Chapter 18: Break the relationship

On April 21, the "Jing Ke" crossed the Taiwan Strait and entered the Fujian waters. On this day, they saw the Duke of Naples in France. Tan Fenglin was preparing to reuse the old tricks and perform another "lack of coal". But before he could perform, the French took the initiative to lean on it. Tan Fenglin was lucky enough to believe it. Of course, without saying a word, he set off artillery and raised flags to capture prisoners. It turned out that some of the Danshui on the French ship was leaked, hoping to buy some Danshui with the "Jing Ke". Of course, the "Jing Ke" accepted the invitation happily.

On April 24, the British ship Penalor carrying fruits was sunk.

On April 26, he caught up with the French merchant ship Antrul in a strong wind. During this arrest, the first wounded appeared. A passenger jumped out of the sea and was touched by the ship. After some rescue, the passenger returned to normal.

In April, a total of 12 cargo ships were missing on the Hong Kong-Lushun route. The British Empire had to distribute some troops to escort, among which the old Far East Fleet assumed this "glorious" task and used its remaining energy before it was about to return.

The flagship of the Far East Fleet "Bold" was built on September 10, 1870. It has a displacement of 5,909 tons and a speed of 13.2 knots. The main weapons are: 10 230mm front-mounted rifled guns, 4 150mm front-mounted rifled guns, and 6 20-pound breech guns. In 1895, when the naval technology was changing rapidly, such a ship could not serve as an escort if it was not for the pretty good armor and the slow fire speed, although it was slow, it was powerful.

The mission was accompanied by two 2,500-ton warships, namely the "Eternal" and "Magic" speed 11.2 knots: 4 main weapons: 210mm front-mounted rifled guns, 4 150mm front-mounted rifled guns, and 4 10-pound breech guns. Compared with the flagship, the weapons of these two ships are even more pitiful. Even basic navigation requires full speed to keep up, but the 120mm caliber armor is enough to withstand the attack of the 75mm caliber artillery of the enemy ship.

Behind the three warships are four British gunboats and thirteen transport ships, carrying 13,000 tons of military supplies, including the six hundred gun barrels of various types, 50,000 shells, 3,000 tons of preparatory armor, and a large number of daily necessities.

The fleet set sail on May 12, 1895 and was discovered by the Nie Zheng on May 14. The Nie Zheng's several tentative attacks failed due to the British army's strict defense. On May 16, Jing Ke also discovered this huge transport fleet, and the two broken ships met again. The two elegant swans faced the huge temptation and removed their disguises, revealing the essence of the wild wolf.

Facing the evil wolf chasing behind, Colonel Perud, the commander of the escort fleet, was worried. His fleet fought with the opponent's small ship less than 2,000 tons several times, and even the opponent's interests. Every time it was a sea of ​​shells. The sailors on the deck were hit by a lot, but there were very few shells shot at the opponent. The enemy could aim peacefully on the deck, while his sailors had to risk their lives to fire a bore gun that was fired for a few minutes. If the deterrence of the 230mm cannon was not too great and the enemy dared not approach it too much, once they reached a visual distance of one thousand meters, any of their ship would be swept away by the enemy's metal storm.

On June 18, 1895, at Langshuiyan, 200 nautical miles away from Lushun, the Northeast Break Fleet relied on its speed advantage to get around the back of the escort fleet. Due to the different speeds, the first one to arrive were four gunboats with a displacement of 1,200 tons. With just a few minutes of support, three ironclad ships would arrive. The next thing was like the scene that happened again and again two days ago. After a stalemate, the Northeast Break Fleet returned in vain when facing the huge ironclad ship.

However, this time the fleet did not repeat the last retreat. The two ships rushed towards the four gunboats bravely, and soon shortened the distance to 1,500 meters.

The British gunboat "Hunter" was at the forefront and endured all the firepower of "Jing Ke" and "Nie Zheng". Under the bombardment of 75mm shells, the commander's tower was razed to the ground, and four 120mm rapid-fire cannons were quickly cleared. The fire brought by no one extinguished, and soon became a burning torch.

The other three gunboats "tear", "destroy", and "fear" opened fire one after another, trying to save their companions, but the 120mm caliber shells could not penetrate the opponent's armor. On the contrary, the 75mm shells could easily penetrate their 60mm armor. These three gunboats could only flexibly avoid the bomb rain of the fleet. The transport ships that looked very similar to gunboats desperately twisted their huge bodies and fled. Until the three gunboats sank, the three main iron armored ships did not appear.

Looking at the British sailors who kept shouting for help on the water, Tan Fenglin felt a little ominous in his heart, and things were going too smoothly. If the British were so incompetent, they would not be worthy of being the overlord of the sea at all, and they must have hidden something.

Suddenly, Tan Fenglin found that it was getting dark. He looked around and found that the tall transport ships were actually surrounding him. Someone pulled up some huge cover cloth on the hull, revealing the huge secondary cannon on the side of the ship.

Tan Fenglin's heart sank to the bottom of the valley. The six transport ships outside were actually disguised by British Knight-class cruisers. If you read that correctly, these six ships were the six cruisers that they encountered at Lushun Port. The British were really stubborn!

The British slogan "Surrender immediately, or fire immediately."

Tan Fenglin gritted his teeth and said to the messenger: "Release the prisoners first, and then start the war after the field is cleared."

During the breaking of the diplomatic relations, the two ships captured a large number of people, with a total of as many as five or six hundred. The two ships were already a little overwhelmed, and this time they were released.

The British cruiser lowered his muzzle to avoid accidentally hurting his compatriots. Fleet Commander Major General Haywood looked a little impressed.

He said to the messenger: "Hanging the flag, he said it out of admiration for their chivalrous spirit. I hope to have dinner with the other side's fleet commander, their fleet will be retained and the personnel will be treated accordingly. Wait until the war is over before deciding to stay or stay."

Seeing the other party's flag verb, Tan Fenglin was a little shaken, but soon Tan Fenglin drove out the idea. Moreover, Tan Fenglin felt ashamed of his cowardice and shouted loudly, "Rise the battle flag!!"

On June 18, 1895, the Northeast Break Fleet was ambushed by the British Special Clan Fleet. Although it had been fought several times, under low superior forces, both of the "Dreadnought" class light cruisers were sunk. The commander of the Break Fleet, 106 people were captured, and more than 300 Northeast Navy soldiers died in the sea. However, in order to capture this small Break Fleet, the British Special Clan Fleet also paid the greatest price. More than half of the cruisers could not be involved in the blockade of Lushun. In this way, the Special Clan Fleet was afraid of the more than 40 torpedo boat formations in Lushun Port and never dared to approach.

Shooting. The shooting effect at 3,000 meters away was ineffective. The main Golden Mountain Fortress was completely unscathed. A month passed, and the commander of the British Special Mixed Fleet could not help but say discouraged: "Two little guys who can only barely be regarded as gunboats in the Imperial Fleet have made the elite Special Mixed Fleet uneasy. This makes us sigh that the imperial navy's ideological advantages are no longer there, and we have admired the Far Eastern Republic Navy for the first time. When this fleet develops to the same scale as us, it will be our opponents or allies that we cannot ignore."
Chapter completed!