The commander of the fortress, Lieutenant Colonel Antoine de Villefort, was a tall man in his forties. He seemed pleased with Joseph's visit.

"Ah, Monsieur Bonaparte, I thought it would be a few days before you came." Commander Villefort said, "I didn't expect you to come so quickly. Well, do you need to take a break? ”

"Thanks, but no." "Actually, I arrived last night," Joseph said. It was just late when I arrived, so I just rested in the hostel for the night. So I don't need any more rest. ”

"Being young is enviable." Commander Villefort smiled, "When I was your age, I didn't feel tired no matter how busy I was. Since you don't need to rest, we can start the work related to the expansion of the battery. Well, Captain Cisse, you take Monsieur Bonaparte to settle in, and then take him to the library to consult the relevant materials, and take him on field trips. Ah, Monsieur Bonaparte, if you need anything, you can speak directly to Cissé. ”

"Thank you for your attention." Joseph replied.

Coming out of the building, Cisse asked, "Monsieur Bonaparte, where are your luggage?" ”

"It's still in the hotel." Joseph replied.

"Which hotel?" "I can send two people to bring your luggage." Well, we'll arrange for you to live in the officer's quarters over there. The conditions here can't be compared with Paris, so I can only grieve you. ”

"It's a small inn called 'Claude's Inn.'" Joseph replied, "Besides, you can just call me Joseph." ”

"Ah, 'Claude's Inn'?" Cisse laughed, "Joseph, you must have lived there because it was close to the port, and it looked good from the outside, and the price was affordable, right?" Well, you must not have slept well last night. Their hotel beds are notoriously buggy! As if afraid that Joseph would think he was laughing at him, Cisse added: "Well, I've fallen for them before." The owner, Claude, is a capable guy, but his mind is not on how to run the hotel at all. Well, I'll take you to the officers' quarters first......"

The officers' quarters in the fortress of Calais are actually slightly better than the teachers' quarters of the Paris Military Academy, after all, the price of land and other things here is much cheaper than in Paris.

Once settled, it was already noon. Cisse took Joseph to the officers' canteen for lunch. Calais is close to the sea, and the variety of fish is much more abundant and cheaper than in Paris.

"Let me say that your life is much better than in Paris. The money we get in Paris is no different from yours, but the prices in Paris are much more expensive than here. Joseph slurred, shoving a piece of fish meat into his mouth.

"But Paris is Paris after all." "It's true that Paris is more expensive, but most people here still prefer to go to Paris." Well, these places in the provinces are actually more suitable for retirement, but not particularly for young people, who should go to Paris if they want to achieve something. If I could go to Paris, I'd rather put up with higher prices. If it's just for the money, it's more money to go overseas. It's just that for people like us who don't have much access, it's not easy to get to Paris. ”

It is true that Paris has more opportunities, and for the ambitious, Paris is unmatched by any provincial city.

"Perhaps, well, Cisse, you're an artillery captain, right?" Joseph said suddenly.

"Yes? What's wrong? Cisse asked.

"I also want to ask you about some things about the fort, after all, I'm just a math student, and I don't know a lot about cannons." Joseph explained.

"Oh, I thought you knew a way to get me to Paris." Cisse joked.

"Well, as far as I know, the Paris Military Academy has been lacking a marine specialist. If you can do it......" Joseph said jokingly.

"Hell, I'm seasick!" "Is there no other place where there is a shortage of people?" ”

"I haven't heard of it yet." Joseph shook his head and said, "Aren't you in the navy?" How can you get seasick? ”

Cisse's face flushed slightly: "Navy...... The navy does not have to take ships, and it is also the navy that guards the harbor forts. I served in the harbor battery, and I didn't have to get on board. My gunnery is good, and you won't find a better gunner in the entire navy than me. If it weren't for seasickness...... By the way, don't you need artillery instructors in your school? ”

"I haven't heard of this yet." "And you know, even if there is a need, there will probably be an army officer for this position." ”

Unlike Britain, which is across the sea, France has always been a so-called land power. In the French army, the status and influence of the army are greater than those of the navy.

"That's it." Cisse was a little disappointed, but he still said, "Joseph, you know a lot in Paris, and if you know any way, I hope you will remember me." ”

"I'm sure I remember." Joseph said.

Joseph's answer was not all polite, he also needed to pull a little relationship in the navy. In the next few years, the harvest in the north of France has not been very good, but there is actually no shortage of food in the south of France, just because France at this time is still a feudal country, and there are many domestic checkpoints, which artificially leads to an increase in the cost of commodity transportation. If we can get grain directly from the south through the relationship with the navy, and then use the navy's warships to transport it to the northern ports, we can make a lot of profits. If it was smuggled directly from Britain across the sea, the profits would be even higher.

"Calais is also a good place, it is one of the most important ports in the north. There will also be a lot of opportunities financially. Joseph added, "You have a lot of opportunities here." Maybe I need your help with something. In short, we are friends, and if we have the opportunity in the future, we must help each other, don't you say? ”

"You're right. That's a foregone conclusion. "Cisse Road.

In the days that followed, Joseph and designer Michel discussed plans to renovate the battery. As the commander of the artillery on the battery, Cisse was also involved.

"The first requirement of the fort was to be able to control the passage of ships in and out of the port. Our current battery is not enough to control the entire waterway. So we plan to build a new battery in this location, so that the two batteries can work together and the channel in and out of the port can be controlled......" Michelle said, pointing to the drawings.

"The location should be good." Joseph looked at the drawings and said, "Is there anything I need to calculate?" ”

"Mainly, some data on the trajectory of artillery. There is also a lot of specific design for the entire fortress that needs your opinion. Michelle replied.

"Unfortunately, the existing artillery, and the lack of suitable heights in the vicinity, have resulted in our artillery firing too close, and although it can barely cover the escort road, it is far from enough to cover the fleet leaving the port to open up the formation. In case the fleet is blocked in the port, there is still no way to go out of the port to fight. Joseph added.

Naval operations need to be lined up first. Only in this way can it be convenient to give full play to the firepower and maneuver, so that one moment one's own people will block one's own shooting range, and one moment one's own warships will collide with each other while maneuvering. Space in the military port is limited, and the fleet will certainly not be able to complete the formation in the port. To complete the formation, it is necessary to first sail the ship to the wide sea outside the port. And once the enemy fleet preemptively blocked the entrance to the port, they naturally would not allow the warships in the port to leave the port and then form a formation. It will definitely attack the fleet that has left the port before it has time to form a team. If the range of the guns of the harbor batteries was long enough, it would have been possible to provide protection for the fleet outgoing formations.

To do this, there are generally two ways. One is to install a giant cannon on a casemate. One of the major advantages of the battery over warships is the carrying capacity. The turret is built on solid ground, so you don't have to worry about being crushed by the cannons, so you can place a huge cannon on it that is much larger than that on a warship. And a larger cannon is always easier to have a larger range.

However, there are problems with this approach. The first is that the production cost of giant cannons is too high. And then the rate of fire of the giant cannons is too low, such as the Turkish city's urban cannon, which can fire up to seven cannons a day. Of course, that was in the fifteenth century, but the current cannons still have a very limited increase in the rate of fire. Such a slow rate of fire is not enough to complete the task of covering the deployment of the fleet.

The second method is to place the artillery in the highest possible position. This significantly increases the range of the gun. Considering that the position of the cannons on the turret is stable, unlike those guns on the ship that will shake with the ship, (because the guns of the ship are shaking, as long as the target is a little farther away, the cannonballs do not know where they will fly), so the effective range will naturally be larger. In this way, it will be possible to provide a space for the warships in the harbor to spread out in formation.

However, there are no natural highlands in Calais near the port. If you want to achieve this effect, you have to build a high ground by hand. This requires more manpower and material resources, or to put it more bluntly, more money.

"The Navy does not think that there will be any fleet in the port of Calais that needs to be lined up. Therefore, the battery only needed to be able to block the shipping lane and prevent the enemy from attacking the port. Designer Michel replied, "Calais is not Toulon after all." At most, there will be one or two corvettes here. Calais is still mainly a commercial port, merchant ships or something, but there is no need to line up the battle line. You look at Dover on the other side, where there is natural high ground, and it is much easier to build a fort than here, but even so, the British did not put a few warships there. ”

Because the scale of the newly built fort was limited, the difficulty of the whole project was relatively low. This was not a bad thing for Joseph, who was new to this kind of thing.