This time the Russian gunners did not disappoint their commanders.

Despite the fact that it was late at night and the darkness of the night caused great inconvenience to the distance observation, the Russians were able to hit the mark in a short time. One "Japanese torpedo boat" was shattered into thousands of pieces by the fierce shells, and the other three also ignited raging flames and became incendiary objects floating on the sea; The evil "Japanese cruiser" was also hit by 5 shells, and the Russian gunners did well tonight. Just when the officers and men of the Russian battleship were complacent about their glorious victory, the commander of the fleet, Rozhdestvensky, suddenly felt that something was wrong; Even if the Japanese really set up an ambush in the North Sea, it should all be torpedo boats, how could there still be cruisers? You know, since the beginning of the 20th century, Japan has not added a single cruiser to its fleet, where did this cruiser come from?

Rozhdestvensky, who was puzzled, ordered a ceasefire. After a period of scrambling information collection, after the flagship "Duke Suvorov" compared the situation reported by each ship, Rozhdestvensky found out that the attacked Japanese cruiser turned out to be his own Aurora! Fortunately, the Russian shells were filled with less powerful cotton gunpowder, and all the hits were small guns under 6 inches, so that this thin-skinned and stuffed protective cruiser did not suffer any major losses. After learning of this situation, a frightened thought flashed in Vice Admiral Ro's heart, and he quietly ordered the fleet to turn on the searchlights of those "Japanese torpedo boats". Those small boats were not Japanese torpedo boats at all, they were all ordinary fishing boats; The scorched blackened deck was littered with wreckage, and above the mast were broken British flags! Under the leadership of Rozhdestvensky, the Russian fleet quietly and quickly left the scene like a bear child who had broken the museum's precious porcelain, silently chanting "You can't see me"; They were in a hurry, and did not even provide any humanitarian relief to the sinking British fishing boat.

However, there are some things that cannot be avoided. Many of these British fishing boats, which the Russians mistook for Japanese torpedo boats, survived the fire, and the surviving British fishermen immediately fled back to the harbor and told the people in the harbor with snot and tears about their suffering. Speaking of which, they were fishing normally near their own homes, but for no reason they were subjected to a horrific shelling that was enough to kill them 10,000 times, and the ship sank; This is a person who wants to get justice for this matter, not to mention that it is the people of the British Empire who are being attacked for no reason?

When the news spread, the whole of Britain was furious. As the most glorious empire on this planet, and as the sea overlord who has dominated the four oceans for more than 300 years, he was beaten by pirates from Tunguska at his own doorstep; That's fine, but the Russian fleet fled directly after the accident without the slightest rescue of the victims! Britain, which had been an ally of Japan and was extremely hostile to Russia's military adventures in the Far East, was now even more furious. Against the backdrop of a national uproar, the British government immediately issued a very harshly worded statement to the Russian ambassador in London: the Russian fleet must not allow any further advance until the matter is settled, otherwise the British Empire will be at war with Russia in a week's time.

At this time, Rozhdestvensky realized that he had stabbed a hornet's nest, and hurriedly sent several senior officers in the fleet back to China in the starry night to negotiate with the British. In the face of the strong condemnation and accusations of the British, the Russians were thick-skinned and raced over the city walls; They insisted that Japanese torpedo boats had appeared in the North Sea that night, and launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet, which had accidentally damaged the British fishing boats in self-defense. "How is it possible that lookout posts on 5 separate Russian warships are hallucinating at the same time? So the appearance of Japanese torpedo boats is certain and undoubted! "Under the mediation of Germany and France, Britain and Russia, which themselves did not intend to go to war with each other, took a step back: the investigation was finally completed, and the Russians, knowing that they were wrong, compensated the British for all the losses to appease the anger of the British, but the British still did not give up. Not only did they declare that their overseas ports were completely closed to the Russian fleet, but they also pressured neutral countries such as Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands to abide by their neutrality and not provide a base from which the Russian fleet could dock.

And the clumsy performance of the Russians on the North Sea this time was also ridiculed by the entire world. Anyone with a modicum of common sense will see how it is possible for Japanese torpedo boats to cross half the world and appear in front of the Russians' doorstep. Even the possibility that Britain could build torpedo boats for Japan was not a secret in the early 20th century, when capitalist market commerce was widely operated. After all, the capitalists do not recognize the state in their eyes, only money, and as long as they are given enough money, they can even serve the devil: when the Anglo-German naval arms race was in full swing in history, the steam turbines produced by the British Parsons Company were proudly installed on the German capital ships. And on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, if it were not for the decisive action taken by the British government to buy 2 "Agile" class battleships, in the face of the temptation of Russia's golden ruble, the greedy Armstrong shipyard would almost definitely sell these 2 10,000-ton ships with very superior performance to the Russian Navy! Under these circumstances, if the Russian intelligence services continued to open the way with rubles, would the mercenary British merchants resist the temptation of money and silk without saying whether they had built torpedo boats for Japan? This jaw-dropping, absurd incident of the Russian fleet was the opposite of the atmosphere of victory that their own country had exaggerated, and it showed that the Russian officers and men had long been a flock of frightened birds; They traveled thousands of miles to the Far East, and their final outcome can be seen from this.

In order to prevent the Russians from being nervous again and doing something crazy; For some time thereafter, the Royal Navy's battleships and armoured cruisers kept a close eye on the Russian fleet as police escorting prisoners. From time to time, British battleships lined up in beautiful columns and swaggered past the Russians, showing the barbarians of the Arctic Circle what a real navy was. Since the shelling of the fishing boats took place in the Dogger Sea, the Russian fleet was called the "Mad Dog Fleet" by the British. Faced with this situation, Lieutenant General Luo Ri could only endure it silently, who called such a group of pig teammates from the intelligence department within his own house?

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Just when the Russian expeditionary fleet was provoked by the British warships all the way, and Vice Admiral Rozh was angry and aggrieved, the situation took another turn in their favor. However, what the Russians did not expect was that it was not the British blatant obstruction and hostility, nor the Germans secretly stumbling, but the attitude of the French towards the Russian expeditionary fleet that changed almost 180 degrees.

In September 1904, the Japanese and Russian armies fought another battle in the Shahe region of Manchuria. The Russian-led campaign to retake Liaoyang did not result in the victory the Tsar had hoped, but instead became an outright stalemate: the whole process was huge but fruitless, and the attacking Russian army suffered twice as many casualties as the Japanese army. Russia's successive defeats in the Far East suddenly brought the tolerance of the French to a critical extreme.

In fact, the French had always been opposed to Russian military adventures in the Far East, because they were completely contrary to their original intention of using Russian hands to fight Germany. However, due to the huge and hideous image of Russia, it was difficult for France to disobey the will of Nicholas II head-on; In addition, Russia's ambition to colonize Yellow Russia could at least share a little pressure from the British, so they also supported Russia's eastward expansion strategy to a certain extent. What the French hoped was that the Russians would clean up Japan and return to Europe with a powerful posture that Germany feared even more.

However, it backfired. Russia's national strength and time in the Far East have far exceeded the bottom line that the French can tolerate, but the Russians are still repeatedly defeated in front of those Japanese monkeys; All this has already made the French hold back the fire in their bellies, and now the Russians have even transferred all the main forces of the entire Baltic Fleet out of the Baltic Fleet, so that there is no longer any pressure on Germany in the Baltic! The allies' indisputability on the battlefield and the brain-dead behavior of the strategically resourceful enemy completely angered the French, and erupted at the moment of the defeat of the Russian Battle of the Sand River and the expedition of the Second Pacific Fleet: After all, our family is also the second largest old colonial empire after Britain, and it is the absolute creditor of Mao Zi, Mao Zi, is it too much for you to act so recklessly and recklessly in disregard of the interests of France?

The French, who were so angry, decided to give the Russians a little color, and let the hairy grey animals realize that noble France was not something they could take as much as they wanted: since you were doing things that were good for Germany and not good for France, you could not blame me for not keeping my obligations to the League! When the Russian fleet came to the French-controlled Moroccan port of Tangier, the French outright refused to allow the Russian fleet to enter the port to refuel, much to the chagrin of Rozhdestvensky. Although the Russian fleet was finally able to enter the port after some difficult negotiations, the French also made a strong suggestion that Tangier was the last French port to be offered to the Russians!