In the middle of summer, the blazing sun forms a series of dazzling circles in the clean air, the puffy clouds dot the blue sky, the strong sea breeze blows across the clear blue sea outside the mouth of the English River Abs, and the flags on the masts and signal lines of ships hunt in the wind. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 The surging waves beat the ship rhythmically, echoing with the calm, unhurried rumbling of the engine.

It was a sunny, tranquil and peaceful day, three days after the official outbreak of the First World War and the third day of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland's declaration of war on the German Empire. Because of the wartime order, the eastern seas of England have lost the hustle and bustle of the past, and freighters, mail ships, barges, and fishing boats have all been suspended, and they are helplessly and lazily lined up at the berths behind the breakwater, waiting for the situation to clear. Only those ships carrying important supplies or military personnel are escorted by warships to the relative safety of southern and western waters.

(Note: "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was the official name of the United Kingdom between 1801 and 1927, and after the establishment of the Irish Free State, the name of the United Kingdom was changed to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland")

About 10 nautical miles southeast of the mouth of the Abs River, three medium-sized freighters, five flat-deck barges and two lead-grey warships sailed south along the coastline. They had no definite formation, and the two warships were one in front of the other, like two shepherd dogs escorting a leisurely flock of ducks to the pond. The navigator was an old-fashioned three-chimney notification ship, slender and sleek, with a semi-enclosed single-mounted turret at the bow, amidships, and stern, and a number of open-air small-caliber guns on the sides; Behind the palace is a "torpedo boat destroyer", also known as "destroyer", is a new type of ship that appeared at the end of the 19th century, its size is much smaller than the notification ship, it also has three chimneys, the hull is more slender, the speed is faster, the gun's firepower is not inferior to the former, and it is equipped with high-power torpedo weapons, which seems to be more in line with the needs of modern naval warfare.

On the two British warships, the sailors in white uniforms were apparently not constrained or nervous by the outbreak of war, and the rotating officers stayed near the gun emplacements, while the rest roamed the deck. It was Britain's home territorial waters, and it had not been threatened or invaded by the enemy in a hundred years since the great threat posed by Napoleonic France had been removed. With the continuous accumulation of wealth and the growing national strength, the world hegemony of the Empire on which the sun never sets is even greater than before. In the face of the newly industrialized countries in Germany, which have frantically developed their navies in recent years, most British people have a fearless mentality, because their navy has a multiplier advantage over their opponents, and the focus of discussion is not which side wins the naval battle, but how the British Royal Navy, which advocates a preemptive and total blockade strategy, will destroy the German fleet this time. In the eyes of most people, the Germans had no other way to preserve their high-seas fleet, which they had spent so much money building, in the hope of winning the war on land.

When a faint buzz of bees flying among the flowers came from a distance, the British sailors on board looked up curiously, and they soon found a gray plane in the sky that looked like a seagull. Four years ago, the Americans successfully carried out the test of taking off and landing aircraft from the deck of a ship, three years ago, the Italians set a precedent for aircraft to participate in the war with the Ottoman Empire, and two years ago, the Americans conducted another test of ejection aircraft from ships. At this time, the range of the aircraft was usually only one or two hundred kilometers, which was simply not enough to fly from German territory to the seas east of England. The officers and sailors on the two British warships watched indifferently, speculating whether they were owned by the military or civilian aircraft. As for its constant swinging wings, counterclockwise or clockwise in circles, no one would have thought about what that meant.

After about a cigarette, the lookout officer on the British bulletin ship saw a cloud of smoke in the sea directly east and reported it to the officer on duty. The captain and the ship's principal officers quickly observed the situation. Based on the size and concentration of the smoke clouds, they judged that it was a medium-sized fleet. It had only been a few days since the outbreak of the war, and the Royal Navy was still actively adjusting its home deployment, so the officers felt that it should be a detachment of cruisers of their own, so they ordered the lookout posts to keep an eye on them.

A few minutes later, the silhouette of a fleet appeared at the far end of the sea. Before the optical equipment was enough to identify the type of the opposing ship, the British officer on the notification ship ordered to ask the other party for identity and military password, but the signal corps sent two signals in succession, and the other party did not respond in the slightest. At this time, the atmosphere on the British warship suddenly became tense.

It was too late, but it was too soon, and just as the British were about to sound the alarm, the fleets in the distance suddenly appeared with a throbbing fire, and clouds of gray smoke appeared in the distant sea. The scene seems to transport people to Trafalgar Square at the time of the festival, and watch from afar the guards of honor in vintage costumes firing flintlock pistols. The difference is that the sight in front of them made the British crew stunned one by one!

"It's German!"

Some people blurted out this terrible thought and screamed in shock, and some people were horrified and at a loss. In either case, the gravity of the situation was already understood in a moment, and before the screams of enemy shells breaking through the air were heard, many people even looked up at the strange sight in the sky: the cannonballs from a distance resembled a swarm of meteorites that appeared during the day, flying high in the sky at great speed, although there was no dazzling light or long tail smoke, but with the same terrifying destructive power as meteorites. The most terrifying thing is that they have a clear purpose, which is to destroy every British ship here!

Before the shells fell, many veteran British naval personnel were still lucky that the enemy ships were firing at a distance of about 20,000 yards, and even if Krupp's new naval guns could reach such a range, there was no guarantee of accuracy. As was the case, the Germans would have to gradually adjust the shell drops, and given the proximity to the British coast and the fact that the ships were only an hour's flight into the protected area of the coastal fort at the mouth of the Abs River, they should have a chance to escape from danger......

In the blink of an eye, the piercing sound of a sharp whistle struck the air, it was simply an invisible blade, able to penetrate people's bodies and pierce into the depths of their souls, making those who thought they were brave tremble, frightened, and helpless, while the cowardly were more like they had been immobilized and stood there dumbfounded, not knowing how to move—the psychological deterrence brought by this heavy artillery bombardment was terrible enough, and the ensuing explosions were going to crush people's spirits. Those facing the explosion point instantly took away their sight from the blazing light dozens of meters away, the retinal nerve had an extreme retardation reaction like deafness in the eardrum, and the ears were also shaken by high-decibel and extremely impactful sound waves, so that many people buzzed in their ears after hearing the first one or two bangs, and they couldn't tell how many explosions were behind them.

With each loud roar, a sugar-like mass of water rises from the surface of the sea - the "heart" is the jet-black sea mud stirred up by the violent explosion, and the "clothes" are a large number of snow-white splashes, and the two form an extremely vivid color difference. This column of water is like a strange flower in the hands of a magician, blooming beautifully in an instant, extremely gorgeous, and the petals are fluttering in an instant, but there is no trace.

After all, being on the battlefield is different from sitting in a theater with realistic effects, facing life and death, whether it is a rookie who is a first-time soldier or a veteran who has been baptized by the fire of war, he will never have the slightest intention to appreciate this war landscape. The waves of cannonballs struck in waves, and the huge ships swayed, and the tiny sailors could only cling to the fixed objects beside them. In less than five seconds, 10 heavy shells rained down with an astonishing accuracy that surprised the officers and men of the British Royal Navy, and some even caused a certain degree of near-loss damage to the ship. Before the second round of more accurate artillery fire, the officers on board the ship were roaring hoarsely, the signalmen on the mast bravely waved the signal flags to signal all the ships to retreat in the direction of the coast, and the signal lights in the stern were sending the same message simultaneously - before the communication signal was finished, the fleet in the distance opened fire again, and the flash and smoke from the gunfire issued a merciless death threat to the British!

Even under the impetus of enemy fire, freighters and barges, which had a maximum speed of no more than a dozen knots, turned to the shore in a clumsy and slow manner, making it desirable to whip them like cattle, and when the screaming and falling shells once again set off the sea, all the British sailors and sailors could do was pray. On the British destroyers and briefings flying the St. George's Cross flag, the gunners who were trying to turn their guns towards the enemy realized that their naval guns could not pose the slightest threat to the German fleet at the end of the sea level. The most terrible thing is that this sea area is nearly 200 nautical miles from the mouth of the Thames River, and the two military ports in eastern England, Scarborough and Kingsling, are also dozens of nautical miles each.

For more than 300 years, the British Navy has been a key factor in the world's courage and fearlessness. Faced with the sudden appearance of an enemy fleet far superior to his own strength, he became a hero at the cost of his life or chose to flee in anger, and the commander of the informed ship quickly made a choice: the bright battle flag was raised on the mast, the thin hull turned to the strong enemy, and at the same time, the flag signal on the ship demanded that the accompanying destroyer release a smoke screen to cover the evacuation of his own ships.

The notification ship is a common type of ship in the navies of various countries in the mid-to-late 18th century, and its design is used for combat reconnaissance, vigilance patrol and liaison communication, and the pursuit of higher speed at the cost of reducing weapons and armor, and its combat effectiveness is very limited. In order to avoid enemy ships, they are usually equipped with a variety of smoke generating devices, and can also be added to the boiler to speed up the release of smoke screens. Under the officer's calm command, the British crew quickly opened the smoke canisters at the stern, and the boiler chimneys began to spew smoke outward, and the destroyers helped to create a covering smoke screen. In the process, the enemy fleet fired two more rounds, and although they did not hit directly, it was like a warm-up before the athletes' exertion, and the real force was yet to come—for the passively beaten British, each round of shelling was a brutal weight, a torment of walking on thin ice. In the face of the sharp scythe wielded by death, they prayed and pleaded that they would escape.

Before the British could recover their strength, another round of heavy shells slammed into their eardrums and hearts with a terrible scream and cracking sound, and at this time, they were deeply shocked by the scene: the old notification ship with a displacement of more than 1,300 tons was reduced to countless fragments in a terrifying red flame. The deafening roar still echoed on the surface of the sea, and the fragments flew away in the form of a celestial maiden scattering flowers, and finally all fell into the water. The huge battleship disappeared like this, and the more than 100 crew members who had just been alive evaporated out of thin air.

That's the scariest thing about war!

After the unbelievable shock and the sorrow that swelled in their hearts, the British officers and men on the destroyer resolutely put the fear of death behind them, and decisively took over the pilot position of the notification ship, signaling the freighters and barges to "retreat" while turning the razor-sharp bow to the enemy fleet - the ship's 4-inch guns were not enough to pose a threat to the enemy's large warships in terms of range and power, and the 500 mm caliber bald torpedoes became the only hope of driving out the enemy.

Despite their prodigious power, at the outbreak of World War I, torpedoes used by the British Navy were often only 2,000 yards effective. In broad daylight, it was almost impossible for a single destroyer to pose a threat to an enemy cruiser, but even with the slightest hope of victory, in order to attract enemy fire and cover the evacuation of its own ships, the British destroyer was still like a fearless bulldog, bravely and tenaciously rushing straight forward. As the distance closes, they will be even more desperate to find that the German fleet with the Black Hawk Iron Cross flying on the mast is even stronger than they thought. Without exception, they have the excellent mobility of the new cruisers, and five of them also have firepower comparable to that of battleships - the British Navy defines this new type of battleship as "battle cruisers", and the Germans not only loaded this new type of battleship with powerful guns and high-power engines, but also equipped them with very strong armor, so that they can not only carry out combat reconnaissance missions independently, but also greatly enrich the tactical options of the main fleet, and become a vanguard force with real strategic mobility value.

(End of chapter)