The capital of the British colony of Madras, the capital of the Indian colony, off the port of Madras.

The sea is calm but not calm.

The sea is full of warships and troop carriers of all sizes, large and small, and stretching from the port of Madras to the north and south, a total of nearly seven or eight miles of sea, is full of warships and troop carriers, and there are many small and medium-sized landing craft that specialize in landing and landing.

Wei Jun stood on the bow of the "Dingyuan No. 1" ironclad ship, looking at the Madras dock, where several piles of smoke rose into the air, obviously, the huge formation at sea had already been discovered by the British troops in the port, and the smoke of warning had been ignited early.

Wei Jun even knew that the British troops in Madras's port had already taken precautions, but he didn't care. In fact, after he captured the southern port of Garigarh a few days ago, he realized that his whereabouts of leading the Indian Ocean Fleet north to attack Madras had been exposed.

On that day, a British warship was found on the sea close to the port of Garigar, and Wei Jun couldn't help but send several warships to pursue it, but he didn't expect to capture the port of Garigarh so casually. When I replenished some coal, fuel, and grain at the port of Garigarh, I found out that there was actually a telegraph office in the port of Garigarh, and the telegraph cable was laid last year to connect with Madras. In this way, the fact that a large number of warships appeared in Garigarh would definitely not be able to hide from Madras. Wei Jun, who had been trying to block the news and was in a hurry, knew that his whereabouts had been leaked.

So he simply stayed in the port of Garigar for two days, and requisitioned all the more than 30 merchant ships, shallow-water steamboats, and some fishing boats captured in the port as landing craft in the port of Madras.

Then, along the coastline all the way north, they encountered all kinds of boats, whether fishing boats or merchant ships, and all of them were captured and requisitioned. When he captured another port called Puducherry and requisitioned nearly forty ships of all sizes, and by the time he arrived in the Madras Sea, Wei Jun had nearly a hundred ships of various types in his hands, and with a wave of his hand, all of them were used as landing ships.

Wei Jun handed over all the landing operations to Chief of Staff Buchanan to command, because this landing plan was put forward by Buchanan when he was in Puducherry based on the information he learned.

To this end, while at the port of Puducherry Pondicherry, Wei Jun also specially organized the Indian Ocean Fleet and the Marine Corps for intensive training.

Despite this, Wei Jun was still a little relieved when facing the imminent attack, after all, he had never heard of such a landing operation, and he had always directly captured the dock of the port. So, he asked the chief of staff Buchanan to come to the deck, and when Buchanan, whose eyes were red, came over, Wei Jun said: "Chief of staff, don't work too hard to break your body, our Indian Ocean Fleet still has a lot of battles to fight." ”

Buchanan replied, "Thank you, Commander, for your concern." According to the local guide, I consulted the logbooks seized in the port of Puducherry and confirmed that today was the end of the month, and in a little more than two hours, the tide would be at its highest, and this was the most favorable time for the landing operation. Commander, we attacked an hour ahead of schedule, before the tide receded, landed successfully and took Madras completely. ”

Seeing Buchanan talking about the upcoming battle, Wei Jun couldn't help but ask, "Chief of Staff, are you sure that such a landing battle is really better than a forced attack?" ”

"Commander, believe me! Brigadier General Perry of the United States did just that! About a decade ago, during the war between the United States and Mexico, he was ordered to lead the U.S. Gulf Fleet to support Admiral Scott's army and land in the port of Veracruz. Today, we were facing a British army similar to that of Mexico, and we had a superior superiority in numbers over Brigadier Perry. Buchanan said solemnly.

Listening to Buchanan talk about this allusion, Wei Jun was a little relieved, he knew that Buchanan's personality was not very sure, he would not be so insistent. Moreover, he knew that Buchanan had indeed been Perry's assistant and student, so it was really feasible to say so.

Seeing that there was still some time, in order to dispel Wei Jun's doubts, Buchanan Jinichi explained: "Commander, we have received news that the British army has concentrated all the troops stationed near Madras, and has also built a large number of fortifications along the harbor and the mouth of the Guwum River, especially the fortifications at the mouth of the river, which have been continuously strengthened over the years, and there are many forts. In addition, the commander of the Madras District Army, Wolseley, concentrated all the troops behind the fortifications, with a total of nearly 7,000 British soldiers to defend them, plus nearly 5,000 indigenous soldiers such as the Prince of Salem and the Dutigorin Princes.

However, the positions defended by the British and the fortifications that had been built before were only in the area around the mouth of the Guwum River and Fort St. George on the north bank. Fort St. George, in particular, was garrisoned by at least 3,000 British troops at the mouth of the river and the pier to the north, which had been built for 220 years and had been reinforced with very strong defensive firepower, and it was unwise to force an attack.

Therefore, according to my strategic plan, we made a posture of forcibly attacking the port outside the mouth of the river with ironclads with deep drafts and a few large cruisers, but actually avoided Fort St. George and landed on a beach 3 to 5 km northeast instead.

According to intelligence, the British army has been preparing artillery shells and war materials, and now they are on the defensive, their forces are limited, and they dare not come out to meet them, and our army should be able to land smoothly. ”

After listening to this, Wei Jun nodded, if he could really land smoothly, move those soldiers and artillery of the Marine Corps to the north of Fort St. George, and cooperate with the more than 20 warships of the Indian Ocean Fleet to attack from the southern estuary, even if Fort St. George and the fortifications built by the British army were strong, they could be conquered in a short time and at a small cost.

"The chief of staff is so confident that he believes that this battle will be able to fall in one go!" Wei Junzheng said: "Since it's almost time for the high tide, let's hurry up!" ”

An hour later, under the leadership of the two ironclad battleships "Dingyuan No. 1" and "Dingyuan No. 2," 12 warships of the Indian Ocean Fleet, large and small, approached the mouth of the Guwum River, two kilometers from the coast, and fired sporadically from a distance.

Because it was only to attract the attention of the British army, the distance was relatively long, and in order to save shells, the warships did not directly attack on a large scale. In order to test the power and range of the shore defense guns behind the fortifications and the guns in Fort St. George, several steam merchant ships and fishing boats captured from Pondicherry were sent to the front and slowly sail into the estuary to test their guns and approach the range of British fire.

At the same time, in the northeastern sea, dozens of landing ships of various types, which had been prepared for a long time, began to take advantage of the good timing of the rising tide to begin landing.

The 5,000 marines in the Indian Ocean Fleet were divided into two groups, escorted by eight small and medium-sized warships, and rushed to the western beach in 84 landing ships consisting of fishing boats, merchant ships, gunboats, cargo ships, etc.

The infantry of the Marine Battalion were armed with rifles, and the soldiers of the Engineer and Artillery Battalions drove horses, donkeys, and cattle to haul the artillery, and disembarked from the sampan. Despite one training session in Puducherry, there was a great deal of panic, with many horses and donkeys falling into the sea, and even two guns falling overboard while pushing from the boat to the shore. The landing ships involuntarily formed a chaotic column, causing the eight escorting warships to fire back and forth on the coast by firing back and forth on the shore several hundred meters from the side to provide fire support.

Fortunately, the British, as Buchanan had speculated, only held on to the fortifications and Fort St. George, and did not send troops to the beaches in the northwest to stop them.

After nearly three hours of landing, the first group of nearly 2,600 marines successfully landed and quickly occupied a large area of tidal flats 2-3 kilometers north of Fort St. George.

During this period, the British army in Madras only sent about 100 British troops with 500 Maharaja of Salem to investigate the military situation, and was shelled by the eight warships that escorted the landing, and dozens of dead and wounded returned to the Madras fortifications, and never dared to come out again.

By the time it got dark, all 5,000 Marines, along with the artillery they carried, had landed.

Wei Jun, who heard the news, was overjoyed and wanted to organize an attack immediately, but because he was worried that there would be chaos and mistakes after dark, and it would be difficult to command the battle, he ordered to hold the position strictly and wait for tomorrow dawn before attacking.

Wei Jun seems bold, but he is not blind. He actually has a calm personality, otherwise even if it was recommended by Luo Xuan, Feng Yunshan would not have appointed him as the commander of the Indian Ocean Fleet.

However, Wei Jun did not let the garrison British troops feel better, so he directly sent two local Tamil natives to Fort St. George as messengers while it was still dark, and sent Buchanan's letter of persuasion to the garrison British troops that he had written a long time ago. When night fell, the 12 warships outside the estuary took turns firing in the direction of Fort St. George, which frightened the British troops.