Although the contradictions between the Catholic Charles I and the Diet had intensified since his accession to the throne, and many people were dissatisfied with his diplomatic performance during the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the root of the English Civil War was looming. But when the whirlwind from the east blew across the continent again, and the whole continent was under great threat, it seemed that everything was a little different. With the Channel approaching, and the fact that many ships that had fled from Holland to Spain had to choose to compromise with the British, Charles I's capital increased greatly, and the proximity of foreign enemies made the whole of England unprecedentedly united in the summer of 1633, when internal contradictions should have intensified. The army troops exiled from the Netherlands and even France eventually numbered as many as 120,000, including 50,000 troops in the Netherlands and other places and more than 70,000 troops in the British mainland.

In addition to this, there was also a huge sea force of about 80,000 men, including 120 capital ships and more than 100 patrol ships, with a total of 7,000 or 8,000 naval guns, gathered in the English Channel and deployed in important places near the south of England, ready to fight a decisive battle at any time with those who seemed to be ready to cross the sea. However, the total size of the army and navy was not to be reassuring, and from the spring of 1633 onwards throughout England a new round of training and armament warfare began, and a large number of arquebuses and even simpler firearms were issued to the militia.

Britain's war preparedness and even Catholicism and Protestantism suddenly became closely coordinated in the face of huge external pressure, which made Xiao Xuan feel that the landing operation could not be delayed any longer. In the middle of June of the Gregorian calendar in 1633, the sixth year of Chongzhen, the landing ship regiment gathered in the vicinity of Calais was ready for a decisive battle with the allied naval forces.

Unlike the Normandy landings in history, in the era of industrialization, especially for the US-British allies, who had historically had the superiority of the sea and air, there was no special need for night crossing, so even the landing ships could not occupy too much, and only the landing craft could have sufficient speed. However, after months of coast patrol and even personnel shifts, the maximum average speed of the boat is estimated to be no more than 10 kilometers per hour. If a landing were to be carried out in the vicinity of Normandy, it would not be possible to complete a single crossing at night, and there would be a high risk of engaging the enemy's main naval force during the day. A landing in the area of the Pas-de-Calais not only gives it the opportunity to complete the entire process of a single-sail landing operation at night, but also makes it possible to deal with space redundancy, and it is also very likely that a round-trip ferry can be completed at night to transport more of the main army ashore.

Xiao Xuan and the children around him also estimated when they were conducting combat deductions: If the enemy's huge main force at sea is not inflicted at least a deterrent heavy damage, then even if the vanguard of about 50,000 troops completes the landing, they will face great passivity. In order to deal with this threat, the landing team has to concentrate to the maximum extent, at most divided into two or three routes, so it is difficult to really complete a thorough sweep against the entire British mainland in a short period of time, and the sea route is not smooth, so the benefits of attacking Britain are greatly reduced.

It is precisely because of these reasons that Xiao Xuan finally chose to gamble on a decisive battle at sea, first carrying out a pioneer landing with 500 ships with the demolition team and even gunners as the main load, and launching a night decisive battle with the main force of the enemy fleet in the sea area where the other side seems to have been prepared. And if the war is going well, it is not without the possibility of withdrawing the main ships before dawn.

As night began to fall on 12 June, before the main group could make any moves, several thousand guns of the combined British and Dutch fleets began to launch a fierce artillery bombardment one after another. Although the fleet preparing to enter the sea has been dispersed as much as possible after the previous battles and experiences, under such a blow, more than 1,000 casualties will be encountered in a very short period of time, more than 100 prepared ferry ships will be damaged to varying degrees, and at least 37 ships will be completely destroyed. The heat of the heavy shells hitting the hull also caused five black powder detonations, and the violent explosions made not only the approaching ships, but also the British themselves apprehensive in this situation.

Fortunately, as night began to fall, the communication between the fleets depended more on lateral lighting and even on the silk cables that had been prepared long ago, and because it was difficult to find targets at sea effectively, the shelling of the British fleet against the small boats that appeared in the darkness of the evening became more than impossible even at a distance of four or five hundred yards.

At this moment, there seemed to be a sporadic rocket fire flying out of the night sky, which was the rocket that guided the boat group to sail at night without losing its way. Under the effective and meticulous arrangement, the group of ships, which were still loose at the beginning of the sea, gradually moved closer together as much as possible in a group of twenty ships.

As if realizing that it was impossible to stop the adversary near the coast, the main forces of the British naval fleet also began to reverse the course at full speed as much as possible. However, at nightfall, the sea breeze did not seem to be very strong, which caused the speed of the entire British naval force to be greatly affected. However, the 10,000-pound boats, which mainly rely on the wheels of manpower paddle wheels, are rarely affected by sea conditions that are not conducive to high-speed navigation. The whole process of crossing the sea has become much smoother because of the guidance of the hot air balloon in the air.

After about two hours of hard work into the night, the landing party reached the beach around Dover, and engaged in a fierce battle with the British defenders on land.

In this era, the army's defense line is not long, and the landing operation is much more convenient than the industrial age, which allows the side with the landing initiative to concentrate the absolute superiority of firepower and even the local superiority of the force from the very beginning to carry out effective fire suppression, and the British army that resisted on the shore was not able to rely on those land mobile artillery and heavy arquebuses to bring too much threat to the landing army, and the entire landing operation itself did not encounter fierce resistance and too many accidents as expected.

Of course, in order to be able to transport more forces ashore, Zhou Dayong, who was in charge of directing the landing operation, of course, understood that a decisive night naval battle near Dover was inevitable as the enemy's main naval fleet approached.

(End of chapter)