The German fleet approached Tianjin, and the Eight-Nation Coalition forces stationed in Beijing also began to prepare for a counterattack on Tianjin, and these news continued to reach the consulates of various countries in Tianjin through telegrams, and also made the consuls of various countries finally see a glimmer of hope after spending more than 20 days of hard time.

Under the organization of the British consul Jin Zhang, the consuls of various countries quickly set up a security committee in the Tianjin Concession, preparing to stabilize the order of the concession as soon as possible and reduce the losses of various countries after the Eight-Nation Coalition regained the Tianjin Concession. Of course, Jin Zhang did not forget to tell the consuls that the actions must be confidential, and they must not let this group of overseas Chinese know.

In fact, the consuls did not know, and all these news had to be known before the consuls of various countries, and the reason was on the telegram.

After the crossing group occupied Tianjin, it immediately resumed the operation of the Tianjin Telegraph Office, and did not cut off the telegraph lines of the consulates of various countries in Tianjin, so that the consulates of various countries could send the news from the concession back to their own countries or other places through telegrams, and learn about the news from outside. Although the telegrams of the consulates of various countries can only be sent through the Tianjin Telegraph Bureau, all countries have added passwords to their telegrams, so they do not have to worry about the news being leaked.

And this is also the purpose of crossing the group to open the Tianjin Telegraph Office. Since the traversal group is a newcomer and the means of gathering intelligence are very scarce, the interception of telegrams from various countries has become an important source for the traversal group to collect intelligence and understand external information.

Although all countries have added their own telegram codes, in the face of the advanced computers of the old time and space, this primitive password is almost like nothing, as long as there is enough data to enter the computer, any password can be easily cracked. Therefore, the telecommunication between the consulates of various countries and their own countries has provided a large amount of intelligence information for the crossing group, and the crossing group has almost complete control over the actions of various countries, so that it can make various arrangements in a targeted manner.

At this time, the Tianjin Conference had ended for more than 10 days, and all the departments established had begun to operate, and all the work was being carried out in an orderly manner. The approach of the German fleet and the Eight-Nation Coalition did not put any pressure on the crossing group at all, because every traverser believed that in the face of their own powerful force, any aggressor was a paper tiger and vulnerable to attack.

The conscription work decided at the Tianjin Conference was also carried out very quickly, and it proceeded very smoothly; the first batch of conscription of three battalions, about 1,200 people, was originally planned, but in the course of more than 10 days, more than 2,000 people signed up, and after eliminating some of the old and weak personnel, more than 1,700 people met the requirements for conscription, which greatly exceeded the expected plan.

On the one hand, this is because after the crossing fleet occupied Tianjin, a large number of Tianjin people who had fled returned to their hometowns to settle down, and most of the people who came back were in the prime of life, and most of the old and young died in the upheaval, which provided a considerable population base for the conscription work; on the other hand, the propaganda work of the conscription was quite appropriate, which fully aroused the strong hatred of the Tianjin people for the Eight-Nation Alliance.

Of course, there is another important reason, that is, to join the army, you can eat well, and once you pass the training and become a regular soldier, you can get a salary of one stone and five buckets of rice per month, in this era, one stone and five buckets of rice is about 100 kilograms, which is enough for a family of five to live for a month. If converted into silver, it can be worth about five taels of silver. At this time, this is also a lot of income. In addition, most of the people who returned to Tianjin had nothing to do, even if they didn't have to support their families, but at least they had to fill their stomachs, so many Tianjin people rushed to sign up for the army, and for a time it formed a craze.

And the group of people released by the crossing fleet at Dagukou was the most active, because they followed the crossing group for the longest time, and at the same time, they were grateful, and among the more than 1,000 men, more than 700 people signed up, and in the end, more than 600 people were selected, accounting for more than one-third of the new army. More than 100 girls also signed up, and more than 70 were selected.

The Military Council also held a special meeting to study this purpose, and finally decided to establish a firepower reinforcement battalion in addition to the three battalions planned, with a machine gun company and two artillery batteries under it, and the female soldiers to form a separate brigade.

In the previous battle, the crossing army captured a total of five Makqin machine guns, four Haqikaisi machine guns, five 70 mm Knoob guns, two 80 mm Knoob guns, and a certain number of machine gun bullets and shells. Of course, these weapons are not enough to equip a firepower reinforcement battalion, and it is still possible to familiarize the soldiers with weapons and conduct training. The first to build up the team, and when there are weapons, you can immediately form an army, which is also the principle that the PLA used in the old time and space of "it is better to let people wait for equipment, but not let equipment wait for people".

Of course, at this time, the newly formed army has just begun to carry out some basic military skills training, and it cannot officially become an army to fight, so this time the operation still relies on crossing the army, but when the time is right, the new army can still be allowed to go to the battlefield to feel the atmosphere of war.

In the early stage of the battle, the large ships captured were basically scarred, and only a few gunboats suffered little damage, including the four Sea Dragon-class torpedo gunboats of the original Beiyang Naval Division, and more than 50 officers and men of the former Beiyang Naval Division were also found from the prisoners, and Liu Ximing, the main gun on the Baohai Dragon, headed by the Baohai Dragon.

The traversers divided the officers and men of the former Beiyang Naval Division into two groups, and supplemented some local sailors, allowing them to drive the Sea Dragon and the Sea Rhino to fight with the crossing fleet. Anyway, do some hands-on work.

At the same time, the headquarters under the Military Commission also drew up an operational plan for this war, and in view of the enemy's attack on Tianjin by sea and land at the same time, an operational plan was drawn up for the attack on land and sea. In the face of the Eight-Nation Allied Army coming from Beijing, relying on the city of Tianjin, it gave full play to the advantages of the crossing army's fierce firepower and strong ability to fight at night, carried out defensive operations outside Tianjin, and then launched a counterattack when the Eight-Nation Allied Army could not attack and the troops were exhausted. The navy, on the other hand, took the initiative to attack and strive to annihilate the enemy on the sea, completely annihilating the German fleet, and at the appropriate time, assisting the army with cruise missiles.

On the afternoon of October 1, 1900, the observation point set up by the crossing army at the front sent back a report, and found that the Eight-Nation Coalition forces in Beijing were assembling and setting off, apparently preparing to launch an attack on Tianjin, and at noon the next day, the Huaihua ship patrolling the Bohai Sea also sent back a report, discovering the whereabouts of the German fleet and the picture of the German fleet taken by a drone. At present, the Huaihua is maintaining a distance of more than 30 kilometers from the German fleet and continues to closely monitor the movements of the German fleet.

At this time, the Military Committee had already made preparations, and Xia Bohai, Qin Zheng, and Xiao Jianjun had already come to Dagukou last night to hand over the administrative affairs of Tianjin to Wang Yunpeng and Xu Jichao. After receiving the news from the German fleet, the three of them boarded the Changbaishan ship and commanded the battle.

Because the Changbaishan ship is huge in size and has sufficient space, before crossing, it is the second only surface combat ship in the Chinese Navy sequence to the aircraft carrier, so when designing, it was considered that this type of warship is the function of the command ship in the formation, and a large number of advanced electronic communication equipment and information and data processing capabilities are installed on the ship.

Army commanders Zhu Yaping and Qin Yuhai also led the army, left Kaijin City, and set up a position in Beicang, about six kilometers outside Tianjin, to prepare to meet the Eight-Nation Alliance, while the navy was commanded by Shang Jinfeng, the captain of the Kunming ship, and led the Kunming, Yueyang, Sanya, and Xiangyang ships to attack, and joined the Huaihua ship to prepare to meet the German fleet. The Sea Dragon and the Sea Rhino were temporarily left on standby at Dagukou.

After leaving Dagukou, the four warships sailed eastward at an economic speed of 18 knots, and after about two hours, they joined up with the Huaihua ship, which was about 30 kilometers away from the German fleet at this time, and the task of monitoring the German fleet was also handed over by the Huaihua ship to the Kunming ship, which had a more powerful radar function. At the same time, Z-20 carrier-based helicopters also took off from the Kunming ship to monitor the German fleet from the air.

Although the Kunming is equipped with a powerful active phased array radar, due to the curvature of the earth, the search distance of the sea surface does not exceed 50 kilometers, so the main role of the phased array radar is still in the air defense. Although the carrier-based helicopter with the Kunming ship's belt is an anti-submarine type, not an airborne early warning type, because the carrier-based helicopter also has the function of guiding ship-based anti-ship missiles, it is also equipped with an advanced airborne radar system, which can supplement the lack of ship-based radar searching for the sea.

The radar signal sent back from the helicopter showed that the German fleet was divided into two parts, the front team had a total of 13 warships, traveling in a herringbone formation, the whole queue was about six kilometers long, and in the rear, which was about 10 kilometers apart, there were 14 warships, divided into three columns, the middle road had the most warships, a total of 11 warships, and the whole team was more than 10 kilometers long, and the left column had four ships, about 600 meters apart, and only one on the right, and about 2,000 meters apart, so that it looked like a lone ship floating outside the fleet。

Later, the drone also sent back photos, the front team was all warships, which should be the main warships of the German fleet, and the middle column of the rear team was eleven demand ships, and the five on the left and right were warships, which were estimated to escort the demand ships.

Shang Jinfeng immediately sent these situations back to the command headquarters, and soon received instructions from the command headquarters to sink the German warships and capture the transport ships as much as possible, and at the same time, the command also ordered the Sea Dragon, the Sea Rhino and the two 318 boats remaining at the mouth of Dagu to attack and rush to reinforcements, mainly to assist the fleet in capturing enemy ships.

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