On the blue sea, a fleet of nine warships and several transport ships is sailing through the waves. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The flagship of this fleet was a large ironclad ship that had come from afar, and at this moment it was sailing at high speed towards the Prussian coast with its sails wide open and braving the scorching sun. The tall freeboard, dense gun doors, and fast speed make this warship seem to exude a soaring murderous aura all around, and the red, white, and blue tricolor flags raised on the stern flagpole show the unusual nature of this warship.

A slender French naval officer, standing on the deck of a flybridge in front of the chimney in the middle of the warship, was easily recognizable from the awe-inspiring gazes cast at him by the people around him. On his face, which was slightly ugly because of the mutilation of his mouth and nose, there was a calm and contemplative expression, and his deep eagle-like gaze was staring at the coastline ahead.

In order to seize the status of a great power and restore the glory of the First Empire, the Second French Empire has been actively seeking to build a powerful navy to make up for the shortcomings of the land force, in order to compete with the British navy, the supremacy of the sea. In order to realize this ambition, the French Navy has built new warships, and today the French Navy is the second largest naval force in the world after the Royal Navy of the British Empire. Just after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the Minister of the Navy sent a telegram ordering the French Navy to be ready for battle. Unlike the slow and unresponsive French Army, the French Navy showed great efficiency, and the French Navy completed its mobilization less than a month after the start of the war.

It was just disappointing that the French Navy, for quite some time after the outbreak of the war, was only busy escorting the convoy transporting troops from Algeria in North Africa to the mainland, since the French High Command did not develop a strategic plan for the war against Prussia at all. It was not until a telegram decree of Napoleon III that the role of nanny in the French Navy was changed.

On the orders of Napoleon III, the French navy was to attack several Prussian ports designated by the emperor and destroy the Prussian naval ships moored there. The Admiralty immediately began to act upon receiving the telegram and, at the request of the Emperor, appointed Gu Ba, who was only a lieutenant colonel at the time, as commander of the rapid detachment (in proportion to this position, Gu Ba was promoted to colonel).

As for why the emperor promoted himself and appointed himself to command the fleet to carry out the attack on the Prussian navy, Gu Ba did not think much about it (he could not have known that the trajectory of his life had taken such a big turn, related to a young Chinese far away in the east), and he was now thinking about how to complete the task cleanly.

Born on June 26, 1827 in the city of Abbeville in northern France, after graduating from the public secondary school in the provincial city of Amiens, he entered the French Polytechnic Institute with excellent grades, bathed in the famous motto of "Pourla Patrie, les Sciences et la Gloire" (for the fatherland, honor and science) set by Emperor Napoleon I, and absorbed the knowledge of modern military and industrial science. If taken literally, the French Polytechnic obviously does not seem to have much to do with military education, but this school was historically designated by Napoleon as a military school, and in fact it was the cradle of extremely important officers in France at that time, and it was not inferior to other military schools.

Like many of the Polytechnic alumni, he joined the army after graduation and was awarded the rank of second lieutenant on October 1, 1849. On December 2, 1852, he was promoted to lieutenant, and when the Second Opium War broke out, he went to China with the gunboat "Gabis" to participate in the war, and was promoted to lieutenant commander one after another. After the war, in 1866, he was appointed chief of staff of the English Channel detachment with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, he served as an overseas colony in the Antilles.

In fact, the Admiralty was very unoptimistic about the emperor's appointment of Guba as the commander of the rapid detachment, because Guba was an officer who did not have a good impression of the colonial war. In response to France's overseas colonial wars of aggression, the attitude of solitude was very obvious, that is, he belonged to the anti-war faction in the navy, and expressed no interest in or support for such a war, of course, if he was to participate in it, out of the duty of a soldier to obey orders, he would definitely passively accept this task. Faced with this situation, any decision-maker would probably appoint a more active general than a solitary one, but the French Admiralty had no room for such a decision at the time, and could only passively submit to the emperor's appointment, because the French navy was facing an unprecedented general shortage.

Unlike the navies of many countries, the highest rank in the French Navy at that time was Vice Admiral, and the few vice admirals were already the commanders of important departments, so they naturally could not easily change positions. Although the number of second-class rear admirals is huge, apart from the rear admiral Yamen, who can only deal with official documents, there are only a handful of senior rear admirals with practical naval qualifications, and because most of the officers with the rank of rear admiral are called around, many of them have been serving in overseas colonies for many years, and many of them are in poor health and can no longer wade into the storms and carry out overseas missions. Under these circumstances, many combat tasks could only be performed by officers of the rank of colonel, so the Admiralty was very understanding in agreeing to the emperor's exceptional promotion.

The lone commander, who did not please the French Admiralty, led a fast detachment but a powerful fleet. When the Admiralty issued an order to open the way to Guba, it asked him to form a fleet that had an overwhelming advantage over the small Prussian navy, and the first warship to be selected by Guba was the new ironclad ship "Ocean", which had just been completed and put into service, and was also the flagship of the new fleet. Subsequently, Guba successively transferred warships from other detachments and detachments. The count included the sister ship of the same class as the "Ocean", the marengo, the ironclad ships "Herroing", "Savoya", "Coron", "Revenge", "Goroas" and "Sulfrant", and the cruisers "Aroud", "Embera Kapo", "Oponiat", "Ambuscade", "Embenaiber", "Refus" and "Bertoktis", a total of 15 warships.

After the order to assemble was issued, the warships of this detachment, starting with the flagship "Ocean", successively sailed from the port where they were originally berthed to the port of Brest to assemble. In the autumn of 1870, French warships with the tricolor flying flew from all over the country to the assembly area, and on the seas of Europe, the French navy gathered the most powerful maritime force since the days of Napoleon's First Empire. Moreover, in order to allow the two new "Ocean" class ironclad ships to participate in the war as scheduled, the French Admiralty ordered the transfer of elite personnel from each detachment to form the crew of the two ironclad ships; according to the plan, the Lone Pull detachment assembled in Brest, and then sailed to Cherbourg after assembly. In order to ensure that the lone detachment did not have to worry about any threat from the sea, the Admiralty also organized a support fleet of ironclads and cruisers.

By the end of August 1870, most of the ships of the detachment had reached the Cherbourg anchorage. At this time, the French Admiralty sent a battle plan drawn up according to the Emperor's instructions, and after studying it, Lone Ba fully agreed to take the attack, and the Admiralty approved it, but emphasized that Gu Ba could only win and not lose this time, and put all the responsibility on Gu Ba.

Intelligence from the Admiralty clearly indicated the location of the Prussian Navy's capital ships (in fact, it was provided to Napoleon III by Hayashi Yoshizhe), and after studying it, Guba decided to attack in three directions. The first detachment consisted of two ironclad ships, the "Heroing" and the "Savoya" and the cruiser "Arroyud", which was responsible for intercepting and attacking the Prussian naval capital ship "Friedrich Karl" in the port of Yad, and this detachment was to be supported by the ironclad "Amid", which arrived from Toulon; The second detachment, consisting of the "Cologne" and "Revenge" and the cruiser "Embera Kabo", was responsible for intercepting and attacking the Prussian ironclad "Arminius", which was on defensive duty at the mouth of the Elbe, and this detachment was to be supported by the old ironclad ship "Flanders" and the cruiser "Banshee"; Guba led two of his latest ironclads, the "Ocean" and "Marengo", and the ironclads "Goroas" and "Sulfrant", and five cruisers to attack the main force of the Prussian fleet in the port of Kiel.

Soon, the coast in the distance was clearly visible, and Guba raised his telescope to look ahead, revealing its outline in the faint morning fog of Kiel Harbour.

Lone ordered the ships to begin preparing for battle, and after 15 minutes, all the French warships had completed their preparations on time. The gunners were in place, the guns were loaded, and the boilers were full of steam......

In the bilge of the ironclad ship "Ocean", several excited French sailors were whispering.

"You know what, that's what we're going to do right away!"

"What are we going to do soon?"

"A lesson for the Prussians!"

Soon, the "Ocean" raised the signal flag, "when we hear the first deafening explosion, we will never forget it, like dozens of volcanoes suddenly erupted...... There was a war! There was a war! A sailor aboard the ironclad ship "Ocean" recalled.

――――Dividing Line――――

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