Open an aircraft carrier to fight against Japan

Hearing Liu Hao's words, Lin Yuan couldn't help feeling excited. From Taiwan's mineral deposits, he knew that Taiwan has a large amount of coal, sulfur, and iron ore. It has a large amount of raw materials necessary for the chemical industry, such as dolomite, serpentine, etc. These minerals contain a large amount of magnesium, calcium and other elements necessary for the chemical industry.

Lin Yuan's idea is very good. With the help of Liu Hao, he will send a large amount of chemical raw materials from Taiwan to Ryukyu, but this idea will be difficult to realize in the short term, because the war broke out!

On December 1894, a British fleet arrived at Lingdingyang outside the Pearl River Estuary. This fleet consisted of six Sovereign-class battleships, eight armored cruisers, and fifteen destroyers. The strength of this fleet far exceeded that of the Beiyang Fleet.

What the fleet did after it arrived at the Pearl River Estuary was a replica of the Opium War in 1840. The British fleet first detained all Chinese ships in the Pearl River Estuary and launched a tentative attack on the Humen Fortress.

The Humen Fortress is located 1 mile southeast of Guangzhou, and is an important throat to control the Pearl River entering Lingdingyang.The terrain is dangerous, easy to defend but difficult to attack.During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, troops were built here. From the 56th year of Kangxi to the 14th year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty, after more than 14 years of operation, the Humen Fortress has been built as an important defensive fortress with [-] forts and three gates.

Before the first Opium War, when Guan Tianpei was running the fort, in order to prevent enemy ships from breaking into the Pearl River and threatening the city of Guangzhou, he set up two obstacles in the Pearl River channel, iron chains and large wooden piles. During the war, these iron chains and wooden stakes were destroyed by the British fleet, and have never been repaired since then. However, the forts of the Humen Fortress Group have improved the design of the fortress and added artillery.

A historian said: "Every war is enough to write a great book." Indeed, a war is composed of several battles and hundreds of battles, which is worthy of a special book There are many places. For one of the greatest wars in human history, we might as well temporarily put aside those big figures who are enough to be written in history books, and start with two small figures.

The Humen Fortress Group has a defense system of three gates. From the entrance of Lingdingyang to the north, there are Shajiao Mountain in the east and Dajiao Mountain in the west, facing each other with a fortress monitoring the river.However, the range of the coastal artillery is only about 1000 meters, but the sea outside the fort is more than 3000 meters wide, so the artillery of these two forts is difficult to cause substantial damage to the incoming enemy ships, so these two forts were changed into command forts , play an early warning role.

The mighty British fleet approached the Humen Fortress Group. The four 343mm main guns of the Sovereign-class battleship fired first, followed by eight armored cruisers. The dense artillery fire immediately covered the forts of Shajiao Mountain and Dajiao Mountain. Immediately the fort sent out a ready-to-battle signal, making the forts of the second and third portals ready.

Going up along the river from the first gate, there are upper and lower horizontal islands standing in the middle of the river. The channel to the west of the island is full of hidden reefs, which is inconvenient to pass through. Only the east channel is available for passage. There are three forts on each side. This is the first In the second portal, Sun Jiang is a gunner in the Zhenyuan Fort in the second portal.

In view of the assassination of the British ambassador to China Cahill in Beijing, the British repeatedly threatened war, so the fort fortress also strengthened its defenses, declaring that a war might start at any time every day, but Sun Jiang felt that this war could not be fought!

Sun Jiang thought: "Didn't the British envoy be killed by the Boxers in Beijing? There is no Boxer here in Guangzhou. If the British want to fight, they should go to Beijing to fight. Why come to Guangzhou to fight!"

Early this morning, he heard the sound of cannons from a distance. He thought he had heard it wrong, but soon he saw the trumpet cannon of the Dajiaoshan Fortress. The so-called cannon was refitted with fireworks. It also looks very bright,

The original Humen Fort was an open-air fort. Although there were walls around it, there was no roof on it, so the artillery was easy to rust. During the Opium War, many artillery pieces failed because of this. Later, when the fort was rebuilt, this lesson was learned. A roof was installed, forming a fort-like structure.

Sun Jiang looked from the observation port of the fort and saw five warships approaching the fort.

These five warships are all 30-knot British destroyers. The so-called [-]-knot destroyer means a speed of [-] knots. At this time, Hill, the young gunner on the Havok ship, was confused.

This type of destroyer is responsible for defending the main battleship in defense, attacking the opponent's torpedo boat at high speed; in attack, it is responsible for the surprise attack mission of approaching and launching torpedoes. Since the range of torpedoes in that era was generally only 600 meters, So few commanders gave this order.

There is only one 76mm gun and two 2mm guns on board. Such firepower is not enough to attack the fortress on the shore, but why did the fleet commander order them to enter the waterway?The waterway was less than 47 meters wide, and there were forts on both sides. Even so, he still didn't have much fear in his heart. After all, the combat effectiveness of the Qing soldiers could be ignored.

At this moment, the deck under his feet began to vibrate again. This was because the deck was designed to be very thin in order to reduce weight when designing a warship, which resulted in a low natural frequency, and resonance often occurred during driving. It was unavoidable. As an officer, he didn't even have an officer's lounge, so he could only live in the officer's meeting room squeezed with several other officers. In order to reduce weight, he didn't even leave the officer's lounge.

Due to lack of attention to air conditioning in the cabin, water often condenses on the ceiling, dripping on people's bodies when they are sleeping, and it is icy cold. Despite this, Hill voluntarily stayed on the ship, because there is no such thing as a large warship. People hate it, endless duty, and here can learn naval knowledge more comprehensively, paving the way for future development, thinking that one day I can wear lace on the sleeves, swords and swords on the epaulettes. The scepter, the general's military uniform of the eight-pointed star, he felt that it was all worth it now!

But his opponent, Sun Jiang in the fortress, wanted to save enough money as soon as possible, bribe the superior, and find a comfortable and lucrative job for himself!

Perhaps it is the difference between these two little people that will ultimately determine the fate of the two empires.

This is not the first time that the Qing Empire faced an undeclared war. The Shangguan ordered that the ground trap artillery be raised and ready to fire!

Following the order of the superior, the soldiers in the fort moved into action one after another. The transporter who transported the ammunition tore off his jacket, folded it thickly, held it in his hand, and ran along the gentle slope of the ammunition depot into the underground ammunition storage point. body, put the clothes on his shoulders, a soldier inside had already picked up the shells, put them on his shoulders, and he picked up the shells and left.

Every time Sun Jiang saw this kind of scene, he would think: "Why not use a device like a well to draw water, wouldn't it be faster to take out the shells?" But every time he had this thought, he would tell himself: "It's not up to me to take care of this kind of thing, but I must not say it out loud. The rafters in the early years will be rotten first. It will be bad if Shangguan has a bad impression of me!"

At this moment, he saw a puff of smoke rising from the warship on the river, and he suddenly thought: The other party fired first!