London, United Kingdom.

At nightfall, King George convened an emergency royal council.

Prime Minister Lloyd, Admiral Churchill, Commander of the Home Fleet Betty, and a group of senior members of the Navy and Army sat silently in their places. Today was another disastrous day for them, following the air raids on Pascalflo and the Battle of the North Sea, with airstrikes on Newcastle and shelling of Sunderland during the day, but the nightmare day was far from over, and just before dark, they received news of the airstrikes on Leeds. A telegram had just been sent from Grimes, which was shelled by German battleships at about 8 p.m. The whole of England, and especially the inhabitants of the east coast of England, were in a state of panic.

The military port was attacked, the fleet was surrounded and annihilated, and Britain lost confidence, but the whole mainland was attacked, and Britain was gradually losing hope.

"Gentlemen, generals, you are talking! The German fleet is sailing south along the east coast of England, attacking our cities and fortresses along the way, we cannot wait here, we must take measures to stop them! King George broke the silence suddenly, but he found that the ministers and generals had no expression on their faces, which made him even more restless.

"Your Royal Highness, the only way to fight them is to concentrate all the warships at present, and maybe you can get out of the current situation!" Seeing that everyone was unresponsive, Lloyd jumped out, but Betty's rebuttal left him speechless.

"But the Germans may not be able to fight, they can take advantage of the advantage of speed to lead our armored battleships around, and then use their planes to consume us little by little!"

The 2 Dreadnought-class battleships and 23 old battleships in Betty's hands are already the last large battleships of the home fleet, and the so-called old battleships are basically armored battleships launched 10 years ago, with a standard displacement of about 15,000 tons, a speed of about 18 knots, and generally equipped with two twin 11-inch (280 mm) or 12-inch (300 mm) main guns, these battleships are very powerful naval weapons for any country other than Germany. However, their opponents were the German fleet, which had dreadnoughts and aircraft carriers, and they looked so old and weak.

Just when the scene reached an impasse again, Churchill, who had been frowning, finally spoke: "Guys, we still have a large number of submarines, destroyers and torpedo boats, we should make good use of them!" ”

Betty immediately shook her head when she heard this, "I also thought about using a large number of submarines and destroyers to launch a torpedo attack on the German fleet regardless of casualties, but with those slow battleships as bait, the Germans may not use their battleships to pursue, they just need to send planes, damn German planes!" ”

The glimmer of hope that had been raised by others was dashed again, and expressions of disappointment crept across everyone's faces again, but Churchill continued unhurriedly:

"But the Germans have now delivered themselves to the door!"

Betty glanced at him, and he couldn't understand why the most stressed Admiral in all England, who was about to be laid off at any moment, was still here to sell his job, and now every Englishman was desperately expecting a victory.

"Now the German fleet is sweeping our east coast of England from north to south, and it would be difficult for us to determine their position if they had been bombarded by airplanes, but now they have used battleship shelling, then their fleet will be not far from the coast. As long as we set up an ambush with submarines, destroyers and torpedo boats in their path, we can make them return to Germany in disgrace, if not to inflict heavy damage on the Germans! ”

Everyone looked at Churchill as if they had seen a savior.

"Good! That's great! King George almost jumped up from his position, "Lord of the Admiralty, I appoint you as the person in charge of this operation, and the more warships you can gather, the better, and it is better to be able to wipe out the German fleet!" ”

At this time, King George finally realized what it was like for the Germans to be oppressed by his navy, and he was like a gambler who had lost a lot of money, and he was crazy to turn it over. If he really succeeds, then who will the maritime hegemony of this world fall into? American? Japanese?

Churchill and a group of admirals were immediately in action, and perhaps the Germans would soon return to port, and they must now find a suitable place for an ambush.

"Here it is, Lostoft!" Churchill pointed to the corner on the map that had burst from England into the North Sea.

Lostoft, where the famous naval battle of Inholostoft took place 249 years ago. In that naval battle, the British inflicted heavy losses on the powerful Dutch navy, the Dutch lost 14 ships and captured 18, and the British lost only 2 ships.

"According to my assumption, the Germans will shell all the ports and fortresses along the coast tonight, and at this rate they should reach Lostoft at dawn tomorrow!"

Betty nodded in agreement with his speculation, but he quickly remembered something.

"But Your Excellency, Lord, Lostoft is more than 120 nautical miles from here, and our torpedo boats simply cannot sail that far! The speed of the submarine also seems to be too slow, will it miss the German fleet? ”

"That's not a problem, we can tow torpedo boats and submarines with destroyers to get there! But they have to get there as soon as possible and try to get there by 5 o'clock! Churchill said as he did the math again, and then nodded in satisfaction.

"Your Excellency, why don't we mine there?" Betty asked suddenly.

"Your Excellency, my Fleet Commander, please don't ask so many questions! Minelaying could only drive the Germans away, and they lost at most a few destroyers that opened the way! Churchill laughed, he hadn't smiled in a long time.

Betty laughed too, and then he returned to the fleet to arrange specific actions.

The gates of the port of Lostoft face east, leaving the vast North Sea, and more than 100 nautical miles to the east is the coast of the Netherlands.

In the middle of the night, the harbor was bustling. With the help of Navy soldiers and policemen, citizens are evacuating the port, and countless people are moving slowly with large bags and small bags, and only two small coastal patrol boats patrol back and forth near the port.

On the patrol boat, the sailors did not bother to be vigilant, but stood against the railing, watching the busy scene on the pier.

"Captain, will the German fleet really come and shell here?" A young British sailor asked.

The captain of the second lieutenant stared silently at the dock before answering:

"Yes! There was an order from above that the Germans might appear tomorrow morning, so the citizens must evacuate as soon as possible, and I think the ports on the east coast of England are the same now! ”

"So what do we do? The Germans are coming, do we go out of the port to meet them, or hide in the harbor and be bombarded by them? The young sailor said and looked back at the only machine gun on their boat, a look of horror.

"I don't know, leave it to fate!"

Perhaps due to the noise in the harbor, or perhaps because everyone's hearts had disappeared, dozens of dark shadows slipped quietly under the cover of night and stopped on the sea about six nautical miles southeast of the harbor.

"Captain, will the British fleet really pass through here?" A young German sailor asked.

The captain watched the noisy harbor silently before he answered:

"Yes! There was an order from above that the British might pass through here tomorrow morning, so we must lay these mines as soon as possible! Even if they don't, we'll be wasting a few hundred mines! ”

"So what do we do? Return to the port or hide nearby? The young sailor looked at the 120-mm cannon on the destroyer and was a little confused.

"Hidden in the east! The order from above is to entangle the British fleet after they have fallen into a minefield! ”

Two hours later, a minelaying flotilla of 19 destroyers, 7 submarines and 5 transports had set up a wide minefield outside the port of Losteft, and four destroyers escorted the five transports away, leaving the remaining destroyers and submarines in the North Sea.

While the Germans were busy laying mines, a British special fleet of 17 light cruisers, 65 destroyers, 46 submarines and 34 torpedo boats set sail from the mouth of the Thames and quickly headed for the port of Lostoft.

At the naval headquarters in London, Churchill and many of the admirals waited anxiously.

"Your Excellency, Lord of the Admiralty, at 12:05 the Germans shelled the Grimsby and left around 12:30!"

"At 1:45, the fortress of Lon Nol was shelled by the Germans, the shelling lasted 40 minutes, 165 soldiers of the fortress were killed in the shelling, because it was dark, it was impossible to discern the specific number of German battleships, judging by the artillery fire of the opposing side, there were about 10 German battleships!"

"At 3:20, the Germans began shelling the Ave Fortress, 23 miles north of the port of Lostoft, the shelling lasted 30 minutes, the Ave Fortress was seriously damaged, and the commander of the fortress reported that a German battleship was hit by a bullet and caught fire in the counterattack, judging by the shape of the ship in the firelight, it should be a German Nassau-class battleship!"

At this time, Churchill's mood was extremely nervous, and the Germans did follow his guess and sailed towards the port of Lostoft to see if Betty's special fleet could get there before the Germans.

At 5:10 a.m., the short summer night in the North Sea had already left, and the artillery fleet consisting of the Nassau-class battleships Posen and Rhineland, the Braunschweig-class ironclad ships Hesse, Braunschweig, Alsace, Prussia, and Lorraine, the German-class ironclad ship Deutschland and 8 destroyers appeared 10 nautical miles northeast of the port of Lostoft, while the British special fleet reached 7 nautical miles southeast of the port of Lostoft, and the British were preparing to launch a torpedo attack when the German artillery fleet was shelling the port. However, they had no idea that a huge trap was waiting for them in front of them.