After Liu Xian ordered someone to send a call back to Guangzhou, he sat still in the study. All he was thinking about at the moment was the naval battle that was about to start in Guangzhou. Can you win? What kind of dù can you hit? How big will your losses be?

A qiē is unknown. A qiē made him unsettled.

The sea off Guangzhou has been blocked for ten days, and the battle situation on the Jiangxi side has long been pooping. The Qin army took Jiujiang Mansion in a timely manner.

Liu Xian took the main force of the Hukou Water Division with a reconnaissance brigade, and the general soldier Ding Yifang surrendered, with his warships as a cover, 300 sampans and boats carrying two battalions of Qin troops, crossed the 80-mile Poyang Lake waterway in one night, landed in the hinterland of De'an, and then lightly crushed more than 40,000 Hunan and Huai troops, sweeping the entire Jiujiang.

Liu Kunyi, Liu Bingzhang, Guo Songlin and other wolves fled to Hukou under the response of the Yangtze River Water Division.

The four generals Wu Jianying, Yang Dingxun, Zhou Liangcai and Qin Liansheng were two dead, one captured and one missing, and then there were two generals, Li Chaobin and Wang Desheng, both of whom were forced to surrender.

Of the more than 40,000 troops that Xianghuai gathered in Jiujiang, less than 5,000 of them fled to the sea at the mouth of the lake with Liu Kun and others, and most of the rest surrendered or were captured.

Now in the whole territory of Jiangxi Province, except for a small slip north of the Yangtze River, only the Nankang Mansion and Raozhou Mansion in the east of Poyang Lake have not been included in the control of the Qin army, otherwise it can be put on the agenda of the Qin army by attacking Jiangsu and Zhejiang and completely sweeping the foundation of the Chu army.

……

Kiningmond stood in the command podium of the flagship Triumph, observing the situation ahead with a telescope.

At this moment, the flag soldier in charge of observation on the foremast hurriedly waved his flag downward, and in a moment the signal corpsman shouted to the general: "Your Excellency, Commander, a large number of Chinese fleets have turned towards the base, numbering more than twenty ships. ”

"Twenty?"

"Yes, Your Excellency, Commander. There were eight large warships, and a considerable number of small gunboats. ”

Kinimmond's telescope did not see the Chinese fleet turning. The right flank fleet was already completely seized of his sight. But he quickly guessed the plan of the Nanyang sailor, and smiled coldly: "I can't imagine that the Chinese are so confident?" He wanted to eat us all in one fell swoop. How naïve! "In Kiningmond's view, it only takes an hour for him to sink all these small iron boxes of the Chinese." Sue sù communication ship. Let him go back and inform the fleet, be sure to hold on. Wait for the return of the Triumph and Joan of Arc! ”

"Victory belongs to France!"

The Signal Corps went down neatly.

"Herald. The standard speed of the fleet is 8 knots, and the formation is changed. The right column deflected 70 degrees to the right and headed southwest. "The sun will be a good helper. Kinimmond decided to face the Chinese ironclad detachment in front of him alone, first crushing the main fleet of the Chinese, and then going to support another battlefield.

The two French ironclads that had been advancing side by side were even slower, and the two sides were closer to each other, and the guns on the side of the warships, the barrels of the black holes, pointed at the galloping Chinese fleet on the sea level.

At this time, the right-wing fleet led by Shi Qingyan himself also began to adjust its order. Four ironclad ships at the head. The Yangwei and Zhenwei, as well as four of the six mosquito boats, with six torpedo boats, all headed for Joan of Arc. And Jingyuan and Zhiyuan, two cutting-edge ironclad ships, and two ships of Heping Sea and Anhai, bravely faced the behemoth of Triumph!

As for tactics, this time Shi Qingyan used a horizontal team tactic. This tactic was successfully used by the Austrians in the Battle of Lisa between Austria and Italy in 1866, when they quickly approached the Italian fleet and engaged it in broadside battles, even ramming and sinking a battleship in the confusion. This naval battle is a classic example of the era of steam engine warships. Or rather, the first real ironclad battle.

Whether it is the Harbour Master School, or in the UK, or the naval training class run by Qin Jun before. The Battle of Lissa was one that naval officers had to study.

Now, in Shi Qingyan's opinion, this formation is also the only way to help them quickly close the gap with the French warships. There are many warships on your side, and it is necessary to besiege them. Therefore, the closer it is, the more efficient the use of the guns of each ship. The more you can give torpedo boats a chance!

In addition, in naval battles, the elevation angle of the artillery is not high, and the main part of the blow is the side side, while the horizontal formation faces the enemy ship with the bow of the ship, and only a small part of the side faces the enemy army. This greatly reduces the probability of being hit. In the open horizontal formation, the space for the movement of each battleship is also much larger than that of the column. It is free to maneuver in an 'S' shape to evade and make enemy artillery fire unaimable. And if it is to strike at battleships lined up in columns. As long as it is calculated, the hit rate will be high. In addition, whether it is for the Triumph or the Joan of Arc, the secondary guns of the ships of the Nanyang Naval Division are not very practical, and the main strike force still depends on the main guns. Therefore, in this fateful naval battle, Shi Qingyan did not hesitate to choose the horizontal team.

At 3:53 p.m., the flames of this naval battle broke out completely. There was a "rumbling" cannon sound on the sea, and this battle, which was later known as the "Battle of Guangzhou Bay", began.

The six main guns of the Triumph made such a loud noise that the unprepared people immediately felt as if they were deaf.

The scorching blast blast burst out of the barrel with the glow and white smoke of the projectile explosion, and the suffocating smell of gunpowder. The gun carriage was pushed up the ramp of resistance by the huge recoil from the shot. The soft brake machine was not invented at all in this era, it was all a hard frame of steel, and it rumbled backwards several meters with a cannon. The gun carriage was also connected to an iron chain, which was wound around a set of sprockets under the slope, and when the gun shot back to the height of the slope, the sprocket was stuck, and the chain pulled the gun carriage so that it could not slide down the slope. It was only after the ammunition had been reloaded, and the sprockets were relaxed, that the gun carriage could slowly slide down from the height of the ramp to the firing position.

But at this time, not many people are paying attention to them, and they are all waiting for the effect of the first shell.

Five seconds later, before the shell could explode, the main guns of the ironclad ship Joan of Arc, not far from the Triumph, also went off.

The Joan of Arc can barely be regarded as a second-class ironclad ship, and a displacement of less than 4,000 tons is really nothing in Europe. Moreover, the caliber of the main gun is not enough, although there are two more gun positions, but it cannot make up for the defects of the caliber of the main gun. The British's Prince Albert-class ironclad ship was launched in 1864, and its tonnage, speed, and armor were comparable to that of the Joan of Arc, but the caliber of the main guns was. Than Joan of Arc, it's not a star and a half.

Large puffs of white smoke also rose slowly, and the sound of the cannon made some people mistake it for the explosion of the shell just fired, but there was no fire or water column.

After another two seconds, the Triumph shell exploded in the water and stirred up a white column of water tens of meters high, which did not fail to hit the target.

This is not unexpected. With a sharp whistling sound, the shell swept from the front right to the rear left of the cigarette barrel of the ironclad ship Zhiyuan, which was rushing to the forefront of the Qing army, and exploded 100 meters on its port side.

Then there was the cannonball of the Joan of Arc. Missed the target either!

With the loud roar of the main guns, the two French battleships entered the stage of onslaught, and streams of red-orange flames and large puffs of white cotton-wool-like smoke drifted away with the sea breeze towards the tail of the warship.

Columns of water as white as ice and snow soon appeared near the battleship Yangwei, where Shi Qingyan was located, but none of the ships of the Nanyang Naval Division fought back, and only rushed forward at full speed.

Three thousand meters away, two kilometers away, 1,500 meters away......

Just when the battleship was close to a distance of 1,200 meters, a loud bang came from the left side of the Triumph squadron, and a terrible red flame erupted from the mosquito ship of the Anhai, and it was hit.

Of course, it was the Triumph's shell that hit it, and one shot directly seriously injured the 400-ton Anhai.

The shell lightly penetrated the armor and planks of the Anhai's hull, exploded in the inner compartment, and also caused a fire.

So, by the time the Anhai extinguished the fire and opened fire on the French ship for the first time, the battle had already started twenty minutes. The Jingyuan ironclad ship has been filled with hundreds of tons of seawater in its belly.

But this did not make Jing Yuanhai withdraw from the battle. These Chinese Navy soldiers, who bear the honor and disgrace of the country's fortunes, have absolutely a firm will to fight.

Don't look at the ferocious fire of the Triumph and Joan of Arc when they opened fire.

In the end, the two ships only have twelve main guns, and only six of them are more than one.

But when the ships of the Nanyang Naval Division opened fire, the power was much stronger than that of the French.

The six mosquito boats are all heavy guns of caliber caliber, although only one. The Yangwei and Zhenwei ships, after the transformation of the Qinnan shipyard, six Armstrong six-inch guns and two front-loading guns, have been turned into four Krupp eight-inch guns.

The front and rear main turrets of the two ships are each equipped with a heavy gun. That's all there were more than ten heavy guns. Coupled with the two cutting-edge ironclad ships of Zhiyuan and Jingyuan, they are four heavy guns. Not to mention the number of secondary guns.

Suddenly, columns of water rose near the French warships, and the firepower of the Nanyang Fleet could not be blown up on the French ships, which could also make the French sailors nervous.

When the warships of both sides were at a distance of about 1,000 meters, the Nanyang Naval Division was 'outnumbered' and could always have two guns hit the target.

Just as the Triumph hit the Anhai and Jingyuan successively, the Jingyuan and Zhiyuan also hit the Triumph successively.

The second gun of the Zhiyuan commanded by Li Zhenghui hit the front main turret of the Triumph, and its 220 mm shells broke out with a blazing explosion on the front main turret of the Triumph, although there was the protection of the turret armor, it still injured the two gunners inside, and at the same time, the rotating shaft of the main turret also had a little problem, and the mechanics and sailors of the French army immediately carried out emergency repairs.

Not far away, Shi Qingyan was commanding the Yangwei and other ships to fight bravely.

The Joan of Arc, a large body of 3,600 tons and less than six small cannons, greatly reduced the threat to the two ironclad ships. (To be continued) R655