Samuel crouched at the bottom of the cabin, a box of matches in his hand, and a bundle of gunpowder beside him. In order to prevent this from happening, a large amount of gunpowder was placed at the bottom of each transport ship in advance, and in the event of an unstoppable accident, someone would be responsible for igniting the gunpowder and sinking the transport ship. But this was the last resort, and the most difficult decision to make, Samuel's hands were shaking, he didn't want to die with the transport, and he didn't want to have an accident with his family in London because of the accident - if something happened to the fleet, it was very likely that the blame would be put on himself, and he didn't know that the two warships had also sunk, and there would be no news at all.

The special operators finally cleaned all the way to the bottom of the cabin, "What people, raise your hands!" Samuel suddenly realized at this time, why should he bury the treasures of those dignitaries and nobles, this is not his own money!

Samuel did not make up his mind to ignite the explosives, five of the other nine responsible for lighting the explosives had already died in the melee, and three of the other four made the same decision as Samuel, except for one young man who had a hot head and slashed a match to ignite the explosives.

"Boom!" Luzon stayed on the deck, thinking that the overall situation had been decided, but was startled by the sudden violent explosion, and turned to see that a transport ship had been blown to pieces, debris was flying, and the shock wave from the explosion caused several nearby transport ships to shake violently, and Luzon also had to lower his body to avoid the debris and impact.

"Captain, a large amount of explosives has been prepared at the bottom of each transport ship, and the rest of the ships are controlled, and it seems that the explosives of that one have been ignited." A member of the team staggered out of the cabin and reported to Luzon.

"Made, outlaw, lost a shipload of treasure for nothing. Let the mining carts come over, transfer the treasure immediately, and besides, we don't leave any prisoners! Also, take control of the fishing boat that passed by and take them back to Huizhou. Luzon said scoldingly.

Huizhou, Lü Liang was also very angry after receiving the telegram from Luzon, although the mining truck had been transferred after two hours of emergency transportation, and the Nanhai had also arrived and sunk all the transport ships, and was rushing back, but the loss of a transport fleet's treasure made the operation somewhat lacking. Who knows what national treasures, precious artifacts, priceless treasures are in that ship? It is a loss to destroy a nation, let alone a ship.

According to a telegram from Tianjin, a fleet full of valuable cargo will arrive this morning, and three warships will escort it, demanding that the Hong Kong Governor's Office make every effort to ensure its supply and safety after docking. With such wording and the scale of the escort, the fleet should be transporting the property looted by the coalition forces, which is not difficult to guess, and Buli knew very well what kind of benefits this war would bring to the empire, so he immediately sent two hundred British soldiers and seven hundred Indian soldiers to the docks to wait for them, and sent marine police to patrol near the port. But now it is more than five hours past the scheduled time, and it stands to reason that there will be no problem if you sail along the coast, but a delay of more than five hours is not normal.

"Your Excellency the Governor, we sent a telegram to General Bruce, but we did not receive a call back, it stands to reason that several warships carry transmitters, and it is impossible for them to malfunction at the same time." One of his subordinates reported, and Sir Brie frowned, "Send a telegram to the Tianjin side, if you don't receive news from the fleet in another five hours, it means that something is wrong." ”

The battle began at nine o'clock in the morning and ended at eleven o'clock. Of the three warships carrying the transmitters, the Feeme and the Augusta were sunk before they could generate electricity, and the first round of shelling of the Nanhai damaged the communications equipment of the Annoah, so the coalition forces thought that the flotilla was not communicating well, and sent search detachments from the direction of Tianjin and Hong Kong at 6 o'clock in the evening of the same day. Because it was difficult to find at night, the search did not yield results until noon the next day, and they found many wrecks and bodies floating on the sea near the Taiwan Strait. The coalition side realized that something was wrong, and immediately organized a large-scale search for the fleet, and even the ground forces temporarily stopped military operations, if there was a problem with that fleet, it would be equivalent to reducing the income of this dispatch by more than half, and even the post-war reparations would not go into personal pockets!

The headquarters of the allied forces in Beijing was gloomy, and the German general and commander of the allied forces, Wadsey, deliberately returned from the Zhangjiakou front, and the naval commander Seymour also arrived from Tianjin.

"The news from the sea is very bad, the Navy warships have found a large number of wrecks near the Taiwan Strait, and after identification, it can be determined that those transport vessels, and the fleet is likely to have suffered an accident. As for the three escort battleships, the wreckage of the destroyer Ferme was found along with the transport, the wreckage of the other two cruisers appeared more than a hundred nautical miles away, traces of battle can be found from the scene, and the whereabouts of the two battleships are unknown, and it is very likely that they have sunk. Seymour whispered a report on the Navy's search.

"God, it's unbelievable, is there any naval power in the world that we don't know about? This coalition has brought together various powers, it is impossible for other countries to do it, their maritime strength is very clear to us, if you want to sink three powerful warships in a short time, what kind of strength is needed? Could it be a shipwreck? Wadsey asked with a sigh of emotion.

"No, although there are often storms when sailing on the sea, the wind and waves in the Far East at this time are not small, but it is not the time for the typhoon to come. Besides, the traces of the battle at the scene are obvious, and it cannot be the cause of the shipwreck. ”

Seymour pondered for a while, and he suddenly realized that even if the coalition navy were all dispatched, it would require careful planning and a lot of prior planning, and even if the three warships were defeated, they could escape from the battlefield, or would they have indeed escaped now and lost contact with the coalition forces? He found that he did not know how to explain to Wadsey that the situation of naval warfare was ever-changing, that many things could happen, and that all kinds of complex possibilities were converging, and Seymour felt foggy.

"General Wadsey, we don't know the exact circumstances of the three warships right now, and although the wreckage was found at the scene, it doesn't mean that they have sunk. What can be done against three warships can only be done by the actions of the state, which involves the internal forces of the coalition, including the leakage of information, prior organization, and so on. There is no doubt that the transport ship has sunk, and I suggest that we immediately call for help from the country, and we should form a commission of inquiry to find out the root cause of the incident. Seymour said that if it was really because of the defeat in the naval battle that caused the sinking of the transport ship, then all the blame would be put on Seymour, which he could not afford. Of course, if the investigation finds that it is an internal leak of information from the coalition forces, you can take a lot of responsibility off yourself. He habitually curls his beard, what is this called, I thought that he could make a fortune and earn a lot of military achievements, but he didn't expect it to be all gone!

Wadsey listened to Seymour as he seemed to be listening, but in fact, another thought had already surfaced in his heart, that there was a good chance that all the transports would be sunk and that there would be a fight. If countries outside the coalition are not capable of doing it, it does not mean that no one inside cannot do it, there are too many doubts about this matter, why did those few warships leave the transport fleet? Why wasn't the electricity generated in the first place? If it were an internal country, everything would make sense, and this country must be Britain, and they want to monopolize this treasure! If this were the case, the German warship Swallow would have been unlucky, while the two British warships would have been safe and sank the transports after transferring the cargo. With the bandit nature of the British, it is not impossible to do such a thing.