When the Tang Dynasty was waging war against the Qing Dynasty and enjoying the American market to the fullest, the Europeans did not care about the Tang Dynasty at all. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info because it is similar to the original history but not so similar is that the top three European powers are fighting again.

The war-torn Gibraltar, as the first strategic point in Europe, has not been a little war. Beginning in June, the French and Spaniards formed a large coalition and launched a siege of Gibraltar. The French and Spaniards organized a force of about fifteen thousand men to storm Gibraltar. It is also worth mentioning that more than half of these besieging troops were equipped with SC-2 breech-loading rifled guns produced by the Tang Dynasty, and at the same time, the French even bought 203 mm siege cannons cast by the Tang people.

The French got a total of one such siege cannon, but it is a pity that the Tang is wilted, this is a short-barreled mortar cannon, although it is a rifled cannon, but the range is limited, and it is extremely bulky. It was originally the 203mm main gun on the Datang Pinghai-class cruiser, and the weapons engineers added a lot of unnecessary parts and added weight to the gun, and finally came up with such a thing. Because this thing was too bulky for ordinary French ships to carry, it was the Tang people who got a large cargo ship for the French to send all the way here.

It cost a lot of money, and it took a lot of money, but the French didn't feel a loss at all. The French even gave the cannon a nickname, "Big Bapu", because it was purchased by Count Rochambeau and the Tang people, and Rochambeau's name was Jean. Baptis. Dutanna.

The appearance of Grand Papu put a lot of pressure on the British, and even though Gibraltar was an easy fortress to defend, the British made a lot of efforts to defend it. But huge shells smashed into the fortress from time to time. The destruction of the fortress, the blow to morale is unimaginable.

The origins of this siege can be described as complex. Back in the North American Revolutionary War flagship. France and Spain were going to join the war against Britain with the Americans and the Tang people. But I didn't expect that the Tang people, who were too strong, would clean up the British like schoolchildren, and before the French and Spaniards could react, they heard a string of first-blood, killing-spring, rampage, unstoppable, and dominating. godlike，legendary，aced……

And then there was no then.

Although the fall of the British was a bit unexpected, the British were also severely weakened. More crucially, both the French and the Spaniards saw the hope of defeating the British from the advanced weapons of the Dons. So Louis XVI desperately bought equipment from the Tang Dynasty and weapons that were not used by the Continental Army from the United States, and his army was not even familiar with and trained in new weapons, so he hurriedly signed a "Treaty of Aranjuez" with his cousin and sent troops against the British.

Although the European powers are happy to fight, they don't want to be cheeky. Still, the French are quite orthodox to find a truth for themselves. This is still a long way from the truth, because in India.

Back in 1770. The illustrious kingdom of Maratha relied on its prestige and power to bring the Mughal emperor in Delhi under their control, threatening him with a number of privileges and promising to escort him back to the capital, threatening the Son of Heaven to make the princes sought-after. Soon, due to infighting over the succession to the throne, the British took the opportunity to send troops, which led to the outbreak of the First British Maratha War. The British East India Company, in order to secure certain coastal territories adjacent to Bombay and consolidate its position in Bombay, offered to cede Salset and Basein, and to transfer a part of the tax revenues of the counties of Broch and Surat to the British, promising to send 2,500 troops to form an alliance with Peshwa of Maratha (equivalent to the prime minister). The coalition forces defeated the Maratha government forces in Pune at the Arras plain.

Pune then received a French adventurer and promised the French a port, which made the British suspicious and finally sent another army, and after a series of victories, the British prevailed. At this time, the French jumped out, and they far-fetched to form an alliance with Maratha, and sent a part of the army to India to oppose the British.

Of course, the French were not particularly concerned with the victory or defeat of the Marathas, and the British operation in India, which was basically led by the East India Company, had little to do with the British government, while the French were more concerned with defeating the British in Europe. As a result, in order to support their North Indian allies, the French sent less than 1,000 troops to South Asia, but in Europe, they formed an army of more than 10,000 people with Spain, which was also ruled by the Bourbons, equipped with various advanced weapons from the Tang Dynasty, and launched an offensive against Gibraltar, a strategic point in the Mediterranean.

The French commander-in-chief, the Duke of Clion, ordered the French and Spanish navies to close the port of Gibraltar, and due to the crushing defeat in North America, the British navy also fell to a critical point of strength, with only 12 British Royal Navy ships in Gibraltar, and they were mainly small ships, but the Franco-Spanish coalition had as many as 41 warships, and more than half of the battleships of large tonnage above the third level.

At this time, the Duke of Clion was still optimistic: "If we attack a little later, we will get our new ships from the Dons, so that we can beat the British army in Gibraltar to dust with only our navy." ”

However, even though the Franco-Spanish army had superior forces and more artillery, Gibraltar was still not captured in the short term, and there was a naturally formed rock mountain of Gibraltar, or Hercules' Pillar, which was densely covered with various natural tunnels, and the rock mountain was extremely steep and difficult to overcome. As early as a thousand years ago, the Moors made it their castle, and for thousands of years, Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs, and Spaniards fought and died here. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, it was ceded to the British, who expelled the Spaniards, immigrated the Anglo-Saxons, and built it into the ultimate fortress of control over the Mediterranean.

Now, the Franco-Spanish coalition tried to help Spain recover this place, after the siege began, the coalition army launched several offensives on the rock mountain fortress, even if the number was superior, and there were a large number of Tang weapons, but the attack did not go well, the British desperately guarded the Pillar of Hercules, and the coalition army suffered a lot of casualties.

The somewhat angry Duke of Clion changed his mind again, and he proposed to besiege Gibraltar and starve the British inside. Gibraltar was undersupplied and had little local output, relying entirely on external supplies, and the British were afraid of their own collapse under siege.

In order to prevent the British from supporting Gibraltar, France and Spain even organized raids on the British mainland. (To be continued.) )