At this time, the sniping of the expeditionary fleet of the Northern Fleet of the People's Navy also came to an end, and the retreating British warships basically escaped 10 kilometers away, and also released a large amount of smoke, so for a time the sea was full of fog, and the distant scene was very blurry. The fleets of the Netherlands, Russia, and France, which had retreated first, had already run 3 or 40 kilometers away. Of course, the Northern Fleet is not worried that the expeditionary fleet will really escape, because at the southern entrance to the Taiwan Strait, there is still the Southern Fleet of the People's Army Navy waiting for them.

The nearby sea is full of broken hulls, steel plates, wood chips, masts, flags and other objects, as well as burning warships that have not sunk, and warships that have lost power or steering ability and can only drift slowly on the surface of the sea. And the most important thing in the sea is people, there are living people, dead people, and broken limbs, and of course the people who are still alive are struggling and begging for help in the sea water.

Although the task of intercepting the expeditionary fleet has been successfully completed, the rest of the matter cannot be handed over to the Southern Fleet, and it is still necessary for the Northern Fleet to give sufficient support to the Southern Fleet, after all, the strength of the Northern Fleet is far superior to that of the Southern Fleet.

However, now the things on the battlefield are not completely over, the battlefield still needs to be cleaned up, and the warships floating on the sea also have to be solved, so Han Chao ordered the battleship detachment to take the fourth cruiser squadron and the third destroyer squadron, and at the same time also pulled out the four warships Jinan, Tianjin, Qingzhou, and Yizhou to them, responsible for catching up, and cooperating with the Southern Fleet to flank the expeditionary fleet.

In the battle just now, two warships of the First Cruiser Squadron were sunk by Jinghai and Luohai, and the destroyer Hehua was also sunk, so there were actually only 3 protective cruisers and 3 destroyers. It is responsible for clearing the battlefield and rescuing British soldiers who have fallen overboard, while also dealing with warships that are still drifting on the sea.

The two modern warships Kunming and Xiangyang did not move for the time being, but learned about the situation of the new battlefield through the helicopters of the Southern Fleet, and guided the attack, except for the Haihongqi 16**, which is only 50 kilometers, the combat distance of the Haihongqi 9** is 250 kilometers, and the combat distance of the Eagle Strike 18** is 350 kilometers, both of which can support the operation of the Southern Fleet.

After the fleet was distributed, the smoke on the sea gradually dissipated, and Chen Xiaojiang, the commander of the battleship detachment, led the pursuing warships to set off, and the remaining warships were responsible for rescuing the British soldiers who had fallen into the water, while the Red Rabbit and the Absolute Shadow led the three destroyers River Dragon, River Qing, and River Rhino, which were responsible for solving the British warships drifting on the sea surface.

At present, there are a total of 8 British warships still drifting on the sea, namely the British battleships Discord, Revolt, and Mars, the armored cruisers Donegal and Berwick, the protective cruisers Niob and Europa, and the Russian battleship Glory, which was hit by the Dutch battleship William I in the process of evacuation, causing two propellers to break and unable to move, and as a result, it has drifted on the sea until now. The common feature of these warships is that the guns on the ships have basically been destroyed, and even if there are still a few, there are not a few left, and the hulls of the ships are seriously damaged, or the power system has malfunctioned and cannot move, or there is too much water in the warship, resulting in a significant decrease in maneuverability, and so on.

The principle of dealing with these warships is, of course, first of all, persuasion to surrender, which is also the best result, because although these warships have been seriously damaged, as long as they can still float on the water, they can be repaired and used by the People's Army Navy to enhance their own strength, and the cost and time required for repair are far less than that of building a new warship; secondly, they should jump off the board and forcibly occupy the warship by force; the result is similar to persuasion to surrender, and the People's Army can also get the warship, but it will have to pay a certain price; after all, there will certainly be a certain sacrifice in forcibly occupying the warship, and even if the ship is boarded, it may not be able to occupy the warship, and the officers and men on the ship can choose to sink themselves or blow up the warshipThe worst outcome is that the warship refuses to surrender and still has a certain ability to resist, making it difficult for the KPA Navy to carry out a jump war, so the KPA Navy can only choose to sink it.

The first thing to deal with was the battleship Discord, because in the battle just now, the Discord was the first warship to withdraw from the battle, due to a large amount of water in the ship's cabin, plus a propeller was destroyed, so the speed of the warship was only 4 or 5 knots, and it was unable to escape at all, so it simply did not run away, and it was floating on the sea. However, in addition, the other damage to the warship was not too serious, most of the ship's guns were still intact, but at this time the ship's water was more than 1,000 tons, the deck was less than 2 meters from the sea, and most of the crew stood on the deck, but the ammunition depot was flooded by the sea, and the shells could not be taken out, so it was useless to have naval guns.

The Red Rabbit and the Jedi Shadow kept approaching within 2,000 meters of the Resistance, and the Red Rabbit waved the flag of "asking to board the ship" to the Discord. Soon the Revolt replied and allowed boarding.

So the Red Rabbit sent an envoy to the Resistance in a small boat, met with the captain of the Discord, McClini, and demanded that McCulini hand over the warship and surrender to the People's Army, and guaranteed that the crew of the Resistance could not be treated as prisoners of war, and that the wounded personnel on the Resistance could also be given priority by the East China Government and treated under the best conditions, otherwise the People's Army would sink the Resistance, and the current crew would definitely have casualties, and even if they were rescued by the People's Army, they would be treated as prisoners of war, and it would be impossible for the injured to receive the most timely and best treatment.

Captain McCulini made only one request, that is, the KPA make a written guarantee, while keeping his command knife, the messenger agreed, and the second time he came to the Discord with the guarantee, McCulnone signed the guarantee, and ordered the crew to surrender the warship and surrender to the KPA. The Red Rabbit then relied on the Long Discord and sent a group of soldiers to board the Discord, and the Discord's navigator Jackson was responsible for handing over to the People's Army.

About 20 minutes later, the KPA took full control of the warship, leaving only a small number of crew members responsible for operating the warship, and everyone else was transferred to the Chitu for supervision, and then the KPA brought two high-power pumping machines to the Discord to help the Discord pump water, because the current state of the warship is quite bad, and it may sink at any time, and since the KPA controls the warship, it is natural to try its best to keep the warship, so first draw out some water so that the warship can float up a little so that it can be towed back. Moreover, it is not a good thing for the ammunition depot to be immersed in seawater for a long time, the pressure of the seawater will cause the ammunition to explode, and the pumping is also the probability of falling to the bottom.

While the KPA was busy handing over control of the warship, Captain McCulnone hid in his room and shot himself, leaving only a suicide note explaining why he chose to surrender.

It turned out that McClini did not want to surrender, but at this time, most of the cabins of the warship had been flooded by the sea, whether it was to detonate the warship or open the bottom valve, so that the warship could not sink itself, and in the case of unable to sink itself, Captain McCulini could only choose to surrender and strive for the best result for the remaining crew of the ship. And after dealing with these things, McClini could only leave a suicide note and defend his honor by committing suicide.

After learning about these circumstances, Lei Meng, the captain of the Red Rabbit, still had some respect for this colleague, handed over the suicide note to Jackson, the captain of the Discord, for safekeeping, and agreed to let McClini's body wear the captain's military uniform and wear his own command knife, first wrapped in the British naval flag, and then choose the coffin to be buried after the war is over and ashore. Lei Meng's holding also won some favor from the crew, so he also cooperated a lot in the subsequent actions.

After successfully taking over the Discord, the KPA proceeded to deal with the Revolt and the Mars, but this did not go so smoothly, and both were strongly rejected by the two warships, so the KPA launched a broadside operation against the two warships, and the crews of the two ships resisted with the few remaining weapons on the ships, and on the other hand, they also managed to sink the warships and never let the warships fall into the hands of the KPA.

The Revolt successfully opened the bottom valve and let the warship sink to the bottom of the sea, but the Mars, like the Discord, flooded the bilge and flooded the bottom valve, but there was not so much discord, although the crew dived into the bilge a second time and tried to open the valve to sink the warship, but they were unsuccessful, and just when the crew tried to sink themselves for the third time, the soldiers of the People's Army boarded the Mars, and with the fire support of the Red Rabbit, they quickly controlled the upper deck of the Mars, and captured the captain Fran in the command room. Under the pressure of the KPA, Fran finally ordered the crew of the ship to give up resistance and surrender to the KPA. As a result, the self-sinking of the Mars was not successful, and even if the crew surrendered, they did not receive preferential treatment and could only accept the treatment of prisoners.

The remaining British cruisers also put up strong or weak resistance, and eventually the armored cruiser Donegal sank and the Berwick was taken over by the People's Army on board, and the protective cruiser Niob was sunk by the People's Army, and the Europa surrendered.

To say that the smoothest is the Russian ship Glorious, which took the initiative to raise the white flag and surrender to the People's Army. Originally, Russia had been beaten by the East China government to lose its temper, the morale of the army was extremely low, this time to participate in the expeditionary force was just relying on the strength of Britain and France, and the Glory lost power early, floating on the sea, to see the course of the war is clear, seeing that the British fleet was beaten by the People's Army, heavy casualties, and the French fleet ran away early, the Russian officers and soldiers on the Glory still have the heart to resist, or it is important to save their lives first, so although the Glory lost power, but the ship's weapons are intact, but in the battle just now, not a single shot was fired, and after the battle ended, the white flag was immediately raised and surrendered。

This is also the most complete warship captured by the KPA, only the stern part of the ship was damaged by impact, while the other parts, including the ship's weapons and ammunition, are basically intact, almost a new ship.