The "Huaqing" ironclad ship is a new generation of ironclad ships in China, and when it was placed in the former Song Dynasty, its volume was a behemoth. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The whole ship is 256 feet long, 36 feet wide, and there are 217 standard personnel on the ship, and it cost 700,000 yuan in silver to build it, and it also costs 100,000 yuan a year to maintain it, that is, the peak of China's national strength, so it can raise this kind of warship.

As a matter of fact, during the political participation of the two houses, some people felt that this kind of ironclad ship, which cost a huge amount of money, was completely unnecessary, and as long as the steam engine and artillery were added, the wooden battleships of China could run rampant in the east, west, south, and three oceans, while a wooden battleship with iron ribs and a size twice as large as the "Huaqing" could be loaded with dozens of guns, but it only cost 400,000 yuan.

However, six years ago, Zhou Quan overrode public opinion and announced that the imperial court would spend huge sums of money to develop such warships. At that time, he persuaded the two houses to support the argument that there was not much secret about the steam engine and artillery, and that the Jin people could learn it, and the rest of the countries could also learn it, and if they wanted to gain the upper hand in future wars, they must take the lead in armament development.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools.

After six years, a group of ironclad cruisers such as the Huaqing were finally able to come in handy, and they will participate in the battle with Jin for the first time.

Wei Min regarded the Huaqing as his own ship, but he was in high spirits, standing on the deck and saying to Zhou Yu with a smile: "I heard that someone in the country has invented a photographic machine, which can leave people's figures, which is very realistic, even if it is a painter like Zhang Zeduan, it cannot be compared." It's a pity that we don't have it here, otherwise we will take a photo here, and our descendants will be treasured in the future. ”

Zhou Yu said with a smile: "There will be opportunities in the future, and the manager is afraid that the camera will not come to us!" ”

Wei Min nodded sympathetically, now Huaxia has convenient transportation, there are railways on the land, steamships on the water, airships in the sky, and developed commerce, so that all the inventions that can make money will be rolled out in a very short time. Like the photo machine, it is still only available in the tiles of big cities such as Bianliang, Yingtian, Hangzhou, Xuzhou, and Huating, but soon, it will expand to small and medium-sized cities, and then overseas colonial cities.

Some people even joked that if Yingtian is an epidemic of cold, then as long as it takes half a year, the Lion State will inevitably have an epidemic of cold.

"Wan Yanliang is ruthless, he actually threw away all the territory, if it weren't for our warships, we would really have to run away for him." Wei Min brought the topic back to the point.

At this time, after the Huaqing, there were more than 30 ships of all kinds accompanying it, all of which were steamships, so they could keep up with the speed of the Huaqing, and in the farther distance, there were dozens of sailing ships, which were also catching up. In addition to several thousand officers and men of the West Sea Fleet of the Chinese Navy, these ships also carried more than 20,000 men from the 11th, 13th, 14th, and 17th armies.

Their purpose was to block Yan Liang before he escaped.

Wan Yan Liang raised his butcher's knife against the Great Food God Sect, originally Zhou Quan thought that he was killing only to stabilize his rule, so he encouraged him to kill, but Yu Yunwen put forward an opinion to Zhou Quan, after Yan Liang's killing, he would then abandon his land and flee westward, fleeing to Taixi's Europa, where Huaxia could not reach to recuperate and regain his strength.

Zhou Quan attaches great importance to Yu Yunwen's opinion, and what happened in the Jin Kingdom immediately afterwards also proves the authenticity of Yu Yunwen's conjecture.

Wan Yanliang was going to send troops westward in autumn and September, in his words, to "rendezvous" with the Byzantine Empire, but in fact he had the permission of Pope Innocent, and if he captured Byzantium, then he would be allowed to be emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.

This was originally the news from Huaxia's detailed work arranged in Jin, but in July, Wan Yanliang suddenly ordered to set off in advance, and to some extent, his early action caught Huaxia a little off guard.

Therefore, Zhou Quan ordered that the 60,000 men of the four armies that were originally preparing for a decisive battle with the Jin State change the goal of the battle and capture the black-clothed capital Bahata (Baghdad) in the summer and July of the twelfth year of Yuan Xian.

It's just that at this time, the preparations of the Huaxia Army revolved around the September operation, and after two months in advance, both the transportation capacity and the materials were a little difficult, so Wei Min personally led the 15,000 people drawn from each army, thinking that they were the vanguard troops, and went to attack Bahata.

"He is a dog jumping over the wall in a hurry, and after the mass killing, his rule is unstable, and it is better to break his tail to survive." Zhou Yu said disdainfully.

Wei Min shook his head, and then said very seriously: "Your Highness Yu, you have to be careful of this person, this person is ambitious, not inferior to Wushu, and he is more flexible than Wushu...... If this person is not removed, he will become a problem for Huaxia's henchmen! ”

"Let's wait until he escapes this." Zhou Yudao.

Wei Min knew that he was young and vigorous, so he didn't say it anymore, and said with a smile: "After this battle, I will be qualified to return to China, and everything in the future will be handed over to the young man - Li Erbao, what do you think, why don't you give way to the young man?" ”

The Huaqing is Wei Min's ship, and it is also the flagship of Li Erbao, the Grand Governor of the West Sea Fleet.

Li Erbao, who didn't look like a good thing with a horizontal face, snorted, he was older than Wei Min, and the military position of the governor of the West Sea Fleet was equivalent to Wei Min's Tianzhu marching commander, but in addition to the subordinates of this operation, he was worthy of Wei Min and participated in the war as Wei Min's deputy.

The two have known each other for a long time, so it doesn't matter if they joke with each other. After a while, Li Erbao pointed to the surroundings and said arrogantly: "Your Majesty said that when I lead the West Sea Fleet to conquer Taixi and force Taixi Zhuyi to open the port and set up a concession, then I can retire!" ”

The retirement time of the Huaxia Navy is generally later than that of the Army, because relatively speaking, the Navy is a technical branch, and it is not easy to train a qualified naval officer, while the Army officer is correspondingly simpler and easier to find someone to replace him.

"Conquer Tessie...... I have heard that there are many kingdoms over there, and they are ignorant and have no products, and our silk and spices can be used for gold and silver when they are there. The people over there are so filthy that they don't even bother to take a bath, they are really barbarians. I am interested in Chengzhou in the east, and I heard that Chengzhou has a vast land, a large population, and abundant products, especially rich in gold and silver. "Wei Min yearns for authenticity.

The so-called Cheng Zhou is the America known to Zhou Quan, Hu Jingshui has been working hard since discovering Hu Zhou, trying to find a newer continent, but unfortunately many times he has tried to fail. However, two years ago, Cheng Dachang, a native of Huizhou, raised a batch of money, set off from Japan in a sailing ship, went to the northeast with the wind, and arrived at the new continent in 37 days.

When Cheng Dachang discovered Cheng Zhou, he was only seventeen years old!

This matter can be described as a sensation, and it also made Hu Jingshui angry, if he didn't focus on operating Hu Zhou to make a profit, how could he give such an honor to others!

Cheng Dachang wandered in Chengzhou for more than 100 days, and when he reached a place close to the equator, he borrowed the east wind current to return and go directly to the Luzon Islands. But once he returned to China, he immediately got the supreme honor, Zhou Quan gave him the Imperial Exploration Medal, a bounty of 100,000 silver yuan, and after the establishment of the Royal Academy, he and Hu Jingshui were able to enter as great geographers, not to mention the imperial subsidies, and they could also get priority to obtain financial support from the imperial court to carry out new expedition projects.

Cheng Dachang is now organizing a second expedition and is preparing to go to Chengzhou again, this time the scale of the expedition will be very large, and there will even be warships from the Imperial East China Sea Fleet to accompany it. According to Zhou Quan's arrangement, this time to draw a coastal map of Chengzhou, if possible, to continue eastward from Chengzhou, it is best to circle the earth, and confirm the practical inference that the earth is a sphere.

Zhou Yu was also very interested in Cheng Zhou, and joined the discussion of this continent with great interest. He had a plan in his heart, if he failed to succeed to the throne, then he would go to Chengzhou and establish his own country there.

While they were discussing the matter of Cheng Zhou, the Huaqing, the flagship fleet, successfully entered the Persian Gulf.

The Huaqing broke into the Persian Gulf, and the poor sailors of the Jin State had no way to stop it, all they could do was to rely on the cover of the shore batteries, symbolically resist for a moment, and then raise a white flag and surrender.

And the West Sea Fleet did not pay attention to them, these were not the targets of the West Sea Fleet, these small ships could not even threaten the armed merchant ships of the Chinese merchants.

The target of the Western Sea Fleet is Bosalo.

This city, which is recorded in the "Taiping Huanyu Ji", was not as far from the coast due to the alluvium of the rivers as in later generations, and it was still an important port and fortress along the coast, and it was also the first obstacle for the Chinese warships to penetrate into the two rivers.

After Yan Liang launched a massacre last year, he slaughtered the port, and then drove the converted people to strengthen the port defenses, not only strengthening the outer walls, but also building many forts.

When the Huaqing appeared outside the port, the alarm bell on the battery rang for a long time, and the gunners of the golden soldiers ran up to the running position and began to aim at the Huaxia fleet.

It's just that until now, the Jin Kingdom still hasn't gotten the optimized gunpowder formula, so the range of their artillery, with the same amount of medicine, is always lower than that of Huaxia. Don't look at the heavy guns of the fort with thick caliber and long barrels, but the real range is about the same as the main guns on battleships such as the Huaqing.

I don't know who started first, and the artillery on both sides began to roar.

After the main cannon roared on the Huaqing, the violent vibration brought by it shook Zhou Yu unsteadily, he could only tie himself to the ship, and then go to Li Erbao and others, but found that these naval officers and men were as stable as pine trees one by one. And the more they fought, the more elated they became, Li Erbao even ignored the fact that Zhou Yu and Wei Min were also on this ship, and ordered to move forward and directly enter the range of shore artillery.

Such a bold act naturally met with the hostility of the Jin army, and for a while, the water column around the Huaqing soared into the sky, and it was all splashed by the enemy's cannon pellets.

At the same time that the Jinbing Fort was attracted by the large ships, more than ten small boats carrying dozens of sergeants of the Huaxia Army each began to break through the artillery blockade of the fort, and they rushed directly into the estuary, went up the river, and went around to the rear of the fort.

A moment later, there was a fierce gunfire above the fort, and then, I saw that the black dragon flag of the Jin country was lowered, and in its place, it was the golden dragon flag of Huaxia!