Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 4: Both Ships Sink
When Lin Fei heard Deng Shichang's order, he took a deep breath, hid his body behind the protective plate, and held the handrails tightly with his hands. As a warship equipped with a ram, the Zhiyuan had many handrails that could be used for grasping.
The Zhiyuan and the Yoshino were getting closer and closer. Lin Fei could even clearly see the Japanese sailors on the Yoshino and their panicked faces. At this time, the Zhiyuan had tilted twelve degrees to the left, with black smoke coming out of its chimney and thick smoke and flames coming out of its body. In the eyes of the Japanese sailors, the Zhiyuan could sink at any time. No one dared to believe that such a warship had broken through the barrier of shells and torpedoes and arrived in front of the Yoshino!
Captain Kawara Kaname of the Yoshino was livid. He knew exactly what would happen if the Zhiyuan collided with him. At this moment, the bow of the Zhiyuan was just aimed at the hull of the Yoshino. Once they collided, the Yoshino would sink! Kawara Kaname shouted, "Full right rudder! Three seconds ahead!"
The purpose of Kawahara's order was simple: speed up, turn the rudder , and avoid the desperate Zhiyuan. Unfortunately, although the Yoshino was the fastest cruiser in the world at that time, its acceleration was not enough to allow it to avoid the collision in an instant. Kawahara looked at the Zhiyuan getting closer and closer, and he couldn't help but feel astonished: "Our Yoshino is the most advanced cruiser in the world, why did we get hit by the Chinese warship?"
At this time, Lin Fei, who was hiding behind the guard plate, felt the ship's body shake slightly, and a slight metal friction sound came from the deck. Lin Fei understood that the ram of the Zhiyuan ship had hit the Yoshino ship with great inertia! The collision happened! Then, a strange sound came from the deck. The sound was extremely sharp and piercing, as if a steel knife was scraping the eardrum. This was the sound of the ram piercing the armor.
The ram pierced the armor, but the ship continued to move forward. The bow of the Zhiyuan, carrying the weight of several thousand tons, hit the Yoshino heavily, making a loud noise that shook the earth and sent Lin Fei and the sailors of the two ships flying. The Yoshino, which was hit hard, did not stop because of the collision. It still maintained its original route. The ram of the Zhiyuan was like a sliding knife, cutting a hole in the Yoshino until the ram got stuck on the keel at the stern.
There was a loud cheer from the Zhiyuan. From the Battle of the Yellow Sea to now, the Yangwei and Chaoyong of the Beiyang Fleet had been sunk, and only the Saijing Maru of the Japanese Combined Fleet had been severely damaged but had not yet sunk. Everyone in the Beiyang Fleet was holding their breath, and at this moment, the Zhiyuan collided with the Yoshino, and everyone finally let out the anger in their chests.
In the ramming tactic, once the ramming is successful, the ramming ship must immediately reverse and back away, completely withdrawing the ram from the enemy ship, allowing seawater to rush in from the breach. At this moment, Deng Shichang's voice rang out throughout the ship: "Brothers! The transmission compartment of the Zhiyuan ship has been hit. Now the Zhiyuan ship can no longer reverse. We have no choice but to sink with the Japanese ship!"
Lin Fei cursed in his heart: "What a fool Deng Shichang is! Even if the Zhiyuan ship can't reverse, it doesn't have to sink. Isn't it better to lower the small boat to escape?" Thinking of this, Lin Fei looked up at the middle of the ship, only to see that the place where the small boat was supposed to be placed was empty. Where was the shadow of the small boat?
Lin Fei then remembered that before the Battle of the Yellow Sea, in order to cut off his subordinates' escape, the Beiyang Fleet's Admiral Ding Ruchang left most of the small boats at the Port Arthur base before setting off. Therefore, there were no lifeboats on the Zhiyuan. Without the lifeboats, the sailors would be in great danger after falling into the water. It would be impossible to wait for other warships of the Beiyang Fleet to rescue them, because the warships were busy fighting and had no time to take care of the sailors who fell into the water. After falling into the water, the sailors did not dare to swim rashly near other warships of their own. Once they were sucked into the propeller by the wake of the warship, they would be beaten into pieces alive by the propeller!
Lin Fei was thinking about countermeasures when he suddenly heard a loud "bang" coming from underwater. The sound was very similar to the sound of a cannonball exploding, but much louder. Lin Fei then felt the ship's hull shake violently and he fell to the ground involuntarily. Before falling to the ground, he saw the Yoshino ship shake violently, as if it was pushed by a big hand. A white steam spurted out from the center of the ship, blowing various parts of the mast off.
It turned out that the boiler of the Yoshino had exploded. The position where the Zhiyuan hit was close to the boiler room of the Yoshino. A large amount of seawater poured into the boiler room. The hot furnace hit the cold seawater and burst immediately. Steam rushed out of the rupture and an explosion occurred! The Yoshino was traveling at a speed of 18 knots at this time. Such a speed was completely driven by high-pressure steam. It is conceivable how high the pressure of the steam was, and the explosion was naturally extremely violent.
The boiler explosion created a bigger hole in the side of the Yoshino, and more seawater poured in. The Yoshino tilted instantly, and in less than a minute, the tilt angle had reached ten degrees! The shock wave of the explosion also injured the dying Zhiyuan, and the Zhiyuan sank faster, but the ram of the Zhiyuan was still stuck in the hull of the Yoshino, so the Zhiyuan sank with the Yoshino.
Lin Fei looked at the two sinking warships and thought to himself that something was wrong. At this moment, Lin Fei felt the deck tilt to one side. Lin Fei lost his balance and fell heavily on the deck, then slid into the water.
It turned out that a large amount of water had entered one side of the Zhiyuan's watertight compartment, and the ship capsized. Lin Fei fell on the deck. Lin Fei instinctively waved his arms, trying to grab something, but he caught nothing. Lin Fei quickly hit the guardrail and rolled directly from the guardrail into the water.
Lin Fei's body was lifted by the buoyancy of the water, and he instantly thought: "Now I need a lifebuoy! With a lifebuoy, I don't have to waste energy floating to the surface to breathe." He was searching for the lifebuoy when he suddenly felt something flying over his head. Before he looked up, he felt a heavy hit on the head. His eyes went black and he knew nothing.
After an unknown amount of time, Lin Fei felt his body shaking. He slowly opened his eyes and saw a person sitting in front of him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. Upon closer inspection, he found that the person was the torpedo mate on the Zhiyuan ship, Liu Daming. When Liu Daming saw Lin Fei waking up, he said, "Old Lin, you are finally awake. You are not a spy. I wronged you."
Lin Fei gently rubbed the blood clot on his head and asked Liu Daming: "Where is this place?"
Liu Daming sighed and turned his head. At this time, a stiff Chinese voice came from the side: "Mr. Gunner, this is the Japanese warship Saikyo Maru. We have all been captured."
Lin Fei turned his head and saw a blond-haired, blue-eyed British man standing in front of him. He was wearing a military uniform similar to his own, but there was a boiler on his armband. Lin Fei suddenly remembered that the chief engineer on the Zhiyuan ship was a British man named "Yu Xier", and he should be the man in front of him.
Lin Fei looked around - the painted bulkheads and the tightly closed watertight doors, and knew that this was indeed a cabin. Lin Fei asked, "How did we get captured?"
Yu Xier said: "After the Zhiyuan sank, we all fell into the water. The Japanese sent out small boats to capture us. We were no match for them and were captured. You were knocked unconscious by something and floated on the water. The Japanese saw that you were the gunner and captured you."
Seeing that he, Liu Daming and Yu Xier were the only ones in the cabin, Lin Fei couldn't help but ask, "Did the Japanese only capture the three of us?"
Yu Xier said: "They separated the officers from the sailors, and the sailors were detained in other cabins."
Lin Fei asked, "What about Captain Deng?"
Yu Xier shook his head and said, "I don't know. I fell into the water directly from the boiler room. I don't know about the conning tower. First Mate Liu probably doesn't know either because he fell into the water from the torpedo room."
Lin Fei thought for a moment and asked, "So where are we going now?"
Yu Xier shook his head and said, "I don't know."
Lin Fei said: "No matter where we go, we are definitely prisoners of war. Lao Liu, Lao Yu, the most important thing we should do now is to find a way to escape."
Yu Xier shook his head and smiled bitterly, saying, "Mr. Gunner, how can we possibly escape? The hatch is a watertight door, it is sealed from the outside and cannot be opened from the inside. We can't dig a hole in the bulkhead to escape, right? Even if we can dig a hole in the bulkhead, it's useless. There are hundreds of Japanese soldiers on the entire ship, and we can't defeat them."
Lin Fei said: "This ship can't just stay on the sea forever, right? It will eventually reach the shore, and we will reach the shore too. I think we should escape when we reach the shore."
Yu Xier laughed bitterly again and said, "You were unconscious when you came in, so you didn't know that when the Japanese army was escorting us, the bayonets were pointed at our backs, and we couldn't escape at all."
At this time, Liu Daming said, "Lao Lin, Lao Yangyu, we don't have to bother thinking of ways to escape. In my opinion, we have a better way than running away!"
Lin Fei was stunned and asked, "Are you planning to surrender to the Japanese pirates?"
