"The Germans have also suffered great losses at Edland, and their capital ships are not replenished now," said Major Evans, assistant staff officer of the British Navy, who heard Betty's sigh, as if to show the Royal Navy's record at Victorland, "and this is why we have been here for a while, and we have not seen even a larger German ship." ”

"Just because the Germans don't have big ships doesn't mean we're safe." Betty seemed to be a little dissatisfied with the officer's words, and he said in a corrective tone, "If we stay like this, we will become a living target for German submarines." ”

The English[***] officer, who seemed to be a little sluggish, did not understand the other meaning of Betty's words, and when he heard Betty's fear of the attack of the German submarines, he immediately suggested: "We should let the cruiser tow this battleship home." He turned his head to look at Xu Zhenpeng and several lieutenant [***] officers, "It is very dangerous to let this precious warship stop here." ”

"Give them another twenty minutes to make repairs." After listening to the advice of his subordinates, Betty's face was a little ugly, he endured it and did not have a seizure, but looked at the watch on his wrist and said unwillingly.

"Do you want to send a signal to the fleet?" The British [***] officer looked at the commander's face and made another suggestion.

After he made this suggestion, Commander Tari suddenly became quiet.

"Do you think it would work if my broken ships came to such a battlefield?" Betty asked Major Evans with some annoyance, and peeked out of the corner of her eye at the Chinese admirals present.

At this time, the faces of the lieutenant [***] officers in the command tower were calm, and they all focused their eyes on Evans.

"My boat can still come in handy." Major Evans said solemnly, "At least it will help us entangle the Germans." ”

After listening to the explanation of this British [***] official, several [***] officials quickly exchanged glances.

"It's not a bad idea." Betty obviously didn't have a good impression of Yue himself, he groaned for a moment and nodded, "It's time for Yue to make some contribution to this war." ”

"Send a telegram to the fleet! Tell us where we are! Ask them to come to their aid! Betty gave the order in a loud voice.

And just as Betty finished speaking, the hull of the battleship "Republic" suddenly trembled, and then there was a slight tremor under the feet of the people.

"They fixed the servo?!" A British [***] officer shouted in surprise.

"Our mechanics and sailors are good!" Betty looked at her watch, a glint of approval in her eyes.

With the joint efforts of American mechanics and Chinese sailors, it took only fifteen minutes to repair the damaged steering gear of the battleship "Republic".

"Send a telegram to the other ships, asking them to report the battle situation and their location immediately!" Betty commanded loudly again, and in his words there was indescribable excitement, "Come on! Let's find the Germans! Give them a good beating! ”

"Report! Sir! Received a telegram from the British fleet! ”

On the battlecruiser Kurama, an officer handed over a telegram he had just received to Vice Admiral Kanji Kato, commander of the European Dispatch Fleet.

Kanji Kato took the telegram and glanced at it quickly, a grim smile on his face.

"I have long said that the Chinese will only engage in some tricks of stealing chickens and dogs, and when they encounter real battles, they will be exposed, even if they have the most powerful battleships in the world at the moment."

Kanji Kato handed the telegram to Tetsutaro Sato, the chief of staff of the fleet beside him, and after reading it, Tetsutaro Sato also let out a sneer.

"This shows that the British are in trouble again." Tetsutaro Sato looked at Kanji Kato and said, "Are you going to help them?" ”

"Do you think we should go?" Kanji Kato asked rhetorically.

"If the British want to fight a sneak attack between light ships in the Helgoland Bay, we can go over and help." Tetsutaro Sato smiled and said, "But now, it's a battle between battleships, and we're not even battlecruisers." What's more, our task is to escort the ship, not to participate in such an offensive. ”

Kanji Kato understood the meaning of Tetsutaro Sato's words, and couldn't help but look up to the sky and laugh.

"Yes, that's right, in their eyes, our ship is 'garbage.'"

The "garbage" that Kanji Kato refers to in his self-deprecating words is the battlecruiser Kurama and the battlecruiser Ibuki behind him, which he is currently stepping on.

"Kurama" and "Ibuki" are ships of the same class, with a standard displacement of 14,626 tons, a full load displacement of 15,595 tons, a length of 147.8 meters, a width of 23 meters, and a draft of 8 meters. The power system of the Kurama is two vertical four-cylinder three-stage expansion steam engines and 28 "Miyahara" coal-fired boilers with a total power of 22,500 horsepower, and the power system of the "Ibuki" is two direct drive gear reduction turbines and 18 "Miyahara" coal-fired boilers with a total power of 24,000 horsepower. The Kurama had a maximum speed of 20.5 knots, and the Ibuki was slightly faster and could reach 21.5 knots.

The "Kurama" class has 178 mm of broadside armor, 76 mm of deck armor, 178 mm of turret armor, 228 mm of command tower armor, and the fire system is 2 "41" 305 mm 45 x guns, 4 twin "41" 203 mm 45 x guns, 12 single "41" 120 mm 40 x guns, 4 single "41" 76 mm 40 x guns, and 3 457 mm underwater torpedo tubes.

He called the "Kurama" class "cruisers", but in the eyes of the British, these two ships could only be regarded as large armored cruisers at best. In fact, in my own records, the code name of the "Kurama" class is "Yin armored cruiser". Although the class of the two ships in August 1912 had already been changed to "cruisers", that is, battlecruisers.

The Kurama class is an enhanced version of the Tsukuba-class, and it has been claimed more than once that the Tsukuba-class was the world's first battle cruiser. And in fact, the "Tsukuba" class is really difficult to say that it is a battle cruiser. In fact, the "Tsukuba" class was built according to the standards of armored cruisers when it was first built in 1905, and there was no innovation in the design scheme, except that the armor was thicker, with the 305 mm main gun of a battleship, and its 13,750-ton stature also made it a big brother among armored cruisers. Because the navy at that time did not need to use the battle cruiser, this was very different from the two battle cruisers of Britain and Germany, and the 20,500 horsepower of the "Tsukuba" class also made it only reach the maximum speed of 20.5 knots, not to mention the 26.5 knots of the British "Invincible" class battle cruisers, even the 23 knots of the "Monmouth" class armored cruisers built in 1899. Therefore, even the "Kurama" class, the successor of the "Tsukuba" class, could only reach a level close to 22 knots (the "Kongo" class was the real battle cruiser after the British division, and the speed of 27 knots was as good as its title). Such a warship was called a battle cruiser, and the title of "junk" given by the British was not excessive.

Construction of the Kurama began in August 1905 at the Yokosuka Naval Yard in Yokosuka, but because the Russo-Russian War had ended at this time, and a large number of captured Russian battleships needed to be repaired and refitted, the construction of the fortifications was greatly delayed, and it was not launched until October 1907, at the same time as the sister ship "Ibuki", which was launched one year and four months later. The Ibuki belonged to the same group of warships as the Kashima and Katori, codenamed "First Armored Cruiser", ahead of the "Tsukuba" and "Kurama", but because its slipway was ceded to the hull construction of the "Aki", the construction was delayed. It was easy to wait until the start of construction, but the progress was extremely fast, and it was launched after 6 months. The reason for this is to counter the record of the British "Dreadnought" being launched within 4 months of starting, and all workers have stopped working overtime.

The Ibuki and Kurama are very similar in appearance, except that the chimney of the Kurama is slightly elongated. Lieutenant General Kiki Kondo, the head of the design of the Tsukuba-class shipbuilding, also referred to the design scheme of the Satsuma-class battleships when designing the Kurama class. The US Navy carried such hosts on the North Dakota-class battleships only after several years. This small technological preemption once made the shipbuilding technicians and technicians and historical researchers of this book complacent.

Construction of the Kurama began on August 23, 1905, was launched on October 21, 1907, and completed on February 28, 1911. In April 1911, he went to Europe under the command of Second Fleet Commander Suio Shimamura to attend the coronation of King George V, and in 1912 it was listed as a battle cruiser. After the Battle of Tereland, he was stationed on the British mainland to fight against the Germans. Construction of the Ibuki began on May 22, 1907 at the Kure Navy Shipyard, was launched on November 21, 1907, and completed on November 1, 1909. In 1911, he traveled to Siam to attend the coronation of King Rama VI of Siam. After the outbreak of World War I, he was first sent to the coast of Australia to fight against the German East Asian Fleet, then escorted Australian troop carriers to Europe, and in 1915 participated in the Gallipoli landing operation with the combined Anglo-French fleet. The "Ibuki" was the first warship to accept the command of the British Admiralty during the war, and Kanji Kato was the first general to travel to Europe on the "Ibuki" to conduct tactical exchanges with the British. Because he had no enthusiasm for the war in Europe at all, he refused to send capital ships to Europe to help in the war, but was interested in invading China, and sent such an excellent battle cruiser as the "King Kong" to fight neutral China. The British handed over the task of escorting ships that were dirty, messy, tired, and not easy to produce results to these "junk" ships of the fleet, so that Kato Kanji not only did not learn the essence of British tactics, but instead provoked a sullen stomach, but for Kato Kanji, this time he came to Europe to participate in the war was not completely fruitless, and based on what he saw and heard in Europe, Kato Kanji realized that Germany was ahead of Britain and France in terms of warships, submarines, artillery, tanks, and aircraft technology. This made Kanji Kato, who had been a teacher of the British Navy before, realize the gap between the Japanese and develop a sense of admiration for the Germans.

In fact, there was nothing to do with the fleet in this naval battle, and the previous task of the fleet had always been to escort the transport fleet, and because the ships could not be compared with the cutting-edge German "Byrne" class battleships in terms of firepower, protection, and speed, the British generally did not tell the ship about the plans for a decisive battle against the fleet. It was not until after the fleet went to sea that Kanji Kato learned through a secret telegram sent by the radio station of his base that the British Admiralty had a plan to take the initiative to lure the enemy into battle and annihilate it. Some staff officers of the British Admiralty believed that such a secret battle plan did not belong to the tactical information urgently needed for the cruise of the fleet, so there was no need to inform Kanji Kato, who was at sea, but only sent it to the station of the fleet through submarine telegrams as a general briefing on the situation, and left it for the commander of the fleet to read after returning to port. In terms of keeping communications open, it was obvious that he was more conscientious than the British, so as soon as the news arrived at the station of the Shipmoto fleet, the officer in charge of the station of the fleet immediately informed Kato Kanji.

When Kanji Kato learned of the urgent notification from the base, he greatly despised this battle plan of the British.

In Kato's view, since the arrival of the battleships built by the Americans for China, the disadvantage of the Allied navy in terms of strength has been reversed, and it is really stupid to do anything to "lure the enemy into depth" when he has superior forces, and he has to take risks. As a naval officer with a strong sense of superiority, Kanji Kato once wanted to help Betty revise this plan, but as a commander of the Allied fleet, he only actually controlled his own fleet. For the plans of the British Admiralty, he had only the power to advise. Kato sent two telegrams to the British Admiralty, asking for more details of the plan, and suggested in euphemistic terms that the so-called "luring the enemy" would be abolished and that all forces should be concentrated on another "battle of the German fleet," and that the fleet would be willing to participate in such a decisive battle. And the mental activity of the British Admiralty at the time of receiving these two telegrams was really interesting. The chief of staff of the British Navy during the war, Studi, like many Britons, did not have a good impression of him, and his dealings with each other were only intended for their own interests, because the relationship between Britain and Ben was originally a little delicate. Although he is a bad egg, he is a guest he invited after all, and if he allows the fleet to participate in the war, once the "character" of the fleet is too good and he picks up the cheap, it will be a very faceless thing for the British. Now that the commander had hinted at wanting to intervene, Study felt that his authority was being challenged by himself. At the same time, he was also worried that this risky operation would snowball and eventually involve all the Allied fleets, and that if anything went wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic. Probably for this reason, the British's reply to Yue himself was brief and cold, and the first half of the telegram he sent to Yue himself was unquestionable: "The convoy is in dire need of escort from this fleet. But in the second half of the telegram, the attitude of the British seemed to have softened a little: "If it is convenient, you can send battle cruisers to the nearest support." Considering that this reply still did not provide even the slightest detail about the battle plan, and that he accepted Kato's suggestion, he could basically conclude that the British reply lacked the sincerity to cooperate fully with the allies, and that the British were still on guard against him in their hearts. But Kanji Kato had already got what he wanted by this time, and he immediately took the initiative within the authority of the second half of the telegram, and after completing the escort mission, he ordered the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (2 battle cruisers) and the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron to rendezvous with the originally planned coastal patrol ship detachment to carry out the "support" mission together.

There is no doubt that this decision was made by me as an attempt to pick up ready-made bargains after the Chinese fleet and the Germans, who had always been envious and jealous of them, fought for each other, but Kato Kanji, who was about to arrange all this at that time, felt very much like a little boy who ate an extra candy behind his parents' back, and until the fleet was assembled at sea, Kato Kanji did not reveal his "support" plan to the British Admiralty.

"Now, it's time for us to prove our strength." Kanji Kato finally stopped his laughter and said to Tetsutaro Sato, "The current British, after seeing us, are afraid that they will take back all the irresponsible words they said before. ”

"That's right." Tetsutaro Sato looked at the somewhat smug commander, carefully worded, and reminded Kanji Kato, "However, Your Excellency Commander, this telegram only asks us to rush to the vicinity of Hrigolan Bay to participate in the battle, but it does not reveal the situation about the battle, and there is no mention of the losses of the enemy and us, don't you think there may be a problem here?" ”

(To be continued)