At this time, a soldier came to report: British Ambassador Scott Knoll and more than a dozen foreign reporters asked to see him, Lin Yuan heard this, and said to the soldiers: "Go and invite the Kwantung newspaper reporters who are here today to the meeting room." ”

When Tang Fan came back, Lin Yuan walked into the meeting room, and in the middle of the meeting room sat the British ambassador Noll, who stood up first and said: "I heard that your Qing defenders opened fire at noon today and sank fifteen of our merchant ships, we want to see what is going on!" ”

Lin Yuan hurriedly smiled and said, "It's all a misunderstanding, it's all a misunderstanding, we treat your merchant ships as Russian troop carriers." ”

Tang Fan thought to himself: "Lin Yuan, what's wrong?" What exactly does he want to do? ”

Noor's face turned blue with anger, and he said angrily: "Your Qing government must compensate us for our losses. ”

Lin Yuan pretended to be sincerely frightened and said, "That's certain, we also rescued a few crew members, so you can take them back first." ”

After Lin Yuan finished speaking, someone on the side came to guide Noel, Noel followed the person out angrily, Lin Yuan looked at the dozen foreign reporters in the room, and said, "Everyone come with us." ”

Lin Yuan led everyone to the outside of the room where the prisoners of war were held, Lin Yuan opened the door of the room and said to the people inside, "You can go." ”

The first person to come out was the person who had just spoken to Lin Yuan, he got up and walked out, and glared at Lin Yuan fiercely before going out, as soon as the person came out, the reporters' cameras rang out, and the artillery of the Qing Empire mistakenly hit the merchant ships of the British Empire, which was explosive news.

The people inside walked out one by one, Lin Yuan stood at the door and watched, and when he reached the fifth person, more than a dozen soldiers came in the distance, they carried a big wooden box, Lin Yuan saw them, and hurriedly said to Noor: "Mr. Ambassador, we have also temporarily kept the belongings of these people, and now they will be returned together." ”

Lin Yuan then said to the man, "Come over and check if there's anything missing." After saying that, he beckoned more than a dozen soldiers to put down the box, and then all the reporters gathered around and watched intently, Lin Yuan personally opened the box, and as soon as the lid of the box was opened, everyone let out an exclamation!

In the box, there are more than a dozen brand-new rifles, as well as a dozen boxes of ammunition!

Lin Yuan said to the reporters: "Do any friends know what kind of guns these are?" ”

A reporter approached and said, "This is the standard weapon of the Russian army, the Mosin Nagant rifle." ”

Before the words fell, the crowd was in an uproar, and Lin Yuan asked Nuoer: "Why do your citizens want to enter our country with rifles?" ”

Noel didn't know what was going on, his face was red and white for a while, and the man spoke: "These are not our things. ”

Lin Yuan smiled mockingly and said, "Isn't it your thing?" I'll have to ask again to find out. Lin Yuan turned his head, called a prisoner of war, and asked in English, "Is this your thing?" ”

How many of the Russian soldiers knew English, and when they heard Lin Yuan's English question, they were all at a loss, and they didn't know how to answer, Lin Yuan changed to Russian and asked again, and at this time a few prisoners of war nodded. The reporters below understood at this time, it turned out that these people were Russian soldiers, and they were pretending to be British and wanted to infiltrate China! Knoll also understood, he felt that he was being toyed with like a fool, and his face was so angry that he turned blue with anger and couldn't speak with a trembling voice.

Lin Yuan said apologetically at this time: "Mr. Knoor, I'm really sorry, it turns out that this group of people is impersonated by Russians, I didn't investigate it clearly, I hope you will forgive me." ”

Noel shook his head helplessly, turned around and left, but the group of reporters were all excited, the Russian army pretended to be British to attack China, this news is even more interesting, everyone gathered around Lin Yuan, asking this and that, Lin Yuan pointed at Tang Fan with his hand, and said: "If you have any questions, just ask him." ”

It turned out that Lin Yuan called Tang Fan just to ask him to help him resist the reporters, Lin Yuan took this opportunity to sneak out of the crowd, and it wasn't until the evening that Tang Fan broke away from the crowd of reporters and asked Lin Yuan: "How did you come up with this method?" Lin Yuan said with a smile: "I didn't expect that the Russian prisoners of war would pretend to be British, so after they said that, I thought of this method, I was worried that they would all know English, so I asked them in English in the prisoner of war camp what they wanted to eat for dinner, I saw that they did not respond, and I determined that they did not know English at all, so I implemented this plan with confidence." ”

Two days later, on the night of December 29, Lin Yuan received a report from the sentry ship that the Japanese and Russian fleets had returned, and this time there were more than a dozen small ships in the fleet.

Lin Yuan immediately summoned Luo Rongguang and the others, and Luo Rongguang first asked: "There are more than a dozen small ships in the fleets of the Japanese and Russians, I don't know what it is?" ”

Lin Yuan said: "No need to ask, it must be a minesweeper, they must start minesweeping." ”

Luo Rongguang said hesitantly: "Then how should we fight?" ”

Lin Yuan said: "It seems that the Japanese-Russian coalition forces still have to implement the strategy of flanking the front and rear, so we must block the enemy's minesweepers and prevent them from opening up a shipping route." ”

Lin Yuan took out a nautical chart and hung it on the wall, pointed to the nautical chart and said: "The water area about five kilometers away from the coast is relatively shallow, and the draft is generally about twelve or thirteen meters, so the enemy's battleships and cruisers cannot enter here at all, and the only ones they can get in are small destroyers." ”

"However, the opponent's large ships will not be watching from the side, they will definitely shoot at our batteries with artillery, according to the situation of our batteries, the batteries closest to the coast will be hit by the fire of enemy cruisers and battleships, and the intensity of such blows is very strong, so I order the defenders in these batteries to withdraw temporarily."

Luo Rongguang nodded, and the staff officers around him immediately wrote down this sentence in their notebooks, and Lin Yuan continued: "The farthest mine is about three kilometers away from the mouth of the river, but the Russian army doesn't know this, so as soon as their minesweepers enter the estuary, they will start to clear mines, and at this time their ship speed will slow down, so we can strike at them very calmly." "The destroyers with cover behind the minesweepers are limited by the firing angle, so when they just enter the estuary, they can't hit us at all, so our way of playing is to concentrate our firepower and knock out their minesweepers before the enemy enters the minefield, and the destroyers behind will get out of the way!"

After Lin Yuan finished speaking, he looked at his watch and said: "The enemy will definitely choose to start clearing mines in the afternoon when the sun is the fullest, the visibility is the best at this time, everyone still has more than ten hours to prepare, hurry up and prepare." ”

Lin Yuan finished arranging the defensive matters, but he did not feel the slightest ease, and formulated a defensive battle plan, according to the opponent's offensive plan, targeted deployment, so as to achieve the best results, but Lin Yuan did not know the enemy's offensive plan at this time, and the reason why he formulated such a plan was entirely based on his command quality, that is, his understanding of the enemy's equipment and the battlefield situation, and prejudging the actions that the opponent might take.

"No prediction is 100 percent accurate." Lin Yuan remembered this sentence, and at this moment, there was a "boom" cannon sound in the distance, and the Japanese and Russian fleets attacked.