Chapter 129 Guan Tianpei is crying! (Seventh update, please first order, please follow up)

Airships, lots of airships!

Not one or two airships, but a total of twenty-five airships formed into two columns, flying over the sea in the southeast direction from the sky above Shikoku Island.

Boehme quickly raised his telescope to look at the sky, and carefully distinguished the appearance of these airships and the cabins hanging below. He discovered that the twenty-odd airships in the sky were not "aid" from Britain to Japan (aid for which money was required).

That kind of small airship is a large long-range airship that only the Ming Empire has!

These airships apparently took off from the Ming Navy's Jueying Island base in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, flew over Japan's territory (there is no concept of airspace yet) and flew over the Kii Waterway to support their fleet.

But the question is how did the Ming Dynasty naval airship force on Jueying Island know that their warships had "intense friction" with the British Royal Navy and the Japanese Shogunate Navy because of a misunderstanding?

Now that only a few hours have passed since the two sides started fighting, it is impossible for the Ming army's warships to sail back to Jueying Island to report the news. Even if their airship was hidden in the sky at that time, it would at least take more time to fly from the Kii Waterway to Jueying Island.

Four or five hours. Even if the airship arrives at Jueying Island and the Ming airship troops set off there immediately, it is impossible for them to fly over the Kii Waterway now!

Can the Ming Dynasty's airships reach speeds of 200 kilometers or even 300 kilometers per hour? Or do they have telegraphs or telephones that do not require wires? But no matter what the reason is, it is not good news for the British Royal Navy's fleet visiting Japan.

Colonel Boehme has not yet figured out how those airships that were "firing" in the sky flew to the Kii Suido in such a short time? The fourth wave of artillery shells was already roaring and flying over from nowhere!

Because someone on the Hinchang destroyer acted as the eyes and ears for the two cruisers on the other side of Cape Muroto, guiding the 20 155mm cannons on the two cruisers to fire, and the fire was concentrated under radio command, so those cannons were surprisingly accurate.

, the first two waves of salvos have achieved close misses and cross-fires, how come the third wave should have hit!

I saw only one shell after another, howling and falling around the Lidian. Except for the hits, most of them can be regarded as near-misses. The armor-piercing shell that hit the Lidian was impartial and hit this line.

The cruiser's stern deck also directly penetrated into the officer's cabin below the stern deck. The violent explosion caused by picric acid immediately caused a disaster in the officer's cabin!

Picric acid has an arson effect, and the luxurious interiors in the officer's cabin, as well as the wood and various textiles that can be seen everywhere, are all flammable and were quickly ignited by the burning picric acid.

The fire quickly began to spread. In just a few minutes, the fire burned all the way to the deck. Soon the "butt" of the 4,300-ton cruiser was burning red.

Of course, the Lidian's disaster was not over yet, because the fourth wave of salvos came immediately after, with 20 155mm picric acid shells roaring in. These shells were all fired from a sling, and most of them were

Near miss, two more rounds directly hit the Leander's weakly protected deck. One of them did not penetrate because the picric acid charge exploded prematurely, but instead exploded a huge hole on the Leander's defensive deck.

Fireballs and burning picric acid flew everywhere with the air waves of the explosion, not only igniting many cables and ropes, but also exploding corpses around the bow turret. And the lying corpses blocked the ship.

The bow turret made it difficult for the powerful 7-inch cannon to move.

Immediately afterwards, the fifth and sixth waves of salvos came again! A total of four 155mm armor-piercing rounds of these two salvos hit the target! One round hit the building below the bridge and exploded on the spot.

, the shock caused all the people inside the bridge to stagger. Two other shells hit the port side deck of the Lidian. One penetrated and exploded in the coal bunker below the port side deck of the Lidian, causing a fire.

.

The deadliest one penetrated a chimney, but the shell filled with picric acid did not explode immediately. Instead, it fell along the inner wall of the chimney and fell into the Leander's boiler room.

Then came a central explosion, and there was a big explosion in the boiler room. The boiler leaked on the spot, the pipes were damaged, and all the British guys in charge of burning the boiler were killed.

Lydia's motivation was soon completely lost!

At this point, the Lidian had already suffered six 155mm picric acid armor-piercing shells, plus dozens of near-misses. The entire 4,300-ton cruiser caught fire, lost power, and the hull was damaged.

The surface was also pockmarked by shrapnel from near misses, which made it "painful" to look at - if the Lidean could talk, it would be howling and screaming by now.

But even after the cruiser was blown up into this state, it still floated on the sea very stubbornly. It just refused to sink. What a stubborn ship!

However, Captain Boehme still clearly realized that the ship was no longer available, and immediately issued an order to abandon the ship, and also asked the destroyer Hippopotamus to come in to rescue people. However, just after giving the order, a naval officer next to him told

He, the Ming Navy destroyer that was billowing smoke just now is no longer smoking, and is shelling the Hippo with another Ming destroyer!

"What? Is this a trap?" Colonel Boehmer looked back and immediately fell into despair!

Because he found that the situation of the Hippopotamus was worse than that of the Bidean. It was not only bombarded by two Ming destroyers, but also those cannons hidden somewhere!

I saw cannonballs falling like raindrops around the Hippo, which was only a few hundred tons. Suddenly, a huge fireball burst out from the Hippo not far away.

In the thick smoke, Colonel Boehmer could only see that the several hundred-ton destroyer seemed to have been cut into two pieces by a giant sword, and then it sank rapidly at the same time, completely disappearing from people's sight in the blink of an eye.

Although it was only a destroyer that sank, Boehmer still felt the scythe of death dangling on his head. As an old navy man, he knew very well that the reason why the Lidian could survive until now was because of the power of the Ming Dynasty's 155mm artillery shells.

Insufficient. If it were replaced by a cannon of 200 mm or more, one shot could sink the Lidean.

But now the Ming Navy does not need 200mm cannons to sink the Li De'an, which has lost its combat effectiveness. It just needs to let the two destroyers come up to launch torpedoes.

Thinking of this, Boehmer could only order in a trembling voice: "Abandon the ship. I order everyone to abandon the ship."

However, contrary to Colonel Boehme's expectations, the two destroyers of the Ming Navy did not fire torpedoes at the burning Lidian. Of course, they did not stop the British who abandoned the ship from rowing small boats or swimming to Shikoku Island. They just circled around

He fired randomly at the abandoned Lidian as if the battle was still going on.

Of course Boehmer, who was sitting on a small sampan, did not know that the reason why these two Ming destroyers did not sink the Lidian was actually to use it as bait to attract the Indomitable formation, which was approaching at a speed of 15 knots.

Rescue the Leedian.

The Indomitable is an ironclad ship of more than 10,000 tons, and it is still flying the flagship flag!

Guan Tianpei, who had already flown over the Kii Suido, was able to see the "chubby" Indomitable with a high-power telescope and swallowed his saliva!

If this battleship could be sunk by an airship, the Ming Dynasty's naval aviation would become famous.

Guan Tianpei pointed the telescope in his hand at the sea northwest of Cape Muroto, and then stared at the Indomitable, which was rapidly heading south under the protection of a destroyer.

"Give the Vladivostok and Lushun a message to tell them that the Indomitable is coming, and there is only one destroyer around. The opportunity has come to sink it. Please ask the Vladivostok and Lushun to come to support immediately. Let's kill the Indomitable together!"

"Yes, sir!"
Chapter completed!