In November 1917, four battleships of the 9th Battleship Squadron, accompanied by the destroyer USS Manley, set sail from Lynnhaven Anchorage, Virginia, to Scapa Bay, Orkney Islands, where the Grand Fleet was located.

During this transatlantic voyage, the 9th squadron was not attacked by any enemy ships, but it encountered another, more formidable adversary, the bad weather in the North Atlantic.

Almost as soon as the fleet set off, nature began to show its unrivaled power, and the strong northwest wind brought freezing rain, hail and blizzards that washed away the steel skin of the battleship.

When the fleet sailed to the Great Shoal near Newfoundland, an extremely violent storm came.

The front part of the fleet's flagship "New York" was damaged by strong waves and strong winds, with 250 tons of water entering the ship, and the bow of the ship sank, which was very likely to capsize in the sea conditions at the time, and the crew worked non-stop to carry out drainage operations for three days to maintain the buoyancy of the ship.

To make matters worse, strong winds of up to 160 kilometers per hour destroyed all the radio antennas on the mast, so the fleet could not send a distress signal to the outside world.

One night, the "Delaware", "Florida" and "Manly" were separated from the fleet in a storm.

The Florida rejoined the fleet after the storm subsided, but the Delaware failed to find its flagship and had to complete the rest of the voyage on its own, heading to the intended assembly point at Point Water, off the coast of Scotland, where the British light cruiser Caroline met the incoming reinforcements.

The other three battleships of the 9th squadron all arrived at Point Water, and only the accompanying "Manly" did not appear in the queue, because of the lack of fuel, the destroyer went directly to Queen's Port in Ireland to dock.

For this thin destroyer, it was extremely lucky to be able to survive the storm in the North Atlantic.

After regrouping, the 9th Squadron sailed to Scapa Bay under the guidance of the Caroline, where it received a very grand and warm welcome from the British fleet upon entering the port.

Rear Admiral Rodman immediately reported to the commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Betty, and expressed his willingness to dedicate himself, his crew, and his ships to the cause of the Entente.

Betty accepted and agreed to the sequence of the U.S. fleet joining the Grand Fleet, and in addition to retaining their own Ugly Country, they also received a new number in the British Navy, the 6th Battleship Squadron.

For the members of the 9th Battleship Squadron, from the moment they joined the Grand Fleet, they faced a very difficult task, which was to quickly accept the standard norms and methods of action of the British Navy.

Obviously, there are many difficulties in integrating into a foreign fleet, which are compounded by the soldier's natural sense of national honor and competitive mentality, all of which were fortunately resolved by General Rodman with his wisdom, experience, and professionalism.

He gave an objective insight into the problem of the adaptability of the 9th squadron in the Grand Fleet:

"I realized that the British fleet had been fighting for three years, that they knew the war well, and that our understanding of naval warfare was still theoretical, and that we had a lot to learn.

If we are to carry out our duties smoothly, then there can be no two separate commands in one fleet, and the only logical thing to do is to place our fleet and crew under the command of the British commander-in-chief. ”

Rear Admiral Rodman conveyed the above ideas throughout the fleet and made them deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and this spirit of cooperation was highly appreciated and admired by the British side.

The first problem that the Ugly Fleet needed to solve was to accept the British Navy's full set of signal, radio communications, and cryptographic systems.

Although the communications departments of the ships of the 9th Squadron had already begun to study the signals and communication methods of the British Army during the voyage across the Atlantic, it would take time to become proficient.

The Grand Fleet also dispatched a group of signal men and radio operators to the US battleships to assist their counterparts in the U.S. Ugly Kingdom to quickly familiarize themselves with the new signal and communication systems.

Three days after the 9th Squadron joined the Grand Fleet, the American warships were already able to follow the British fleet in formation operations in the North Sea, and there were no obvious difficulties.

Compared with the study of the new signal system, the greater difficulty of the US fleet lies in the improvement of the level of gunnery, and the gap between them and the British fleet in this regard is very obvious.

Although the U.S. Navy had added a number of skilled gunners who had served on armed merchant ships to each ship before the 9th Squadron set sail, the guns department of the U.S. battleships was still full of inexperienced officers and poorly trained recruits, and its shooting standards were predictable.

After that, the 9th Squadron conducted its first artillery maneuver in Pentland Bay after joining the Grand Fleet, the results of which were rather embarrassing, fully exposing the shortcomings of the battleships of the Ugly Country.

At the end of 1917, British battleships could generally reach a rate of fire for a salvo in 40 seconds, and their average shell dispersion range was between 270~460 meters, which was the result of years of hard training and war.

In comparison, the Ugly Battleship was much inferior in firing efficiency and accuracy.

The time required for the "Delaware" to complete a salvo was 108 seconds, and the shell dispersion was 434 meters;

The dispersion range of the "Wyoming" is 874 meters;

The "Florida" left an embarrassing record of 1,034 meters in dispersion, and only the flagship "New York" had a shooting score close to the average of the British Navy.

This result was assessed by Betty as "really bad and disappointing", and the commander of the Grand Fleet came to the opinion that the battleship squadron of this ugly country could not be compared with the British squadron of the same size.

The gap fueled the competitiveness of the American officers and men, and in the days that followed, the 9th Squadron trained diligently, making progress with each shelling exercise.

By mid-1918, Rear Admiral Rodman could confidently report that his ships were better at shooting than ever before.

Soon after arriving at Scapa Bay, the 9th Squadron began to participate in the day-to-day training and exercises of the British Grand Fleet in order to integrate into the British Navy's combat system as soon as possible.

Since the four American battleships had not withstood the high-intensity sorties of wartime conditions, and the ships were in good condition and fast speed, Betty regarded the 9th Squadron as one of the two fast battleship subfleets in the fleet.

According to the battle plan of the Grand Fleet, when encountering the main German fleet and opening the battle line, the two fast battleship sub-fleets will serve as the vanguard and rear guard of the battle line, respectively, and according to the number sequence of the 9th Squadron in the British fleet, it will be in the rearguard position.

However, in the event of a reversal of course in the course of an engagement, the 9th Squadron will shift to the vanguard and lead the entire fleet into battle.

Obviously, the position of the 9th Squadron is quite important, and the American officers and men are proud to be able to take on the heavy responsibility.

In order to give the Ugly allies a more realistic sense of their place in fleet operations, the British Grand Fleet held a four-day large-scale confrontation exercise at the end of January 1918.

The fleet was dispatched in its entirety, divided into two armies, the Red and the Blue, which represented the German High Seas Fleet and the 9th Squadron, which joined the Red Army representing the British fleet, in a predetermined area of the North Sea.

It was during this exercise that the US officers and men came face to face with their enemies for the first time.

2 British battleships, sailing in front of the "New York", observed the conning tower of a German submarine coming out of the water.

From the deck, the sailors of the Ugly Kingdom witnessed the maneuver of the British warship ramming the submarine.

I also saw the destroyer throwing deep bombs, but in the end the German submarine ran away.

The exercise went smoothly and was a valuable learning opportunity for the Chouguo people, who gained practical experience in applying the new norms, and for the first time learned the rough waves of the North Sea, which are not inferior to those of the North Atlantic.

Rear Admiral Rodman recorded his impressions on the fleet's return voyage:

"I saw the largest battleships with only their superstructure exposed in the trough, but then they were propelled by the crest of the wave to reveal themselves like giant turtles out of the water, and the sea washed the entire deck."

After overcoming many difficulties, the American officers and men of the 9th Squadron gradually changed the contempt of their British counterparts through their own efforts.

In a letter to his American wife, General Betty wrote:

"When we're out and about, the U.S. squadron always tries to be the best they can be, they're doing a great job, and they're going to be even better next time.

I will send the elder Rodman to lead the fleet on a solo mission, and he is very pleased with it, which will make them feel truly engaged in the war, and I am sure they will return safely. ”

Betty's first combat mission to be given to Rodman was to escort a fleet of ships from Scandinavia, an extremely important and potentially dangerous operation.

For the Sunset Empire, the Scandinavian route was of great strategic value.

It was an important passage for John Bull to import iron ore, nitrate and other strategic materials from the Nordic region, and for this reason this route also attracted the attention of the Germans. German cruisers and destroyers attacked the Scandinavian fleet twice, sinking 15 Entente cargo ships.

In order to prevent the continuation of such attacks, the British Navy decided to send battleships to escort the fleet.

But this would bring another potential danger, as this detachment of battleships, acting alone from the main force of the fleet, could be intercepted and encircled by the entire German High Seas Fleet.

Since the beginning of the war, the German navy has pursued a combat strategy of seizing a part of the British fleet and concentrating superior forces to annihilate it.

Despite this danger, the 9th Squadron set sail from Scarpa Bay to Norway for its first escort mission.

They were accompanied by the British 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron and 2 Destroyer Squadrons, and all the British and American battleships participating in the operation were under the unified command of Rear Admiral Rodman, the first time in history that a British battleship was commanded by a single Ugly General.

The escort fleet reached the Norwegian coast unhindered, but an accident occurred while waiting for the fleet to assemble outside the Norwegian territorial airspace.

In the afternoon, the "Florida" and "Delaware" simultaneously reported the discovery of several torpedo tracks and maneuvered to evade them, and the "Delaware" also fired at an object suspected of being a submarine control tower at a distance of 1,800 meters with a 76-mm gun.

The destroyer also dropped deep bombs into suspicious waters, and all these attacks did not achieve noticeable results.

After the fleet returned to base the next day, Rear Admiral Rodman made an official report to Admiral Betty:

The "Florida" and "Delaware" were each attacked by 2 torpedoes, and both ships managed to evade them without being damaged.

However, after the war, a comparison of the German naval combat records found that no German submarines launched an attack in the waters where the fleet was located that day.

Therefore, it is very likely that the two Ugly Battleships mistook the dolphins swimming in the water for a torpedo, and such a miscalculation is too normal for a novice to be a first-time fighter, but as the experience grows, the probability of a miscalculation will decrease significantly.

Less than a week after completing its first solo mission, the 9th Squadron set sail again for escort missions.

But this time it was the Grand Fleet as a whole, as there was intelligence that the German battlecruisers had slipped into the North Sea, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

After sailing, a violent storm swept through the entire fleet, and the ventilation system of the "Delaware" was damaged in the wind and waves, which caused the generators to stop working, the entire ship lost power, and was forced to slow down to 12 knots and maintain a low speed for an hour.

One of the sailors of the "New York" was swept into the sea by the waves and unfortunately died, and more than 12 people of the Grand Fleet fell into the sea and died due to the wind and waves that day.

To add insult to injury, the Grand Fleet failed to find the German battlecruisers and ended up empty-handed.

Two months later, the 9th Squadron flew two more escort missions on the Scandinavian route.

Both operations were hit by storms and could only maintain a low speed, but did not encounter any enemy ships.

At the same time, the John Bull Admiralty became increasingly skeptical of the need to use battleships to escort the merchant fleet, and Betty had always objected to the use of valuable capital ships for such secondary missions.

Therefore, the British Navy decided that after the completion of the last escort mission of the 9th Squadron, it would no longer send battleships to the Scandinavian route to participate in the escort, and Rodman's battleships returned to the new anchorage of the Grand Fleet, Port Rousseth.

However, just a few days later, the German High Seas Fleet quietly went on the attack, preparing to intercept the Scandinavian route and look for an opportunity to wipe out an isolated detachment of battleships John Bull.

The German fleet set sail in the early hours of the morning, and was radio silent and therefore undetected by the British Navy.

However, the battlecruiser "Moltke" suffered a ship failure the next day, and was forced to break the silence and send a telegram for help, which led to the exposure of the German fleet's whereabouts.

Through intercepted radio communications, the British Navy realized that the German fleet had gone to sea, and fortunately due to the change in the convoy to Scandinavia, not a single British battleship detachment would have been a target for capture by the Germans that day.

But Betty saw an opportunity to seize the German High Seas Fleet once again, and immediately ordered the entire hull to be dispatched, which was the last attempt of the British Grand Fleet to engage in a decisive battle with its opponents during the war, and the 9th Squadron had the honor of being involved.

"Brother Shen!"

"Hmm!"

Shen Changqing walked on the road, and when he met someone he knew well, he would say hello to each other or nod his head.

But it doesn't matter who it is.

There was no superfluous expression on everyone's face, as if they were very indifferent to everything.

on this.

Shen Changqing is used to it.

Because this is the Demon Suppression Division, it is an institution that maintains the stability of Great Qin, and its main responsibility is to kill demons and monsters, and of course there are some other side jobs.

Arguably.

In the Demon Suppression Division, everyone has a lot of blood on their hands.

When a person is accustomed to seeing life and death, then he will become indifferent to many things.

When he first came to this world, Shen Changqing was a little uncomfortable, but over time he got used to it.

The Demon Suppression Division is huge.

The people who can stay in the Demon Suppression Division are all powerful masters, or people who have the potential to become masters.

Shen Changqing belongs to the latter.

Among them, the Demon Suppression Division is divided into two professions, one is the town guard and the other is the demon exterminator.

Anyone who enters the Demon Suppression Division starts with the lowest level of demon slayer.

Then step by step, he is expected to become a town guard.

Shen Changqing's predecessor was a trainee demon slayer in the Demon Suppression Division, and he was also the lowest level of the demon slayer envoys.

Have memories of the predecessor.

He is also very familiar with the environment of the Demon Suppression Division.

It didn't take long for Shen Changqing to stop in front of an attic.

Unlike other places full of slaughter, the attic here seems to stand out from the crowd, and in the bloody Demon Suppression Division, it presents a different tranquility.

At this time, the attic door is open, and there are occasional people entering and exiting.

Shen Changqing only hesitated for a moment, and then stepped in.

Access to the attic.

The environment has changed in vain.

A burst of ink fragrance mixed with the faint smell of blood came to his face, making his brow furrow instinctively, but quickly stretched.

The smell of blood on everyone's body in the Demon Suppression Division is almost impossible to clean.