Chapter Eighteen Someone Has Been Killed

  By the early hours of the next morning, the surviving ships of the Eight-Nation Alliance no longer dared to stay in these waters and, despite opposition from the landing troops, followed the German fleet to Weihai naval port to repair their ships and personnel.

  On June 15, in the conference room of the German naval base in Weihai, dozens of captains and deputy captains of various navies, as well as several high-ranking officers who had fallen into the water and been rescued, were arguing loudly. In one corner of the room, Fleet Commander Seymour was carefully examining a loss report. This time, the Eight-Nation Alliance fleet had suffered heavy losses: three battleships had sunk, seven cruisers had sunk, two destroyers and torpedo boats had sunk, and another two battleships were heavily damaged, four cruisers were heavily damaged, and three destroyers were heavily damaged. In the entire Eight-Nation Alliance fleet, there was not a single undamaged battleship, only two undamaged cruisers, and eight undamaged destroyers and gunboats. The two undamaged cruisers belonged to Germany, which had been disembarking troops near Dagu at the time and was not with the fleet.

  "Gentlemen, stop arguing. Let's think about who the real enemy is." Admiral Seymour rubbed his aching head after reading the report and shouted at the still quarreling naval officers from various countries in the room.

  "Your Excellency, we have interrogated the officers and sailors who fell into the water. Several of them witnessed the attack, and I am certain that what they saw was a torpedo, an extremely advanced one at that. As for where the torpedo came from, I believe it was a submarine, yes, a submarine. Our French Navy has already equipped several submarines, but where did this submarine come from?"

  "Submarines? Impossible! Not only does the French Navy have submarines, but so does our German Navy. Yesterday's attack lasted for an hour, and after we escaped, we searched around for about three hours. Can your French submarines stay underwater for five hours without surfacing? And as far as I know, the maximum speed of a German torpedo is less than 10 knots, with a range of less than 700 meters. To sink a battleship, at least 10 torpedoes are needed, and they must hit the right spot." Commander von Ditrich continued to speak out against the French claims.

  "We also have sailors who saw something like a torpedo in the water, but that thing was very fast, according to the calculations of the sailors who saw it, it could be over 25 knots." The Americans also spoke up.

  "We shouldn't be investigating what torpedo it was, we should be bombarding every port in this country!!! This is an insult to our Emperor!!!!" The Russian fleet's deputy commander jumped up and down, bellowing. They had suffered the greatest losses, with two of the sunken battleships being Russian, and the fleet commander had gone down with his flagship. He couldn't think of how to avenge this without being hanged in the capital.

  "Gentlemen, we should go to Beijing and make the Qing government compensate for our losses, rather than arguing here." Commander Fukuoka Anshin of the Japanese fleet loudly suggested to the military officers present. This time, Japan's losses were not great, only one cruiser was sunk, but there were only four ships in total, with only two warships. The cruiser was a new ship that had just been bought from Britain last year, and the smell of paint had not yet dissipated when it sank. Fukuoka knew clearly that if he did not get some compensation back, he would be scolded to death when he returned home, considering the price Japanese citizens paid for these warships.

  "No...no...I object, I cannot send my German fleet into adventure without knowing who the enemy is." The Germans were not pleased, having sunk so many ships already and still no enemy found, going to give them more meat?

  After a whole day of wrangling, the officers of the eight powers finally reached a decision: each fleet would remain in Weihai and send telegrams to their respective governments explaining the situation here, leaving it up to them to decide on the next course of action.

  The eight-nation navy has withdrawn from Weihai, but the eight-nation army and marines who landed at Dagu have made smooth progress. Some of the forts in Dagu have been taken, and most of the Qing troops defending the forts are now relying on the remaining forts to resist the Eight-Nation Alliance, but the Qing military's weapons are outdated, their command is chaotic, and with the support of several Allied gunboats that have entered the Hai River, the fall of Dagu is only a matter of time.

  Upon hearing the news of the naval defeat, the landing Allied forces did not panic but instead became more ferocious because their line of retreat was cut off. They knew that if they could not quickly capture Tianjin, they would be trapped in a protracted and supply-less campaign. The only way to continue advancing on Beijing was to quickly take Dagukou and allow the fleet to enter the inland waterways.

  Although Liu's Taiwanese submarine secretly destroyed most of the surface ships of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Qing Dynasty was really rotten to the bone. No one thought of taking advantage of the Eight-Nation Alliance's lack of surface support to defeat the enemy with a strong army, but instead each fought separately, allowing the Eight-Nation Alliance to break through one by one. Finally, on June 17th, they captured Dagu Fort and marched towards Tianjin along the Hai River.

  On June 20, 1900, a telegram from Beijing announced that the Guangxu Emperor had issued an order to formally declare war on eleven countries: Britain, America, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Holland and Austria. Liu was holding the telegram and admired the courage of the Qing government at that time. Hitler didn't go crazy to this extent, did he? Wasn't there a single sensible person in the entire Qing government who could advise their emperor? What kind of magic made so many foolish people gather together?!

  Liu Fei originally thought that the fleet attacking the Eight-Nation Alliance would make them so frightened that they might retreat, thus avoiding the destruction of the Summer Palace. Who would have thought that wishes are beautiful but reality is cruel? The inertia of history's great wheel cannot be stopped by one or two mantises. Liu Fei felt he was already a fairly large mantis, but it turned out he was still a bit too small.

  As the follow-up forces of the eight countries continued to be invested from within the country, the attacking strength of the Eight-Nation Alliance was restored. In mid-July, Tianjin fell, and the Eight-Nation Alliance marched towards Beijing along the canal. After nearly a month of fighting, the Qing government's army and the Boxers still failed to stop the advance of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and in mid-August, Beijing also fell.

  The Allied forces then pursued their victory and once reached the borders of Shanxi Province, but due to the terrain and logistical issues, they suffered several defeats in a row and subsequently stopped their offensive.

  Then... there was no then. The Qing government surrendered and signed the Treaty of Peking, among other unequal treaties, in September 1901.

  Liu Tie in Taiwan, every day through various telegrams and letters to pay attention to the development of the war situation, from the large-scale outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion to the Qing government's signing of the Treaty of Xinchou, it was like taking a lesson on modern history, although he himself had inserted a small foot in the middle, but from the overall effect, it basically did not show up.

  It's not entirely ineffective, after this large-scale surprise attack on the Eight-Nation Alliance Fleet, it basically crippled the naval power of various countries in the Far East. Although Britain, France and Germany dispatched some warships from their home country or other colonies to make up for it, they were still not enough to make up for the previous losses in terms of quality.

  It so happened that when the Russians were suppressing the Boxer forces, they searched out a secret plan from a Boxer branch in Tanggu. The content of the plan was to have members who were good swimmers dive into the water at night near foreign ships and use manpower to push torpedoes to sink the foreign ships.

  The Russians discovered this plan and also found several Tianjin-made mines from the secret base of this branch. The Russian deputy commander, who was eager to find out the truth about the sinking of several warships, immediately regarded this secret plan and mine as a treasure and reported it to the Russian Tsarist government. To support his own argument, he also arrested dozens of people who were said to be Boxer rebels as witnesses.

  Perhaps intimidated by the foreigners, when the Russian deputy commander brought secret plans, mines and human evidence to the Qing government, the Qing government did not even dare to investigate, and instead vaguely attributed the responsibility for this sneak attack on the Eight-Nation Alliance Navy to the Boxers.

  Although there were still some captains and fleet commanders among the eight countries who had doubts about this plan, since the Qing government had acknowledged it and there was evidence, they didn't pursue it further, threw away the shame and topic, and turned to busy themselves with looting and dividing spoils.