Although the sound of the fierce fighting at the mouth of the Saigon River did not reach the port of Saigon, the attack by the KPA fleet had already been transmitted by telegram to the administrator of the port of Saigon.

The batteries around Saigon Harbor reacted quickly, the guns removed their jackets, loaded their shells, and pointed in the direction of the downstream of the river. At the same time, the eight French warships moored in the harbor also quickly started to start fire, and the soldiers on the warships were also awakened from their sleep, and everyone was in their positions and ready for battle.

Of course, the movement on the fort could not hide the merchant ships moored in the harbor, so they also asked the port managers one after another about the situation, and the managers repeatedly assured the shipowners that the port of Saigon was absolutely safe, and that the KPA fleet would never break through the blockade of the seaport batteries and enter the inland river, so the merchant ships anchored in the port could rest assured that the port could guarantee the safety of all ships in the port.

These merchant ships chose to anchor in Saigon Port, to a large extent, because they had full confidence in the defense of Saigon Port, so they did not worry much about it, and the noise dispersed after a while, some returned to the ship to rest, and some stayed on the shore to drink and chat, in fact, this period has come, due to a large number of ships berthing, the catering and accommodation industry on the shore of the wharf is doing very good business, and every family is making a lot of money. The catering and accommodation industry laughed every day, but they felt that the naval blockade of the East China government was too good, and I really hoped that they could continue the blockade permanently.

Only a few far-sighted people can see that the current prosperity of the port is nothing more than a false prosperity, because the port of Saigon is a port extremely dependent on foreign trade, and the maritime blockade of the East China government is also a great harm to the port of Saigon.

At this time, only the manager of the port knew that the batteries guarding the port were destroyed one after another, and the situation was getting more and more serious, and the port asked the fleet to attack and rush to the mouth of the Saigon River to support the battery operation, but the commander of the fleet refused, the reason is also very simple, their fleet is all small ships, and the task is only to maintain the security of the port, and to combat low-intensity things such as piracy, and it is not used to engage the enemy fleet at all, and since the enemy dares to attack the port, it must be the battleships that are dispatched, and it is not at all that their own small ships can fight。

At the time of the dispute between the two sides, the KPA fleet had approached the port, first attacking the port battery, the port battery was not as well defended as the port battery, it was all open-air battery, so the three cruisers led by concentrated firepower and bombarded the battery, although the battery also fired back, but both the intensity and density of the firepower were far less than the KPA fleet, and the port battery was quickly destroyed by the KPA fleet one by one.

Then the KPA fleet aimed its guns at the port. The French warships anchored in the harbor could no longer remain indifferent, and immediately set up fire, slowly sailing out of the harbor, and fired back at the KPA fleet.

However, the French warships are all small and medium-sized warships, and the caliber of the guns is not large, and the largest is only 150 mm. The main guns of the Heidi are all 203 mm, and the warships of the People's Army are of course far superior to the French warships, and although the number of warships on both sides is comparable, the French warships are in the harbor, the position is small, and the fleet cannot be fully engaged in the battle, only the four warships in the front can fire without being strong, while the People's Army fleet is on the river outside the port, although the river is not as wide as the sea, but it is much larger than the space in the port, and the warships of the People's Army are not large warships, they can fully deploy on the river, develop their own firepower to the extreme, and naturally and comprehensively suppress the firepower of the French warships。

Moreover, at this time, the warships of the People's Army were shooting at the harbor, and even if they did not hit the French warships, there was a great chance of hitting the merchant ships anchored in the harbor and falling into the water; because of the large number of merchant ships anchored in the harbor now, almost all the berths in the harbor were filled, so even if the merchant ships were not hit, the shells could form a large number of near-miss bombs if they fell into the water, and they could form enough damage to both warships and merchant ships, which was really killing two birds with one stone.

Of course, the large-caliber artillery of the warships of the People's Army is also limited, and most of them are small and medium-caliber artillery, so the French warships are slightly better, although they are all small and medium-sized warships, and there is basically no armor, but the warships are warships after all, whether it is the selection of materials for the hull structure or the design of the watertight compartment, they are much stronger than civilian ships, and they can be carried for a while if they are not in a fatal part after a few rounds of small and medium-caliber shells, and even if they are shot into the water, the crew on the ship has also undergone strict damage management training, and the general danger can also be saved。

In contrast, merchant ships are not good, the material of the hull is far less than that of warships, so even if it is a 75 mm shell, it can also cause a lot of damage to the hull, fortunately, the merchant ships are basically large and medium-sized ships of more than 5,000 tons, and there are more than 10 large ships of 10,000 tons, which are much larger than French warships, and can withstand a while by relying on the huge size, but the greatest threat to merchant ships is the near miss, because the damage of the near miss is mainly aimed at the underwater parts of the ship, and the materials under the waterline of the merchant ship, Even if a 75 mm shell falls into the water within 20 meters of the merchant ship, it will cause the hull of the merchant ship to crack and seep water, and if it is a shell of more than 120 mm, the hull can be completely distorted and deformed.

As a result, the warships and merchant ships in the harbor were hit by artillery one by one, the sound of explosions continued, and the water column rose continuously, because it was a merchant ship, either the hull of the ship made a violent explosion, or under the impact of a near-missed bullet, the hull under the waterline cracked and deformed into the water, and although the sailors on the merchant ship also received some training in emergency damage management, they were mainly aimed at the natural environment, at most they hit the reef and collided with the ship, and there was still a considerable difference between the damage management in the war environment, not to mention that in this war situation, who could care about rescuing the ship and jumped into the water to escape.

However, at this time, the water may not be safer than the ship, not to mention the continuous cannonballs falling into the water and exploding, that is, the fragments produced by the cannonballs hitting the ship are also a very deadly threat to the people in the water, so most of the sailors who jumped into the water to escape for their lives were either killed by the impact of the shells falling into the water and exploding, or died under the broken iron and wooden boards.

At the same time, some of the shells fired by the KPA warships fell on the shore and exploded, hitting the hotels, taverns, and shops on the shore, and the houses collapsed immediately, causing a little flame.

The boilers of some merchant ships have not been extinguished, so they also hurriedly added fire to boil water, and started the ships to leave the port to evade, but the waterway of the port was already narrow, and now it is full of ships, and the warships have to line up one by one to leave the port in turn, there are still vacant seats for the merchant ships to leave the port, and one merchant ship panicked, regardless of whether there is a block in front of it, rushed out of the port, and then it actually hit the warship, but blocked the waterway out of the port, and some of the ships behind could not turn around, some were in a panic, and some tried to hit a road, as a result, more than 10 warships and merchant ships had a series of collisions, and some sankSome of them ran aground, some of them were stuck, and they couldn't move, and the waterways out of the port were blocked, and the remaining warships and merchant ships could only be blocked in the harbor to be bombed.

There were only 3 French warships that escaped from the port, 2 cruisers and 1 destroyer, of which this destroyer was originally lined up behind the cruiser, because the situation was not good, it immediately accelerated and relied on its own small size, and simply overtook the 2 cruisers and escaped from the port, and as soon as the destroyer sailed out of the port, the cruiser behind was hit by a series of collisions and hit the side and rear, crossed the water, stuck with another cruiser, blocked the waterway out of the port, and the ships behind could not get out.

However, the three French warships that escaped from the port did not attack the KPA warships, because the officers and men on the three French warships knew that it was impossible to defeat the KPA fleet, and at this time they still cared about their own lives, so after escaping from the port, the three French warships immediately turned to sail towards the upper reaches of the Saigon River.

When the KPA warships saw it, they did not pursue it, and Bi Jing's sinking of these warships was a trivial matter, and destroying the entire port was the main task this time, so he ignored the fleeing warships and still opened fire on the port, and there was no need to aim anyway, as long as the shells were fired into the port.

After nearly an hour of shelling, the entire port of Saigon was already in a sea of fire, not only illuminating the night, but also reflecting the sky and water in a fiery red, and as far as the eye could see, there was hardly a single mast standing in the harbor, and if you were in the harbor, you could still see that the water surface was basically covered with broken hulls and corpses, and only a few people were still struggling desperately in the water.

At this time, the Haimi and Haisha, who had been ordered to support, also rushed to the vicinity of the harbor and joined the fleet, but by this time the task of destroying the harbor had been completed, but soon the fleet received a new order to bombard the shore facilities and buildings near the harbor.

It turned out that after Wang Hailong received the report of the fleet, he was also very happy, but he didn't expect it to go so smoothly. The Haisha had already arrived at the port, and the two warships could not be allowed to run in vain, and at this time, there was no force on the Saigon side that could threaten the fleet, so Wang Hailong decided to expand the scope of the attack on Saigon, not only the shore facilities of Saigon Port, but also the buildings near the port, as long as they were within the range of artillery, all of them were included in the new strike range, in short, the greater the damage to Saigon, the better.

Today, I finally have a new one, and I hope you will continue to support this book. If the chapter is screened or deleted, please join the Armada Readership 415359670 and it will be posted in the group.