"Boom!" The waves exploded, the loud roared, and a huge column of water rose on the sea more than 100 meters in front of the cruiser Herax, and the white waves around it were rolling and rushing, like thousands of snow lions and silver tigers roaring and dancing. Seeing this scene, the last trace of luck in the old captain's heart was gone: the Germans had already seen through the fake identity of their fleet, and the other party was definitely the main battle patrol!

"Disband the convoy at once, and let the merchant ships flee to the ports. The battleship raises the Z-shaped flag and rushes towards the opposing fleet at full speed! The fear in Ekman's heart flashed in a flash of lightning, and he turned and gave a loud command. Since it is impossible to escape, you can only choose to fight hard. Although Ekman knew that his broken ships were undoubtedly shaking the trees in front of the main German battle cruisers, the Royal Navy's tradition of more than 300 years of fighting when facing the enemy has long been deeply rooted in the bone marrow; At present, these three warships of our own side are still equipped with torpedoes, and it is not necessarily that there is no chance to buy time for the fleet to scatter and escape.

"We know that you are a British ship, and we now order you to stop your ship and surrender immediately!" In the distance, on a large German battle cruiser, the light of the signal lights flickered on and off, and the signal soldier standing next to Ekman muttered the message. However, Ekman, who had made up his mind, did not respond to this, and only gave the battle order to speed up the rudder. After a short time, the old ship, which was launched at the end of the last century, and two old destroyers completed the turn and began to go straight to the German fleet at maximum speed.

On the battlecruiser Blucher, German Rear Admiral Millau looked at the oncoming British battleship, and his eyes showed many expressions of anger, admiration, and pity. Albeit for the sake of fuel savings. Hipper did not send the reconnaissance fleet out after discovering the target. Instead, a detachment of squadrons led by two battle cruisers, Blucher and Balfoss, was dispatched to meet the enemy; However, even so. The strength of the German fleet was by no means something that the frigates of this fleet could resist a little. These Britons knew this, but they still rushed directly to their own guns! Seeing that the two British destroyers had sailed less than 12,000 yards from his side, Millau did not hesitate to give the order to open fire, and the only thing he could do now for these brave British sailors was to die a heroic death in his position!

"Boom! Rumble! "The flames of light are dancing, and the waves of air are flying. Having completed the turn, the Blucher blew the horn of the attack with a powerful half-salvo. Tens of seconds later, four stout and towering columns of water suddenly rose in front of the Herax; The majestic momentum like a waterfall in the sky made every British sailor dare not imagine the catastrophic consequences of the opponent's shells directly hitting their own battleship. Although the Blucher is an old ship that started construction in 1903, with the advantage of 8 283mm L47 main guns with the advantage of hard cap armor-piercing shells, its powerful firepower is still not to be underestimated by any Allied capital ship! The Balfoss, a ship of the same class that followed closely, also joined the shooting with its main guns, and for a while the roar of heavy artillery shook the audience, and the surging flames gushing out from the muzzle of the guns were like fire dragons soaring into the air; In the vicinity of the target battleship, the waves were pouring and falling into a column of water.

Aboard the Herax, Ekman felt as if he was in a hellish nightmare: columns of water taller than masts were rising around the ship. Then it swooped down like a river of heaven, and the sea water that sprayed onto the deck almost turned the ship into a submarine. British sailors were constantly swept into the sea by the waves that swept their heads in. The other party is still more than 11,000 yards away from him. His own 152-mm rapid-fire gun could only hear at all at this distance; A few of the old destroyers, though a little faster, had reached the limit of less than 9,000 yards for German warfare; But in the face of the enemy's dense 150-mm secondary artillery fire, these cannon fodder with poor structural strength and naked running all over their bodies can't even bear a single miss!

Before he could think about it, Eckman saw a flash of red light in front of him: a 150mm high-explosive bomb struck the stern of a British destroyer, and the explosion power of more than 4kg of high explosives directly tore the entire stern to pieces like gauze. The speed of this hundreds of tons of cannon fodder dropped sharply, and after a short time it became as slow as a turtle, and the flames on the deck were like lava, and soon the whole ship was enveloped in a sea of fire.

Ekman was furious, it had only been less than 5 minutes since the start of the battle, and one of his destroyers had been completely destroyed, and this was still thousands of meters away from the range of the torpedoes! Just as he was frightened, the screech of a large-caliber cannonball was soothing, and before the old Ekman could react, an unimaginably huge impact was heard in his chest, and he flew backwards like a paper kite with a broken thread. The pain in his head was like a crack, and he faintly heard the violent explosion of a landslide and tsunami in his ears, and then he couldn't feel anything.

"Let the G-139 torpedo boat rescue the poor creatures who have fallen overboard, and hopefully they won't be frozen to death by the sea during this time." On the bridge of the Blucher, Rear Admiral Millau looked at the British protective cruiser in the distance that was caught in a sea of fire, and couldn't help but nod with satisfaction. After forming a straddle fire, the target cruiser was hit by five 283-mm shells in two minutes, and the waterline deck was so shattered that even God could not save it from sinking and falling. The other two British destroyers were also swept away by the secondary artillery fire of their own battle patrols, and the courage of the British sailors did not return the slightest victory. Now it was time for his fleet to go on a killing spree and hunt down the British merchant ships. If it weren't for the fact that the water in the North Atlantic was cold enough in mid-November, it would have been possible for the British to soak in the water for seven or eight hours

With the signal flag on the Blucher rising and lowering, the German fleet, which had completed this slaughtering battle, began to speed up; The topless stoker cooperated with the operators of the fan, pump, valve and other components, sweating profusely to send a shovel of high-quality anthracite into the furnace with negative pressure, so that the boiler could produce better quality and more superheated steam, and push the turbine to produce more powerful shaft power than before. A total of 16 German torpedo boats of 2 squadrons accelerated to 28 knots and pursued with ease in the direction of the escape of the previous merchant ships. In fact, due to the rather short duration of the battle, even the masts of a few British merchant ships could be seen from the Blücher's lookout; The German torpedo boats, which were pursuing at 2.5 times the speed, did not fear at all that the opponent would escape from the palm of their hands.

Only half an hour later, the silhouette of the British merchant ship was visible in the distance, and the German sailors were delighted to see that their target was getting closer and closer to them. On the foredeck, which was still a water-stained area, the 88mm gun crews were gearing up, stuffing 9kg high-explosive shells into the chambers and pointing them maliciously. In normal naval warfare, the attack of this small-caliber artillery is undoubtedly an itch for a warship of thousands of tons, but in the face of a merchant ship with no armor or structural strength to speak of, this kind of artillery can give it a fatal blow.

There was a loud bang, water splashed, and a shelling suddenly resounded across the sea. In order to guard against the possible camouflage of armed merchant ships, German torpedo boats took the lead in firing warning fire at a distance of 8,000 yards, so that British merchant ships would not have the idea of needless resistance. The lights flickered, the flags flew and the British sailors saw a threatening signal to stop their ships immediately; The German torpedo boats that shuttled on the sea were like a pack of hyenas, although their strength was far inferior to that of the mighty ligers, but they were enough to eat the British merchant ships, a group of broilers who could not run and could not fight, to the point that there were no bones left!

"The cargo belongs to the state, and the life is your own!" A leading German torpedo boat gave such a blunt signal. A few minutes later, a British merchant ship laden with iron sand resigned itself to its white flag and slowly stopped in the smoke that faded from the chimney mouth. The stoker, with his arms and face blackened, walked up to the deck with heavy steps, and watched with a group of his teammates at the German warships approaching as quickly as crocodiles. They had managed to escape a submarine attack, but now they had run into a German warship near their doorstep: was there a place in the Atlantic Ocean for British merchant ships?

After the iron sand ship gave up resistance, the surrounding British merchant ships also announced that they were stopped under the guns of the German torpedo boats. These British sailors were civilians, not as brave and fearless as regular naval officers, and when they were stabbed to the neck, obedience was undoubtedly their only option. The captain of an armed merchant ship ordered to fight to the death with cannons, but was tied up and thrown into a small black room by the mutinous sailors: the attitude of the British sailors was very clear, between prisoners of war and those killed in battle, they would definitely choose the former!

A short time later, two German battlecruisers armed with heavy naval guns arrived in the field, which immediately made all the British merchant ships lose any intention of resisting. After registering and photographing the ships' nationality, tonnage, place of voyage, and cargo as evidence, German sailors planted explosives on the merchant ships or opened the sea valves to sink them. British seamen were transferred to the German War Cruisers, and they would be among the first British nationals to have the privilege of visiting a large German capital ship.

As the number of merchant ships captured did not match the number of previously detected by the aircraft, the German torpedo boats immediately expanded the search area, and the seaplanes were once again released by the German war patrols to provide eyes and ears for their own ships. Rear Admiral Millau had no intention of letting the British seafarers on these merchant ships go back, so he was not worried that they would leak this ancillary equipment of his own war patrols. (To be continued......)

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