Chapter 422 Three Telegrams

Outside the Linga Islands.

The deck of the Sihai is busy. As the first ship of the second batch of four Jinghai-class ships, because it was launched two years later than the first four brothers, it has made a lot of progress. Especially when it was launched, a large open space was left between the two chimneys. At that time, everyone thought that the fifth turret would be installed, but no It's been three years since I thought of this.

It was not until eight months ago that a big monster with two layers of wings arrived and was placed in an empty position that everyone understood why they had stayed here for several years.

With the arrival of this double-winged water reconnaissance aircraft, the navy once again added a sharp weapon, especially the aircraft's ability to detect and guide shelling in the exercise, which made the destroyer captains eager to come on their own ships.

Jiang Feng was the third batch of pilots who graduated from the renamed Air Force Flight Academy, but he was indeed a member of the Navy. He used to be an observer affiliated to the Naval Airship Force. At that time, he was recruiting people to train flights. He thought he was training airship officers, but he didn't expect to be stuffed into the northeast and became a Navy pilot.

The yearning for the sky not only did not make him regret, but excited to death, and it was not until the first solo flight that it was clear how different the plane and the airship were. Only the plane was the real opposite flight.

It has been eight months since he returned to the fleet with the plane. In eight months, he, like the first 49 partners, became the new star of the navy. If it hadn't been for the strict confidentiality regulations, he would have been reported long ago.

Wearing a standard jacket flight suit, wearing an ear helmet, and a wide windproof mirror on his forehead, he looks quite strange. Although he has flown many times, he is still a little excited when he touches the wooden wings. Just like the first time he sees a plane, the taste seems to never be enough.

Today is even more different, because in the eight-month running-in period, after seeing the role of the aircraft, he will usher in his first real combat mission.

"Report, all inspections have been completed, and you can take off at any time." After saluting Jiang Feng, the ground official handed over all the recorded inspection content sheets to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng nodded, but did not immediately take the pen signature, but checked his beloved partners one by one again. From the wings to the steel wire between the wings, from the canvas on the wings, to the action rods that control the tail and wings, everything was extremely serious.

The ground service officer is not disied by Jiang Feng's distrust. In fact, everyone who graduated from the flight academy knows how important the pre-mission inspection is, because it is a lesson from the cost of dozens of blood. According to the dictation of the pilot through the radio at the time of the accident, the after-the-the-date inspection, these years of training More than half of the accidents are caused by negligence.

What's more, unlike the falcon of the Air Force, although the structure of the naval "hummingbird" biplane in front of us is roughly the same, two similar rowboats were installed under the fixed landing gear for the first time. The two pointed and pointed abdomens are like buoys at the bottom of the ship. It is these two floats that allow the aircraft to take off and land on the sea.

But because of the high friction of sea take-off and landing, the engine is more powerful than the Air Force Falcon, which is why the first batch of equipment was delayed until eight months ago.

After carefully checking all the tasks, Jiang Feng signed his name on the paper, quickly boarded his war eagle, and sat in the narrow cockpit.

When I returned to Liaodong last time, I heard that the air force had a bold guy who drove a plane to chase and kill the enemy, which made these pilots envious, so that now the air force pilots have to bring a few trapped grenades in the sky, but the navy does not allow it, because the targets are different, and the naval pilots are facing steel. The smallest iron warship also has hundreds of tons. Unless there are hundreds of kilograms of bombs like the air force, you don't want to nib at those guys at all, so instead of carrying useless grenades, it's better to add a little more aviation gasoline. After all, the fuel consumption of taking off on the sea is several times that of land.

On the rear bridge, the signal soldiers and the two flags were staggered. Several ground officers immediately hung the hook of the crane on the back of the wing, and one of them hung on it and accompanied the plane to be slowly put on the sea. When the plane stopped, the one who accompanied him immediately took off the hook and returned to the deck with the crane. .

When the signal flag turned green, Jiang Feng immediately twisted the ignition button, which was developed by the navy to start the engine without relying on the ground to turn the propeller on the sea, and used the principle of empty bombs to implement automatic ignition.

With a bang, it was like a shooting. The engine of the hummingbird's head immediately emitted a burst of black smoke, and the two-leaf wooden propellers also rotated rapidly, finally turning into a shadow.

As the engine started, the hummingbird seemed to be summoned to start driving slowly. Jiang Feng immediately put on the windshield and began to turn up the accelerator.

A large amount of special aviation gasoline poured into the engine, causing more black smoke to emerge from the exhaust pipe. In this choking smell, the hummingbird was getting faster and faster. The float under the landing gear kept jumping on the sea with two water marks. When it was about to slide out of 500 meters, the hummingbird's head was finally slowly lifted up, making it surrounded by Everyone watching the take-off on the deck was relieved.

When the river breeze took off, another partner also rushed into the sky from the Anhai. The two hummingbirds flew around the fleet like two soaring swifts before flying to the Strait of Malacca in the distance.

As one of the busiest waterways in the world, Jiang Feng found a German fleet entering the South China Sea as soon as he arrived at the sky with a hummingbird, but these people obviously did not know that there were two big guys overhead and still sailed forward slowly.

Like the army's falcon, the biggest disadvantage of hummingbirds is still that they don't have enough range, so they can't go deep into the strait and can only circle at the entrance, so that they can't go back and have to land.

Just as Jiang Feng was checking the remaining oil, the partner at the corners of his eyes suddenly raised his wings and looked up, only to see that he was constantly drawing down.

Although there is a radio in the hummingbird that can directly contact the fleet, there is no communication radio station installed between the aircraft. It is said that it is also fast. A short-wave radio station specially used for air force flight communication is being tested.

Seeing his partner's gesture, Jiang Feng hurriedly looked down and saw only two cruisers of about 3,000 tons suddenly appear in the strait.

"Ebe?"

Jiang Feng was not sure. After all, it was too high. Although he had seen a lot of photos of the Russian [***] ship before, he was not sure for a while, so he immediately made a gesture to his partner and pushed the pole down.

The attention of the sailors on the deck was probably focused on the mouth of the waterway, so they didn't notice the hummingbird coming from the side. When the river wind fell to about 500 meters, they immediately flattened the plane and flew in the opposite direction of the other side.

The height of 500 meters was enough to attract anyone's attention. The sailors on the deck immediately began to point, but before they could figure out what it was, the sharp-eyed river wind had seen the Andre flag flying behind the warship.

Russian [***] ship!

After confirming the target, Jiang Feng suddenly pulled up the nose, turned on the radio and began to report: "Bird's Nest, Bird's Nest, this is Hummingbird No. 4."

"Hummingbird No. 4, this is the Bird's Nest."

"Confirm that at the northwest entrance, two protective cruisers, with a speed of 13 knots and a distance of about 27 nautical miles, are approaching." After Jiang Feng repeated the news that he continued to investigate twice, he formed a formation with his comrades-in-arms and began to circle over the Russian ship.

The Azov and Aurora were still studying the two huge "eagles" in the sky. They didn't realize that Death was approaching. Half an hour later, the two ships had just drilled out of the waterway, and the large dark clouds in the sky and the fourteen warships lined up scared the two captains half to death.

"Fire!"

After Lefei issued an order to fire, the eight Jinghai-class ships were just lazy and symbolic shots. All the tasks were handed over to three Polaris battleships and three Vladivostok-class heavy patrols, because everyone knows that if the eight Jinghai ships fire with all their strength, it is estimated that they will be sunk before the household appliances are finished.

The huge firelight and the column of water falling on the sky made the two Russian cruisers more afraid, especially when they saw that there were eight guys in the distance who were exactly the same as the two warships that tortured them half a month ago. They even forgot to fight back and ran back desperately.

12:45.

Azov took the lead in sending a telegram and was intercepted by 14 enemy capital ships at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, six of which had a gun caliber of at least eight inches (203 mm).

A minute later, Aurora also sent a telegram, which was shelled by more than a dozen enemy capital ships and was retreating.

Almost at the same time as the Aphro sent a telegram, the Jinghai report intercepted the electromagnetic signal of the Russian ship. At the same time, Lefei ordered eight light patrols to join the artillery battle.

In an aftert, eight Jinghai-class firepowers were fully opened. Under the guidance of two hummingbirds in the sky, 96 doors reached a range of more than 20,000 meters, and the main guns roared at a speed of six times per minute. The power was not even much worse than that of the main ship's firing.

After sailing 15,000 nautical miles, almost half of the earth was spared. Both the Azov and the Aurora have long lost the most important speed of the cruiser. Even if the distance from the other side is more than 15,000 meters, after the eight Jinghai-class ships opened fire at the same time, it was almost like being thrown into the rain of bullets.

The first to suffer was the Aurora. This famous ship, which fired the first shot of the revolution in later generations, was hit by at least 20 rounds of 152mm armor-piercing shells in just five minutes. In addition, the trajectory of the shell became steep, attacking almost all of the fragile horizontal decks. The shell penetrated the unprotected main body. After the deck, the thin dome armor hit the key point of protection again.

Especially one of them, after penetrating the thin stern armor and hitting the steering gear, it completely buried the hope of the Aurora to leave.

The Azov is also not much better. Three Arctic star battleships and three Vladivostok-class heavy patrols poured all their firepower on it. Although the six capital ships are old and the range of the naval guns cannot be compared with that of the Jinghai-class new sharp, the Azov is only a 3200-ton second-class dome-clad protective cruiser, with the whole body The thickest part was only 152mm, so after being "wiped" off the side of the left side of the ship by a 305mm shell weighing more than 300 kilograms, the hull immediately cracked a one-meter-wide crack, and a large amount of seawater poured into the boiler compartment and the sub-speed completely lost its speed.

Ten minutes later, when the three Vladivostok-class heavy patrols rushed within six kilometers, the two ships rotating on the sea suddenly suffered a disaster. Especially after all three ships gave up expensive armor-piercing bombs and switched to high-explosive bombs, it was simply a sadistic killing for the two ships!

After nearly 35 kilograms of TNT's 203mm shells broke through the armor like a bull, they exploded inside the hull. The violent explosion tore the deck and left shocking wounds on the two ships. When the last shell accurately hit the Aphroir ammunition depot, the whole battle The fight is over.

The duration is only 30 minutes.

But when the details of this battle, known as the first sea battle of the twentieth century, were gradually declassified many years later, everyone understood how difficult it was and was seen and recorded in detail by a British destroyer. The impact of the battle, which was nicknamed by the British navy as an elephant to trample on an ant, was.

But the next scene made the British very unhappy, because the six capital ships of the Xinhua Navy crossed the entrance of the Strait of Malacca for a whole day and a night on the grounds of searching for those who fell into the water!

Rogerst Winster did not know that the maritime traffic line from Singapore to Banda Aceh had been cut off for a day and a night, otherwise he would have doubt, but he was in Banda Aceh, who had finished adding coal and was waiting for the news, almost immediately ordered the anchor after receiving the telegram from the Azov and Avroir at the same time.

The interception at the exit of the strait is not the expectation of the Russian fleet. Six capital ships and eight Jinghai-class are obviously not the full strength of the Xinhua Imperial Navy, and they will not expect that Azov and Aphroir can play information while encountering the enemy!

So Roger Stern immediately ordered the fleet to set out and prepare to forcibly break through the Strait of Malacca, because the enemy did not know where his deployment had been exposed.

Such a few warships can't stop the huge Russian fleet at all, especially only six of them!

But shortly after Roger Stern ordered the anchor, he was ready to use his so-called "huge radio intelligence advantage" to forcibly break through, another telegram from the Ochakov made him suddenly break out in a cold sweat and brought great joy.

Natuna Islands, four new battleships, four new first-class armored cruisers of unknown models.

Eight capital ships!

This is the largest number of new warships that all countries thought Li Mo could take out before. They were quietly moored in the Natuna Islands, but let eight Jinghai-class and six old-fashioned capital ship forwards obviously attract them to break through.

Although there are still six Duke-class ships that have not appeared, Rogers-Winter is eager for them to come out to intercept him at this time, because there is nothing to stop the huge Russian fleet from going to Dili. If they come out, they will become his prey. Now he wants to do it. It is to arrive in Dili as soon as possible while the Xinhua Navy does not know that it has obtained their deployment at the Malacca exit. As long as there is sufficient coal to burn, the broken islands in the area will be the best place for them to deal with the Xinhua Navy.

On April 10, after discussing with Roger Strünster, who had been in Banda Aceh for three days, and Nebogatov, commander of the Second Fleet, Brigadier General Nikola Krado, Chief of Staff, and several deputies, most of the capital ships of the Xinhua Navy were outside Malacca, and there were 500 nautical miles closest to the Indian Ocean. Be sure to cross the most critical Sukda Strait first and go to Dili.

At 3:00 p.m., a huge fleet of 65 warships set off, and three watch cruisers from Britain, France and the United States also set off at the same time.

At 9:00 p.m. sharp, a telegram from the Russian minister in Singapore arrived in Banda Aceh, but the fleet had left for six hours.

Upon the arrival of the telegram, the main fleet of four Jilin-class, four Dalian-class, four Duke-class and twelve destroyers quietly passed through the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java.

At the same time, eight Jinghai-class and four defense-class destroyers also chased at a speed of up to 28 knots.

At ten o'clock in the evening, Long Guozhang gave an order for all the people to sleep!

(to be continued)