Essen has never been so frightened as he is today, even when he led the Russian armored cruiser formation to carry out the task of breaking diplomatic relations in the East China Sea, Essen absolutely dared to face the powerful Chinese fleet, the reason is very simple, the other side knows what the other side has Essen knows, and both sides basically know each other. But today, Essen sees too many weird things! The first is the battleship Ninghai, which was heavily damaged by mines! The explosion on the side of the hull of the Ninghai is something that everyone has seen! Moreover, after the thunder, the hull quickly tilted, and a large cloud of smoke poured out from the side chord, and the injury was certain, but why is the battleship still running at a speed of up to 15 knots? It's so weird!

If the encounter with the Ninghai can be explained by the timely disposal of the damage management of the Huaxia Navy. (Well, that's a bit too far-fetched.) Then when Essen saw the "fourth" Ninghai-class battleship, he was completely not calm! Essen picked up the telescope and observed the Huaxia fleet, the first one is the Pinghai, and it will definitely not be wrong to have the commander's flag on it, the second is the Jinghai, the third is the Ninghai, and the fourth should be the only remaining King-class armored cruiser in the Huaxia Navy, Taipei, so who is the fifth?! Who is that thing equipped with 3 twin main turrets that are exactly the same as the Ninghai-class battleships?! When did the Huaxia Navy build a new Ninghai-class? How could the Russian fleet not know what to do?

"It's incredible!" A thought popped into Essen's head! At this time, not only Essen, but the entire Russian fleet was stunned by the situation in front of them, and a battleship that should have been heavily damaged was actually intact. And that's not all, there is one more battleship of the same type! This is simply subverting their perception! It is impossible for a large warship to completely conceal from the opponent, and perhaps the opponent does not know the caliber and exact tonnage of your artillery. But if you start work, people will definitely know about it, not to mention that there are only a few places in China where you can build capital ships! Although the field cannot be entered, it is impossible for the Russian spies in China to miss a battleship, right?

A series of things made Essen's brain stunned, this always felt like a hunter chasing a lone wolf that had been injured, only to find that the other party suddenly turned into a strong tiger, this huge difference made Essen unacceptable for a while! Now Essen is not thinking about the question of war or leaving. Rather, I was wondering from which crack in the stone this battleship jumped out of the ground!

"General Essen, this battleship is a bit like the armored cruiser Scharnhorst of the German Far East Fleet. Its turret is a lap smaller than that of the Ninghai class, if it were a ship of the same class. It was impossible for the Huaxia to go back and use smaller caliber guns. Although the chimneys are also two, they are obviously different from those of the Ninghai class, and even from dreadnoughts such as the Longxing class. It was very close to the Scharnhorst of the German Far East Fleet. Kolchak on the side said thoughtfully.

Essen took a closer look at the battleship in front of him, which was in fifth position. From the side, the silhouette of this battleship does look more like a Ninghai-class battleship. But the hull appears a little more slender. (Under the same tonnage.) A cruiser with a high speed was larger in length than a battleship. And the freestring is a little bit higher. The distance between the two turrets in the bow of the ship is also a bit large, and more importantly, the secondary gun of this battleship is the gun gallery gun, not the turret secondary gun used by the Huaxia Navy! So from these aspects, this battleship is really not built by Huaxia itself, and after comparing the line diagrams, Essen is even more sure that this should be the Scharnhorst-type armored cruiser of the German Far East Fleet!

"The battleships of the Germans? The German Far East Fleet actually joined forces with the Chinese Navy against the Russian Empire! After hearing Kolchak's explanation, Essen's tense nerves did not relax. Instead, it's even more nervous! This assumption is terrible! The main forces of the Russian Navy were in the Far East, and part of the forces of the Russian Army was also pinned down in Siberia. Face the tough German Army. Russia's strength to remain in Eastern Europe is really stretched! And for this part of the force, there is still some to deal with the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires! If the battle in the Far East determines whether Russia can gain a firm foothold in the Far East, then once something happens in Eastern Europe, it will be a great war that will decide Russia's life and death!

"Maybe the situation hasn't deteriorated to that extent. This battleship is flying the Ssangyong flag of the Navy of the Republic of China, which means that this battleship was bought. This is like the French selling us Danton-class battleships, although it violates international practice, but it does not mean a declaration of war. Kolchak said as he looked at Essen's uncertain face. At this time, the Russian fleet could not manage the affairs of far away Europe, all it could do was to do its best to fight the battle in front of it! After all, the Russians have invested almost half of their naval forces on this battlefield, and it is not a joke if something happens.

Although the dead dog has become a tiger, but this battle must also be fought, just when the top brass of the Russian fleet is entangled in what "magic power" the Huaxia Navy on the opposite side uses to "resurrect" a battleship in a full state of blood and has one more battleship, the first round of shells of the Chinese Navy has fallen around the Russian fleet! What's even more tragic is that at this time, because the Russian high-level led by Essen was collectively "slipping", they did not order the fleet to adjust its course, so the two sides were still rapidly approaching, and as a result, the Huaxia fleet turned to complete, and a perfect T-shaped column was horizontal in front of the Russian single column! And it was within the range of a 12-inch gun!

The crashing cannonballs alerted Essen from the battle between heaven and man. At this time, his fleet had reached the point where his fate was hanging in the balance, and the 24 large-caliber guns of at least 4 battleships of the opponent were facing him! And their own fleet did not develop a combat formation! It's absolutely fatal! However, at this time, Essen did not sit still, but immediately issued a series of orders that were enough to save his fleet!

"All capital ships follow the flagship to turn 150 degrees, sail parallel to the opponent, and do not fire and counterattack during the turning, release smoke and complete the maneuver with all their might!" "The lightning strike ships are ready to launch lightning strikes on the opposing side, interfering with the maneuvering and firing of the local fleet." "After completing the turn, each ship looks for the enemy ship opposite it and fires." Let the auxiliary warships cover the fleet to complete the maneuver as soon as possible, and then start a decisive battle with the opponent, this is the choice of Essen! Essen, who has experienced many baptisms of war, is definitely not comparable to people like Rozdvinsky of Xu Jie's plane, and in extreme time, Essen has already weighed the results that various actions may cause.

The choice is nothing more than two kinds, fight or go! What if the Essen fleet were to go? That means that the Russian fleet needs to draw a large circle of more than 200 degrees at sea, and it will be exposed to the enemy's fire for a longer time, the Peter the Great-class fast battleships and the seven-province fast battleships may be able to escape under the cover of smoke against the enemy's shelling, and what about the Rotterdam-class armored cruisers and Rurik-class armored cruisers behind? Especially the two Russian cruisers, only 6 inches of side chord armor, and at this time the distance between the two sides is less than 7KM! If this is hit by a 12-inch cannon, it will be a hole! Water ingress is inevitable, and damage to the core compartment is also extremely likely. In this case, if you are slowed down, it means that you will be killed! At this time, the Russian fleet, like the Chinese fleet, must not easily abandon any capital ship!

What's more, this is still in an ideal situation, if the cruiser behind the opponent suddenly intervenes to try the cut-in tactics when his fleet is detached, then the 4 ships behind his fleet will be a tragedy! The four battleships in Essen's hand had already left the battlefield at this time, and if the voyage was changed again, even if the entire formation was not torn apart, the time required would definitely not be short. During this period of time, the fleet of Huaxia armored cruisers led by the Scharnhorst could completely separate the follow-up Russian cruisers, and then beat up these thin-skinned cruisers with the three battleships Ninghai and Taipei in front! What if Essen comes back after the worst of the time? I'm afraid that the 4 ships have been seriously injured!

So, in this case, Essen's only option is to fight to the death! What's more, as long as they can complete the turn, after the two sides set up the battle line, the Russian fleet still has an advantage in general! 28 12-INCH AND 274MM MAIN GUNS AGAINST THE OPPONENT'S 28 12-INCH AND 11-INCH GUNS, AS UP TO 32 10-INCH 50L NEW GUNS AGAINST THE OPPONENT'S 20 10-INCH 45L MAIN GUNS, HOW TO SEE HOW YOU HAVE AN ADVANTAGE! As long as it can defeat the opponent's armored cruiser formation, then even washing the deck is enough to destroy the remaining 4 capital ships of the Huaxia Navy!

The only thing that made Essen feel a little uneasy was the sequence of engagements released by Russia, where 2 Peter the Great-class fast battleships and the Seven Provinces and Huaxia's 3 Ninghai-class battleships were fighting, which was basically evenly matched. The Amsterdam and the Taipei fight, it can be expected that this old battleship will not last too long, the turning point of the first 4 warships between the two sides is likely to be on the Taipei, once the Taipei is destroyed, then the battle in the first half will immediately become 4 to 3. Supposedly, Essen should be quite satisfied with this layout, but the subsequent engagement situation did not make Essen happy.

Because the sequence of the later warbands was arranged in this way, the Rurik and the Scharnhorst were right, and the remaining 3 battleships fought against the 2 PISA-type armored cruisers and 2 Garibaldi of the Huaxia Navy. Originally, according to Essen's plan, the two Dutch Rotterdam-class armored cruisers should be close behind the fast battleships, but because the Sealand was heavily damaged by the Longxu-class battlecruisers, the repair progress was slow because of the lack of sufficient workers and equipment, and it has not been easy to find out until now. So the Dutch asked to put their position behind to reduce the pressure they were bearing, and the Rotterdam, as a sibling ship of the Sealand, was also thrown behind in order to cooperate!

In this way, the two crispy Russian cruisers were thrown to the front, and if it was against the old Chinese cruisers, such an arrangement would be nothing, but when a small and fast battleship Scharnhorst was added to the Huaxia fleet, the situation changed completely! 6-inch armor faces the 11-inch main gun at a distance of about 8KM, isn't this a death? Although the Rotterdam class in the back has good protection, because it is a 10-inch gun, it is also difficult to achieve results in a short period of time, not to mention that the opponent is still 4 to 3! In other words, the battle behind this is the weakness of the Russians!

The war kicked off~~ I ask for a lot of support from all book friends~~. (To be continued......)