In contemporary naval warfare, when the enemy's traces are discovered, the first order of the fleet commander is often not to say anything about first-class combat readiness or the like, and his first order is often to let the crew eat in advance.

Because limited by the speed and engagement distance of contemporary warships, even if it is faster, it will take at least one or two hours from discovering each other to approaching and entering the actual engagement.

Therefore, before the official outbreak of modern naval warfare, fleet commanders often let the crew start eating, and when the sailors have eaten enough, then if they are lucky, the battle will almost begin.

Of course, if you're not lucky, you'll have to wait a few more hours.

The time of naval warfare in this era is quite long, and it is rarely said that you can open fire and engage immediately after discovering the enemy, this kind of thing generally only exists in film and television dramas, and it will appear that you just find the enemy fleet and then immediately open fire.

When the crews of the main fleet let the soldiers eat in batches, while increasing their horsepower and turning to the right!

Fifteen nautical miles away in front of the right side of the main fleet, the Imperial Navy's fast reconnaissance ship Qi Song was quite nervous, because in the lookout's telescope, a large fleet gradually appeared on the sea level!

At first, there were only a few columns of smoke, then there were more and more white columns of smoke, and finally the sky in the distance was obscured.

Under the pillar of smoke, a number of huge warships can be seen faintly sailing through the wind and waves!

In front of the fleet, too, were two small fast cruisers, and these fast cruisers were not the focus of the lookouts of the Zesson. He always kept his eyes on the main ships further behind.

In the main battleship behind, led by a huge battleship. It was followed by an equally large battleship, which could be known at a glance to be ironclad. The metal on the hull of the ship shines in the sunlight and gives off the characteristic glow of steel.

"These two giant ships should be the Hector and the Resistance, which are a whole circle larger than the Yandi!" Major Xu Mozhi, the captain of the Qi Song, looked at the huge fleet in the distance with the monoculars in his hand!

The first two giant ships in that huge fleet shocked Xu Mozhi!

Although they had already received relevant information before, they knew that the British East India fleet had at least two large ironclad ships, and they were also huge ships of more than 6,000 tons, and they even knew the name of the ship.

But I heard that Xu Mozhi had never really seen such a giant ship!

Xu Mozhi did not go to England to study, and the British would not have nothing to do to send this kind of main ironclad ship to the coast of China. Therefore, including Xu Mozhi, no one has ever seen this kind of giant ship of six or seven thousand tons or even tens of thousands of tons.

In Xu Mozhi's cognition, a giant ship like the Yandi is already a behemoth, and the Qi Song under his command is in front of the Yandi, just like a person in front of a mountain, when he sails past the Yandi, he can only look up at the Yandi, and he can't even see the buildings above the deck of the Yandi.

The Flame Emperor, a giant ship that brings together the most elite industrial technology of the Imperial industry. When it was just in service, it became the flagship of the Imperial Navy and became the pillar of the new generation of the Navy.

However, the two battleships he saw today were even bigger than the Yandi, if you put the Yandi and the two battleships in front of him together. Although the gap is not as big as the gap between Qi Song and Yandi, I am afraid that it will also form a visual gap between the Pangu-class ironclad ship and the Yandi!

In the face of such a huge warship, will the two Yandi-class battleships of the Imperial Navy be able to win in battle? In the face of such a large fleet. Will the combined fleet of the Imperial Navy be able to win?

Xu Mozhi, who has always been full of confidence in the Imperial Navy and believes that the Imperial Navy is invincible, can't help but have doubts at this moment.

And Xu Mozhi has also heard of it. The British also had huge ships with a larger tonnage, even tens of thousands of tons. The 6,000-ton Hector and the Resistance are so huge, so how majestic are those 10,000-ton ships?

Xu Mozhi couldn't imagine it, or he didn't want to think about it!

If he thought about it, he was afraid that he would despair!

The British now have six huge ships of 9,000 tons to 10,000 tons, and there are thirteen large ironclads between 5,000 and 9,000 tons!

If you take out any of these nineteen warships, they will be bigger than the largest Yandi-class battleship in the empire's active service!

While the Zeisson was observing the British fleet, Rear Admiral Liszt was also reported by the forward reconnaissance ship that they had discovered a suspicious ship.

Rear Admiral Liszt took the binoculars from the adjutant beside him, and then adjusted the focus to look at the Zizon, which was a very obvious steam fast cruiser, with a slender hull, many soft sails had all been opened, and a towering chimney could be seen in the sails, which was emitting faint white smoke at the moment.

Just by visual inspection, Rear Admiral Liszt judged that the speed of this fast cruiser at this moment was at least fourteen knots.

In modern times, such a fast speed is basically a warship, and it is a fast warship!

The appearance of such a fast cruiser in the waters of the Pearl River Estuary not only means that the Chinese have discovered their fleet, but also means that the main fleet of the Chinese is not far away!

Because this kind of fast cruiser generally acts as a fleet outpost reconnaissance ship, providing peripheral reconnaissance intelligence for the fleet, it is rare to act alone.

Not only the Chinese, but also the British, in front of the main fleet, there are also a number of fast cruisers on the periphery, just when the Zisson discovered the British fleet, the British battleships also discovered them, at this time, the two British sail fast cruisers were turning at high speed and heading towards the Zizon.

"The Chinese's fleet is nearby, let the fleet be ready!" Rear Admiral Liszt lowered his binoculars, then turned around and went back to his captain's quarters.

The big war is near, though. But Rear Admiral Liszt was not the slightest nervous, as an admiral of the British Empire. Although Liszt's naval battles in his life are not countless, he has also fought a lot. A few years ago, in the Second Opium War, he also participated in the battle as the commander of a sub-fleet in the fleet.

In his opinion, although the naval strength of the Chinese has increased, in front of the Royal Navy, the Chinese navy is just a castle in the air, and he believes that as long as the battle starts, then the Chinese navy can be completely destroyed!

Rear Admiral Liszt was confident and relaxed, but the Imperial Chinese Navy was much more nervous. On the Yandi of the main fleet, including Shen Tongdeng and Lin Tongshu, the naval officers were not in the mood to enjoy the food, and after hurriedly filling in their stomachs, they went to the deck together, although at this time they could not see the British fleet in the distance.

At this moment, Xu Mozhi was the most nervous person on the Qi Song, when he saw the two British fast cruisers turn in his direction.

He hesitated. Should we move on and detect all the ships of the enemy fleet, or should we turn to keep tracking!

But when he saw those naval guns on the fast cruisers of the British, he just dispelled the idea of going deeper!

Your own family knows your own affairs. Although the Qisong is said to be a warship, it is actually a warship with quite poor firepower and protection capabilities.

The Chisson was the first generation of the Navy's and the only fast wooden cruiser. The first ship was designed and started in 1860, and five ships were built over the years.

The standard displacement is five hundred and thirty tons. The hull design is designed with a very large aspect ratio due to the extreme emphasis on speed. The entire hull is very slender, the protection is only traditional wooden armor, and the thickness of the wooden armor is quite average, and the firepower is only two 120 mm rear-loading guns as the main gun, and a number of small-caliber secondary guns.

Relative to the ordinary protection and firepower, its speed and navigation performance is quite good, although its total tonnage is small, but the power of the steam engine is relatively large, pure steam power, can run on the speed of 14 knots, sail steam hybrid, depending on the specific situation, if it is a smooth wind or even extreme situation, it is possible to run on 18 knots, if the headwind or the like, the speed will be relatively slow.

In addition, despite the small tonnage, it carries a lot of coal, and the endurance of steam power is enough to rival that of Pangu-class ironclads.

However, although the hull is a specially set up ocean-going vessel, but because the hull is small, the comfort of the ocean is naturally not very good, this kind of bad does not mean that the ship will capsize in the wind and waves, but refers to the hull will be very bumpy in the wind and waves, and it is common for the crew to shake and stand unstable during the voyage.

Because the protection and firepower of the Qi Song are quite weak, they generally do not participate in the battle of naval guns, and their only mission is to go out for reconnaissance, and sometimes they will also act as fast communication ships.

In fact, the tactical position of a battleship like the Qi Song can't last too long, and today's large ironclad ships are generally very fast, with more than thirteen knots, fourteen knots, and fifteen knots are all standard, so the fast cruisers of about fifteen knots of the old generation of standards are basically no longer capable of the tasks of fast cruisers.

Because the capital ships are no longer running much slower than them.

After deciding not to go any further, Xu Mozhi quickly ordered to start turning, and after the turn, the wind direction changed, and Qi Song quickly lowered the sails, and then relied on pure steam power to maintain a high speed of up to thirteen knots.

However, it did not turn around and leave, but kept a certain distance and continued to sail south, so that although the distance was farther, it could also find out the situation behind the British fleet, lest when the main fleet had a decisive battle, and a new force would emerge from behind the British.

Qi Song sailed south at high speed, and the two British fast cruisers also separated one to chase after him, but everyone's speed was the same, and there was still a long distance, if Xu Mozhi decided to avoid fighting, it would be impossible for the British to catch up with him if he kept chasing.

After the Qi Song broke away, the main fleets of the two sides did not avoid each other because they found each other's traces, but continued to move forward at high speed like two arrows that had left the string, so that if they went on, they would collide with each other most violently from arrow to arrow.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Lin Tongshu suggested that Shen Tongdeng start to adjust the formation, and more than ten minutes later, in the imperial combined fleet, the three wooden cruisers formed a separate formation and began to turn to the left.

In the main fleet, two Yandi-class ironclad ships and four Pangu-class ironclad ships formed a one-line column, and the two Nunail-class ironclad ships on the left and three Zhenguang-class ironclad ships formed the second column.

At 1:30 p.m., Shen Tongdeng could clearly see the British fleet in the distant skyline from the telescope, where the sky and the sea were connected, the white smoke emitted by the British fleet seemed to cover the entire sky, and the two Daxin ironclad ships led by him were even more like huge waves.

Just when Shen Tongdeng was amazed by the British fleet, Rear Admiral Liszt and other British people were also amazed at the scale of the Chinese navy.

Liszt counted slightly, and was secretly shocked in his heart, there are as many as eleven ironclad ships of this Chinese?

Aside from the three Zhenguang-class ironclad ships of several hundred tons, the remaining eight are all medium and large ironclad ships, the female snail class with the lowest tonnage is also 1,800 tons, the four Pangu class are 2,400 tons, and the two Yandi class are 4,000 tons.

Although this tonnage is not as good as the two large ironclad ships of the British, but the small and medium-sized ironclad ships of the British are not many, and Liszt has only three ironclad ships in his hand, one of which is still a modified half-hanging cargo, and the rest are wooden warships.

It seems that in today's battle, the hope of victory is on the Hector and the Resistance, and although those wooden battleships can play a certain role, they will certainly not be too big.

Today's battle is a battle between steel giants!

As the Imperial Navy took the lead in changing its formation, the East India Fleet also began to change its formation, with three ironclad ships as the core, followed by a large tonnage of wooden warships, obviously relying on three ironclad ships as the vanguard to tear apart the formation of the combined fleet.

But will Lin Tongshu let the British's idea succeed?

At 1:38 p.m., Lin Tongshu suggested that Shen Tongdeng change the formation again.

And as soon as the formation of the Imperial Navy was transformed, the forward warships of the two sides had already come into contact with each other!

At 2:04 p.m., the Yandi and the Hector fired at the same time at a distance of one thousand meters, followed by the Shaohao of the Imperial Navy and the British Resistance also fired one after another!

The rumbling cannon sound spread throughout the entire Pearl River Estuary, and this rumbling cannon also announced the official outbreak of the duel between the steel giants! (To be continued.) )