At nine o'clock in the morning of January 30, Makarov led the fleet and finally came to the predetermined sea area, which today was free of fog, so the visibility was excellent, but to the disappointment of the observers, they searched the line of sight and found no trace of the supply ship.

Strangely, from time to time there were some clothes, teapots, wine bottles, and Makarov knew that these were the things on the supply ship, but why would the supply ship throw these things out?

Makarov imagined all the possibilities, and eventually, a terrible idea came to him: the supply ship had encountered a storm! In this era of underdeveloped meteorological forecasting, the most important way to judge whether a storm is coming is to rely on the experience of the crew, and the atmospheric environment is unpredictable, and it is not possible to completely distinguish it based on experience alone.

After a day of searching, the fleet still found no trace of the supply ship, and more and more evidence of the sinking of the supply ship came out of the sea, and Makarov knew that the supply ship must have sunk, so he ordered: the fleet turned and sailed to Japan. After the fleet learned this news, they were very happy, although they did not know that Vladivostok was being attacked at this time, but they also knew that it was a matter of time before Vladivostok was attacked, and instead of returning to Vladivostok and fighting with the terrible Chinese, it was better to go to Japan to hide and enjoy a good life.

When everyone was already longing for Japanese women and Japanese food, the chief of staff of the fleet quietly said to Makarov: "If we want to go to Japan, we can do it, but there is not much coal left in our fleet, and if we go to Japan, we must travel at an economic speed, otherwise we will not be able to reach Japan." ”

Makarov knew what the chief of staff meant, and the chief of staff wanted to let him leave the slow icebreakers in the fleet and go to Japan first, but Makarov did not agree, but said: "No, we can't leave any ship in the fleet, so let's send a cruiser to Japan first, report our situation, and let them send supply ships over." ”

So, the armored cruiser Warrior left the fleet first and headed for Japan, and the Russian fleet was almost entirely acting under Lin Yuan's nose, of course he noticed the cruiser he left, and he couldn't help but start to wonder: "What does this cruiser want to do?" Why did you leave alone? ”

Lin Yuan thought about it to no avail, and at this moment, he found from the aerial pictures that the Russian fleet did not disperse as he expected, allowing the icebreakers to travel alone, but continued to maintain the original formation.

Lin Yuan was shocked in his heart, and thought to himself: "It seems that I am a bad move, I didn't expect that they might send a cruiser to seek coal supplies!" ”

If the icebreaker doesn't go out alone, won't the operation go on? Lin Yuan pondered intently, trying to find a way to crack it, and then he found that the icebreaker was at the end of the fleet, and in front of it was the armored cruiser Russian, and the mast height of the Russian ship was relatively low.

When Lin Yuan thought of this, a flash of inspiration suddenly flashed in his mind, and he came up with an ingenious method.

The Beijing ship did not sail alone, Deng Shichang led the Jingzhong ship, and the Zhongrui ship also followed them, Lin Yuan invited Deng Shichang to come, Deng Shichang said when he saw Lin Yuan: "General Lin, didn't you keep saying that we will have new warships soon?" You've been talking about this for almost a year, why haven't our advanced warships been whereabouts yet? ”

Lin Yuan said with a smile: "General Deng, don't you worry, you also know the difficulty of building the navy, and when our basic industry develops more, I estimate that when we recover all the lost land, we can vigorously develop the navy!" ”

Deng Shichang nodded and asked, "You called me, is there anything wrong?" Lin Yuan told him about Ji Lu, Deng Shichang was so surprised that he didn't speak for a long time, he looked at Lin Yuan and asked, "Can this work?" ”

Lin Yuan said confidently: "Don't worry, you will definitely succeed!" ”

Deng Shichang said: "Okay, I'll go and prepare." ”

Han Mingguang was near the two of them, and he asked, "What task did you arrange for him?" Lin Yuan said: "I want him to treat the Zhongrui ship as a Russian warship, blend into the Russian fleet, and then lure the icebreaker out of the fleet!" ”

Han Mingguang was dumbfounded when he heard this, and said, "Can this work?" ”

Lin Yuan said: "In our time, there was such an incident in the Russo-Japanese War, there was a Japanese warship that once blended into the Russian fleet, and followed it all the way for a long time, and the Russian fleet did not notice it. ”

Han Mingguang still shook his head again and again, and Lin Yuan smiled and said, "Whether you can succeed or not, you will soon know." ”

That night, the sea was covered with fog, and the visibility dropped to 50 meters, and the Russian fleet, in order to maintain its formation, lit up the yellow pilot lights on the bridges, and the ships behind followed closely in front.

However, the fog at this time was so great that the ships behind could only see the yellow pilot lights on the ships in front, and as for the outline of the warships, they could not be seen at all.

Lin Yuan looked at the light spot on the radar screen, which displayed the speed and target cross-sectional area information, among which the largest radar reflection cross-sectional area was the Russian icebreaker, in front of the icebreaker was the Russian ship, and next to these two warships, was Deng Shichang's Zhongrui ship.

Lin Yuan knew that it was very dangerous for the Zhongrui ship to complete the "queue insertion", because in the Russian fleet formation, the distance between the ships was about 200 meters, and after the Zhongrui ship was inserted, there was only a distance of about 100 meters between the ships in front and behind.

The Zhongrui ship was helmed by an experienced old helmsman, which gave Lin Yuan a little comfort, and he couldn't help but smile happily when he saw the Zhongrui ship slowly enter between the two warships: "Great, they succeeded!" ”

At this distance, the yellow pilot light can penetrate the fog in the sky, so the Zhongrui must block the pilot light of the battleship in front of it and mislead the icebreaker with its own pilot light, while the mast of the Russian ship is relatively low, so the Zhongrui can completely block its light.

But when the lights were on, an accident happened, due to a communication error between the signal department and the ship control department, which caused the Zhongrui ship to not completely block the Russian ship, the lights came on! In this way, the icebreaker sees two lights!

The helmsman of the Russian icebreaker suddenly found that the lights in front of him had changed from one to two, which surprised him very much, and he hurriedly called the navigator on the side and said: "Come and see, why there is one more pilot light." ”

When the navigator saw it, he couldn't help but laugh and said, "Isn't that one?" Are you dazzled? ”

The helmsman looked at it, and this time he found that there was really only one light left, and it turned out that the Zhongrui ship adjusted its position in time and used its hull to block the lights of the Russian ship, and the helmsman thought: "Maybe I am really dazzled." ”

The helmsman looked at the yellow light, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that something was wrong, and the position of the light was a little off, so he told the captain about the situation, and the captain was also very knowledgeable, and said with a smile: "You don't know the way, the propagation of light in the air is not straight, and the light will be refracted with the change of air density, so it is not strange for you to see the change of position." ”