"Peng Peng Peng ......"

Three flares fired in succession, forcing back the darkness and illuminating a nearby sea, leaving the smuggling fleet hidden in the night without a trace, completely exposed in front of the warship "Cuckoo".

On the sea, the 1,150-ton ironclad ship "Lupev" covered two three-masted galleons to break through, and they were speeding away in the direction of Lucky Bay with full sails at a speed of about 11 knots.

At this rate, it only takes an hour and a half to reach Lucky Bay.

An urgent briefing from Samarinda indicates that there should be at least one more 2nd sail battleship "Dutch Giant", where is he?

I don't have the time to care about these now, so I have to intercept the landing team in front of me who is trying to break through.

After the small mixed formation of three ships was exposed, black smoke rose from the chimney of "Lüpev", and the bilge boiler began to accelerate in full force, taking the initiative to meet the lone "Cuckoo", trying to cover the two three-masted galleons through the blockade.

The "Cuckoo" immediately began to accelerate, and fired a total of three signal flares, one red and two green, into the dark night sky, and the signal flares flew high into the night sky and exploded like a fireworks, which could be seen from a distance of 20 nautical miles.

This is a pre-agreed signal, one red flare represents an escort ship, and two green flares represent two freighters.

The light hull of the "Cuckoo", which is less than 1,000 tons, quickly accelerated to more than 20 knots under the impetus of strong power, and rushed towards the enemy ship on the sea surface, and soon narrowed the distance between the two to within 2.5 nautical miles.

According to the summary of previous combat experience, the main lethality of high-speed cruisers comes from the 95 mm Miss Australia gun, which has a very low hit rate on targets beyond 2.5 nautical miles in high-speed penetration, and must break through to a range of two nautical miles to flatten the barrel and bombard, forming a dense barrage coverage, and the hit rate has risen sharply.

As for a German-made 239 mm main gun equipped with the bow of the ship, in the case of a single battle, the hit rate is almost infinitely equal to 0, which also requires the flat barrel to bombard after the distance is closed to improve the hit rate.

Both sides are light ships without armor protection, and the "Cuckoo" will not adopt the lose-lose method of fighting bayonets at sea unless it is absolutely necessary.

So the "Cuckoo" did not open fire first, but drew a clear arc on the surface of the sea, trying to bypass the escort ship to intercept the Dutch three-masted sail cargo ship.

The Dutch three-masted sail cargo ship was full of heavy cargo on the sea, the main sail and the auxiliary sails were all open to eat the sea breeze, and the strength of feeding was about 11 knots, and the two ships changed direction, one stabbed one after the other and fled.

"Boom ......"

The ironclad ship "Lüpev" left the formation and took the initiative to meet the attack, and took the lead in opening fire to meet it, and the high column of water exploded more than 220 yards in front of the "cuckoo" on the right, and came to the face with the breath of death.

The two 150-mm secondary guns of the ironclad ship "Lupev" opened fire, and at first glance they showed extraordinary skill, and the accuracy of the artillery landing point was quite high.

One is due to the night battle, when the two sides were already very close, no more than 3.5 nautical miles.

The second is that the Dutch had been prepared for a long time, otherwise it would not have been possible to play so accurately in a hurry.

The "Cuckoo" found that the other side might hit a close miss, which was a very serious threat to the other side. He immediately turned around and widened the distance between the two, bypassed a larger arc-shaped track, and tried to use the high speed to shake off the entanglement of the ironclad ship "Lüpev", and directly stabbed the chrysanthemums of the two three-masted sail cargo ships.

Sure enough, in the second round of bombardment, the "Lüpev" ironclad ship fired shells at a distance of more than 600 yards, losing its threat to the "cuckoo".

The distance between the two has not only not been shortened but has widened, and the "Cuckoo" obviously does not want to entangle with each other, and its main goal is still to hit the cargo ship, so it chooses to avoid the enemy's frontal fight.

This is due to the fact that both are unarmored crispy ships, and whoever takes a heavy blow will not be able to stand it.

At this moment, both sides reached their maximum speed, and the ironclad ship "Lupev" chased the 23-knotted "Cuckoo" at a speed of 16 knots, and although it fired several rounds of shells as if venting, it still could not prevent the "Cuckoo" from reaching the front of the freighter's course.

Seeing that the opponent's speed advantage was too obvious, the Dutch ironclad ship "Lüpef" could only send a signal to let the freighter return to formation, further reducing the speed of the ship and implementing close protection in step by step, always pushing the enemy ship away in front of the three-masted sail freighter.

The two sides chased each other on the sea for more than 10 minutes, firing more than a dozen rounds of artillery shelling at each other, but due to the sharp change in each other's positions, they did not fire close misses.

Right now

In the distance, five signal flares suddenly rose on the sea in the deep night, one red and four green, and the distance was about ten nautical miles away, which meant that another Dutch landing formation was trying to break through.

At this point, the intentions of the Dutch landing formation were completely exposed.

These Dutchmen are really chicken thieves, knowing that Mores does not have many ships than the Marine District, and the normal blockade only has two ships, no more than three.

Therefore, the Dutch divided the formation of eight ships into two to break through the pass, if the formation of three ships in front was discovered, they could fight and go, attracting the ships of the Moresby Marine District to pursue and encircle, and the other large formation of five ships could take advantage of the chaos to sneak across the blockade line, loaded with reinforcements and artillery ammunition to transport to Lucky Bay, which was a broken arm to survive.

For the landing formation, the most important thing was the safe delivery of more than 1,200 reinforcements ashore, followed by expensive artillery ammunition, followed by logistical baggage.

Obviously, the two three-masted sail cargo ships in the Dutch squadron were transporting more than 900 tons of logistical baggage, and even if they were all lost, it would not matter the overall situation.

If both formations are discovered, then with the firepower of the escort ships, it is impossible for the blockade ships to keep all the ships, and it is a big deal to hurt each other and break through!

The three-masted sail freighter also has self-defense artillery, although it is not a professional warship with weak firepower, it can somewhat make the other party afraid and dare not get too close.

This presents a difficult problem for the Moresby blockade fleet, which one to intercept?

Although the "Cuckoo" blocked the direction of the course and forced the opponent to turn, it was obviously anxious after the flare was fired in the distance, turned sharply, and obviously went straight in, giving up the guerrilla and preparing to engage the opponent with a bayonet.

A few minutes later

At a distance of 2.2 nautical miles, the ironclad ship "Lupev" took the lead in firing near-miss shells, and the main and secondary guns bombarded violently together, throwing 5 shells in each round, pouring fire at a speed of 13 rounds per minute (the main gun and the secondary gun fired at different speeds), and exploded the sea surface to a boil.

The "Cuckoo" rushed forward in the face of artillery fire, drew a clear zigzag track on the sea surface, and began to fire fiercely when it approached a distance of 1.8 nautical miles a few minutes later, and the main and secondary guns were all flattened and fired a salvo.

In a split second

"Cuckoo" is like a monster full of fire, a German-made 239 mm gun plus four 95 mm Miss Australia, in the rapid fire out of 55 ~ 58 rounds per minute barrage, of which the German 239 mm gun can fire two heavy shells per minute, the rest of the firepower is all contributed by four Miss Australia.

The two sides went from 1.8 nautical miles to 1.2 nautical miles, and the guns rumbled and the flames soared into the sky.

The ironclad ship "Lyupev" was hit by no less than 6 95-mm shells, the sail mast was ablaze, the surface of the ship was scorched and black, and the main and secondary guns that frantically output fire were all dumb, as if they had been brutally ravaged.

The "Cuckoo" was not easy, it was hit by two 150-mm shells, one hit the bow of the ship, and blasted the sharp bow into a large crater of 1 meter 2 by 0.9 meters.

Coincidentally, a fragment of a shell shattered the glass of the wheelhouse, killing the helmsman, and several officers were scratched of varying severity, and the blood reflected red on the helm platform.

Another 150-mm shell pierced the chimney and exploded, billowing smoke filling the deck, killing and wounding several people in the boiler room, and the shell fragments blew through two high-pressure steam pipes, slowing the ship down to 15 knots.

Li Sixian, the captain of the "Cuckoo", wiped the blood from his face, immediately took over the steering wheel and gave the order to open fire loudly, returning the enemy with the most fierce fire.

From 1.2 nautical miles to 800 yards, the 95-mm guns of the "Cuckoo" rained down more than 170 shells, of which about 30 hit the ironclad ship "Lypev", bombing it like rag dolls and breaking from it.

Half of the sky was lit up by the blazing fire, and the frightened looks of the two Dutch sail freighters, one of which flipped its white flag and surrendered, while the other turned its bow and ran away.

At this time, the "Haiyan" led by Geng Guigui sailed out of the darkness at high speed, less than 1.5 nautical miles away from the fleeing crazy cargo ship, and fired a fierce salvo of cannon fire from the barrel, firing more than 160 shells in just four minutes, turning it into a large torch burning on the sea.

The "Haiyan" drew an arc without slowing down at all, and ordered the "Cuckoo" to immediately solve the battlefield through the light signal, participate in the encirclement and suppression of another large Dutch formation, and then sail in the direction of the signal, and soon disappeared into the boundless night.

The "Cuckoo," which received the order, immediately sailed to the vicinity of the surrendered three-masted cargo ship, and ordered the other party to put away the main mast, auxiliary mast and all other sails on board, lower the small sampan to participate in the rescue of the soldiers and crew who had fallen into the water, and stay where they were and not allowed to leave, otherwise they would bear the consequences.

After issuing a series of orders, the "Cuckoo" immediately turned around and rushed in the direction of the rumbling of artillery ahead.

The captive cargo ship left it alone, and even if it escaped, there was no loss, and as long as the logistical baggage was not transported to Lucky Bay, it was unlikely to cause any substantial harm.

Besides, salvaging these survivors who fell into the water in the night, don't think about it for an hour or two, the fierce battle is in full swing ahead, how can the "Cuckoo" have so much time to delay here?