In the year 4592 of the Chinese calendar, 1895, it was five o'clock in the morning on March 17 of the solar calendar. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

After a night of darkness, the sky finally revealed a white line, reflecting the sea and the sky.

With human eyes, the sky and the sea are not a single blemish, it is a perfect world.

However, the 172 ships of the combined fleet of the "civilized world" rushed into the belly of the South China Sea with columns of smoke and roaring machines, completely destroying the tranquility of nature.

Rear Admiral Paramount, who was on the airship mothership, maintained the habit of getting up at half past four every day, and at this moment he had put on his imposing general's uniform and came to the deck to personally direct the first reconnaissance airship moored on the deck to take off.

The hot gas generator in the airship's gondola has been ignited, and the hot gas is pouring into the airship's body, and the airship is gradually climbing up from the deck.

The engine in the gondola has also been started, and it is only necessary to reach the right distance before leaving the deck and soaring between the sea and the sky.

However, at this moment, there was a roar of machinery in the air, which seemed very low in the sound of the sea.

Paramount asked the people around him in wonder, "It's that mothership's airship that has already flew!" Earlier than me! ”

However, no one around could tell what was going on, and when Paramount looked up, he couldn't tell what it was the airship that the mothership had taken off.

The low roar of the machine grew louder and clearer.

Paramount listened for a while, and was shocked: "Not good! This is not our airship! ”

He was very familiar with the sound of the airship machines made in England, and since the Mediterranean had been teaching with other countries, he was also very familiar with these airships made in factories in different countries, and he could tell that this was definitely not an airship machine made in any country in Europe.

The light on the horizon was getting brighter and brighter, and the soldier standing on the mast in charge of watching exclaimed: "The enemy airships have been found, and the number is ...... Lots of ......"

The screaming lookout soldiers did not have time to count the enemy airships in the air one by one according to their usual training, and could only say in panic that there were a lot of them.

In order to prevent a ship collision at night, the distance between the ships of the coalition fleet was stretched very wide on the sea, and Paramount did not know how the enemy used what positioning technology in the dark to find the sky above his own airship carrier, and he had no time to think about it, but decisively issued the order: "Prepare for battle...... No...... It's going into battle right away! ”

As soon as Paramount's shout fell, the weapons on the Huaxia Army's airship rang out.

Strings of tracer bullets struck the airship on the coalition airship mothership like a whip as it had just left deck.

Suddenly, the coalition airship burst into flames, like a huge turkey falling into the sea, and several people covered in fire jumped out of the airship gondola.

The fire reflected the sea and the sky, and the coalition lookouts finally saw clearly, and the airships in the sky were overwhelming, making the sky that had gradually brightened dark.

The abdomen of these airships is painted with a golden dragon flag on a red background, and it is obvious that this is the airship group of the Chinese Empire.

This great battle that will determine the future fate of the world has begun!

According to the information sent back by the nuclear submarine unmanned aerial vehicle after reconnaissance through infrared night vision devices, Hu Zhen decided to first send an airship to destroy the enemy's airship mothership and clear the air obstacles for the decisive battle before a strong wind rose on the sea.

In the duet of the combat airship's aviation guns and heavy machine guns, the bombing airship also flew up, dropping a long series of 500-kilogram bombs on the Allied airship carrier.

In fact, the airship is dangling in the air, using the method of horizontal bombing, and the efficiency of dropping bombs at sea targets is extremely low, and when there is no strong wind, it is estimated that ten bombs can be dropped on one target, which is very good.

However, the airship motherships are all converted from civilian ships, the number of watertight compartments is insufficient, and there is no protective armor at all, and it is this 10% hit rate that makes the airship mothership where Rear Admiral Paramount is located suffer a catastrophe.

With a sour whistling sound, the two bombs smashed through the deck of the airship mothership almost simultaneously and fell into the bilge before a violent explosion occurred.

The explosion induced the detonation of the ammunition loaded on the airship mothership.

The explosion blew the airship into countless pieces in an instant, and Rear Admiral Paramount, along with his men, was torn into countless pieces by the blast and thrown into the sea with his dream of conquering the sky in the explosion.

The other eight airship carriers of the coalition were all unprepared, all of them were attacked by the Chinese airships, some of them ignited raging fires on the sea, some exploded and sank to the bottom of the sea, and some of them rushed to the sea, frantically dodging the shells thrown by the airships, but they unexpectedly collided with their own ships and sank instead.

At this time, the other ships of the coalition fleet also discovered that they were attacked by the airships of the Huaxia Empire, and rushed over to rescue them.

In order to cope with the air superiority of the Huaxia Army, the allied fleet also made great efforts to equip various types of warships with heavy machine guns and small-caliber guns for anti-aircraft shooting.

The warships of the coalition fleet rushed over, and they weaved a dense net of fire with heavy fire to block the sky.

In the pre-war war games, the Huaxia Army had already expected this situation, and the officers in command knew that they could not fall in love with the battle, so they immediately gave an order: "Suppress the firepower, and at the same time quickly pull up away from the fire net!" ”

However, no matter how powerful the airship is, the light weapons on it are difficult to suppress the enemy warship on the flank.

Some airships intended to fly to the level of enemy warships to drop bombs, but they were hit by enemy fire, and a fire broke out on the hull, so they hurriedly dropped bombs on the sea, emptied their loads and climbed into the air, quickly fleeing the war zone.

In the heavy anti-aircraft fire of the enemy battleships, only a few bombs dropped by airships at high altitude hit the enemy ships.

Du Ligao, who was commanding in the air, couldn't help but shake his head when he saw this situation: "This is really what the emperor said, the era of airships is very short, and it is airplanes that ultimately dominate the sky!" Fortunately, we have long since stopped producing new airships and are fully engaged in the production of combat aircraft. ”

The airship of the Huaxia Army either flew away or flew high into the air.

The coalition fleet only had time to count its own losses, and found that five of the nine airship carriers had been blown up and sunk, and the remaining four were all wounded, and the remaining hundred or so airships could only be used for reconnaissance, and could not be used in large-scale air battles with the Huaxia Army at all.

However, when these more than 100 airships were about to take off, they were rushed down by the combat airships of the Huaxia Army cruising at high altitude and viciously beaten into turkeys and planted on the surface of the sea.

The coalition forces still had a huge number of more than 1,500 airships on the Natuna Islands, but due to the lack of safeguards, they were unable to follow the coalition fleet north, leaving the remaining 100 airships isolated and helpless.

One coalition airship after another rose into the air, but one after another was shot down by the Huaxia Army airships.

In the air, the coalition forces lost all their eyes and ears, and became a severely myopic person who could not see far away.

However, Admiral Seymour was very unimpressed, in his opinion, what can these nasty little flies do, as soon as their own ships equipped with anti-aircraft firepower were dispatched just now, didn't the airships that shook the world of the Huaxia Army obediently scattered and fled?

In this battle, although the coalition forces lost ninety percent of the airships that moved with the fleet, which can be described as heavy losses, it gave the coalition forces more than 50,000 officers and men great confidence: the legendary strong air superiority of the Huaxia Army is not terrible, and it can be won by relying on the superior firepower of its own surface ships!

At this time, the sun rises higher and higher, and a strong wind rises on the sea.

As the wind grows stronger, this is no longer suitable for combat operations of airships in the skies over the theater of operations.

As a result, the airship carriers of the coalition fleet no longer released airships, and the airships of the Huaxia Army gradually withdrew from the war zone, and finally there was not a single battleship left over the coalition fleet.

After driving away the small flies in the air, the Allied Grand Fleet continued north.

Admiral Seymour believed that naval battles had been fought like this for hundreds of years, and he was not concerned about the loss of some airships, but strengthened his confidence in the decisive battle of the battleships on the sea.

Instead of commanding the coalition fleet towards Pontianak, he ordered the Grand Fleet to rush to the hinterland of the South China Sea.

It has to be said that Seymour's move was very ruthless, not only avoiding the coastal fire force of Pontianak Huaxia's tight defense, but also forcing the main fleet of the Huaxia Army to come out to block it, otherwise, the connection between the Nanyang Islands and the mainland of China will be completely severed, which is something that the Chinese Empire, which has been established for less than a year, can afford.

Therefore, Seymour expected that the Chinese Empire would inevitably send the main force to the decisive battle, so that he could settle the battle in one battle, completely destroy the main fleet of the Chinese Empire, and slowly strangle the Nanyang Islands, instead of needing to attack the harbor fortresses one by one, which was time-consuming and laborious, and if it was not done well, it would end up with heavy losses and countless casualties.

How did he know that his little trick had already been seen through by Hu Zhen and the General Staff of the Huaxia Army, and a trap was designed for him to drill.

The lookout on the mast reported: "The main fleet of the Huaxia Army has been discovered!" ”

"It's really good!" Seymour clapped his palms and put up a "V" with his fingers, so that the people around him felt very optimistic, and then picked up the telescope handed by the guards around him, and looked ahead, only to see hundreds of plumes of smoke rising from the sea in the distance.

A French liaison officer said: "It seems that these main fleets of the yellow race are really going to come out to fight us in a decisive battle!" ”

"Hmph, under the planning of our coalition staff under the leadership of Admiral Seymour, can they not come out for a decisive battle? If they can't come out to fight a decisive battle, then their sea lifeline will be cut off by us, and they won't die anymore? An English officer said contemptuously, slapping Seymour's ass in passing.

Seymour pretended to be cool, waved his hand and said, "Give a signal and order the whole fleet to prepare for battle!" ”

Despite the fact that the flagships of the fleets of the countries had radios, Seymour was very fond of using the flag to give orders to the entire coalition fleet, so that the radio personnel around him would not know what to do.

In fact, Seymour's order was an act of taking off his pants and farting, and all the Combined Fleet battleships saw the appearance of the enemy fleet at this time, and all the captains gave the order to the ship: "Turn the steam power to the maximum, load the shells, and follow the orders of the fleet commander to launch artillery attacks at any time." ”

Since the mixed formation in the Mediterranean, Seymour, a veteran of the navy, has organized the warships of various countries into different branch fleets according to the type of warship and the speed of the voyage, and at this moment it is time for the decisive battle, and all the warships have been grouped into their own positions according to the predetermined plan.

Seymour used his binoculars to look around his own battleship formation, and said with satisfaction: "The signal corps has sent an order to approach the enemy fleet according to the predetermined plan before the battle!" God willing, we Christians will be victorious! ”

Seymour forgot that there was also a non-Christian fleet in the coalition fleet, but he didn't think so at all, anyway, he felt that after this war, the rules of the world would have to be decided by his English homeland.

The signal corporates immediately used the flag language and issued an order to the whole fleet, asking the whole fleet to press on the enemy.

In addition to logistical ships, the allied fleet was divided into battleship detachments, cruiser detachments, and destroyer detachments, and each fleet was divided into 24 battleship detachments, 21 fast battleship squadrons, 28 cruiser squadrons, and 39 fast cruiser detachments according to their speed.

Seymour ordered the battleship squadron and cruiser squadron to be on the left side, and the fast battleship detachment, fast cruiser detachment, and destroyer fleet to be on the right side, and a total of five columns were divided into five columns to press towards the main fleet of the Huaxia Army at a speed of thirteen knots.

The strength of the main fleet of the Huaxia Army is:

There are now 17 battleships, Zhenyuan, Dingyuan, Dahua, Daxia, Maine, Pelayo, Carlos V, Thunderbolt (in the Hubei army, it is positioned as a cruiser, but its displacement is 13,880 tons, and it is used by the Huaxia military combat battleships), Victory, New York, Brooklyn, Changzhi, Chang'an, Changhe, Changshan, Great Wall, and Yangtze River.

Seven battleships, including the New York, Changzhi, Chang'an, Changhe, Changshan, Great Wall, and Yangtze River, with a speed of more than 21 knots, were organized as the first battleship fleet.

The remaining 8 ships, including the Dazhenyuan, Dingyuan, Hua, Daxia, Maine, Pelayo, Carlos V, Thunderbolt, Victory, and Brooklyn, were organized into the second team of battleships.

There were 42 cruisers, 26 of which reached a speed of more than 23 knots were assigned to the first squadron of cruisers, and the remaining 16 were assigned to the second squadron of cruisers.

In addition, there was a destroyer fleet of 42 ships and a torpedo boat fleet of 48 ships.

Far from the main fleet, there are three aircraft carrier fleets, the Luban, Zhang Heng, and Cai Lun.

Judging from the number of warships, the coalition fleet still had 145 warships participating in the battle, while the Huaxia Army had a total of 150 warships, slightly more than the coalition forces.

However, most of the allied fleets consisted of large ocean-going warships, with a total displacement of more than 840,000 tons, 142 305 mm cannons, 34 254 mm cannons, 246 203 mm cannons, 218 155 mm cannons, 266 152 mm cannons, and 366 torpedo tubes.

The Huaxia Army fleet had 32 305 mm cannons, 96 210 mm cannons, 276 155 mm cannons, and 172 torpedo tubes.

According to the calculation of a single projection of firepower, the firepower of the coalition fleet was more than three times that of the Huaxia Army, and the firepower was very different.

The advantages of the Huaxia army are speed and accurate gun aiming, but if it really uses the fleets of the two sides to have a face-to-face decisive battle, it is not known who will really die. (To be continued.) )