Immediately after receiving a sudden blow, the Turkish detachment lost the courage to move on, turned around and began to move away from the Tripoli battery. In the process, two more ships were hit by batteries, but the losses from solid shells were not so great.

This was the end of the tentative offensive. After the Turks had finished attacking, the Barbary pirates were active again, and two of their ships left the harbor and began to throw large barrels into the sea just outside the harbor.

"The pirates are laying mines! Sir, shall we stop them? Major Kohler hurried.

"What did we promise? The agreed deadline will not be reached until tomorrow, right? Admiral Trever asked.

"Yes, Your Excellency, but they are actively threatening our freedom of navigation." Major Kohler replied.

"Ah, so we're fighting back in self-defense?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. I'm pretty sure. ”

"That's good! Since they have taken the initiative to threaten us, then we should not hesitate to fight back and never give the enemy a chance to fire a second shot......"

So several warships of the French fleet armed with new guns, the battleships "Anbrado", "Caesar", the armored cruisers "Free Trade", "Common Market" lined up, and the turrets on the warships began to turn, and the barrels were pointed at the target.

"Ships aim at their targets and fire freely." Admiral Trevier gave the order, and the four newest ships opened fire. At this time, the distance between the French warships and the minelaying ships of the Barbary pirates was still quite long, about 1.5 kilometers.

If it was before, even on land, it would have been difficult to hit an artillery strike at such a distance. And even more so at sea? However, the effect of this round of shooting greatly exceeded everyone's expectations, although the first round of salvo did not hit even a single shell. But judging from the landing point of the shells, the nearest landing point and the pirate ships were only a few tens of meters.

Based on the landing point observed by the observation post, the French fleet quickly made adjustments and fired another volley. The salvo still failed to hit, but the result of the shot made Admiral Treville very happy. Because the observation post clearly saw that a straddle was formed in this volley.

The so-called straddle fire refers to the fact that although the salvo of the warship did not directly hit the enemy ship, the range of its landing point surrounded the enemy ship. Figuratively, there are shells falling on the front and rear of the enemy ship, which also means that all kinds of data on the shelling side are very correct, and whether it hits or not is completely a matter of probability at this time, as long as you play a few more rounds, you will definitely get a hit.

This round of straddle shots also frightened the Barbary pirates. They never imagined that at such a distance, the French shells could hit so accurately, and the column of water stirred up by the shells just now splashed on the deck.

"Quick, drop those mines!" Captain Ali shouted.

A few black men dragged a small cart with a mine to the stern of the boat. They pushed the cart up a chute at the stern of the boat. A black crew member pulled out a knife and prepared to cut the rope on the mine—so that the cart, the anchor chain, and so on could be separated from the mine, and the mine could work properly and effectively. But at this moment, a cannonball landed on the shell of the boat, and the splash of sea water fell on the deck at once, and one of the black men who controlled the cart slipped under his feet, so that the mine, which had not yet been cut from the rope, slid down the slipway with the cart.

"Hell, you idiot! You've wasted a precious mine, do you know how expensive it is! Captain Ali whipped his leather whip and rushed over, ready to teach these stupid negroes a hard lesson. But then his ship shook violently, and at the same time a loud bang reached his ears - his ship had been hit by a cannonball.

"Quick, retreat!" Captain Ali didn't care about whipping the blacks, and he still had a few mines on his ship that hadn't had time to drop. These things, if they were hit by a shell, would be a real ......

The brig made a clumsy turn and was ready to return to the port, but by this time the French shells rained down.

"The true God is great, Mamat is the messenger of the true God...... Ali quickly prayed to the true God while operating the steering wheel himself, constantly making irregular turns to avoid the shelling.

It seems that the true God has blessed him, so after that, the French shelling has always been a little bit worse than his ship. Several times the shells fell not far from the ship, and the splash of water even poured on his head, but it did not hit his ship.

"O God, please land your thunder on those rebels!" Seeing that the French had already opened fire, but the pirate ship had always dodged the shells as if it had been divinely helped, Tayip Pasha could not resist praying so devoutly to the true God.

By this time, Captain Ali's brig was approaching the port. And the French don't seem to be chasing it anymore, and they must sink it. They fired the last salvo at a great distance, and then - and then the brig exploded to pieces with a thud right in front of Tayyip Pasha's eyes - apparently a shell hit the ship and detonated the mine.

"God is great! God is great! Tayyip Pasha cheered, and the Turkish soldiers around him cheered with him. If Joseph had seen this scene, he would have felt déjà vu, the only difference being that there were two things missing. One is an AK-47, the other is a Toyota pickup.

That was the end of the day's fighting, the French made no further moves, and the Turks, having lost a single warship, had no intention of continuing the attack, and the sun was sinking below sea level. So the day's combat operations looked like it was over.

In fact, the military operation of the day did not end, and in the evening, from the Turkish fleet, several small boats were rowed. These small boats were loaded with the bravest warriors, who were ordered to go ashore first, blend into the harbor, and wait for the arrival of the army as a response.

On the same night, the Barbary pirates also organized a night raid party, consisting of dloops loaded with explosives, with the intention of attacking the Turkish fleet. As for why not to attack the French fleet, the reason was simple, because the French ships were moving too fast and they simply did not have a chance to get close.

However, the situation that night was not very suitable for such an attack, because it was a good night and the visibility at sea was quite good, so the night raiding fleet was discovered before it could get close. Then the Turks drove the dhow back with a burst of artillery fire.

Of course, neither the Turks nor the French tried to pursue these pirates. Because everyone knows that these pirates are very bad, their ships have a shallow draft, and they can't hit the anchor mines hidden in the sea, but if you chase them stupidly, maybe they will boom......

Of course, that night, the Barbary pirates came out again to lay mines. The French didn't care too much, though, because as far as they knew, the British sold a limited number of mines to the Barbary pirates, definitely much less than the Turks' ships - so, what else to worry about? Besides, anchor mines, especially anchor mines in this era, actually have a lot of restrictions, and it's not really that there are no ways to deal with them.

The next morning, when the sun stained the sea red again, the French had an ultimatum to the Barbary pirates. Now, the war can officially begin.

According to the plan agreed by the two sides at the operational meeting last night, today will be the first fire strike by the French Navy on the batteries in Tripoli, while the Turkish fleet will first have to wait patiently until the noon tide rises. According to the French, the British mine relied on a fixed-length anchor chain to control its depth in the water. The length of this anchor chain is fixed, so when the tide is high, the mines will appear a little too deep to reach the bottom of the ship. Therefore, the Turkish fleet at this time, rushing up is relatively safe.

Of course, this is just a conjecture of the French, and no one can say for sure what the actual situation is. Still, Tayyip Pasha believed in the French very much - he needed merit, and as for how many people died, it was not a big deal.

By about eight o'clock in the morning, the visibility at sea was already quite good, and the four new French warships lined up in a column and launched an artillery attack on the Tripoli battery from a distance of about four kilometers from the Tripoli battery.

In this era, no warship, except for the French, could shell targets on the shore at such a distance. Even in France, because the artillery stabilization system is not mature, this distance is almost the distance at which they can slightly guarantee the accuracy of shelling.

But this time, the French Navy still came up with something good, and that was high-explosive shells. Although the effectiveness of the fuse of this shell has been a problem until now, and it is not even 60 percent, and it cannot be mass-produced, it can only be produced in the laboratory, but compared with the solid shells of the past, this kind of shell has a revolutionary improvement in power. The entire French fleet carried about eighty or more of these shells, which the French used in this shelling.

At that time, because there had never been a high-explosive bomb before. Therefore, most of the cannons on the forts at that time were placed in the open air, and at most a few pieces of cloth were propped up on them as awnings.

If you don't take into account the threat of high-explosive shells falling from the sky, there is nothing wrong with adding an awning to the cannon. Especially in this day and age, it is almost impossible for the artillery of the Navy to accurately hit another cannon. Naturally, there is no need to add a thick concrete cover to the cannon that can withstand the direct hit of the tall cabinet, as was the case with the forts of later generations. In the era when there were no high-explosive shells, adding such a cover to the battery was a complete waste of money.

But in the era of high-explosive bombs, such an open-air, well-positioned battery that could be clearly seen by warships at sea was no longer very safe. The French fired twenty shells in a row at the turret during the first round of shelling. Excluding the crooked ones, which did not explode, there were still seven shells that exploded on the battery.

The high-explosive shells of a 150 mm cannon are incredibly powerful, and when it explodes (if it can explode), it can produce thousands of shrapnel that can easily tear through the human body even after flying forty or fifty meters. So these shells swept away all the soldiers on the battery, including Commander Barbary who was directing the operation, more than 100 people, who survived under such shelling.

On the other hand, the air waves set off by high-explosive shells even knocked the cannons on the batteries to the ground. It can be said that after such a round of shelling, in a short time, the Tripoli battery has completely lost its threat.

After this round of shelling, the French fleet stopped firing guns, after all, the cost of high-explosive shells was too high, the price was too high - at least much more expensive than the Turkish soldiers - and if they could be saved, they had to be saved.

After the French bombardment, the tide gradually rose, and the Turkish warships began to ride the tide and approach the port. Sure enough, as the French expected, the British anchor mines did not automatically adjust the depth, and at high tide, because the depth was too deep, none of them sounded.

With the mines not sounding and the batteries being suppressed, the Turkish fleet quickly approached the harbor and lowered its sampans, and some Turkish soldiers got into small boats with various weapons and rowed their oars towards the harbor pier.

The Barbary pirates were not vegetarians either, although the French shelling had caused them heavy losses, and the mines bought from the British at a high price were not as good today as yesterday, but their resistance was still very resolute.

The Barbary pirates bought from the British, in addition to some mines, as well as a number of cheap iron cannons. The performance of these guns was not very good, so they were not eligible to be put on the turret. So the Barbary pirates put them directly on the docks, hidden them in the dilapidated houses, and when the Turks approached in small boats, they used these old cannons and shrapnel them to give the Turks a hard blow.

The continuous fire of more than 30 old iron cannons bleed the Turkish soldiers who were still in the boats with nowhere to escape. The Turkish warships rushed up and used their artillery to support their own soldiers. The Barbary pirates also exchanged iron cannons for solid shells to bombard Turkish warships.

A cannonball fired from such an old iron cannon, if it hits the new warship of the French, it can only be heard. But on the warships of the Turks, which are full of historical weight, the effect is very obvious. In less than an hour of engagement, two Turkish warships were sunk, and six or seven warships were damaged to varying degrees.

Some of the Turkish soldiers were lucky enough to get ashore, but they were immediately caught up in the fire of the pirates, armed with various firearms, hiding in various houses, and suffered heavy casualties.

Time passed slowly, and the tide began to fall, but the Turks did not make much progress. Once the tide level drops to a certain point, those mines are useful again. In order to avoid the loss of warships due to mines, the Turks had to withdraw from the battle.