal Navy as the main force, the Russian Empire and France each sent ten, Italy, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands and other countries all sent about three to five, and the British Royal Navy's home fleet almost poured into the nest, except for Russia and France sent two capital ships equivalent to the Zhenyuan class battleships, In order to ensure the safety of India and restore the supply of supplies between India and the British mainland, all 17 Dreadnought-class capital ships of the British Royal Navy's home fleet were launched and commissioned to join the expedition.

Both the Entente and the Allies knew very well that the navies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were basically negligible, and that the only threat to the Entente from the sea was the Imperial Chinese Navy, so the Royal Navy of the British Empire dared to go on an expedition.

In the face of the menacing Entente fleet, the Chinese Empire issued two consecutive Imperial Navy mobilizations, which is the biggest threat faced by the Imperial Navy since its establishment, the Chinese Empire has been in a desperate military frenzy of expansion, on the surface it seems to be infinite scenery, but compared to the old empires such as Britain and France, the Chinese Empire cannot afford to lose, this is the Achilles heel of the reckless army, and the rise of the later generations of the road, half a century of accumulation of family wealth in the First World War was wiped out, He was able to form a self-defense force at home for his money.

The Chinese Empire commanded by Zhanyang sent a fleet to arrive at the Imperial Fortress with an unprecedentedly large fleet, and the previous Indian Ocean naval battle Jia Wuji can be said to be out of the limelight, and the battle cruisers were reckless and brutal against the heavy cruisers of the Royal Navy of the British Empire, but the British built a large number of Dreadnought-class third-class and second-class battleships, and the first-class battleships designed by the British themselves are the same as those of the Chinese Empire, and they are also designing interiors that have not yet completed the sketches, but the difference is that the Chinese Empire is training its own designers, And under the premise that the metal smelting technology and shipbuilding technology have not yet been reached, the perfect design can only be on paper, the firmament-class battleships already represent the highest industrial level of this era, and there is not much understanding of the firmament-class battleships on the part of the Entente, and Germany has only built two for the Chinese Empire.

Two firmament-class, four Imperial-class, and eight Zhenyuan-class battleships, twenty Glorious-class heavy armored protection cruisers, and twenty-five Storm-class ocean-going destroyers equipped with two large-caliber torpedoes in the front and four in the rear, this is already all the maritime forces that the Chinese Empire can handle, so that the fleets used to maintain regional waters, such as the Second Pacific Fleet and the Indian Ocean Fleet, are really not suitable to participate in such a large-scale decisive battle.

In the view of Zhanyang, the commander of the Imperial Chinese Navy, the commander of the Imperial Navy, the warships with a standard displacement of less than 7,000 tons and a speed of less than 16 knots are simply a drag in this fateful sea battle, and the Imperial Navy must win with quality and elite, rather than relying on quantity.

According to the prediction of the Imperial General Staff, the Allied fleet would use the port of Bombay as a base, so the Imperial Chinese Navy occupying the Ceylon Peninsula would have a certain degree of strategic superiority in the overall strategic deployment, but no one knows how long this advantage could be maintained.

After Zhanyang arrived on the Ceylon Peninsula, he first inspected the progress of the construction of the fortress system, because the Ceylon Peninsula does not have a super-large natural deep-water port, so most of the main ships of the Chinese Imperial Navy are off the open sea, and the sailors are ashore in batches for repair, according to Zhanyang's calculations, the Allied fleet should arrive in Mumbai in about a month, that is, around the beginning of August 1869, and recently Zhanyang often sends artillery formations to the waters of Mumbai Port to carry out large-scale artillery bombardments, Make it impossible for the Entente to open the port of Mumbai for a short time.

In Zhanyang's plan, it is expected that when the Allied fleet arrives, it will first take the initiative to wait for the rest of the fleet, and first conduct a large-scale head-to-head confrontation, one is to delay the pace of the renovation of the Allied fleet, and the other is to disrupt the rhythm and steps of the other side's strategic deployment, and more importantly, to create an opportunity for the sneak attack of the Kraken-class torpedo boats.

The Imperial Research Administration has developed a heavy oil-powered reinflated steam booster installed on a small ship, which can make the wooden 200-ton torpedo boat reach a maximum speed of about 42 knots, but although the speed of this speedboat is very fast, it cannot be effectively and stably maintained, and the wooden hull is also affected by the plate texture, but the Kraken class is still much improved compared to the previous wave-breaking torpedo boat.

This time, Zhanyang pressed all his treasures on the body of the Kraken-class torpedo boat, if it was not a surprise victory, it would be difficult for the Chinese Empire to take too much advantage in a head-to-head confrontation, after all, the Entente, especially the British Royal Navy, could be said to be pouring into the nest for a snow.

In the evening, standing on the observation tower of the 30-caliber 380 mm fortress gun that was being installed in the Ceylon fortress, Zhanyang had a simple meeting with Li Haibo, Minister of Navy, Jia Wuji, Chief of Staff of the Navy, and others.

(To be continued)