The coast of Beirut was littered with traces of flowering shells, and the artillery on the four batteries had almost all been muted. Next to the burning artillery, the corpses of countless gunners were stacked.

Many of them died blindly, because the shells could not reach the British warships. However, the overseers behind them threatened their lives and their families to force them to make senseless resistance.

The situation on the pier was even more tragic, a shell fell on the pier trestle, and the old wood suddenly turned into a sky full of debris, flying to the surrounding crowd, and the people at the center of the explosion were directly lifted into the air by the shock wave, and came into a free fall.

The British fired not only flowering shells, but also incendiary shells and solid shells, and it was better to see the effect of the solid shells than to destroy the trestle.

A solid bullet struck the trestle, bouncing and destroying a large number of wooden structures.

Because the British launched indiscriminate strikes, warships and merchant ships in the harbor were even more beaten to sawdust.

The British fleet had a good time, but after pouring dozens of tons of shells, the Egyptian navy also began to counterattack.

Egypt knew very well that its artillery was not as good as the British army, and long-range shooting was equivalent to giving it for nothing, so it would stick it up and fight.

Brigs sailed towards the British fleet.

The other captains of the fleet asked the commander of Helmut if he wanted to retreat and keep shooting.

Helmut scoffed, he had already seized the T-head, and those Egyptian warships were no threat at all.

In addition to brigs, the Egyptian navy also has a large number of light gunboats, which often have only one or two Caron guns, and take advantage of their lightness to quickly approach enemy ships and kill and injure deck personnel directly to the bottom of the ship or grapeshot.

This was the tactic of the Barbary pirates back then, and France, Austria, Sardinia and other countries also had a large number of light gunboats to counter the fast-attacking tactics of the Barbary navy.

In addition to this, the Egyptian navy also has a large number of sampans, which usually only have 10-20 people, carrying items such as hooks, locks, machetes, fire oil, etc., in order to get close to enemy ships and fight them hand-to-hand, which is also a tactic of Barbary pirates, which was later inherited by Somali pirates.

"Tell the captains, let them stop the shelling, and fight again when they get closer, so that nothing will slip through the net."

The heralds immediately raised their flags, and the shelling of the British fleet stopped, it was not a fair contest in the first place, and they did have the right to be proud.

But where the British couldn't see it, four huge winches were turning, and four cannons, known to the Egyptians as "Hades," were being pulled out of their emplacements.

At the same time, Egypt's main fleet, a total of 28 capital ships, plus nearly 100 auxiliary ships, the flagship has broken through the fog and come to the battlefield.

It's just that due to the fog, there was a problem with the command of the Egyptian navy, and instead of starting a battle formation at the first time, it rushed directly towards the British fleet.

The sudden appearance of a huge fleet caused confusion among the British. The captains of the ships asked Helmut for advice on whether they wanted to leave the battlefield.

Lieutenant General Helmut was also caught in a dilemma, as Egypt had an unknown number of warships and would most likely be surrounded if the battle continued.

However, if the other side follows and pursues, the loss of their own side will not be small, although this can save the fleet, but their reputation and future may be completely ruined, and it will affect the reputation of the British Navy to fight when facing the enemy.

The main thing is that now the British fleet is in a battle situation, but after escaping, it will become a T-tail, and the surrounding fog makes it impossible for Helmut to judge whether there are still enemy troops in other directions.

His instincts told him that it was a trap specially prepared for him, and his experience told him that the time had come to make a difference!

"Tell them, don't panic, remember Nelson!"

Every time the British Navy came to life, it would remember this hero who saved Great Britain several times.

On March 13, 1811, at the Battle of Lisa, Colonel Horst led a British detachment of four ships surrounded by a French fleet twice as large as his own.

At the critical moment, Horst waved the flag "Remember Nelson" on the flagship, which greatly boosted the morale of the British ships and crushed the combined fleet in one fell swoop.

Speaking of Nelson, it did stabilize the morale of the British army, and it did not collapse due to the two-sided attack of the Egyptian navy.

Helmut took a deep breath and lowered his binoculars.

"Tell the fleet to wait for the enemy ships to enter five hundred meters before shooting."

Battleships in this era mainly rely on the output of side firepower, so there is a saying that there is a T head. But light gunboats were clearly not among them, they had only one or two guns, and they could often adjust their positions.

The Egyptian light gunboats began firing at the limit of 800 meters between the two sides, and the battleships began to fire at an exaggerated distance of 1,000 meters, and the result, of course, set off a splash around the British fleet.

Soon Egyptian light gunboats and sampans came within 500 meters of the British warships, but the British fleet did not open fire.

As previously introduced, battleships below the third rank could not be counted as capital ships, and the British target was always those of Egypt.

However, the Egyptian navy on the side of Beirut did not have that kind of good luck, and there were no worthy targets anyway, so the British ships opened fire at will.

A rain of bullets fell, and all the sampans and light gunboats hit by the flowering shells were instantly reduced to pieces, and even if the ship did not sink, the people on board were stunned by the explosion.

A brig galleon, directly hit by a dozen shells, the deck was full of ghosts and wolves, even the mast was blown off, and the fallen mast directly crushed the sailors below into meatloaf.

However, the morale of the Egyptian navy has not collapsed, which makes Helmut a little surprised, in fact, at this time, the families of the Egyptian navy have been captured by Muhammad and taken to Cairo, and if they fail, Ali will dry their families.

The sailors of the Egyptian navy, with red eyes, gritted their teeth and rushed towards the British fleet.

On the other side, the British and the Egyptian navy also came into contact, and the first round of shelling by the British woke up the frenzied Egyptian navy.

The British poured shells weighing half a ton on the main Egyptian fleet at one time, which caused the latter's fleet to fall into confusion in an instant, and began to turn hastily and bombard it with the side of the ship.

As the Egyptian Navy became more and more shipped, the fighting became more and more fierce.

Helmut knew that he could not win this battle anyway, but he was not willing to retreat, and he wanted to create his own legend.

But suddenly a few loud noises came from the shore, which made him make up his mind.

Two of the four "Hades" cannons blew up, but the other two cannons actually hit a frigate at the same time, and the shells easily broke through the hull of the frigate, and the huge cannonballs exploded in the cabin.

With two loud bangs, the gunpowder on the bottom of the frigate was also ignited, and a huge explosion directly tore through the hull. This instantly inspired the bloody nature of the Egyptian navy, especially those who were even planning to board the British warship directly to fight hand-to-hand combat.

Their courage, however, did not bring them sustained good fortune.

The Caron cannon in the bow and stern of the British warship came into play, and a grapefire shot at the sampan, and the sampan was instantly filled with a layer of blood mist, and after the blood mist dissipated, only a lone sampan remained.

However, Helmut was no longer in the mood to appreciate the enemy's plight, and he had to retreat, or his fleet would become the first British fleet to be annihilated in the 19th century.

(End of chapter)