Night falls.

The sound of the cannon gradually fell silent.

The hull of the "Admiral Ushakov" crackled and burned, and the Chinese warships that surrounded them turned on their searchlights to search for survivors, and the flames were as dazzling as the lights in the dark night.

At 20:20, the 4,600-ton near-shore coastal defense ship sank into the vast ocean that was obviously unsuitable for its navigation, but until the moment before it sank, a St. Andrew's flag fluttered under the bright light of the searchlight on the top of the foremast, which was the last to be submerged.

The destroyers of the 4th Squadron finally rescued 78 crew members of the "Admiral Ushakov", but never found the commander of the 2nd detachment, Rear Admiral Nebogatov, and the captain of the "U" ship, Colonel Berimke.

"Is that the end of it?" Sa Zhen Bing is still unfinished.

"It's over, the main force of the other side has been annihilated, and the next sweeping work will be handed over to the reconnaissance and alert team, and the order, each team will be gathered into a combat formation, and the second team will escort the captive ship, and the whole team will go north and return home." Before Lin Taizeng's words fell, suddenly the "long live" sound of the tsunami broke out on the flagship "Ruixiang", and the ships near and far heard the sound, and the sound of "long live" was endless.

Lin Tai once turned to Sa Zhenbing solemnly: "I forgot one thing. ”

"What?"

"It's time for dinner."

"Dinner and supper, you have to add vegetables."

"That's it, all the double first-class rations ......"

Before nightfall, the old armored cruiser of the Russian Second Formation, the "Dmitry•Donsky," and the light cruiser "Aurora," were sunk, and two destroyers were also lost, and the rest of the ships were wounded. In desperation, the commander of the second formation, Rear Admiral Enkvis, despite the opposition of his officers, led the flagship "Oleg" and another large cruiser "Guangming" and three destroyers to speed up the breakthrough, took advantage of the darkness of the night to turn around and sail south, and arrived in Singapore 350 nautical miles away the next evening, where he was immediately detained by the British authorities in the name of neutrality until the end of the war. The "Emerald", the least damaged in the second formation, was forced to break through to the north alone because it lost contact with the flagship, and the next morning it joined the French fleet that came to meet it, and after learning the news of the destruction of the main force of the Russian fleet, the French immediately turned their faces and seized the "Emerald" in accordance with the law of neutrality in the war. The most seriously injured in the second formation, "Vladimir•Monomakh," also followed in the footsteps of the first formation after learning that the ships of the first formation had surrendered; due to the failure of the ship's steering device, Commodore Liao Shengzhen, commander of the third combat team, ordered the "Wuyu" of the 3rd Light Patrol Brigade to tow it back to China, and when it was close to midnight, the ship suddenly capsized, and the "Wuyu" decisively cut the towing steel cable, allowing this old antique that was launched 22 years ago to become a paradise for algae, fish and shrimp.

The two light cruisers "Pearl" and "Diamond", which had previously been the vanguard of the first formation, were shocked by the tight and powerful formation of the coalition forces at the beginning of the war, and the two ships coincidentally took advantage of the chaos to break through the encirclement, sailed northeast at maximum speed, and finally arrived at the port of Manila in the Philippines, 1,100 nautical miles away, where they were detained until the end of the war.

In addition, the three destroyers "Furious," "Sensitive," and "Warm," which had broken away from the second formation to rescue the officers and men of the first formation who had fallen into the water, were captured when the remnants of the capital ships of the first formation surrendered.

Before the start of the battle, the four auxiliary cruisers that were on the order of Rozhestvensky to carry out the task of luring the enemy in the northeast were discovered by the light patrol 7th squadron of the reconnaissance and alert team before night, and in front of the four Fengzi cruisers each equipped with two 210-mm guns and as many as six 150-mm rapid-fire guns, the Russian auxiliary cruisers, which had been converted from merchant ships and were equipped with only two to four 152-mm guns and a bunch of miscellaneous rapid-fire guns, naturally could not make a difference. Seeing that the situation was not good, the "Kuban River" and the "Terek River" surrendered one after another.

In less than 12 hours, the Second Pacific Fleet was almost completely annihilated.

Of the 40 Russian warships sailing out of the Singapore Strait, 8 battleships sank 7 and 1 was captured; 5 armored cruisers sank, 4 were captured; 3 armored coastal defense ships sank, 1 and 2 were captured; 2 large cruisers were later detained; 1 of the 4 light cruisers sank, 3 were seized; Of the 8 destroyers, 2 were sunk, 3 were captured and 3 were captured; 10 auxiliary ships 4 sunk and 6 captured. In total, 19 ships were sunk, 13 were captured, 8 ships were detained by neutral countries, and the tonnage loss exceeded 200,000 tons! In terms of personnel, 6,172 people, including the commander and deputy commander of the fleet, were killed, and more than 9,000 were wounded and captured.

Compared with the devastating losses of the Russian army, the six battleships of the coalition forces were only hit a total of 37 times, and the damage to each ship was extremely slight; Of the 10 armored cruisers, only the "Hangzhou" and "Fuyun" were moderately damaged, and the other 2 were slightly damaged; 16 light cruisers had 2 moderately damaged and 3 lightly damaged; The destroyer suffered several damages. In terms of personnel, 63 people were killed and 287 wounded, which is less than 3% of the Russian army!

"No one has ever achieved such a brilliant record, in just one afternoon, at the cost of 300 casualties, more than 200,000 tons of warships were destroyed, and our entire warship in the entire Pacific region combined is less than 50,000 tons! What does this mean? With more than 600,000 tons of warships, it is obvious that they are already ahead of the naval skills of Europe and the United States, and with a large number of officers and men with rich combat experience, at this moment, the maritime strength of the East Asian Alliance has far surpassed all the maritime strength of Britain, France, and the United States in the Pacific, and the balance in the Far East has been completely broken! After destroying Russia and seizing eastern Siberia, the East Asian alliance led by China will have more resources to compete for maritime supremacy, and to whom does the sea belong? Doesn't it belong to our British Empire, on which the sun never sets? Wake up, sleeping John Bull, we are murdering ourselves with our pounds and heavy rolling mills...... China is a fin whale in its development, and when it grows up, its huge body will swallow everything, and Russia is just an old shark with teeth on the verge of falling out......"

After learning of the specific losses of both sides, Major Stinenow, a British military observer aboard the "Reichsian", wrote in his diary these words that woke some of his compatriots from a dream.

Five days later, when thousands of civilian ships in Guangzhou Bay dressed in red and green beat gongs and drums to welcome the main force of the combined fleet escorting 13 captured Russian ships home, in the basement of an ancient castle outside London, three Chinese who had been isolated from reality for a long time were dissipating their boring time in their own way.

Wu Dingguo, a former army general and condemned prisoner, was still rehearsing his speech against the wall, but there had not been a larger audience in a month except for a mentally ill person and a quasi-mentally ill person next to him.

Ma Chengwu, a former army general, never thought he was crazy, and he often recited "Liu Yun should die" a hundred times after getting up every day, or wrote the names of high-ranking imperial officials such as "Liu Yun", "Yang Zhengjin", "Zhong Xiahuo", "Wen Yi", "Zhang Zhigao" and so on paper, and then used a red pen to draw a big cross, and kept drawing and forking until the whole paper was soaked in ink......

Former army lieutenant general Chen Xingyun seems to be obsessed with writing, every day to ask the guards for a few large stacks of manuscript paper and a bottle or two of ink, outside of eating and sleeping, there is only writing, writing, writing, writing full of manuscript paper in the corner of the wall piled up half a bed area, and no one is allowed to read, one day Wu Dingguo took advantage of his sleep, lit a candle and saw that all of them were copied and written down the "Lotus Sutra"!

A seven- or eight-meter-square, damp and cold stone room, three beds, a table, and three chairs, a small wardrobe, two dim electric lights, an English Bible and a Lotus Sutra that Chen Xingyun brought out of his home, three fountain pens with running water, two brushes from nowhere, and a large pile of waste paper, these are all that the three prisoners currently have.

“…… In short, only by completely eradicating the warlord clique headed by Liu Yun can China embark on the road of peace with foreign countries......"

Wu Dingguo clenched his fists with an exaggerated expression, and was about to release the rest of his farts when the door opened, and he stopped impassionedly.

Ma Chengwu is still immersed in drawing forks, and Chen Xingyun is still immersed in copying books.

It was Mark, a slender and beardless young man who was always dressed in an obnoxious black suit, and Mark was holding a neat stack of clothes in his hands.

"Gentlemen, please change into these clothes, someone wants to see you."

"Is it Prime Minister James?" Wu Dingguo became excited, it has been more than ten days since he landed on British soil, and he has lived a life of imprisonment without freedom, thinking that he will definitely be received by the prime minister, so he persevered, otherwise he would have taken those two comrades with inhuman skills to kill him. No, if you can't make this clear to yourself, if you can't take refuge in it, you will inevitably become a slave of others from the beginning, and become a pawn completely played by others......

"Please hurry, I'll pick you up in five minutes." Expressionless, Mark put down his clothes and locked the door loudly after leaving the house.

"Do you hear that? Prime Minister James is going to see us, and he has finally decided to meet us! This guy, if he moves a little slower, he should regret it, hahaha...... "Wu Dingguo proudly put on the well-made tuxedo sent by Mark, and also put on a few long-rehearsed speeches, and when he finished dressing, he looked back, Ma Chengwu was still immersed in drawing forks, and Chen Xingyun was still immersed in copying books.

"What are you guys doing? Put your clothes on! ”

Chen Xingyun slowly raised his head, looked at him ridiculously calmly, and said in his mouth:

The bell of the Gion House rings,

Tell the impermanence of the world;

The flowers of the twin trees are discolored,

Those who prosper will decline like vicissitudes.

The arrogant do not last long,

It's like a dream on a spring night;

The strong beam is overbearing, and finally perished,

Just like dust before the wind.

Then he said: "I have a lot of desires, and my heart is full of demons, so I have such a humiliating end, and in the future, when things are revealed, I will inevitably bear the infamy of traitors for thousands of years, think about it carefully, what is the use of glory and wealth, all power and wealth are just like dust before the wind after death, so I should become a monk." ”

Wu Dingguo looked at him blankly, and after three seconds, he stepped forward, grabbed Chen Xingyun's collar, and beat him violently as he had learned in his life......