After a fierce and short naval battle, the flaming brig sank into the sea, extinguishing the last of the fire, and calm returned to the sea at night.

Two high-speed cruisers sail one after the other on the sparkling seas, they are sea hunters who guard their homes and warriors who triumphantly triumphant, but now is not the time to relax.

In the "Bar-headed Goose" wheelhouse

The instrument of the operator's station flickered faintly, and could only outline the general outline of the officers and operators in the driver's building, and everything else was hidden in the darkness, and only the sound of excitement could be heard.

"Captain, we have killed another brig, the second cargo ship to break through this month, I don't know what these Dutchmen think, do you really think we can't block a lucky bay?"

"Hahaha...... They came to die, and we couldn't ask for it. ”

"That's right! We will collect as much as we come, our Morz Score Fleet has a good appetite! ”

The excited voices of the officers came, and they had forgotten the hard work of patrolling the sea for days and days, and in order to blockade the Lucky Bay, they had been patrolling the sea for 16 consecutive days, during which they returned to the port to replenish once, and only four hours later.

All the officers and men went ashore and took a bath and immediately returned to the ship, maybe someone took the opportunity to run to the Qinglou to steal their mouths, but the time was really very rushed.

As a high-speed frigate of less than 1,000 tons, it sacrificed protection and seaworthiness for the sake of high speed, not to mention the cramped habitability that was simply anti-human, and the long-term cruise was a great test of the willpower of officers and men.

Geng Guigui was proud of these brothers under him, and said with a smile in the night; "Guys, I'm so proud of your performance, and I'm here to announce the good news that 4 new warships built at the Red Hill Shipyard are about to join our fleet, and in just a few days, our battleship team has grown further and has the ability to completely control Lucky Bay in our hands, and we can't afford to relax at this juncture."

"Wow, that's great, with brother battleship support, I can finally take a breath."

"Who's to say it isn't, I stink all over me."

"Hahahaha...... each other. ”

Listening to the laughter of the officers, Geng Guigui's grim expression on the sea in front of him did not relax for a moment, and the Dutchman's successive breakthroughs sounded the alarm bell in his heart, which showed that some dogs on the other side had jumped off the wall in a hurry.

Under these circumstances, it was necessary to prevent the Dutch from organizing a large formation to land, thus making the present good situation fall short.

Before April 1

Due to the blockade of the Royal Dutch Fleet in large formations, two batches of reinforcements and a large amount of weapons and ammunition were sent to the Moresby area on a large scale, resulting in heavy losses to the 3rd Regiment of the Front-line Garrison and the armed militia.

Geng Guigui still remembered how critical the situation was at that time, and almost the entire Moresby area was mobilized to prepare for a scorched earth war, to fight the enemy house by house, and swear to defend his homeland to the death.

This put tremendous pressure on the ship detachment in Port Moresby, and the young officers of the fleet were ready to launch a decisive assault several times, but Geng Guigui resolutely pressed down.

He knew very well that the three valuable warships in his hands had obvious advantages and equally obvious shortcomings, and that they could tear apart the defensive loopholes of the enemy fleet in high-speed assault operations at sea, and use Miss Australia's ferocious firepower to play a miraculous effect.

On 1 April, the Combined Queensland Fleet landed abruptly to occupy Samarinda, and the Dutch task force was forced to return to the port of Surabaya on the island of Java to defend the mainland, which gave the Morzsbi fleet the opportunity to turn over and sing serfs.

Today, Lucky Bay has been blocked for more than half a month.

In the near future, 4 new ships will join, and Geng Precious is especially vigilant in this gap period of power transfer, and he seriously considers the future order;

"Inform friendly ships to expand the patrol area, from the original 20 nautical miles to a 90-degree southwest sector of 50 nautical miles, patrol at a speed of 12 knots, and be on guard against any small formations that attempt to break through, so as not to miss any enemy ships."

Naval formations use the language of flags during the day and the language of lights at night.

The flashing light signal will be transmitted, and the friendly ship will immediately reply to the light signal; The order is received and executed immediately.

The two ships parted the distance on the sea covered in night and searched for the distant sea......

Southwest of Shangri-La Island

Accordingly, a mixed formation of eight ships sailed on the surface of the sea for about two days, with an average speed of about 11 knots.

Among them, there are 6 fully loaded three-masted galleons, which have a certain self-defense capability, and the 1,150-ton steam ironclad ship "Lupev" and the heavily armed second-class sail battleship "Dutch Giant" are escorting, loaded with 20 guns, up to more than 1,300 tons of ammunition and 1,200 reinforcements, and are heading in the direction of Moresby.

This was a small landing formation sent by Batavia to send reinforcements to the island and send reinforcements to support the Dutch landing force in holding out.

After the crushing defeat at the Second Battle of Malacca

The Dutch colonists soon traced the source of the leak to the cable long-distance telegraph office in Banda Aceh, so they took strict measures to block the transmission of telegraph messages from outside the Governor's Palace and the military.

At the same time, the Samarinda in Borneo was blocked, so that it could not receive any telegraph messages from the island of Java in case military intelligence was leaked.

This made it extremely difficult for the Batavian intelligence station to transmit information, so the head of the intelligence station, Mr. Aomatsu, and the combined fleet stationed in Samarinda agreed that the combined fleet would send a warship to wander the waters off Madura Island, and that there would be important information to send fishing boats to the sea to hand over the information.

The Port of Surabaya is the second largest city on the island of Java, located in the northeast corner of the island of Java, at the intersection of the Madura Strait and the Surabaya Strait "L" shape, facing the island of Madura, the geographical location is extremely important.

But it was precisely this geographical location that determined that it was impossible for the Dutch to block the news of the fleet, and the reason was very simple.

Surabaya Port is located at the intersection of the Madura Strait and the Surabaya Strait "L" shape, to the north through the Madura Strait dozens of kilometers long, the narrowest part of the strait is only 3~4 kilometers, the width is 8~9 kilometers, standing at a high place can be seen clearly by the naked eye, can not be hidden at all.

If you go east, you have to pass through the Surabaya Strait, which is wider, 55 kilometers at its widest point and more than 20 kilometers at its narrowest point, the problem is that there are a series of small islands in this strait, and the navigable channel is easy to monitor.

The fleet had just received a tip from the Surabaya Strait Observatory;

Two days ago, the steam-ironclad ship "Lüpev" and the sail battleship "Dutch Giant" left the port of Surabaya one after another, and their whereabouts are unknown.

After careful investigation by the Blackguard Intelligence Station, it was found that in the past few days, there have been obvious signs of a decrease in the number of three-masted galleons in major ports such as Surabaya Port and Batavia Port, and the number is about 5~8 ships.

Wherefore the commander of the fleet judged accordingly;

The Dutch are determined to continue to organize a fleet to send reinforcements to the Moresby theater of operations, with a probability of up to 60%.

Although the "Seven Provinces" and more than a dozen sail warships were anchored in the port of Surabaya, it was probably a trick played by the Dutch to confuse the Combined Queensland Fleet.

Don't miss the opportunity, and never miss it.

He Fang made up his mind to attack decisively, it was a big deal to run in vain, it was impossible to catch the Dutch fleet in the vast sea, but near the Lucky Bay, it would definitely be able to catch it right.

Samarinda Port, Borneo

The sirens sounded throughout the harbor, a large number of crew members boarded the battleship one after another, a large puff of black smoke rose from the thick chimney of the battleship in the harbor, and the boilers were heating up and pressurized to prepare for sailing, and there was a tense and solemn atmosphere.

Led by the four ships Albatross, Flamingo, Pelican, and Heron, he led four Seagull 1 frigates to sail out of the night, and immediately began to accelerate after exiting the narrow channel, heading northeast at high speed.

Moonlit bright sea

The flickering navigation lights of the ship formation were particularly dazzling, and they lined up in a straight line in the distance, sailing all the way to the distance.