I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 482 Double Bay Battle (7)

  Admiral Sandwich's flagship is the new iron-clad Sea King. The former "King of the Sea" was famous. First, when it was completed and launched in 1637, it was indeed the largest ship at that time and had the most artillery. Second, it was because this ship led to the fall of a king, although There are many reasons for this, but the ship, which is worth more than £40,000 in total, has drawn a lot of grievances.

After the enthronement of Charles II, the huge ship unfortunately sank in the battle against the French, but Charles II did not know in what mood he rebuilt the ship and took the lead in ironing it, just to Compared with the original "Sea King", there are many fewer artillery pieces - the ironclad ships of this era are all hanging iron plates on the wooden hull and deck, or laying iron sheets, and the weight is considerable. The original "Sea King" The total weight of the artillery Three hundred and fifty tons, plus the armor, it couldn't even move, so the number of artillery pieces was reduced to eighty.

   However, in order to ensure firepower, the original artillery has been updated several times, and the current 80 artillery are the most powerful firepower today.

But as Cunningham complained, even though the Sea Sovereign's steam engines and boilers had been tweaked several times, they still couldn't match the power of the French, thanks to Louis XIV. The sorcerers found the rubber, which is rich in Brazil, a place that was once a Portuguese colony, but was taken away by the Netherlands, and after the collapse of the Netherlands, it was resold by France to Portugal - at a favorable price.

Portugal and France are now in-laws. Of course, it is impossible to argue with Louis XIV on the rubber trade, and they also want ironclad ships. Sufficient quantities and high-quality rubber flowed into France quickly, although the United Kingdom also has Sumatra, which is called It is a rubber island, but the British have not yet mastered or said to have stolen the method of vulcanized rubber. The problem of rubber bonding and melting at high temperature cannot be solved, and it cannot be directly applied to hot and humid boilers and steam machinery.

  Without rubber seals, a large part of the steam would be consumed in vain in the process of transmission and operation, which is why the speed of the ships of the other two countries can never be compared with the French ironclads of the same tonnage.

When the British fleet in Portsmouth arrived at the sea of ​​war, it was almost mid-day, the scorching sun seemed to illuminate the black smoke, and the French fleet frantically went to the mix of Cunningham, who was almost helpless. Fleet pouring shells, oh no, they can't be called mixed fleets now, and even if there are small ships that escape, they dare not re-engage in the battle of ironclads.

  Cunningham suspected that the French ships might have carried a ton of shells.

Fortunately, the fleet of Portsmouth finally arrived at this time. At this time, it doesn't matter what to seize the T-head position. The net set by the French fleet is exactly the two columns parallel to the English Channel, and the four British ironclad ships are separated. The boat is sandwiched in it, like a multi-layered sandwich. The Portsmouth fleet departs from the port and is perpendicular to the French fleet close to the Seine Bay. Towards.

The French were like beasts with their prey in their mouths, greedy and unwilling to give up, even though Portsmouth's fleet far outnumbered them—their ironclads were calmly and quickly turning sideways to face the British ships. , Admiral Sandwich's face darkened a little - he was fighting the French for the first time, and then he noticed that their ironclads were more agile than theirs when turning.

The French are so arrogant and not without support, because at this time the French fleet entrenched in Brest has also arrived. There are no ironclad ships in this fleet, but there are twenty battleships, second only to the Dunkirk fleet. The shells were as powerful as the ironclads, and the combined three ironclads (the other two still besieged Cunningham's fleet) even stopped the attack of the Portsmouth fleet.

Admiral Sandwich felt agitated, and Charles II knew very well that someone was waiting for his failure, and because he could not bear any failure, even if the war had just begun, his too much investment could make him restless. I just want good news, but in several encounters, the French fleet seems to have no intention of going to war with the British fleet, and as long as they are willing to withdraw, the British ironclads cannot catch up with them.

Some people are suggesting that they should go to Dunkirk or Calais... Of course, every Englishman thinks like crazy, but Charles II is hesitant - he can't leave his own guard, so After repeated weighing, they decided to use the old method, that is, the privateering license system that began in the time of Elizabeth I, to first bite off a few pieces of fat and good meat from this giant whale in France.

Private looting, or in other words, the profits from public looting have appeased the court, the Congress, and the people, but this appeasement is based on constant victories—not to mention how a country’s baoli machines go directly against innocent people, The British would only be proud and relish - and, of course, if they failed, they would weep bitterly, cursing the abominable French or whatever enemy was savage, cruel, ruthless.

With such a premise, Admiral Sandwich must be very careful. He does not want any brilliant victory. He is old, his blood has already condensed, and his net worth is very rich. His original expectation was to force the French to give up their prey. , anyway, it wasn't him who failed the robbery, but Cunningham, an upstart.

To his disappointment, even when he saw the ironclad ships lined up on the sea level, spitting black smoke, the French fleet did not show any signs of timidity. Instead of retreating, they advanced. The cards played a dizzyingly good game, and in the end it was a golden red firework that gave Admiral Sandwich the decision--nearly obscuring the daylight.

One of Cunningham's four ironclads exploded, and they were all ironclads. Even though the scholars and craftsmen of Charles II finally developed a steam engine that could drive the ironclad under the double oppression of the reward and the gallows, they still did not It is not difficult for the French to find the focus of the blow by ingeniously relocating the boiler room and the cabin where the steam engine is located.

No one is more afraid than Cunningham, whose flagship has also been opened with a fatal gap, and he shouts, asking his crew to drive the ship out of the attack range of the French ships as soon as possible, but if they can, they Already done, "We've been stopped!" said his chief mate, pointing to a barque in front of the Charles I.

   "Then hit it!" Cunningham gritted his teeth and said, "We are ironclads with iron rams!" Anyway, the French did this too.

The first officer hesitated, but gave in before Cunningham's red eyes. He ran to the outside of the cabin and carried out the captain's order. The brass bell hanging from the cross-mast was rang, and the crew of the order shouted. "Fix yourself, prepare to hit!" Anyone who hears it immediately searches for a stable place around, such as a mast, guardrail or iron anchor, and secures themselves with readily available ropes and belts.

The "Charles I" slammed into the barque that was responsible for intercepting them, and as Cunningham said, it rammed the wooden barque head-on with the black iron ram as the British expected It crashed directly into the opponent's back waist, and the three-masted ship actually moved nearly a hundred feet across the sea before it slowly stopped. A sailor fell into the sea, and the cabin was also flooding frantically. The artillery in the bow was captured from the battery. knocked down.

  The French's embarrassment made the British laugh, but they froze after only a few minutes of laughter... The "Charles I"... could not be pulled out.

The coal in the boiler was still roaring, and the steam rushed to the cylinder, pushing the piston to one end repeatedly, driving the paddle wheel to fly, and the paddle wheel moved the sea water, making a deafening sound, and the piles of foam dissipated and piled up, piled up. And dissipated—but the Charles I just didn't move, or rather, it could only move with the three-masted ship, about eighty or ninety feet long, because the ram was firmly stuck in the latter In the cabin, after destroying a quarter of the hull and half of the artillery, and taking the lives of nearly a hundred people, the "Charles I" has such a burden that can't be thrown away.

It stands to reason that this should not happen. The ramming tactics of ships have lasted for hundreds of years. The craftsmen and captains are more skilled in how to build and use the rammer than how to deal with the artillery. The rammer is located at the bottom of the bow, which looks like A spear tip, but with no rod behind the tip, that is, swelled into a huge obtuse angle - so how did it get stuck? But Cunningham didn't want to know at this time. He asked the workers to increase their kinetic energy-even if the steam engine was destroyed, it didn't matter. The steam engine could be rebuilt and reinstalled, but his flagship must not fall into the hands of the enemy.

   "Yes, yes," said the worker, "but sir, the machine may explode."

   “…I don’t think fate will be so **** us,” Cunningham said.

As soon as his first mate returned to the deck, he asked Cunningham to leave the "Charles I" and transfer to another ship. Cunningham shook his head and refused, "It seems that it is impossible for me to return to England. , if the goddess of fate is so cruel to me, let me sleep here with the 'Charles I'."

He looked up and looked around and touched the short gun on his waist, because the "Charles I" was now the equivalent of a ship deeply embedded in the enemy's ship, and after a brief confusion, the French and the British had begun to touch. In battle, musket bullets whizzed around in the air, and some crew members drew short swords or daggers, and tasted the blood of the enemy with icy sharp blades.

   "But what is Admiral Sandwich doing?" Cunningham murmured.

  ——

   "Prepare the White Queen," said Admiral Sandwich.

Everyone knows that the symbol of the Tudor Dynasty in England is a red and white rose. The red rose represents the Lancaster family, and the white rose represents the York family. At the beginning, Henry VII of Lancaster married the Princess Elizabeth of the York family as his wife. , in order to obtain the orthodoxy of the succession to the throne, so Princess Elizabeth, who is also the later queen, is also known as the Queen of the White Rose.

   But the White Queen that Admiral Sandwich referred to was not the White Queen.

  ———

   "White phosphorus bomb!"

   "The British used white phosphorus bombs!"

   Admiral Victor, the commander of the Brest fleet, frowned, but it was not surprising that when they were perfecting the plan in the king's small hall, Louis XIV mentioned the white phosphorus bomb. It was none other than the Sun King himself who used the white phosphorus bomb first. He used it twice, once against the Flemish black wizards who may have been suspected of murdering Louis XIII, and once against the Azap infantry of the Ottoman Turks , the former is because the dark wizards have strange abilities that ordinary people can't match, and the latter is because they want to break the numerical advantage of the Ottoman Turks.

His Majesty the King also admitted that the threat and lethality of this kind of ammunition when targeting flesh and blood is unprecedented. To be able to seal this ammunition, never to appear in the world. But even if you think about it with your knees, you know that this kind of thing is impossible. Even if Louis XIV is willing to have that compassionate heart, his enemy, Leopold I or Charles II, will not let such a person go. Chance.

Because the second use of white phosphorus bombs was during the Great War, it was no secret that Leopold I was developing white phosphorus bombs, just as he was also building his own iron armored fleet, and Charles II - Britain was rich in coal resources , but like iron ore, they found enough phosphate ore resources in Africa's colonies, and although France has colonies in Africa, just like America, in the initial colonial frenzy, France was one step behind the countries. , so that it is still very passive to this day.

Louis XIV is not too naive, whether it is wizards, alliances with pagans, or white phosphorus bombs, etc., he can take advantage of this, and others will not be dull and continue to remain passive - like steam engines, Charles II Although the world can't steal the secrets of Louis XIV, he can offer a high price. Smart people are not only in France. It didn't take long for a few engineers to develop a machine similar to the steam engine built by Mr. Papin. After all Steam power can be traced back to the first century AD.

The technical content of the white phosphorus bomb cannot be compared with that of the steam engine at all. It has a low ignition point and will naturally come into contact with the air, so there is no need to detonate, and the smoke and steam emitted are poisonous. The only thing that needs to be carefully studied is how to ensure that it continues to stick to a certain On objects - otherwise scattered white phosphorus, or in the face of people who have never gathered together, white phosphorus bombs are not very effective.

Apparently, the British went a step further in this regard. The white phosphorus shells fired by the British fleet from Portsmouth were able to stick firmly to masts, sails, and decks, even on smooth hull decks. Continuously burning on it, the highest temperature that white phosphorus can reach cannot melt black iron, but it can carbide the wood under the iron armor plate. When the outer layer of the wood loses its original toughness, the armor fixed on it will of course fall off. !

   (end of this chapter)