After many days of discussion among the leaders of the southern states, it was finally decided to accept the naval assistance of the East India Company at the cost of the relative human rights protection of the slaves. Forcing the South to do this has already stripped Downing of the title of the greatest villain in history. Perhaps this achievement is more than what the Wenfang Confederation has done at this time. The North said that it was to emancipate slaves, but it was only for slaves in the South, and there were still legal states for slavery in the states that had not seceded from the Union, and for the sake of the unity of the North, even if Lincoln wanted to liberate the northern slave states, it would have to be discussed again, so a national slavery ban bill was still in the pipeline.

The United States, like France, is also entangled, which country is it declaring war on? The Americans had to come up with a suitable object, and finally, for the first time in history, the United States declared war on a company, of course, the largest underworld in history, the East India Company. At the same time, oil exports, which had just resumed for a short time, were frozen again. Of the four NATO countries, with the exception of the observer Prussia, which issued the "strongest condemnation", France, Russia and their colonies officially declared war on the East India Company. Moreover, the three declared countries of NATO have cleverly avoided the three words "Britannica" in front of the British East India Company, hoping not to drag Britain in, which is hilarious.

Wow, this should be regarded as the First World War, even more real than the real First World War, because North America has been directly involved in the vortex of war, and even the South American Granada can be regarded as involved in the war, but the war was crippled and fully occupied by the Japanese army at the beginning. What's even more powerful is that India, the Malay Archipelago, China, Japan, and Italy in Asia have all joined the warband. France is fighting Mexico, and it is difficult to say that the East India Company will bring Mexico to fight together, and another country is in this web of possible war.

On the European battlefield, the Italian army comprehensively contained the French army, and Britain, which still had a lot of interests in the British East India Company, also "called for peace" across the English Channel.

The countries that joined Britain in calling for peace basically included the middle powers who were present at the coronation of the Italian emperor, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Bavaria. The emperor of Austria married Sissi's sister, although he was Downing's brother-in-law, but he did not want to see the rise of the Apennine Peninsula, which he originally despended, and Austria still held Venice in his hands, so Austria should secretly support NATO.

In North America, there is the Confederate to restrain the United States, in Europe, Italy to deal with France, and Russia has India, China, and Japan at the same time on a super long front, and many people do not understand the number of winners and losers in this war. The academic community is more inclined to win because the Windsor consortium has the advantage in terms of economic strength and innovation ability.

But the war is basically traditional, that is, looking at the table of the recent war, France and Prussia joined forces, this thing is too scary, basically if this combination appears to deal with Britain, Britain will not dare to land on the European continent at all. And the two allies, China and Japan, are the sick men of East Asia, and they are two useless guys to catch up.

Therefore, in military and political circles, it is NATO that is favored.

Since the war has been officially declared, it can only be accompanied, and the five strange formations organized by the Viceroy of India, the Viceroy of Malaya, the two auxiliary ministers of the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese Federation, and the newly elected Mazzini Republican government of Italy will soon officially declare war on the three NATO countries on behalf of their respective countries.

In order to organize these five countries, Downing planned a "World Trade Organization", with these five countries as the founding countries, and zero tariffs between the countries, equivalent to the German Customs Union. These five countries also constitute the military signatories to the WTO, exercising the "right of collective self-defense", that is, in the event of an attack on a signatory party, all members of the signatory party have the obligation to jointly defend the sovereignty of the member state. The WTO was inviting the Confederate States of America to join because they were also in favour of free trade. And President Deiss of the Confederate States of America has agreed to at least become an observer in the WTO.

At this level, there are zero tariffs and no obligation of collective self-defense militarily. The current Confederacy and the Windsor consortium are not so close. Japan should not have been so close, but this nation has no national emperor, and it is a bit of a sense to regard Downing, the teacher of almost all national leaders, as the emperor. The Windsor Consortium led Japan's military to become rich, so that the Japanese civilians also favored the government's accession to the WTO, and the unemployed samurai in Japan were even more willing to act as minions of the Windsor Consortium.

In real history, these samurai were useless after being banned by the Restoration, and created a lot of rebellions, and the leader of the rebellion was still Saigo Takamori, because as a low-ranking samurai, he sympathized with these compatriots who had lost a qiē, and the Saigo Rebellion in that world, the person who went to suppress it was his fellow countryman Okubo Ritsu, which is a sad story. Now that the samurai have become Windsor's minions, whether it is good or bad is not said for the time being, at least the samurai rebellion is gone.

Once the emperor is defeated, Italy may be torn to pieces by Prussia, France, and Russia, so the Italians, who are deeply afflicted by division, seize the time to train their army. Italians can fight, the emperor does not expect them to conquer the city, it is good to be able to defend the Italian mainland from being occupied by the Franco-Prussian people. Judging by the previous conflicts, it was not easy for the French to invade the territory of the Italian Empire. But if the law is united, it will be difficult to say. Fortunately, Prussia seems to be more concerned with the unification of Germany, and does not dare to become a full member of NATO, wanting to take advantage of the fact that the two sides are inseparable. At first glance, Bismarck's diplomatic strategy is Bismarck's handiwork.

Lincoln still attached great importance to the direct entry of the navy into the war, and ordered the American army to accelerate the attack on the southern capital Richmond. The South attached great importance to Virginia, and when Virginia joined the Confederacy, its capital was Richmond, Virginia. This place is not a good place to be strategically located, as it is only a hundred miles from Washington, D.C., because the two sides can be said to be close to each other, and the battle is like a starry battle around the two capitals, and the south, where the navy is at a disadvantage, will obviously have more vulnerable points exposed to the attack of the other side.

For example, the North Atlantic Blockade Fleet of 17 warships and more than 2,000 sailors was assembled to control the Hampton Anchorage.

The navy was far away in the Caribbean, more than 2,000 kilometers from Richmond, and even if it had left immediately after receiving a telegram from the South, it would not have been able to rush to participate in this naval battle. Not to mention all sorts of obstructions from the Northern Fleet along the way.

When the North Atlantic Blockade Fleet Navy assembled five warships, the South felt that the situation was critical, and sacrificed the large-scale killing weapon they had secretly developed, the ironclad ship Virginia.

At this time, the U.S. Navy was not at the same level as Britain and France, and as long as an ironclad ship was produced, it might be able to change the tide of the war, and Britain and France had just built this type of warship. The scenery of ironclad ships will not last long, and they will soon be replaced by steelclad ships, but since no one has applied it in actual combat, this trump card killer of the Southern Navy is refreshing to the military circles.

There was no seafaring tradition in the South, there were no sailors, no large shipyards, and no workshops capable of producing marine engines. Under difficult circumstances, an ironclad ship was even made. Artillery specialist Captain John Brooke, naval naval architect William Williamson, and naval architect John Boud jointly proposed a plan in the summer of 1861 to build an ironclad ship that could be retrofitted from the Merrimac's hull, salvaged from the Elizabeth River. and was renamed the USS Virginia. Its displacement is 3200 tons, the length of the ship is 83. 8 meters, width 11. 7 meters, 6 high. 9 meters, speed 5 knots, crew 330.

The military intelligence agencies of the North learned of the South's plan to secretly build ironclads and immediately rushed to produce their own ironclads and rushed out in half the time, calling them "Watchers".

The most important battle between the North and South navies will be between these two hastily created iron monsters, known as the Battle of Hampton Anchorage.

The more complex mechanism of the rotating turret, the Watcher adopts such a design, which clearly demonstrates the high level of shipbuilding in the North. And the Virginia naturally opted for the traditional broadside guns. However, the north is not much higher, and the Watcher has taken a lot of risks on its way south to Hampton Anchorage. The ship's sailing performance was not as good as its designer Erickson had imagined, and when the storm came, the ship's weakness in not adapting to harsh weather navigation was clearly exposed. Due to the low side of the ship, huge waves rushed up to the deck, and sea water poured in through the cracks in the turret, making it look like a waterfall from the inside, and the Watcher nearly sank twice under the blow of a great storm.

While the Watcher was still heading south in the storm, the Virginia was already showing its edge. Buchanan led the USS Virginia ironclad and left the port of Gutsburg with two small gunboats, the Releger and the Billyford, and sailed down the Elizabeth River to Hampton Anchorage.

At noon, the Northern Navy detachment stationed at Hampton Anchorage sent the gunboat Minuter to reconnoiter the movements of the Southern Navy, and soon the lookout post on the gunboat spotted a plume of black smoke rising from the mouth of the Elizabeth River. In those days, no one heeded the Labour leader Engels' call for filtering the chimneys of ships, except for the Great Eastern chimneys, which were filtered, because that would make the fuel less efficient.

The captain of the Northern Navy Volunteer's gunboat didn't know for sure that it was the legendary USS Virginia until he saw the Southern flag. It was like the roof of a granary, and the chimney on the roof was constantly emitting black smoke. How beautiful the traditional sail ships were, and how unpleasant they were, and when he set out, the curious southerners stood on the shore to see them, and sarcastically said, "To hell with your iron coffins!" ”

The USS Virginia first encountered the USS Minutemen, a small gunboat that had come to reconnoitre. Captain Rainey of the Minuteman ordered the crew to quickly retreat to the aft deck, and fired six rounds of 13 at the Merimak with the only gun on board. 7 kg shells. However, the cannonball landed on the terrible iron monster and was quickly ejected, leaving it unscathed.

The Virginia was not at all concerned with the incoming shells, leaving its poor little gunboat and heading straight for the Cumberland, a sloop armed with a new rifled gun. The Virginia first fired one 178-millimeter long-range shell at the Cumberland, and the shrapnel from the explosion killed and injured several crew members of the Cumberland. The second shell exploded near the Cumberland's front main gun, killing most of the former main gunner.

At the same time, the shore artillery batteries of the USS Cumberland, USS Capitol and Cape Newport News also began to fight back with intensive fire. But the Virginia, with its iron armor and "thick skin," continued to move forward nonchalantly. The flowering shells of the Northern Army hit it, and the shrapnel flew everywhere, causing no damage to it, and the solid shells hit this smooth iron guy, leaving only shallow pits at most. The majesty of iron armor soon dominated the battlefield.

The genius designer of the battleship also smeared the sides of the Virginia's hull with lard, so that the shells hit the Virginia like a child shooting peas with a toy gun, only to hear the crackling sound and see the shells being shot into the air to explode and burn, or slide into the water, without seeing any damage to the Virginia.

The Virginia felt that the artillery battle was too inefficient, and wanted to sink the injured Cumberland directly with a sharp ramming angle. At this time, the development of armor clearly surpassed that of artillery, and the ramming horn actually became a big killer in the mind of the commander of the Virginia.

The Virginia's ramming strategy was a fluke, as the sharp ramming angle pierced the starboard hull of the Cumberland, and a large amount of seawater poured into the hull, causing Cumberland to tilt to the right. Poking is poking in, it's not easy to pull it out, and in the end I learned to rely on the waves to exit. It's like two people fighting a bayonet, and if the blade is not designed properly, it is easy to lose the weapon after killing an enemy.

Despite the damage to the Cumberland, the captain Captain Merris replied categorically in the face of Buchanan's persuasion: "I would rather die in battle than surrender!" Captain Murray brandished his saber and used the shouting microphone to direct the sailors to continue the battle, and the gunners of the Cumberland also showed great valor, continuing to shoot during the sinking of the ship until it sank with the fluttering naval flag, and 121 of the ship's 376 sailors were killed.

After taking the Buchanan, the confident Virginia swooped down on the Capitol with great confidence. Seeing that the situation was not good, the Capitol quickly ordered the Minutemen to drag themselves to the shore so that they could be supported by shore guns, and the Virginia, which had a deep draft, could not get too close to the shore.

But the distance was too close, and the USS Virginia had already aimed its ten naval guns on the side at the Congress. The Capitol was also an old-fashioned broadside gun, and it ran aground on the shore, and only 2 of its 50 guns were able to strike the Virginia, but later even those two guns were dumbed, and the young captain and a large number of gunners of the Capitol died.

The naval guns on the Virginia were all new high-powered howitzers, and I saw a continuous explosion on the Capitol, sails, wood chips, and gun carriages flying straight into the sky, and the whole ship was in flames. There was a river of blood on the deck of the Reichstag, and the blood flowed from the sloping deck of the Reichstag onto our boat, and it looked like it was washing the deck with blood.

The Capitol is about to surrender, in fact, in Europe and the United States, which have been enlightened by the Renaissance "people-oriented" ideology, it is the norm to surrender when the war situation is unfavorable, and only when the Cumberland is red-eyed will it fight to the end. The North and South armies often exchanged prisoners of war after several battles, and some prisoners of war often returned to important posts.

The Virginia hastily sent two small boats to take the surrender, but the shore defense guns did not listen to the order and continued to fire at the Virginia. It is estimated that those buddies who fought the shore defense artillery saw that the ironclad ship was too fierce, and they wanted to sink it regardless of qiē, otherwise it would be very detrimental to the northern navy in the future.

The commander of the Virginia was so angry that he ordered to continue firing at the Capitol, and he himself climbed to the top of the turret to observe and command, but unfortunately he was shot in the leg. When Buchanan was wounded, his deputy, Captain Kesby Jones, took command of the Virginia.

In the fierce battle of 4 and a half hours, they destroyed the 2 main large wooden warships of the Northern Army, and their own iron armor body, almost no serious damage, the opponent had a total of more than 100 naval guns and shore guns to carry out intensive shelling of the Virginia, but only damaged its 2 guns, and turned the exposed chimney into a hornet's nest. Only 2 people were killed, 19 were wounded, and the armor was not damaged in any way.

A large number of soldiers witnessed this historic naval battle on the shore, and many civilians also ran out to watch the battle. The shoddy Virginia was so powerful, which made Lincoln even more worried, because intelligence showed that the battleships built by the East India Company were no longer ironclad, but steel armor, not riveted, but welded, and maybe even the legendary electric welding, not acetylene heat welding. It is conceivable that its sturdiness is far greater than that of the Virginia.

The shipyards of the East India Company were not the inexperienced half-toned shipyards of the South, which were supported by only a few geniuses, and a large number of British shipbuilding elites became employees, and even the technology of the British Navy had been surpassed in terms of talent. Coupled with the fact that the Hawaiian fleet was cleaned up like a human vapor, how could it not be worrying?

Federal Secretary of the Army Edwin Stanton sharply criticized Secretary of the Navy Wells, arguing: "The USS Virginia will change the course of the war, it will destroy any ship we are currently serving, the blockade will be bankrupt, and Washington, New York, and Boston will be shelled by it or forced to pay a ransom." （http：／／.)。 ”

The Secretary of the Navy said, "Our Watcher has arrived in the Hamptons, and will be able to defend this strategic location." ”

The Secretary of War was not at all reassured, his eyes looked out the window at the Potomac River, and he said worriedly: "The shape is so urgent, I think that before we leave the conference room, that monster may suddenly appear on the Potomac River and use its terrible cannon to tear the roof of the White House." With that, he took the telegram from the Secretary of the Navy to the Commander of Shore Defense and burned it, and ordered, "Go and let your men use the shore guns, block the port, and the Virginia will come!"

Washington, D.C., is also a city near the sea, and if the navy is defeated, the enemy can penetrate from the Chesapeake Bay, which is also a few miles away from Washington. It would be too funny if the Southerners relied on a ship to reverse, and this is still the foreplay of a naval battle, right? The East India Company's navy may already be heading for the Gulf of Mexico, and soon Washington's Yankees will know what a welded warship looks like. It is not just the word "solid" that can be described.