The winter night in the Port of Arthur was quiet and peaceful, except for a few sentry posts on the forts and on the docks, all the officers and men had already fallen asleep in the barracks. A row of torches tied to the road on the pier illuminates the dark stone trestle, which was specially designed to prevent anyone from sabotaging the warship.

Two men dressed in the uniforms of the Lanfang Imperial Navy were walking along the road, chatting quietly while checking the sentry.

"Brother Junguo, when did you say that we will be able to use ironclad ships, the small Wa Kingdom on the other side of the sea is already equipped with more than a dozen ironclad ships, but the ironclad ships of our huge Lanfang Empire are so rare." An officer named Zhang Xiaobing asked.

The officer named Liu Junguo who was asked said: "This question is not easy to say, I think Marshal Xiahou means that he wants to let the five ironclad ships under construction also be equipped with the First Fleet." I think that by that time, those two old ironclad ships will also be divided into our two fleets as flagships. ”

Zhang Xiaobing sighed and said: "The First Fleet is the marshal's descendant, and we are all raised by our stepmothers, and we can't get any benefits." ”

Liu Junguo also sighed: "Yes, I heard my brother say that the Chinese lord Fang is equipped with several ironclad ships, which is much more generous than us." ”

Zhang Xiaobing said with some jealousy: "They are just local lords, what do they want such advanced warships for, such good warships should be used by our regular navy." ”

Liu Junguo said: "Don't think about it, this Fang lord of the Chinese Lord, who doesn't know the way in the whole empire, making money is faster than India's, he naturally has the money to build ironclad ships, if you are greedy, it's good to pass." ”

Zhang Xiaobing rolled his eyes and said, "You didn't say this, do you want me to leave the regular navy and go to the small fleet in that place?" ”

Just when the two of them were talking in a low voice, a whistling sound came, and dozens of streamers with tail flames pierced the sky, and then several shining sparks burst out in the group of warships densely docked in the harbor, one of which probably ignited the ammunition depot of the warship, and the huge explosion was accompanied by a fiery red mushroom cloud rising into the sky, reflecting half of the port.

Fang Xiaobing and Liu Junguo were knocked to the ground by the shock wave of the explosion. Zhang Xiaobing shouted eagerly: "What happened? ”

Liu Junguo calmly looked at the burning warship in the harbor and said loudly: "It's an enemy attack, an enemy attack from the sea." ”

When Zhang Xiaobing saw that his warship was hit and sunk, he was so anxious that he shouted: "Let's go to the ship quickly, drive the ship out of the harbor and counterattack." ”

Liu Junguo shook his head and said: "It's too late, it's not easy to spread out such a dense formation, not to mention that we are all sailboats, and now it's just the two of us, and we don't even have enough people to raise the sails, how can we drive the boat." ”

Zhang Xiaobing grabbed his hat in frustration: "Then what do you say?" ”

Liu Junguo calmed down and thought for a moment and said: "Let's go to the fort, now it's unrealistic for the warship to go out, the only thing we can do is to go to the fort, use the artillery there to fight back, and strive to repel the enemy in order to keep the warship." ”

Zhang Xiaobing pulled Liu Junguo's sleeve and said, "Then what are you waiting for?" Let's go. ”

Dodging the flying sparks and shrapnel, the two stumbled towards the Tiger Tail battery on the peninsula, and the other party's attack was mainly aimed at the warships in the harbor, and there was not much concern for the land.

Halfway down the road, the two noticed that three black shadows were jumping forward in the mountains and rocks, and it seemed that their target was also the fort. Zhang Xiaobing said: "Do you think it will be a spy who destroyed the fort?" Liu Junguo said: "I'm not sure, or let's touch it and take a look." ”

The two men moved forward alternately in tacit understanding, and the familiar movements did not feel unfamiliar at all, as if they were army officers rather than navy officers.

Zhang Xiaobing and the two were very fast, and after a while, they caught up with the three people, Zhang Xiaobing pounced forward, knocking down the person who walked in the back. Liu Junguo took out a pistol and said to the two people in front of him: "Don't move." ”

The two people in front of them paused and slowly raised their hands. At this time, the black shadow who was pressed under Zhang Xiaobing said: "It's Lao Zhang, I'm Qu Jintao." ”

"Ah, it's an old song?" Zhang Xiaobing quickly subdued the man and said, "I'm really sorry, I thought you were a spy who came to destroy the fort." The two men also put down their hands and turned their heads and said, "You two are really capable of making trouble, and you have made trouble on our heads." ”

Liu Junguo put away the pistol, and carefully identified it by the light of the fire, only to find that it was Jiang Pingxian and Guo Yu, who were also captains. Liu Junguo smiled: "I'm really sorry, I hit my own family." ”

Qu Jintao shook his arm that was twisted by Zhang Xiaobing and said, "You kid is really hard, my arm is about to dislocate." Zhang Junguo said: "You are also planning to go to the fort to help." ”

Guo Yu said: "Yes, let's go quickly, and see where the forces dare to make a move against our Imperial Navy." Only then did they remember that someone else was attacking the fleet, and they immediately supported each other and rushed towards the battery.

Ito, the commander of the combined fleet of the Japanese state, had arrived here with the first echelon two hours earlier, and seeing that there were no guards outside Port Arthur, he felt that he would not expose himself for a while, so he decided to wait for the fleet.

More than an hour later, several warships of the second echelon also arrived, and only then did Ito order all the warships to arrive close to the military port and shoot. The first assault began on three new ironclads, each armed with one 320 mm gun, along with the main guns of several cruisers that had ventured to close fire, targeting the warship groups in the harbor.

Due to the large number of warships in the Imperial Fleet, they were very densely arranged, and these shells had a very high hit rate even if they were only fired in an approximate direction, and then various guns with short range began to attack the Tiger Tail Fort and the Golden Mountain Battery. By the time Zhang Xiaobing and the other five people came to the fort, most of the artillery on the fort had been blown up.

There were not many sentries on the battery, they just used the three guns with the largest caliber to return fire, but unfortunately the battery artillery here is only a breech gun like the one on the sailing warship, the firing range is short and the power is small, and because it is an open-air battery, the protection ability is weak, these three guns were quickly wiped out by the Japanese navy, and the officers and soldiers who fired the guns were also lost.

Qu Jintao beckoned: "Come on, the caliber of the two cannons here is relatively large." The four of them followed Qu Jintao and quickly entered a gun position. Zhang Xiaobing, who used to be a gunner, quickly stuffed the gunpowder bag into the barrel of the cannon and tamped it, and put a large iron ball into it.

Liu Junguo sprinkled the ignition powder on the ignition hole, took out the fire sickle and flint, and began to ignite, and with a bang, a cannonball was fired out of the barrel, stirring up a huge column of water on the port side of the 'Yaeyama'.

"If you don't hit, come again." Liu Junguo immediately began to adjust the artillery. With a 'boom', the artillery of Qu Jintao and the three people was also fired, and the shells also smashed into the sea.

"Quick, quick, reload the shell." Qu Jintao shouted, Guo Yu immediately dipped a pig hair brush in tung oil to clean the gun chamber, and then Jiang Ping first put the gunpowder bag into the cannon chamber. Several naval officers skillfully operated their guns and attacked several Japanese warships within range.

Under the operation of several naval captains, the shore artillery quickly achieved results, and a shell hit the 'Musashi' ironclad, but the shell only made a dent in the ironclad and was ejected.

"It's unfortunate that the iron sheet is so hard." Qu Jintao, who hit it, hammered his thigh hard. At this time, the remaining thirty-two wooden warships of the Japanese Kingdom also arrived, and they turned to the hull of the ship and fiercely attacked the battery with the guns on the side of the ship, and several columns of smoke soon exploded next to the battery where the five officers were.

Liu Junguo wiped his black face that had been smoked with gunpowder and said, "Brothers, those boys have noticed us, let's change places." A few people agreed to change positions, and as soon as they left, a few shells landed accurately in the gun position, blasting two cannons into the sky.

In this way, they switched gun positions and tried to shoot at the enemy ships. Finally a cannonball hit the unprotected cruiser Yaeyama, and how could this warship, which had only a thin iron sheet, be able to hold off the heavy iron ball shells, its hull was pierced directly, and the shells fell down and pierced through the wooden underneath the ship, and the sea water quickly poured into the ship, and the Yaeyama had to withdraw from the battle to make up for the leak.

"Hit." Qu Jintao cheered, and Liu Junguo on the side said: "Don't fight ironclad ships, it's hard to fight with rough skin and thick flesh, it's better to fight wooden warships." ”

Qu Jintao said: "It's still fun to fight ironclads, it's too boring to beat those woods." Despite this, he also understood that Liu Junguo was right, so he turned his gun and bombarded the wooden warships of the Wa Kingdom.

"Captain, something happened." Sun Xiaohu, who was sleeping, was called out by the guards. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he asked, "What's wrong?" ”

The guard said: "The command has just sent a message that all our warships will light fires, and the captains will go to the flagship to assemble." ”

Sun Xiaohu immediately sobered up when he heard the order, he got up as soon as he could, hurriedly put on his military uniform, and ordered the engineer to make a fire and store steam, while putting down a small boat and sailing towards the flagship.

At present, there are only five cruisers named after the five prefectures of Tongshan County, namely 'Hailin', 'Tongjiang', 'Gannan', 'Baoshan' and 'Bei'an', and since there is no naval officer with sufficient prestige, Fang Xiaoyu has to let Zhang Sixian, who has changed his name to Zhang Haiyang, temporarily take over the post of fleet commander, but once there is any action, the five captains will decide together.

When Sun Xiaohu arrived at the command tower of the flagship 'Tongjiang', he found that the other four captains had already arrived. The captains of these five cruisers were all orphans adopted by Fang Xiaoyu, and after two years of study at the Imperial Naval Academy, they were directly appointed captains.