Chapter 211, The United Kingdom is the world's No. 1 in science and technology

Just when France experienced a political earthquake and Napoleon was appointed to Dicktido, no, it should be the first consul, there was also a violent shock in British politics.

The Whigs violently attacked Tory rule and focused their criticism on Prime Minister William Pitt Jr. They accused him of being to blame for Britain's defeat on the European continent. At this time, Prime Minister Pitt was at odds with King George III over religious policy in Ireland.

The King of England in this period was not yet a pure national symbol of the later period. The king still had a high level of authority and power. Pitt Jr. was able to ascend to the position of prime minister in his twenties, and the most important thing was that he had the support of the king. It was the alliance with the King that enabled Pitt Jr. and the Tories to suppress the Whigs, who had long dominated politics, and became Prime Minister and the ruling party in Britain. Of course, Pitt Jr. always called himself a "Whig", but neither the Whigs nor the Tories recognized it.

King George III has always been very supportive of Pitt Jr., but when it comes to religious issues, the two men are at odds with each other. In order to soften the Irish, Pitt Jr. proposed that Catholic activities could be allowed in Ireland as a legitimate activity. This may have been beneficial to the division of the Irish, but it touched the king's scales.

In England, since Cromwell's revolution, the king's staunchest supporters have been the Anglican Church. This church is counted among Protestants, but the similarities between the "Protestantism" of the Anglican Church and Catholicism are much greater than the authentic Protestantisms of Lutheranism and Calvinism on the European continent. With the exception of the Roman pope, who was replaced by the King of England, they were almost indistinguishable from Catholicism in terms of doctrine, rituals, and even clothing.

Generally speaking, if the two religions are very different, it will naturally bring about struggle. But if the difference is small, it does not mean peace, it just means a more intense struggle. Heretics are hateful, but heretics are more hateful than heretics, and the less we disagree, the more hateful they areβ€”the more likely they are to bewitch our flock!

For the Anglican Church, the right to recognize the legitimate activities of the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom, even if only in Ireland, is a great threat to the Anglican Church. Today, the Anglican Church is the political base of the English king. Although George III suffered from porphyria, when the disease was severe, he even developed mental disorders, such as in 1788, when George III became ill with a large oak tree and thought of a large oak tree as the king of Prussia, and argued with it about some important issue for more than two hours. But when he didn't get sick, he was still very conscious.

Although the king had always admired little Pete, he would never allow little Pete to do so as long as he was not ill in such matters. As a result, the prime minister lost his most important supporter at this most dangerous moment.

In the end, in order to keep the power of the Tory, at this critical moment, it is natural that he can only wronged little Pete and let him carry the pot first. So after Napoleon seized Hanover, Pitt Jr. took the blame and resigned.

It is said that when Henry Addington, who succeeded him, arrived at Pete's office, he was directing the servants to pack their things and prepare to leave. A servant rolled up the large map of Europe hanging on the wall and stuffed it into a box to take away, just in time for little Pete to see. So the former prime minister shouted: "That map is for Henry!" ”

The servant hurriedly prepared to put the map back up, but little Pete suddenly smiled bitterly; "Forget it, put it away, don't hang it up, anyway, in the next ten years, I estimate that the British Prime Minister will no longer need to look at the map of Europe."

In fact, in the face of the current situation, the new Prime Minister Henry Addington has nothing to do. But sometimes, changing hands is like changing knives, changing people, maybe you can change a kind of luck.

This is like some football clubs in later generations, when the results are sparse, they often ignore the three-seven-twenty-one and try to change the coach first. And it's true that there are many times when a new coach is replaced, and even though the new coach has done almost nothing, the team's luck suddenly improves.

In the past, in a game, dozens of shots on goal and more than a dozen shots on target, even a goal could not go in; Now it's a different coach, five or six shots at a game, one or two shots on target, and then they all score. Even in the past, whenever someone hit our goalpost, the ball would bounce into the net, and if we hit someone's goalpost, the ball would be ejected. But after the change of coach, the situation immediately reversed. There are more than one or two such things.

The British seem to have had the same effect with this change of prime minister, and only two weeks after the new prime minister took office, there was good news from the British navy: they had spent a lot of money to develop a new type of ship that had been successfully tested in the test. According to the Navy, with such vessels, they would certainly make the French smuggling route to Ireland much less efficient.

In the previous period, Britain and France were busy with wars on the European continent, so the Irish side was stopped for a while, the British had no troops, and the Irish did not get much supplies, so everyone could only play a little during this time.

Today, France has won an indisputable victory on the European continent and has received large reparations. The rest of the matter is not to be thought of by everyone, and they will certainly greatly increase their support for the rebellion in Ireland.

This is also one of the reasons why the Tory Party has gone wrong, although Pitt Jr. lost the position of Prime Minister, but the position of Prime Minister is still in the hands of the Tories, because the Whigs generally believe that the current market has neither shown signs of improving, nor is it bad to the extreme, and it is not the right time to buy the bottom. If you rush out to copy the bottom now, if you don't do well, you will copy it halfway up the mountain and trap yourself.

Upon receiving this news, Prime Minister Addington was overjoyed, and he immediately ran to the Admiralty to find out the situation.

"Your Excellency, this is a model of our new ship." In the Admiralty, an officer of the Navy began to explain the relevant knowledge to Prime Minister Addington in front of several models.

"Well, why is this ship so ...... So weird? "As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Addington could not have been unfamiliar with ships. But this kind of boat, the appearance is really, really a little ugly, far less beautiful than the model of the French clipper boat that is placed on the side.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, look at the Frenchman's clipper next to you. The freeboard of such a ship was low, the waves were severe, and it shook so badly that it was completely impossible to equip with cannons. However, because it is so fast, it does not need to be equipped with artillery at all, and all ships that can carry artillery cannot catch up with it anyway.

As you know, in order to intercept these high-speed smuggling boats, we also copied a batch of these ships at one time. And then intercept them in the most traditional way of fighting at sea. However, the enemy quickly changed their tactics and developed naval weapons similar to the Byzantine 'Greek Fire', which caught us off guard and suffered a lot. ”

Prime Minister Addington listened and nodded. He knew about these circumstances before he took office.

"But now the situation is different, now that we have this new ship, we will not only be able to catch up with the enemy in speed, but also be able to equip it with artillery and use it to solve the battle." The officer continued.

"Is this the ship? It doesn't look like it can run fast. Addington asked.

In their study of clippers, the British also concluded several reasons why clippers can run so fast, one of which is the exaggerated aspect ratio and smooth lines. But neither of these things can be seen on this boat.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, we have a steam engine on this ship." The officer said, "Look at the two paddle wheels next to here, they turn with the steam engine, and they can propel the ship forward. ”

"So, can a ship of ours catch up with the smuggling ships of the French?" Addington asked.

"Not necessarily." The officer shook his head, "The French clipper boat can reach about 15 knots at the fastest, and our kind of boat can only run to eleven knots at the fastest. ”

"How's that going to work?" Prime Minister Addington said.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, after all, we are still an experimental ship, and there is still room for further improvement. In addition, the clipper ship is not able to run to fifteen knots at any time, and the speed of the clipper ship will be very limited when there is no wind. But our kind of ship is basically not affected by the wind. Moreover, in order to take advantage of the wind, the clipper ship must take a broken line, while our boat can walk in a straight line, so although our kind of ship has a lower speed figure, it may not be able to catch up with them if it is really chasing at sea. ”

"So, is there any problem with this kind of ship of ours now?"

"Your Excellency, our ship is propelled by a steam engine, so we need to carry coal, if the coal bunker is too large, it will cause the speed to drop, and if the coal bunker is small, it will affect the journey. In addition, our ships have very poor sailing performance in high sea conditions, and they are far inferior to clippers. ”

"What? High sea state sailing ability is not as good as clipper ship? So how do you use the cannon on this? Prime Minister Addington was taken aback.

"Your Excellency, in high sea conditions, the rocking of the ship can cause the paddle wheel to come out of the water, which leads to a sharp decrease in the propulsion efficiency. Not so much for other reasons, so in general sea conditions, our ships have no problems with the use of cannons. It's just that because of the steam engine and paddle wheel, the number of cannons that can be loaded is relatively small. ”

Prime Minister Addington listened, nodded and said, "When will the official warship be put into service?" It's time to teach those French a lesson that we in the United Kingdom are the best in the world! ”

。