When night fell, seeing the American patrol ships and destroyers blocking the fleet's path like praying mantises, Churchill had no choice but to agree to Vice Admiral Conway's request to come on board for talks. As far as the current British government is concerned, a conflict with the US government in any situation is something they do not want to see, and what is even worse is that the sinking of the "Hill" that has just happened is probably very unfavorable to the British government. Lieutenant Colonel Reeser learned of the passengers on board the German freighter from the surviving Americans, and he reported this information to Churchill. With 21 Americans dead and missing, Churchill's mood became very heavy. While he was still hesitating about whether to tell Conway directly about the "Hill" and the American citizens on board, or to let the British government preemptively apologize and make a statement about it, Conway strode into the reception room of the "Utah".

"Ahh Dear Lieutenant General Conway, how did you come here? Churchill put away the melancholy on his face and greeted him warmly.

Conway did his best to maintain a friendly calm, but Churchill saw his anxiety and uneasiness at a glance, and he knew very well what the deputy commander of the American Atlantic Fleet had come to do.

"Hello! Mr. Churchill! I'm sorry to disrupt your homecoming plans, but we also have a last resort for this reason, and we hope you can understand! ”

"Oh? What's going on? Churchill asked innocently, although both sides are well aware of each other's intentions, but no one will be stupid enough to point out directly, the talks are to go deeper and deeper step by step, and the wise people will go around the other party into their own thinking traps, and at the same time guard against being led by the nose by the other side.

"The warships in this fleet can't sail far to the British mainland for the time being! Technical issues, to be exact! In order to ensure the fairness of the transaction between our two countries, and to maintain the integrity of our government, we must sail these ships back to Norfolk Military Port for overhaul! ”

In order to make the other party understand the seriousness of this situation, Conway also came up with a somewhat alarmist sentence, "According to the estimation of our experts, the battleships here are probably going to break down halfway!" Even if these warships can sail back to the British mainland safely, I am afraid that they will not be able to participate in the battle! ”

Churchill looked surprised on the surface, but in his heart he laughed coldly at Conway, which was really a very lame reason.

"Oh? It's unbelievable! If this is the case, your government should not worry, we Brits are the best at building and repairing ships in the world! As long as the ships don't sink, we can sail them back to England, and then our repairmen will work overtime to make them as good as new in a few days! ”

"Mr. Churchill, we Americans will definitely be responsible for the warships we sold! Our government has forced us to bring all these warships back to Norfolk Military Port, otherwise our navy will be severely reprimanded by the people at home for this incident, and I hope that your Excellency will not embarrass us! ”

Conway accentuated his tone slightly, but Churchill seemed unmoved.

"But General, saving is like fighting fire! At present, a decisive battle between Britain and Germany could break out at any time, and we have no time left, and this fleet must sail back to England as soon as possible! I hope that the general and your government will consider the situation on our homeland, and once these warships break down, our country will never put the blame on your government! ”

After failing to make a plan, Conway leaned closer to Churchill and whispered: "Actually, one of the very important reasons why our government wants to temporarily recall this fleet is to damn the Japanese!" Their fleet has sailed to our west coast, a threat not seen in the United States of America in hundreds of years. With the current strength of our Pacific Fleet, there is not the slightest advantage in front of the main Japanese fleet, which is armed with advanced Kongo-class battleships! ”

"King Kong Class ......"

Churchill was dumbfounded, the British Imperial Navy not only built the "King Kongo", the lead ship of the Kongo-class for Japan in 1910, but also provided Japan with a full set of technical drawings at the same time, and helped train the inspection and training personnel sent by the Japanese side. The Kongo-class "Kongo", which was commissioned in August 1913, and the Kongo-class "Hiei", which was commissioned in August 1914, were more advanced than any American warship at present.

The British, so to speak, lifted a stone and shot themselves and the Americans in the foot.

"I don't think the Japanese fleet will really go to war against your country, they are undoubtedly entrusted by the Germans to deter and contain your navy! The general can rest assured of this! ”

Churchill looked indifferent, but in fact he knew better than anyone else that the Japanese could provoke the Germans in Qingdao and then reconcile with Germany, and as long as it was beneficial to both sides, the Japanese could completely put on another good show of "fighting at the head of the bed and making peace at the end of the bed" on the Americans, and when the general trend of the European war was decided, the Japanese would again negotiate peace with the United States under the mediation of the Allies. It was only in this process that the Americans had to devote all their naval forces to defending against the Japanese Navy. In the final analysis, the capricious attitude of the Japanese government determines the emergence of this situation.

"War with the Japanese or peace, this is the business of our government! My mission is to bring this fleet back to the United States! Conway gradually lost his patience, and his tone became more and more stiff, for he was sure that the English would not dare to offend him.

"But my mission, General, is to bring this fleet back to England!" Churchill replied-for-tat.

"You...... If you want to go back to England, sink all our patrol ships and destroyers first! ”

Conway received a death order, and Churchill was determined not to turn back, and after sending a telegram to their respective governments, the two sat silently in the reception room, while the two fleets confronted each other at sea, and neither side gave in.

After smoking a cigar, Churchill's expression finally softened a little, and the smell of fire in the reception room became a little lighter, and the problems that he and Conway could not negotiate to solve were only waiting for the results of the negotiations between the two governments. Churchill handed his humidor to Conway, who unceremoniously took one. In the mist, Churchill spoke with emotion about his knowledge of the Japanese Navy, especially the Kongo-class battlecruisers:

"In 1912, the Chinese Navy changed the level of 'invincible' ships from armored cruisers to battle cruisers, and the Japanese Navy also followed suit in the same year and renamed armored cruisers with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons as battle cruisers."

The Japanese warships that successfully defeated the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese Naval War, together with the Russian warships captured by the Japanese Navy during the war, formed the cornerstone of the current Japanese Navy, and the "Naval Rearmament Plan" proposed by Admiral Minoru Saito after the Russo-Japanese War allowed the Japanese Navy to have a considerable number of new warships before the outbreak of the war. I had gone to Tokyo to persuade the Japanese to send troops, largely because I valued the Japanese mixed fleet of battleships and battlecruisers with their age, firepower, and speed. ”

"Before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Navy had seven battleships and one armored cruiser in Port Arthur, the main base of the Russian Navy in the Far East, and three armored cruisers in Vladivostok. When the war between Japan and Russia began, the Japanese Navy immediately relinquished its sea supremacy in the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean, concentrated superior forces in the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea, and at the same time deployed more than 100 torpedo boats in important harbors along the Sea of Japan and the Pacific coast to prevent Russian armored cruisers from invading the bay. At the same time, out of vigilance against the Russian Vladivostok armored cruiser detachment, the Japanese government even evacuated the citizens of Hakodate City to the inland areas of Hokkaido. It can be seen from this that the Japanese side has a lot of scruples about the power of the Russian armored cruisers. ”

"As far as Japan's national conditions and the mission of its navy are concerned, after the end of the Sino-Japanese War and the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, its main hypothetical enemy was the naval forces of Russia, France, and the United States in the Far East, and these countries had a considerable number of armored cruisers and old protective cruisers, and at the same time had a large number of merchant ships that could be converted into auxiliary cruisers in wartime. In contrast, our British Navy, in order to protect its overseas colonies and sea routes, vigorously developed protective cruisers and light cruisers, which were almost vulnerable to the battleships of the German raiding fleet. ”

"On the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, four of the six armored cruisers equipped by the Japanese Navy were ordered from Britain, and the other two were purchased from Germany and France, which participated in the "Three-Power Intervention and Restoration of Liao" after the First Sino-Japanese War. In order to deal with Russia with all its might, Japan must ease its relations with Germany and France, and our policy in the Far East is to "borrow Japan's sword and sharpen Russia's claws." Therefore, Japan has devoted all its efforts to help the expansion of the Japanese navy, including the construction of all battleships and most armored cruisers for its navy. ”

"In the blockade of Port Arthur at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese Navy lost two battleships in a row, Yashima and Hatsuse, in one day, which was equivalent to one-third of all Japanese battleships at that time. In order to compensate for this loss, Japan tried to purchase the battleship "Goliath" with a displacement similar to that of the Yashima, but Japan did not agree to the Japanese demand due to the constraints of its neutral status. In order to make up for the huge shortage of the navy's capital ships, the Japanese Navy had to force the two armored cruisers "Kasuga" and "Nisshin" purchased on the eve of the outbreak of war into the battlefleet and cooperate with the remaining four battleships. At the same time, the shipbuilding department of the Ship Administration Headquarters decided to use the 12-inch naval guns in its inventory to build two large cruisers with the same caliber as the battleship with the same main guns, secondary guns, defense, and speed as the armored battleship. ”

"After two years of intense construction, the Japanese Navy completed the large cruiser Tsukuba in 1907 and the Ikoma the following year. The two ships adopted the long-bow type, which was the first in the Japanese Navy, and at the same time, for the first time in the armored cruiser class, they also used 305 mm guns of the same caliber as the battleship, and in a sense, the Japanese Tsukuba-class was the world's first class of battlecruisers. The results of the naval battle in the Sea of Japan between Japan and Russia showed the naval states of the world that the urgency of coordinated operations between battlecruisers and battleships was increasing due to the lack of rapid means of guerrilla and reconnaissance by simple battleships. ”

"From the point of view of technology introduction, the Japanese government decided to order the lead ship of the Kongo-class battlecruisers from our country. At that time, they could choose from two major arms companies, Armstrong and Vickers, which had built battleships for the Japanese Navy. After examining the design plans and technical capabilities of the two companies, Japanese naval officials finally selected Vickers Arms Company to provide a complete set of contents from hull, power and armament. The Japanese Navy's ability to learn was indeed impressive, and the Japanese Navy already had the ability to build its own battleships at that time, and the reason why it ordered from Britain was mainly to introduce the key steam turbine main engine and large-caliber naval gun manufacturing technology, as well as electrical outfitting technology. ”

"The initial design of the Kongo class, determined in the summer of 1910, had a displacement of 19,000 tons and was armed with 10 305-mm guns, 16 152-mm secondary guns and eight 533 torpedo tubes. In 1911, the Japanese Navy took into account the emergence of new ship types in the navies of various countries, and required to increase the displacement and caliber of the main guns, and the final design index of the Kongo-class was 25,000 tons, the maximum speed of 27 knots, and 8 356 mm main guns, 6 152 mm secondary guns, and 8 533 mm torpedoes. ”

"The Japanese 356-mm gun has a total length of 16.5 meters, 84 rifling wires inside, and the projectile is a 356-mm 673-kilogram armor-piercing projectile or a 625-kilogram high-explosive projectile, with a maximum range of 2.3 to 25,000 meters and a rate of fire of 1.35 rounds per minute. The 152-mm secondary gun has a shell weight of 45 kg, a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute, and a maximum range of 18,000 meters. ”

"Your Excellency, I hope that the information I have said can be helpful to your navy!" By the time Churchill finished speaking, most of the cigar in his hand had been silently lit.

"All in all, the Kongo-class battlecruisers are Japanese battleships that no American battleship currently in service can compete with!"

Although Churchill provided a lot of useful information, Conway's expression was still gloomy, and the naval battle against the old Spanish warships did not bring much actual combat experience to the US Navy, and the Japanese Navy they faced had experienced two large-scale naval battles of armored ships between China and Japan and Japan and Russia in the past 20 years, and the Japanese Navy's overall combat strength was slightly superior to that of the US Navy, let alone dealing with half of the US Navy.

"In fact, the biggest weakness of the Kongo-class battlecruisers is that in order to pursue high speeds, the number of boilers far exceeds that of battleships, and the armor protection in many parts is weakened or eliminated, and the defense is only similar to that of heavy cruisers."

Churchill suddenly felt a little funny, even the battleship "Utah" he was in, its armor defense was not much better than that of the King Kong class. To be sure, of all the naval powers, only the German Navy had the most reliable defense of its warships.

Towards midnight, Conway and Churchill received telegrams from their respective governments, and it appeared that the two countries had reached a result after urgent consultations. Not everyone was happy, but it also avoided the deepening of the conflict.

The British special fleet was divided into two, and the British continued to move forward with 2 dreadnoughts, 4 armored battleships, 8 cruisers, 16 destroyers, 7 submarines and 40 transports, and the remaining battleships were "temporarily safeguarded" by the US Navy.

At the same time, Conway also received another telegram that the German ambassador to the United States had informed the U.S. government of the "Hill" incident, and that the U.S. government had asked Conway to immediately investigate the matter. Churchill knew that paper could not keep the fire, and the most important thing now was how to extinguish this serious fire.

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