Hu Chuyuan knew that he was not an expert in naval warfare, so he could only be regarded as a little superficial.

Therefore, he decided to believe Ye Zuqi, and immediately said to Ye Zuqi: "Okay, rush!" ”

Ye Zuqi immediately launched a signal cannon from the Mawei Fort and launched a general attack, which surprised the Fujian naval divisions, but they did not hesitate, and the fleet on the southern and northern lines changed their formation at the same time, rushing towards the mouth of the Wulong River and flanking the French fleet.

Deng Shichang, who was hidden in the Wulong River, also waved his troops and led more than 20 torpedo boats to rush out of Xintun Bay, at first following behind the Weikang and Zhenkang ships, but when the distance between the two sides was only seven or eight hundred meters, he suddenly accelerated, and with a speed of 16 knots, he collectively rushed towards the group of three French ironclad ships led by the Saint-Nazaire class.

In the rear, the Northern Fleet, sheltered by twelve torpedo boats, mixed with six patrol boats, rushed in with a stroke of death.

This is almost equivalent to sending people to death, and the patrol boats will not play any role at all, but will only give full play to the advantage of rapidity and share the firepower for the torpedo boats. But at this moment, no one can control so much, and the Fujian naval division cannot be compared with the French expeditionary fleet after all, and the only advantage is a large number of torpedo boats.

The Fujian Navy Division has a total of 42 torpedo boats, the larger ones with a displacement tonnage of no more than 100 tons, and the smaller ones with no more than 30 tons, all of which are powered by diesel engines and are extremely fast in a short period of time, so as to make up for the shortcomings of the torpedo with its short range and slow rate of fire.

After the patrol boats with a displacement tonnage of 300 tons were mixed in, the French machine-gun fire was inevitably somewhat dispersed, and in addition, a large number of gunboats rushed out to cover the fire, and soon more than a dozen torpedo boats rushed into the French fleet and fired a number of torpedoes.

The torpedo boat training of the Fujian Navy Division has always been personally supervised by British Commodore John Fischer, and the combat effectiveness has been maintained very well, and there are a variety of tactical changes on the spot, and three or four small boats are hedged left and right to improve the hit rate.

In fact, this Battle of Mawei was also the first large-scale appearance of torpedo tactics.

In just a few minutes, three French ironclad ships, including a Saint-Nazaire-class, and the torpedo boat of the Fujian Navy Division were also heavily damaged.

After a charge, Deng Shichang and Jiang Chaoying switched the bow of the ship and continued to outflank the two wings, taking advantage of this opportunity, the battery continued to send out a round of artillery according to Ye Zuqi's order to cover the tactical conversion of the torpedo boats.

At this time, the battlefield on both sides became extremely narrow, this was the choice of the French themselves, and it was also a double-edged sword, they could rely on the advantage of the ironclad to squeeze the flexible advantage of the cruiser, relying on the hard ironclad hard support, but also give the torpedo boat a lot of room to play.

The firepower of both sides in the dense space was very fierce, there were more than 100 shells in each round of cavalry firing, and the Fujian naval division lacked large ships, and there were as many as 17 gunboats left, plus land-based batteries, the firepower was still not lost to the French fleet.

The problem was that the ships of the Fujian Navy Division were not resistant to fighting, while the French fleet was much more durable, and the three ironclad ships of the Saint-Nazaire class had a total of about 100 bullets, but only one was torpedoed and ran aground.

In such an intensive confrontation, the Fujian naval division lost two cruisers and one gunboat in a row, while the French lost only the flagship Volda. The captain of the Saint-Nazaire, a French commodore of the Navy, immediately took over the command and ordered the entire ship to retreat and withdraw from this small decisive battle area.

The goddess of luck, or the old mother of Guanyin, suddenly took care of the Fujian sailor.

The Baya first-class ironclad ship actually ran aground at the mouth of Xinzhoukou, which is the alluvial mouth of the Wulong River, and there may be a river sand mill.

This sudden change caused the French army to pause for a moment, and it was at this time that the torpedo boats of the Fujian Navy Division completed the outflanking of the two wings and concentrated on the remaining two ships of the Saint-Nazaire class.

It's just a change in an instant, as if it's just a flick of a finger.

The electric gallop thundered.

With a loud bang, the new flagship Saint-Nazaire was hit by two torpedoes in a row, two large holes appeared on the port side, and the hull began to tilt, almost at the same time, Jiang Chaoying's torpedo boat was sunk by a Lata California-class second-class ironclad, but the other two torpedo boats caught the gap and hit the ironclad.

The French army could not evacuate smoothly, and only 16 torpedo boats of the Fujian Navy Division remained, and after Jiang Chaoying's torpedo boats were blown up and sunk, all the torpedo boats were placed under the command of Deng Shichang.

The losses on both sides were heavy, which was expected by the Fujian sailors, but not by the French.

The southern fleet of the Fujian Navy Division was basically lost, leaving only the Weikang and Zhenkang, and the cruisers such as Guangwu, Yangwu, and Chaowu were all sunk, and the northern fleet relied on a certain ironclad advantage, although four frigates were stranded one after another, but they could still play the role of a fixed-point battery, and the small gunboats sank more.

The situation of the French army was not much better, three San Zenard-class ironclads were sunk and one was stranded, two Baya-class first-class ironclads were heavily damaged by one, two Lagalizania-class second-class ironclads were sunk one, the Truan-class second-class ironclads were heavily damaged, four Peruz-class cruisers were sunk one, two were heavily damaged, and the remaining one also lost its speed advantage, the Limel-class cruiser Volda was heavily damaged, and torpedo boats and gunboats were lost.

The French army sent two troop transports to land in Mawei Harbor under the cover of two gunboats, and the French army, which numbered about 2,000 people, was intercepted and severely damaged by Ye Bojun's naval division.

The French army had clearly wanted to retreat, but by this time, Lu Han's Luoyuan Bay detachment had already arrived at the mouth of the Minjiang River, with three Weijiang-class defense ships and eight new gunboats with a displacement of 425 tons in a vertical formation, followed by eleven torpedo boats and six patrol boats.

These ships are indeed not comparable to the giants of the French, but in terms of deterrence, they are not much worse than the French.

The key point is that the French themselves are too rampant, and the French Minister of the Navy underestimated the fighting will of the Fujian Navy Division, thinking that the Fujian Navy Division, like the Huai Army, had no equipment and no combat power, and actually ordered the French Expeditionary Fleet to enter the Minjiang River Estuary to attack, trying to occupy Fuzhou, destroy the Fuzhou shipyard, and use Fuzhou as a stable port and supply station, which is conducive to the fleet going north to attack Shanghai and Tianjin.

He thought it was China in 1860.

The fact was completely different from what he thought, fighting in such a small area, the power of the torpedo boat unit of the Fujian Navy Division could be unleashed to the extreme, and the most elite force of the Fujian Navy Division was precisely the torpedo boat unit trained by John Fischer.

The Fujian Navy Division was different from the Huai Army, and the people wanted to protect the land to the death, and with Hu Chuyuan's reward and guarantee of four million taels of silver, everyone swore to kill the enemy, which was completely different from the torpedo boat unit of the Beiyang Navy Division later.

When the fleet of the Fujian Navy Division hidden in Luoyuan Bay appeared, the French army's will to fight completely collapsed in an instant.

There were some British, American, and Italian warships docked in Yangyu Bay, and they were all observing the naval battle, and when they saw the arrival of the Luoyuan Bay detachment, they all understood that the French army had been defeated.

If the current two sides still have the strength to fight one last resort, then when the new 20 or so ships enter the battlefield, the French army will have no way to retreat, and the entire Minjiang estuary will be completely blocked.

Hu Chuyuan did not stop there, and the artillery battalion of the naval division and land battalion had already moved from the Niuwanshan camp to the Tashan pier, and it was only one kilometer away from the French army to shoot.

There were not many of them, more than 60 Krupp 120 mm guns, barely able to attack the French army, but it was enough for the French army to collapse completely.

In August 1870, the French declared that their new rifle would determine the course of the Franco-Prussian War and that it would completely destroy Prussia, only to have their own collapse.

After Napoleon, the French staged this kind of tragedy in comedy more than once.

The battle lasted for an hour and seven minutes, and at 10:34 a.m., the first shots were fired from the Mawei Battery, and by 11:41 a.m., the last ship of the Saint-Nazaire class, the Elpote, hoisted the white flag of surrender, and the battle officially stopped.

The Fujian Navy Division lost 27 large and small battleships, 11 were stranded or seriously damaged, sank 3 main French warships and seriously damaged 7, sank 14 French gunboats and torpedo boats, and the rest of the French ships were captured.

Considering that the Fujian Navy Division still had a small remaining combat strength, and that the entire French army was captured or sunk, the victory achieved by the Fujian Navy Division was still very brilliant.

Victory means joy, and joy is mixed with blood and tears.

The officers and men of the Fujian Navy Division had already begun to salvage the ships and the bodies of the dead in battle, and rescue the soldiers who had fallen into the water, and Lu Han's Luoyuan Bay fleet was still very intact, responsible for receiving French warships and escorting French prisoners.

Hu Chuyuan stood in the Mawei Fort, holding a steel knife that might not be meaningless, and stared at all this coldly, feeling both excitement and pain in his heart.

What war has brought to mankind is something that only those who have experienced it can understand.

Jiang Chaoying, who had sworn in front of him an hour ago, and hundreds of officers and men of the Navy and the dead of torpedo boats just disappeared, leaving only the corpses floating on the river.

Hu Chuyuan looked up at the sky, watching those billowing black smoke disperse in the sky above, he thought, perhaps, countless heroic spirits were laughing, wailing, and echoing in the sky.

The Battle of Mawei ended, and the turning point of the Sino-French war finally arrived.

He thought that after five years of preparation, he had finally reaped a change that deserved to be remembered forever.

Due to the complicated Sino-Chinese relations at this stage, the Chinese side did not dare to send ships to watch the war, but the news will eventually reach Tokyo, and they will understand what this war means.

Perhaps, some people will say that the victory of the Fujian Navy Division is not martial, that is, relying on those rigid batteries and a group of torpedo boats who are not afraid of death, the level of the fleet itself is still the third rate in the world.

But it doesn't matter.

As long as you win, it's fine.

There is at least one war in the history of the Chinese navy that can be handled.

The Battle of Mawei was won at a cost of nearly 20 million taels of silver...... It makes sense after all.

(To be continued)