The captain of the Wisenburg always refused to admit that he had given the order to open the cannons, and later historians believed that this was the self-determination of the junior officers, and some believed that the captain of the Wisenburg did not dare to take responsibility, and in any case, the battle had already taken place.

Deng Shichang, the commander of the Zhiyuan ship, saw the German warship firing guns, and immediately ordered the guns to counterattack, but he ordered the two-pack 210mm main gun in the bow to be loaded with solid shells to counterattack.

In the film works reflecting the First Sino-Japanese War, there is a plot where the shells are filled with sand, in fact, for solid shells, it is a common thing to fill the shells with sand, this kind of shells are mainly used to penetrate the opponent's ships, and the lethal power is not as good as the flowering bombs, that is, high-explosive grenades, so in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, the Beiyang Fleet, which lacked high-explosive grenades, was defeated by the Japanese Combined Fleet.

As soon as the gun was ordered, the observers in the watchtower above the mast used rangefinders to measure the distance between the two ships, and to calculate the speed of the warships on both sides, and then solved the ballistic elements, which were used to determine the pitch angle of the guns and the muzzle pointing.

The gunners on the Zhiyuan ship are all in service for many years and have rich experience, and after learning about the ballistics, a gunner quickly adjusted the position of the gun barrel, because the main gun in the bow of the ship is controlled by hydraulic power, so the heavy gun can be easily turned by only one gunner.

Under the deck of the gun position of the Zhiyuan ship, a number of small compartments were opened, which were used to store shells, and there were as many as 42 under the main gun in the bow, and these shells were placed near the guns, so as to avoid the danger of piling up shells next to the guns, in order to prevent the occurrence of martyrdom, there was no place for the propellant pack in the cell, but in the previous preparation process, the sailors had taken out the propellant pack in advance.

After adjusting the position, several gunners lifted nearly 100 pounds of shells, put them into the barrel through the reloading port at the rear of the gun, and a sailor picked up 30 or 40 pounds of propellant and loaded it into the barrel, and after closing the reload, the gun was fired.

Two solid shells whizzed and smashed into the Wisenburg ship, the first shell hit the side of the ship near the waterline of the Wisenburg ship, due to the limitation of displacement, the main armor protection of the Westenburg ship was concentrated in this area, so the shells did not penetrate the armor, but the impact of the high-speed flying shells still shocked the whole ship, and several sailors were even shocked to fly.

The second shell landed on the aft deck, and since it was a solid shell that would not explode, it smashed the wooden floor into sawdust and pierced the lower aft deck, where it was blocked by the protective deck outside the engine room.

Although these two shells did not cause fatal damage to the Wisenburg, they made the captain Const worried, he knew that the power system of his warship had failed, and in front of the fast Zhiyuan ship, his Wisenburg ship was like a lamb to the slaughter, and he knew that if he sailed out of Jiaozhou Bay, the Zhiyuan ship might give up the attack on him, but the slow speed made this illusion shattered.

The reason why Deng Shichang on the Zhiyuan ship ordered the use of solid ammunition was that, on the one hand, because the Beiyang Fleet had insufficient funds and had not purchased high-explosive grenades for a long time, and on the other hand, because he did not want to make a big deal and only wanted to use two solid bullets to punish the German ship opposite.

Observers from the lookout reported the results of the shell strike, and the gunners on the deck immediately cheered, waiting for the order to shoot the next shot.

The Pingyuan is only an offshore defense ship, and its maximum speed is only 11 knots, and this speed cannot be maintained for too long, so it is far behind in the pursuit.

At this time, the observer of the Zhiyuan ship found that in the southeast direction, three warships were heading towards the Zhiyuan ship at high speed, and the Lang flower split on the bow of the ship showed its amazing speed, and then the observer saw the black, white and red tricolor flag on the warship, and then the observer reported step by step: three German warships were heading towards themselves.

These three warships were light cruisers in the German fleet, and they came to meet the Wisenberg ship, but they happened to encounter an artillery battle between the two sides.

This light cruiser is mainly equipped with 105 mm rapid-fire guns, mounted on the side of the gunwale, with four guns on each side, so when this kind of cruiser wants to strike at the enemy ship, it must aim the side at the other side, and the three light cruisers immediately join the battle, and the speed of up to 18 knots makes them more than enough to quickly enter the battlefield.

The purpose of the three light cruisers was very simple, to cover the withdrawal of the Weisenburg ship from the battle as soon as possible, but the Zhiyuan ship did not know this, and the Zhiyuan ship ordered that all guns enter the combat state and open fire at any time.

The Zhiyuan ship has no advantage in speed, so it can only hope for firepower, after all, the Zhiyuan ship has three 210 mm guns and two 150 mm rapid-fire guns, and Deng Shichang ordered that all five guns be turned to the side and prepare to attack the three light cruisers.

Outside the range of the guns of the Zhiyuan ship, the three light cruisers took advantage of their speed advantage to sail behind the Zhiyuan ship, hoping to encircle the Zhiyuan ship on three sides, so that the five large-caliber guns of the Zhiyuan ship could not realize the concentration of fire on a certain warship, and this also facilitated the light cruiser's attack on the Zhiyuan ship.

At this time, Deng Shichang had already seen through the tricks of the three German warships, so he ordered to approach the three German warships, and at the same time keep the side aimed at the German warships, hoping to use the advantage of firepower to inflict heavy damage on one German warship as soon as possible, so as to get rid of the unfavorable situation of fighting more with less.

The three German warships saw the Zhiyuan ship approaching their side and understood the intentions of the Zhiyuan ship, so the three German warships accelerated their speed, wanting to complete the outflanking of the Zhiyuan ship before it closed the distance.

The Zhiyuan ship took the lead, and a German ship came into range, and three 210mm guns opened fire together, this time the Zhiyuan ship used a high-explosive grenade.

In order to improve the speed and endurance, this light cruiser was only equipped with relatively thin armor outside the ammunition depot and engine room, two shells exploded in the sea water near the side of the gunwale, and the flying shrapnel shot through the wooden deck, and the compartment in the deck contained a large amount of coal, which was also one of the ideas of the 19th century warship design, that is, coal can be used as a protection for the warship, although from the history of the war, the protective effect reflected in this design is not obvious, but these coal burned to protect the German warship.

The third shell hit the deck directly, the huge gas and shrapnel blew off the high mast, the observer was killed on the spot, and the Zhiyuan continued to approach the wounded German cruiser, at this time, the remaining two had already circled the stern of the Zhiyuan and made a detour to the other side of the Zhiyuan.

Deng Shichang did not order the large-caliber artillery to move, the Zhiyuan ship was also equipped with more than a dozen machine guns of various calibers, he ordered the machine guns to attack the approaching German ship, and the large-caliber artillery continued to attack the German cruiser that had been wounded, after correcting the trajectory, Deng Shichang decisively ordered a salvo of five guns, in the design of the Zhiyuan ship, the captain only needed to press a button, and the guns on the warship could achieve a salvo.

These five shells dealt a fatal blow to the light cruiser, one shell hit the gun room on the side of the gun, the thin layer of iron armor outside the gun room was simply not enough to withstand the powerful shells, the shells hit the piled up ammunition, the most horrific detonation occurred, a huge explosion occurred on the side of the gun, which spread to the engine room, fortunately the powder magazine was safe and sound under the protection of the armor.

The speed of this battleship dropped down all of a sudden, and it lost its combat effectiveness, as long as the Zhiyuan ship continued to attack it, it would be a matter of time before it sank.

At this time, the cruiser on the other side and the stern of the ship opened fire at the same time, and the Zhiyuan ship rained down like bullets in an instant, the searchlights and the flybridge were damaged to varying degrees, and a 150-mm naval gun located on the side battery on the Zhiyuan ship was blown up and lost its combat effectiveness.

Deng Shichang ordered that the large-caliber guns of the whole ship turn to the other side, but it takes time to turn, especially the 210 mm main gun at the stern, because the living compartment is arranged under the deck at the stern, so it is impossible to arrange a complex hydraulic transmission device in this place, so the main gun has to be operated by manpower, and the steering time is even slower, and those small-caliber machine guns cannot cause fatal damage to the German cruiser.

In other words, the Zhiyuan ship will have to withstand at least three rounds of artillery salvos!