On October 30, a secret telegram from London surprised the Chinese ambassador to Germany, Wang Li, who was nervously considering how to deal with the new situation, also received a secret telegram from Beijing, and after receiving clear instructions, he dialed the phone of German Foreign Minister Schleier despite the fact that it was already 1 o'clock in the morning.

Unexpectedly, Schleier was obviously still in good spirits at the moment, and Wang Li relayed the news to him, which made Schleier also very surprised, and he also revealed to Wang Li another key news obtained by the German side - it is said that two St. Vincent-class dreadnoughts, one Giant dreadnought, and four King-class dreadnoughts in the British home fleet had just left Plymouth Port yesterday and their whereabouts were unknown.

Seven battleships, even in the eyes of the European powers, are a powerful sea force enough to carry out a campaign to destroy the country, and the Royal Navy is not helpless to send so many warships, especially the main dreadnoughts, to carry out any simple tasks...... This allowed both diplomats to immediately see more diplomatic opportunities, and the evening's consultations continued almost until dawn.

As soon as the morning dawned, Wang Li had already met with Prime Minister Hohenlohe accompanied by Schleyer, but to Wang Li's surprise, the prime minister was apparently not interested in negotiating at this point in time, although Wang Li gave a series of important evidence that London was vacillating over the issue of a large-scale entry into a European land war, but with little success.

After a half-hour meeting, Chancellor Hohenlohe finally agreed to consider the Chinese proposal, while Schleier came to the Chinese consulate apologetically a little later, and he revealed the results of the negotiations to Wang Li. Kaiser Wilhelm II had already obtained a report from Admiral Moltke. The German 4 armies of the Western Front had completely cut off the territory of France. The total occupation of France would be a result "without suspense".

Kaiser Wilhelm II was clearly not satisfied with the defeat of France, which in his eyes was a new "Franco-Prussian War", a new war that demonstrated the great power of the German Empire, and would be a victory that swept all the emperor's enemies...... This decision, on the other hand, was widely supported by the military circles and the people in Germany -- the victory in the Franco-German war apparently led to another unexpected result.

But. The Germans did not waste this important information, and on November 1, a huge German fleet consisting of five Nassau-class dreadnoughts and five state-class dreadnoughts sailed out of the port of Hamburg that morning, which immediately set off an alarm for war in the Atlantic, and the British were obviously not aware of the Germans' intentions, after all, there was absolutely no prior information about this huge battleship sortie.

But the situation in front of the British was that the Royal Navy was worried about the affairs of the Mediterranean, and the home fleet, although strong, but. If it were not for the main fleet of dreadnoughts, the German fleet that entered the North Sea. Almost all naval operations could be carried out, and the Royal Navy had to give up some of its forces to maintain the English Channel and enter the North Sea to fight the Germans.

In the afternoon, a large number of Royal Navy battleships swarmed out, and the sky from the English Channel to the North Sea was filled with dense radio waves, and the outpost destroyer fleets of both sides were constantly in contact, but apparently aware of the fact that their powerful capital ships were nearby, both sides refrained from entering the battle, and continued to carry out search and counter-search operations.

When the news reached Beijing, it was already November 4, Xu Shoushan's first reaction when he saw the news was to order the naval observers stationed in the German fleet to collect all the information of the British and German navies in the war, which was the first major operation of the two navies since the beginning of the European war.

After the powerful German fleet sailed to the northwest, it turned to the southwest as if to threaten the British military port of Edinburgh, when it came into contact with the interception fleet composed of 10 British battleships, it did not take the initiative to meet it, but turned to sail eastward, but the destroyers of both sides took the lead in the fight after the main fleets of both sides appeared, but the whole engagement process took less than half an hour, and after each retreated into the range of their own battleships, both sides chose to disengage before nightfall.

On the 6th, Britain and Germany respectively announced the engagement between the two sides in the North Sea, and this almost entirely exploratory fleet voyage was determined by both sides to "achieve the purpose of deterring the enemy", but for the commander of the German Navy, Admiral Ingnoor, this military operation in the North Sea has already exposed the strategic dilemma faced by the German Navy.

Germany's strategy has always been to catch up with Britain, but it has never really surpassed its opponents, so even if the German Imperial enemy ships with great strength, even with various tactical planning, they have never really prepared for a super naval battle that will determine the power of the Atlantic Sea.

However, Admiral Ingleno was slightly relieved that the British blockade strategy against the German Grand Fleet had clearly not yet taken shape, and the German Grand Fleet had demonstrated in an almost relaxed way over the vast expanses of the North Sea, and that the British strategic front had now apparently shifted from the English Channel to the northeast coast, but the tactics of the British Royal Navy ...... However, it still follows the British approach to France in the past.

The Royal Navy's maritime strategy has always been the responsibility of the British Imperial Defence Commission, and these senior naval personnel and military representatives have clearly followed the British Empire's 200-year strategy of controlling sea power, the blockade, which has achieved remarkable results in the nearly 200 years of confrontation with France, and will obviously succeed this time.

Lord Fisher, as First Lord of the Navy, however, found that the wide North Sea was no longer as convenient as the narrow English Channel, and that after the mighty Royal Navy fleet had to face the formidable enemy ships that were always available at any time, they had to face up to the great problem that behind their fleet there was no longer a reinforcement fleet anchored in safe harbor.

Whether it is from the English Channel or from Kingslin Port in the north of England, the British fleet will need to sail nearly 400 kilometers to the Helgoland Bay to block the German fleet, and after arriving at the established Helgoland Bay theater, the Royal Navy will not be able to obtain the support of the Grand Fleet from the rear base in time, so that the British fleet in charge of the blockade mission may fall into the trap of head-to-head confrontation with the main force of the German Navy.

Of course, as the main force of the naval blockade, it is naturally not expensive dreadnoughts and former dreadnought battleships, the Royal Navy's Styx-class, Axter-class, and Lafrey-class destroyers will become the main force and super coolies in this naval blockade war, and these new British destroyers that have just been launched in batches before the war have a displacement of 1,000 tons and a powerful power of nearly 30,000 horsepower, and the cruising range is enough to cruise freely in the North Sea of 400 kilometers from north to south and 600 kilometers from east to west.

But an even bigger problem arose: the huge destroyer fleet would have to program more than five detachments in order to complete long-distance patrols from the home ports, so that they could rotate and recuperate, which also meant that only a quarter to one-fifth of the destroyers in active service would intercept merchant ships bound for Germany at the doorstep of the Germans at a time, and refuse to allow German ships to go to sea.

The problem is that the Germans not only challenged the British Empire on battleships, but also followed the complete concept of offshore warfare from French torpedo boats and Chinese destroyers in the war at home, and among the German destroyers currently in service, in addition to a large number of 1906 and 1910 large torpedo boats designed and built by Germany itself, there are also 1904 and 1908 large destroyers to cooperate with it.

The early 1898 medium torpedo boats had a displacement of only 300 tons, which made the German Navy find that it was impossible to cooperate with the German battleship group to carry out overseas operations, so after that, the German torpedo boats turned to large-scale and had a displacement of more than 800 tons, which was almost the same as the tonnage of the British Styx-class destroyers.

The 1904 destroyer, which Germany is now in service and has imported technology from China, has a tonnage of 1,200 tons and a cruising speed of more than 33 knots, while the latest Type 1908 large destroyer has reached 2,400 tons, completely surpassing Britain's most advanced Lafrey-class destroyer, after all, the destroyers of the Royal Navy are targeting torpedo boats of several hundred tons.

However, the destroyers of the Germans were not torpedo boats of the Royal Navy, but large torpedo boats deployed by the Royal Navy in the early days and destroyers deployed in large numbers in the later period, since the Acorn-class and Styx-class.

The conundrum in front of Lord Fisher is that even if the Acorntree-class destroyers are included, the Royal Navy can only handle 130 destroyers, including all the destroyers deployed in the Far East, the Mediterranean, and Africa, of course, most of the newer destroyers are in service with the home fleet.

In this way, Sir Fisher has already placed a large number of orders with more than a dozen shipyards in China, and there are currently only about 100 destroyers with a small number of light cruisers to blockade the Helgoland Bay, and each batch of Royal Navy destroyer formations in the North Sea is theoretically about 20 ships......

But even the most daring admiral would have realized that 20 British destroyers would be attacked by more than three times as many German destroyers, and even German light cruisers would be involved...... In sneak attacks, the tradition of the Royal Navy is unlikely to reverse this local disparity in combat power. (To be continued......)