The monsoon wind blows to the southwest, which is exactly the direction of the wind on the sea surface of the Gulf of Siam, and the Pacific Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire is coming with the wind and galloping through the waves.

The flagship Dingyuan took the lead, and the ten Tianqiong-class first-class battleships were divided into two wings on the left and right, forming a goose wing array cone. Twenty Sea-Lion-class third-class battleships formed the second echelon, with the Haizi in front and the Fengzi in the back, followed by the Tianzi. The 30 Beiyun-class fourth-class battleships are the third echelon, with the "Lu" number, the "Fu" number, and the "Chen" number, and the communication ships of each detachment are located on the broadside, and the tunnel fleet moves to echo each other from a distance to ensure the orderly command of the whole fleet.

The Pacific Fleet attacked a huge arrow, downwind from the northeast of the Gulf of Siam, to the southwest of the Dutch East India Fleet.

The sea breeze is howling, and the flag is waving. The officers and men of the whole fleet were in a first-class combat state, and they only waited for the commander to give an order and then went into battle.

The Dingyuan rushed to the front, the dragon flags of the Chinese Empire fluttered in the wind at the top of the main mast, and the various flagship command flags were symmetrically distributed on the diagonal sail locks on the front and rear decks of the Dingyuan.

"Three nautical miles away"

"Two nautical miles away"

The calibrator staff officer on the tower constantly reported the distance between the enemy and our fleet, and it was passed into Shi Jianfei's ears word for word.

Although the Dutch East India Fleet did not have as many large capital ships as the Pacific Fleet, they were far superior to the Pacific Fleet in terms of the overall number of warships.

Since the number of warships in the Dutch East India Fleet exceeded 400 at the moment, and the battle line style that the Chinese Imperial Navy was good at was not suitable for the other side, Shi Jianfei decided to concentrate all his strength to attack the central army of the Dutch East India Fleet, and adopt the tactics of flowering in the middle and destroying the formation of the enemy fleet.

The Dutch East India Fleet had a large number of warships and occupied an overall advantage in firepower output. However, the large number of guides and the inconvenience of communication between the various ships and the inflexibility of the coordination and action of the various detachments were the biggest weakness of the East India Fleet at this moment.

Shi Jianfei's target was directly aimed at the main fleet of the Chinese army where the flagship of the Dutch East India Fleet, the Tara Zesci, was located, and Turner had been keeping a close eye on the movements of the Pacific Fleet, and after judging Shi Jianfei's intentions, he immediately mobilized the two wing sub-fleets to move closer to the center and intercept the Pacific Fleet.

At this moment, Turner had seventy-eight capital ships in his hands, two more third-class battleships by the Pacific Fleet, and twenty-three more fourth-class battleships, but there was not a single first-class battleship.

Blocking and dismantling is a tactic often used in the sea, that is, using small warships as cannon fodder to attract the firepower of the opponent's large warships, and then taking the opportunity to maneuver to the upwind direction of the opponent's battleship or the "T" prefix horizontal, and concentrate firepower to hit the bow and stern of the opponent's battleship. As long as the maneuver is successful, the bow of the attacking ship can cause the speed of the opponent's battleship to be reduced sharply, and the stern of the attacking ship can cause damage to the steering gear of the opponent's battleship, and lose the ability to maneuver.

It was this tactic that Turner used to order cruiser and frigate detachments on both flanks to swarm into the Pacific Fleet's formation, disrupt its attack formation, or cut off the reinforcement fire of its follow-up ships.

However, due to the sudden attack of the airships of the Imperial Chinese Air Force, which caused a certain amount of confusion in the Dutch East India Fleet, it had an impact on Turner's command.

When the Pacific Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy rushed head-on, Turner's order reached only a third of the warships, which were basically warships near the flagship, and the detachments responsible for attacking the two wings of the Pacific Fleet were not yet in place.

As the Pacific Fleet rapidly approached, the outermost Dutch warships were forced to engage the enemy before they could receive Turner's orders.

More than a dozen Dutch frigates on patrol were the first to encounter the leading battleships of the Pacific Fleet, and in front of the huge battleship formation, the small frigates looked unusually weak. But the Dutch commander above had to bite the bullet and prepare for battle.

The two sides drove opposite each other, and soon more than a dozen Dutch frigates rushed into the gap in the formation of the Pacific Fleet, and while the formations of the two sides were staggered, each other's naval guns opened fire.

The Dutch frigate was the first to open fire at a parallel distance of nearly 600 meters, and the dull sound of Westminster cannons rang out, and columns of water suddenly rose on the surface of the sea. Since the Dutch did not dare to get too close to the first-class battleships of the Chinese Empire, they caused long-range artillery bombardment, and the shells could not penetrate the hulls of the opposing battleships.

"Open the gun"

As the order was issued, the battleship Dingyuan took the lead in counterattacking, firing a salvo of starboard fire, and fifty Shenwu cannons opened fire with a bang. The propellant of the Shenwu cannon has been transformed from the original black powder to a powerful TNT high-explosive charge, with a range of several times and an effective penetration distance of more than 5,000 meters. However, in order to improve the hit rate and save resources, the naval law stipulates that firepower should be fired within 2 kilometers, and firepower salvos are allowed within 1 kilometer.

At this moment, the Dutch frigates were only 600 meters away from each other when they interspersed, and the cannonballs that shot straight out instantly pierced through the first Dutch warship that rushed in. The fragile hull of the frigate was hit by more than 30 shells in an instant, the port side hull was instantly smashed into a sieve, a large area of the hull was shattered, and the gundeck on the side of the ship was on fire.

At the end of the first round of firing of the Dingyuan, it no longer cared about the enemy ships on the starboard side, and handed them over to the second echelon that met them behind.

As the battleship rolled sideways, the waves alternated between peaks and valleys, the three-tier gun deck on the port side of the Dingyuan burst into fire, and the shells whistled and fired at a Dutch frigate on the left.

Dozens of shells whistled in, equally damaging the Dutch battleship.

At the same time, the other ten Tianqiong-class battleships in the first echelon did the same firing maneuvers as the Dingyuan, attacking the Dutch battleships that rushed up nearby.

Suddenly, the cannon roared, the smoke of gunpowder filled the air, and the surface of the battlering sea boiled in an instant.

After more than a dozen Dutch frigates rushed into the Pacific Fleet's formation, they were all crippled and sunk after only holding out to the vicinity of the second echelon of the Fengzi battleship group.

Smoke billowed into the sky, and the other Dutch navies outside couldn't see the situation inside at all, but as the figures of the third-echelon battleships of the Pacific Fleet emerged from the smoke, the results were already clear.

Turner had been keeping an eye on the first dozen or so warships to rush in, although he knew that it would not be possible to shake the formation of the Pacific Fleet, and the frigates would be sent to death if they entered, he just wanted to see how the Pacific Fleet's firepower was.

"What a lot of firepower," Rayoz sighed at this time, "if we were a large warship, we would never be able to sink the frigate in such a short time."

Turner nodded, the firepower of the capital ships of the Pacific Fleet was certainly strong, but it could not intimidate him.

After this moment of buffering, he had already lined up the main fleet. More than 70 capital ships met the enemy head-on, while the remaining 60 cruisers and more than 200 frigates attacked from both flanks, ready for a melee. V