.“ Negotiation? ”

Spee looked at the staff officer in front of him with a strange look, for he had just told himself that the guard ship at the front had spotted a light signal from the Japanese fortress, to the effect that the Germans had temporarily ceased fire so that the Japanese could send representatives to negotiate.

"Yes, Marshal!" The officer with his jaw slightly raised replied in a very affirmative tone.

"Are the Japanese going to surrender? Or do you want to evacuate Vladivostok with dignity? Ha, in any case, the offer of peace talks by that group of fanatics is an unimaginable thing in itself! Right? Spee, looking around at the high-ranking officers who were either generals or colonels or lieutenant colonels, needless to say, almost everyone responded with an approving attitude.

"Maybe their commander is different from the other Japanese? I mean......" The veteran standing to Spee's left thought for a moment, "maybe his brain is a little more sane!" ”

Spee nodded, "Okay! Reply to the Japanese, we have a temporary ceasefire for two hours, let them send representatives over! Also, tell them not to play any tricks on us, so that we will repay them with more shells! ”

"Yes, Marshal!"

"Although the Japanese do not have a fleet that can compete with us at the moment, we cannot take it lightly, any small mistake may bury a fleet!" Spee did not say this to anyone here, but to teach the people who would continue to fight in the German Navy in a tone of exhortation and concern from his old superiors before he left office.

"What the marshal said is, are we going to let all the capital ships back a little?" It was the veteran on the left who spoke.

Spee turned to look at him, "It's good to be cautious, but you don't have to mess around!" Captain! ”

A Navy colonel, no more than forty years old with a clean face, took two steps forward.

"I have been ordered that the battleship detachment remain within the distance of the shelling, be ready to continue firing at any time, and from now on make tactical maneuvers in an irregular course and speed; The aircraft carrier formation continues to be on standby at the predetermined position, and the escort ships must remain on the highest alert; As for us...... Let's wait for the Japanese here! ”

Shi Pei habitually walked to the place in front of him, only one step away from the observation window, raised the high-powered binoculars in his hand, and looked at the target land in the distance, which was clearly marked by fire and smoke.

The sound of artillery on the sea soon subsided. The silence of the moment made people's ears and hearts feel a little uncomfortable. Immediately afterward, the German warships swimming in the shadows began to turn, accompanied by the unique and deep sound of the hydraulic drive of the mechanical rotation, countless turrets of different sizes moved so that their gun muzzles were always pointed in the direction of the Japanese fortress, and then, silently, waited.

A quarter of an hour later, several searchlights lit up on the Japanese fortress, and a small-looking Japanese ship appeared on the sea at the end of the pillar. Hanging above the boat was not the once-invincible sixteen Rising Sun Flags, but a striking white flag!

After a while, a German destroyer, performing the most dangerous mission, caught up and turned on its own searchlight. The reason why it is said to be the most dangerous mission is that the light exposes its 2,100-ton hull and hundreds of officers and men on board to the center of the battlefield, and as long as the situation is in trouble, it is very likely to be torn to pieces by a Japanese artillery fire, but fortunately, such a situation did not actually happen.

Under the watchful eye of the people, the German medallion destroyer with its simple hull successfully rendezvoused with the incoming ship, and then circled the other side in a beautiful turn to its left. The two ships then headed side by side towards the main German fleet.

In the foil of German destroyers. People have a more intuitive evaluation of the Japanese ship on the negotiation mission - if the German medal-class destroyer is compared to an adult soldier, the Japanese ship may only be regarded as an undeveloped little girl. Because it was not only nearly half smaller than the German destroyer in size, but also a non-combat ship in terms of shape and equipment: a clumsy body, an empty deck, and a rather slow speed! Judging by the standard speed of German medal-class destroyers. It can only travel at a third of its speed at the moment, and it can travel patiently!

Under the watchful eye of the German destroyers, every move of the Japanese ship looked like it was in the hands of the Germans. This, to a large extent, also dispelled the doubts in people's minds - the Japanese would not pose a threat to the German capital ships with such a non-combat ship that was not even a patrol ship!

It is undeniable that the officers who have graduated from the regular German naval academies have qualified seafaring knowledge and the ability to command conventional battles, and they are fearless and calm in hard-fought battles, and their courage and quality are enough to make them proud of any opponent even when they are slightly inferior in strength, but they are probably no match for some Eastern commanders in terms of trickery and trickery. Just imagine, there will never be a content on how to attack the enemy with suicide tactics in the curriculum of the German ** school! Enemy suicide tactics? The French did not dare, the British disdained. The Americans don't, so the instructors of the German ** school have never had the opportunity to fight against a "terror war machine" like the Japanese army before, let alone teach their disciples how to guard against it.

In this case, the commander's personal observation, resourcefulness and adaptability are particularly important. It is a pity that at this time, neither the commander of the medal-class destroyer nor the German Admiral von Spee, thousands of yards away, were aware of the faint and hidden strange aura, and less than 20 yards behind the slow-moving Japanese ship, a ghostly and silent submarine was approaching the still dazed and ignorant "flock" by the tow of the former. In order not to be discovered by the German ** ship, which was equipped with advanced sonar, the Japanese not only turned off all the equipment on the submarine, but also did not even use the periscope, and even the other end of the towing steel cable was cleverly tied to the part below the waterline of the power boat. That's why. The sonar equipment on the German destroyer, which had been turned on, failed to detect this situation in time!

"Alright, let them stop moving forward, and we'll send a dinghy over to pick up their negotiators!"

When Spee gave this order, the other party had already come to a place about 3,000 yards away from the flagship "Black Forest", although this was a bit cumbersome, but the advantages were also obvious: neither boarding the ship nor being hit by the other party's suicide, which was reasonable and protected his own safety, which was a relatively common method under normal circumstances, but today Speese obviously miscalculated.

Stopping under the guns of many German battleships was tantamount to standing among the wolves without any cover, but at this time, the officers and sailors of the Japanese ships were not only nervous and timid, but their faces were full of confident and proud smiles. On the foredeck, more than a dozen sailors with white cloth strips held bottles full of spirits on their heads and poured the wine in the bottles onto the deck while drinking, babbling as if they were talking and singing, and then, one of them threw a match to the ground, and the fire spread rapidly.

With a slight adjustment of direction, the Japanese submarine lurking beneath the surface aimed its sight at Spee's flagship, while the 15,000-ton heavy cruiser, with its first-class communications equipment and speed, was not so stubborn in the face of torpedoes.

Almost at the same time, sonar crews on the Medal-class destroyers closest to the Japanese ship shouted:

"There's a situation underwater!"

Unfortunately, everything came too late, the first, second and third torpedoes were launched at a fairly short interval, and two seconds later, the fourth and fifth torpedoes were fired from the tail of the Japanese submarine.

The silver-gray torpedoes broke the waves at great speed, and their looming track in the night made the officers and sailors on the German battleships scramble, and in a race of distance and reaction speed, the German navy, which had won one battle after another, was disappointed, and even if 1/3 of the Japanese torpedoes missed the target, the rest was enough to destroy the "Black Forest" and another cruiser, the "Feinma". The tremendous energy of the Japanese torpedo directly cut the "Feynma" into three, and although the "Black Forest" did not sink immediately, everyone could see that it was only a matter of time before it capsized.

When the other German ships reacted, the Japanese ship, which was still burning on the sea, became the best target to vent their anger, and several cruisers and destroyers fired a salvo of main and secondary guns, which smashed the fireship to pieces in an instant. Next, the enraged German destroyers began a frantic search for the Japanese submarine underwater, and the sound of depth charge explosions resounded over the surface of the sea against the sound of the explosion of the munitions on the two cruisers. In the case of a head-on confrontation, the battle was unsuspenseful, and it took only half an hour for the German destroyer to sink the "murderer" to the bottom of the sea forever, but the joy of victory in people's hearts was swept away by the signal to abandon ship raised from the mast of the "Black Forest".

"It was an absolutely disastrous day for the German Navy! Luckily, our Marshal Spee was only slightly wounded, and after this misfortune, everyone, including us, should be in a correct state of mind, war is by no means a rigid dogma, and all kinds of situations can happen on the battlefield!

Afterwards, the supreme commander of the German armed forces, Kaiser Wilhelm III, said this to his confidant generals. The German Navy lost one cruiser and one cruiser, 461 killed, and more than 800 wounded, but the German High Command did not remove Spee but placed his unwavering trust in him, and the resilient Spee fought on his new flagship until the end of the war.

After retiring from the army, Count von Spee devoted himself to the study of unconventional naval tactics, writing "Maximilian von Spee" and "The Sea of Madness", and served as a senior adviser to the cadets of the German Royal Navy until his death in 1941 at the age of 80.