To the east of the Luzon Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, night was already falling, and a fleet of ten East India Company sailing ships was plowing white waves on the sea.

That's right, ten sailboats! And not a motorized sailboat, but a large sailing ship with full sails...... This is the pinnacle of the shipbuilding industry of the British Empire, and it is a ship type that can leave the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty far behind.

This type of sailing ship is called the "East India Company galleon", which was originally ordered by the East India Company from the British shipbuilding industry to run the Ming - India - Europe route. Despite the fact that they are all sailboats with full sails, they have an astonishing deadweight tonnage of more than 8,000 tons and a full load displacement of up to 11,200 tons. And driven by as many as 47 sails with a total area of more than 6,000 and nearly 7,000 square meters, the top speed of these sailboats can reach an astonishing 20 knots or more!

And it wasn't manpower that was used to steer so many sails, but winches driven by small boilers and steam engines. Therefore, the number of crew members required to operate such a large sailing ship is only forty or fifty.

In addition, the seaworthiness of this type of sailboat is also excellent, and it can sail in force 9 winds, which is simply a miracle in the sailing world!

To the right of these ten wonders of the sailing world, there are also ten steam warships, two ironclad ships (one of which is the Sovereign-class "Revenge"), three dome-armored cruisers, and five torpedo boat destroyers.

The smoke emitted by dozens of steam warships rose straight into the sky, which looked very imposing. And above those galleons, although there was no black smoke from the steam boilers, there were ten white airships floating, which were dragged forward by the galleons with ropes, which contrasted with the black smoke of the steamboats.

The setting sun shines from the western sky, sprinkled on the white airships and sails, through the black smoke, and reflects on the sea, sparkling. Between the sea and the sky, if there is a solemn atmosphere.

On every ship of this fleet, the flag of the British Empire is flying. And the ten steam warships are dancing the white flag of the British Royal Navy!

Although the Ming Empire has a powerful southern and northern fleet, there are no aircraft, no radar, let alone satellites or anything, and there is a radio still hidden, so the Ming Navy does not have the ability to fully deploy and control the vast Pacific Ocean east of the Luzon Islands.

Besides, the Ming Dynasty has not declared war with Britain now, even if the British Empire's fleet goes out of Malacca to the South China Sea and crosses the Bass Strait to visit the Japanese mainland, as long as it does not pass through the territorial waters of the Ming Empire, the Ming Navy has no reason to stop others - didn't the Ming himself send a naval formation to Petersburg for a friendly visit a few days ago? On the way to and from Petersburg, they crossed the English Channel!

On board the Revenge, the flagship of the British Royal Navy escort formation, the commander of the formation, George Brown, who had just been promoted to brigadier general. Standing on the deck next to the stern's 13.5-inch (343 mm) main guns, his hands on the railings, he looked up at the small airships being dragged forward by the East India Company galleon, the corners of his mouth slightly curled up, looking very proud. Because these inconspicuous-looking little airships will definitely open a new mode of naval warfare in the near future - airship bombing!

Although the airship was invented by the Ming Dynasty, this invention belongs to the "look at it" thing, and the British Empire, which also has industrial civilization, of course, also "sees".

However, the British hard airship is still less interesting than the Daming hard airship. At present, Britain can't build a big airship like the "Flying Dragon III", because the British gasoline engine is not as good as the Ming Dynasty, and the sealing of the hydrogen airbag is also a little worse. Therefore, you can't build large airships, you can only build some small airships with shorter ranges and lighter loads.

But small also has small advantages, such as it can be easily towed by ships, and relatively large boats are not easy to be detected, and it is not easy to hit by ground and sea fire.

If you want to transport a large number of soldiers to parachute behind enemy lines or load a lot of bombs to bomb enemy cities, large boats are definitely the best choice. But if you want to use airships to sneak up on fleets anchored in enemy harbors, small boats are undoubtedly more useful. After all, the British Royal Navy's "small airship" is actually not particularly small, and it can also be loaded with at least two 260-pound armor-piercing bombs (that is, armor-piercing shells of 8-inch naval guns and shore guns plus a wooden tail fin) for air strikes!

Since the bomb fell from above the battleship, it must have been hit on the deck and superstructure with no armor or the top of the turret, even if it was a giant ship like the Sovereign class and the Hongwu Emperor class, it could not withstand the explosion of a 260-pound armor-piercing bomb!

At this time, the ropes used to connect the galleons on the airships floating in the sky were broken one by one, and then the propellers on both sides of the cabins of these airships suddenly began to rotate, pushing these airships forward together, forming a column in the sky. One after the other, the ten airships quickly skimmed over the British Royal Navy formation at sea, then turned around in the sky ahead, and flew towards the bow of the "Revenge" one after another, reducing their altitude as they flew. By the time the airships finally skimmed over the Revenge, the altitude had dropped to less than a hundred meters above sea level.

George. Yilu looked at the airships intently, and saw that each airship had completed the simulated attack before nodding in satisfaction. His cousin, who had previously served as an ordnance officer on another ship under the Indian Grand Fleet, was now transferred to his cousin's side as chief staff officer on the "Revenge". I don't know when the law has come to him. At this time, he whispered to his cousin: "George, these yellow-skinned monkeys are not stupid, they learn things quite quickly, and they can control the airship in such a short time...... I just don't know if Japan dares to be the enemy of the Ming Empire? ”

It turned out that the people who flew the airship to carry out a simulated attack just now were all overseas study officers sent by the Japanese Navy to the British Royal Navy's Indian Grand Fleet for internship -- the Japanese Navy and the British Royal Navy have a long-standing cooperative relationship, and they have been sending naval students to the British side, and the units where these international students intern have always been the Indian Grand Fleet.

When the Earl of Nelson sent a formation to escort the East India Company's galleon fleet to Japan, he sent them to the commander of the formation, George Bush. The Law of Righteousness.

At the same time, Earl Nelson realized the great value of airships, so he gathered all the airships owned by the Indian Grand Fleet, organized an airship bombing force, and also used 8-inch armor-piercing bombs to replace a batch of armor-piercing bombs.

George. When Yoshiro learned that Nelson had begun to form an airship bombing unit, he immediately thought that he could send more airships to the Japanese...... After all, the next game between Ming and Ying will inevitably take place in Japan.

Now I hear my cousin's question, George. Yilu replied with a smile: "Of course, Japan does not dare to be an enemy of the Ming Empire, but whether they will be an enemy of the Ming Empire does not depend on whether they dare or not, but whether the Ming wants to suppress Japan!" The Ming Dynasty is different from our Great Britain, she is the only great empire in the East, and she is almost all of the East Asian civilization! Japan, on the other hand, has always been on the edge of East Asian civilization, and although it was brutally exploited and suppressed by the Ming Dynasty, it was not suppressed by the Ming Dynasty...... It's not that Daming can't do it, but it's that he is unwilling to pay the corresponding price. And now, since Da Ming has decided to break with my Great Britain, then she will definitely suppress Japan before the break! Because only when Japan is suppressed, East Asia will become monolithic! The East Asian civilization does not control as much resources and territory as our Western civilization, and if it cannot become a whole, then the Ming Dynasty will be at a disadvantage in the struggle against our Western civilization. And Japan, even if it knows that its ultimate fate is to be suppressed, will do everything in its power to resist! ”

"Resistance? Why resist with all your might? "Charlie. The law of righteousness does not quite understand, "That is in vain." ”

"No, that's not in vain." George. Yilu said, "Japan's resistance determined her value, and also determined her status after being suppressed by the Ming Dynasty!"

So the twenty airships we gave them (ten more were disassembled and mounted on galleons) and four hundred 260-pound armor-piercing bombs will definitely come in handy! ”