In fact, after the Expeditionary Fleet left Jinlan Bay, it was under the strict control of the People's Army. The East China government specially sent the Sanya ship to be responsible for comprehensively and fully monitor the movements of the Expeditionary Fleet. Therefore, with the cooperation and cooperation of the Sanya ship and drones, the every move of the Expeditionary Fleet, including the movements of the reconnaissance ships sent, was almost all under the monitoring of the Sanya ship, and naturally the People's Army was fully controlled.

The Vent River was able to discover the People's Army's reconnaissance ships and thus further discovered the People's Army fleet. In fact, they were all intentional arrangements made by the People's Army fleet. The purpose was to allow the Expeditionary Force to discover the People's Army fleet, thereby attracting the attention of the Expeditionary Force and rushing to the Taiwan Strait to fight the People's Army fleet to a decisive battle.

The Expeditionary Fleet naturally knew nothing about this. At this time, the people and others were immersed in the excitement of discovering the enemy fleet. The Expeditionary Fleet was not afraid of fighting with the People's Army, but was just always prepared for it. It was the most physical and mental exhausting. Now that they discovered the People's Army fleet, they naturally breathed a sigh of relief.

The army commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Bochamp of France, and the naval commander of France, the Netherlands and Russia all rushed to the USS Edward VII and joined Phillips to discuss the next trend of the expeditionary fleet.

The naval commanders of France, the Netherlands and Russia all agreed to concentrate the fleet's forces and fight the decisive battle with the discovered People's Army fleet, because they all knew that although the expeditionary fleet was strong, it was a long expedition, which was not conducive to long-term warfare. This time, it was rare to encounter the main fleet of the East China government. These were six battleships. If these six battleships could be sunk in one fell swoop, then this battle would be considered as a sure victory. Only Boshang was the army commander and did not speak on the navy's decision.

In fact, Phillips also tended to face the People's Army Fleet because this opportunity was too difficult. If you miss this opportunity, it would be difficult to find a similar opportunity in the future, and it would be even less than that. According to Phillips's judgment, the People's Army Navy planned to ambush the Taiwan Strait and wait for an opportunity to assault the Expeditionary Fleet, so he concentrated the huge forces of the six battleships and planned to attack the Expeditionary Fleet. However, he did not expect that because the Expeditionary Fleet was to be anchored in Kaohsiung, he discovered the People's Army Fleet. In this way, he was indeed a little lucky.

After this time, the People's Army will basically no longer concentrate so many battleships to attack and engage in frontal combat with the Expeditionary Fleet. Therefore, this can almost be said to be the only chance for the Expeditionary Fleet to win quickly, and it was also the good opportunity that he encountered when he first arrived in the Far East. The Expeditionary Fleet was simply full of luck.

But maybe this fighter was too sudden and too easy, and Phillips even made a long-term battle with the People's Army Navy to fight the people's Navy to catch mice, but suddenly he won the jackpot, and he was still the kind of bonus. However, he felt a little uneasy, but he could not say it, because all this was natural and very reasonable.

Under normal circumstances, the People's Army Navy certainly cannot compete with the Expeditionary Fleet in a head-on main duel, so it can only have assault tactics. After leaving Cam Lan Bay, the Expeditionary Fleet has been guarding against the People's Army's raids. Moreover, the Taiwan Strait is indeed suitable for the navy's ambushed seas. If the Expeditionary Fleet does not enter Kaohsiung, it will definitely sail from the sea outside Taiwan. Then the People's Army can intercept or follow and pursue, which is a great threat to the Expeditionary Fleet. However, the People's Army cannot expect the Expeditionary Fleet to enter Kaohsiung to berth, and it was discovered by the Expeditionary Fleet's reconnaissance ship.

However, it is all too reasonable, which makes Phillips suspicious and uneasy. However, this kind of pure intuitive suspicion, without reason, can't give up this great opportunity to destroy the main fleet of the People's Army just because he feels that there is a ghost in his heart. Therefore, Phillips could only suppress his uneasiness and decided to lead the fleet to attack this People's Army fleet.

There are more than 60 non-combat ships in the Expeditionary Fleet, most of which carry army soldiers, equipment and materials. If these non-combat ships are allowed to fight with the Expeditionary Fleet, it will not only drag down the speed of the Expeditionary Fleet, but also have to separate some warships to protect these non-combat ships, which will become a burden to the fleet. Fortunately, the fleet was not far from Kaohsiung at this time, and it was originally planned to place the army in Kaohsiung, so Phillips also decided to take advantage of this opportunity to let some non-combat ships settle in Kaohsiung first, while the Expeditionary Fleet only brought a small number of auxiliary ships to fight the People's Army Fleet.

Of course, although the location of the People's Army fleet has been determined now, it is also necessary to pull out some warships to protect these non-combat ships into the port of Kaohsiung. Just in case, the Bijing Expeditionary Fleet is far away from the home court, and everything should be cautious. Of course, the expeditionary Fleet is huge, and it is not difficult to separate some warships to protect non-combat ships. So Phillips negotiated and decided to mainly draw a destroyer team from the Dutch fleet, the Utrecht and the Republic, from the British and French fleets, with a total of 12 warships, to protect these non-combat ships to enter Kaohsiung first.

The Utrecht and the Republic were two 7,000-ton armored cruisers purchased from Italy after the East China government evacuated overseas Chinese in Java in order to develop their naval power. The model was the famous Italian Garibal Class armored cruiser, and the former Japanese Navy Kasuhi, and the Hirijin armored cruiser of the Hirijin class.

In fact, the combat effectiveness of these two armored cruisers is quite good, but their position in the entire expeditionary fleet is very embarrassing, because the two armored cruisers cannot form a squadron, and there are no other armored cruisers to form a team, because the armored cruisers of Britain and France each have their own formations, and they are both their own warships. They cooperate with each other and incorporate these two Dutch armored cruisers, which will affect their combat effectiveness.

Although the Netherlands has only two battleships, it can be combined with three Russian battleships into a squadron; but this time Russia does not have armored cruisers, so the two Dutch armored cruisers have become two extras, and can only be combined with four protective cruisers in the Netherlands. However, the combat uses of armored cruisers and protective cruisers are quite different.

The People's Army Navy can incorporate the Qingzhou and Yizhou into the armored cruiser squadron. This is because although these two warships are defined as large protective cruisers by the People's Army Navy, they are also equipped with vertical armor on the side. According to a broad definition, as long as they have vertical armor on the side, they can be designated as armored cruisers. Moreover, these two warships and Jinan-class armored cruisers use the same ship type, and the tonnage is only more than 1,000 tons apart. Therefore, they can fight with the armored cruiser squadron without any strength.

However, the four Dutch protective cruisers were customized to the United Kingdom with the 4,000-ton Armstrong ships, which are the same type as the Yoshino and the Beiyang Navy's Yoshino and the Haitian and Haiqi, which were later from the Beiyang Navy. They only designed horizontal armor and did not have vertical armor. They belonged to standard medium-sized protective cruisers. They were completely two types of warships and armored cruisers, and the tonnage was too far apart. Such formations obviously had problems during combat.

It is precisely because these two armored cruisers were a bit redundant and were sent to escort the army ships. After this distribution, the British fleet retained 10 transport ships, France retained 6, and one from the Netherlands and Russia, leaving only 18 non-combat ships in total. The burden on the expeditionary fleet was greatly reduced, so that they could go into battle calmly.

However, it will take a certain amount of time to re-detach the huge fleet, and it will take about an hour to delay. If the People's Army fleet notices and retreats and escapes during this period, it will be a missed opportunity to annihilate the enemy's main force. Therefore, Phillips decided to send a fleet to fight with the People's Army fleet and drag the opponent down and wait for the main force to arrive.

At this time, Phillips had received the exact news that the total number of this fleet of the People's Army was about 25. In addition to the confirmed 6 battleships, there were about 6 large armored cruisers, 8-9 protective cruisers, and about 10 destroyers. In terms of strength, it is really not weak. Looking at the current world, because the navies of both Japan and Russia were severely damaged, they could count all the fleets of such a size, of course, compared with the expeditionary fleet, they were far inferior to those of the expeditionary warships.

But the fleet sent out still needs to be considered seriously. The strength cannot be too strong or too weak, because if it is too strong, it will scare away the People's Army fleet, and then his careful arrangement will be in vain; if it is too weak, it will give people a head to the People's Army fleet in vain. After all, the Natuna Islands naval battle proves that the People's Army fleet's combat effectiveness is quite strong and difficult to deal with. Therefore, after careful consideration, Phillips finally decided to take the British First Battleship Detachment as the main force, bring an armored cruiser team, a protective cruiser team, and a destroyer team, a total of 22 warships, including 8 battleships, 4 armored cruisers, and 5 protective cruisers.

The overall strength of this fleet is roughly the same as that of the People's Army Fleet. Since it is all composed of British warships, although it is a temporary team, the training style is similar to the naval combat concept, so there will be no big problems in cooperation and cooperation. Moreover, although there are two more battleships, it will not scare away the People's Army Fleet; it will not be as vulnerable as the Far East Fleet, which can be said to be just right.

At the same time, Phillips appointed the commander of the First Battleship Detachment, Major General Martinez, and the captain of the Battleship of the USS Fear, as the temporary commander of the fleet. After receiving the order, Major General Martinez immediately led the fleet away from the brigade and accelerated toward the People's Army fleet. After half an hour, the Martinez fleet had completely separated from the Expeditionary Fleet, and increased its speed to about 16 knots, gradually disappearing into the distance.

Phillips calculated on the map that it took about 3 hours for the Martinez fleet to contact the People's Army fleet, so he put it aside for the time being and put his energy on the re-detachment of the fleet first.
Chapter completed!