Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1291 Death and Vengeance ([-])
After confirming the candidates to go to London, China and France quickly organized a group of transport ships.

The captured British soldiers were asked to pickle the bodies of the dead British soldiers with salt and lime to prevent them from rotting during sea transportation.

Dashun is more humane here, since deterrence is meaningless here, after all, this is not the mainland of England, so there is no way to scare people who should be scared.

Therefore, instead of choosing the method of building a temple in Beijing, the corpses were piled in lime and salt and sent away.

China and France dispatched a battleship and two cruisers to escort.

Or it can be said to go to escort.

Or it can be said to be deterrent-even if it is a diplomatic mission, and may be watched by British warships throughout the whole process, but in wartime, the Chinese and French warships that won the victory in Gibraltar docked on the Thames River will eventually cause financial markets huge chaos.

What's interesting is that the two battleships sent by China and France as escorts are sister ships in the true sense, and they are really born of the same mother.

What Dashun sent was a 74-gun battleship named "Wuyanghou".

What the French side sent was a 74-gun warship named "Reckless" after free translation.

From the name, it can be said to be similar.

In terms of blood relationship... Both ships are the pinnacle design of the designer François Couron Jr. The two ships have the same drawings and were born around 45 years old.It's just that one was born in France and the other was born in China.

The captain, layout, deck, configuration, and gun positions are all the same, and they were really built with the same blueprints.

What is even more painful is that shortly after leaving Gibraltar, they encountered the British squadron monitoring the movements of the Chinese and French fleets here.

In the British squadron, the Wuyanghou and the Reckless also saw the eldest sister of the 74-gun family, the Fear, which was captured by the British army before.

Because of the shipbuilding technology, material properties, and the material properties of the wood itself at this time, the 74-gun battleship was close to the limit of possibility.

Long hulls made of wood tend to warp and sag over time, and while increased maintenance can partly counteract this, maintenance costs money.

Therefore, speed, protection, firepower, maintenance, and cost performance, this design has reached the almost perfect specifications of a sailing warship.

It can also be said that the family of 74-gun battleships derived from the eldest sister of the family "Fear" has bred a huge family from Russia to Spain in the history of nearly 18 years from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 100th century. The absolute main force of the sailing decisive battle in the past century - except for the Netherlands and Denmark.

Denmark is because of the strait problem, so there is no need to build warships with such a deep draft; while the Netherlands is really... the former maritime hegemony. In the era of 74 gunboats, the port has been in disrepair for many years and has been silted up. There is no way to do this. Big battleship.

Of course, this is determined by science. The materials are there. No matter who designs them, they will end up with the same goal in the end, and they all look similar.

But after all, it was the French who designed it first.

At this time, it is difficult for the French to say whether they should cry or laugh at the meeting of the "sister ships" at sea.

On the joke, China, France, and Britain, the three powerful countries at this time, all chose to use 74-gun battleships as the main force of the ocean-going decisive battle, and they are all working hard to build such ships, which seems to be something to be proud of.

On crying, the elder sister ship on the opposite side was captured by the British, planted the British flag, and erased the traces of France.

Fortunately, this awkward meeting only lasted for a short while, and the British battleship chose to retreat, leaving behind a faster medium-sized battleship to monitor.

After the fleet escorting the captives unfurled its flag, it continued to move forward, and was finally surrounded by the main British fleet at noon the next day.

Admiral Edward Hawke, the commander of the United Channel Fleet of the British Army, welcomed the officers of the Dashun Navy headed by Chen Qinghai on the proud three-deck battleship Wangjia George with 108 heavy guns.

The two sides are now at war, so there is no salute.

The officers on Dashun's side did not show much interest or shock at this tall warship with 108 cannons.

Because they were supporters of Liu Yu's idea of ​​building an army, and like Liu Yu, they believed that Dashun's construction of this kind of three-deck warship was purely a waste of money.

Dashun did not have the opportunity to fight decisively in its own coastal waters. Building such a super-large battleship with a displacement of more than 2000 tons is useless except to slowly decay in Bohai Bay.

Dashunzhi built a three-deck battleship with nearly 100 guns. The only function was to serve as the emperor's "royal ship" when the emperor Songsu was parading. After all, it was taller.In addition to being an imperial ship, the rest of the time is spent resting in the military port. The speed is too slow, the supplies are too useless, and once it sinks, the morale will be hit too much, and Japan, North Korea, and Vietnam have no chance to let Dashun use such a large ship, etc. The reason is that the naval officers on Dashun's side don't think that big is good.

Even now, with its tall hull, the ship looks a bit like a Chinese and French warship condescendingly staring at the lowered flag.

On the deck of the Wangjia George, the officers from the Dashun side and the British officers looked at each other hostilely, but the atmosphere was not yet at a point of tension.

Chen Qinghai and Edward Hawke are considered to be the same age, but their backgrounds and experiences are not the same.However, the neutral persona of the two people in the army, or the external image shown by the two people, are very similar.

On birth.

Chen Qinghai caught up with the boom period of Dashun shipbuilding. As the first batch of naval officer graduates, he has been promoted to a high-ranking officer and squadron commander of the navy.

Edward Hawke, in the British Navy, can be regarded as a representative of "zero except ability" - of course, the "zero except ability" with British characteristics, because his uncle's family is the British "Immortal Seven". The great steward and family lawyer of the "Duke of Leeds", and by the way, Newton's second-in-command when he was the master of the mint, a member of the British Trade and Plantation Committee, and a representative of the colonial issues in the negotiations of the Treaty of Utrecht.

The "Immortal Seven" refers to the seven nobles who abolished James II and wrote to invite the King of the Netherlands to rule in England.The real "abandon me" family.

In terms of background, the gap between the two is still quite large. After all, Chen Qinghai does not have an uncle who is at the level of the servant of the Dashun hereditary household government, the ceremony government, or the clan order of the clan mansion.

However, in terms of character design, the two people are very similar, it can be said that they are very similar.

The so-called person setting is the external image set by oneself.

Among the first batch of officers in the Dashun Navy, the top three had their own labels.

Needless to say, Mi Ziming knew that he was Liu Yu's direct descendant, even if he thought otherwise, that would not work.

Du Feng and Liu Yu once joked that if this happened against the background that China was about to sink to land a hundred years ago, he would probably have shaved his hair and went to fight for fame and fortune.A very refined, gambler-like egoist.

The image that Chen Qinghai has been managing all along can be referred to simply as "soldiers are all pure, born to be loyal to the motherland", pure soldiers.

So he is not in Nanyang, but as the second in command of the main fleet of Bohai Dashun.

Edward Hawke's external image is roughly like this: Soldiers are all pure and born to be loyal to the motherland.

However, no matter whether it is Chen Qinghai or Hawke, who can become the commander of the fleet, there are only a few powerful people on the seas of the earth at this time, and they are really that kind of pure people. , obviously not possible.

He was the first officer in the Navy to instill patriotism and naval pride in his soldiers, and he became a well-told story, thus launching his "pure soldier" image.

In the shooting of John Bing, Hawke, who has always been a pure soldier, provided a seemingly simple testimony, which indirectly contributed to the shooting of John Bing.

In the subsequent blockade of Brest, he showed the image of a "pure, reckless, ignorant of politics, and simple" soldier: the Admiralty disagreed with him, and he drove his flagship back to Hong Kong without saying a word. Going ashore to ask for an explanation—who the hell thinks capable is better than me? ——It became a good story at one time.

In William Pitt's strategy of attacking the French coast, he was dissatisfied with William Pitt's plan, so he wrote a very long objection letter-a personal letter, but, because of some "unexpected circumstances", it was "a Accidentally” became public, leading anti-Pitt politicians to launch a wave of offensive against Pitt.

But after the letter was made public, Hawke took the initiative to apologize: the reason was that he had crossed the line between politicians and soldiers. Although the letter was published by accident, it was still wrong. At the political level, put forward your own ideas and so on.

Generally speaking, he is such a person. If he changes to Dashun's scripts, novels, and dramas, he probably has the image of a loyal minister with a black face and a brave general.

But if you want to say that a person who can get into this position, get into the position of fleet commander, really doesn't understand politics, is really so pure... I'm afraid this is not the real world, but the world of drama.

In general, before Dashun entered the war, Hawke supported William Pitt's strategic policy: that is, to continuously harass the French coast, forcing France to pile up a large number of troops on the coast, thereby relieving the pressure on Hanover and Prussia, and forcing France disperses the fleet.

But Hawke believes that Pete is "a roughly correct strategist, but a poor tactical choice."

Namely: the strategy of harassing the French coast, which he believed to be correct.

However, when it comes to harassing, attacking, and attacking specific places, he feels that the people in the cabinet and the Admiralty have a problem with their brains, and they are simply directing blindly to the map.

Of course, following Dashun's participation in the war and Spain's participation in the war, the balance of naval power in the Atlantic has undergone tremendous changes.

The United Kingdom has used all available sea power, 70000 sailors, 250 warships and armed merchant ships of various types, which seems to be a lot.

But in fact, there are fewer regular warships capable of decisive battles in the ocean than the combined Sino-French fleet.It is impossible to expect to recruit the company's merchant ships, go to the ocean for a decisive battle, and guard the strait.

In this case, Hawk also does not agree with any radical and risky decisive battle, because in this situation, at best, the Caribbean is lost. The population base of 200 million in North America is there, and they are all Protestants rather than Catholics. It is impossible for France Capture North America.

However, if the decisive battle is lost, not only the Caribbean may be lost, but the whole of Britain may be thrown into chaos.

Now, Dashun has explained the purpose of coming here, to return the captives in Gibraltar, and proposed to go to Dunkirk.

In this regard, Hawke believes that this is an opportunity for peace talks, and will not show his arrogance too much.

As for Dashun's proposal to go to Dunkirk, Hawk also understands the political significance of Dashun's side. In order to prevent the group of people from the cabinet from arguing about it, he cleverly offered a compromise. Program.

Dashun's fleet was allowed to go to Dunkirk because he was the commander in charge of blocking Cape Brest from Dunkirk. Although this matter involved political issues, it could also be regarded as a purely military blockade issue.

As for whether he can go to London and whether he can sail the warship to the Thames River, this, he said that he has no right to decide-this requires the order of the cabinet and the Ministry of the Navy, otherwise he, the commander of the Channel Fleet, will let the enemy sail the warship to the Thames River, Then he would have to be shot.

(End of this chapter)