"Report, Commander, the Chinese Empire fleet is catching up!"

"Report, the enemy has changed into white naval combat uniforms!"

After hearing these two news, Matt finally showed a long-lost smile. It was the first time since he came to the Pacific battlefield that he had been happy for several months. He has been so frustrated for too long that he almost forgot how to laugh.

"Prepare for the battle! After two hours, victory will be ours!"

Matt also issued a combat order, but the British troops of each ship had already been waiting for the battle and did not need to prepare at all, and quickly entered the state of combat.

Seeing the warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy quickly chasing them, Matt was surprised in his heart that the other party's speed was so fast, but he was not nervous. He issued an order in an orderly manner. Soon the British fleet adjusted its formation, gave up escaping, and turned around to fight.

Chen Shaoyi always stared at the situation of the British fleet, especially when he saw the other commander laughing in the telescope, which made him suspicious.

"Why is this old guy laughing? Is there an ambush?"

If Chen Shaoyi was the commander of the British army, he would have encountered the main fleet of the Chinese Empire Navy at this time, even if he was not scared to kneel down, at least he would have a nervous expression and would never be smiling.

If Matt knew that his inadvertent smile caused his seamless plan to leak, he would probably have the heart to kill him by buying a piece of tofu.

"Communication Staff!"

"arrive!"

"Let the Fourth Squadron search backwards for suspicious areas along the way! If you find any, report it quickly and do not make any mistakes!" Chen Shaoyi's suspicion eventually made him more cautious and he had some tricks.

"But General, our reconnaissance fleet has long been informed that the main force of the British Navy did not enter the Blanche waterway, but left from the South Solomon Sea. Our reconnaissance ship has been careful to be alert, and the invincible fleet is pursuing the rear." The communications consultant reminded.

"I always feel that Matt, the old fox, will not appear here for no reason. There must be some kind of ulterior motive. We are careful not to make a big mistake!" Chen Shaoyi made the fourth squadron's rear and felt more at ease.

"But……"

"But what? Execute the command, there's so much nonsense!"

"yes!"

When the communications officer saw the chief angry, he naturally did not dare to talk anymore. He immediately conveyed the order to the Fourth Squadron.

The Fourth Squadron consists of three ironclad ships, Dingyuan, Zhenyuan and Zhiyuan, three dome-armored cruisers, Hairong, Haiyue and Haidai, as well as the Welfare, Gospel, Fuqi, Fudi, Fudi, Fuhui, Fushou, Fushou, Fushou, Fushou, Fushou, Fuji, Fuji, Lightning strike ship Forced, Strong, Strong, Strong, Forced, Strong, Strong, Strong, Strong, Strong, Power, Strong, Communications Ship, Fengyan, Fengyu and other ships. It integrates combat, reconnaissance, escort and other tasks.

Commander Lieutenant General Deng Yongzhi was excited to be the first to rush up to attack the British fleet, but a command came, asking him to withdraw from the battle sequence and search behind to prevent enemy fleets from raiding.

Deng Yongzhi was unhappy at one hundred and twenty, but it was useless, and his arms could not resist his thighs. He had to obey the orders, so he left with the Fourth Squadron in anger.

With the fourth squadron behind, Chen Shaoyi felt a little more at ease. Although he was suspicious of Matt's intention, he still decided to launch an attack. If the other party was ambushing, he would pull his teeth into his tiger's mouth.

Any war is a risk, because no one knows the result when the war is fought. How can a tiger be born without entering the tiger's den? Chen Shaoyi still has confidence in the Chinese Empire Navy.

With a "dong", the main gun of the armored cruiser of the imperial imperial naval advance fleet, the Ganning, suddenly opened fire, and took the lead in launching an attack on the British ship, the Ender, kicking off the Blanche naval battle.

The cruise fleets of both sides fought first, about three thousand meters apart. The artillery fired fiercely, and countless water columns suddenly rose on the sea surface, splashing waves and boiling sea water.

The Ganning took the Canning behind him and the Genning two armored cruisers. While firing fire to attack the British ship in front, they accelerated to approach the other side.

With several combat experiences of attacking British escort fleets along the coast of Australia, the Imperial Chinese Navy has discovered a new tactic of armored cruisers, which is to use armor protection, with the artillery fire of enemy ships, and approach the enemy ships at high speed. Use rapid-fire cannons to attack fiercely, destroy and kill the superstructures and personnel of enemy ships, so as to severely damage the enemy ships and make the enemy ships lose their combat effectiveness.

This tactic is very effective, especially the British warships on the opposite side are old-fashioned wrought iron cast cruisers, with limited protection capabilities and unable to withstand the artillery bombardment of Zhongning-class armored cruisers.

At the same time, the other six Zhongning-class armored cruisers were not to be outdone, and were divided into the second and third teams. In conjunction with the first team of the Ganning, they formed a third column and directly entered the British cruise fleet.

This is a close-range fight!

The British sailors on the British ship opposite were shocked by the courageous aura of the Chinese Emperor*, and they fired fired bombardment, trying to stop the other party from getting closer.

Twenty British cruisers were on high alert, and the 203mm main gun fired violently, and the shells kept hitting the opponent's warships, but they were all intercepted by 200mm equal steel armor.

"I can't even penetrate it!"

The British army was stunned. Is this still a cruiser? Even if it is a British armored cruiser, it can explode a hole of hundreds of millimeters when it is hit by an English 203 mm armor-piercing bomb. However, when it hits the Zhongning-class armored cruiser of the Imperial Chinese Navy, at most a pit of less than 100 millimeters is left.

The difference between pits and holes is that the former is not penetrated, while the latter is penetrated.

"It's true!"

Matt, watching the battle from the back, curled his smile. This time he saw with his own eyes that the main gun armor-piercing shells fired by the British ships not only could not penetrate the armor protection of the Chinese Empire warships, but even the explosion of pits was much smaller.

The armor of the opponent's warship is no longer wrought iron, but steel armor!

The difference between wrought iron armor and steel armor lies in the density of iron. The knife can easily cut the fingers because the density of the knife is much larger than that of the flesh. Similarly, armor-piercing bullets use solid steel bullets, which hit the wrought iron armor, and penetrate it like cutting tofu. When hitting the steel armor, the density of both sides is the same, and the result is a dazzling cremation, exploded a small pit, and the warhead is embedded in the pit, just like the effect of mud slapping on a white wall.

Matt solemnly thought about his own guesses and became even more afraid of the Chinese Empire Navy.

"We cannot allow the Chinese Empire's navy to continue to grow like this. They must be eliminated and completely eliminated, otherwise the British Empire will completely lose its maritime power and lose its overlord position!"

"Order Stephen to retreat. Don't fight hard! The Iron Armored Fleet is ready to respond!"

Matt was going to delay time, so he made the British fleet fight and retreat, and at the same time, ten ironclad ships were ready to respond.

But Matt still underestimated the latest armored cruiser of the Imperial Navy. Nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers suddenly entered the combat speed, and black smoke came out of the chimney. This was forced ventilation, which instantly increased the speed of the warship to 24 knots, approaching the British fleet at a speed of sight, and in the blink of an eye, it reached less than 1,500 meters.

"Left full rudder!"

"Starring artillery ready!"

"Full the left!"

"Starctic artillery is ready!"

The three teams turned left almost at the same time, with huge waves splitting on the bow of the ship, and the hull quickly crossing. The starboard side of the nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers faced the British fleet.

36 254mm main guns, 27 128mm ear-type guns, 27 75mm rapid-fire guns, and 108 30mm rapid-fire guns are all aimed at British warships more than 1,000 meters away.

"fire!"

In that moment, artillery fire broke out, and overwhelming shells shot towards the British ship opposite, falling like raindrops.

British ships were shot one after another. Huge holes were torn open, and black smoke came out. Fire rain was flying on the deck, and thick smoke rolled. This old-fashioned British warship was equipped with an open-air turret. The British artillery inside was ravaged by artillery fire, and in an instant, blood and flesh flew everywhere, with heavy casualties.

In just five minutes, nine British ships were severely damaged, among which the Aritusa was fatally penetrated by two 254mm blasting bombs. The main artillery ammunition depot exploded, and the entire stern of the ship instantly exploded, thick smoke was squirting out, and sea water poured backwards. The rear half of the hull quickly sinks.

This is a golden five minutes. After years of baptism of blood and fire, the Imperial Chinese Navy has mastered the key points of combat between modern giant ships and cannons. On the contrary, the British Navy's lumbar cannon tactics familiar with the British Navy have become obsolete. In the era of steel warships, it has been surpassed by the Imperial Chinese Navy in terms of technology and concepts.

In the five-minute golden period, nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Empire Navy poured shells into the British fleet at the fastest speed. If the Imperial Empire Navy used to install armor-piercing shells to attack British ships' armor protection and targeted directly sinking enemy ships, then the Imperial Empire Navy now found that using armor-piercing shells to attack enemy ships is too low, because armor-piercing shells are solid steel. As long as they are hit by a non-fatal hit, it is not enough to directly sink the enemy ships. Moreover, the main gun would take time and effort to load ammunition, which was too wasteful in the five-minute golden period.

Therefore, today's Chinese imperial naval artillery will make the best use of the golden five minutes created every time. They will load the main gun with powerful blasting bombs, not attacking the vertical armor of the enemy ship's ship's ship's ship's ship's superstructure as the main target. The enemy ship's bridges, command towers, chimneys, open-air turrets, tail rudders and other superstructures become the main targets of attack. The enemy sailors say that the shells will hit the enemy ships, and the main focus is on destroying the enemy ship's vitality.

No matter how powerful this warship is, it depends on people to operate it. If you kill all the people or damage more than half of them, the enemy ship will lose its combat effectiveness.

Under the guidance of this new tactical concept, nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy opened fire violently, especially the carrier-based rapid-fire guns. The 30mm caliber shells fired like "bang bang bang" and swept the enemy commanders, sailors and gunners in the superstructure of the enemy ship, and in the blink of an eye, the blood flowed into a river.

"Retreat quickly!"

"Put fish!"

The British sailors were beaten to fleeing in a hurry. The commander had no choice but to release Yu Lai immediately, hoping to use Yu Lai to interfere with the approach of the Chinese naval warships and buy time for himself.

Bang! Bang!

The British ships continued to release fish radium and rushed towards the Chinese Empire warship at high speed.

Yu radium is a very dangerous weapon. The officers and soldiers of the Chinese Empire's naval officers and soldiers knew very well. When they saw the British ship release Yu radium, they immediately accelerated their evasion and hid far away.

At this time, five minutes of golden time had passed, and nine armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy quickly opened up their distance and returned to the long-range main gun attack state, and at the same time they also escaped from the effective range of the British ship Yu Ra.

Matt, who was watching the battle on the second line, looked as if he had witnessed the British Navy's warships being beaten by the Chinese Empire Navy. The other side had only nine armored cruise ships, but his side had twenty cruise ships, with an absolute numerical advantage of 20:9. However, the result was that the British warships were crushed and beaten by the Chinese Empire warships. One was about to sink, and the other roasted chicken was beaten to lose its combat effectiveness. The other seven warships were each severely damaged, with fire flying and thick smoke rolling.

Instead, look at the nine armored cruisers that pushed down the distance from the Chinese Empire Navy. Although they were hit by hundreds of shells in the British ship during the close combat just now, they were hit by dozens of shells on each warship, but the losses were not large. Only some warships were blazing black smoke and some fire could be seen vaguely, but they were quickly extinguished.

This is a very obvious difference!

Matt was so angry that he wanted to vomit blood, and he wanted to call the British commanders over and slap them hundreds of times, but that was not relieved!

The first round was a tentative attack by the fleets of both China and Britain. The result was obvious that the Imperial Chinese Navy took a big advantage.

Next, battleships and ironclad ships with relatively slow speeds on both sides rushed up one after another, and the second round of competition began.

"Turn the Aretusa to the main channel, even if the battle is sunk, it will be valuable!"

Matt issued an order, obviously, he wanted to block the channel. Before coming, he had made all preparations and considered that once he was no match for the Chinese Navy, he would sink the warships to the main channel. Although the main channel was very wide, it could not stand the number of British naval warships. One could not block the channel, so there were only a few. If dozens of ships were sunk on the channel, they would even block the main force of the Chinese Navy.

The battle continued, with the sound of cannons roaring, and the entire battlefield was covered with thick smoke. Chen Shaoyi's attention was focused on the battlefield. Although he also saw that the sinking Aritusa was being held away by a British tugboat, he didn't think much about it.

When nine Chinese Empire Navy's Xiongfeng-class battleships and six Dingyuan-class ironclad ships entered the combat area, nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers became supporting roles, assisting in attacks and acting as younger brothers. The other six Haiqi-class dome-class cruisers each brought a team of frigates to wander around and rescue the injured warships at any time, which were ambulances and firefighters on the battlefield.
Chapter completed!