At 5 o'clock in the morning, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had always maintained a military routine, sat up from the bed, rubbed his slightly swollen temples with his eyes open, got up and walked to the bathroom to take a cool shower, and then came to the study with his dressing gown, sat down at the desk where many documents were classified, and rang the bell on the desk. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

As usual, three humble and courteous royal attendants rushed in, bringing tea and newspapers.

"Did Your Majesty sleep well last night?" The head attendant asked with a smile.

"It's not good." Wilhelm II replied angrily, "I have had many strange dreams, and when I wake up, my head is a little swollen and painful." ”

The chief attendant smiled and replied, "Then it is advisable to take a walk in the garden and breathe in the fresh air with dew, which will feel much better." ”

The Emperor was obviously not in the mood to gossip about this, and he looked at the newspaper that had been delivered: "Is there a new telegram from the Admiralty?" ”

The gray-haired chamberlain, who had expected this, replied respectfully and calmly: "Major von Bukelz is waiting outside the door. ”

Wilhelm II hurriedly summoned his attendant military attaché into the study, from whom he obtained a telegram. Eagerly picked it up and glanced at it, and immediately slapped the table with joy: "Ha, from today onwards, the George flag that has been flying on the ocean for more than two hundred years has finally fallen!" ”

The attendant replied with a smile: "Congratulations to Your Majesty! ”

"Great! That's great! I'm going to send them a telegram of commendation! Wilhelm II clenched his right fist and came to the window with a high expression, and the morning sun reflected in the sky, and the breeze stirred the leaves, and everything seemed so beautiful.

"No, I'm going to Kiel myself to meet my soldiers, who have made Germany's maritime history, and who are great heroes!" After making up his mind, the emperor hurriedly turned around and instructed the attendants: "I will change my clothes now, and breakfast will be arranged on the special train, and I will leave for Kiel at once!" I would like to announce to the whole world the glorious victory of the German Navy in Kiel! ”

The attendant officer respectfully answered: "Yes, Your Majesty! ”

Brandenburg had a clear sky and cloudless weather, and hundreds of kilometers away in the port of Kiel, it rained heavily in the middle of the night, and it gradually turned to light rain until dawn, but the strong wind was still blowing, and it was quite inconvenient to walk outdoors.

As the Jasper River locks opened, the first gray ship shadow appeared, and the people on the dock craned their necks. A moment later, two shadows many times larger than the former sailed through the locks one after another, followed by two silhouettes that had shrunk by about two-thirds, and then only a few small service ships, and the crowd suddenly stirred.

As the five gray ships slowly approached the berth, the crowd gradually became silent, they held their breath, they hung their hearts, they stared wide-eyed at the wounds and devastation left by the flames of war on these familiar ships, the twisted and deformed hull deck, the crooked and collapsed superstructure, and the traces of smoke and blood, all of which shocked the onlookers, and what made them even more worrying, could it be that the German fleet, which had high hopes, suffered a terrible defeat. Could it be that their relatives and friends, those vigorous youths, and those well-educated officers have all been buried in the rough waters of the North Sea?

On a pier that stretched into the harbor, when the scarred battleship approached, it was already recognized by its intact insignia that it was the "Blucher" belonging to the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron. Order was maintained by the base garrison and police, and several ambulances drove directly to the dock, while someone in the crowd asked the sailors on the ship in a loud voice: "How was the battle?" Did we win? ”

Most of the sailors did not speak, but some replied vaguely: "We have sunk several British ships, they are like they are made of wood, and they are vulnerable!" ”

In fact, compared with the "Moltke" and the two reconnaissance cruisers -- the "Stralsund" and the "Kolburg" -- the damage of the "Blücher" was not too bad, and the main reason why it withdrew from the battle was that it was hit by a torpedo, and the torpedo burst was below the waterline, and the hull was tilted to a certain extent because of a large amount of water, but the superstructure still maintained a relatively intact original appearance. After lowering the gangway, the crew, with the help of the garrison, transferred more than 100 wounded to the naval hospital, which accounted for only a small percentage of the losses of the entire naval battle, but became a very heavy matter in the eyes of the common people. Many of them had tears in their eyes and sad expressions, and many of them eagerly inquired about the situation of the other ships, but the answers they received only intensified their anxiety and apprehension, because the "Blucher" and its officers and men had left the battlefield prematurely, and even if the officers had received telegrams about the situation of the battle, they could not disclose them to the ordinary crew according to the military regulations of the Navy.

At another pier not far away, the German people were visually stunning, one of their favorite warships, the 12-gun majestic Moltke, like a fighter who had been beaten in the heat of a fierce game, with a swollen nose and a cracked eyebrow, and his face was even unfamiliar to his family: the bow of the torpedo hit showed a terrible hole, oil was still leaking out of the breach, and the cabin inside seemed to be filled with seawater. It is unknown whether the remains of the fallen are still suspended in it; The two front main turrets were hit by enemy ships during the battle, and the armor plates were not penetrated, but they also left jet-black bullet marks, and the firing control tower was fatally attacked, and the closed structure bloomed like a blooming moon, and a strand of cloth that obviously belonged to a military uniform was hung on the rolled steel plates, giving people an extremely sad reverie; The deck compartments in the amidships were swept away by gunfire, none of the portholes remained, and the cabins were so caught fire that the grey bulkheads were charred and blackened, and the secondary guns on the upper part were left in vain......

Because of the fierce confrontation with the British light ship group on several occasions during the battle, the cruisers "Stralsund" and "Fort Col" were more like objects rescued from the scene of the fire, scarred and incomplete, and the casualties of the crew accounted for more than half of the crew, and when the wounded were transferred to the naval hospital, there were very few officers and men left on the ship, causing both cruisers to appear lifeless, which further aggravated the worries of the people.

Early in the same morning, at the other end of the Kiel Canal, at Wilhelmshaven, Germany's second largest naval base, the German people were stunned by what they saw: the first to return were three old battleships that had been incorporated into the 2nd Battleship Detachment of Scheer, the "Alsace", "Silesia" and "Hanover", all of which had been severely damaged in the battle with the British main fleet and were forced to withdraw from the battle. Whether it is the "Alsace" where the waterline has been pierced in many places and the cabins have been flooded in large quantities, the "Silesia" where the main turret has been destroyed and the superstructure is in disarray, or the "Hanover" with a bow full of holes and a leaky bridge, the first feeling given to people is that they have returned home in a fiasco, not to mention the news that everyone is sad about the wounded who left the ship for treatment: the "Hesse" was sunk, the "Pomerne" was sunk, and the "Deutschland" was sunk......

At dawn, at the northern end of the Helgoland Bay, the main formation of the German High Seas Fleet, consisting of nine dreadnoughts, sailed unhurriedly on the sea near its own auxiliary fleet. Despite the rain in the sky and a night of life-and-death battles, the crew stepped out of the turrets and cabins to breathe heavily on the deck in the air free of gunsmoke, poison gas, and scorching breath. In sight, the strange-looking "Bismarck" had adjusted to the direction of the headwind, and the roar of the engine could be faintly heard on the wide deck. Although most of the officers and men in the fleet did not know what a "surprise" their carrier-based aircraft had given to the British Betty fleet the previous evening, many had already seen the military potential of these humble aircraft during a series of training exercises before the war. In the quiet drizzle, the four reconnaissance planes left the ship in turn and flew in a northwesterly direction.

After reading the telegram just sent by the naval base, Natsuki said to Ingnoll: "Yesterday, we lost 3 airships, and in today's weather, the base cannot provide aerial reconnaissance. ”

"Looks like you're right." Ingnoll said slowly, "Smart people don't put all their eggs in one basket. ”

"Airships have the advantages of airships, and airplanes have the characteristics of airplanes, which complement each other." Natsuki replied lightly.

"If the remnants of Jelliko's fleet had been bent on retreating after disengaging from us, they would have been more than 100 kilometers away from the Gulf of Helgoland by now." Ingnoll looked in the direction of the British fleet's escape, and his expression and tone were quite complicated. He had no friendship with Jericho, but when the war came unstoppable, they each shouldered a sacred duty entrusted by history as commanders of the main fleet of their own navy. Now that the two fleets have split up, Jericho is the loser, but Ingnorr is not the one to actually defeat him.

"I'm not one of those who likes to stick a dagger in someone's back, even if it's our most hateful enemy." Natsuki said meaningfully, "Aerial reconnaissance can give us a more comprehensive and intuitive understanding of the situation between the enemy and us, and if the enemy has one or two capital ships that are dragging behind due to power problems, I don't mind picking them up happily." ”

Ingnoll was silent for a while, and then suddenly asked, "Then if Jericho uses this as a bait to lure us back and intend to fight us again, how will His Highness choose?" ”

"Of course it's possible." Natsuki replied affirmatively, "There are three capital ships that didn't go with Jericho yesterday - maybe because of a temporary mechanical failure, maybe for some other reason, and they may have arrived from Scapa Bay now, then Jericho has a maximum of 10 capital ships at his disposal, and at least 6 old battleships, which is enough to fight us in a decisive battle." Unfortunately, even if Jericho's flagship was only 20 nautical miles away, I would not have mobilized a fleet to sink it, but would have only sent planes to carry torpedoes into battle, and since our submarines had not yet fully demonstrated their strength yesterday, they would not have had much difficulty dealing with slow targets. ”

(End of chapter)