I saw him holding a baton and pointing on a huge chart of the South China Sea and other surrounding waters: "If the British fleet wants to go north directly from Singapore, many of their large capital warships will certainly have enough reserves of coal to come to Hong Kong directly, but their fleet cannot only have capital warships, there will inevitably be many small and medium-sized ships, and even many transport ships, in this case, it is very likely that they will not go north directly from Singapore without stopping in Hong Kong." It is possible that they will go to Saigon, Vietnam, for a halfway resupply.

Therefore, we can send ships to reconnoiter in the waters near Saigon and find out the strength of their fleet as soon as possible!

Once we have grasped their actual situation, then we must not hesitate at all, and must take the initiative to stop them outside the mouth of the Pearl River! ”

"In order to create favorable conditions in the final decisive stage, we can carry out a small attack on the enemy fleet outside the port of Saigon, and at the same time, a small attack at night while they are heading north, to further find out the formation of the enemy fleet and other details!"

This person's name is Lin Tongshu, a small coastal fishing village in Ningbo, Zhejiang, he was born in the Chinese Army is actually a very special example, because the officers of the Chinese Army are generally the children of scholars, and the real poor children are not many, but the poor background did not hide his amazing talent, he was only fifteen years old in 1855 and was admitted to the former Qing Xiucai, but then he applied for the Naval Military Academy, and was the first student of the driving class of the Naval Military Academy.

In 1857, the empire sent its first students to Britain, including two places in the navy. Lin Tongshu was among the best because of his grades during his schooling, and he was ranked first in many assessments. As a result, he was selected as one of the first naval officers to study in Britain before he officially graduated.

Before he was in the UK, he was exceptionally awarded the rank of captain in the navy.

He studied in the UK for three years. He returned to China in 1860 and became the de facto leader of naval modernization, and he developed the training and tactics of ironclad ships, first serving as an operational staff officer of the Naval Operations Division and an instructor at the Naval Officer Academy.

In that year, he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander of the Navy!

The following year, he was transferred to the deputy director of the Academic Affairs Office of the Naval Officer School, and began to take charge of the teaching work of the Naval Officer School!

This can be seen from the fact that the Academic Affairs Office is the body that is actually responsible for the teaching tasks of the Naval Academy. How much Lin Tongshu is valued within the Navy.

In 1864 he was promoted to Director of Academic Affairs and with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, where he was responsible for all teaching duties at the Naval Academy, passing on to the students all that he had learned in England.

At the same time, he also served as the director of the Naval Strategy Bureau, responsible for the overall formulation of many tactics and development of the modern navy, in the development of ironclad ships in the Imperial Chinese Navy, although on the surface responsible for Lin Dabiao and other naval bigwigs, but in fact it was Lin Tongshu and other young generation of officers who led these affairs.

Recently. Due to the serious situation in Hawaii, Hong Kong and other issues, the navy was under great pressure, so it began to send elite young officers to form a staff committee to be responsible for formulating detailed tactics.

To this end, Lin Dabiao specially set up a 'special staff group for the combined fleet'. And the Combined Fleet, that is, the temporary fleet used in the direction of Hong Kong, prepared for the British Navy. Contains three detachments.

And this special staff group will be directly responsible for formulating the operational plans of the above three detachments!

Lin Tongshu was personally named by Lin Dabiao, and then served as the leader of the group. He was solely responsible for the subsequent battle plan against the British fleet.

And this year, Lin Tongshu was only twenty-six years old. The rank is nothing more than a lieutenant colonel.

Beside Lin Tongshu were several equally young naval officers, all of whom were from the United Kingdom, aged between twenty-five and thirty-five, and were all colonels.

In fact, this strategic meeting, if it is said that Lin Dabiao is holding a meeting with a large group of naval bigwigs, in fact, it is better to say that Lin Tongshu and his staff officers are meeting to discuss, and Lin Dabiao and others are just observers.

This situation would never have happened in the Navy in other countries, and even less so in the Imperial Army!

The reason for this situation is very simple, that is, the overall quality of the navy's top brass is generally low, and these navy top brass, including Lin Dabiao, all changed careers from the army in the early years, and it is barely feasible to command a few gunboats to support the army in inland river operations, but if they are asked to command the ever-huge ironclad fleet and the powerful British navy in a decisive battle, they absolutely do not have this ability.

Regarding this point, Admiralty Chief Lin Dabiao himself was very clear, so in today's meeting, he only brought his ears, but he did not participate in the detailed discussion from beginning to end.

After a meeting, in the afternoon of the same day, Lin Tongshu came to Lin Dabiao's office with the final battle plan!

Although Lin Dabiao didn't understand the plan, he still read it very seriously for nearly half an hour, and raised some questions for Lin Tongshu to answer.

Finally, he picked up the pen on the table, and before signing his name to officially approve the battle plan, he looked at Lin Tongshu: "Lieutenant Colonel, this battle is related to the national fortune of the empire for a hundred years, do you understand?" ”

Lin Tongshu stood up straight: "Tongshu is very clear about the significance of this battle to the empire, please rest assured, Your Excellency, this plan has been repeatedly deduced by my colleagues in the staff group, and I have absolute confidence in our plan!" ”

After Lin Dabiao took a deep breath, he no longer spoke, but waved his pen on the plan and officially signed his name!

As Lin Tongshu went out with the plan that had been signed, Lin Dabiao stood up and walked to the window, and from the window, he saw one warship after another moored on the dock.

In the upper left position, even the largest warship in the empire currently in service, the Yandi, to the right is its sister ship Shaohao.

Then came the four Pangea-class battleships and three wooden cruisers.

The above six ironclad ships and three wooden cruisers are all the capital ships of the First Fleet, and they together with the two Female Snail-class ironclads and the three Zhenguang-class small ironclads that belong to the army in Hong Kong, they constitute all the forces of the Imperial Navy against the British Navy.

According to the battle plan, the above-mentioned warships will form a large combined fleet after the arrival of the British fleet, and then meet the British fleet in the coastal waters.

The Imperial Navy has not many capital ships, and it is naturally impossible to give up two Nunail-class ironclad ships and three Zhenguang-class ironclad ships if they face the British Navy, so it is the most ideal deployment to meet the British Navy offshore.

According to the speed of rest and replenishment of the British fleet, they estimated that they would stay in Singapore for more than a few days, and then estimated that the British would have to wait for reinforcements, so the arrival of the British's large-scale main fleet in Hong Kong would be at least ten days later, and if the British delayed a little, it might be half a month or even a month or two later.

And before the arrival of the British, all Lin Dabiao could do was wait!

While waiting, the Imperial Navy launched intensive pre-war training, with captains and combat staff officers deducing various tactics all day long, and gunners constantly training in gunnery.

So much so that in this short period of time, the Imperial Navy has fired more training ammunition than it had in the previous year.

When the Imperial Combined Fleet was preparing, many various reconnaissance ships were active in the entire South China Sea route, and as for Singapore, there were countless Chinese businessmen directly under the navy, or simply worried about the domestic situation, and whenever there were ships entering and leaving the port, they would be recorded in detail by these spies, and then disguised as ordinary commercial telegrams to transmit to China.

Outside the port of Singapore, there are two camouflaged fishing boats of the Imperial Navy that have been there, these fishing boats are all camouflaged, and after detecting the news of the enemy fleet, they can immediately start the steam engine, and then run more than a dozen knots to transmit the news back.

In order to obtain detailed information when the British fleet attacked, the Imperial Navy even mobilized many civilian ships along the coast of Guangdong, asking them to return to Hong Kong as soon as they discovered a large fleet.

This kind of waiting is enough to be irritated!

Even Lin Zhe couldn't hold back the irritability in his heart, and had already sent two telegrams to ask how the navy was doing, to which Lin Dabiao replied that the navy was fully prepared, as long as the British fleet came, then the imperial navy would immediately go to sea and have an unprecedented fleet decisive battle with the enemy fleet.

While the Imperial Navy was waiting for the arrival of the British fleet, the British defenders on Hong Kong Island were also waiting for the arrival of reinforcements!

In the past few days, the situation of the British army on Hong Kong Island has been very bad, although the British army has gathered the garrison army and navy sailors, and has gathered a regular army of about 2,000 men, and at the same time mobilized the foreigners on Hong Kong Island, and in a short period of time has gathered a militia of about 1,500 people.

However, the total strength of 3,500 people was still unable to resist the attack of the Chinese army!

Since the main force of the 21st Division of the Chinese Army waited for the shore, it only took two days to conquer one of the forts on the island, and then quickly launched an attack on the urban area on the island.

In the operation, the Chinese army should be the first large-scale use of straggler tactics, when the soldiers of the Chinese army attacked, did not attack in a neat formation like in the era of line columns, but launched an attack in a group of several stragglers, this style of play was very different from the previous regular engagement, so that the British army was very uncomfortable to resist.

Three days later, many of the main British positions were lost, and now the British had to retreat to the remaining blocks.

In this case, the British commander on Hong Kong Island has sent many letters to the Singapore side in a row, saying that they can't hold out for long, and asking the Singapore side to immediately send a fleet for reinforcements! (To be continued.) )

PS: There's another chapter later