Just when the crossing fleet won a complete victory and returned home victoriously, the German warships that had escaped slowly gathered on the way and reorganized into formation. However, at the time of arrival, the German fleet had a total of nearly 30 ships of various kinds, stretching for more than 10 kilometers in front and back, and now only the flagship Count Bismarck, the battleship Elector, the large ironclad ships Saxony, Byrne, and Baden, the cruiser Feuerja, and the Queen Augusta were seven warships, and each of them was scarred and looked very embarrassed.

And in the command room of the flagship Count Bismarck, the officers of the German fleet were all depressed, bowed their heads, sitting motionless in their positions. And when I set off from Qingdao, the high-spirited spirit was completely gone. Because before the battle, no one thought that this battle would be lost so badly, and it can be said that during the whole battle, the German fleet had no chance at all, and there was nothing to say about defeat.

Since he was the commander of the German fleet, Wadsey, was even more depressed at this time, as if in a dream. Wadsey is sixty-eight years old this year, and has been in the position of chief of the German General Staff for 12 years, and his predecessor is the great old Moltke, before coming to China, Wadsey has just been promoted to marshal, it can be said that regardless of age or position, Wadsey has reached the peak of a soldier, of course, the peak also means that there is a trough behind, and Waldsey also knows that his military career has entered the late stage.

Born into a family of soldiers, before the Franco-Prussian War, he was posted to Paris as an embassy attaché, in this position, he collected very detailed French military and political information, which attracted the attention and admiration of Moltke, the chief of the general staff at the time. During the Franco-Prussian War, Wadsey was recruited back to Germany, but instead of going to war, he served as the king's aide-de-camp, responsible for providing questions and advisers to the king. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Wadsey became the Quartermaster General of the General Staff, became an assistant to Moltke Sr., and after Moltke's departure, took over as Chief of the German General Staff.

And Wadsey's biggest regret is that he did not have the opportunity to personally command a war, so in this expedition to China, Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed Wadsey as the commander, hoping to give him a chance to make war contributions before he was discharged from the army. Waldsea naturally understood this, and planned to return to China after the end of the war, but he did not expect that before he could land on Chinese soil, the German army would be defeated, and he was afraid that he would end up with a late outcome.

At this time, the sky gradually darkened, and the soldiers at the lookout reported that the British ship Endymion had sent a signal to the Count Bismarck, asking the German fleet to anchor in the port of Weihai for the night and repair.

When Captain Heinrich heard this, he immediately asked Valdesy for instructions on how to reply to the Endymion.

Wadsey lowered his head, waved his hand and said, "No need, let's go back to Qingdao directly." ”

Heinrich also nodded, in fact, he did not want to go to Weihai, is this not a joke to let the British see himself? Therefore, he immediately informed the lookout and replied to the Endymion: Thank you for their kindness, but we will return to Qingdao and not enter Weihai.

Although he refused the invitation of the British, there was no need to lose face in front of the British, but he still had to face this defeat, and after returning to Qingdao, he had to send a telegram to China to report the results of this battle. It is easy to write a telegram that reports victory, but it is not so easy to write a telegram that reports failure, so it should be discussed now. So Vardsey had no choice but to cheer up, sat up from his chair, and said, "Let's have a meeting." ”

It will take at least more than a day for the German fleet to reach Qingdao, so Wadsey and the others still have time to slowly discuss the content of the telegram, but what Waldsea did not expect was that by the time they arrived in Qingdao, the news of the defeat of the German fleet had already spread to the whole world, and the question telegram of Emperor Wilhelm II had also been sent to Qingdao to wait for him.

The reason for this result was the British ship Endymion, because the distance from the battlefield to Weihai was much closer than to Qingdao, and the speed of the Endymion was also fast, so at ten o'clock in the evening, as soon as the Endymion docked, the captain of the ship, Major Jackson, immediately went ashore to send a telegram to the British Consulate in Shanghai, reporting the news of the disastrous defeat of the German fleet.

After the British consulate in Shanghai received the telegram from Major Jackson, its first reaction was disbelief, because judging from the information from all sides, it was impossible for the German fleet to fail, and it was so badly defeated, and in the end there were only seven of the nearly thirty ships, which was simply impossible. Therefore, Shanghai immediately telegraphed back to Weihai, asking Major Jackson to confirm the outcome of the war, and asking Major Jackson to report on the course of the war.

After receiving the callback, Major Jackson was not too surprised, to be honest, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he didn't believe that the outcome of the battle would be like this, so he sent a telegram to Shanghai, explaining that he had not seen the whole process of the war, but when the German fleet retreated, there were indeed only seven warships left, and according to his own observations, each warship had different degrees of damage, so it could be confirmed that the German fleet was defeated.

After receiving a confirmation telegram from Major Jackson, Shanghai had no choice but to deal with the defeat of the German fleet, so the originally envisaged follow-up plans had to be adjusted accordingly, because all the follow-up plans were based on the victory of the German fleet. Of course, Shanghai could not make a decision on such important news, but immediately sent a telegram to the country, reporting the news of the defeat of the German fleet to the country, and asking the country to make a decision.

However, receiving the news of the defeat of the German fleet immediately caused a shock in Britain, although the current German navy is far from being comparable with Britain, and the strength of this German fleet is nothing in the eyes of the British military. However, in the Far East, there is indeed no maritime force that can compete with this German fleet, after all, in this era, there are not many countries that can come up with four 10,000-ton warships at once, whether it is the British Far East Fleet, the Russian Pacific Fleet, or the Japanese Navy, which has not yet completed the 66th Fleet, they have not yet been able to muster up 40,000 tons of warships.

If this group of overseas Chinese can really defeat the German fleet, then it means that this group of overseas Chinese has a strength that even Britain cannot underestimate, although the British do not think that the naval strength of this group of overseas Chinese can be stronger than Britain, but now Britain's interests are all over the world, and it is impossible to put all the forces in the Far East, so the arrival of this group of overseas Chinese will not only change the war, but also change the political pattern of the Far East, and Britain's Asia policy may also have to be adjusted.

So how to get along with this group of overseas Chinese in the future, whether it is confrontation or cooperation, is a question that the British Empire needs to consider. Although this group of overseas Chinese and Britain are still in a hostile relationship, and it seems unrealistic to want to cooperate now, the politicians of the British Empire are not people who eat hard, and judging from the various details of this group of overseas Chinese after they appeared, there is actually room for cooperation between the two sides.

The first is that the positions of the two sides seem to be hostile, but in fact they are not hostile, because Britain is only an enemy of the Qing State, and this group of overseas Chinese is not a Qing State person in a strict sense, but also a Qing State person, and it is not that they cannot cooperate.

Moreover, judging from the news fed back from the Tianjin Concession, it is obvious that the style of action of this group of overseas Chinese is very different from that of the Qing Dynasty, but on the contrary it is more similar to that of the civilized countries of Europe; they have captured the Tianjin Concession, but they have not blindly xenophobic, they have not killed a single foreigner indiscriminately, nor have they wantonly plundered the property of foreigners in the concession, and of course the foreigners' privileges in the concession are gone; moreover, although the Ministry of Industry and Bureaus of the concessions of various countries have been abolished, the consulates of all other countries have been retained except for the Russian consulate, and the closure of the Russian consulate is to a large extent the result of the stupid behavior of the Russian consul, and the closure of the Russian consulateThe overseas Chinese did not expel them completely, but acquiesced to the Russian consul staying in the French consulate, and the telegram to Tianjin was not cut off, and countries could still contact their consulates and exchange news.

Of course, British politicians understand that this is to prepare for future negotiations, and if all foreigners and consuls of various countries are killed, then the two sides will only fight to the death, and there is no room for recovery at all.

However, the attitude of this group of overseas Chinese towards the Russians seems to be an accident, and the British politicians do not believe each other, and a group that acts so maturely and sophisticated will only be angered by the stupid words of the Russian consul, and make a drastic move to close the Russian consulate and expel its members. Therefore, there must be another purpose behind this move. There are two ways: one is to use this incident to make a name for ourselves and tell the countries that we are not to be provoked, and the other is to deliberately attack the Russians, or both.

If this group of overseas Chinese really wants to attack the Russians, then it is undoubtedly a good thing for Britain, because in the past ten years, Britain's main opponent is Russia, and the two sides have launched fierce competition in Europe, the Near East, the Middle East, the Far East and other regions. However, unlike Britain's previous opponents, Russia has a vast territory that is accustomed to Europe and Asia, so the usual means of Britain's victory over Spain, the Netherlands, France and other opponents, the naval blockade, did not play a big role in Russia, Russia has a wide enough land transportation to bypass Britain's naval blockade, coupled with the rise of Germany and the United States in recent years, coupled with the Bourg War that made Britain deeply involved, so that the British Empire, which has dominated the world for nearly a hundred years, is also a little powerless.

Within Britain, there had already been such discussions, abandoning Britain's century-old policy of isolation and looking for allies against Russia in the Far East.

Pay attention to the official QQ public account "17K Novel Network" (ID: love17k), read the latest chapters first, and grasp the latest information at any time