The French, to be precise, are the French who put on the coat of the Spaniards and then the coat of the Americans, and they do things professionally. As soon as the agreement between the three parties was reached, they immediately went into action.

Minelaying operations were carried out at night to avoid detection by the British, and even if they were discovered, it would be easier to escape. Even for this reason, Bray chose to choose when there was no bright moon. In this era, the navy is almost completely operational in this situation.

But when working at night like this, there is another problem, that is, how to accurately position it in the dark night. Otherwise, it is stipulated that mines will be laid in "Area 1" tonight and in "Area 2" tomorrow. However, because it was too dark to determine the direction, the mines that were supposed to be laid in the "No. 1 area" were laid in the "No. 2 area", and then the next day they were successfully positioned and ran to the "No. 2 area", but they were blown away by the mines they had laid.

As for navigation, it is not difficult, only six kilometers east of the port of Algesias is the port of Gibraltar, and the lighthouse of the port of Algesia, the lighthouse of the fortress of Gibraltar, and the lights at another location on the Spanish side can easily determine the location of the ship.

After the Spaniards declared that they wanted to take back Gibraltar, the British Navy naturally raised its alert level. Even at night, the British observation posts were on alert.

It was the first quarter moon, and the moon came out early, and of course, it set just as early, but in the second half of the night, the moon went down, but the sun had not yet come out, and only a dark blue sky remained, and everything fell asleep except a few sentinels.

Private Hamm has just arrived to take over, and it says that you must be extra vigilant these days, because the situation is very tense, and something may happen. So Hamm was very vigilant at his own post. It's just that it's pitch black now, and you can't see anything on the sea, especially on the sea.

At times like these, the ears are more important than the eyes.

In the darkness, the sea breeze blows, bringing the roar of the waves. Hamm listened to the sound of the waves in boredom, and somehow remembered his old home in Scotland......

At this moment, Hamm suddenly heard a "thump" from the distance on the sea, like a big fish jumping up and falling back into the sea.

"Maybe it's dolphins." Hamm thought. In this bay, many times you can see schools of dolphins, jumping happily there. But it's all daytime, it's night, and those dolphins don't sleep?

But this is a dolphin thing, it has nothing to do with Hamm, and the sea is so dark that you can't see anything anyway.

"Boom!" Another bang.

"It looks like those dolphins are very lively, big nights, don't sleep honestly, and don't know what they're doing." Hamm was thinking like this, and soon, his thoughts began to drift away, and he didn't know where to go. It's like Virginia Woolf, who later came to life, when she suddenly saw a spot on the wall one day in January.

Then the dark sea began to magically transform, and on the dark curtain appeared jumping dolphins, just like the dolphins Hamm had seen on the cliffs off the coast of Scotland as a child. At that time, the sea breeze was blowing like this, but the sea breeze in Scotland was much cooler than here, unlike here, even the wind was hot and wet......

Thinking like this, Hamm suddenly heard footsteps, and from this footstep, he knew that it was Captain Helrington who had come to check the post. So he quickly clenched the rifle in his hand and made a look of loyalty.

Sure enough, he soon saw Captain Hairington carrying a lantern and turning around the corner from that side.

"Well, private, yes, very spirited!" Captain Hellington was obviously pleased with Hamm's state at this time, and he reached out and patted Hamm on the shoulder, "Is there any movement?" ”

"Sir, it's nothing, it's just that the dolphins in the bay are very active tonight, and they are always jumping around." Hamm replied.

"I've heard that sometimes when a shark or killer whale is approaching, the dolphin may jump out of the water often because of the panic." Captain Hairington replied. Obviously, he didn't think it was a big deal. Anyway, neither sharks nor killer whales can swim ashore to attack them.

The dolphins were busy all night, and it didn't stop until dawn.

The next morning, a ship carrying food from North Africa suddenly exploded as it entered the port of Gibraltar and quickly sank to the bottom of the sea. Immediately afterwards, a British patrol ship that went out to rescue people also exploded.

The huge explosion directly blew the thin patrol ship in two.

"Mines! This must have been done by the damned Spaniards, they must have secretly laid mines in our waterways! The commander of the fortress, General Will, jumped up at once.

The news of the appearance of mines in the shipping channel of the port of Gibraltar spread all over Europe at once. The British immediately summoned the Spanish ambassador and demanded an immediate explanation from Spain.

In response to the accusations of the British, the Spaniards immediately said: I am not, I am not, don't talk nonsense! The Spaniards openly stated that Spain had nothing to do with the mine incident at the port of Gibraltar.

Immediately after that, the US ambassador to France announced the convening of a press conference, at which the US ambassador announced that it was the warriors of the US Navy who attacked the British in the port of Gibraltar with mines. The US ambassador also said that this was a counterattack to the crimes against humanity committed by the British Navy in the United States. The warriors of the U.S. Navy will continue to launch such attacks in the future, and the scope of the attack will not be limited to Gibraltar.

"We will fight in Gibraltar, we will fight in Ireland, we will fight in Scotland and Wales, we will fight in England, in the heart of the enemy - London. We will return to the British the flames of war, the tyranny that the British have brutally inflicted on other peoples! ”

In the eyes of the vast majority of countries, the Americans' statement is quite credible. Now the news of the British burning of Savannah has spread throughout Europe. The newspapers under the direction of the Ministry of Truth went to great lengths to portray the British as even more terrifying than Genghis Khan.

The whole continent, almost all the countries, all the media immediately followed suit and began to criticize the barbarism of the British. Now the Americans claim that it was their navy that had crossed the ocean to take revenge. Everyone felt that it made sense, and they all liked it.

Originally, when everyone still suspected that the Spaniards had laid mines on the route outside the port of Gibraltar, although considering that Spain was an ally of France, they generally did not explicitly accuse him, but everyone also felt that it was really ungentlemanly to force the British by such an obscene way as laying mines without declaring war.

But now, since the Americans claim that they did it, everyone believes it and even apologizes a little for the Spaniards for carrying the black pot. And everyone also believes that given the appalling crimes committed by the British in Savannah, it is legitimate and just for the Americans to fight back, no matter what means they use. Now everyone does not think that the Americans are not gentlemanly enough to use the method of laying mines to fight back, but they feel that the Americans' approach is too much in line with the law of Moses.

Even the British are somewhat skeptical of the Americans' claims. They know that the United States itself does not have the technical capabilities to produce mines. Neither the British nor the French had any intention of spreading technology to the outside world. So the mines of the Americans, without even thinking about it, must have been sold to them by the French.

Of course, the British also knew that the French would never admit it. This thing, like the two colonial cruisers that the French later leased to the Americans, was transferred through second-lane traffickers. In short, nothing to do with the French.

If it was really the Americans who did it, then why did the Americans choose Gibraltar instead of the British mainland? But after a little thought, the British have the answer.

The Americans had come from afar, and they were not familiar with the hydrology of Europe, so it would be very difficult to launch such an operation. So they definitely need the help and cooperation of other countries to accomplish such a thing. And the Spaniards were playing Gibraltar's idea, and the Spaniards must have helped these Yankees a lot. Considering that just before this incident, an officer's club on the Spaniards' side suddenly had to be renovated, and its renovation was actually carried out at night, so they lit a very bright electric light on the scene.

"General, here is our lighthouse, here's the Spaniard's lighthouse, and here's the lamp for nighttime renovation. As soon as these three lights are turned on, ships at sea at night can easily calculate their exact position based on the measurement of the angle of the three lights. "At the Gibraltar Fortress, the commander, General Will, was listening to the technical reports of his subordinates.

"So if we turn off our own lighthouse at night, we won't be able to locate these Yankees?" Another staff officer present asked.

"It's not that simple. Even if we turn off our lighthouse, they will light another light in another place. General Will said, "The only way to do this now is that they come to lay mines at night, and we go to mine clearing during the day." ”

During the operation against the Barbary pirates, the French demonstrated their minesweeping capabilities. The British soon learned about this, and through the questioning of eyewitnesses, the British quickly figured out the basic principle of minesweeping by the French minesweepers. So the British soon also copied out their minesweepers.

So the British drove the minesweeper out, and the British minesweeper A went up, and the British minesweeper swept out more than a dozen anchor mines, and then a passage into the port was opened, and then a ship entering the port hit a mine and exploded again.

The French, knowing that the British had also copied minesweepers, improved their anchor mines. There is an anchor mine, where two mines are connected by a rope that is not thick. The anchor chain of one of the anchor mines was unfolded and exploded whenever a ship touched it. On the other hand, the anchor chain on its mine body was tightened, so the mine body also sank under the water, and only the first mine exploded, or was swept away (both processes. The rope connecting them will break), and then after more than ten minutes or more, the anchor chain of the second mine will be released, and the mine body will float to a depth that can touch the bottom of the enemy's ship.

The effect of this is that when the minesweeper has just cleared an area, it may be more than ten minutes before the area becomes unsafe again. Just like this time, a passage had just been cleared, and as a result, the ship that had entered the harbor along the passage ran headlong into an anchor mine that had just floated.

And in the evening, the "Americans", naturally, went out again and continued to lay mines outside the port of Gibraltar. Then, the British came to mine sweep during the day, and the "Americans" came to lay mines at night, which was quite busy.

With the exception of Gibraltar, the various port cities of the United Kingdom have raised their vigilance - who knows if the "Americans" will sneak over and drop a string of mines on the course of your port? All the ports throughout Britain have been fortified and even night patrols are being organized.

Naturally, these moves have greatly increased the burden on the British government, making it even more difficult for the British government, which is already in a financial crisis. In order to cope with the current situation, the British government has had to rely on the continuous issuance of government bonds to solve the deficit problem. But because people are now generally not optimistic about the UK, the sales of British government bonds have become so problematic that they have to agree to offer high discounts to the banks that sell them, which is actually equivalent to bearing higher interest rates, which is closer to a way of quenching thirst.

This situation also made it impossible for the British to send new reinforcements in North America. Even the order to return the fleet has already been given. It's just that the fleet has not yet received such an order.

While the British were focused on the mainland and Gibraltar, a merchant ship had just left Rotterdam for Cape Town. A cobbler named Philip boarded the ship, which is also a common occurrence, and now that the economy in Europe is not in good times, some craftsmen are having a hard time, and many people choose to go to the Americas, India or Africa. This leatherman named Philip may have been one of them.