"Did the crews of the Russians and the Dutch sleep soundly?" A low-ranking officer with a beard on the Snow Leopard spat at the Java Sea and said dissatisfiedly. Since entering the Java Sea, the Snow Leopard has entered a dead sea, and the busy shipping routes of the past seem to evaporate out of thin air, and there is not a single ship in sight for a day. It stands to reason that there has already been a fight on land, and the Russians and Dutch on the island of Java should have made some moves, but all 3 light cruiser formations did not get anything in the first 3 days after entering the Java Sea! Perhaps something can be found if you go deeper, but in order to take care of the main force of the advance fleet sailing at an economic speed in the back, the light cruiser formation must limit the speed. So for 3 days, the light cruiser formation was hanging around in the eastern section of the Java Sea.

This kind of life was obviously not something that the Huaxia Navy, which was eager to make achievements, thought about it, and after weighing it, Lin Yingqi took one of the detachments to the coast of Kalimantan Island to see if he could find some worthy targets! And the first target they chose was near Machen. This is an estuary of a river, one of the most important passages into Kalimantan from the waterway, and there should always be something worthwhile!

Lin Yingqi thinks so, and the Dutch think so too! To the west of Machen is the Balito River, which is more than ten kilometers down to the estuary, and near the estuary, there are two small islands formed by alluvium, because of the existence of this small island, the Barito River is not suitable for large warships to enter, so the Dutch built a heavy oil depot near these two small islands. They thought very well, the big ships of the Huaxia Navy could not enter. When the Dutch warships in need of supplies arrived, special tankers carried oil from the oil depots to supply the warships. The tragedy is that this time the Huaxia Navy did not come with a big ship. Rather, two light cruisers!

"Harris, how much have we loaded?" A Dutch naval lieutenant walked up to the tanker and asked. "It's about 500 tons. It takes at least 8 ships to transport all 4,500 tons of heavy oil here, and we only have 3 ships! Harris said. Heavy oil was so viscous that it had to be pressurized when it was transported by pipeline, and tragically, one of the depot's pressurized pumps broke down, which dragged the Exocet, which could have departed yesterday, to today.

"It's okay, the navy will continue to send ships over, and we'll just go this time at most. You see, our ship is coming. Looks like a big boat," the lieutenant said, looking at the two blurred shadows that appeared near the mouth of the river. As a lieutenant, he can accurately judge the approximate tonnage of a ship. Judging by the size and distance of the blurred figures in the distance, the tonnage of these two ships should be around 4,000 tons, and it is not a big problem to transport 800 to 1,000 tons of fuel oil at a time.

When you're observing others. Others will also observe you. What's the name of a saying? When you look at the scenery on the windowsill, the people in the scenery are also looking at you. At this time, Lin Yingqi also looked at the Dutch who were busy in the distance through the 8x telescope. As a robber. Lin Yingqi is very aware of robbers! All the light cruisers did not have the Victorian livery, which was common to the Chinese navy, but the ordinary merchant ship livery. And before setting sail, Lin Yingqi also prepared more than N national flags! As for Beiyang's own battle flag. , this thing just hangs up before the cannon is fired.

The scene that appeared in front of him made Lin Yingqi feel shocked, the dense pipes on the shore and the machine rooms next to the pipes, as well as the huge tanks that were slightly inside, these things were so familiar. In the major military ports of the Huaxia Navy, there are still a lot of such things, and Lin Yingqi is ninety percent sure that this should be an oil depot! An oil depot that was not recorded by the Huaxia Navy!

I looked at the crowd that was busy near the oil depot. Lin Yingqi couldn't help but sneer twice, whether it was Dutch or Russian. Lin Yingqi didn't have a good impression, especially after the Yunchang incident. "Ready, we're shooting a fixed target this time!" Lin Yingqi ordered. The location of this oil depot is very isolated, maybe for concealment, maybe for the convenience of being closer to the sea, there are no other civilian buildings near this oil depot, in this case, he is a military target, hit it!

And as the Snow Leopard and the Sea Lion approached, the Dutch Navy lieutenant also noticed that something was wrong! The reason is simple, the aspect ratio of this ship is a little too large, because it is in the direction facing away from the sun, so the Dutch lieutenant does not see it clearly, but from his intuition, he concluded that this is a high-speed ship, and it is extremely likely that it is a battleship! (Because it is a single-mounted 6-inch gun gallery gun, the size is very small, and it is normal to see clearly in the case of bad light.) And what is even more terrifying is that in the lieutenant's memory, he really can't remember that the entire Russian-Dutch fleet has a battleship like this! The light cruisers of the Russian-Dutch fleet are obviously one size smaller than this cargo, and the capital ships are much larger than the other side! Add to that the fact that these two ships are not flying Dutch flags, so a terrible guess is about to come out!

"Alright, raise the battle flag, let's fire!" LESS THAN 6 KM AWAY FROM THE TARGET, THE SNOW LEOPARD AND SEA LION TOOK OFF THEIR GUN SUITS, AND THE SEVEN 150MM RAPID-FIRE GUNS ON THE SIDE BEGAN TO ROTATE RAPIDLY. And the rangefinder on the top of the ship also rotated, and the optical lens firmly locked the oil depot not far away! At this point, the other person may have realized what they were encountering! Begin to flee from the oil depot and ship in a panic! In the telescope, people the size of ants are rapidly evacuating, but how can they run faster than the shells?

"Free Fire!" In the face of an opponent who had no resistance, the officers and men of the Huaxia Navy were also a little bored, but this did not delay them from doing things, and a full 14 6-inch guns opened fire on this exposed oil depot! IN THE FIRST WAVE OF SHELLING, 14 ROUNDS OF 45KG, WITH A TOTAL WEIGHT OF MORE THAN 600KG, FLEW TO THE TARGET, AND A FEW SECONDS LATER, CLUSTERS OF BRIGHT YELLOW FLAMES ROSE ON THE SHORE! In the face of ferocious artillery fire, pipelines everywhere, towering oil storage tanks, and ships that are loading oil have become powder kegs at this moment, and just one shell can turn the entire oil depot into a sea of fire!

And this terrible thing turned out to be a reality in the first wave of shelling! A 6-inch high-explosive bomb hit a fuel pipeline, and the yellow flames and shrapnel from the explosion of picric acid explosives easily shredded the fragile pipe wall and ignited the heavy oil! The ferocious flames spread rapidly in all directions with the help of oxygen and fuel oil in the air, and thanks to the fact that this is heavy oil that has not been deeply processed, it is not as pure or volatile as light fuel oil, and although it ignites a fire, it does not explode. The fire spread rapidly along the oil pipeline, igniting the surrounding oil depots and oil tankers!

In the face of the constant influx of shells and the rapid loss of control of the fire, no one dared to stop, let alone put out the fire, and the horrors of war befell the Dutch for the first time. Under the continuous blows of the naval guns, the three oil storage tanks in the reservoir area were hit one after another, and the cylindrical oil storage tanks dozens of meters high turned into tall torches! Black smoke mixed with bright yellow flames can be seen dozens of kilometers away, and even under the blowing of the sea breeze, a choking smell wafts over. The whole shelling did not last long, because after the end of the 5th round of shelling, Lin Yingqi found that the target had turned into a sea of fire, and the burning heavy oil could destroy everything left, and there was no need for him to continue to waste precious shells.

"Well, yes, this is my first result, 3 oil storage tanks and 3 oil carriers!" Lin Yingqi wrote with a smile in his logbook, and drew 3 jars and 3 boats next to it. The distance has turned into a sea of fire, if nothing else, the Dutch in Machen should have known what was happening here, and then it is estimated that within half an hour the situation will be informed of the situation by cable telegram, so what will the opponent do next? As soon as he thought of this, Lin Yingqi had an impulse in his heart, the Russians and the Dutch would not sit idly by, right? Then a new battle will soon begin!

As Lin Yingqi expected, the Russians and the Dutch got the news within a day, and it was easy for the Dutch to know about it, but why did the Russians also know about it? The reason is very simple, there is also a certain number of Russian troops stationed in Machen, and the fire that ignited is enough for the Russians to know what is happening. However, when Russia and the Netherlands got the news, the high-level leaders of the two countries blocked the news below, and in the talks between Makanov and Harvey, Makanov never mentioned the matter of hiding fuel privately, and the two sides discussed what to do next in a friendly atmosphere!

How's that, it's harmonious, right? It's not that Makanov really didn't care about the Dutch's private storage of supplies, but that before the war, it was irrational to quarrel over thousands of tons of fuel, and the Russian-Dutch fleet was not too short of fuel now. So there is no need to cause some unnecessary conflicts. What's more, the Russians also had a lot of things under their hands, such as weapon parts and steel plates on the Kamchatka transport ship! Everyone is all the way, long live understanding! As a result, both sides chose to ignore the materials lost in the attack and replace them with strategic resources. Then the discussion of the operational plan began.

"The Huaxia Navy has moved, but this blow is not too sharp, just a few light cruisers." Makanov said with some disappointment.

"They must have other warships in this sea area, the Java Sea is not big, it is easy to be destroyed by the opponent's large warships if they simply use light cruisers to break the relationship, since the Huaxia Navy has come all the way to fight a few merchant ships, they must have a big plan." Admiral Harvey affirmed. "Maybe there will be a few big fish in it, if we can send one or two of the opponent's capital ships to the bottom of the sea, then we will be in a good situation in the decisive battle!" Admiral Harvey thought for a moment and added.

Thank you for the monthly pass support of the book friend Pinewood Pony~~. The subscription on the first day of the recommended period is quite bleak.,Request fire support~~~.。 (To be continued......)