Varik leaned his gun on the ground, his bright red military uniform standing out in the sunlight.

All around, the comrades-in-arms who were neatly arranged also had stern expressions and nervous expressions, and outside the sight blocked by the woods in the distance, the sound of artillery was filled with gunsmoke, and every explosion, every cloud of smoke rose, and it smashed into everyone's hearts like a hammer.

Pacific Fleet!

News from home has spread throughout the barracks, and the Kingdom of Spain and Honolulu have declared war!

This is probably what everyone didn't expect, but it was just an accident to sink two escort gunboats, and at most it was an apology for reparations in Europe, but these yellow-skinned monkeys in the Far East actually started a war for this reason!

Damn it!

Varik cursed in his heart, it took two months to cross the ocean from Spain to get here, and then under the scorching heat and sweltering heat, the threat of malaria mosquitoes, he finally wiped out the mob, but who would have thought that it would provoke the people of Honolulu again.

He is no longer a rookie to the Far East, the prestige of the Pacific Fleet has long spread throughout the sea, and even the British must admit that their position here is loosening a little.

Defeat the Zoben, defeat Russia, Honolulu, which has the fourth most powerful fleet in the world! How could Spain provoke this group of barbaric war maniacs?

Don't the damned aristocratic parliamentarians in the country understand? The Philippines is right under people's noses, and General Montoho's fleet, God, can't even compare to a battleship.

All sorts of news, spread faster than the plague, and when Varik and his comrades had just figured out the Pacific Fleet, the war had already broken out, and the rumbling guns came from the distant bay, they were gathered by the officers shouting and lined up to resist the landing.

Varik didn't know how the battle was going in the distance, but the stern faces of the officers gave him an extremely uneasy feeling, but fortunately, it was a full ten kilometers from the bay and out of range of the naval guns, so he didn't have to worry about the kind of naval artillery shells weighing hundreds of pounds falling on his head.

The noon sun was so hot that in a short time almost all the warriors were sweating on their foreheads and their backs were hot, some of them began to talk to each other, some of them adjusted their bodies, and the formation gradually relaxed.

When everyone was a little unable to survive, the sound of artillery in the distance gradually decreased a lot, and everyone stood on tiptoe and held their necks high waiting for the sentinels sent to the front to inquire about the news to come back.

Suddenly, the crowd became agitated.

Varik soon noticed that almost all of his companions had raised their heads, and he hurriedly looked up, but when he had just raised his eyelids, he saw that an egg-sized object above his head was slowly approaching, and he had to cover it with his right hand because of the glare of the sun.

Seeing the flying egg approaching the barracks little by little, the uneasiness in Varik's heart suddenly exploded, but before he could shout, dozens of black dots had already appeared in his eyes, and in the blink of an eye, the black dots smashed into the trees in the distance.

"Boom, boom."

Flames erupted from the trees ahead, and a sentry who happened to be running back was drowned in the flames in the blink of an eye, and the blast kicked up dirt, knocked over trees, and scorched rocks.

Varik and everyone widened, how could this be! It's a full ten kilometers from the coast! Coupled with the shallow obstacles in the bay, could it be said that the Pacific Fleet could fire its guns at a distance of tens of thousands of meters?

Before the Spanish soldiers could come out of their shock and fear, the naval guns suddenly stopped again, could it be that just a few missed shells, but how could the naval guns pass through the woods and the low slope, and then fly more than 10,000 meters to hit here?

The soldiers were suspicious, but no one dared to leave without the officer's order, and a thought flashed through Varik's mind as he huddled in the crowd and looked at the big eggs flying overhead.

"God, it's, it's it."

Before the words "bring the shells here" could be spoken, Varik's throat froze, as he noticed that the rumbling sound that had just stopped for more than a minute sounded again from the distant sea, and then dozens of black dots jumped into view, and huge cannonballs whizzed into the neat queue of soldiers.

A cannonball exploded not far from Varik's side, and the inflated balloon-like fireball, mixed with countless pieces of iron and debris, suddenly expanded, and the retina only flashed, and the violent explosion just filled the ears, and the body was also hot and lost consciousness forever.

Boom Boom!

Fang Xiaotian held the binoculars, lying next to the hanging basket and licking his lips.

Originally, he was just an ordinary observer in the fleet, and after being selected, he never thought that one day he would be able to fly into the sky and be able to condescend and look down on the entire battlefield, this feeling is really cool!

Of course, he wasn't so happy at first, especially when he almost peed his pants in fear when he got on the airship for the first time, but as he trained, he gradually got used to the feeling of wafting in the humming noise.

A 203-millimeter shell exploded among the scattered Spanish soldiers, and the flames and waves of air that swept through tore hundreds of soldiers apart, and their body and limbs were lifted by the air waves, carrying countless earth and falling like raindrops.

This feeling is really cool, more exciting than when he stood on the mast and watched the Russian [***] ships explode in front of his eyes, at that time he was level-eyed, and could only see the scene in the perspective of the telescope, and now he doesn't even need a telescope, he can look down on the entire battlefield like an eagle.

"Xiaotian, what are you doing? Quick report. ”

The captain behind him shouted, so frightened that Fang Xiaotian almost lost the telescope, and hurriedly put away his mind and reported the deviation of the direction that needed to be shelled and the point of impact, and the telegraph operator among the three crew members kept tapping his fingers, sending the coordinates and information reported by Fang Xiaotian to the fleet not far away.

On the heavy patrol of the four Determination Ships, the gunners constantly adjusted the shelling of Zhuyuan according to the telegram, and they did not even look at the woods in the distance, if in the eyes of others, they must not believe that there was such a way of shelling Zhuyuan without relying on visual sight, but only counting the bombardment of Zhuyuan by telegraph.

The two guns per minute roared incessantly, the four main guns continued to spew flames and smoke, and every five minutes of shelling, the artillery crew would stop for one minute to readjust the muzzles according to the elements provided by the gunner, and then reload and spray again.

The maximum fifteen-kilometer firing range can completely cover the entire Cavite area, and due to the previous massacre of the Spanish army, there are only a few residents left in the city, which allows the fleet to directly stuff the shells into the barrels without considering collateral damage, and then continue to shoot out under the guidance of airships.

Each Determination-class heavy patrol ship can drop eight 250-kilogram high-explosive bombs per minute, and each shell will sweep an area of nearly 2,000 square meters after exploding, and the area covered by the four heavy cruisers will be as high as more than 50,000 square meters within one minute.

The explosion continued, patches of barracks were torn down, the small Krabi city was already in shambles, and the fire balls, like blooming flowers of death, harvested life at the same time, but also destroyed the confidence of the Spanish soldiers, countless red dots scattered in all directions, everyone wanted to avoid the hellish scene.

When the four Determination-class heavy cruisers opened fire at full strength, they could not participate in this kind of out-of-sight bombardment because of the angle of fire, and the two battleships that were extremely depressed led the Sky Survey, the Sea Patrol and the Honolulu, venting all their anger to the Krabi port area, the huge 305 mm shells were obviously more terrifying than the heavy cruiser's main guns, although the rate of fire was slower, but the mushroom cloud that rose after each explosion seemed to freeze for a long time.

Combined with the secondary guns of the ships, the entire port of Krabi was swept by a hurricane, and the houses, streets, walls, and bunkers were all covered with flesh and blood, broken bricks, and even thick trees uprooted.

With such strong firepower, not to mention the Spanish garrison in the harbor that had already been completely destroyed by the fleet and was trembling and waiting to surrender, even the army comrades who watched the excitement on the troop transport ship secretly smacked their tongues, although they couldn't see how much damage was actually done to the distant Krabi city blocked by mountains and woods, but just look at the raging flames and billowing black smoke in the port area, and know what nightmare happened to the Spaniards outside the sight behind the woods!

An hour later, when the four heavy cruisers took the lead in ending the shelling, Chen Ping exhaled a long breath, squinted at the young master Li who was giggling and Zhang Shun on the flying bridge next to him, jumping and shouting, wishing that he would go to shoot two guns by himself, and for the first time in his heart rose a feeling of incomparability.

From the adjustment of the firing angle of naval guns, from the erection and retreat that can greatly increase the rate of fire and reduce the weight of naval guns to the hydraulic pipe retraction technology, from the old crane loading to the modified hoist, from the redesign of the new naval gun to the innovative triple assembly technology, and then to the current and even epoch-making out-of-line of sight artillery warfare guided by radio only, Li Mo participated in each of these projects, and almost every improvement he proposed was forward-looking, and sometimes even made people feel that he was born specifically for the navy.

After exhaling a breath of hot air in his lungs, Chen Ping lit a cigarette for himself, and the triple 152 mm naval guns and the twin 130 mm naval guns in the bow of the Honolulu under his feet were still roaring, mixed with the sound of the roar in the fleet like a burst, like a war drum, the blazing heat of the cannon was scattered with the sea breeze, and he felt that his cheeks were burning on the flybridge.

The smell of gunpowder smoke in the bay mixed with tobacco, but it made people feel even more excited, when the port of Krabi was already a pile of rubble, when the airship telegraph operator sent the signal that the main target had been completely destroyed, and listened to the bustle for most of the day, the troop carrier slowly lowered the boat.

A few minutes later, the first batch of marines boarded the steamboat and began to land in the face of the choking smoke of gunpowder, and the small gunboats, who had nothing to do just a moment ago, took advantage of the shallow draft and swarmed around like wolves, regardless of whether there were people in the smoke in the distance, and the machine guns on the deck swept violently, as if they wanted to touch the light of the fleet's might.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the 1st Regiment and 2nd Battalion of the Marine Corps were the first to land in the port of Cavite under the cover of naval guns, and at the same time announced the occupation of the most important Spanish military base in the Philippines, the Far East Fleet Command and the Naval Pier of Cavite.

The fearful street fighting did not materialize, and the bands of frightened Spanish soldiers, barely putting up any resistance, raised their white flags and walked out of hiding, and it was obviously a good choice for them to end this nightmare early.

At six o'clock in the evening, the first batch of four troop transports docked, and 3,000 soldiers of the 2nd Regiment of the 3rd Army Division set foot on the land of Luzon, which made Li Mo and Chen Ping, who were onlookers, breathe a long sigh of relief.

At seven o'clock, after confirming that the remnants of the dock had been completely cleared, Li Mo and Chen Ping set foot on the port of Krabi under the witness of the flashing cameras of several reporters accompanying the army.

Looking at the dead silence of Manila City more than ten kilometers away, the two looked at each other and smiled

(To be continued)