"Scythe line. ※※※※※I ※ I ※ ※

As Li Xiuyan shouted, the five destroyers in the herringbone goose-shaped formation spread out to both sides for a certain distance under the leadership of Wei Qing and Bai Qi, and then suddenly turned their rudders and inserted diagonally, and the loose formation suddenly became dense.

If there is an airplane that can see from the sky at this time, then it will be found that the two warbands are centered on the two British third-class reconnaissance cruisers in the middle, three thousand meters in front, and then use two arc routes to cross each other, forming two open bows and arrows, and the tip of the arrow is facing the reconnaissance cruiser Careful in front!

The navigator reported the distance loudly, and everyone held their breath, a distance of 10,000 meters would take at least 15 minutes for an old capital ship, but only 9 minutes for the Weiqing-class destroyer that was already operating at full capacity!

If you only get into the best range of 6,000 meters, then it only takes less than three and a half minutes!

I didn't finish my cigarette butts!

In the telescope, the decks of the two British cruisers in front were already busy, and the muzzles of the 152-mm naval guns in the bow were constantly pressed down in an attempt to catch up with the advancing enemy, while the ten 76-mm guns on both sides turned vigorously to the center line, and only the 47-mm rapid-fire guns on the deck made Li Xiuyan more worried.

"Order the rapid-fire artillery crew, and suppress them for me in a moment!"

Li Xiuyan pointed to the rapid-fire guns on the decks of the two adventure-class cruisers, and the gun commander immediately understood what the captain meant, because of the speed and angle, the formation could almost ignore the enemy's main guns and guns, but the rapid-fire guns were a big threat to the exposed personnel at all times.

Fortunately, the Chinese designers have long known about this problem from the continuous naval battle, so the rapid-fire guns of the Weiqing-class have not only been replaced with quadruple main-millimeter machine guns, but also the layout has been fine-tuned, and two quadruple guns are placed on the high ground between the No. 2 turret and the bridge, so that the rapid-fire fire of the target can be suppressed during the assault.

Of course, no one thought about how much damage the blade millimeter rapid-fire gun could inflict on the target, but it was just an attempt to create psychological pressure with a dense rain of bullets to intimidate people, so that the destroyer could quickly launch a torpedo by surprise.

But at this time, its role is undoubtedly great, "because the opponent is nothing more than a small cruiser stewed in 26-40", all the ship's guns are exposed, which is simply a target for rapid-fire guns.

When the target zoomed in at a moderate speed in the field of vision, and when the navigator reported the figure of six thousand meters, Li Xiuyan clenched his fists fiercely: "Fire!" ”

Almost at the same moment, a total of twenty L47 130-mm naval guns in the bow of the five destroyers roared at the same time, and these guys, who had been modified to fire at a rate of twelve shots per minute, let out a continuous roar like a hungry wolf who had been hungry for days and nights.

The ruthless thing is that in the face of guys who are about the same size as themselves and obviously do not have too thick armor, the gunners all chose high-explosive shells!

If it is said that because of the high speed of the destroyer, many shells fell around, then the millimeter rapid-fire guns that fired at the same time were simply fatal, and the speed was originally very high when it was doubled, but now it was replaced by a quadruple, and the shells were encrypted sets, and all of them were fragmentation and anti-personnel shells, so the careful number that was aimed at was suddenly in disarray.

Captain Grove's eyes widened, he had never seen a cruiser of such speed (because of its size, all countries mistook the Weiqing-class for a cruiser) "And their course was very cleverly set up, keeping it within 20 angles of their bow, in which case the Attentive and Adventure simply could not concentrate all their firepower."

In addition to the clever setting of the course, they also fixed him and the Attentive at a certain point, and now he had only one way, either simply turn sideways and give full play to the advantages of the side guns, or immediately dodge and dodge" or he would be blown up by the closer and closer shells.

The British Empire did not have a navy to surrender without a fight, but it was not willing to make unnecessary sacrifices, so he immediately turned to the left and prepared to use all the firepower on the side of the side.

"Aim for the waterline!" Almost at the same time as the opponent's two ships moved, Li Xiuyan accurately discovered the weakness of the two cruisers when turning, and under his order, the twelve 130-mm naval guns of the three destroyers of the first battle team almost all aimed at the larger and larger side waterline.

At this time, the distance was less than 5,000 meters, and at such a close distance, it was all a flat fire with the muzzle lowered, so the gunners did not need to think about aiming at all, no matter how bumpy the destroyer was, no matter how bad the technology was, the hit rate would not be worse than 5 percent.

When three high-explosive shells penetrated the thin iron sheet on the starboard side of the Attentive and entered the hull, a scene like a battle in the Age of Sail suddenly appeared, and several huge fireballs erupted from the inside of the ship along the penetrated hull.

Seeing that its companion had received heavy damage, the Adventure scrambled to the right to help block the dense barrage.

Seeing that his beloved cruiser was beaten to the ground in a few minutes, Captain Grove flicked his hat fiercely, puffed out his bull's eye and ordered to return the rudder to restore the bow to the enemy, and then glared at the approaching five destroyers, ready to carry out a masterful torpedo attack!

The two torpedoes hidden in the underwater launcher in the bow of the ship were Captain Grove's secret weapons, but when he ignored the raging shells, hid in the raging flames and counted the distance of the other party meter by meter, and finally reached the range of 3,000 meters of torpedoes, a scene that made him dumbfounded!

I saw the two destroyers on the left turn sharply to the right, and the three on the right turned sharply to the left, like two whizzing trains, and then accelerated again to the rear of their side!

"!" Captain Grove jumped to his feet, trampled his naval hat under his feet, and looked at the five Chinese Imperial cruisers that were gradually moving away, he couldn't believe his eyes, who were these bastards who used warships as trains and could make such precise maneuver tactics similar to cold mechanical watches!

Looking at the two British cruisers that were on fire farther and farther away, Li Xiuyan did not have any smile on his face, to put it bluntly, these two small cruisers were equivalent to the unprotected cruisers of the Spanish Far East Fleet that the Chinese army dealt with back then. ※※※※※ I ※ I ※ ※

In particular, at the last moment, the Adventure cut cross-cutting to protect its partner, and the Careful gave up the rudder and turned the bow again, obviously to launch a torpedo attack desperately, which shows that the commander and sailors of the British Navy are of good quality.

Then came the real test, and it took a bit of luck to give the Qiangsheng at least a few blows from under the noses of two battleships and four cruisers.

Is luck on your side? After Li Xiuyan asked again about the oil storage of several of his partners, he raised his eyebrows and immediately ordered: "All the armor-piercing shells should be replaced by half-armor-piercing shells, and the slowdown should be slowed down to 20 knots." ”

Smack.

Captain Cameron* landed on the deck with a thick Cuban cigar and snatched the telegram from the staff officer's hand. After being stunned for more than ten seconds, his pupils gradually condensed, and he said in surprise: "Grove is sure that his watch is not broken?" ”

The staff officer smiled bitterly and shook his head, although Grove was a reckless man, he had to say that he could indeed be promoted to the position of captain, so he said that he was caught fire by five light cruisers in less than fifteen minutes and had a left tilt, and everyone was a little dumbfounded.

Fifteen minutes?

According to the calculation of 12,000 kilometers reported when they discovered the other party at that time, even at the speed of 10,000 knots, how could the enemy have just rushed in front of him and already passed them out of the battle and rushed into the strait?

Are you sure that they flew cruisers, and not near-popular aircraft?

There was silence in the bridge of the Qiangsheng, and everyone was looking at Rear Admiral Cameron, as an admiral born into a naval family, although he was extremely suspicious that the clock hanging in the bridge of the Careful was not out of the way, but he still made a change.

At 12 o'clock, it is the hot time of the day in the Persian Gulf, and even though Europe has entered late autumn, it is still a long scorching sun here.

Following the order of Rear Admiral Cameron, four Apollo-class cruisers fanned forward, while the two battleships, the Mighty and Agamemnon, and the Lord Clyde, began to turn their rudder on the main channel west of the Musandam Peninsula, lined up in the middle of the waterway.

He was not wrong with this method, because Captain Grove was reporting five fast small cruisers, so he could use the width of the hull to block the middle of the waterway, and fully exert the full power of the side guns.

But he was too anxious to send out all four cruisers, so his later explanation was that he needed to use the cruiser as the first line of defense to entangle the opponent and force the opponent to slow down, but he forgot the width of the strait, so he did not find a low-speed navigation, and the smoke plummeted close to the north shore at a speed of 20 knots, and the five Chinese destroyers quietly circled into Gesham Island by taking advantage of the shallow draft.

A little round.

Because after the battle removed the sunshade sails, the British sailors who were waiting on the hot sun deck were a little unbearable, and no one liked to be exposed to the sun so much, even if the enemy appeared immediately!

Rear Admiral Cameron on the bridge also frowned and began to doubt Captain Grove's words, because if the speed of the bridge was really more than thirty-five knots, then they should have reached the top of the Strait herringbone twenty minutes ago, why hasn't it appeared yet?

Captain Cameron quickly walked to the chart and looked at Gershm Island around the corner of the herringbone and his heart sank suddenly!

Draft!

Yes, the area around the island of Qeshm on the northern shore of the strait is densely populated, and it is difficult to get into it with a draft of more than two and a half meters, and if the Grove's description is correct, then the draft of at least two thousand tons of cruisers should also reach this limit, and it is impossible to pass there!

But there is a calculation error here, and that is the load factor!

There is no doubt that these five small cruisers will not carry too much oil after a long journey, which makes them unable to reach the required draft, if they deliberately throw away some heavy things, or even release some oil to control the draft to about two meters, then they can completely cross the shallow water reef area!

Cameron guessed not badly on the spot, the five Weiqing-class ships had insufficient torpedoes and most of the fuel consumption, and the draft suddenly plummeted, and Li Xiuyan seized this point and turned the disadvantage into an advantage!

Being able to discover this detail in such a short period of time and turn the disadvantage into a tool to grasp the initiative made Li Xiuyan become the leader of the younger generation of the Imperial Royal Navy after this conflict!

"Damn it!"

"Order the Rainbow, the Punishment to enter the North Shore immediately and go to Qeshm Island to search, the Saffer and the Shia will come back immediately, I need their support!"

Cameron's manic shouts made the bridge busy, and the staff officers were very puzzled, although the Apollo-class cruiser was only effective at 3,600 tons, its consumption was not large, and the draft exceeded the dangerous 25-meter line, and the danger of rushing into Geshm Island and hitting the reef was greater than that of a mine.

At 1:20 a.m., when the Rainbow and the Punishment crossed the channel and rushed into the North Shore diving area, a shout could already be heard from the foremast of the Qiangsheng.

", 1 o'clock! Five cruisers! ”

This sound made Cameron quickly grab the binoculars, only to see a large area of smoke suddenly floating outside Bassedu on the west side of Gashm Island, and a moment later, five small cruiser formations came out of the smoke, killing straight like a long dragon!

Of course, this is not really a straight line, but the ships are a little out of position, giving way to the front main guns to shell the line of sight and angle.

"Right full rudder!"

"The front main gun fires!"

Cameron's shouts and alarm bells rang out a loud bang from the 234mm front gun, followed by the two 76mm rapid-fire guns behind the main gun, but that was all the firepower he could use at the moment!

Because the three capital ships were in the middle of the waterway, and the five destroyers of the Chinese Empire were on top, the head of the word was killed directly, and they hid in the old corner of the bow, so the tall and strong Sheng blocked the firing positions of the three front main guns of the two battleships behind!

The key thing is that because the Qiangsheng and the two Nelson-class battleships both use the layout of the secondary gun profile, and it is also a unique upper and lower layer, so that the gun barrel moves left and right There is a certain dead angle, unless it is horizontal, otherwise it is aimed at the high-speed warship coming at a small angle in the bow direction.

And that's why the gun guns were quickly replaced by deck turret secondary guns.

"Damn! They're too good for the main guns to keep up with them! "On the Strong, the gunners finally realized the distress of Captain Grove, when the concave mm main gun had just been filled with the second shell, the enemy's position was nearly a thousand meters away from before, and it was still constantly serpentine maneuvering, so how could the gunner aim?!

The Qiangsheng was still desperately turning the rudder to get out of place for the two battleships behind it, but the sheer size of the ship and freeboard made him look like a hulking elephant, watching the rats scurrying under his feet.

"Bang Bang Bang Situation"

In the distance, a ball of fireball exploded to announce that these bastards who suddenly rushed out of Qeshm Island had finally opened fire, and five minutes had passed at this time, and the five small cruisers of the Chinese Empire had closed to six thousand meters!

Fortunately, the Agamemnon behind had already been out of position, and the bow and the three twin main guns on both sides suddenly erupted into a huge roar, and then the first three main guns of the Lord Clyde also began to roar!

Listening to the sound of cannonballs breaking through the air whistling overhead, the sailors on the Qiangsheng had no time to exalt when they saw the opponent's five cruisers suddenly maneuver in a high-speed serpentine manner, and when the shells fell into the sea and stirred up a column of water nearly ten meters high, they had already killed them from between the columns.

"The main guns are all concentrated on the Strong! Aim for the waterline! Chen Jiliang pointed to the starboard side of the Qiangsheng that had been deflected and exposed, jumped to his feet and shouted: "The secondary gun, press the gun silhouette with all your might!" ”

"Knock knock." The sound of cannon fire, which was denser than the fierce war drums, ignited the flames of all the officers and men on the destroyer, and the blazing smoke was even more fierce than the sun in the sky, and even the big viper machine gunners began to sweep across the deck and mast of the Qiangsheng, knocking out all the moving targets that could be seen.

Five thousand five hundred meters!

Although it is the large range of the big viper, the accuracy is not to be seen, but his dense rain of bullets is still the strong command tower, Ding locks, especially after a few rounds passed through the small porthole and penetrated an observer, Cameron and everyone suddenly became nervous.

As the distance got closer and closer, the three British capital ships finally completed the deflection, the dense guns began to turn slowly, and Li Xiuyan gave the order to make a sharp turn on the left rudder and sail towards the Persian Gulf.

Following his order, Wei Qing took the lead in drawing a huge arc on the sea surface, and then suddenly accelerated to the gangster, this speed is lightning in the navy at this time!

At this speed, the unprepared British deputy gunners had no way to aim at all, so they could only let go of the Wei Qing and turn to the next sharply turning Li Mu, but when the gun muzzle returned to its position, Li Mu had already completed the turn and began to accelerate.

This feeling like a cannon hitting mosquitoes made the British deputy gunners stomp their feet angrily, and simply closed their eyes and aimed at a little bombardment.

Perhaps God was really on the side of Britain today, and when a black dot flashed out of the porthole, the staff officer shouted: "Captain, be careful. Then he pounced on Chen Jiliang.

Rumble!

"All the sailors in the Baiqi led the hull of the ship to shake violently", and then a ball of fire exploded between the two chimneys, and the speed also dropped suddenly.

"Everyone's okay!" Chen Jiliang quickly got up, patted the staff officer gratefully, and then shouted.

"It's okay, Captain, we're all right!"

Hearing that everyone was fine, Chen Jiliang finally breathed a sigh of relief, but the phone that rang at this time brought bad news. Two boilers in the middle of the hull were hit and exploded, and the steam pressure was passing at a fast rate, so that the speed dropped to 25 knots, and it continues to fall!

On the Weiqing, Li Xiuyan saw this scene and immediately ordered Bai Qi to leave the battle and hide in the shallow water area on the north bank for repairs, and Chen Jiliang had no choice but to hang up the white flag and stomp his feet to temporarily withdraw from the battle.

However, the absence of one does not mean that Rear Admiral Cameron's good day is coming, but because the remaining four destroyers have completed the turn, they have once again formed a certain angle with the Qiangsheng, and the secondary guns have begun to go crazy again.

"Knock knock." Perhaps it was the injury of the Bai Qi that aroused the anger of the gunners, and the shells continued to hit the Qiangsheng that hit their partners like eyes, and after the distance was shortened to 4,500 meters, the power of the semi-armor-piercing shells began to appear, and these guys who were similar to the steel-core armor-piercing shells of later generations continued to drill through the 152 mm armor of the Qiangsheng and exploded in the ship's body.

Flames and smoke kept coming out of the Qiangsheng, and when a cannonball accurately penetrated the torpedo bay on the bow side of the Qiangsheng, a big explosion occurred!

Like a burst of fireworks, countless steel shards spilled out from the bow of the Qiangsheng, and the violent explosion not only tore a large hole in the bow of the Qiangsheng" but also caused the hull to quickly enter the water, and Captain Cameron had to order to turn the rudder again to give way to the two battleships behind.

When five minutes later, the two massive battleships deflected out of the hull behind the Qiangsheng again, and Li Xiuyan had already ordered to speed away from the battle and enter the shallow waters of Abu Sum Island.

At 1:40 a.m., the two Nelson-class battleships finally accelerated out from both sides of the Qiangsheng, and accelerated past their wounded partners towards Abu Sam Island.

However, because this is a shallow area with dense reefs, when the two Nelson-class battleships dragged their heavy bodies and carefully slowed down to 12 knots, Li Xiuyan rushed out from the other side of the island again with four destroyers facing artillery fire!

The captain of the Agamemnon was going crazy, watching the four ships lined up "Rushing towards him again at the angle of 15 in the bow of his ship, the little guy who can't be killed like a possum and is scurrying around, his head is about to explode!"

He didn't dare to speed up the rudder, "After all, this is shallow water, and for a battleship with a draft of more than eight meters," fighting here is no different from walking a tightrope! The high speed of 37 knots made the remaining four Weiqing-class destroyers once again pass through the two battleships seven thousand meters away like wild horses, and when the Qiangsheng, which was slowly moving ten minutes later, appeared in the field of vision again, Li Xiuyan ordered the Li Mu, who was dragging behind, to shoot four spear-type torpedoes at the two battleships behind!

When the four snow-white tracks appeared on the water, the Agamemnon and the Lord Clyde could no longer care about the pursuit, and immediately began to turn the rudder to evade, but it was too much trouble to avoid torpedoes in such shallow waters, until the four torpedoes grazed their hull and crashed into the distant reef and exploded, and they were greatly relieved.

But when the guns readjusted their angles and returned to the four small cruisers of the Chinese Empire that were rushing out of the Strait of Hormuz, the faces of the two captains darkened at the same time.

I saw that the Qiangsheng, which was faltering because of the water, had almost become a fireball, and rows of shells smashed on the tall freeboard as if they didn't want money, and the Qiangsheng and the four small cruisers of the Chinese Empire that were running side by side almost fought a hundred years ago!

Even the extremely high-speed small-caliber multi-rapid-fire guns never stopped. At 2:15 a.m., when four destroyers burst out of the range of the Mighty with flames, and fled through the Strait of Hormuz into the Indian Ocean at a jaw-dropping speed, despite the two British cruisers that had intercepted them, everyone was dumbfounded! At 2:40, after the four destroyers with each damaged ship and the Baiqi that returned to a speed of 25 knots, this maddening strait assault battle that also made the whole world see the speed advantage of the Chinese Navy finally ended, Li Xiuyan sat on the deck and breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time, he ordered to speed up and escape, how far can he escape!

At the same time, we immediately sent a telegram requesting emergency support!

Meanwhile. When Captain Cameron received preliminary statistics that more than 60 holes had been opened on both sides of the hull, he immediately drew a cross on his chest, and thanked the Virgin Mary for her help, so that the Qiangsheng was actually hit by such a dense shell in the ammunition depot, and then also gave an order.

"Stranded."