Samuel, who stayed on the Union transport ship, didn't have the good mood of Bruce and Ford, and the civilian class like him didn't have as much energy to find a mistress, and he had a large family to feed him in the city of London, thousands of miles away. He held the mast in one hand and the telescope in the other hand to patrol around, if there was an accident in this transport fleet, it would not be General Bruce or his sailors who would be unlucky, but the captain of his own fleet, so since the departure from Tianjin, he did not dare to relax for a moment. It's a little better now, there are not so many pirates, and after passing the Taiwan Strait, the pirates will become dense, and their fleet will definitely be discovered, hoping that those warships will block trouble for themselves.

Samuel could not have imagined that the danger would come from below the surface of the sea, and two submarine mining vehicles followed them all the time. The flotilla has been sailing along the continental shelf, so seabed mining vehicles operate on the seabed about a few tens of meters below the flotilla. The seabed mining vehicle uses the positioning equipment to find seabed minerals to easily track the fleet, and after it is set, it will automatically drive, and Luzon and others only need to follow the fleet to the designated sea area and receive a telegram from the Nanhai.

After more than two days of sailing, it finally arrived at the designated sea area, and the mining vehicle issued a prompt, and Luzon immediately ordered: "The mining vehicle floats up, sends a telegram to the Nanhai, and arrives at the sea off Ningde, Fujian at this moment, and the current position is 123.22 east longitude and 26.88 north latitude." ”

On the deck of the battleship Nanhai, a herald ran over and said loudly: "Report to the captain, receive a telegram from the submarine mining truck, and the transport fleet has arrived at the designated position!" ”

"It's finally here!" Lu Hai clenched his fist slightly, he had been adrift on this sea for three days, and he had to find a way to avoid sea ships, fishing boats, etc. There is no way, the South China Sea is built as a template for the World War II American Cleveland-class light cruisers, and its structure is very different from the warships of this era, and if it is seen by people who are knowledgeable, it will bring unnecessary trouble. Or is it that the Navy is not strong enough to hide like this, and it will be made public in a few years, when the Navy will have great strength, and the dreadnoughts will be built, and it doesn't matter if the appearance of the Nankai is seen.

Lu Hai ran back to the combat command room and shouted loudly: "The whole ship has entered a state of first-level combat readiness, the target is 123.22 east longitude, 26.88 north latitude, depart!" ”

The officers and men of the whole ship immediately took action and rushed to their posts, and the ordinary sailors had been trained for a long time and were very familiar with what they should do. Under the action of strong thrust, the 10,000-ton giant ship crossed a graceful arc on the sea surface and began to sail towards the war zone.

The Nanhai was not far from its intended position, about sixty nautical miles. According to the telegram, the convoy was traveling at a speed of twelve knots, and at the speed of the Nanhai, it would catch up with the convoy in more than two hours. It was just morning, and there was plenty of time to fight.

At full speed, the Nanhai cleaved the waves, and the time quickly passed two hours. "The radar is turned on, and the location of the convoy is searched." Lu Hai ordered that the mining vehicle was at the bottom of the sea, and that they would not be able to hear from them unless they took the initiative to contact them. The radar used by the Nanhai is built on the template of the American World War II warship radar XAF in the steel base, which is an electron tube radar with a high failure rate and a limited start-up time, otherwise the service life of the radar will be lost. Lu Hai only estimated that the plane would be turned on when it approached the convoy.

Luzon was also helpless, the mining truck was too close to the convoy when it first surfaced just now, and the movement was so loud that it was almost spotted by the lookouts on the coalition warship. But without going up, it was impossible to send a telegram informing the Nanhai of the exact location of the convoy. Of course, one mining vehicle can temporarily retreat and leave the warship's line of sight before sending a report, while the other continues to follow. But then the mining vehicles have to float several kilometers away from the fleet and then dive, which is likely to cause them to not be able to keep up with the fleet.

Fortunately, the warship's radar played a role, "Captain, the radar shows that a fleet of ships has been found directly in front of us 5 nautical miles, and from the point of view of the volume, there are warships, it should be them." ”

"Go around the side and occupy the T-position. Inform all officers and soldiers and prepare for battle! Lu Hai said calmly, there are many transport ships on this route, and the Nanhai must lead the three escort warships away at the first time, and it is much better to fight in uninhabited waters than to fight in the spotlight.

"Have you heard, each of the generals in this war has received a lot of property, and those transport ships are to transport them back home." On the lookout at the top of the Annoah, two lookouts were chatting to pass the time.

"That's right, if I hadn't had diarrhea and didn't go ashore, I would have been able to get a lot back, and you kid would have made a fortune!" Another lookout rubbed his hands and craned his neck, looking at his companion with envious and jealous eyes.

"How many can there be? Those army soldiers really got rich, they all entered the capital of that country, do you think how many good things you can grab? ”

"It's so unfair that they get rich, and let us honorable naval sailors do it! In our hometown, there was an old man of the nobility, who had participated in the Far Eastern War in 1860, and that the looted goods were piled up in his family's warehouse, which has not been spent until now. There is a tiger head sculpture that he likes the most, and he often takes it out to play with, and I have seen it. ”

"It's all tears, why didn't we join the army in the first place, and now we are suffering on this observation deck, and we are about to enter the tropics, and I feel a little cold!" The lookout complained about the weather, when suddenly a black spot came into the corner of his eye, and he picked up the binoculars and looked at it carefully.

"Hey, Vincent, look what that's there?" Vincent, a veteran sailor who had served for five years, had sharp eyes and experience, he took the binoculars and looked at them, immediately rang the alarm bell around him, and shouted loudly to the people below: "I found an unknown ship, I suspect it is a warship!" Vincent didn't care about the reaction below, and continued to observe, the black dot slowly jumped out of the horizontal plane, becoming clearer and clearer, it was now morning, the sky was clear, Vincent finally saw clearly, it was a warship, but he had never seen a warship. This is definitely not any kind of warship I have ever seen, the hull is slender, and the structure is very different from this armored cruiser under my feet, but the estimated displacement should be more than 10,000 tons. It was too far away to make out the flag and the scale of the gun's guns.

General Bruce entered the command room for the first time, he was a little puzzled, if it was normal to find pirates, what was the matter with discovering unknown warships? The Eight-Nation Alliance has gathered all the great powers on the earth, and it is impossible for other powers to exist, especially in this Far Eastern Sea, where did the unknown warships come from?

"General, I don't recognize any country's warship, and I've never seen a warship like that. It stands to reason that there are only a handful of countries that have such 10,000-ton warships, but none of them can appear in the Far East, and I am very familiar with those Japanese warships, most of which were sold to them by our Britain. Could it be American? Forde observed for a moment and said.

Bruce shook his head, the comer was not good, no matter which country's warship it was or what its intentions were, he had to be prepared for the worst. "Ordered, enter combat readiness, the Fermay will go forward, allow the cannon to be fired, and ask for clarification." Bruce said.