Chapter 183 Encountering an Ambush
April 13, 1904, Vice Admiral Makarov’s 36th day as commander of the Pacific Fleet.
For more than a month, Lieutenant General Makarov managed the Pacific Fleet well and carried out many mine-laying missions, effectively blocking the transportation lines between the island country and the Korean Peninsula and the Far East, and also gave way to the port of Lushun. The pressure on the main force of the Pacific Fleet is not that great.
It was a normal day for the Pacific Fleet. Under the order of Lieutenant General Makarov, two cruisers set out from the Port of Lushun, harassed the island country's transportation lines to a certain extent, and at the same time deployed a minefield in a specific area, and successfully returned to the Port of Lushun.
This also made General Makarov feel very good. The minefields laid out by these two cruisers happened to be where Makarov decided to have a decisive battle with the island nation's navy in the future.
Make arrangements in advance now, and when the navy has a decisive battle in the future, these mines may be used to give the island country a good drink.
Just as General Makarov was preparing to receive the report from the two destroyers, someone suddenly reported that several warships from the island country were chasing and attacking two cruisers from the Tsarist Russian Empire. Currently, one cruiser from the Tsarist Russian Empire had suffered damage. was injured and is urgently requesting support.
As a famous naval admiral of the Tsarist Russian Empire, Lieutenant General Makarov naturally has a bad temper, otherwise he would not criticize the officials of the Navy Ministry very bluntly.
Under the order of General Makarov, he personally led two battleships and four cruisers to assist.
Just as General Makarov was about to board the battleship Petropavlovsk, he suddenly thought of something and asked the fleet chief of staff, Lieutenant General Witthoft, to lead the leading force, while General Makarov himself went Summon the entire main force of the Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur to guard against the island country's main fleet that may be ambushing in the rear.
Because all preparations have been basically made, General Makarov does not object to a decisive battle with the island nation's navy now.
The Pacific Fleet has laid out at least a dozen minefields in more than a month. This will also be the best place for the island countries and the combined fleet to die.
It is worth mentioning that Vice Admiral Witthoeft will be the new commander of the Pacific Fleet after General Makarov.
However, after Lieutenant General Witthoeft took over as commander of the Pacific Fleet, he took a series of relatively conservative measures, which also caused the Pacific Fleet to completely lose its advantage against the combined fleets of island countries.
The two cruisers of the Tsarist Empire were not far from the Port of Port Arthur, and General Witthoeft led the leading troops to quickly arrive at the place of battle.
The fleet entangled with the two Russian cruisers is the second fleet of the island nation's combined fleet, which has a total of one battleship and three cruisers.
This is also the reason why the two cruisers of the Tsarist Empire were beaten and could only ask for help. The current cruisers still have no room to fight back against the battleships, not to mention that the Second Fleet still has three cruisers.
The Tsarist Russian Empire was already very hostile to the island countries that had grown into its competitors. In addition, the Tsarist Russian Empire was attacked by surprise in this war, which made the Russians even more hostile to the island countries who did not follow any rules.
As the saying goes, enemies blush when they meet. After General Witthoft saw the island nation's Second Fleet warships, he didn't even need to give any orders. The vanguard directly joined the battle, and various artillery shells flew towards the island nation's warships as if they were free.
At this time, the advantage on the battlefield was instantly reversed. The Tsarist Empire had two battleships and six cruisers, while the island country's Second Fleet only had one battleship and three cruisers, a gap that was fully doubled.
The Second Fleet was beaten by the leading troops of the Tsarist Empire and fled towards the rear in a panic.
General Witthoft was overjoyed. He felt that he had seen his first victory since the war, so he quickly ordered all warships to follow and strive to annihilate all island nation warships. General Witthoeft, who was dazzled by the victory, did not notice the unusualness of the Second Fleet, nor did he notice that the vanguard had gradually moved away from the port of Port Arthur under his order.
After about ten minutes of pursuit, General Withoeft finally noticed something was wrong and ordered the fleet to slow down.
Judging from the speed of warships, many warships of the Tsarist Empire have been in service for several years or even more than ten years.
The warships of the island country are basically new warships within ten years, at least in terms of speed, they are ahead of the Russian warships.
But now, the frantically fleeing island fleet actually maintains a delicate balance with the vanguard of the Russian Empire. It will neither be too close to enter the attack range of the Pacific Fleet, nor too far away so that the Pacific Fleet will lose the target of pursuit and give up the pursuit.
From all indications, this pursuit was like luring a snake out of its hole. General Witthoft originally thought he was a hunter, but now it seems that this may not be the case.
"How long has it been since we set off from Port Arthur?" General Witthoft asked with a heavy face.
"It's been a little over an hour, General," the subordinate replied.
General Witthoeft felt bad. Judging from the normal speed of the fleet, the main fleet should not be too slow, and has even caught up with the vanguard.
After all, the previous naval battle of the vanguard also took a lot of time, and this period of time was enough for the main force to catch up.
"Immediately change direction and return to Port Arthur. The enemy is likely to have set up an ambush in front. This is a trap!" Witthoeft made an immediate decision.
In previous sneak attacks by island countries, two battleships of the Pacific Fleet have been damaged, namely the Crown Prince and the Perthwaite.
If the two battleships led by General Witthoeft encounter an ambush and there is any damage to these two battleships, the number of battleships that the Pacific Fleet can dispatch will be reduced to only four, and there will be no advantage against the island nation's fleet. Even fell into a huge disadvantage.
Such a loss is unacceptable to the Pacific Fleet. Once it loses its current few maritime advantages, the Tsarist Empire will be even more vulnerable on land.
Let's not talk about the issues of weapons, equipment and combat effectiveness. Just looking at the number of people, the Far East Army of the Tsarist Russian Empire with less than 100,000 people cannot be the opponent of the island country.
The most elite part of the Tsarist Empire was in Europe, and the Far East was not very large in terms of number of people or soldiers.
Coupled with the fact that the Trans-Siberian Railway is not fully open to traffic, any losses suffered by the Tsarist Empire in the Far East will face logistical costs several times higher than those of island countries.
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(End of chapter)