At about 14 o'clock, the column of warships of the Combined Fleet once again included the Russian ship in the effective range of the main guns.

The "Ruixiang" and "Ruixian" ships, which were equipped with three-year main gun firing commanders, opened fire from a distance of 12,000 yards, and after two rounds of test firing, the two ships began to fire a salvo, and the second salvo hit the lead ship of the Russian fleet (i.e., the flagship "Retvizhan").

Looking at the brilliant fireworks rising from the enemy ships from afar, Lin Taizeng, commander of the Combined Fleet on the "Ruixiang," was a little worried.

"Your Excellency, are you not feeling well?"

The Chief of Staff, Major General Sa Zhenbing, expressed concern.

"It's nothing, I just think that the enemy is withdrawing too quickly, and we are chasing too quickly, I'm afraid it will ......"

Before the words fell, the observer next to him shouted: "Report, 3,000 yards in front of the port side, there was a big explosion on the first patrol 'Suzhou'!" ”

Lin Tai once raised his binoculars to see that the armored cruiser "Suzhou" with a standard displacement of 11,800 tons had broken off from the bridge into two parts, front and rear, and quickly sank into the sea under the thick cloud of smoke.

It was later ascertained that only 18 of the 669 crew members of the "Suzhou" survived.

"It's a mine...... Hit the trick again...... Herald! The whole ship turned right in azimuth 170 and withdrew from the battle! ”

Lin Tai once couldn't bite off his lip, but he was calculated twice by the other party with the same trick!

After a while, the battleship column of the Combined Fleet and the first patrol column completed the full turn, but at this time, the Russian fleet followed without knowing what to do, and opened fire and provoked from a distance of 12,000 yards.

"Looks like they're trying to play a cat-and-mouse game with us."

Lin Taizeng, who was holding a teacup, quickly calmed down, and he did not have the habit of constantly regretting the sunken warship.

"I think it's better to send destroyers to deal with them, there is intelligence that the enemy ships have dismantled most of the secondary guns to support the defense of the fortress, and the anti-lightning strike capability has been seriously weakened, and our destroyers have a shallow draft, small size, and are not easy to be hit by mines, and more importantly, our shipyards can build destroyers much faster than the ability to build large warships."

Although Sa Zhenbing's statement is a bit cold-blooded, it is the truth, the total construction period of a 10,000-ton warship is about two years, while the total construction period of a destroyer with a moon number is only 6 months, and the cost of the two is not in the same order of magnitude.

Lin Taizeng obviously had such a calculation for a long time, and after listening to Sa Zhenbing's suggestion, he did not hesitate to order: "The second and third expulsion teams will be out of the ranks and launch a lightning strike operation against the enemy fleet!" ”

Immediately after that, the second order was issued: "The whole ship turns left in azimuth 270, the third speed, pay attention to mines!" ”

As the colorful signal flags were raised to the top of the mast of the "Ruixiang," Lieutenant Colonel Tian Yuhou's 2nd Destroyer Brigade and Lieutenant Colonel Li Lingyun's 3rd Destroyer Brigade marched out from the tail of the 1st and 2nd Light Patrol Columns, formed a wedged formation, and rushed towards the enemy fleet at a high speed of more than 26 knots.

At a distance of 9,000 yards, the Russian ships began to bombard the Chinese destroyers with their main guns, and huge water columns rose uncoordinatedly in front of and behind the thin destroyers from time to time, but each shell landed at a distance of more than 200 yards from the target - since the outbreak of the war, neither the Chinese nor the Russians have had a precedent for hitting a destroyer with the main guns of a battleship.

When the Chinese destroyers approached a distance of 6,000 yards, the remaining eight Russian destroyers broke away from the line and killed them head-on. The eight destroyers of the Second Destroyer Squadron immediately dispersed and fought against the Russian destroyers, while the other eight destroyers of the Third Destroyer Squadron got rid of the entanglement of the Russian destroyers under the cover of friendly forces and headed straight for the three Russian battleships, which were the intended targets. Immediately afterwards, the 3rd Destroyer Team met the Russian mine-laying cruiser "Amur River" head-on, and the "Amur River" fired fiercely at the 8 Chinese destroyers that were rushing towards it with 2 152-mm main guns and 8 75-mm rapid-fire guns available on the port side, and the 152-mm secondary guns on the Russian battleships also opened fire one after another, and large and small water columns splashed the masthead flags of each Third Destroyer......

At 14:30 p.m., the flagship of the 3rd Destroyer Squadron, the "Xueyue," fired several medium-caliber shells, and a large explosion occurred in the torpedo magazine, breaking the entire ship into two and submerging it into the sea within a minute, and 140 officers and men under Lieutenant Colonel Li Lingyun, commander of the squadron, were martyred.

Major Wang Zhiyi commanded the reserve flagship "Songyue" to fire three torpedoes in succession at the "Amur River," which was blocking the road, and led the two ships "Shuiyue" and "Jiangyue" to attack the "Amur River" with 120-millimeter main guns.

At 14:40 a.m., the "Amur River," which was defeated by one enemy and three enemies, hit two torpedoes and capsized to the port side, and only 14 of the ship's 369 crew members survived.

At this time, the Russian battleship column had retreated to the coastal waters and fired fiercely at the Chinese destroyers together with the shore guns, and the intensive artillery fire first completely destroyed the "Water Moon" and then caused the "Songyue" to catch fireWithin two minutes, the bow of the "Songyue" plunged forward to the bottom of the sea, and only 5 people survived on the whole ship, and 133 officers and men below Major Wang Zhiyi were martyred, before that, Major Wang Zhiyi's second brother, Captain Wang Zhijie, had been killed with the boat when he led the Third Torpedo Boat Squadron to attack the port of Vladivostok last year, and his eldest brother, Lieutenant Colonel Wang Shouzhong, had his legs broken in the famous Battle of Vitino in Moscow. Later, it became the content of elementary school textbooks, which is not mentioned later.

Taking the "Songyue" as an example, the four warships in the squadron, "Jiangyue", "Huyue", "Haiyue", and "Guiyue", also successively launched torpedo attacks at a distance of 1,000 yards in the large and small water columns all over the sea, and the four ships fired a total of 23 torpedoes; when the four ships turned and withdrew, the chimney and engine of the "Huyue" were shot one after another and lost power, and the "Haiyue" that came to the rescue was also broken by the boiler pipes, and the "Huyue" and "Haiyue" ships, which were respectively shrouded in thick black smoke and white steam, became excellent targets for the Russian shore artillery. All the Russian shore guns in the vicinity poured more and more intense artillery fire on the two wounded Chinese warships, and the sailors on the two Chinese warships returned fire with their main guns without showing weakness...... Within half an hour, the "Huyue" and "Haiyue" sank one after another, and a total of 181 crew members of the two ships were killed.

The rear ship of the 3rd Destroyer Squadron, the Arazuki, had to withdraw from the battle due to mechanical problems, but when it returned alone, it triggered a small mine and sank, killing 104 crew members.

The huge losses of the 3rd Destroyer Squadron were not in vain, and in the face of more than 20 torpedoes fired at close range, although the Russian ships tried their best to evade them, after all, the battleships were large in size, and the ships were close to the shore, so there was not much room for maneuver, so that two ships were hit by mines one after another.

The starboard and stern parts of the flagship "Letvizhan" were hit with two mines, the stern rudder was stuck, and the battleship slowly tilted to the right while spinning, and the fleet commander, Rear Admiral Wittgeft, had to order the ship to be stopped, and the entire crew abandoned the ship and went ashore.

Colonel La Perouz, Chief of Staff of the Fleet, later recalled: "The commander looked at me sadly, and I knew what he wanted to say, that although we were alive, we were dead in the sense of our mission...... After the ship stopped, 'Letvizhan' was like a cod waiting to be slaughtered, and sooner or later the enemy's winged flies and floating fat pigs would have to devour it as fodder......"

La Perouse then witnessed the tragedy of more than 20 planes and more than 10 airships taking turns ravaging the "Letvizhan," and this battleship became an excellent target for the Chinese army's floating forces in a state of suspension and abandonment, and within an hour, the "Letvizhan" was directly hit by at least 10 bombs, and the hull of the ship burned until the ammunition depot exploded......

At 16:35 a.m., the 12,902-ton "Letvizhan" capsized and sank to a depth of 30 meters, 511 of the 592 crew members survived, and most of the survivors were later thrown into the defensive front of the Vladivostok fortress as naval infantry, exhausted by the increasingly blazing artillery fire of the coalition forces.

The "Victory", which followed the flagship, was also hit by a torpedo, and the violent explosion made half of the ship's boilers useless, and the maximum speed of the warship dropped to less than 10 knots, and the captain tried to drive the warship back to the port, but just as the "Victory" staggered towards the port of Vladivostok, nine "Sunny Winds" attacked it in three waves, and a bomb destroyed its chimney, and the whole ship was filled with choking soot, and the speed dropped to 7 knots, and the battleship was simply crawling......

At about 15:30 a.m., the No. 1 Destroyer Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Shu Shide of the Chinese Army launched another torpedo attack on the "Shengli", firing 22 torpedoes at a distance of 2,000 yards at the cost of the sinking of the "Songxue". Subsequently, more than 30 planes and more than 10 airships rushed to attack the "dead tiger," and the "Shengli," which had been hit by heavy bullets, capsized and sank at about 16:55 a.m.

The captain of the ship, ignoring the signal flags of "Request for Rescue" raised by the "Letvizhan" and "Victory," commanded the ship to take refuge in the harbor at full speed, and stayed up until nightfall under the protection of the anti-aircraft fire and its own anti-aircraft fire.

Before nightfall, the five surviving destroyers fled back to the port of Vladivostok, and in the battle with the 2nd Chinese Destroyer Squadron, the Russian destroyers gained nothing, the "Power" and "Fierce" were destroyed by 120-mm shells, which were too powerful for the destroyers, and the "Thunderstorm" surrendered.

On the night of May 31, 1904, the Russian First Pacific Fleet, with only six warships remaining, was still in a state of "existence" for the time being.