The two fleets were interspersed at a relative speed of almost forty knots, and the formations of both sides were chaotic in the smoke and darkness. Gorshkov's flagship, the Tallinn, was inserted between the Japanese ships Myoko and Haguro, the Baku was fiercely engaged with Mogami, and the Riga and Vilnius were surrounded by the Kumano, Suzuya, and Mikuma.

As for the Murmansk, it almost collided with the Spring Rain, which had been heavily damaged before, and had to urgently turn to avoid it. Even the destroyer Kokang, which was at the back of the line, went astray with them, and they had to go around in a circle to get back to the battlefield.

In the midst of the chaos, Takagi Takeo tried to regroup, he ordered the searchlights to be turned on to see what was going on around them, and who would have thought that just after turning on the lights, it happened to shine on the Tallinn two kilometers away.

At that time, the bridge of the Tallinn was illuminated as if it were daylight, and the captain, Colonel Kaganov, saw that the situation was not good, and immediately ordered to shoot the enemy's searchlights. However, it was clear that the Japanese were moving faster, and a few seconds later, the Myoko attacked first, and a 203-mm grenade hit the bridge of the Tallinn.

Even years later, Gorshkov was a little frightened, the entire bridge was shaking, the portholes were almost completely shattered, and the sideways shamprapnel flew in through the portholes, killing and injuring many officers. What's worse is that the shrapnel damaged the fire control radar on the bridge, so that the Tallinn lost the ability to continue firing for a while.

Fortunately, there were four fire control radars on the Tallinn, and another one quickly took over three minutes later, allowing the Tallinn to avoid the passive situation of being beaten and unable to fight back. It's just a few minutes, and the Tallinn is also a heavy loss, because it was caught between the Myoko and Haguro on the left and right. The ship's superstructure was frequently shot. The flames began to ignite. A twin 76 gun in the center was also destroyed, and the only fortunate thing for the Tallinn was that the Japanese did not dare to fire torpedoes, otherwise they would have to account for it at the time.

After passing through the middle of the Myoko and Haguro, the Tallinn immediately began to turn the rudder and bombarded the tail of the Haguro with accurate firepower, destroying a main gun at the tail of the Haguro in the fierce fire.

At the same time, the Riga and Vilnius, which were "surrounded" by three Japanese heavy cruisers on the other side, were much luckier. Because they occupied a relatively favorable firing position, the three Japanese heavy cruisers could not take advantage of the initial stage of the firing at all, and were swept away by the two Soviet heavy cruisers with accurate firepower.

The destroyer Asahinao, which was rushing to repair behind the Mikuma, witnessed such a scene: people were constantly being thrown out of the hull of the Mikuma by the waves of explosions, dancing in the air like a kite whose line had been broken by the wind. A cannonball broke Captain Shiyama in two on the spot, and another grenade exploded on the mainmast, killing all the remaining people on the bridge.

Under such heavy bombardment, all of the Mikuma's main guns were dumbfounded, and fire broke out in 25 parts of the ship, the steering gear failed, and 500 tons of seawater were poured in. All the officers and men of the ship, under the command of Inoue Tano and Shosa, who were temporarily acting commanders, were fighting to save the warship.

However, Mikuma's luck was good. Because the attention of the Riga and Vilnius was quickly attracted by the Kumano and Suzuya in front, there was no time to continue beating the water dogs.

The Baku was on the other side and had a hard time with Mogami. The strength of the two sides was half a pound and eight taels, and the luck was also about the same, so the battle was also extremely fierce, and the two ships fought from a distance of 3,000 meters to 900 meters, and all the weapons that could be used were used in the fierce fire. The two sides first fired at each other with the main guns, then the secondary guns, and finally the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns and even the heavy machine guns, and in the recent period, the sailors of both sides even picked up their rifles and began to fire at each other.

In this tragic confrontation, the hull of both sides was battered above the waterline, and the Baku was found to have a total of 500 bullet holes in the whole ship when it was repaired in Hawaii after the battle, and Mogami struggled to escape back to Japan and found that the holes in the hull made people with dense phobia crazy.

The admiral was extremely shocked when he boarded the Baku and found a layer of blood floating on the deck of the battleship, and the dark red half-dried thick blood could stick to the leather shoes.

As time went by, the distance between the two sides became closer and closer, and the battle became more and more tragic, whether it was the Red Navy or the devils, every gunner had fallen into a state of frenzy, frantically stuffing shells into the barrels, and the fierce battle directly led to the rifling of the guns on both sides being beaten bald.

However, it is surprising that the artillery battle was carried out so fiercely, but not a single battleship was sunk on the spot, which seems very unreasonable. However, this is actually normal, because the distance between the two sides is too close, almost all the artillery is firing horizontally, and most of the warships on both sides are above the waterline, especially the superstructure, which has been hit by heavy bullets.

As we all know, if you want to sink a warship, you still have to penetrate the waterline or the part below the waterline is more effective. It is precisely because of the predominance of flat shots that it is difficult for both sides to sink their opponents, which makes the battle more and more brutal.

This fierce hand-to-hand combat lasted for twenty minutes, not that the two sides withdrew after twenty minutes of fighting. Twenty minutes later, the superstructures and gun emplacements of both sides were either destroyed, or most of the gunners were killed, that is, they could not fight if they wanted to. And these twenty minutes were enough time for the main forces of the Japanese to keep up.

The first to catch up was the Xuefeng of the 16th Destroyer Detachment, yes, you read that right, it was the famous Xiangrui ship, the famous Wu Zhixuefeng. The ship temporarily served as the flagship of the 16th Destroyer Detachment, and Shibuya Shiro Navy Osa was sitting upright on this auspicious ship.

At that time, the ship led three other friendly ships to the battlefield in a hurry, but because the line of sight was so bad and the Red Navy released a lot of smoke, they lost their way for a while. Just as Shibuya Shiro anxiously ordered the lookout post to search with wide eyes, a warship that kept spitting out flames and smoke and lost control was rushing straight towards him.

Shibuya Shiro initially thought it was a battered destroyer, and wondered, "How did that kid get to the middle of the fire zone?" Then he suddenly realized that this was an "American cruiser", and in a hurry. Shibuya Shiro screamed loudly and ordered, "Fire!" ”

The Yukikaze immediately did not hesitate to fire all the torpedoes at the American cruiser! Eight torpedoes rushed at the American cruiser like lightning arrows off the string. So which "American cruiser" is this?

Judging by the post-war battle logs. This was supposed to be Gorshkov's flagship Tallinn. In the previous fierce battle, it suffered quite heavy damage, the front two main guns were dumbfounded, the secondary guns were almost completely destroyed, even the steering gear was damaged, and the steering ability was basically lost. I had to float on the surface of the sea while beating the Myoko with the only remaining tail gun. The Tallinn had forced the Haguro out of the battle before that, and was now maneuvering with the Myoko.

The Snowwind's lightning strikes are quite accurate. All eight torpedoes hit the Tallinn, and it stands to reason that with the power of the ninety-acid torpedoes, not to mention hitting eight, even hitting one with the half-crippled body of the Tallinn is enough to choke.

But on this magical night, the Tallinn, which had eaten eight torpedoes, did not have any, and no one on board was even aware of the attack, and was still attacking the Myoko with all its heart.

Why was the Tallinn so lucky? The reason is very simple, whether it is a torpedo or an artillery shell, its fuse is insured, this is to ensure that the torpedo or artillery shell will not hurt their own people. For example, a torpedo is only effective when it is outside the killing range of the mine head charge. The shell must reach a certain muzzle velocity to unlock the insurance.

As mentioned earlier, the Snow Wind didn't find the Tallinn at all in the first place. The Tallinn had suddenly burst in front of it, and it was so close that the fuse safety of the Type 93 torpedo had not been lifted. In other words, after the eight torpedoes were inserted into the hull of the Tallinn, they stopped. For the Tallinn, this little damage was really undetectable.

Shibuya Shiro was frustrated when he didn't react to the lightning strike, and just as he was about to attack the Tallinn with his main guns, two "cruisers" suddenly appeared from the other side of its hull.

Taro Mitsui, who was on the bridge of the Yukikaze at the time, recalled: "The sudden appearance of the enemy ship scared my blood to the ground, and before we could react, the enemy opened fire, and two shells hit the bridge right away, one killed most of the officers, including Shibuya Shiboro Osa, while the other explosion caused the air wave that threw Mitsui Taro off the bridge and fell heavily on the deck on the other side."

I have to say that the Yukikaze's luck was really good, although it was hit on the bridge, but in addition to the death of these dozen officers, it did not have more casualties on this terrible night. The reason is that the leaderless Snow Wind went straight out of the battlefield, and its quick escape was quickly forgotten by the busy Red Navy officers.

Which warship attacked the Yukikaze? In fact, it was the Murmansk and the Kokang that had taken a long detour away from the battlefield before. The two men went around in a circle, and were about to return to the battlefield when they ran into the Japanese 16th destroyer detachment headlong, and immediately started fighting without saying a word.

The Kokang fired first, and the two bullets that hit the Snow Wind were the ones she hit. And the Murmansk is not far behind, aiming at the Tianjin wind behind the snow wind is a fierce hammer. Twelve main guns swept the superstructure of Tianjin Feng in minutes.

This scene was clearly seen by the Ro-2 reconnaissance plane over the battlefield, and the pilot Alexander recalled: "The fiery red shells rose from the surface of the sea like dots of stars. The tracer bullet resembles a comet, dragging a long orange-red tail. From the cockpit, the sea was as smooth and calm as gorgeous obsidian, and the warship seemed to be dotted with chess pieces, and the ripples around it were constantly stirring up, as if a few small pebbles had been thrown into the pool. ”

The four destroyers of the 16th Destroyer Detachment were quickly driven away by the Murmansk and Kokang, but to Yurisic's dismay, all five torpedoes he had just loaded were lost. At that time, he ordered to fire and fire torpedoes at the opposite Yukikaze, and the five torpedoes quickly hit the Yukikaze, but just like the Yukikaze's lightning attack on the Tallinn, the Russians' torpedoes could not be unlocked, so it was naturally impossible to destroy the Yukikaze.

The 16th destroyer detachment on this side was withdrawn, and the real crisis of the Red Navy on the other side had just arrived, and on the other side, Kondo Nobutake's flagship Atago, with the heavy cruiser Chokai and Mikawa Gunichi's Kongo and Hiei, rushed to the battlefield!

These two heavy cruisers and two battle cruisers could completely turn into the last straw that broke the camel's back, because at this time the situation with Gorshkov's fleet was really bad. In the fierce battle, the Tallinn and Baku were already heavily damaged. There is almost no combat power left. In particular, it was difficult for the Tallinn to even walk in a straight line. The rest of the Riga and Vilnius are also only slightly better. One of the main guns of the Riga was broken, and part of the Vilnius's hull was flooded and tilted five degrees to the left. Anyway, it looks like a group of disabled people. As for the Murmansk and the Kokang, although the damage was not so heavy, their strength was limited, and shooting at the heavy patrol and the battle patrol was almost equivalent to looking for death.

Anyway, Gorshkov was in a hurry, calling his battle cruisers over and over again, so where did the battle cruisers of the Red Navy go?

Mikhail. Vice Admiral Sergeyevich's battle cruiser had previously encountered a little trouble and was suddenly torpedoed during the voyage. Although at the last minute the newly installed sonar found these devils. But this also disrupted Sergeyevich's formation, and more importantly, Sergeyevich did not know where these torpedoes were fired.

Is it a submarine or an enemy destroyer?

The vice admiral did not dare to be careless in the slightest, because behind him was the most valuable aircraft carrier of the fleet, if only the enemy's submarine. If it is an enemy destroyer, then it means that the main force of the enemy's fleet is not necessarily in the direction where Gorshkov is located, and if Gorshkov's side is just a decoy, in order to divert the four battle cruisers, the consequences are simply unimaginable!

Sergeyevich was a little confused, should he go to reinforce Gorshkov first, or turn the rudder to find out what was going on with the torpedo?

After some thought. Conservative, he chose the latter, he ordered the fleet to turn the rudder. Search in the direction of the torpedo attack. So what's up with these torpedoes? In fact, it was a Japanese submarine, and naturally Sergeyevich's search was pointless and wasted precious time. In the end, Kronstadt, who received the order later, arrived on the battlefield with the Tempest and the Unforgettable.

Gorshkov's face was quite ugly when he saw the new light clusters in the sea search radar, especially the huge light group, and he resisted the enemy for more than half an hour with his weak forces, paralyzing and severely damaging many enemy cruisers and destroyers, which can be regarded as exceeding the task. But those four damn battle patrols have been missing for a long time, and now that the enemy's big guys have appeared, how can he fight?

Gorshkov is not the kind of reckless man who can only work the contrary, he is very good at calculation, the difference between the strength of the enemy and us is too great, and no matter how hard he fights, he is joking with the lives of the soldiers, and the aircraft carrier formation has already gone north, he has prevented the possibility of the enemy rushing up to carry out a night lightning strike, it can be said that the task has been successfully completed, what kind of fat man is this?

"Order all ships to retreat immediately!"

Gorshkov said to run, only to see the Tallinn clumsily make a circle on the surface of the sea, then accelerate as fast as possible and release smoke again. The Tallinn was accompanied by the Baku, which at that time was almost faltering. But interestingly, although the two brothers were extremely inflexible, the retreat was smooth sailing, and the Japanese did not seem to notice them at all.

Yes, the Tallinn and the Baku were ignored by the main forces of Kondo Nobutake, because Kondo believed that the two lame cruisers would not be able to go far at all, and gave priority to the enemy's still combat-ready cruisers, and when he looked back, he would pinch the Tallinn and Baku into a circle, and if he wanted to beat them flat, he would beat them into a flat.

At that time, most of the firepower of the Atago and the Torikai was concentrated on the side of the Riga and Vilnius, and the Kongo and Hiei had not yet joined the attack because their view was blocked.

For a while, the Riga and the Vilnius were under great pressure, not only the two newly arrived enemy ships were attacking him, but the heavy cruisers of Keno Kurita, who remained on the battlefield, continued to fire, and the four destroyers of the 18th Destroyer Detachment were firing torpedoes at them.

The Riga and Vilnius could not yet turn around and run, for the simple reason that they found that the flagships Tallinn and Baku had suffered heavy losses, and if they had accelerated their run, then Gorshkov would definitely not have been able to run away. Before, the Tallinn had shared a lot of pressure for them, and they had been fighting one against two, and now it was their turn to return the favor.

Therefore, these two ships are struggling with the enemy ships to cover the Tallinn and Baku as much as possible, which is also a great act on the battlefield. But on that night, it wasn't just the Riga and Vilnius that were great, there was one destroyer that was just as great - she was the Kokang.

It should be said that the Kokang performed quite well on this night, the first to spot the enemy ship, the first to fire, the first to achieve results, and with her small body has been staying on the battlefield to continue fighting, it really can't be more demanding of her.

But Yurisic did what no one else dared to think of, and when he received Gorshkov's order to retreat, the Kokang did not flee with a girl, but accompanied the Riga and Vilnius with the Murmansk to cover the Tallinn and Baku. Yes, fight and retreat.

And just as the Kokang was retreating, it suddenly found that the Honorable that had been thundered before, as mentioned earlier, the bow of this destroyer was blown off, and it was almost dying. Let's put it this way, at that time, the Kokang could completely ignore the honorable number, after all, she was a mud bodhisattva crossing the river and it was difficult to protect herself. However, Yurisic did not do so, and after spotting the Honor's distress signal, he flatly ordered the Honor to move closer and release smoke...... (To be continued.) )