Chapter 144: Spoils of War!

"Captain, are we going to do this?" asked First Officer Vincent in a low, alarmed voice.

"Dear First Officer Vincent, do you want to be beaten into a roast pig like the armored cruiser Oranch?" said de Knight, recalling the scene he had just seen through his binoculars, with a pale face and an angry voice.

Vincent shook his head with difficulty, although he really wanted to defend the dignity of the Royal Netherlands Navy, but the difference in strength between the two fleets made him not have the courage to face those five warships, after all, people are afraid of death! Not to mention that in Europe under the shroud of capitalist ideology, personal interests often transcend the gains and losses of the country!

"It's just that we just fled without a fight, I'm afraid that after we go back, it will be difficult to explain to Commander Blake and Major General Munch?" Vincent said with some difficulty.

"Knowing that we can't defeat the enemy, we still have to rush up with a battleship, that's not heroic, that's stupid! Now we leave to preserve our strength to the greatest extent! Wait until we complete the escort mission and support the army to complete the landing operation, and then gather all our and the Portuguese's warships to defeat these Chinese and People's Army warships that only know sneak attacks with absolute strength! Then we will be able to avenge the Orlanch and the Prince's ironclad cruisers!" Knight explained in a complex manner. Although he thought that his current order was not wrong, in any case, when there was no shot, and even when the enemy ship was still twenty nautical miles away, he turned around and fled, and Knight, who had always been arrogant and had never put the Chinese army in his eyes, was a little difficult to accept in his heart!

However, it took less than five minutes for the five enemy warships just now to turn the Oranch into a fireball with overwhelming cannon fire, which really made him a little frightened!

After de Knight was a Dutch nobleman, although he was not a concubine, he was also of noble birth, and he had some blood ties with his ancestors and even the current British royal family! So he didn't need to work hard for his future like ordinary civilian officers from poor backgrounds! His future would naturally be arranged for him by his family! The reason why he came to the East Indies this time was to escort the Joint Expeditionary Force and provide artillery support for their landing on Java Island! One of the biggest reasons is that because of the defeat of the Chinese people's army occupied by the Netherlands in the South Seas, the naval strength is not strong! As an officer of the navy, he participated in the Far East operation of the kingdom, and he can easily reap the battle merits! And let himself go up the road to power more smoothly!

However, these five battleships that suddenly appeared and were strong made him realize that he was really wrong, and this operation to the Far East was all wrong from beginning to end!

Now, he needs to make up for his mistake fundamentally, that is, to save his life and get out of this quagmire of the East Indies War that is getting deeper and deeper!

Looking at the Turquoise ironclad cruiser that had begun to turn around, Cao Zhijie, who was holding the telescope high, couldn't help but say in surprise: "Is he trying to escape?"

"It looks like they're going to escape! You see they haven't even raised the battle flag, and the cannons of the main guns haven't been taken off! Now I can't think of any more reasonable explanation than to flee!" Putting down the binoculars in his hand, Wen Liang said with a smile.

"It seems that these guys were frightened by the firepower when we knocked out the Oranch ironclad! That's why they just ran away! He wasn't stupid to drive, at least he knew he couldn't beat us!" Lai Fuming, the political commissar of the Sea Eagle 5, said with a smile as he stood next to him.

"They are not stupid, but they are a little forgetful, when we left in front of them at a high speed of 22 knots, they should have known that they could not outrun our Sea Hawk-class frigates at sea!" Cao Zhijie sneered and looked at the Turquoise ironclad cruiser that was speeding away, and said with mockery in his tone.

"Isn't that very good! Playing a game of cat and mouse once in a while can be regarded as relaxing the tense atmosphere on the battleship now! Otherwise, we recruits will be overly excited!" Lai Fuming looked at the surrounding expressions seriously, but his eyes were full of soldiers who wanted to fight, and said with a little worry.

Hearing his words, Cao Zhijie and Wen Liang glanced around, and nodded at the same time, these soldiers on their battleship had just completed their training and were assigned to the Sea Eagle frigate! They were not like the sailors on the famous general-class destroyers who had been training for nearly two years, and they had also participated in military operations against pirates many times in peacetime, so they had accumulated rich sailing experience and had good psychological qualities! They had just completed half a year of technical and tactical training, and they were assigned to the Navy newcomers on the Sea Hawk-class frigates! And as their military commander, you must always pay attention to their psychological changes, and eventually cultivate them into a qualified naval soldier!

Seeing that he was thinking about the layout, and the prey that he had been eyeing for a long time was about to flee, of course the captains on the five Sea Hawk-class new-edge frigates of the Huo Jiajun did not agree!

From the moment they saw the Turquoise turn around, the five battleships unanimously raised the speed of their battleship to 22 knots! They kept their eyes on the last Dutch armored cruiser of 2,500 tons!

"Captain, they're catching up!Oh, the Virgin Mary is on board!How can they keep going so fast!" Vincent muttered to himself as he looked at the five enemy ships that had been driving at high speed for almost ten minutes and were less than ten nautical miles away from the Turquoise.

Hearing his words, De Knight, who was standing on the sidelines, could not suppress the anxiety and nervousness in his heart, originally he thought that the distance between the two sides was more than 20 nautical miles, and the speed of the armored cruiser Turquoise was enough to reach a high speed of 17 knots under the condition of pressurization and ventilation, which was enough for him to lead his battleship to escape! But now it seems that he imagined that it was too hot! His battleship was fast, but the enemy's battleship was faster!

De Knight circled back and forth on the bridge, racking his brains and wondering what a good way to get him out of the enemy ships that were getting closer and closer!

But he couldn't think of any better idea even if he broke his head, and by this time the five warships that had come with him, the Prince and the Orlanche, were all finished! The Jewel and the Grand Duke, which were of greater tonnage, he never saw a shadow, and he did not know whether they had been sunk by the enemy, or if he knew that he was invincible like him, and turned and fled! As for the escort fleet that could provide him with shelter, it was still eighty nautical miles away! It could not help him at all!

Thinking of this, de Knight really despaired!

"Captain, they're already following!10,000m, 9,000m, 8,000m, oh my God, they're turning their guns, they're aiming at us!" Vincent's voice hadn't fallen yet!

The five clusters of orange and yellow flames were already smashing towards the fleeing Turquoise armored cruiser with a sharp whistling sound!

However, the speed of both sides is very fast, and the main guns of the Sea Hawk-class frigates without rangefinders and sights are too poor in long-distance shelling, plus the 130mm caliber naval guns, the projectile weight is only 34 kilograms, and the shells fired out are too floating and unstable under the influence of wind speed, so the shells of the first round of shelling are all 100 meters away from the Turquoise!

However, when he saw the five Seahawk-class ships united, the super firepower that erupted, and the scene of the Orlanche's final fire! De Knight could not hold on any longer, and for him, if he surrendered, then at least he still had his life, and he could return to Europe after the war to continue his comfortable aristocratic life! However, if he died unjustly under the enemy's fire, it would be a pity for his young life! He had not lived enough, and he still had a bright future! So, when the Sea Hawk class fired the fifth round of ten shells, and the nearest shell landing point, it was already less than ten meters close to the Turquoise ironclad cruiser!

A rising white flag gradually climbed to the place where the Turquoise was supposed to raise the battle flag!