Joan of Arc's weak deterrent power is not a joke. The four cutting-edge mosquito boats dared to approach the 800-meter cannon. The first shell fired from the South Sea landed on the aft deck of the Joan of Arc, detonating a pile of machine gun shells that had been placed there, and the explosion shook the entire battleship, scattering the fragments of the explosion with red flames, and the spectacle of the scene was by no means comparable to the festive flowers.

Two lieutenant officers and five sailors of the French Navy were martyred in the 'Flowers' and nine others were wounded. The explosion also caused a fire on the aft deck and cut off a section of the chimney. The entire aft deck was in disarray, causing no small problems for the French.

In general, Joan of Arc did not show the symmetrical combat power of its tonnage. Although the skin is rough and the meat is thick, in this decisive battle, it has just begun to fall into disadvantage!

Lu Hongjie is a graduate of the second phase of the Shipmaster and Sailor, and is a contemporaneous student with Sa Zhenbing and Lin Qiying. But Lu Hongjie is obviously very unsatisfactory, and his grades are the first from the bottom among the thirteen graduates in the second phase is a big reason, but there is no one in the family and no money, which is the more important reason.

After the shipmaster and sailor surrendered to the Qin army, Lu Hongjie was transferred to the Swordfish brigade.

The torpedo boat, with a tonnage of one or two hundred tons, uses torpedoes as a weapon, and the danger is clear. Lu Hongjie was transferred to the Swordfish Brigade, and then looking at the scenery of other classmates, it is impossible to say that he is willing psychologically.

Torpedo boats are something that cannot be operated by non-daring people (. And Lu Hongjie, who has a strong self-motivation or ambition, is really suitable for playing this torpedo boat in his current mentality.

"Boom ......"

Two shells planted two beautiful fireworks on the hull of the Joan of Arc. The latter's foremast was broken, the signal cable was broken, and black smoke was thick on the deck. It seems that a fire is also burning.

But Joan of Arc's front main turret was still firing back unfazed. After seeing the three 193mm guns firing in turn, Lu Hongjie personally steered the steer. Red pennants were hung on the masts, and torpedo boats were increased to maximum horsepower. Like an arrow, it rushed out from behind the Yangwei, bypassed a small arc, and broke through the first line composed of Yangwei, Zhenwei and four mosquito ships without slowing down, and went straight to the Joan of Arc thousands of kilometers away.

Behind him, three torpedo boats, equally powered at full power, rushed towards the Joan of Arc from three unused directions.

"What's that?" The lieutenant commander looked at the four small boats in astonishment.

The speed of 18 knots is an incredible miracle for a warship today. Converted into kilometers, the speed of the torpedo boat will exceed 30 kilometers per hour. That's faster than a torpedo!

A distance of one kilometer. For four torpedo boats, it's just 2 minutes.

Instinctively, Lieutenant Colonel Sù was not allowed to let the four dingries get close to the warship. "Fire! Knock them out—" the lieutenant colonel commanded into the secondary gun.

Four 140mm guns and four 1-pounder guns were aimed at the four boats that flew in. Soon a barrage of shells exploded around the boat.

However, this is destined to be an unfair artillery battle.

Four torpedo boats are not arrows that shoot out, they do not turn. They're human-driven, and the "S" curve couldn't be easier to dodge.

Moreover, not to mention the four 140mm heavy guns, even the four corresponding machine guns, a pound of shells may not be able to penetrate the inch-thick steel hull of the torpedo boat.

When this thing was originally designed, it was a machine gun in mind. Otherwise. No defense at all for the torpedo boat, which should be able to exceed 20 knots!

However, the damage to personnel caused by machine guns is enormous.

The four machine guns were constantly puffing out shells, and almost every few seconds one exploded on the torpedo boat or the surrounding sea, stirring up waves like a storm.

Lu Hongjie has cotton stuffed in his ears. But the screeching of French shells and the loud explosions in front and behind the torpedo boats still strongly irritated his eardrums.

A machine gun on the torpedo boat was also constantly firing back. The thick smell of gunpowder had already surrounded the entire torpedo boat. Lu Hongjie only has Joan of Arc in his eyes!

From the appearance of the torpedo boat to the launch of the torpedo, it was just two minutes. Lu Hongjie approached directly within 500 meters. The four torpedo boats, although they were hit by a number of craters and holes from the machine guns, were not hit by the 140mm heavy guns.

Three torpedo boats released torpedoes at a distance of three hundred and fifty meters from the Joan of Arc. Lu Hongjie frantically approached within 300 meters, and the torpedo boat was in a mess by machine guns. However, the torpedoes released by other ships were definitely much more threatening than the torpedoes released by the other three torpedo boats.

With the idea of releasing the second torpedo in his mind at all, Lu Hongjie completely strangled the rudder to the left and turned it around. The torpedo boat made a large curve of nearly 90 degrees on the surface of the sea and jumped away in the rain of bullets.

"God, it turned out to be a torpedo?"

The lieutenant colonel couldn't believe his eyes. The four dingries approached Joan of Arc quickly, unleashing torpedoes. As far as the lieutenant colonel knows, it seems that only the British in the world specially designed a warship specifically for the release of torpedoes, which was named "Torpedo Boat No. 1". The boat has a speed of 19 knots on the sea, and its torpedoes can travel more than 500 meters at a speed of 18 knots.

But this thing has only just been noticed in Europe, and only the wealthy British have specially designed such a thing as torpedo boats. It's a very simple thing, though. But why did this backward and stupid Asia appear so much at once?

The lieutenant colonel's brain is going to die. But fortunately, he knew that this was not the time for him to think about problems and be stunned, and he had to command the warship to avoid the four torpedoes. Joan of Arc is in trouble!

"Boom ......"

Two thunderous roars attracted the attention of the entire battlefield. On the Triumph podium, Kinimmond held up his binoculars and looked at the Joan of Arc. The first thing I saw was not the Joan of Arc that was blocked by the Zhenwei, but a small boat that exploded directly not far from the Zhenwei.

Kiningmond knows this. A total of six were following another group of Chinese warships. But the tonnage was too small, and he did not think that it would pose any threat to the two ironclads.

Now it seems that this dinghy was directly hit by a heavy bomb and completely exploded!

A smile appeared on Kiningmond's face. But before it could bloom, it was all frozen on the iron-blue face of the color brush—the Zhenwei and the Joan of Arc were staggered at this moment. Kinimmond just saw smoke billowing from the side side, and at first glance it was the battered Joan of Arc!

What's going on? Joan of Arc was hit by a cannonball right under the waterline in the middle of the side side? Is it that coincidental?

But the Joan of Arc slowed down sharply. The raging fire, the billowing smoke, will not lie! It really hit hard.

"Turn the rudder, turn the rudder. Approach the Joan of Arc, approach the Joan of Arc! ”

Kiningmond is no longer psychologically sure of victory. If the Joan of Arc were sunk, the Triumph alone would not be able to turn the tide.

"Boom-"

Just as Kiningmond gave the order, the Triumph's 239mm main gun roared, and the muzzle of the gun erupted more than a meter of red flame. A cannonball flew out and burrowed into the sea more than ten meters on the port side of the Zhiyuan. The waves of water set off after the explosion directly bathed the whole ship of Zhiyuan. And the tumbling sea water has caused a crack in the two watertight compartments of the Zhiyuan!

Joan of Arc slowed down to not even five knots. The torpedo not only tore open the two watertight compartments on his side side, but also caused a vibration to the steam boiler in the same position because of its proximity to the middle of the hull, which leaked in several places and dropped the air pressure for a while.

Although it won't be long before these leaks will be repaired, in a short period of time, the speed of the Joan of Arc is not to be improved.

In this naval battle, the most feared thing is the slow speed. As soon as the speed is slow, the enemy's accuracy will be greatly increased. Moreover, the Nanyang Naval Division also had five torpedo boats.

Zhiyuan. Deng Shichang is personally steering. The Triumph looks like it's going to move closer to Joan of Arc, how can this work!? Be sure to stop it. If the two French ironclad ships were close together, the difficulty of destroying them would have risen for a long time. At the beginning of the war, the French themselves, on their own initiative, separated the two ironclads. Li Zhenghui was overjoyed.

"Boom-"

A 120mm shell hit the bridge of the Zhiyuan.

The shock wave swept across the entire bridge, but fortunately the glass had already shattered, and it was packed up by the sailors and thrown into the sea. Otherwise, the people in the command tower will suffer this time.

Deng Shichang was directly swept up by the air wave and hit the bulkhead. With a bang, the head banged, and it was no longer interesting as soon as it was dark in front of me.

Li Zhenghui was hit in the right arm by a fragment of an artillery shell. Blood was gushing out, and bones seemed to be broken. But this did not affect Li Zhenghui's happy mood. Just when the Zhiyuan was hit by a shot. The Jingyuan also dealt a hard blow to the Triumph. The Jingyuan broke one of the Triumph's chimneys and caused a fire on the Triumph's bridge.

And the roof leak happened to rain overnight, and it was Joan of Arc. Shelling fell on the Joan of Arc, which had slowed down sharply, as well as on the hull. In just a few minutes, three shells hit, opening a large hole and a large crater on the deck and side of the Joan of Arc.

Yes, the guns of the Nanyang Naval Division could penetrate the Joan of Arc's deck armor just over 100mm, but for the 152mm side armor, it was generally impenetrable. Unless it's with armor-piercing shells! And it must be at the right angle of the bullet point.

The third shell hit the turret. Once again, the 119mm-thick turret armor withstood the test. But the old problem was also essential, and the turret rotation shaft went wrong again. This means that before the problem is not ruled out, the Joan of Arc has a lot of trouble turning the turret in a short period of time.

If this continues, at most an hour, Joan of Arc will have to eat thirty or fifty shells. The entire battleship was unsinkable and scrapped.

But the Triumph was approaching this way, and an hour was clearly too long.

"Shi Junmen, you should immediately order Major Lu to attack with a torpedo boat and sink the Joan of Arc!" Murray said to Shi Qingyan, who was slightly hesitant: "We can't let two enemy ships come together. In that case, it's too much trouble......"

Murray's Chinese is still stilted, but the meaning is correct. History has proved this mention to be correct. It determined the course of this naval battle and the entry into the city.

Shi Qingyan nodded! (To be continued......) R1292