"Turn to retreat, turn to retreat immediately!" On the battlefield in the Baltic, Lieutenant General Khorzendorf looked at the telegram in his hand and shouted without hesitation.

"General, what's wrong?" Colonel Spee, the captain of the Braunschweig beside him, asked in surprise, up to now, this German-Russian battleship duel on the icy sea has almost decided the winner, although the Germans lost the Nassau battle cruise, but they sank the Russians' Sevastopol fast battleship and the Queen Maria battleship, the former was overturned because of too many bullets into the water, and the latter was directly ordered to fight, and the balance of strength at sea has become five to four, it can be said that victory is already beckoning.

"We were deceived, the Russians deliberately lured us out, the mine layout map of the Helgoland Bay was leaked, all the capital ships of Britain and France have entered the Helgoland Bay, and they are preparing to land directly on Hamburg with a large number of landing ships." Holzendorf said after taking a deep breath.

Colonel Spee was stupid, and after coming to his senses, he also did not hesitate to give his men the order to retreat, and the remaining five German high-speed battleships that were fighting on the entire sea all left their opponents and turned at high speed and sailed towards Kiel. Their opponents did not pursue, for Rogerstvinsky his task was accomplished, even if it was a high-speed battleship, it was impossible to sail back to Kiel from here and reach the Helgoland Bay through the Guò Kiel Canal in a day, and by the time they arrived, the High Seas Fleet would have been wiped out, and the departure of these five battleships, which had already been scarred, would also add to the success of the British.

At the same time, the high seas fleet led by Prince Heinrich at the mouth of the Elbe River had begun a decisive battle with the British and French fleets, thirteen battleships lined up in battle lines, like a steel wall in front of the enemy approaching at high speed, a door pointed to the side of the large-caliber naval guns in an instant spewed flames, huge pao shells with a palpitating roar like meteors smashed into the enemy, with a terrifying explosion to shred the invader's body.

Anglo-French battleships sailed out of the mine passage in four columns. Obviously, they are in a disadvantageous position, because of the limitations of the surrounding minefields, they can only maintain such a formation to engage the high seas fleet, and the numerical advantage cannot be played at all, unless they can rush out of the minefield into open water, but unfortunately, the high seas fleet is blocked at the exit, and if you want to rush out, you can only break through. Fortunately, the British were also mentally prepared for this and had a way to deal with it, and at the same time that the four Edward VII-class battleships at the front returned fire with their three, five, or six mm main guns, a large number of destroyers rushed up from behind and began to release smoke screens, which were already snowing in the sky, and now they were adding smoke screens coming from the wind. Almost all the warships of the High Seas Fleet disappeared into the smoke.

Prince Heinrich and his fleet not only had difficulty attacking the enemy, but had to face the torpedo threat of British destroyers, although they could not aim at the German battleships in the smoke, but if they fired a salvo of several hundred torpedoes like in the last naval battle, they would definitely have a large number of hits even if they did not aim at them, and if the German cruisers and destroyers stepped forward to intercept but were under the main guns of the British battleships, it would be tantamount to suicide to do so in front of those three, five, or six mm guns.

Having understood this, Prince Heinrich could only order his battleship to get out of the way of mine passages. However, he ordered the thirteen battleships to divide into two groups, with Vice Admiral Ingnoll leading a fleet of six battleships to the north, and himself leading the remaining seven battleships to the south, forming a formation arranged in the middle of the tunnel. At the same time, a large number of cruisers, destroyers and even torpedo boats hid in the rear of the battlefleet, ready to rush out of the raid at any moment.

His change of formation did not hide from the British, but the threat to the British and French fleets had diminished considerably compared to the initial situation. Although they would be flanked from the left and right, the numerical superiority of the British and French fleets was more than enough to compensate for this, and as for the losses, that was certain. Admiral May never thought that he would settle the High Seas Fleet unscathed, and in his opinion, it was worth losing five more battleships for the sake of victory in this battle.

After forcing back the high seas fleet, the British and French fleets with four columns in parallel quickly moved forward, and became two groups during the voyage, and at the same time the outer division was widened, and the cruiser destroyers, which had released smoke screens and were ready to surprise the attack, were sandwiched in the tunnel composed of the two groups of capital ships and went forward at high speed, and rushed to the open water of the Elbe estuary at the fastest speed under the cover of the capital ships, and then turned around and harassed the capital ships of the Germans from the periphery, mainly to divert the German cruisers and destroyers who were hiding behind and preparing to come forward to attack. Otherwise, it would be very dangerous for these small warships to raid in a desperate manner.

At this time, the two groups of German battleships in the north and south had opened fire at the same time, and then the British and French battleships also began to return fire, although the number was small but there was no battle patrol of the high seas fleet, in the short term did not fall behind, and the British and French capital ships dragging a long queue could not all be put into battle, for a time even the Germans still occupied a certain advantage, but such an advantage could not last long, Prince Heinrich who was on the Deutschland was very aware of this.

"Send a report to the shore and order the coastal defense forces to release drifting mines, as many as they want." He said viciously.

Drifting thunder, an ancient weapon that can be said to be almost forgotten by those generals, including Admiral May, the commander of the British and French fleets, has almost forgotten that there is such a thing, you must know that these things pulled out of the dust of the warehouse are still filled with black medicine, but hundreds of kilograms of black medicine are also very terrifying for destroyers, two British destroyers rushed to the mouth of the Elbe at a high speed of thirty-six knots, and were preparing to turn to attack the German capital ships in shallow water, Almost simultaneously, each collided with a drifting mine down the Elbe, and with two loud explosions, the two destroyers jumped upwards at the same time, and then began to sink at the mouth of the river.

"Mines, how can there be mines there?" Jericho said in surprise as he held up his binoculars.

"No, it's not an anchor mine, it's a drifting mine, and the ships were ordered to pay attention to the sea, and the Germans released the drifting mine from the Elbe!" Admiral Mei quickly came to his senses and hurriedly ordered.

However, his order, the captains of those cruisers and destroyers attached great importance to it, but the captains of the capital ships did not pay much attention to it, the British Navy had long stopped producing this thing, and the same was true of the Germans, these drifting mines must still be old antiques that were turned out of the warehouse, and it was a fantasy that black medicine could blow up battleships.

These drifting mines down the river forced the British and French cruiser destroyers, which were preparing to turn from the shallow waters of the estuary, to slow down and act carefully, and at this time, under the cover of the capital ships, the German destroyers and torpedo boats began to attack the British and French capital ships.

The British and French battleships that were engaged with the German battleships had to desperately turn to dodge, but unfortunately because of the constraints of the environment, it was difficult for them to have enough space to dodge like the Germans last time, although it can already be said that they were all out, but there was still a battle cruiser and a battleship that were hit, the battleship was better, it did not sink immediately after taking two torpedoes, but the battle cruiser was hit by six torpedoes, and soon only half of the shipbuilding was left on the sea.

Admiral May frowned and looked at this scene, although there were mine maps, but it was obvious that such an environment was too restrictive to the British and French fleets, and they could not give full play to their numerical superiority, but the matter could only be fought at this point, he urged the cruisers and destroyers in front to quickly get rid of the drifting mine, and quickly joined the battlefield to lure away these small warships of the Germans, and at the same time transferred a group of cruiser destroyers that originally left escort landing ships and troop carriers.

But this is cheaper, because there are too many escort ships, and Hipper, who is worried about how to hunt safely, has just sunk two British troop transports, the second is a small boat, and there is only one battalion on it, but even so he can still say that he has gained a lot, and even William has sent a telegram to personally pardon him for his transgression.

Encouraged by the Kaiser, and well aware of the significance of the battle, the Hipper fleet was like a hungry wolf, heroically rushing towards the enemy in the snowy North Sea.

And at this time, it was not only Hipper and his small fleet that participated in the peripheral hunt, but also the German submarine forces in the vicinity also joined the battle, especially the U9, which had been hiding behind the British fleet, did not hesitate to approach a British transport ship from under the water like a ghost. The 2,000-ton ship was supposed to be protected by two destroyers, but after receiving orders from Admiral May, one went for reinforcements, and the other was on alert with several other British destroyers nearby because of the German destroyers in the distance, and the merchant ship full of soldiers was waiting for the outcome of the battle ahead with nothing to do with other troop carriers.

"Torpedo! Submarines of the Germans! The sudden appearance of the torpedo track on the surface of the sea frightened a crew member who was watching the excitement into a heart-rending scream as if he had been stepped on his tail, and everyone on the poor temporary requisitioned merchant ship was in a state of confusion, and even the army ran out of the cabin in a vain attempt to fire torpedoes with rifles, while the other British transports that were not part of the target panicked and approached the nearest escort ship, and a British destroyer rushed desperately to the rescue.

But unfortunately, it was all in vain, the heavy torpedo prepared for the battleship instantly collided with the slow troop carrier, and with the terrifying explosion of the two hundred kilograms of TNANTIMONY, the small boat was almost blown up by the waist, and quickly sank with nearly a thousand soldiers on board. (To be continued......)