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In the history that followed, this battle was hardly mentioned, because before and after that, there were countless battles fought against hundreds of ships, and no one even considered it a war to be a tenth of the previous battles - although some claim that this was the first time that French steam-ironclad ships appeared on the battlefield, but strangely, at that time, neither the British nor the French left a record of it.

As the Duke of Vendôme estimated, the commander of the British fleet was William Penn the Elder, and this was William Payne the Elder's second independent command of the operation, and it was also his last chance, for which he had been planning for a long time, and even did not hesitate to let his son William the Younger be a French sapper in Dunkirk for more than ten years- Although Charles II had always shown great affection for King Louis XIV of France, which made many conservatives resentful of him, William Sr. felt that as long as Charles II was king for one day, he could not be without the ambition of a king.

And to tell the truth, Louis XIV was only mild on the surface, and did not hesitate when he should have made a move, otherwise how could Britain lose Dunkirk? Not to mention that Charles II willingly sold Britain's last foothold in France at such a low price, and Louis XIV also took advantage of the danger at that time - given that the relationship between Charles II and Parliament at that time was also shaky, and if it was not good, the execution table in front of the White House banquet hall would be set up again.

Louis XIV kept the news that Charles II had obtained a son, but at the last minute let the Duke of York, the commander of the British fleet, know that this was a conspiracy of the British, but the Duke of York, knowing that it was a conspiracy of the British, had to quickly turn back to London to seize the time to secure his position and reassure his supporters.

As a result, all the rich assets accumulated by the Netherlands for nearly a hundred years went to the French.

Louis XIV never despised Charles II, and anyone who could become a king would not be as useless as one might think, and the "Merry King" and the "King of Banquets" were just a disguise for Charles II, no different from him pretending to be a benevolent and tolerant monarch, who would be unexpectedly despicable and ruthless when necessary.

Behind them are their families, tens of millions of people, vast land.

I am the state, and on the other hand, the country is me.

Charles II did not stop himself while Louis XIV was on his conquests, and after freeing himself from the shackles of Parliament, he followed the example of Cromwell and Louis XIV and established his own standing army on land, while inheriting the ambition of his father Charles I and continuing to strengthen the power of England at sea, unlike the French, who were themselves able to build ships and gallop on the seas. In order to prepare for military expenses, the manufacture and maintenance of ships, Charles II not only vigorously developed commerce, allowed the existence of privateers, but also began to buy and sell titles despite the opposition of the court and the court.

As far as Louis XIV knew, the number of ships of the British should now have exceeded two hundred, if not more.

The ships that Jean Barr saw through the telescope were not the kind of small fleets that ordinary people understand, although they numbered only twelve, they had seven first-class and second-class battleships, four third-class battleships, and an exceptionally large and astonishing flagship, the King of the Seas, which landed Charles I's head.

The ship was almost as long as the reinforced Calais, more than one hundred and twenty feet in length, forty-five feet in width, and more than fifteen hundred tons in tonnage, for the original ninety guns were enlarged to one hundred and four by the insistence of Charles I.

Old William was one of them, his heart pounding like a wave crashing on the side of a ship, and he had hardly left his Sea King since he had been appointed commander of this fleet, he had touched every part of it, including the cannonballs with a maximum net weight of sixty pounds, and he loved it as deeply as a young lad in love with a charming celebrity, and he had long since made up his mind that he would fight on this ship until the last moment.

First of all, of course, he was going to be the beginning of the glory of the British fleet with this ship.

Unlike some old-fashioned generals, William Sr. did not care to hang the flag of the Prince of Orange on the mast, nor to remove the coats of arms and decorations that belonged to Charles I, nor to destroy the Covenant between England and France in a way that was not glamorous enough - but unfortunately things did not go as he had expected, and the French were not unprepared, and the fleet that had been said to be withdrawn to Calais turned back suddenly, but he was not afraid, look at the ships! It is ridiculous that they took out the heavy Calais and used it!

"No!" only a few minutes had passed since he saw the French ships, and old William suddenly shouted: "No! No, they are too fast!"

After several naval battles in a row - the Battle of the Mediterranean, the First Anglo-Dutch Campaign, the Battle of Kentis Snooker, the Battle of Portland, the Battle of Gabbard Sandbank and the Battle of Schwiningen, the West Indies Expedition, and the Battle of Lostoft, the experienced veteran immediately estimated the speed of those Calais, the reason why the Calais was eliminated was because it was too slow to seize the first position, but now, those Calais ships with a long white wave trailing behind them, at least 8 knots, that is, 8 knots per hour!

He immediately demanded that the fleet change direction, because their ships, except for the King of the Seas, other ships, even the first-class battleships with three decks, could not compete with the Calais with this speed- He vaguely remembered that it had been mentioned before that the scholars recruited by Charles II were working on a steam-powered machine, which, although black steel, produced a force comparable to that of dozens, if not hundreds, of strong mules and horses, and was tireless, and could run day and night as long as there was fuel.

Those sprays that are like a knife that split the dark blue sea are not the traces left by the paddle wheel?

He held the binoculars and carefully searched for the location of the paddle wheels on the French ships, but to his disappointment, judging from the hull, the paddle wheels of the ships were not paddle wheels, but dark wheels, they had been properly protected, and he was also counting the gun doors on the hull, and the more he looked, the more frightened he became, the first and second level battleships generally carried more than eighty guns, and the number of XXL type guns such as the Sea King exceeded one hundred, which had almost reached the limit.

But such a giant Calais can be said to be the last struggle of the Venetians, and because of the generosity of Charles I, they used the best keels and the best craftsmen, to put it simply, each of them was as large as the Sea King, and the gun doors were certainly no less than the Sea King.

What Old William didn't know was that their tonnage had long exceeded what people knew at this time - the iron armor covered with their bodies had already exceeded thirty tons, which was still the lowest bottom line repeatedly calculated by craftsmen, scholars, and officers, and they were the heavy knights of battleships.

But the first appearance of these hoplite knights was not as imposing as one might think, but rather quite low-key, and the five Calais ships, covered with iron armor, were painted with tawny paint, which looked no different from an ordinary ship, but it was a little bigger, and it was also because the commander of the British fleet was William Sr., that it was immediately judged that the speed of these Calais ships was much faster than that of ordinary ships.

"It seems that we have met a cautious enemy. Marshal Estrés said, and his lieutenant nodded in agreement, this was the first time that the steam-ironclad ships had appeared on the battlefield, and for an enemy who was not cautious enough, even if he saw the speed of the Calais and the number of guns, he would have taken chances, thinking that he could give it a try—after all, even the Venetians no longer used Calais warships more than ten years ago.

Marshal Estres, like William Sr., was a veteran from the time of Louis XIII, and this was probably his last battle, and when he heard that the king had chosen him to be the commander of the fleet, he burst into tears, even if the command was to be given to another admiral, Abraham Duqueiner.

By this time, their flagship, the first completed ironclad ship, the Kingpower, which had been "launched" by the king himself, had crossed the original course of the British fleet, that is, if the British fleet continued to advance according to the original plan, the French fleet would have taken the lead and had a great advantage, but the problem was that the British fleet began to bend upwards in a third of the way, and instead distanced itself from them.

The two fleets walked miraculously side by side for about ten minutes, until both sides were facing each other, and their position was not the narrowest part of the English Channel, but it was about the same, if it was to be described, like thugs forced to fight face-to-face in a three-foot alleyway, with little room for tossing and turning—when there was no skill, the only way to solve the problem was to use violence, as Barr had seen, the artillery fire was rising and the smoke was filling.

Perhaps it was fate that the French Kingship and the British Sea King were rivals to each other, and after a tentative artillery attack, they invariably replaced them with heavy shells, which could exert greater and more terrible power than before in such a small battlefield, and at this time, the tonnage of the ships doomed them to success or failure— The huge Calais was like a floating gun emplacement, their muzzles all open, constantly spewing golden-red flames and black smoke, and the stable hull and muzzles of the guns at least six feet above the waterline did not have to worry about being hit, or the shaking and movement caused by the recoil force affecting the accuracy and wetting the gunpowder.

The guns on the ships of the French also had a larger caliber and longer barrel than the British, which could shoot the shells far and hard.

Under such a bombardment, a British third-class battleship first had to withdraw from the battlefield because of a fire, and William Sr. put down his binoculars and "replaced it with white phosphorus bombs." ”

His first mate paused, and did not speak, and old William's order was passed down at once, as if in an instant, the cannonballs that fell on the French ships rose up a white light that was more scorching than the daylight, and the thick smoke filled the entire deck, emitting a disgusting smell, and one of the crew members pulled his coat over his eyes and nose, and when he tried to rush out, another white phosphorus cannonball fell on the mast above him, and when he lit the ropes and sails, there were also white phosphorus fires that fell on him, and they immediately burned and drilled into the flesh, and he immediately screamed, and rolled desperately on the ground。

When he was pulled up, half of his body was black.

In addition to white phosphorus, the British white phosphorus bombs also added a special material that allowed white phosphorus to attach to anything and burn - old William was slightly relieved to see the burning sails, deck and hull of the King, these flames almost covered the stern and the bowhouse, and those black muzzles that seemed to be like the eyes of death, but before he could laugh, he saw the white dust suddenly burst out from all corners of the King's Power - They were as white as the white phosphorus, but they were like its deadliest enemies, and as soon as they landed on the yellow-green flames, the flames immediately extinguished as if they had met water.

He pinned his hope on the flames attached to the hull, but for some reason, they gradually extinguished, and old William stared closely at the places that had been burned by the flames, and suddenly stuffed the telescope to the first mate beside him: "Tell me, what do you see?"

The first mate didn't say that he also had a telescope, he held the telescope and looked at it, and was silent for a few seconds - if it wasn't for wartime, he might have been silent even longer: "I saw black iron. He said.

Although they hardly believed it, the texture of the metal and the wood could be seen no matter what, and after burning the surface paint, the connection between the rivet and the iron armor could also be seen, if there was enough white phosphorus - the temperature of white phosphorus when burning could indeed melt black iron, but it was only a thin layer of white phosphorus, if it was wood it could continue to burn, and it could not do anything in the face of heavy iron plates.

Marshal Estrés watched the ship's doctors rush for a while, generally speaking, there would only be one or two doctors on board, but Louis XIV, whether in the army or in the navy, the ship's doctors were equipped in a one-to-fifty number, although there were women and even wizards in these doctors, but as long as someone was saved by them, the crew would not talk too much, or try to do anything to them- First of all, I would like to thank the king for the universal education system in the army, and secondly, even the most ignorant people are not stupid enough to joke with their lives.

Of course, there is another reason, and that is that these ship doctors, even women, have a lot of strength and athletic skills, and they shout and ask the crew to avoid the phosphorus fire and the injured people, while quickly dealing with the wounded- For those who have been contaminated with too much phosphorus fire, they will either pull them to the place where the dust is sprayed, or they will open a special water storage tank and push people directly into the water, and once they enter the water, the phosphorus fire will not burn again, and it can also reduce the pain and damage caused by the burn.