Xiang Ying is no longer in the command cabin at the moment. His current fighting position is at the highest point of the Zhiyuan, which is the armored command tower at the top of the mast.
This is a command podium surrounded by three-inch thick steel plates. It is at the highest position of the Zhiyuan. Standing here, Xiang Ying can have an unobstructed view of the entire battlefield.
In front of Xiang Ying is a row of microphones. Thin and strong copper pipes lead directly to the bottom, which can accurately send his orders to the command cabin!
In a naval battle, once the captain himself has to go to the armored command tower to take command, it means that the naval battle has reached a decisive stage.
It can be seen that Xiang Ying is really determined. If he doesn't succeed in this battle today, he will be benevolent!
His hands were tightly holding the steel plate, and he was staring at the battleship in the distance, praying silently in his heart, "If God has a spirit! If my destiny in China is still there!"
"Please the gods and ancestors bless me and keep me alive after this battle!"
"I am not greedy for life and afraid of death, I just believe from the bottom of my heart... I firmly believe that my destiny in China has not been extinguished, and I firmly believe that the Han family will be able to regain its glory!"
"As long as this luck is still there, as long as I fight for this luck! Then the land blessed by the ancestors and gods will definitely protect me!"
"The head of state is right! Our five-thousand-year-old Chinese civilization has encountered countless ups and downs... Our ancestors have survived, so why should our country be destroyed and extinct in our lifetime?"
"I don't believe it! I don't believe this evil!"
"Full left rudder! The Reach penetrates the enemy's right wing! Free fire! Rapid fire!"
The Zhiyuan was still eight kilometers away from the French fleet. Xiang Ying finally issued the order to fight. At this moment, the French fleet had no idea that such a big killer was coming from the northwest!
The first person to discover the Zhiyuan was the lookout of the French battleship Glorious. It was strange that this lookout did not detect the enemy ship with his eyes, but with his nose.
On this day, the wind was blowing from the west in the North Sea. At the beginning, the wind force was only level 3 or 4, but by midnight, the wind force had increased to level 6, and the waves on the sea were more than one meter high.
The sky was covered with dark clouds, and all the stars in the sky were covered!
This environment is actually very suitable for the Zhiyuan to conduct a sneak attack, especially since Xiang Ying also issued an order to control the lights. But no one expected that the Zhiyuan, pressurized by strong winds, would spit out a large amount of black smoke, and this smoke would betray his whereabouts.
The lookout hand of the Glory suddenly twitched his nose a few times, and he suddenly smelled a faint smell of coal smoke. This lookout hand was also a veteran of the battlefield. He had an indescribable intuition, and he subconsciously His eyes were turned to the northwest.
"The smell of soot? Why does it feel different from the smell of our soot? It seems more fragrant..."
"Oh God! There is a dark shadow in the northwest! There is something strange in the northwest! Captain... Captain, there is something strange in the northwest!"
At this time, the entire Glory was in chaos. People's attention was still on the British in the southwest. Who would have thought that there would be uninvited guests coming from the northwest.
Hof quickly turned the telescope to look northwest, and at a glance he saw a black figure rushing towards him. He could guess that it was a ship, but he could not clearly see what kind of ship it was.
"Damn it! The Banshee, the Pyrenees... leave the firing position immediately, go north to block that ghost thing, and if you find something is wrong, you can fire at will..."
But before he finished speaking, suddenly a ball of light burst out in the sight of the telescope, as if Poseidon had lit a match in the distance!
"Oh God! It's a battleship! Someone is firing at us!"
Following the light was a faint muffled thunder, and something in the sky was rubbing the air and making a weird scream!
At 11:25 midnight, after discovering the enemy's attempt to change formation, the Zhiyuan took the lead in firing at a distance of seven kilometers. The roar of the 210-caliber Krupp kicked off the Frisian naval battle.
The lookout hand of the Glory was stunned. This was the first time that he felt that the God of Death was so close to him. Before he knew what was going on, he felt a strong wind passing through the air more than ten meters away from him.
The Zhiyuan's shells did not hit the flagship Glory, but instead grazed the mast and flew back!
The most unlucky one was the battleship Pyrenees. As soon as this battleship left the firing position and tried to go around to the northwest to resist, this shell directly hit the bow of the ship.
Boom... With a loud noise, the Pyrenees burst into flames, and the blast of high-explosive shells swept across the entire bow. The bodies of the sailors were thrown into the air in the light of the fire, and tumbled into the sea.
"Oh God! Is it so accurate? Is it so powerful?" All the French people present were stunned by this shot!
The British fleet was also dumbfounded. The sudden change made them at a loss. In the end, it was the Duke of Newcastle who was the first to react.
He excitedly shouted in the command cabin, "It's Xiao Letian's battleship, it must be the legendary Zhiyuan!"
"The Prussian Navy simply does not have such large-caliber artillery, and they do not have the courage to fight the French!"
"God has given us such a good opportunity. We can finally verify the performance of this battleship with our own eyes! Get closer and watch the whole battle!"
The sudden attack made the British all excited, but the French were completely angry. Looking at the fire on the Pyrenees, the remaining five battleships began to change their formations. They could no longer care about the British.
Hough now had no choice but to fight against the warships that were firing, or against the British who were unknown to us. He had no choice!
"Don't worry about the British! The entire fleet moves clockwise and respond to the enemy on the port side!"
At this moment, the French fleet and the Zhiyuan are in a bow-to-bow posture. Looking down from the air, they look like a straight line!
Such a situation is not conducive to the French's use of broadside firepower. If they want to cover the salvo firepower, they have to change their formation to rotate the horizontal side of the T-shaped battle formation.
The fleet's posture changes from northwest to southeast to southwest to northeast, so that the entire fleet's broadside firepower can be used to bombard the enemy!
It's a pity that they really underestimated the speed of the Zhiyuan. The speed of 18 knots was still a tailwind, allowing the Zhiyuan's assault speed to far exceed the French's change speed.
Before these battleships could complete their U-turn, two more fires were seen in the night, and then a wave of water soared into the sky at the bow of the Glory.
Another shell exploded directly above the mast of the Glory. The French sailor who first discovered the Zhiyuan screamed and was completely stabbed to death by hundreds of shrapnel!
"Damn it! What kind of battleship is it? How can it hit it so accurately!"
Amidst Hof's roar, a slender armored battleship finally appeared in people's sight.
