Chapter 143: Destroying the Oranch

"Captain, look!" After surrendering, Lorenz, who was standing on the deck of the Prince waiting for the surrender of the Chinese People's Army Navy, suddenly changed his mind and shouted loudly in a complicated tone.

Hearing his words, the pale and lonely Connellis raised his head, and a little brilliance condensed in his godless eyes, looking at the sea in the distance!

I saw that the five battleships that were supposed to surround and accept their surrender had already assembled in a straight line, and they didn't care about the ironclad cruiser of the Prince, which had already turned off and surrendered, and sailed directly towards the sea in the east at a high speed of 22 knots!

"Captain, that direction is ......!" said Captain Escher, with a pale face and a look of trepidation.

Although he did not finish speaking, the officers and soldiers of the surrounding Prince understood that to the east of their battleship, it was the direction of the Dutch armored cruisers 'Turquoise' and 'Orlanch', which were of the same tonnage and armament as them!

"It seems that they have paid good attention from the beginning of the division of troops, first dispersing our forces step by step, and then taking advantage of the high speed of their warships and the powerful naval guns with long ranges, concentrating all the warships to form a local advantage, gradually eating us one by one, and then defeating our pursuing fleet!" Saying this, Cornelis couldn't help but sigh deeply! Now that he has been defeated, even if the enemy ships did not come up to capture them at all, they have dropped to a speed of 6 knots due to water inlet and the damage of coal-fired boilers, and it is difficult for him to escape the search and capture of the enemy's high-speed warships! Moreover, they are on a sea expedition, and they have lost all two main guns and half of the secondary guns, and the Taizi, whose battleship is seriously damaged, has no possibility of repairing it at all! Even if they return to the escort fleet, it will be impossible to provide the slightest support for the next landing activities!

However, these were just his own considerations, and he did not say it in public! Because he did not want to attack the officers and soldiers of the Prince who were living for the rest of his life!

"Captain, will we go back to the escort fleet now?" Looking at the officers and men of the Prince who were rescuing the wounded soldiers and collecting the bodies of their own war dead, the first mate Lorenz asked with a hint of surprise.

Although, now they have guessed that the 'Turquoise' and 'Oranch' are likely to follow in their footsteps and be defeated by the high speed and powerful naval guns of the KPA naval warships! However, apart from praying to God and wishing them good luck, they are no longer of much help after being defeated and surrendered, and even the main guns of the battleships have been lost!

Looking at the joy on his face, Cornelius couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart, now they were more than a hundred nautical miles away from the escort fleet! The Crown Prince was now seriously lagging behind, and as the water in the bilge became more and more accumulated, its speed might slow down, and in this case, it would only be possible to go back for at least two hours! But judging from the fact that they were beaten by the enemy ships in less than five minutes, and they lost their combat effectiveness, they defeated the 'Turquoise' and ' The Orlanche', plus it won't take more than half an hour on the road! And how far can it escape in half an hour with the slower and slower speed of its own warship!

"Maybe there's only one way, maybe we'll get away with it!" Cornelis muttered to himself, looking at the place where the heavens and the water meet in the west. Although the Crown Prince had been defeated, he didn't want to be a prisoner!

"Lorenz told Escher, we don't go back to the convoy, we turn around and head west!"

"Captain, you want to find the 'Jewel' and the 'Grand Duke'!" Lorenz asked with some disagreement!

"Yes, judging from the current situation, the 'Jewel' and the 'Grand Duke' should be coming from the west, even if their speed is slow, but after such a long time, they must not be far from us! Therefore, we should be able to get the protection of the 'Jewel' and the 'Grand Duke', two 3,500-ton ironclad battleships, before those five warships defeat the 'Turquoise' and 'Oranche', and we may be really safe at that time!" said Conelis with certainty.

Hearing his words, Lorenz also nodded in agreement! As for defeating the enemy's five warships after receiving the support of the two battleships, the 'Jewel' and the 'Grand Duke'! They didn't think about such a thing at all! Because the speed difference between the two sides was too far! Under the speed of the other side, which was close to 22 knots, the two battleships, which still relied on manual and mechanical assistance to adjust the position of the main guns, could not aim at the enemy's warships at all! On the other hand, it was very likely that the 'Jewel' and ' The Grand Duke' was beaten into a sieve by the sharp rain of bullets from enemy ships!

"Boom......!"

A sound of cannon roar that made the Prince both familiar and frightened came from a distance on the sea in the east! The officers and men of the Prince, who were busy in the deck and engine room, were shocked, and they involuntarily stopped what they were doing, and all raised their haggard heads, which were covered with gunsmoke, and looked at the sea in the east!

Listening to the increasingly dense cannon fire, Cornelis sighed deeply, patted Lorenz, who was holding the telescope, looking more and more ugly, and said with a wry smile: "Don't look any further! Their results will not be any different from ours!"

"Captain, don't we care about the Oranch?" said Lorenz, looking at him palely. He had already seen through the telescope just now that the armored cruiser 'Oranch,' which had fallen into the enemy's encirclement, had already caught fire in many places after less than three rounds of naval artillery strikes from the enemy, and it was about to follow in the footsteps of their Prince! This made Lorenz, who was also in the Royal Netherlands Navy, feel very uncomfortable!

"How can we manage it? What can we do with it? Our two own 180mm main guns have all been lost, and only two of the four 75mm secondary guns remain, and the speed of the battleship is now only six knots! We can't even keep ourselves now, so we have the strength to help the 'Oranch'! Now, we are the ones who need help the most!" Cornelis said with a wry smile with a complicated expression.

Hearing his words, Lorenz was obviously stunned for a moment, and then he realized that his current situation was not much better than that of the 'Oranch'!

"Captain, I'll tell them to start the battleship, we should get out of here as soon as possible!" Lorenz changed his face at the thought of his situation, and after saying this, he turned and ran towards the cabin!

Although the five Seahawk-class battleships that were wantonly venting their artillery fire had already spotted the armored cruiser Taizi that was slowly leaving 20 nautical miles away!

Looking at the ironclad cruiser Oranch, which had been beaten into a fireball by the Huo Jiajun in the distance, Chen Jin smiled coldly, another Dutch battleship had lost its combat effectiveness in the hands of him and his companions!

"Okay, there's no need to waste shells for it! Moreover, our next opponent has already come!" Chen Jin stood on the bridge and held his telescope high to look at the 'Turquoise' ironclad ship that had already revealed its shadow in the distance, and his dark eyes revealed bloodthirsty!

"Yes, Captain!" replied in an excited voice from the combat staff officer! In just two sea encounters, the experience of defeating the Dutch warships has already established the confidence of this young navy, and the hope of fighting has never been higher!

Van der Waal's expression was in a trance as he looked at the five ships with slender hulls, exuding a thick murderous aura, with gunpowder smoke and bloodthirsty looks, bypassing the ironclad cruiser Oranch, which was constantly burning and exploding, and rushing towards the enemy ships in the east!

His face was pale, and his expression suddenly fell to the teak floor in the bridge, and everything that happened in less than five minutes just now was like a nightmare to him! He never imagined that the armored cruiser Oranch, which he was so proud of, would not even be able to return fire under the overwhelming artillery fire of the enemy, and would be beaten by the enemy and lose its combat effectiveness!

"God, are we fighting the devil?" Van der Waal, looking at the crew members who were struggling to jump into the sea in flames and the superstructure that had been largely destroyed, he tore at his military uniform and whispered to himself with a painful expression.