Ireland's sweep and counter-sweep operations have entered their most critical and difficult period. In order to hold the Irish Independence Army and keep the British in a bleeding wound, the French government increased the freight cost of the transport ships to Ireland by 50 percent.

As a later mentor said, "As soon as there is a proper profit, capital becomes emboldened." If there is a 10% profit, it is guaranteed to be used everywhere; With a 20% profit, it becomes active; With a 50% profit, it takes risks; With 100% profits, it dares to trample on all human laws; With a 300% profit, it dares to commit any crime, even risking hanging its head. ”

Originally, if you go to Ireland once, the profit is not low, coupled with the rise in freight, although it has not yet reached the point where people "dare to commit any crime, or even risk hanging their heads", but it has also reached the point where people are willing to "take risks". So over this time, more people have ordered clippers in the shipyards of the military-industrial complex, and the number of clippers going to Ireland for adventures has increased rapidly.

However, the British have long been on guard, and as early as a month ago, the Duke of Norfolk sent a letter to the British Prime Minister, pointing out possible problems and making suggestions

"The detachment of clippers hovered in the ocean close to Ireland, waiting for the storm to come. As soon as the wind picks up at sea, they pounce on Ireland like sharks that smell blood. As far as I know, the French have more and more clippers, and soon, when they are large enough, they will even be able to directly report on the saturation of our interception capabilities to break through our interception.

On the other hand, the Royal Navy had too few steamships in their hands, and another weakness of these ships was now apparent: they were too poorly prepared. After a period of intense use, this problem becomes more prominent. The commander of the 1st Fleet of Irish Coastal Defence reported to me: 'Our ships are either under repair or waiting for repairs. The first detachment of the entire coastal defense has a total of five steam frigates, but now only one can go to sea.

The disunity in the manufacture of steam frigates also complicates maintenance, and the five steam frigates in the first detachment of Haiphong, five models of steam engines were used, and the others, including paddle wheels, including transmission equipment, hardly a single part was the same. This makes each boat require its own maintenance, and when two boats have a problem, we can't put all the parts they can use into one boat to ensure that one of them can be repaired quickly - I don't know how this stupidity can happen! Why can't the same steam frigates be produced using the same standards?

I suggest that the Royal Navy should procure more steam frigates and adopt uniform construction standards for steam frigates. Even if the performance is appropriately reduced, the maintainability of these warships must be guaranteed. Don't let these ships turn into dock-crushing monsters. ”

The British also knew that if Ireland was lost, it would be too great a blow to Britain. So while the French accelerated the production of clippers, the British also began to accelerate the production of steam frigates at various shipyards.

In terms of shipbuilding capacity, the British had a considerable advantage over the French. But this refers to the production of ordinary ships, and there is a clear difference between steamships and other ships because they have to install a series of machines. In contrast, clippers are less different from traditional boats. Therefore, the French shipyards produced clippers much faster than the British produced steam ships.

Moreover, although the number of steamships of the British is increasing, the problem of low intact rate has not been well solved. It must be said that the Duke of Norfolk's idea that everything is interchangeable is very genius, but it is also ahead of its time, at least beyond what Britain can achieve in this era. You must know that in another time and space, at least until the 80s of the 20th century, the latest fighter produced by a certain eastern power could not be interchangeable.

Thus, while the British sank or captured more and more clippers, the Irish received more supplies.

Of course, the British did not gain nothing. From a captured flying clipper ship, the British captured two intact flamethrowers, which gave the British another option, that is, to immediately copy the French flamethrowers, and then load them on the cottage flying clippers, and finally rely on strong production capacity to defeat the original version with the copycat.

But all this will take time, and the Irish, who have regained their supplies, have also begun to increase their counterattack. and launched another flanking offensive and captured a military station again.

In the base areas, because of logistical difficulties and the fact that the "security forces" were not being used, the losses of the British troops also increased markedly, and their efficiency in sabotaging the base areas was markedly reduced because of the passive sabotage of the "security forces." And why do the "security forces" passively slack off even when carrying out such a simple task as "destroying potato fields"?

According to the British, that's because "the Irish are lazy, and they must be lazy whenever they have the opportunity; Even if you don't have a chance, you have to be lazy to create it. ”

But if you ask Captain Jarvis the same question, Captain Jarvis will tell you that there's a reason for that. Mainly because the Irish are so bad, whoever spoils the crops and spoils the most vigorously will give priority to whomever they want, and they will hit him black and hard. It's just that the guys in our security forces are too stupid, and every time they go to ask the British army for help, they either go too late, or stupidly take the British army to step on the rebel mines.

In this way, in order to protect the British soldiers, it is naturally better not to spoil the crops. Therefore, the "security forces" can't do anything, even ruining the crops, they can't compare to donkeys.

Since the "security forces" could not be counted on, the British army also tried to do it themselves and spoil the crops. Then, they found themselves in a strange circle. If a large group of people and horses are gathered together to do this, the efficiency will be too low, so low that it is not as good as a donkey; But if you do this in a scattered way, you will always be attacked by rebels in various ways. In these attacks, the authentic British army suffered heavy losses as well.

As a result, even the Duke of Norfolk, who had been shouting "persistence", had to admit that it no longer made much sense to continue sweeping in the non-security zone. So he issued a new order, declaring that the crusade against the rebels had been a phased success, and that he could now win the class.

To say that the Duke of Norfolk is not bad, his actions have indeed caused considerable losses to the base area. And it did consume too much material for the Independence Army. If the British were able to effectively prevent the Irish from getting enough supplies before the harvest season was ripe, it would be difficult for the Irish Independence Army to regain strength within two or three months of potato maturity. At that time, the British will carry out another big sweep, fearing that they will directly create a great famine in the base areas of the Irish Independence Army.

Of course, there are two main points in all this. The first is whether the British can cut off the French supply to Ireland more effectively, and the other is whether the United Irish Federation can achieve production and self-help as soon as possible. After all, weapons and ammunition may be able to solve the problem through overseas rescue, but it is almost impossible to solve the food problem by relying on overseas transportation capacity. If overseas capacity can really solve the food problem, it will either be that Britain has collapsed, or the base has shrunk to the point that there is almost nothing left.

In the days that followed, a new phenomenon arose at sea, that is, the clippers from France were again attacked by British clippers. And this time, there was also a "Greek fire" on the British flying clippers. Because of the surprise and the lack of survivors. At first, such an attack was not detected, and it was only noticed that the number of ships that were able to return to port was much smaller.

Such a situation naturally alerted the crew. Soon after, someone finally brought back the exact news that the British also had Greek fire.

The news was that of a Danish captain named Oleg who, on his way back from Ireland, rescued an Italian sailor who was floating at sea with a plank in his arms. The Italian sailor told the story that his ship had been attacked by a British clipper disguised as a French ship, and that the British had set their ship on fire with Greek fire and then shot the sailor who had escaped by jumping into the sea. He escaped being shot by the British by hiding under a large plank.

Soon after, the situation deteriorated further, and the British had more and more clippers in their hands, and they even began to intercept ships attacking Ireland in a convoy. In this series of battles, both sides suffered a lot of losses, but with stronger shipbuilding capabilities, and closer to the base, the ships were lighter and faster, and it was easier to seize the advantage of the upper hand position (the wind has a great effect on the spray distance of the flamethrower, and the side that seized the upper hand position was able to attack from a greater distance), and gradually gained the upper hand in this series of battles.

Because of the excellent performance of the knock-off version of the clipper, the British converted the expensive, intractable steamship into a regular cargo ship, and continued to increase the order for the copycat version of the clipper.

"In a month at most, we will be able to have a French clipper in the waters off Ireland no more. And once we cut off this supply line, we can quickly put down the rebellion in Ireland. Prime Minister Addington swore in the face of questions from the House of Commons.

On the same day that the Prime Minister made such a promise to the members of the House of Commons, a strange warship with a slender hull and painted black was launched at the Toulon shipyard.

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