[Today's second update]

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The blue waters over the Gulf of Siam are cloudy.

In the area of engagement, the sound of artillery shook the sky, and the smoke of gunpowder covered the air. The sea is choppy and the sea is boiling.

After an hour and a half of fierce fighting, only two cruisers remained of the Coast Guard from the Luzon colony. Zhao Xiang dragged his tired body, unkempt, and continued to command the battle.

At this moment, the only remaining Dolphin-class cruisers No. 271 and No. 322 were scarred and damaged in many places. Flagship No. 271 dodged the shells fired by the enemy ships, and the bow deck was full of flames, and thick smoke blew backwards, enveloping the entire hull, and it was impossible to see the situation above.

The Dutch fleet was closing in, and the two remaining cruisers were no longer able to stop them from approaching the treasure ship.

A large number of warships approached the Dongting Lake, and the Dutch tried to lock the treasure ship with a hook, but the huge size of the treasure ship made it difficult for them to get their hands on it.

Li Yan ordered the treasure ship to move forward at full speed, crushing the enemy ship downward with its huge body. Although the speed of the treasure ship was only five or six knots, with the body of the Dutch cruiser and small frigate, it did not dare to block it head-on in front of the Dongting Lake. Several cruisers and frigates tried to stop the Dongting Lake head-on, trying to stop the Dongting Lake, but they were directly hit and sunk by the Dongting Lake and crushed to pieces.

The Dutch attempted to climb the treasure ship, but were repelled by the treasure ship defenders with a large number of muskets and a small amount of infantry artillery. The Dutch tried to suppress with artillery, but the elevation angle was not enough, and the shells could not shoot upwards at the defenders on the treasure ship. If heavy artillery was used, the Dutch were even more afraid of sinking the treasure ship and not getting the treasure. Therefore, the Dutch were so angry that they couldn't find a way to attack it.

The destructive power of infantry guns against Dutch warships was so low that it was almost like tickling. Li Yan was sure that they would not dare to move the real thing, so he used a limited number of five infantry guns to attack the Dutch with grenade shots. The infantry artillery was condescending, and the grenades were extremely lethal, and after a salvo, the Dutch sailors suffered heavy casualties and blood.

Turner's heart was wrenched when he saw his attacking sailors being shot in pieces.

"Damn fire and teach them a lesson"

"No, you can't"

Reyoz hurriedly stopped and said, "What should I do if the ship is sunk by opening fire?" The ship is full of precious metals, and if it leaks, it will sink in an instant."

"What then? Is it just like that? Turner said angrily, "Look at how many of my sailors have died? ”

Rejoz frowned: "Casualties are inevitable because we were not well prepared, and did not take into account the height of the treasure ship and the number of defenders on it."

At this moment, the Poyang Lake suddenly turned left and smashed a Dutch frigate that was approaching and preparing to jump into battle, and hundreds of sailors on it fell into the sea with a wail.

The sea was bitterly cold, and the Dutch sailors who fell into the sea suffered greatly. If there is an injury on the body, if you don't get rescue for half an hour, your life will be worried.

As the Poyang Lake advanced, a huge suction force was generated around the hull, and the nearby Dutch sailors did not have time to escape, and were instantly swept upside down, and when they came out again, their flesh and blood were blurred.

The screams even outpaced the shouts of killing, and Rayoz listened to it tightly in his heart. Sighing, he said, "The Chinese Empire was able to create such a super monster?" I'm afraid there are tens of thousands of tons of this big guy when it's fully loaded."

"Whatever he does? It has to stop now, otherwise tens of thousands of people won't be able to control it."

Turner walked back and forth, thinking of a way. At this time, an adjutant suddenly said: "Your Excellency, it is better to destroy the rudder of the treasure ship"

"Great idea"

"Nope"

"What's wrong again?"

Turner was about to go crazy, and finally came up with a solution, but was rejected by Rayoz.

Rejoz only explained lightly: "Destroying the rudder of the treasure ship, of course, can make it stop, but have you thought about the consequences?" How can we transport such a huge ship after we take it? By dragging? How much time do you think the Imperial Chinese Navy will give us? ”

"Isn't that easy?" Turner said, "After we take the treasure ship, we will load the treasure inside on the warship and take it away."

Rejoz rolled his eyes and said, "Do you think it's a robbery of an ordinary merchant ship?" It took months for the treasure to be loaded into the ship."

Belch......

Turner was dumbfounded, he had always thought that the treasure inside was all cash, and that he only needed to let the sailors take it away after seizing the ship, but he ignored other circumstances.

"What then?"

Turner was underwhelmed and dejected.

Reyoz couldn't think of a better way for a while, just stared at the two treasure ships in a daze.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Zhao Xiang's flagship had its sails destroyed due to a fire, and finally could not support it and gave up resistance. Another cruiser was slowly sinking, and the entire Luzon Coast Guard was wiped out.

The Dutch East India Fleet regrouped and housed more than 700 prisoners, including Zhao Xiang.

At this time, the two treasure ships were already surrounded. The Dutch, fearing that they had sunk the treasure ship, forbade the firing of their guns and fought with muskets in their hands.

The two sides engaged in a fierce gun battle, as the defender, the treasure ship was as tall as a city, the edge of the ship was three meters higher than the second-class battleships of the Dutch fleet, and the soldiers of the Chinese Empire on the treasure ship were condescending, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Rejouz's last resort was to send four second-class battleships, each of which caught a treasure ship, and then hooked the hook to the edge of the treasure ship at any cost.

On the treasure ship, the soldiers of the Chinese Empire often cut the hook and lock with knives and axes, but they could not hold the Dutch. Under the cover of the musket team, the Dutch suppressed the soldiers of the Chinese Empire to step forward and cut off the hook locks, and gradually hooked the hooks and locks one by one to the treasure ship. The tug-of-war between the two sides lasted for more than three hours, and finally the treasure ship was hooked by the two warships on the left and right, and a fierce gun battle began between the two sides.

There were more than 1,000 soldiers of the Chinese Empire on each treasure ship, all of whom were elite soldiers of the Royal Army selected by Li Zicheng, so they fought very bravely.

The individual combat effectiveness of the sailors of the Dutch East India Fleet was not as good as that of the soldiers of the Chinese Empire, but it could not stand the large number of people, and this time the East India Company took out all the naval resources and launched charges again and again at any cost.

However, each treasure ship had five infantry guns, which were fired whenever the Dutch launched a full-scale charge due to lack of ammunition.

Knock knock

The Shenwu infantry opened fire with a bang, and the steel balls that shot into the sky shattered iron, killing and wounding the enemy in a large area. In an instant, a large enemy was swept away, leaving only patches of blood mist, which was extremely tragic.

The Dutch paid a heavy price for this, and the battle lasted until half past two in the afternoon, with more than 5,000 casualties, while the defenders of the treasure ships of the Chinese Empire suffered only one or two hundred casualties.

However, the Dutch were not fools, and soon dismantled some of the deck guns and brought them outside to face the treasure ship defenders.

Since the difference between the Dutch second-class battleships and the treasure ships was only three or five meters high, the Dutch lifted the naval guns to the outer deck and could hit the female wall of the treasure ship with a slight height.

With the increase of Dutch naval guns, the defense of the female wall of the treasure ship was gradually destroyed, and the casualties of the defenders began to surge.

On the Tara Jersey, Turner finally smiled, and Rejoz breathed a sigh of relief, so it seemed that in less than half an hour, they would occupy the Dongting Lake, and the other Poyang Lake would also be occupied in less than forty minutes.

Paying such a heavy price, Turner was a little distressed, but thinking of the billions of treasures above, from Turner to the guy, everyone felt excited.

As the Dutch artillery continued to destroy the edge defenses of the treasure ships, the casualties of the defenders surged, and more than half of them were killed or wounded in just ten minutes. The few infantry guns that were left were also muted, as the artillerymen were killed.

"His grandmother's" Li Zicheng grabbed his hat off, his muscles burst out, and he was ready to fight.

Li Yan was also disgraced, and his military uniform had been cut in many places, and blood had oozed out of some places.

"Why haven't there been reinforcements yet? I'm thanking you for the flowers I'm waiting for."

"Are you embarrassed?" Li Zicheng spat out a puff of cigarette ash and said, "You said that the reinforcements would arrive in two hours, but now it has been six hours of fighting, and I haven't even seen a shadow."

"Resist"

Li Yan shouted, but he turned over and hid behind the sandbag, tilting his head and panting heavily.

"If the treasure ship is lost, Lao Tzu's military career will be over"

Li Zicheng was suddenly gloomy, and said: "I shouldn't have come out if I knew that I wouldn't have hid in Bangkok, how could it be better than the damn King of Siam now, so he should know about such a big movement here, right?" Although the Siam Navy can't get it on the table, it's good to come and reinforce it."

Li Yan rolled his eyes and was about to speak, when he suddenly stared at the sky and was stunned.

"Hey, talk" Li Zicheng said while shooting: "If you don't speak, you will be killed."

"What do you see in the sky?"

"How can Lao Tzu have kung fu......" Li Zicheng was about to get angry at Li Yan, but was pulled by Li Yan to look at the sky.

"It's ......"

"Royal Air Force"

"What happened to the Royal Air Force? Come and see the excitement? ”

Li Zicheng wanted to raise his gun as he spoke, as if he wanted to shoot down a hot air balloon.

Li Yan hurriedly pulled him and said, "What are you doing?" Don't come here, they're here to save us."

"What is this?" Li Zicheng said: "Reinforcements are not coming? But a hot air balloon was sent to rescue us, so what about the treasure ship? Shall we go back and take off our uniforms? Lao Tzu I was famous, and he would rather die in battle, so he could enter the martyr's shrine to worship"

Li Yan said: "Something is wrong, you see that this hot air balloon is different from what we used before."

Li Zicheng fixed his eyes and saw that it was indeed different, quite big, more than ten times the size of the original.

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Twelve nautical miles northeast of the area where the treasure fleet is engaged, the Royal Navy's Pacific Fleet is assembled here.

It seems a little unreasonable, isn't it here to reinforce the treasure fleet? Why are you on standby here?

It turned out that the Pacific Fleet had approached the periphery of the Dutch East India Fleet two hours earlier. Originally, Shi Jianfei had already made combat arrangements, and the whole fleet had already launched an attack formation, preparing to launch a full-scale attack on the Dutch East India Fleet.

However, just then, a communications ship of the Admiralty brought the latest order.

Shi Jianfei opened it and almost vomited blood.

It turned out that the General Staff suddenly and temporarily changed the tactics of the operation, and the original plan did not change, only with a delay of two hours.

The reason for the sudden two-hour delay was mainly due to the sudden request of the Royal Air Force command to join the Plan P operation.

The Royal Air Force was formed for many years and created a large number of hot air balloon units. However, the Royal Air Force has always been in the lowest position among the three services, because the Royal Air Force can only provide intelligence support and artillery fire to the army and navy, and cannot meet the requirements of the navy and army to fight alone.

To this end, the Royal Air Force Command, after years of painstaking operation, completed a major military change last summer.

The original hot air balloon was upgraded to an airship, thanks to the chemical group of the Royal Real Yàn Chamber and the production of hydrogen. Of course, this is all thanks to Shenwu Emperor Deng Haonan, who successfully developed TNT explosives. Sulfuric acid and nitric acid, the main raw materials for the manufacture of high-explosive drugs, are used to produce hydrogen.

In order to make his concubines and children happy, Deng Haonan used hydrogen to punch a few balloons for their entertainment. Unexpectedly, these small hydrogen balloons attracted the attention of the Royal Air Force.

After gaining attention, it was soon introduced to the Royal Air Force for use and development. Deng Haonan heard that the Royal Air Force was concerned about this, and suddenly remembered that the early airships in later generations were filled with hydrogen. At first, he never thought about filling balloons with hydrogen, mainly because he knew that hydrogen was flammable, explosive, and dangerous, so he ignored it. But as an army, this danger is negligible. In particular, the Imperial Air Force urgently needs to become a branch of the army that can always fight alone, so the development of hydrogen airships is necessary.

Hot air balloons have considerable limitations, that is, they are greatly affected by the weather and climate, and the payload capacity is small, which can only meet the needs of reconnaissance.

But the reconnaissance time can only last for a few hours, and the airship is not, and his huge advantage is the unparalleled time in the air, which is simply the eye in the sky, and is touted by the Royal Air Force.

Of course, the airship can be built huge, and the payload capacity is also very large, which can meet certain operational requirements of the Air Force, so Deng Haonan approved the Air Force Department's plan to develop and produce airships.

The development of the airship is based on the mature hot air balloon technology, but in order to test the size of the airship airbag and the load capacity, the Air Force Scientific Research Department has to conduct a large number of tests and summaries.

Therefore, the design of the first airship was not finalized until half a year later, and it was tested.

Deng Haonan felt a deep headache when the first airship was named, because the eldest princess, Princess Xiyan, had been pestering him, asking Deng Haonan to give her a thirteenth birthday gift and name the airship. But at present, there is only one airship, and the reproduction is too late to catch up with Princess Xiyan's birthday, and finally Deng Haonan thought hard and named the first airship Princess Xiyan as a birthday gift to the eldest princess. Fortunately, Concubine Xiao persuaded her, otherwise Deng Haonan would really not be able to settle his eldest princess. Rao is like this, Deng Haonan also promised to give her an airship on her next birthday.

The Sunset Princess airship uses a wooden bracket as the internal skeleton, with a length of 40.6 meters and a maximum diameter of 15.6 meters, which can generate more than 5,000 kilograms of lift after being filled with hydrogen, and uses a foot-operated propeller to provide powered flight, reaching a speed of 16 kilometers per hour under windless conditions.

The airship's first flight was quite successful, but when it rose to 1,000 meters, as the altitude increased, the atmospheric pressure gradually decreased, and the hydrogen in the sac expanded, and the air bag expanded larger and larger, and it seemed to burst. Several test pilots were frightened, and they quickly pierced a small hole in the airbag with a knife, so that the airship was safely lowered to the ground.

The experience of the first flight led to the installation of an air valve, but there was a limitation, that is, once the air valve was opened, the hydrogen was released, and the airship could no longer be raised.

However, this is not a problem, the Air Force does not care about this defect due to the urgent need to mass-produce airships. As long as the height of the airship is adjusted according to the combat terrain, the ceiling height is set in the mountains, plains, and oceans.

The first batch of airships was produced six, plus the first Princess Sunset for a total of seven, but the Princess Sunset was not allowed to participate in the battle to prevent the airship from being damaged and affecting the mood of the eldest princess of the empire.

The airship was finalized as the Sky Eye 1, with a full load of 2.5 tons and four air force soldiers. As the Royal Air Force's assault weapon, the Sky Eye 1 is equipped with state-of-the-art incendiary bombs and thunderbolts.

An incendiary bomb, as the name suggests, is a porcelain jar filled with oil. The size of a wine jar, the seal is a thick cotton cloth, wrapped externally with fireproof cotton, and the use is to remove the fireproof cotton, ignite the thick cotton cloth soaked in oil, and then throw it out. When the porcelain bottle and jar fall to the ground, the oil burns and explodes instantly, which has a certain lethality, but it is mainly burned, and the tunnel is called an incendiary bomb.

Thunder, that is, an improved version of the flowering bomb. After the original artillery shells were equipped with the air force, they used manual ignition of the fuse, the length of the lead was cut according to the altitude of the air, and then the air dropped exploded at the enemy target. Because it was dropped from the air, the tunnel was named Thunder.

After the two weapons were equipped with the Tianyan 1 airship, the tunnel became a super killer weapon of the Royal Air Force of the Chinese Empire.

After the six airships were built, the Royal Air Force tested them several times at field training grounds, and the results were very good.

However, the Cabinet did not allocate too much money to the project because it had not been tested in battle, so the large-scale production had to be tested in real life.

Emperor Deng Haonan of Shenwu originally wanted to go his own way and bypass the approval of the cabinet through the imperial power, but in consideration of the long-term stability and stable and healthy development of the imperial political system, he gave up overstepping his authority.

The Royal Air Force wanted to find an actual combat to test the combat effectiveness of the Air Force and improve the status of the Air Force in the Imperial Chinese military, but it always could not find an opportunity. The Navy and Army seem to be afraid that the Air Force will split their military expenses, and the tunnel always denies them a chance.

With the implementation of Plan P, the Royal Air Force Command wanted to show face for the Royal Air Force in this operation, sounded the signboard, and cried and begged Deng Haonan for help.

Deng Haonan naturally understood in his heart how powerful the air force with airships was, and informed Lin Feng, chief of the general staff, to revise Plan P so that the airship unit of the Royal Air Force could show its face.

Lin Feng couldn't disobey the emperor's wishes, so he had to do so, and set aside two hours to show his face to the Royal Air Force before the Pacific Fleet attacked the Dutch East India Fleet. V