In the twenty-second year of Chengtian, in 1796 in the Western calendar.

On the twentieth day of the first month, the sky was overcast.

The rough Atlantic Ocean has been left behind, and the 'Chinese Visiting Fleet' led by Admiral Zhu Mian himself slowly left the British port of Gibraltar - this is another opportunity that China has exchanged for a promise of "non-aggression against the existing interests of the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Indian region" - an opportunity for the fleet to dock.

And why is it another such opportunity? That's because such a promise had already been made when Chen Han's official forces officially entered the Indian region.

However, promises between nations depend on the strength of both sides. This is not to say that an agreement can last for thousands of years.

The British still had a certain amount of 'strength' at the beginning, but now their 'strength' is much weaker.

A great deal of the British energy was dragged on French affairs, and in India it was naturally worse.

China and Britain are at odds with each other, and the British, who are at a disadvantage, have no choice but to seek another promise from China.

After resorting to the port of Gibraltar, a military stronghold occupied by the British for 83 years, the fleet of more than thirty ships continued to advance to the other side of the Mediterranean.

The side of the flagship, the Ottoman I, had just undergone some emergency repairs in the British dockyard in the port of Gibraltar, and some of the ship's planks damaged by shells had been replaced.

This formidable 1st class sail battleship was wounded when the fleet was intercepted by the Spanish Atlantic Fleet as it entered the Strait of Gibraltar. At that time, the Chinese fleet was preparing to take advantage of the darkness to sneak through the Spanish police line and advance to the British base in the Strait of Gibraltar, but the fleet of more than 30 ships was too loud, and the Spanish warships that were alerted discovered the movement.

Then a sea encounter that began suddenly began.

The West Gibraltar Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Córdoba of Spain has a total of 16 warships, which is inferior to the number of warships of the Chinese fleet, but a considerable number of warships on the Chinese side are small warships, and the forces of the two sides are generally the same.

Of course, Zhu Li knew that the Spaniards might change, but although the contradictions between China and the West in the Americas were acute, they had not yet developed to the point of being poor and daggers.

Today's Spaniards are so decisive and decisive that he is very surprised.

You must know that if this war starts, no matter who wins or loses, the news will be transmitted back to Nanjing, and the Sino-Spanish war will break out again.

In Europe, the first anti-French alliance had been shattered, and the Spaniards were now in shambles by the French army, who had settled accounts after the fall. At this time, they still dared to attack the Chinese fleet, and Zhu Lian really didn't know what to say about the people in Madrid.

Is it the ignorant who are fearless?

The flagship of the West Gibraltar Squadron is the only four-deck sail battleship in the world today - the battleship Santa Trinidad.

This is Spain's most famous sailing ship, built in Havana, Cuba, designed in 1765 and completed in 1769. Originally designed as a 112-gun first-class battleship, the initial dimensions of the design were: length 59.53 meters, keel 50.82 meters, width 16.09 meters, draft 8.06 meters. It was larger than the British Victory and the French counterparts of the same period. But last year, in 1795, the Spaniards rebuilt a new gun deck between her bow and stern decks, making it the only four-deck sail battleship of its time, and with 140 guns, it became the largest sail battleship in the world at the time.

Ottoman I was not small either. However, the number of guns he carried was only one hundred and twelve, 16 35-pound short-barreled guns, 48 20-pound guns, 30 15-pound pound guns, and 18 10-pound guns. It was more powerful than the British first-class sail battleships, but it was inferior to the nickname of the battleship Santa Trinidad, the 'mare of Spain'.

The only fortunate thing was that the Chinese gunners were of a stronger caliber than the Spaniards.

Although the Spanish Navy was constantly fighting and the actual combat experience of the Chinese gunners was quite limited, this could not stop the Chinese naval division from conducting large-scale exercises and rigorous training year after year.

On the contrary, although the Spanish navy soldiers fought bravely, the most lacking thing in the Spanish navy was training, and less than 10% of its sailors were actually trained.

The distance between the two sides of the battle was widened, and it was at night again - to guard against rocket attacks. So the battles between each other did not go to a real duel of life and death - with the appearance of rockets in Western military circles, the time of naval battles has changed from three or four hours of a battle to a day or two, or even longer.

Because neither side dared to get too close to each other - each other could only shoot at each other with less accurate artillery, and the result was that the battle time was greatly prolonged.

A few years ago, Chen Ming asked the military system to manufacture hexagonal cannons in order to cope with this problem.

The metalworking techniques of this era had yet to be developed, and it was not realistic to want to make rifled guns. Chen Ming then thought of the hexagonal cannon in the history of the original time and space, that is, the Westworth breech gun. This cannon is a transitional type of early smoothbore gun and later rifled gun, belonging to the British Armstrong gun series, invented and produced in 1840 by the Westworth engineer of the Uri Arsenal, and named after the inventor Westworth engineer. The reason why it is called a hexagonal cannon is because the inner diameter of the barrel of this type of cannon is hexagonal, commonly known as a hexagonal cannon. The original intention of the design was similar to that of the later rifling, which wanted the shell to run along a certain trajectory to maintain a relatively stable trajectory and improve the accuracy of the impact point. However, at that time, rifling technology was not up to it, and the engineers of Wisworth were inspired by the hexagonal nut and machined the inner chamber of the gun barrel into a hexagonal shape. The warhead and pouch were also hexagonal.

Of course, the military industrial system of this cannon Chen Han has been produced, but what makes people scratch their heads is that although the accuracy and range of this artillery have been greatly enhanced, its defects and problems have also been leaked, and it is difficult to solve.

The first is weight. The weight of the hexagonal gun is larger than that of the smoothbore gun, the reason is that because of its hexagonal inner diameter, the thickness of the body barrel is different (the larger the caliber, the more obvious), and the explosion rate is higher than that of the smoothbore gun under the premise of the same thickness of the smoothbore gun! And its volume and weight problems also make the sample guns of land hexagonal guns, the caliber of the guns is generally very small!

At the same time, another important flaw of this artillery is jamming! Its shells have extremely high requirements for the fit of the inner chamber, which increases the difficulty of shell manufacturing, and it is also difficult to reduce the jamming rate in actual combat!

Anyway, these defects made Chen Ming not dare to easily put this new weapon on the warship and put it on the battlefield. Just as a technical reserve!

The shipborne guns on warships are still the original technology, and the improvement of quality and performance is also improved on the basis of the original. There are still unsolvable problems such as front-loading smoothbore guns, range, accuracy and rate of fire, so that the two fleets that are fighting in the dark of night will find it difficult for each other to inflict major trauma on each other.

The transport ships of the Chinese fleet quickly slipped to Gibraltar when the escort fleet was engaged in a fight with the Spanish fleet. The Spaniards spotted the move, but they were not able to make a second volley.

The commanders on both sides were all conservative, but they turned on the searchlights bright and dazzling. No one dares to be negligent.

The Spaniards are afraid of losing face, and the Sino-Austrian joint fleet is even more worried about capsizing in the gutter, and it will be too much to smash the pot at the door of the house after tens of thousands of miles of hard work.

As for the novelty of the searchlight, it was invented and equipped by the Eastern and Western navies a long time ago.

It is a device with a powerful light source and a concave mirror that concentrates light in a specific direction, which can be used for long-distance illumination and search, and no one in the East or the West is inferior to this knowledge.

There is Huang Luzhuang on the Chinese side, and the Europeans are not bad at all in their optical research.

Anyway, there was a confrontation on both sides, and the results were not big, and the slightest damage on the battleship was trivial. There is no need for professional craftsmen to repair it, and the carpenters on the ship can do the work themselves.

As for whether the Ottomans will be unhappy with the new injuries on their new ships, there is no need to worry.

After these tens of thousands of miles of sailing, as well as the battle at the Mediterranean gate, the Ottomans should be even more relieved to see that their Ottoman I is not a showmanship, it can withstand the test of actual combat.

After leaving the Strait of Gibraltar, the whereabouts of the Chinese fleet remained hidden, because the Spaniards not only had the Atlantic Fleet, but they also had a Mediterranean Fleet of the same rank.

As the commander of this fleet, Zhu Lian was not at all willing to have a decisive battle with the main force of Spain's Mediterranean fleet.

Most of the warships in this fleet were Ottomans, and most of the merchant ships were carrying arms and military materials sold by Nanking to the Ottomans, and it would be too bad if they were beaten to pieces by the Spaniards.

But even so, Zhu Ting had to lead the fleet to Nice, southeast of France. It is in the southeastern corner of France, close to Marseille and Toulon, and only a mountain away from the Alps of the Coast, the top of the shoes and boots in northern Italy!

Even if it's a coastal mountain range in the Alps, it's a natural hazard.

As for why Zhu Mian took great risks to enter Nice, it still needs to start with the latest notice he received from the European Office.

One of the main targets of the OEU's support over the past two years, Napoleon Bonaparte, the incoming commander of the Italian Legion in France, is in dire need of money and large sums of strategic supplies.

Yes, Napoleon, who was destitute at the beginning, has now risen to prominence again.

After the contact with the European Office, Napoleon, who was secretly supported by the Chinese, calmed down and secretly waited for an opportunity in Paris.

In the second half of 1794, he did not find a suitable opportunity, and Napoleon simply used China to support his Pistol, contacting some of the old Toulon ministries and some of the officers who had been suppressed by the Directory. For example, Captain Marmont, a young artillery officer who excelled in the Battle of Toulon, and Lieutenant Colonel Joachim Murat, captain of the Super Vase Cavalry.

The former was someone Napoleon knew, and the latter was someone Napoleon's recent discovery. This man was unusually graceful, well-proportioned, powerful, elegant, and well-groomed, and often made people forget his humble origins, and attracted attention because of his fancy dress, especially the uniform of the hussars.

But this super large vase is really a very practical vase. As far as Napoleon knew, Murat was a very good cavalry commander, very brave, and had a keen sense of the battlefield. But everywhere else, his actions show that he is a fool who does not understand politics in the slightest. This reminded Napoleon of Lü Bu in Chinese history, which may be a bit of a compliment to Murat. But he's such a brave and brainless man!

Murat was a member of the Jacobins and had been almost purged in previous coups, but like the lucky Napoleon, Murat survived. He was well placed to make a generous new friend, and Napoleon was also hampered by the Jacobins. The two people have the same disease, which is indeed very conducive to the establishment of their friendship.

Murat was a member of the garrison of Paris, and after escaping the initial purge, he was reinstated in rank and position. Although the actual power in his hands has shrunk a lot, he still has a little more power than Napoleon.

In fact, Napoleon's early co-optation of Murat played a large role in the suppression of the royalist uprising in Paris, another turning point in his life.

The year 1795 was reached. The Directory became increasingly unpopular. In the foreign war, although the French army destroyed the Dutch Orange dynasty and marched into Amsterdam, the British naval blockade made the food of Paris more and more precious. The Directory also announced the repeal of the maximum price limit law and the removal of restrictions on speculators. For a time, the price of goods in Paris skyrocketed, and the price of bread rose all the way, which eventually led to a popular riot.

This was the Muzuki Rebellion in Paris, and less than two months after the Muzuki Rebellion was suppressed, the Makizuki coup broke out again. For a time, the Directory's rule became shaky.

The royalists saw an opportunity for the restoration of the Bourbons. They rebelled in Marseille, Lyon and other regions, and at the same time, the royalists gathered in London, Koblenz, Hamburg, Rome and other places to install the Count of Provence, the younger brother of Louis XVI, the former king of France, as the new king, called Louis XVIII, who was only seven or eight years old by this time, was dead.

The Loyalist group landed on the Kibelen Peninsula at the northwestern tip of the province of Brittany. However, the Directory immediately sent troops to crush the rebel force and put all 750 of its captive rebels to death. However, the royalist rebellion continued, and there was renewed unrest in central France. In Paris, the royal party organized a central committee in the Le Baltières district, the center in which they had a dominant position. At their instigation, the rebellion spread like a plague through the arrondissements of Paris. General Menou, who was in charge of the security of Paris, was dissatisfied with the new electoral law and actually sided with the royal party. Menou negotiated with the rebel chiefs and agreed to withdraw the troops to the barracks, with the result that much of the area fell into the hands of the insurgents. The insurgents gradually gathered in Paris and had reached 40,000 men, while the number of loyal to the Convention was only about 5,000. The large forces of the Revolutionary Self-Defense Army were far from Paris, and the Directory's perverse practices caused the Convention to lose the support of the masses, and for a time the Directory's rule was in jeopardy.

The Directory deposed Menu at a critical juncture and arrested him. Baras, one of the giants of the Directory, replaced Menou as the supreme military commander in Paris.

But Barras doesn't know how to fight at all, he only plays with power, is good at rhetoric, is wise to protect himself in factional struggles, and is good at seeing the wind and steering, but he is not a soldier at all. He must have a wise and decisive general as his assistant. Barras remembered Napoleon, a thin young man in a gray-green coat who had been approached several times for help. He knew Napoleon well, and he knew that although Napoleon was a retired general, he showed great military talent in Toulon.