I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 481 Double Bay Battle (6)

Now that he knew that this was a trap, no matter how sweet the bait was, it could not affect Van Basten's decision. He ordered all the ships to immediately leave the merchant ships and launch a counterattack. At the same time, he also sent arson ships, two The kind that everyone has.

   But they came so easily, how could the hunter easily allow them to escape the snare? As the pirate Gott did, these merchant ships tore off the mask of kindness, revealing cannons hidden in the cargo, and lifted the camouflage on the gun muzzles of the ships, "These vile French!" Famba Sten heard his patrolman - the officer in charge of the gunners shout, and he thought so too, but the worst problem arose, with the exception of the Wilhelm the Silent, the vast majority of Dutch ships had There are not enough people.

   When we read the materials at that time, we will see a very interesting data, that is, a gun requires twelve people.

   This is really confusing, but if you look closely, you can see that among the twelve people, only two people actually executed the artillery firing, one loaded, one fired, and the other ten people? The artillery was returned to its original position. Unlike guns on land, a gun in a ship's cabin needs enough distance to allow it to unload the recoil after firing, because in a ship it is absolutely impossible to let the recoil of a gun pour on the deck - that would cause the deck to crack.

So before the "retractable barrel" and other stabilizing devices were invented, the gun compartment would have a long distance for the gun to slide back, counteract the recoil, and then, to continue firing, someone would have to push them Back to the original place, and such a heavy artillery, not a dozen people would not want to push it back to its original position.

However, the load of the ship will also be limited to the number of crew members. No matter how generous the captain is, it is impossible to provide a group of sailors who can push artillery. Therefore, when the unarmed merchant ships begin to lose their ability to resist, they can only wait for the torment. There are not many Dutch crew members on the ship, and less than one tenth of the crew members who boarded the merchant ship were able to escape.

   They can only try to get off the springboard and drive away the ship, but it is completely impossible to launch a counterattack as Van Basten expected!

Van Basten commanded "William the Silent" to fight against those new armed merchant ships, raising the agreed red and white rose flag, which meant that they needed British support, but it was too late. "They came. No, sir, look!" The first officer hurriedly said, "Look, those armed merchant ships... are also ironclad ships!"

  It is ironic that the three ironclad ships, which were originally mighty, actually raised red, white and blue flags after facing the same ironclad ships—the flags belonging to the Orange family, asking the Dutch for help.

There seems to be only one way left for Van Basten, no, not surrender, but breakout, he ordered all the arsonists to be released - no need to get close to the enemy's ships, just push in that direction, he and "William the Silent" ', and several other ships with less severe losses were left behind, and the others quickly retreated into the Atlantic.

"Not to Portsmouth?" The first officer knew that he shouldn't question the captain's decision, but it was clear that Portsmouth was the closest and most stable haven - it was the base and port of the Royal Navy, and the fleet was stationed there. there.

   "To the Atlantic Ocean." Van Basten said firmly.

His decision was correct, because within an hour, Jean Bart's ironclad and two first-class battleships came from the Gulf of Saint-Malo and joined the slaughter. Only one Dutch ship escaped in the end. The remaining six were all intercepted in England (La Manche Strait), and one of them exploded because it was hit in the powder compartment and eventually sank. Van Basten was forced to surrender. He and five other ships The captains were "invited" to the French ironclads.

It was so close to the dreamed ironclad ship, but under such circumstances, Van Basten could not help but have mixed feelings. They were temporarily placed in the cabin of the poop. From here, they could see the sky, the sea and the British ironclad ship. - After the end of the battle with the Dutch, Jean Barr did not hesitate to throw into the siege of the British.

   "I hope Joseph doesn't get too angry." Jean Barr muttered.

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Joseph Bourbon, a young man who might in the future pass his father and gain all his grandfather's inheritance (including the king's trust and connections), was a student of the Duke of Luxembourg when he was a student at the military academy, and it was thought that he would learn from the king's land. He joined the army to start his military career, but he did not expect the first battle of his life to be fought on the sea.

   This was also because the king did not have enough generals at sea. Joseph's grandfather, the Duke of Vendôme, was a French admiral, and although his father was too, that gentleman had nothing to do with it, but the white-haired Duke of Vendôme, who had defeated him in 1955. Having had a Spanish fleet, the 55-year-old Spanish fleet cannot be said to be in full swing, at least it still retains a splendid afterglow. It is no wonder that Bishop Richelieu finally reached a reconciliation with this traitor.

Under the ear and eyes of the Duke of Vendôme, the young Joseph was actually not that unfamiliar with naval warfare. He was also honed with Jean Bart when he quelled those small rebellions for the Sun King, but this time - It's impossible to say not to be nervous: "I really don't know how His Majesty the King would approve of this..." He took a deep breath: "Absurd idea."

After all, he also has 120,000 enthusiasm and anticipation. If they win this battle, then the gangrene of the bones in Britain can be prevented from recurring for 50 or even 100 years. , but if it doesn't... this war of succession could be another Hundred Years' War.

When    was chatting with them, His Majesty mentioned that if possible, he hoped to end such a war as soon as possible. War is never a good thing, even if it is very profitable, it can torture one or more countries to the last breath, the sooner victory is achieved and the result is achieved, the most powerful for the entire Europa - maybe this is your majesty. The reason why this proposal was passed.

  What Jean Barr was worried about was whether Joseph, who was on the ironclad ship facing the "Charles I", would be angry because he interfered in his combat area, to be honest, no. After all, what they are seeking now is not to simply destroy this mixed fleet, but to—

   to drive them away.

  Cunningham lost his composure.

  Why did both Charles II and Leopold I go crazy and build ironclad ships even if they were in debt? There is only one reason. In the face of increasingly powerful artillery, wooden ships, whether they are Tier 3, Tier 2 or Tier 1 battleships, have increasingly lost their original advantages, and only ships covered with iron armor. The ship can withstand the bombardment of artillery. That's where his initial confidence came from, after all, the "Charles I" was also a behemoth covered in six-inch iron plates, and they bombarded each other, but nothing came out of it for a few hours - if the shells hadn't been before then Exhausted, if the barrel did not burst.

   But the French shells are charged shells.

Since gunpowder and shells have been around there have been attempts to fuse the two but there is only one problem and that is the problem with the detonation of the gunpowder and we can see in the movie how the gunner hissed with the fuse held up The round shell is stuffed into the barrel, and then fired, but there is a problem with such shells, that is, there is a problem of premature explosion or delayed explosion from time to time.

The early explosion will destroy the artillery and the gunner, and the delayed explosion, especially at sea, is equivalent to throwing a solid stone bullet, but I don't know how the French did it. They successfully solved the problem of "trust management", It can be guessed that the "belief tubes" are caused by friction when they collide, or some other way to explode, because there are missing shells, they do not explode in the air.

Charged shells and solid shells have completely different performances. The armor hit by the former will be deformed and tilted like fish scales. If it is bombarded intensively, it will even reveal the wooden board below. The latter is just a few pits. . The threat posed by the French ironclads was thus much greater than that of the "Charles I".

   After taking several heavy blows in a row, especially after a piece of armor plate outside the boiler compartment suddenly fell off, "Let's go to Portsmouth!" Cunningham said through gritted teeth.

  Although Portsmouth's fleet is mostly charged with artillery shells, it is a fleet of twelve ironclads together with them. The French have only five ironclads, and they have the advantage.

If you look down from the sky to the sea, you can see a scene like a group of killer whales hunting a school of fish. After leaving the Dutch and pirates, the four British ironclads sailed to the Isle of Wight in embarrassment. Ironclads and fleets followed, a seemingly loose but tight encirclement at that time - the French ironclads, as Cunningham said, had the advantage in speed, and they held the situation steadily, at a distance from Portsmouth. With about twenty nautical miles left, the net tightened again, tightly surrounding Cunningham's fleet again.

Cunningham had previously sent a speedboat to Portsmouth port to seek assistance. At this time, the commander of Portsmouth port was Admiral Sandwich, a British admiral. He was old but experienced, but because of the The Duke of York had a good relationship and was not liked by Charles II. If it weren't for the war with the French, he might have continued to age in the country - if he said he would rather age, it was really uncomfortable to be sandwiched between the Duke and the King, And he is also sixty-five years old this year, and he should be at the age of sitting in a daze by the river fishing.

When the attendant came running out of breath, the old gentleman was preparing for a late breakfast, and when he heard this, he lost his appetite. He casually threw his fork on the dinner plate and made a crisp crashing sound, and pulled to bed. Clothes, the attendant immediately came up to help him change into formal clothes. During this short period of time, the Admiral kept staring at the chart on the wall, even though Cunningham's messenger had been chattering about something, he didn't seem to hear it.

   As he left the room, he said to his deputy: "Let all ships be loaded with 'White Queen'."

  ————

   When he was about to see Portsmouth, Cunningham felt that something was wrong. But at that time he didn't know what to do either. He could only use anger to hide his unease - what were they going to do? Has the purpose been achieved...? He wanted to drive the ships to escape, or ram the French ships, but their maneuverability was completely incomparable to the French ships, and after a few conflicts, they were further away from Portsmouth, and this At that time, black smoke rose from the port, and his rescuer came.

  Cunningham was not at all at ease.

   The previous heart shake appeared on him again, and he stood in the forecastle, looking at the French who besieged them like a cat playing a mouse. If in this era, there are advanced detection equipment, he can see that his four ironclad ships are being towed to the south side of the strait, that is, the part close to the French territorial waters, but at this time, the sea operations still rely on telescopes, overlooking With human eyes, he only knew that they were moving away from the coast.

   But this was normal for the French fleet, who gestured and increased their fire as if to capture or sink the four ironclads before the Portsmouth fleet arrived.

Admiral Sandwich saw through the French conspiracy very sharply, "a trap, a trap," he said, but he had to step into the trap as they wished, because these were four ironclad ships, It is also one-sixth of the British Navy's ironclad fleet. If they are lost, Charles II will definitely send him to the guillotine, and his second son in the army and the eldest son in Parliament will be affected by this. .

Since Charles II had an heir, his temperament has become more and more eccentric, and because of the previous clean-up, as well as the guard and standing army he personally formed, he was barely able to sit on the throne - but His supporters are already starting to outnumber his opponents, so it's not so surprising that the king doesn't have a grain of sand in his eye...but Admiral Sandwich, as an elder, must say, Charles II Might be a good king, as long as he is not too eager to compete with Louis XIV of France.

The knot of Charles II may have existed before Louis XIV was in power, but when he was in exile for several years, Louis XIV was also like a puppet, and he could barely endure it, but once Louis XIV was in power, Just like a lion with wings, it flew straight into the untouchable sky, making everyone have to look up - this made Charles II feel a little uncomfortable, although they were different in age, but people mentioned the king. When we were there, Leopold I, Louis XIV and Charles II were often talked about together.

   He lowered his head and coughed twice. The admiral may never be able to get used to the strong and pungent smell emanating from the chimney of the iron-clad steamship, and even the sea breeze could not blow them away.

   (end of this chapter)