"My dear cousin finally agreed?" Yoheng asked a little teasingly: "I thought that with his temperament, I would never bow his head." ”

"Yes, Your Highness, it seems that the string of defeats on land and at sea has made His Majesty Nikolai lose the patience to continue bargaining with us." Mashal smiled in response to Jochen's question.

"Reply to him, as long as his side is ready and let us know the time, there is no problem on our side." Jochen ordered, his tone relaxed and in a cheerful mood.

"Yes, Your Highness." Marchar nodded.

Nicholas II agreed to let the Baltic Fleet borrow the Kiel Canal, and was willing to let the fleet be "accompanied" by the German Navy in German waters, which was indeed very angry in his temperament, but in any case, it was a great success to keep the Russians from causing trouble in this part of the North Sea.

"It looks like we're going to have a big 'welcome ceremony' for the Russians." Tirpitz was a little excited about how to deal with the transit of the huge Russian fleet, and now that Koster was about to retire, Tirpitz had begun to take over the post of chief of the Navy's General Staff.

"Alfred, we are just 'accompaniing' and 'protecting' the safe transit of the Russian fleet, and we don't want to cause any unpleasantness with the Russians." Marcal said sternly, Tirpitz's tone made him instinctively feel that it would not be a good thing to arrange it according to the temperament of the future chief of the Navy's staff.

Jochen knew what the hell Tirpitz was up to, and he was going to pull all the battleships of the German Navy out of the Mediterranean before the four Brandenburg-class battleships were transferred to the Mediterranean. Because of the strength of the Baltic Fleet in the Russians, the German navy felt that the Ocean Fleet was insufficient even with the Kiel Canal.

The existence of the Baltic Fleet made the German Navy feel bad about being attacked on its back, so it was inevitable that the German Navy, including Tirpitz, would not like the Baltic Fleet up and down. Now these guys are finally going to get out, take a good "welcome" and "farewell", and calculate the evil breath in their hearts.

But Marchar was right, it wasn't a good idea to cause some unpleasantness, and it was better not to let them get nervous than to let them get nervous about this fleet, which was a little nervous because of fear. A fleet that can think that Japanese destroyers ran to the North Sea to ambush them, what else can you expect them to have brains?

Then Jochen spoke: "Adolf is right, Alfred, the Russians have to sail 10,000 nautical miles, and this is not a comfortable journey. These poor fellows have a lot to suffer along the way, so let's not beat them when they first set sail, and if they break their morale and run home, I think you'll cry.

And the size of the Baltic Fleet is so big, don't you think it's too petty for you to pull all 13 battleships out to show off? ”

"Actually, there are 15 ships, the Braunschweig and the Alsace have been basically outfitted, and both ships are going to be tested and commissioned, and I think it would be a good test for them to run in the Baltic Sea." Tirpitz said with a sly smile.

Tirpitz's words caused Jochen to roll his eyes helplessly, and Mashal couldn't help but touch his forehead.

"Okay, don't irritate the Russians, just let 4 Wittelsbach-class ships do this job, and the other ships should do whatever they want." Jochen said angrily.

"Yes, Your Highness." Tirpitz restrained his smile and said he complied.

October 15, 1904, Latvia, Port of Libaya

A large fleet was making final preparations for the voyage, and the flag of the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Rozhestvinsky, was flying on the Duke Suvorov, the flagship of the first detachment of four Borodino-class battleships. The huge fleet of 4 ships with a normal displacement of more than 14,000 tons and 16 305-mm naval guns is the essence and pride of the entire Russian Imperial Navy.

The lineup of the second detachment on the side is much more shabby, the two sister ships of the Peresvet class that have been all gameover in the previous Battle of the Yellow Sea are the flagship of this fleet, and the flagship of Rear Admiral Flekelsham is also the first battleship to sink in the Battle of Tsushima in history.

In the famous "TheFleetThatHadToDie," which chronicles the long 18,000-nautical-mile voyage of the Second Pacific Fleet, the Oslyabia is described as follows: "Her watch in the sea is so clumsy, sluggish, and difficult to maneuver, like a rough child's toy made of a large piece of wood with some funnel added to it to act as a chimney." ”

However, the same Oslyabya remained the newest battleship in the fleet, and the remaining battleships in the fleet were the Navarin, nicknamed "Overturned Table", a low-freeboard ironclad, and the great Sisoi battleship in the transition from the old ironclad to the former dreadnought.

Unlike in history, in order to supplement the strength of the second detachment, two German-made armored cruisers with 240-mm naval guns, the Admiral and Herzog Idin Bogsky, which had been deliberately delayed in construction at the signal of Jochen and had been delivered until before the war, were incorporated into this detachment.

The Admiral Nakhimov, which was originally part of the second detachment, was now assigned to the 1st cruiser detachment, with the Oleg protective cruiser as the flagship, and the old armored cruisers Vladimir Monomakh and Dmitry Donskoy.

The famous Aurora is now part of the second cruiser detachment with four protective cruisers: Svetlana, Emerald, Diamond, and Pearl.

In addition, there are two detachments of mine-striking ships with a total of 10 mine-striking ships, as well as an auxiliary fleet of 8 auxiliary vessels, including 2 hospital ships, 1 work ship, 1 transport ship, and 4 tugboats. A total of 36 ships of various types gather here, which is extremely spectacular.

A few days ago, Nicholas II inspected the fleet in the Estonian capital, at the port of Reval (present-day Tallinn Port), another important base of the Baltic Fleet, and such a large fleet would be unstoppable. Crush those yellow-skinned monkeys of the Far East, acquire the huge land of the Far East, build the coveted Yellow Russia, achieve great things, and make your name surpass the great Peter I and become the greatest monarch of the Russian Empire.

However, the commander of the fleet, Rozhest Stevensky, who stood on the bridge of the flagship Duke Suvorov and watched this fleet, did not have the same confidence as Nicholas II. Maybe not a good commander, but as a bureaucrat is absolutely qualified, Roger Stevensky knows what kind of virtue he is about to lead the fleet.

The Duke Suvorov and the Eagle, which were completed in a hurry, had not been debugged at all, and the Duke Suvorov had not even done official sea trials, and there was no bottom on whether all the equipment could operate normally.

And in order to cope with such a long voyage, he had to order as many consumable materials as possible to be loaded, and a list compiled by the shipyard engineer Kosjian who accompanied the fleet on the voyage showed that all the main ships of the fleet were overloaded, and the Eagle was overloaded by 1,785 tons, of which more than 685 tons were burned with coal and water alone, and the rest of the ships were basically the same.

The entire warship was crammed to the brim, and such an overload made Rogerstvinsky wonder if the battleship could hold up, and the deterioration of the living conditions inside the ship was no longer something he could take into account.

More of a headache for Roger Stevensky than the situation of the ships was the atmosphere inside the fleet. In order to replenish the personnel gap, the crew of the fleet, which had just been assembled and had only been trained for two months, was not so much a sailor as a boatman and fisherman. The guys, who had not received full training, did not have sufficient skills, and had not run into battleships, were at best a rabble in the uniforms of the Imperial Navy.

Moreover, there was a strange atmosphere in the fleet, and rumors were everywhere in the fleet, and rumors came from nowhere, and rumors spread among the officers and men of the fleet without any evidence to support them, and the absurdity of the rumors had reached an unimaginable level.

Although the top management strictly forbade public announcements and demanded strict secrecy, the news of the defeat of the First Pacific Fleet in the Far East was no secret within the fleet. On this basis, all kinds of rumors are present.

What the 1st Pacific Fleet was completely annihilated by the Japanese Combined Fleet, and the Japanese were unscathed; What Lushun has already taken, the Japanese razed the fortress to the ground. What Japanese torpedo boats were already lying in ambush in the Danish Strait, waiting for them to throw themselves into the net. In short, the omnipotent and exuding unknown terror all over their bodies would even allow their fleet to be sunk as soon as it left the port.

In this situation, panic, panic, panic pervades the fleet, and it is simply not possible to count on how much morale and courage they still have.

The only thing that made Rogerstwinsky feel a little consolation was that the great, benevolent, kind, and generous German Crown Prince allowed his fleet to pass through the Guò Kiel Canal, not only to save a little distance, but also to allow his fleet to sail through German territory without going through the "treacherous" Danish Strait. Of course, this good news cannot be said now, and the entire fleet can be ruled only after it has set sail.

In the midst of such and such a complicated situation, Rozhest Stevensky gave the order to sail, the flagship Duke Suvorov sounded the whistle, the heavy anchor attached to the sea mud was slowly pulled up, and the Second Pacific Fleet set sail.

As the magnificent fleet slowly sailed out of port, an American journalist who had come to watch the ceremony recorded this incomparable scene: "The smoke obscured the sky and the steel covered the harbor, and this was the largest maritime expedition in the history of mankind, because the combined tonnage of all warships and transports exceeded 400,000 tons!" ”R1152