The South China Sea Fleet Admiral Zeng Tianhao's South China Sea Fleet has jurisdiction over the Laiyuan and Heitu, and there are nine fast sailing ships and more than 50 red single ships, fortune ships, and sand ships, and the strength is the weakest one of the four sea fleets, of which the two largest warships, Laiyuan and Heitu, are only second-class warships of more than 1,000 tons, but it is precisely because the two main warships of the South China Sea Fleet are the weakest, so in the previous naval ship transformation, both warships have been modified with wooden hulls wrapped in steel armor, and both warships are equipped with steam power drives, This has barely improved the strength of the South China Sea Fleet to a certain extent.

Zeng Tianhao, the commander of the South China Sea Fleet, was the brother of Zeng Tianyang, a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom general who died in Jiangxi in the early years, was originally deployed in the East Palace, Admiral Sailor, and later after the Tianjing Rebellion, the West King entered Tianjing, Zeng Tianhao was reused, and it was also a successful example of the West King reusing the old people in the East Palace.

Zeng Tianhao's personality is very different from his brother Zeng Tianyang, he is relatively stable and calm, kind to people, and showed extraordinary talent when he studied the navy in the martial arts school, so he was later entrusted with the post of admiral of the South China Sea Fleet.

Since the four fleets went south to look for their own fighters, Zeng Tianhao and his fleet have been cruising in Xiamen, Penghu Islands, Taiwan and other nearby waters, although Taiwan at this moment is still temporarily counted as the banner of the Qing court, but since Fujian was occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Fujian governor Wang Yide died in battle, the new Fujian governor Manchu Qing minister Qingduan has not arrived, and the Fujian Qing army that retreated to Taiwan was temporarily led by Fujian according to the inspection envoy Chong'en and the newly promoted Fujian political envoy Wang Ziyu.

It is worth mentioning that although Chong'en was a member of the Manchu royal family, he was more fond of calligraphy and painting, and was a famous calligrapher, collector, connoisseur, goldsmith and poet in the middle and late Qing Dynasty. Chong'en has achieved a lot of achievements in calligraphy and painting. But marching and fighting was its weakness, as early as when the Taiping army attacked Fujian. Wang Yide ordered him to retreat to Taiwan as early as possible, and dispatched his aide Wang Ziyu to coordinate Taiwan affairs.

Wang Yide's aide Wang Ziyu had previously made great contributions to the Taiping Army's withdrawal of the Xiamen rebel army. Therefore, he won a Taoist title from the Qing court that year, and then in Taiwan, he assisted Chong'en, and collected calligraphy and paintings to his liking, so he was quite respected. After Fujian was occupied by the Taiping army, most of the civil and military forces in the province died or surrendered, so the Qing court promoted the tallest among the short men, listened to Chong'en's recommendation, and promoted Wang Ziyu to serve as the political envoy of Fujian. Because Fujian was occupied, the Qing troops in Fujian were all gathered in Taiwan to defend it. And the sea route is not passable, Chongen is also addicted to calligraphy and painting, and Wang Ziyu has the final say on military and political affairs in Taiwan Province.

Although Taiwan Island is the largest island in China, its people's livelihood and trade mostly depend on the mainland, and the mainland is occupied by the Taiping Army, so Wang Ziyu has already secretly communicated with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as early as last year, but last year, the Taiping Army's naval force had to make every effort to deal with the British and French forces in the north, so there is no interest in attacking Taiwan for the time being, and at the same time, because Wang Ziyu has the intention of taking the initiative to surrender. Therefore, the Taiping army had no intention of attacking Taiwan for the time being, and the two sides did not sever ties in commerce and people-to-people exchanges, on the contrary, Wang Ziyu signed a business agreement with the Taiping army with great foresight, and put the treasure on the Taiping army.

Since the Taiping army and the British and French went to war. Taiwan's Qing army also got the news that although Wang Ziyu is still a nominal Qing court official, some terms for changing the flag have not yet been negotiated. But as for supporting the Taiping Army's attack on the British and French navies, Wang Ziyu was in favor of it with both hands. Therefore, the ports of the Penghu Islands and the main island of Taiwan, which were controlled by the Qing army in Taiwan, were opened to the Taiping Army. At the same time, Wang Ziyu also sent Taiwanese sailors to respond to the Taiping Army's strangulation at sea and attack the passing British and French ships.

Zeng Tianhao has the help of Taiwan's Wang Ziyu. There was more room for maneuver, so it was often possible to avoid the search of the British and French fleets in time, and at the same time, the cross-strait news was constantly exchanging, and the movements of the British and French fleets could also be obtained in time. He Bo and the West Malaysia Fleet suffered a big loss in Xiamen, that is, the South China Sea Fleet took the initiative to attack after receiving the news of the Taiwan fishing boats, and the results were very good, sinking several wounded British warships.

After the main force of the He Bo fleet returned, Zeng Tianhao took the initiative to withdraw from the battlefield, leaving the He Bo fleet with nowhere to retaliate, and finally had to continue to go north. After hearing that the British fleet continued to go north, Zeng Tianhao led the fleet to quietly follow it, constantly communicating the news from the shore and the news from the fishing boats and merchant ships coming and going at sea, preparing to find an opportunity to teach the He Bo fleet another lesson, and as a result, he followed him all the way to the waters of Zhoushan.

In the past few days, He Bo's fleet attacked Dinghai, and Zeng Tianhao also sent fast sailing ships to reconnoitre, but found that the British fleet had learned the lesson of the last time, and the peripheral guard ships were very vigilant, and the alert area was very wide, making it difficult to carry out a surprise attack, so Zeng Tianhao's fleet had been waiting for an opportunity in the southern seas.

In the early morning fog, Zeng Tianhao judged that the British fleet would definitely use the fog to raid Dinghai, so he also led the fleet on patrol, and when the fog dispersed, he sent fast sailing ships to reconnoitre, and then got the news that the main force of the East China Sea Fleet was fighting a decisive battle with the Ho Bo fleet.

Zeng Tianhao was taken aback when he heard the news, he knew that the strength of the He Bo fleet, although it suffered a lot of losses in several battles along the way, it was still not comparable to the East China Sea Fleet, so Zeng Tianhao immediately made the decision to go to reinforce the East China Sea Fleet, if the East China Sea Fleet was destroyed, the navy of that heavenly country would be completely passive. So, when the East China Sea Fleet was at a disadvantage, the South China Sea Fleet appeared on the battlefield.

He Bo and Sima both noticed that the Taiping Navy Fleet had joined the battlefield in their respective boats, although He Bo and West Ma wanted to lure out the main force of the Taiping Navy Fleet for a decisive battle, but the changes at this moment were greatly beyond the expectations of the two. Although there are not many large warships in the Taiping Army, there are very many small red single ships, lucky ships, sand ships, etc., and these small warships of the Taiping Army are not as afraid of the enemy as the Qing warships, they are very not afraid of death, and they are very skilled in operating the ships, and the guns on the ships are also accurate. And these nasty small ships will bite more ants to kill the elephant, the lucky boat and the sand boat are okay, although each ship has a few more cannons, but there are more than ten cannons on the red single boat, and the power of these cannons is not small. If you are not careful, you may really suffer a big loss.

Seeing this, Sima immediately ordered the standard-bearer to raise the flag and tell Uncle He. He advised the whole army to continue northward and quickly annihilate the current enemy's living forces and then quickly withdraw, but He Bo hesitated after receiving the news. Previously, the main purpose of the Ho Bo fleet going north was to annihilate the main force of the Taiping Navy. Obtained complete sea control in the Far East, but the Taiping Navy had previously adopted the tactics of avoiding war and guerrillas, leaving He Boli with nowhere to go. And at this moment, there are two main forces of the Taiping Navy fleet, how tempting it would be to be able to annihilate the main forces of these two Taiping fleets in one battle. Although He Bo also knew the truth that ants bite and kill elephants, he still decided to give it a try and try to annihilate these two Taiping fleets with a gamble mentality and the traditional adventurous spirit of the British.

As a result, He Bo vetoed the construction of West Malaysia, and he raised the banner. Ordered the British fleet to be divided into two, and divided more than ten warships to go south to meet Zeng Tianhao's South China Sea Fleet, and the rest of the warships continued to fight the main force of Monk Tongbao. Although Xima was so anxious to see this, but at this time the battle was in the heat of the day, and there was no time to argue, and any more hesitation and wasting time would only make the fleet at a loss, so he still obeyed He Bo's order and personally led the divided fleet south to meet the attack.

As soon as the British fleet was divided, the pressure on the side of the East China Sea Fleet suddenly decreased. Monk Tongbao was also a veteran of naval warfare, and he quickly seized this opportunity and ordered the remaining warships of the East China Sea Fleet to quickly adjust their strategies, and several or even a dozen red single ships, fortune ships, and sand ships gathered together to besiege a British warship. Began his ant-bite elephant tactics.

In the history of human naval warfare, there is no shortage of examples of decisive battles between small ships and large warships, and the heroic PLA Navy of later generations once and today fought this famous example of fighting the big with the small and defeating the strong with the weak in the 86 Naval Battle. Although the British navy at this time was quite elite and not a cowardly navy like the Taiwan Strait Nationalist Party, the Taiping army was superior to ships at this time.

As the fierce battle between the two sides continues. The British fleet began to struggle with it, although one of their ships was able to sink several Taiping ships. But they also had to pay a considerable price, some of the larger tonnage battleships were fine, but they were only severely damaged, while some of the smaller ones were completely sunk.

He Bo was distressed when he saw this scene, the British warships in the Far East were sunk and one less was sunk, and although the British army built the largest ships in the world, the cost was also very expensive, and the Taiping army exchanged a few inferior red single ships, lucky ships, and sand ships for a British warship, which was obviously a big loss for the British.

The South China Sea Fleet itself had more than 50 small warships, such as red single ships, fortune ships, and sand boats, and before this expedition, Zeng Tianhao rented more than 20 warships from Taiwan's Qing Army Navy Division to fight together in accordance with the commercial and trade agreement with Wang Ziyu. After an hour of engagement, West Malaysia had to order the remaining ten British warships to quickly approach and form a group, in case they would be divided and sunk by smaller ships.

He Bo's side also adopted the same method, and after his remaining eight warships got closer, they protected each other's flanks and chrysanthemums, which also made the small warships of the Taiping army lose the space for interspersing and detouring.

After seeing this scene, Zeng Tianhao and Monk Tongbao unanimously ordered their warships to quickly break away from the battle and evacuate in the north and south directions. After the British fleet approached, it was difficult to launch a pursuit at the first time, and there were still many British sailors floating on the sea, so both Hober and Sima ordered to stop the pursuit and rescue the people who fell overboard at sea.

It is worth mentioning the humanitarian spirit of the British Navy, and they also rescued the Taiping Navy sailors who fell into the water, but these Taiping sailors became prisoners.

The Battle of Zhoushan ended with the Taiping army withdrawing from the battle, although the Taiping army was not able to defeat the British fleet, and the British fleet was not able to completely annihilate the Taiping navy. The British fleet lost eleven warships, while the Taiping lost more warships, especially the East China Sea Fleet lost thirty warships, and the South China Sea Fleet also lost more than ten warships, but it seems that the Taiping army was more cost-effective.

So far, the Ho Bo fleet from the 36 large and small warships when they left Hong Kong, only 18 are left at this moment, and a few are seriously wounded, as for the results of the battle are very disappointing, they failed to occupy any coastal ports, nor can they annihilate the Taiping navy, and finally He Bo and West Malaysia discussed, can only take more than 200 Taiping naval prisoners rescued from the sea and a ship full of British wounded soldiers to return to Hong Kong to rest...... (To be continued......)