On September 26, 1863, the first anniversary of the 926 Incident last year, a major event broke out in the port of New Orleans in the Confederate States of America.

In this incident, a total of four ships were bombed at anchorage in the harbor of New Orleans: the British first-class battleship Fendeli, the French third-class battleship Courage, an armed ironclad ship of the Union Powers, the South Carolina, and a Chinese armed supply ship, the Cixi.

In addition to the Confederate South Carolina, which was not completely sunk but was wounded and stranded, British, French, and Chinese warships were all sunk at anchorages near the port of New Orleans.

Among the battleships sunk, the most severely damaged was undoubtedly the Battle, which was not only completely blown into three sections, but also suffered losses of more than 200 people, and what is particularly surprising is that Vice Admiral Howard, commander of the British Expeditionary Fleet, was also killed in the explosion, and it is said that he suddenly suffered a fourth explosion on the way to abandon the ship, and died on the spot.

The loss of the French is not small, the Spirit is an ironclad battleship that has only been in service for six years, and is equipped with ironclad and steam engines, and it is the most powerful warship in the current French expeditionary force, so this time the bombing and sinking caused a great deal of damage to the French.

As for the casualties, the French suffered more than a hundred casualties in total, and among the list of those killed was the captain of the Courage, Rear Admiral Albert.

Only China? The loss of human beings was the smallest, because there were not many people on his Cixi, everyone went to the night market, and there were not many people left behind on the ship, so a total of sixteen casualties were made, and all of them were only slightly injured, and none of them were seriously injured or killed.

Fortunately, the murderer was quickly uncovered by the reacting Chinese military police and the Allied State police, after "severe torture" of the captured suspects. Finally pried open the other party's mouth and understood the truth of the matter.

After interrogation, it was found that the perpetrators of the tragedy were people from the Confederate States of America, who were originally the Navy of the United States of America and the same people who occupied the port of New Orleans in the first place.

Later, after the Chinese seized the port of New Orleans, these surviving naval officers and men who had been part of the United States went into hiding, and then looked for an opportunity to take revenge.

Most of them were quartermasters or supply officers, so they had a lot of munitions hidden in New Orleans Harbor beforehand, and then whatever. They found a few locals to cooperate, took advantage of the opportunity of the docking ships to resupply, mixed explosives into the supplies, and secretly transported them to the ships of the British, French, Chinese and Allied troops.

As for how they evaded detection, the reason is simple, that is, most of the supplies in this era were held in wooden barrels, so they made a large number of double-layer wooden barrels. Put explosives in the mezzanine of the barrel so that you can avoid detection.

Since the explosives are all black. Gunpowder, so just one or two barrels didn't work, so they made a lot of sandwich barrels. And then little by little it gets in.

In fact, due to the small space of the mezzanine, even if a few are transported in, it is estimated that the effect is not large. Therefore, their original purpose was only to create chaos.

But later, over time. These people found that the British, French, Confederates, and Chinese began to let their guard down, and the scrutiny of local dockworkers became less strict and became routine, which gave these spies acting as dockers more daring ideas.

These United States spies secretly bribed the British, French, and Confederate sailors with money, so that the transportation of supplies was outsourced directly to the local dock workers, which allowed them to transport larger quantities of gunpowder directly as food and water.

Later, after they had brought in a large amount of explosives, on the night of September 26, they sent the dead men to sneak into the four selected target ships, and then, at the same time, a www.biquge.info of Fun Pavilion ignited gunpowder, detonating the gunpowder that had been smuggled in advance.

After the truth of the matter was found out, everyone was dumbfounded, because they couldn't imagine that the United States could actually think of this method, this is simply the naval version of the Trojan Horse Massacre.

However, when things come to this point, there are actually many things that need to be explained, especially the stereotypical British, and there are still many questions about this.

For example, if you just secretly transport gunpowder in, then it is difficult to cause such a big damage to a first-class ship by just lighting gunpowder, because to cause that kind of damage, the amount of explosives must be at least 300 kilograms of explosives, and if you want to transport so many explosives into it, how can there be no reaction at all?

In this regard, the suspects said that they had been planning for a long time, and they had already bought off the sailors inside and mixed the explosives into the flour and transported it, so they caused this situation.

As for who the person who bought it is, they don't know this, they all contact those dead people privately.

In other words, with the death of those dead soldiers, there is no proof of this matter, except for knowing that the Americans did it, many other details are still in a kind of fog.

But no matter what, at least there is a result, or a crusade object, whether it was done by the United States or not, at this moment, when everyone is grieving and angry, we must look for an object of anger, we must look for an opponent who can be seen and touched!

What's more, a lot of evidence shows that the Americans did it, so even if a few people still doubt it, the basic nature has been determined, it was the Americans who did it!

After the news broke, there was a lot of excitement in London, England and Paris, France, and many people felt intolerable about such a catastrophe, and the whole wind has changed from the initial opposition to the government's intervention in the North American war to the enthusiastic call for the expansion of the war.

Prior to this, although the British and French governments had tried their best to promote the intervention in the American Civil War, in fact, the public was opposed to it.

Because in the eyes of most British and French, the American Civil War was their own business, and the United States of the North was doing reasonably, they were sweeping away the internal rebellion, they were to emancipate the slaves, and abolish the evil and rotten slave system, so no matter how you look at it, the North is the just side that people can sympathize with, and the Confederate States of the South are the slave owners that people spurn. It's the evil side.

Since the South is evil, it is unreasonable to say that we should not support the North, but rather support the evil slave owners of the South against the liberal and democratic United States of America.

In short, most of the people in Britain and France have always disliked their own government's interference in the American Civil War, and they have always opposed and approved of it. This is also one of the important reasons why Britain and France have been reluctant to make great efforts to intervene.

Although there was a 926 incident last year, to be honest, for the British and French, the feelings were not deep, after all, it was just a few British and French people who did not know the truth or falsehood, and it happened in the far west.

But this time it's different. This time, it was the armies of the two countries that were directly attacked, which was tantamount to a slap in the face, and the impact was not the same. At least most of the people in Britain and France were outraged by this incident.

Especially the British, who have always made the Navy their pride, and what about the result. One of their pride, the Battle, one of the few first-class battleships in Britain, was shamefully sunk by the people of the United States.

If it is a face-to-face battle, it is bombed, sunk or captured. Everyone is not so angry, but this attack is a shameful sneak attack, and it is not a righteous and bright battle, but it was obtained by conspiracy and trickery, which is difficult for everyone to understand.

So, naturally, the slogan of revenge was very loud, and the situation of the American Civil War at this time had become increasingly clear, at least on the surface, the United States was no longer able to defeat the Confederate countries in the short term, so it was not a bad thing to increase investment at this time, from a strategic point of view.

In Paris, France, the demand for revenge was similarly high, largely because the French felt that their pride had been challenged. Moreover, at this time, France was full of internal contradictions, and Napoleon III was also in urgent need of a foreign war to divert attention, so after hearing the people in Paris shouting for revenge, it was logical to decide to expand the scale of the war against the United States and send more troops to North America to fight to the death with the United States of America.

In this way, Britain and France really mobilized in full force this time, and they also began to truly embody the style of the old imperialism, and each gathered a powerful force to prepare to be sent to North America to intervene in the American civil war in an all-round way.

In Britain, after bargaining between Queen Victoria and Parliament, the final opinion was that Britain would send a large fleet of 32 warships and more than 40 supply ships to carry 150,000 British elite troops in advance to attack Maine in the United States of America directly from the sea.

The goal of the British was to take Maine first, then to New Hampshire and Vermont, to take at least these three states, and if possible, to continue to advance to New York, and to push the front to New York.

In the British plan, the ideal outcome is to reoccupy all of New England, but it is really not possible, at least to take Maine, or drag down at least 300,000 American troops to relieve the pressure on the Confederate countries.

The reason why the goal is so cautious is because of the problem of supply, because there is no problem in sending out people, let alone 100,000, it is 300,000, or even 500,000 army, and Britain has no problem at this time.

However, this war was clearly a protracted war, different from the situation of a quick victory in Crimea, and after all, the United States and Britain were far apart, different from Crimea, so in order to smooth the supply, the British formulated a scale of 150,000 troops in advance, just to reduce the supply pressure.

After all, at this time, although Britain still has a Canada in North America, Canada's development is quite backward, there is no industry, there is no agriculture in agriculture, and at most there are some local specialties, such as furs or something, so it is impossible to count on how much support Canada can have for the British Army, so once the war starts, most of the supplies will have to be transported from the British mainland.

To transport supplies, you need to use ships, and if there are more people, there will be more supplies, which is also a lot of pressure on the British.

On the contrary, 150,000 men is just the right size, and if an army of this size cooperates with the navy, it is not a big problem to take three states and hold them.

Of course, in addition to the army, the main combat power of the British this time is the navy, and they are determined to blockade the coast of the United States and destroy their coastal shipyards this time, and because of this. Only then did they decide to dispatch a large fleet with 32 capital warships.

In this era, most of the capital ships that can be called by the British are third-class ships, and this kind of third-class ships are also the most numerous types of ships in the British Navy.

Generally speaking, at this time, a standard third-class British ship had three decks, 80 guns, a crew of 720 people, and a displacement of about 1,600 to 2,000 tons. It is the best warship with both fire protection and mobility.

Moreover, the British have recently carried out a plan to renovate ironclad ships, in which the priority targets are these third-class ships, so at least half of the 32 capital ships sent this time are modified ironclad ships.

The British believed that 32 capital warships, at least 16 ironclads, would be enough to destroy the fragile navy of the Americans. After destroying their navy, blockading their shores, and destroying their shipyards, then the coast of the United States will be the world of the British. In the future, they can fight as much as they want.

Compared with the wealth of the British, the French at this time were not so strong. Although after Napoleon III came to power, he worked hard to improve people's livelihood. Raise the economy, so the life of the French at this time is actually much better than before. France's fiscal revenues were also at their best.

However, a few years ago, France participated in the Crimean War, and in that war, France did not get much actual benefits, more to improve its international reputation, train its troops and other false reputations, of course, that action also allowed Napoleon III to win over the French military and make his rule more stable, so it was very necessary.

But in any case, that brutal war consumed a lot of money in France, so much so that it has not been relieved to this day, and there are still many debts.

In addition, France has recently been mired in other colonies, such as Indochina, such as Mexico, which have been caught up in strong resistance from the locals, and need to continue to invest their strength...... Therefore, although France seems to be in good shape economically, the government is already heavily indebted and cannot launch a large-scale offensive in the short term.

Although he could not launch an attack on the scale of the British, Napoleon III gritted his teeth and drew 60,000 troops from the mainland and 12 capital warships from the navy, and then formed the North American Expeditionary Force and sent it directly to Maryland in the United States.

The French also had a mind to send troops to Maryland, because in that place, the Confederate and the United States were in a tug-of-war, and from the situation, the Confederates actually had the upper hand, but attributively speaking, that place still belonged to the United States.

Therefore, the French wanted to take advantage of this good opportunity to directly occupy Maryland, and at the same time, it was very close to Washington's District of Columbia and Virginia, and the troops deployed there could not only play a role in involving the Union Army, but also get the support of the Union Army, so as not to be isolated.

In other words, once the French took Maryland, they could form a situation of attacking Washington from the south and north with the Union forces, forcing the Americans to divide their forces.

At that time, in order to relieve their own pressure, the Americans will definitely have to make some concessions to the French, which is really not possible, and they can also take a boat and leave, so it is a strategy that looks dangerous, but is actually quite safe.

On the contrary, if they were to fight somewhere else, such as New York State or something, they would have to face the United States army alone, and they would be truly alone, and they would not have the effect of deterring the Americans, and they would not be as good as fighting Maryland.

Napoleon III thought that it would not be cost-effective for them France to cede territory from the United States of America, and for the Americas, he preferred South America, especially Mexico, to North America, which was complicated.

Therefore, the aim of the French was very simple, as they said at the beginning, they had no claim to American land, only to obtain a large amount of war reparations, and the other was to let the United States and the Allied Powers relax the import restrictions on French goods at the same time, and to fully exempt French goods, and then borrow some high-interest money with France, which would be perfect.

Therefore, Napoleon III believed that among the Four-Power Alliance, the French were the least demanding, so that the Americans, if they were not crazy, would not be fighting with themselves.

Such a thing as sending a large army on an expedition could not be concealed at all by the great powers of this era, so the news that the British and French were about to crush the border with large armies soon reached Washington, D.C., and was quickly sent to Lincoln's desk.

After confirming the accuracy of the message, Lincoln's anxiety deepened, because he had foreseen it. In the present difficult situation, once Britain and France begin to intervene with all their might, it will be difficult to continue the war, and I am afraid he will have to agree to the independence of the damned Confederate state in the south.

Although on the surface, their United States still has a huge advantage, and it is said that they should not be afraid.

For example, the United States has a larger army, and if you add the newly recruited troops, it has exceeded 2.5 million.

However, most of these units are newly drafted civilians who want to be qualified fighters. There is still a long way to go, and of course the most important thing is that they are strictly short of weapons.

Yes, there is a lack of weapons, because although the United States is now fully engaged in the production of weapons and equipment, there are too many of them, and they simply cannot fully arm the two and a half million people, at least not for the time being.

Corresponding to this is the huge expenditure of the military of the Federal State. Today, the United States spends at least twice as much on its military as it does in the national budget, and the country is entirely on debt.

Although the enforcement of government bonds and the mandatory issuance of US dollar bills have alleviated many problems in the fiscal situation. But this kind of thing is to paraphrase a Chinese idiom, that is, drinking a donkey to quench thirst, and after a long time, sooner or later there will be a big problem.

Because Lincoln understood it well. He only issued more money, and in fact the production on the market did not increase, on the contrary. There is also a slight decline, so this short-lived monetary sufficiency will certainly suffer a continuous depreciation in the future, and it will not be pegged to real gold and silver at all, and it will completely drain government credit.

Now the common people are supported by patriotic enthusiasm, and they have not yet reacted, and after a long time, they find that life is becoming more and more difficult, and after the days are getting worse and worse, the patriotic enthusiasm will slowly fade, and dissatisfaction and complaints will arise in large numbers.

"Damn it!" When he saw that the reason for this qiē was the bombing of the Port of New Orleans, which in turn was caused by the sabotage of the United States agents, Lincoln stared angrily at Aaron. Pinkerton, "Who told you to do it?" Didn't I say many times that you should refrain from provoking the British and the French, don't you know that we are in enough trouble now, why do we still provoke the British and the French? ”

"Dear Mr. President." Alan. Pinkerton said calmly, "I don't have much to say about the New Orleans port bombing, and if I have to, then I can only say that this is really not our doing." ”

"You didn't do it? Who else could that be? Lincoln slapped the table angrily, "Who else but you have the ability to do such a big thing?" Do you think that I really believe that a group of naval officers and men who escaped by luck could carry out such a meticulous bombing case? ”

"Mr. President, don't be angry just yet." Alan. Pinkerton said, "I've sent someone to investigate this, but it seems to me that there's something strange about it, because even I can't do it like this." You know, if a warship is so easy to infiltrate and bury explosives, then the navies of all countries do not need to continue to build bigger and better ships, and they all rely on intelligence personnel to sabotage. ”

"But the truth is, it really happened." Lincoln said with a gloomy face, "And this matter makes us very passive, passive, do you understand?" Because of this bombing, we have lost our moral support, you know? ”

"I understand, sir." Alan. Pinkerton nodded, "But again, I want to emphasize that this is really not what we did. Yes, I swear, it's really not our people who did it! ”

"Who could that be?"

"It's hard to say right now." Alan. Pinkerton shook his head, "But in line with the idea of who benefits and who suspects the most, I think the biggest possibility is that the people of the Union have made a bitter trick." Of course, in addition to the Confederates, the British, the French and the Chinese are possible, but the most likely are the people of the Confederates, followed by the Chinese, and the British and the French are the least likely. ”

"Oh? Why? Lincoln asked.

"It's simple." Alan. "As you said, after the bombings, we lost our moral support, and instead angered the British and the French, so that they could send a large army against us. In this way, who will get the most benefit? There is no doubt that the Union is the biggest winner.

And take a closer look, although the port of New Orleans was fought down by the Chinese, and the Chinese still occupy the main port, but the usual administration and security, etc., are still under the control of the Union State, so to say that they have the ability, the Union State is the most capable of doing this, because they are the head snake.

Moreover, after this bombing, the losses of the Allied countries were minimal, because the British, French and Chinese had ships sunk, only their ships were injured and not sunk, which in itself is very suspicious.

Even the British Fight was blown up and sunk, why can the ships of the Union States not be sinkable, so in summary, in this bombing case, the Union State is the most suspicious! ”

"But you don't have proof!" Lincoln said expressionlessly, "These are your speculations, or even if they are true, if you have so-called evidence, they will not admit it." ”

"That's right." Alan. Pinkerton said in a calm tone, "If the British and French don't want to fight us, then no matter what happens, they won't come to us for trouble, on the contrary, if they think in their hearts, then they will come for trouble with or without excuses, so you shouldn't blame us." ”

"So, I can only carry this black cauldron?"

"Now it seems, I'm afraid that's the case." Alan. Pinkerton said, "Because even if you deny it now, you won't be believed, on the contrary, others will think that you are not responsible, and you will be displeasing to both sides."

You know, the British, the French and the Chinese are certainly angry about the bombing of the Port of New Orleans, but for us in the United States, it is an encouraging thing, after all, this is the blowing up of three enemy warships, including one first-class ship.

Therefore, I think the best way is to remain silent, anyway, the British, the French and the Chinese are our enemies, even if you explain they will not listen, then it is better to acquiesce, it is more practical to use this to please our people and boost their morale, don't you say? (To be continued......) R1292