Colonel Vsevolod Fedorovich Rudnev was facing a plate of caviar luck, and the Colonel was full of sorrow, holding a knife and fork motionless. It was past 1 a.m., but he hadn't even eaten dinner.

It's not that the dishes don't suit his appetite, like all bear orcs, vodka, caviar, red sausage, and kimchi are their favorites, and in the cash-strapped navy, even if he is a cruiser captain, he can only enjoy fresh caviar with vodka once a month.

He should have been content to enjoy the rare meal instead of staring at a large pot of caviar and 5 large bottles of vodka. But just thinking about the current situation makes Colonel Rudnev lose any appetite at all.

It sucks.

This is the assessment of the current situation in Kaliningrad by everyone, including himself.

Thanks to Oklana's iron fist, order remained in the city, but an atmosphere of unease and panic still hung over Kaliningrad. Due to the city's geographical location, the city was always the first to be given "priority attention" whenever humans wanted to attack from the waterway, hence the nickname "Foot Polishing Pad" - both humans and orcs would always step on it as they began to expand. In view of this history, they have reason to be nervous about their personal and property safety in the atmosphere of growing tensions between the Principality and Albion.

Although the people of Albion have always prided themselves as gentlemen, they like to speak with white gloves, and always preach that Albion's army is highly trained and will not do anything tasteless. But with the exception of a very small number of leading party with too big brains to cure, who would dare to believe that a foreign army would abide by the philosophy and code of conduct they profes? Moreover, the Albion army has the largest record of trampling on the rules of engagement in the world. When it comes to robbing and massacring other people's inhabitants, they don't care if they are pagan barbarians or civilized humans like the Albians.

We would ......regret if Albiang's propaganda department had been more clever and described their military operations as "sending persimmon oil to the people of other countries living in dire straits, beating the evil and authoritarian reactionary dictators, killing all the reactionaries and members of terrorist organizations, and occasionally injuring individual people," and so on. Perhaps the inhabitants of Kaliningrad will be a little more at ease, but the bureaucrats are not so avant-garde. So the citizens spent every minute in trepidation, praying to the Mother Goddess constantly. Hopefully, God Almighty will bless her followers from calamity......

In fact, the Principality's army is their true guardian and the right object of invocation. As for the Mother Goddess, her old man had long since left all her troubles to an agent, who could not hear or have any interest in helping a group of wretched creatures who were destined to be abandoned.

All knew nothing about it, just prayed silently, and not trusted their army.

No one would believe in the two weak cruisers. 36 brand new cannons and no less new gunners. 350 muskets. A military force of 1,200 grey cattle, starved of ammunition and demoralized, was able to hold the city. Let them oppress the good people, eat overlord meals, make trouble, and fight, and expect them to be able to block the royal navy? Or is it more realistic to pray to God.

What made Colonel Rudnev uncomfortable was the fleet of the royal navy and the distrust of the citizens. And the damned merchant ship owners, the bastards who deserved to go to the gallows were the ones who couldn't eat.

Colonel Rudnev is very aware of his weight, and his third-generation ship "Varyag" and wingman "Tbilisi" belong to the same Tbilisi-class cruiser, which is a new ship launched in the last 10 years. However, due to financial constraints and problems with the original design, each ship could only carry 18 cannons, which together was less than the 40 guns of a first-class cruiser in Albion, let alone the giant battleships with hundreds of guns. In the event of war, the Albions can destroy them in a matter of minutes.

Colonel Rudnev could do nothing about it, but as a soldier and a proud bear warrior, he was not willing to sit back and wait for the Albians to blast his ships to smithereens, and then use the port facilities to advance into the heart of the principality. Therefore, the colonel developed a plan to self-sink and block the port.

The waterway of the port of Kaliningrad is 290 meters wide, and the middle channel is only 90 meters wide for large warships, and it can only be used at high tide. As a result, if a ship were sunk into the channel, it would block access to the port and prevent the Albians from making effective use of the port facilities.

This plan was bold, innovative, and feasible, and made the greatest use of the resources at hand to prevent the port from being used by the enemy under the premise that the mine and shore fire could not be enhanced. Although it is somewhat negative, it is quite acceptable compared to the scorched earth tactics that the army has engaged in on its own land in the past. As soon as the plan was reported, it was quickly supported by Lieutenant General Makarov, who quickly ordered Rudnev to proceed with the selection of suitable ships.

When Rudnev began to choose a ship full of enthusiasm for serving his country, trouble came.

At first, he chose an old cargo ship laden with sand and gravel, but that evening he received an invitation to a family dinner from a certain earl, and the next day the ship disappeared from the list. Then he took a fancy to a passenger liner belonging to the V.E company with better protection, and in the afternoon the local city officials invited him to a tea party, where the V.E representative happened to be, and in the evening, the liner disappeared from the list. Then another whaling ship, an hour later......

On the fifth day, the colonel gave up completely, and put the Varyag and Tbilisi in the list of blocked ships......

One can imagine how bad Colonel Rudnev's mood was.

War is imminent, and the strengthening of defense forces is still a distant matter, and the interests of private individuals and small groups can only be temporarily set aside to make way for national security. But the damned aristocrats, bureaucrats, and profiteers don't think so, and for the bastards who cling to the money, their interests are all the same......

The Mother Goddess is on top, these guys should go to the gallows!

For a moment, the colonel's love affair was almost out of control. There was a strong desire to turn the urge into action, but in the end he sat down in his chair and stared at caviar and vodka.

He can't do that kind of thing, and even if he does, he's going to continue to face this mess. The Albion fleet would not stop at any of his actions, even if it did, and let the port be scrapped for a while, as he wished. The fleet of the royal navy could still find an alternative port, continue their war plans, and then run into a head-to-head run in front of Vice Admiral Makarov's mine array.

So, Kaliningrad. It doesn't make much difference with or without it. In fact. Rudnev's small fleet was not tasked with defending the port of His Majesty the Tsar, but as a guard dog to alert St. Petersburg when the Albians were coming. That's all.

He did. Can be done. It doesn't mean much for a possible war.

"Colonel. ”

A voice passed through the hatch, and there was a brief knock. Rudnev sighed and called out, "Please come in." ”

Lieutenant Evgeny Andreevich Belance walked in, his face solemn as a soldier should be, but the captain could still perceive the obvious ease.

It seems that there is some good news, otherwise the navigator, who was as depressed as himself half an hour ago, would not suddenly be refreshed.

"There has been an order from the St. Petersburg Naval Headquarters that we will leave tomorrow for Kronstadt to join Lieutenant Admiral Makarov's 1st Squadron. ”

Rudnev breathed a sigh of relief, albeit a little late, but St. Petersburg finally made a not-so-bad decision. Obeying his instinct to survive, the Colonel let go of the boulder in his heart, and the caviar and vodka didn't seem as uncomfortable as before.

However, the order came too late, and the reassurance was too early.

A loud explosion suddenly entered the cabin, and at the same time, the Varyag's hull shook violently, and the two officers at the table and everything on the table fell to the ground, the magic lamp flickered on and off, and the screams in the cabin rang out.

"What the hell is going on?!"

Unable to react for a while, Rudnev shouted, and the next second, the captain who came back to his senses explained the situation.

"Explosion, we got a sneak attack!!"

As if to annotate the roar, another dull explosion as the battleship continued to shake, a hazy cry creeping into their ears against the bulkhead.

"We were attacked!Tbilisi sank!!"

"It's the Orca Rider of the Albion! The Shark Clan is at war with them!"

Stumbling onto the deck, the sailors were roaring, and the Tbilisi, which was moored leisurely, was now covered in flames, and the broken hull was little by little submerged in the water. The water was churning violently in the firelight, and after a while, a shark face floated up with a knife in its mouth, and when he raised the enemy's head, the cheers almost overturned the Varyag.

Colonel Rudnev did not join in the cheers, he pushed away the sailors who were huddled on the side of the ship, carefully searched the surface of the sea with his binoculars, and when a high hanging lamp appeared in his field of vision, the telescope almost fell out of his hand.

It's the people of Albion, and they're finally here.

In order to prevent the Principality's navy from blocking the shipping lanes with shipwrecks, they had the Orca Riders infiltrate the harbor, install sealed bombs on the bottoms of the Tbilisi and Varyag, and then activate the pyrotechnique to detonate them. But fortunately, the bomb on the bottom of the Varyag failed to detonate smoothly due to poor sealing technology, and the gunpowder was damp. As a result, it alarmed the shark clan who defended the underwater, and instead attracted the disaster of killing.

However, the Albians not only prepared bomb squads, they also prepared fleets just in case.

"At least one detachment ......"

The colonel muttered softly, and at this time the noise on the ship also stopped, and everyone watched blankly as the battleships flying the red, white and rose flags and Z-shaped signal flags turned around in the harbor, and the five battleships lined up in columns one after another, at a vertical angle to the Varyag.

"Line up. ”

An incredibly calm voice overflowed from the mouth of Colonel Rudnev, and the sailors, without saying a word, quickly formed a phalanx on the deck.

Everyone was looking at their commander sincerely, and although the old sailor was usually very stern and even a little mean, they believed in this man who could at least share their weal and woe. In the solemn atmosphere, Colonel Rudnev staggered with familiar faces, and said word by word:

“...... We're going to break out and fight with an entire detachment. No matter how strong the enemy is, there is no question of surrender - we will not surrender our ships, nor will we surrender to the villains who carry out a despicable sneak attack. We will fight to the last moment with the last of our strength until the last drop of blood is shed. Everyone should perform their duties calmly and accurately, without panicking, especially the gunners should remember that every shell costs the enemy. In the event of a fire, don't panic, extinguish it quickly and report to me...... Let's fight bravely. ”

"Ula!!"

At the shouts of the sailors, the Albion fleet erupted in a flash of light, and after a few seconds of flying through the air, a pile of iron lumps stirred up a column of water around the Varyag. With a hint of the pride of the Duchy's soldiers, and contempt for the Albians, the Varyag hinged its anchor chain and slowly sailed out of the mooring. In the face of the dense barrage, the soldiers of the principality drove their boats and launched a charge outside the harbor. (To be continued......)